Religions, Philosophies and "What Should I Do?"

I began by wondering about the question of knowledge. Is it important to know ? Well, tentatively, yes. Well then, why know everything ? It's curiosity. If you don't know something, you generally feel like knowing it.

So then I came to think of The Enlightened, who is supposed to know everything. Wouldn't that be boring ? Because curiosity won't have a place in his mind. And the death of curiosity might not be harmless, so we should adopt the precautionary principle and not kill it.

And even if The Enlightened knows everything there is to know, one question persists : so, I know everything, what do I do now ?

And that was what gave me the break : The Enlightened One always knows what to do. If he knows that all the time, he need not know everything.

If you come to think of it, all religions and most philosophies attempt to answer this very question. What should we do ? With our lives, with ourselves, in times of need, in times of trouble, to solve an algebra equation, etc. In fact the quality of a doctrine can be judged upon how well it answers this question.

There is no correct answer. But if that answer conclusively satisfies the listener, that's good enough. The question no longer remains for that listener, and he has found his doctrine.

Now let's try to see the manner in which this question can be answered. Please note that according to me, the answers cannot be objectively evaluated:

1. Evading the question itself : It is possible to put a man in a life where the question does not arise. A busy life, I suppose. I'm sure that millions have lived without ever being haunted by the question of what to do. Either the answer was obvious and unquestioned (go to work, come home, sleep, etc) or the question never even occurred. And I'm sure they rest in peace.

2. Giving a proper answer : By this I mean answering the question in real terms. This is where I would place most religions. "Help others", "Say your prayers", etc. In fact some religions have detailed guidelines on what to do. Some Hindu texts give a detailed description of what each caste must do, right upto when they should have a bath, when they should get up in the morning, etc. The caste is pre-determined by birth. Or the Church answers the question of whether or not to abort definitively : no.
In these cases, the question is properly answered. The only problem is that we do not know if the answer satisfies the individual. And this is where it can get ugly. The answerer tries to prove that his answer is better than any other possible answer. Voila, the roots of religious strife and intolerance.

3. Giving an open ended answer: This answer is generally on these lines : go figure it out yourself. It doesn't seem like a good answer until I give you this hint : Use your imagination ! (I think it is implicit in this type of answer that there is no proper answer.)

The problem with many of us is that we take the third answer but we don't take the hint. So we sit and we read and we try to see what others have done, we partly agree and take bits and pieces from other philosophies, etc. We remain immersed in trying to 'find' the answers this way. In this case, if the first or second answers would have fit us, we would have gladly fallen for them. It's just sad that we're on our own.

So, if you fall in this category, let me repeat myself : use your imagination ! I will write about the imagination at a later time. I must confess that I find this answer the most amusing of them all. It's sad that I don't fit into the first category.