ajñaḥ sukham ārādhyaḥ
sukhataram ārādhyate viśeṣajñaḥ
jñāna-lava-durvidagdhaṁ
brahmāpi taṁ naraṁ na rañjayati
ajñaḥ — the ignorant; sukham — is easily; ārādhyaḥ — convincible; sukhataram — even easier; ārādhyate — is to convince; viśeṣajñaḥ — the expert; brahmāpi — but even Lord Brahma; na rañjayati — cannot convince; tam — that; naram — person who is; jñāna-lava-durvidagdham — puffed up in the pride of a mere fraction of knowledge.
“The ignorant can be easily convinced [by explaining the truth]. The intelligent can be even more easily convinced [for they have the capacity to recognize the truth]. However, even Lord Brahma cannot convince half-baked people puffed up with their little knowledge.” (Nīti-śatakam of Bhartṛhari, Verse 3)
We sometimes need to confront people who hold views different from ours. If their view is incorrect, we may need to correct them. Sometimes however, they stay stuck to their opinions.
To have a better chance of changing their opinions, we need to understand how opinions are normally formed and reformed. Good opinions are usually formed based on information and reason. If we have the right information and follow the right reasoning, we have a high chance of coming to the right understanding.
Suppose we have formed an opinion in this way. If we encounter someone who has more information or better reasoning or both, then discussing with them may prompt us to change our understanding. Though we may initially feel bad that we were wrong, that feeling will soon be superseded by the joy of having gained a better understanding.
Conversely, if we hardly know anything about an issue, then we may either have no view or some casual view that we aren’t much attached to. If someone gives us a better understanding, we will happily accept it.
Some people, however, don’t form opinions based on proper information or proper reasoning – they have some partial information, do some half-baked reasoning and arrive at a stand that they then hold on to. In fact, they don’t hold opinions; their opinions hold them. Changing their understanding is well-neigh impossible. The Bhagavad-gita (18.22) indicates that such knowledge is knowledge in the mode of ignorance; it is fragmented knowledge that keeps one in ignorance, or even aggravates one’s ignorance. The philosopher-saint Srila Jiva Goswami, in his Bhakti-Sandarbha, uses the same word as in this Subhashita to refer to such people: jnava-lava durvidagdhah. It literally means those whose opinions are baked badly with a fraction of knowledge – their knowledge is minute; their obstinacy, mountainous.
Such opinionatedness doesn’t infect only some frustrating fanatics out there; it infects us too. We all have an ego that wants to prove that it is always right. Thankfully, we also have an intelligence. If we use our intelligence discerningly, we can detect when our ego is making us irrationally attached to our opinions.
Spiritual wisdom can sharpen our intelligence by changing our source of security. We are often attached to our opinions because our ego gets security in being right. But it is pseudo-security, coming as it does from the false notion […]
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