A philosophical Idea:
This controversial subject was discusses to
some extent in the past lesson, in terms of modern science. Although how a baby
is conceived and developed in its mother’s womb and how it is born after nine
months is very clear to us, the whole matter does not end there. How did life (both
human beings and other beings) begin on this earth or elsewhere? No science,
art, religion, philosophy or other conception is able to give us an exact
answer to this although they have tried to explain it in various ways. On the
other hand, most of these theories (except for some scientific explanation)
created by us (by human) in order to explain our unclear past, future and other
related matters have muddled up our minds and made us extremely unwise instead
of helping us. As a result, we, the humans are losing our co-existence whereas
animals sometimes show better qualities.
If you are unhappy about this situation and
if you are able to use your reasoning power as
an individual to realize this situation, there are still better chances
for you to spend the rest of your known present life rather peacefully,
healthily, economically and happily. Even if you are a believer of an unknown
next life, you do not need to be worried about it because you know that even
according to religions; good people only go to heaven but not killers or
troublemakers.
To try this, you must be able to temporarily
put aside all your preconceived theories and ideas that have been thrust upon you
from various sources such as religions, traditions, concepts etc, and let your powerful
mind be free to reason clearly. This is not so easy as one may think, when your
ideas are deep-rooted because of your groundless faith, no matter whether you
are academically educated or not, or financially rich or poor. First look back
on your personal life and try reason out various events such as your birth,
before birth, being man or woman, country, nationality, religion, culture and
traditions, language, education, expectations, profession, being married or
not, health and illness, death, after death and so on. Also, try to reason out
the happenings in the outside world, such as the beginning and existence of the
world, nature, the sun, the moon, stars and universe, start and existence of
life humans and other beings and so on.
Eventually, you will find that although certain
things are clear, there are many other things that are difficult or impossible
to be grasped by our mind, especially when we do not go by the popular
concepts. This is a good indication that your reasoning power is logical and
clear. Now you will also realize that this gap that the human mind cannot
clearly grasp is the source of all unproven faith, beliefs, religions,
superstitions etc. In order to fill this vacuum, different humans created
different concepts such as Karma concepts, reincarnation concepts, supreme creator
concepts, different god concepts, hell
and heaven, various superstitions, different scientific concepts like the
theory of evolution, the big ban concept etc.
But unfortunately, instead of trying to
understand life and live peacefully through the concept of their choice, the
vast majority of unwise people became slaves of their theories as if they
indicate the eternal truth. Because such people lose their useful intellect (the
distinguishing ability that only humans have) many of them easily become
extremists and use violence against other people and other living beings. This
is especially evident in the countries where people are unwise to be blindly
religious and patriotic. Unfortunately, Sri Lanka too has not been able to
escape from this situation though we always boast about ourselves.
We must realize that although man has
discovered many useful and workable theories to explain the thongs that he can
logically understand, there is no such perfect theory to clarify the above
situation. Probably, many things may remain beyond our knowledge forever. In
the future also, different people will continue to foam different opinions
about these things for different reasons, and they will fight among themselves
for what they believe. If you realize this situation, the wisest thing that you
can do as an individual is to leave these confusing matters opens without
forming wrong opinion about them. Your mind is much more powerful than any
unknown powers, and can always help you when you keep it free of impurities.
This will save your wisdom, time, money, health and happiness.