Preconceived notion

Be prepared to give up every preconceived notion. Follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads

-osho Rajneesh-

Man is a complicated  creature with great capacity for both good and bad.  At his   best he has great concern for the sufferings of his fellow man  and may do much good,  at his worst he can be an animal.

 It must be said that there is  goodness mixed  with the badness in life and that the Human being is a great mixture of both goodness and badness. 

  If there are a great many people who are selfish and are guided only by self-interest there are also  great many who are   concerned about others and their welfare, Things are not all  bad , and much can be in the mind of the beholder.  People  often see others and life as they themselves are, its  like a mirror   ,it reflects what  you  see ,you  make  faces it  does the  same   . . 

I heard this story long time ago about a  a person coming to a new village, relocating,  went to the zen master resident of  that  Village  and asked : Are the people nice in  this Village?

The master asked back: How were the people in the town where you come from? “They were nasty ,greedy, were cheaters and and scoundrels,” said the newcomer.Those are exactly the type of people we have in this village, said the master.Another newcomer to the village visited the master and asked the same question, to which the master asked: How were the people in the town where you come from? “They were sweet and lived in harmony, they cared for one another and for the land, they respected each other and they were seekers of spirit,” he replied. Those are exactly the type of people we have in this village, said the master. 

We can relate with  similar story from   Mahabharata  where Drona once asked the upright Yudhishtira to go around  the city of Hastinapur and find for him one bad man. He then asked Duryodhan to go round  the city of Hastinapur and find one good man. Both returned alone. Yudhishtira said that everyone in Hastinapur is good; there is no bad man. Duryodhan said the very opposite: everyone in the city is a scoundrel and a cheat; there is no good man. And Drona said, "You have told me nothing about Hastinapur but a lot about yourself."

When someone says This  person  is Bad ,this  person  is  Good  they actually mean as per  their Measuring  scale he tops  the  list of  Bad  people  or  Good  people  and  it  is  purely  subjective in  nature .Yes ,understanding of the world depends on the measuring scale we subscribe to. Yudhishtira’s measuring scale failed to identify a bad man in Hastinapur . Duryodhan’s measuring scale failed to identify a good man in Hastinapur. Their opinions about Hastinapur said nothing about Hastinapur but about the measuring scales they subscribed to.

 Fortunately or  unfortunately there is no universal measuring scale to  measure goodness or  badness in  a person as it is purely subjective and comparative .What  I  mean by  comparative is  We always try to compare one person with other person whom  we feel as  Good  or  Bad  and our  measuring  scale measures some  what   similar like measuring   other usual things in  life– this is longer than that, this is heavier than that, this is hotter than that and in the  same breadth we compare  this  Person  is better  than  X , With comparison comes evaluation and judgment, Some things become more desired & more more valuable. When things or person  start becoming more desired and more valuable, then  he is  Good   and  quite opposite when it  is undesirable  and no longer  valuable to  us . Many a time we  are clouded with  preconceived notion  & are  prejudiced about   the person before we  actually  meet them . .

I  am also not  advocating you  to   be  like Yudisitra    to  see only goodness nor like duryodana to  see only  badness   but  at least I feel  it  is better to have open mind  ,not  to  be prejudiced and  have preconceived notion before we actually meet  person  we  intended   

 “It’s not what you don’t know about a person  that holds you back. It’s what you do know that you think is true that is ultimately the most crippling factor. All those things that you think are true about people before meeting are really figments of your LITTLE imagination which  usually  is not true 

. Having  a preconceived notion about who I  am is like picking who you  want to win for the oscars before  seeing the movie ,It is better to make , statement or judgment about someone, after  getting  all the  information , meeting him in person.

-KamalHassan-