Ignorance is Bliss ?

When I was a young child, I once asked my mother the reasons for the solar and lunar eclipse.

She narrated me the story of Puranas and explained that solar and lunar eclipse happens when Rahu-Ketu eats Sun and Moon by taking revenge for exposing them to Lord Vishnu who was in the form of a beautiful woman ‘Mohini’ .

Almost everyone in my village still believes in this story and considers eclipse as inauspecious and avoids doing many activities including eating food cooked before eclipse.

However, when I later studied science, I came to know the scientific reason for the solar and lunar eclipse due to planatory motions in which God has no role to play.

However, I could never explain my mother and most of my relatives that myths are false and that God has no role to play in eclipse as they deeply believe in the stories of Puranas and reject all the scientific principles that runs contrary to these stories.

Unfortunately, billions of people around the world still believe in the myths and fallacies of mythologies and religion rather than posing faith on scientific explanations of the realities.

If you are living in a society where almost everyone believes in myths, you are declared as outcaste and ridiculed rather than respected for your knowledge and wisdom.

I have been voracious reader for last couple of decades and I read almost fifty books every year.

Most of my friends and colleagues in civil services and relatives have stopped learning and only recycle their old knowledge. They rarely read books except those which deals with their job.

I am gradually realising that I now have little in common with my old friends, colleagues and relatives, as most of them are still stuck up in the mental state at which they were decades ago while I am getting transformed everyday due to learning new things in life.

I sometime marvel the power of book, which help us interact with the best of the best minds of the world that ever existed in any part of the world since the beginning of human civilisation.

And once you have enjoyed their company and understood the thoughts of such great minds, how can you think like ignorant men once again and enjoy the company of foolish and ignorance masses?

Ignorance is indeed a bliss for most people in the world because ignorant people are like blind men guiding each other and enjoying happiness since they can’t see the bad things in the world, while forgetting that they also can’t see the beauty of the world as well.

Even if I want, I can’t enjoy the bliss of ignorance just like a man with eyes can never enjoy the bliss of a blind man by closing his eyes forever.

I can never stop the search of knowledge because only the right knowledge can open our eyes to the reality and guide us to the right path of sustainable happiness and bliss.

Once you have enjoyed the bliss of knowledge, there is no way you can ever live with ignorance and enjoy its blessings.

 -Awdhesh Singh  Former IRS, IITian