Tomichan Matheikal's blog

“People are disturbed not by events, but by the views which they take of them,” said the Greek philosopher Epictetus 2000 years ago.  20 th century psychologist Albert Ellis [1913-2007] said the same thing in slightly different words, “ People disturb themselves by the things that happen to them, and by their views, feelings, and actions.” It is facile to argue that Salman Rushdie or Wendy Doniger disturbs us with their books.  The fact is they don’t.  There are more people in the world who are not disturbed by their books than those who are.  What makes the difference? There is a model in psychology known as the A-B-C framework .  A stands for activating agent , B for belief , and C for Consequence (emotional and behavioural).  A book may be the activating agent.  It creates a belief in us: that our religion or god is in danger or something of the sort.  And the consequence is anger, frustration, or some such reaction.  The basic premise of this approach to psycho

Religions have an uncanny knack for making people intellectually blind.  The latest example for religious blindness is the withdrawal by its publishers (Penguin) of Wendy Doniger’s book, The Hindus: An Alternative History . Doniger quotes in a letter to the press :  “An example at random, from the lawsuit in question: ‘That YOU NOTICEE has hurt the religious feelings of millions of Hindus by declaring that Ramayana is a fiction. “Placing the Ramayan in its historical contexts demonstrates that it is a work of fiction, created by human authors, who lived at various times……….” (P.662) This breaches section 295A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). ‘  Doniger is an accomplished scholar on Hinduism.  It is absurd that ignorant people are questioning her scholarship and trying to ban it from public access.  Ramayana may not be the only bone of contention in this case.  However, since Doniger has mentioned that explicitly in her letter, let me quote some relevant passages from

Courtesy The Hindu Narendra Modi, India’s possible future Prime Minister, was in Kerala yesterday.  According to a front page report in today’s Malayala Manorama (the widest circulated paper among all the regional languages in India – leaving out a Hindi paper), Modi proclaimed in Kerala that his family meant the Dalits, the oppressed, the Adivasis and the backward communities in India.  He didn’t mention Muslims, of course.  Please understand his constraints. Vote for Modi so that all the backward communities in India will be liberated. Don’t ask which backward community of Gujarat he liberated so far in spite of being the Chief Minister of that state for three consecutive terms. He brought development to the state.  At what cost?  And what kind of development? According to the Raghuram Rajan panel conclusions, Gujarat does not even figure in the list of developed states.  The hunger rates in Modi’s Gujarat are higher than those in the Yadavs’ UP.  The Shiv

After food and shelter, man’s basic need is story.  I read this a few days back in The Hindu , but have forgotten who said it.   Stories fascinate us.  Most of the great lessons of life were taught to us in the form of stories when we were children.  The life of each one of us is a bundle of stories, stories we tell us about ourselves as well as those told by others about us.  These stories create our reality to the extent they determine our perceptions and feelings, and hence our actions.  In our stories, we may see ourselves as the hero, the victim, the villain, or anything.  Our life is completely influenced by these roles we assume.  Consequently, if we wish to make changes in our life, it is necessary to make changes in the story we script for ourselves. In psychology, there is a whole therapeutic process known as Narrative Therapy .  According to Michael White, a theorist and practitioner of Narrative Therapy, we construct the meaning of life in interpretive stori

Meditation I started this journey at some point in the pointless flow of eternity.  As purposelessly as the motion of a stone set rolling down a mountain by the insensate boot of a careless traveller. Unlike the stone, I have a lot of freedom to choose my path, the mode of my travel, the diversions and digressions.  I can choose the people I want to meet, or at least my responses to them.  I can laugh or brood.  Laughter will not necessarily generate flowers on my way.  Flowers are not necessarily more desirable than brambles. Why do I have to make this journey at all?  The May fly which has no mouth answered.  “I live just a few hours,” said the May fly which had no mouth.  “When I become an adult, I mate with another adult.  Then I die.  She lays eggs and she dies.  The eggs hatch.  More May flies are born.  Only to mate and die.”  And the May fly which had no mouth died. I learnt that the May flies never eat any food.  They have neither a mouth nor a stomach.  Fo

Parable Manav was arrested and thrown into a dark dungeon.  No one told him what his crime was.  When they hurled him into the dark cell whose door shut with a bang, all that he could see was a beam of light passing through a slit-like ventilator at the top of one of the walls.  Silence and darkness enveloped him. He stretched his body and touched the narrow sill of the ventilator.  He pulled himself up and looked out through the ventilator.  The light outside helped dispel some of his gloom.  He spent most of his time and energy doing the same thing day after day, without once caring to explore the darkness in the cell.  If only he had explored the darkness, he would have discovered that the door was not locked. What stood between him and his freedom was his obstinate clinging to the narrow slit. Acknowledgement : This parable is adapted from Sheldon B. Kopp’s book, If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him!

“The poor are poor not because the rich are rich,” says Robert J. Samuelson in his Washington Post column reproduced in The Hindu .  In 1968, the sociologist Robert K. Merton coined the phrase ‘the Mathew Effect’ for the phenomenon of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.  The name Mathew came from the Bible.  Jesus said, according to Mathew’s gospel, “For to him who has more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away” [Mathew 13:12].  Jesus did not live in a time which promoted capitalism and its wealth-creating ideology.  Jesus was far, far from being a capitalist.  In fact, he would have been the ideal communist, had he been allowed to have his way by the various leaders of his time (political as well as religious).  What he meant was that those who have the spirit of life in them will be given more of that, and those who are just bullshit will get lost. But religious scriptures can be