Sunil Babu Pant/Pahichan – Life is full of dilemmas, and life is all about choices, from smallest of choices like what to drink this morning, tea, coffee, juice or water, to all the way up very big issues (like development loan or economic empowerment; development or protecting environment, or even accepting the refugees in you countries or try to end the conflict at their origins) that can affect lives of millions of people across the world.

Life is all about making the noble choices. Understanding information and data is one thing and having wisdom is very different. Wisdom is what makes a difference, wisdom what gives us a sense of discrimination of what to do, and why to do what we do. And the foundation of making the noble choices are two: 1) good intention and the attitude (that is a proper consciousness in the frame of mind) and 2) proper knowledge on which the intention and attitudes should be based upon.

Knowledge just by itself won’t work; intention just by itself won’t work either, it is the combination of knowledge, intentions, values and applications that makes wisdom. When knowledge has been applied in life and one has experienced the application then that fructifies as wisdom.

(Modern day) research/study produces Gyan = (outer) knowledge in the sense that you have heard or read or mapped and analyzed the data and information available out there; and the proper application of it helps to produce Bigyan= (inner) wisdom in the sense that you have tested, realized or experienced the knowledge with in you. In the matters of governance, politics, business, social work or even in our day to day lives, personal lives, domestic lives, social lives; religious lives; in all spheres of activities there was/is/will always be such ethical and moral dilemma.

We always get confronted with dilemmas and we don’t know what to do, why to do, and that is what life in this world all about. So the questions one should ask when we try to understand what would be the noble/right choice in a given situation are: What kinds of knowledge are we going to inference upon? what is our values (in relation to possible judgement that can be made)? What are we going to base our decision upon?

Is the intention of particular action for self-fulfillment or is it for larger good? If it is for self-fulfillment then we likely to make ignoble choice but if it is for larger good then we likely to make noble choice. But be careful! that our intellect is very clever and may create an illusion so that ‘what is ultimately a self-fulfilling cause’ may appear as ‘cause for larger good’.

That’s why allot of unnecessary war happens. So, here comes the meditation handy that helps you overcome the illusions. Thus it is important to understand what meditation actually is and how to do/cultivate it.

Thank you and Namaste!