How ‘Not’ To Seek Truth

Can you guess What could possibly be the most astonishing yet peculiar phenomena to have ever happened in the history of the universe? The answer is surprisingly simple, YOU are! (assuming ‘YOU’ is a human, ofcourse!). Humans are one of the most astonishing phenomena in the history of the universe.
Why humans, you might ask? It’s pretty straight forward:
I don’t see any other creature sitting around asking questions like, “What is the purpose of life?”. Only humans have done such weird stuff.

Human history shows that we have had a long-standing obsession with knowing.
A Homo sapien wandering through the jungles once glanced up at the sky. To his bewilderment, He asked himself, “What is this? Where did it come from? Why is it the way it is?”
This questioning spirit is the root of human intelligence. That’s what we call “The Wonder Element”.

You see, a bird or an amoeba doesn’t have the wonder element. A bird flies in the sky everyday and goes “Meh ''. That’s not to say there’s no intelligence in birds or other living creatures. There is one, and far more unique & superior than human intelligence, but that’s for another day.

Let’s go back to The Wonder Element.
We can trace all of human knowledge including language, science, philosophy, mathematics to this single element. The very reason I, a homosapien, am able to communicate in a ‘language’ with you is because a few homosapiens came together in wonder to create a way to manipulate sounds so that it carries meaning. That’s far out!!

The real question is, Can the wonder element give us answers to questions which are rather philosophical in nature. Questions like what is my purpose? Or where did I come from? Let’s see…
 

Like all good things in life, The Wonder Element comes with a limitation.

The limitation isn’t in the element itself. It’s how we use the element to understand the world around us.

Allow me to explain,
Imagine you are a caveman living with your family of four kids and one wife. Yes, the kids and wife part hasn’t changed that much (That was a joke). Your job is to protect and provide for your family. Everyday when it is bright outside, you hunt for food.
One day as you go out to complete your task. Something amazing happens. A cloud comes in front of the sun and blocks it.
I don’t have to explain the terror on your face because you’re running back thinking it’s nighttime. Just as you get closer to your cave, the cloud passes by. Voila, It’s bright again.
All this drama fascinates you. Finally, you look up and see a bright round bulb in the sky. You don’t know what it is or whether you call it the sun. You just experience the tremendous power of it.

What happens next?
You want to know what this thing up in the sky is, but since you don’t know. You come up with an explanation that sounds good to you, or good enough at least.
Since it provides you with light and food, you start to worship the sun as all powerful. The sun turns into a sun god. By now you might say “You’re just making it all up. I would never do that”
But see, Mr. Caveman, Your track record shows that you did do that. Not only you did that with the sun but with the rain, fire, mountain, lighting, desert, storm, and many more…..

Herein lies one of the fundamental principles we must understand,
“When humans don’t know about anything. Instead of going the full way to explore and understand it, they’ll settle for half-knowledge”
This half knowledge is what is called a belief (not faith)… and don’t be embarrassed, we all have beliefs.

“But isn’t it necessary to have certain beliefs?” You may be thinking.
Tell me something, Is it necessary for you to believe in gravity for it to work?Or Is it necessary that you believe that atoms are made up of electrons, protons and neutrons?
 

The only time you need a belief is when you don’t know about something fully.
I don’t have to make you believe that you’re a human being and you have a name.
It’s because you KNOW that you’re a human being with a name.
A belief is a comfort zone. It’s when you say that I don’t know so I’ll come up with something and pretend it is the truth. It is a hindrance to true knowing. 

Most importantly, a belief is the opposite of faith. Faith is when you DO know.
For example, everytime you take a breath in, you let it go out because you have faith that it’ll come back. You have an innate knowledge about that.
‘Believing’ in this context would be the attitude that if everytime you take a breath you hold it in forever. You cling to that breath saying “Oh I got it now!”

Faith is when you try to find out the way things are. A belief is when you try to make you the way things should be.

It brings us back once more to our question.
Can the wonder element lead us to the truth about philosophical questions?
The answer is, Of course it can! As long as certain beliefs don’t stop you.
You see, It’s our laziness of not exploring that causes us to have certain beliefs. These beliefs can be personal, scientific, religious, social, or cultural.

Our beliefs are the very thing that stops us from seeking the truth about our nature and the nature of reality. We believe that the world is a certain way and negate every other understanding of the world.

The truth of the matter is,
Even if you believe in something that is true, It’s much better to know it for yourself.
How good would it be if you believe that mountains exist but you haven’t seen one for yourself?
If you really know something to be true, that is to say that you’ve been to the mountains, you don’t need to believe it anymore. You just KNOW!

Now if you really want to know the truth. Truth about yourself, reality, God, or anything. The easy way is to find solace in comforting beliefs. The correct way is to become an open-minded skeptic. Stay open-minded about everything you hear but don’t just believe it. Be a skeptic about it too, put it to the test. See for yourself….
When you see, you will see.