{"id":502,"date":"2015-01-16T15:21:17","date_gmt":"2015-01-16T20:21:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.akella.org\/mani\/?p=502"},"modified":"2015-01-16T15:21:17","modified_gmt":"2015-01-16T20:21:17","slug":"blind-faith-is-an-ironic-gift-to-return-to-the-creator-of-human-intelligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.akella.org\/mani\/blind-faith-is-an-ironic-gift-to-return-to-the-creator-of-human-intelligence\/","title":{"rendered":"Blind faith is an ironic gift to return to the Creator of human intelligence."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cBe careful of living your life based only on faith and signs, or you might find yourself standing in a South American jungle holding a glass of Kool-aid. Commonsense is the foundation of any good testimony.\u201d<br \/>\n<em>&#8211; Shannon L. Alder<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Kabir &#8211; The couplet<\/strong><br \/>\n\u092a\u093e\u0925\u0930 \u092a\u0942\u091c\u0947 \u0939\u0930\u093f \u092e\u093f\u0932\u0947 , \u0924\u094b \u092e\u0948\u0902 \u092a\u0942\u091c\u0942 \u092a\u0939\u093e\u0921\u093c |<br \/>\n\u0918\u0930 \u0915\u0940 \u091a\u093e\u0915\u0940 \u0915\u094b\u0908 \u0928\u093e \u092a\u0942\u091c\u0947, \u091c\u093e\u0915\u094b \u092a\u0940\u0938 \u0916\u093e\u090f \u0938\u0902\u0938\u093e\u0930 ||<\/p>\n<p><strong>transliterated:<\/strong><br \/>\nPaathar puje hari mile, to main poojoon pahaad |<br \/>\nGhar ki chakki koi na pooje, jaako pees khaye sansaar||<\/p>\n<p><strong>Translation:<\/strong><br \/>\nIf by praying to a stone, I could find God, I will pray to the hill |<br \/>\nNo one prays to the stone mill, it feeds the world ||<\/p>\n<p><strong>My understanding:<\/strong><br \/>\nWe, humanity, have been gifted with the wonderful presents of common-sense, intelligence and reason. However, we have tended to ignore these gifts in favor of the more mundane, but much easier path, of a flock of sheep.<\/p>\n<p>The shepherd tends the flock to his convenience, not for the mental uplift of his flock. So is the case with most leaders \u2013 they drive us to achieve their goals, which may not always be in synchrony with ours (if we took the time to define them).<\/p>\n<p>Kabir, here, is asking us to recognize our purpose and calling in life, once again, and give credit where it is due \u2013 rather than where it is convenient.<\/p>\n<p>God helps us when we help ourselves. The teacher is asking us to recognize and attune our actions to best serve our purpose for existence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cBe careful of living your life based only on faith and signs, or you might find yourself standing in a South American jungle holding a glass of Kool-aid. Commonsense is the foundation of any good testimony.\u201d &#8211; Shannon L. Alder Kabir &#8211; The couplet \u092a\u093e\u0925\u0930 \u092a\u0942\u091c\u0947 \u0939\u0930\u093f \u092e\u093f\u0932\u0947 , \u0924\u094b \u092e\u0948\u0902 \u092a\u0942\u091c\u0942 \u092a\u0939\u093e\u0921\u093c | \u0918\u0930&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kabir","category-philosophy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.akella.org\/mani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.akella.org\/mani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.akella.org\/mani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.akella.org\/mani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.akella.org\/mani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.akella.org\/mani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":503,"href":"https:\/\/www.akella.org\/mani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions\/503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.akella.org\/mani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.akella.org\/mani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.akella.org\/mani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}