28 Jun 2021
In spiritual knowledge at least, oral discussions and debates are not good. In such oral debates, one puts a question and other answers orally in a very short time. There is no sufficient time for the respondent to think the various angles of the question patiently and leisurely. Due to this, the immediate answer is shot down, which may go in right direction or wrong direction. For the other side also, there is no sufficient time to think that whether the answer came to the brain is in right direction or in wrong direction. Due to this very fast activity of brain in an oral discussion, the brain will be damaged shortly, which may result in death of the person shortly. In olden days, discussions and debates of scholars were always taking place orally only and hence, the conclusions were never ending in right path.
Today, there is a good facility of discussions taking place in writing due to the grace of God that granted the development of Information Technology. Had this development existed in olden times, there would have been evolution of a single philosophy called Vedic Philosophy. Due to absence of this facility, three philosophies came out called Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita and Dvaita. The climax of pity is that even today, the scholars are not using this technology and are arranging oral discussions only (Panḍita Sabhā) as a result of which even today the correlation among the three philosophies never appears. Had these scholars used computers and discussed their arguments in writing, the correlation among these three philosophies will appear even today. When you send a question in writing to the other scholar, the other scholar must have sufficient time to think and understand various angles of your question and also will have time to decide whether his answer is going in right direction or wrong direction. In oral discussions, due to lack of time to think about the question, fast answers have to be given, which may be right or wrong. In oral debates, the quest is not to find out the truth of the knowledge, but, the quest is to express own personality and ego so that the self should always win and the opposite side shall always be defeated. Hence, oral debates have become the grounds for personality-projection only and not for knowing the truth through deep discussions. Today, you can find the tradition in the courts also, which is to present the arguments of both the sides in writing.
The quest in any spiritual aspirant shall be to know the true path for getting the grace of God and not to win over the other scholar and get a reward from the king. Śaṇkara told that patience is the first requirement in the path of spiritual knowledge (śama damādi sādhana ṣaḍguṇa sampattiḥ…). Sometimes, we put very fast questions in oral debates. But, if we have sometime to think about our own question before writing, we may get a proper answer from our own brain itself. When we don’t find a correct answer for our question even after thinking a lot for a long time, the question shall be placed on the email so that your question will be appreciated as a good question by the scholar of other side also. You must also give time to the other side so that the scholar on the other side will also think about the question in all angles patiently and give the correct answer in correct angle. By such slow and steady written discussion, truth will certainly come out. Here, nobody shall think as winner or runner as in the case of games. Even in the games, the runner is also given a prize. Even if somebody is defeated in a game, the audience will shake hands of the runner saying ‘you played well’. It is not the question of success or defeat in the game, but it is the question of sincerity in playing, which will be appreciated by everybody. I tell you that the defeated person in the argument is benefitted more than the successful person. What is the reason? The reason is that the defeated person is more benefitted because he is rectifying his own mistake. The successful person knows the correct answer already and is not benefitted more in any way. Therefore, a spiritual discussion at the end shall not be taken as one’s success or one’s defeat. Due to the deep discussion even the successful person may know new angles of his successful concept. Hence, both worked together to find out the final complete truth and both are benefitted by the written patient discussion.
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