Media: The good, passionate and the ugly

In chapter 14, Shri Krishna speaks of there being three modes of nature, very akin to our concepts of good, bad and ugly. Except that bad is replaced by passion. Whether passionate actions are good or bad, we leave it to future post. To summarize them in one verse,
17:

सत्त्वत संजायते जनानाम
रजसो लोभा एव च
प्रमदा-मोहु तमसो
भवतो ’जनानाम एव च |

"From the mode of goodness, real knowledge develops; from the mode of passion, greed develops; and from the mode of ignorance develop foolishness, madness and illusion."

Media is a fourth pillar of any nation. As such, its purpose is fulfilled only when it emanates true knowledge of happenings in the outside world, while remaining detached from giving opinions. This is because facts are very sacred in our day-to-day life. Opinions are free, (i.e. in a nation based on basic freedoms). One can either be biased, or be thoughtful of the other. However, a matter of concern for a rational mind would be when opinions are arrived at with incomplete knowledge. This is obviously more important in democracies, since people need basic knowledge of the system and the participants in it in order to be able to make choices of candidates.

Fig. The hammer of judgement should be struck by the people, not the media.

But as everything in the world, the media is not perfect. There are sections that cater to certain lobbies. Then there are other sections that focus on petty things when more important things are around. To the knowledgeable reader, viewing this could be quite entertaining or sometimes, discomforting.

However, the common man out of distrust for the system generally buys their message hook, line and sinker. When people, out of laziness or limitations of time stop their questioning or confrontationist attitude, the society lapses back into dogma or superstition. We have been there once, perhaps many times, and we have faced the consequences.

Without classifying them, I'm quoting three articles from the Indian press:

1) In this connection, I have only three points to raise. First, those who call themselves the champions of human and women’s rights take pride in forcing Muslim women to abandon the burqa which is a clear infringement of an individual’s freedom to wear what one wants to. When some women are allowed to wear skin-showing outfits, why should others be disparaged when they want to cover their body? The writer forgets that individual choice of dressing should not come under the purview of law.

2) The Indo-Pak Joint Statement issued after PM Manmohan Singh met Pak PM Gilani in Sharm-al-Sheik (Egypt) has created ripples of controversy across the nation. Supposedly, India agreed tode-link Indo-Pak dialogue from the latter's action against terrorism in the Joint Statement. There is also a mention of unrest in Balochistan in it.

3) "He wanted to be the first pop star in space so badly. He had to be first. He knew it wouldn't only be history-making, it would be history-shattering," said Jackson's close friend Uri Geller.

I leave it up to you to classify them according to your bent of mind.

The point of using scriptures.

Many visitors to this blog have often asked us, what is the need to use scriptures to understand things.

This post is meant to answer that.

Well, I do feel that is waste of human intellect, that he needs to be taught morals by someone and not learn them on his own through life experiences or follow some ideals due to personal foresight into matters of life.

On the other hand, religious scriptures are a set of codes penned down thousands of years ago. That something written so long ago should be used in today's life is another insult on human intellect. It obviously implies that mankind is not capable of thinking, that a fear of a powerful sentient being should be instilled in him to do what is good and stall from what is bad.

The objective of the blog thus seems to promote a religious theocracy.

However, that is not our intention. Most religious scriptures contain basic behavioral concepts, for example promoting a modest living, to abstain from lust, anger and greed, so on and so forth. It would be useful if the scriptures are used to generate a common concept of a good, desirable life and all the attributes necessary for it. They should be used to generate ideas of an ideal society. It is then unto us to protect it by all means, even if that means breaking the rules of Dharma for a while, for the ultimate purpose of Dharma should be the betterment and welfare of humanity in its entirety. With the focus on the goal, we should remain free from deciding the means to achieve it. And these means are decided upon by the time which we are living in, not by scriptures. Cultures world over that use the scriptures to decide the means, would stagnate.

Though started from a point of generating strength for Karmasura's personal problems, this is the new intention of the blog. To be.. among countless others out there, the ones to understand the scriptures, and use them for the welfare and upbringing of humanity.

As said in Chapter 2: 46

यवन अर्थ उदपाने
सर्वतः सम्प्लुतोदके
तवं सर्वेषु वेदेसू
ब्रह्मनास्य विजानतः |

"All purposes served by a small well can at once be served by a great reservoir of water. Similarly, all the purposes of the Vedas can be served to one who knows the purpose behind them."

Although I've not read the Vedas, the purpose of the blog should be the same as that.