How to overcome misunderstanding or false knowledge? – excerpts from Vedanta Kesari editorial May 2018.
Error of perception is the very nature of life. We seem to
be born conditioned to misperceive. As Sri Adi Sankaracharya points out, it is
an innate human error to confuse the real and the non-real, to mistake one
thing for another. The unreal appears to be real and the real appears unreal.
We believe ‘something to be where there is nothing, and nothing to be where
there is something.’ This confusion called Adhyasa, forces us to play the game
of life almost blindfolded.
Consequently, our everyday lives are filled with
misunderstandings. Misunderstanding are the easiest thing in this world. We
misunderstand ourselves—our feelings and intentions, we misinterpret the words
and acts of others, and we regularly misread life situations. These errors
throw us into a loop of suspicion, criticism, anger, hatred, jealousy, fear and
the like. And many of us even fail to recognise our errors as errors. What then
is the way out? Can we come out of this automatic, instinctive misunderstanding
that colours all our relationships?
At the root of this misunderstanding or false knowledge is
what we call ignorance or Maya.
The important point to note is that the buddhi or intellect
that we function with is conditioned by instincts, which are nothing but sense
experiences repeated over a number of lives. This sense
experience-instinct-buddhi cannot but misunderstand life.
Therefore, the task before us is to purify this buddhi by
tapas or austerities, and simultaneously also cultivate in our heart love for
the Divine Mother. This will enable us to perceive the world as it is – the
Mother in a playful form. We will develop the capacity to understand and calmly
bear with misunderstandings and criticisms that life regularly throws at us,
and give in return forgiveness and love.