Doubt

The passing away of actor Irrfan brought to mind the roles he played so well. One such role was from the film ‘Life of Pi’. The storyline revolved around the protagonist Pi telling a writer about his life story and how at the age of 16 he survived a shipwreck. One of their exchanges goes like this:

Pi: Faith is a house with many rooms

Writer: But no room for doubt?

Pi: Oh, plenty on every floor. Doubt is useful, it keeps faith a living thing. After all, you cannot know the strength of your faith, until it is tested.

In today’s world, we find ourselves in a corner of our chosen belief. And we decide to lock ourselves down in that corner. Many of us are hostile to the ones in other corners and many of them carry a similar contempt. We stick to our corners as we leave no room for doubt.

To doubt is to open minded and consider other viewpoints. It is about being ready to listen to questions and being ready to answer them. It is good to be confident about one’s perception but it is irrational to believe that belief is beyond questioning!

We stick to a corner just because we have ended up there. We defend the indefensible only because we have closed our mind to any doubts. Our logic gets perverted to the point of ‘because I believe so’ and we treat even small disagreements as enmity or mutiny.

To leave such weak corners, we must move to an uncluttered mind and be open to the test of inquiry. Answers are found when questions are asked. The Zen principle of ‘tolerance for ambiguity’ leads to a wider perspective of other possibilities. Like Pi says, ‘Doubt is useful!’  

Room for doubt is not about mutiny

Faith must stand the test of scrutiny!

~ Pravin K Sabnis