The Biggest Scam!
Are you too a part of it?
Are you happy?
Well, isn’t that a subjective question?
Even still. An ‘aam aadmi’ maybe scrambling helplessly from hospital to hospital in search of oxygen, a bed and a ventilator or be bothered by a plague of political parties fighting elections as though they are battles of extinction, still his answer will be —
Yes!
But why?
Psychologists call it classical conditioning!
One of the main influences of behaviorist psychology, Ivan Pavlov, actually discovered classical conditioning accidentally while doing research on the digestive patterns in dogs.
In his research, Pavlov began pairing a bell sound with the meat powder and found that even when the meat powder was not presented, a dog would eventually begin to salivate after hearing the bell.
You may call it the social media effect. Where we see happy faces on our timelines and think things are not that bad after all.
C’mon! Who are you trying to cheat here?
The year 2020–21 seems to be plagued with misery. Even if and when we do find a cure for this virus, we would be back to the lives we had before lockdown — a life with CAA and NRC protests, Shaheen Bagh riots, regional political issues, coupled with the struggling economy that has sent all our Mutual Funds to a pit.
But I guess your answer will still be a YES!
HOPE
This is what keeps us moving ahead in life.
But where does this hope come from?
Many experiments have been done to find out. Let us discuss one of the more famous ones.
THE SKINNER EXPERIMENT
So B.F Skinner studied rats and pigeons in an operant conditioning chamber, which is called a Skinner box. Inside the Skinner box, they have a food dispenser and a level that the rat can press.
Why rats?
Well, it turns out like humans, rats too are exploratory creatures.
They will walk around the corner, stand up, smell the walls and invariably bump into the lever or stand on it to smell something up there.
When that first occurrence happens, he gets a nice cheese slice.
Once this event gets repeated a number of times, the rat is now trained:
lever = happiness
Now, take some time to think over this table.
What you think is Desirable is listed in one column and against it are the Benefits you correlate with them.
Now let's do a correlation test between the both through two simple questions-
Question 1
Could there be people who may possess one or more of the “Desirable” but DO NOT possess the “Benefits”?
Well, look at the stats below.
What do you find common between the two lists above?
Not there yet?
Well, 7 of the 10 “happiest” countries in the world were also the world’s largest consumers of antidotes!
Surprising, isn’t it?
The World Happiness report takes into account nine factors: psychological wellbeing, health, education, time use, cultural diversity and resilience, good governance, community vitality, ecological diversity and resilience, and living standards.
So Finland which has the highest Happiness Index is supposed to have the best balance of HEALTH, EDUCATION, GOVERNANCE, etc.
All the “DESIRABLES” we can think of for getting the ultimate benefit of “HAPPINESS”.
What do you think went wrong here?
The assumption that “Happiness” is the result of these mundane “Desirables”.
Question 2
Could there be people who may NOT be having ANY of the “Desirable” but DO possess one or more of the “Benefits”?
Obviously, there are thousands of sages and monks, Gautam Buddha, Srila Prabhupada, Sant Tukaram, Sant Dnyaneshwar, to name a few. These devotees challenged the status quo by renouncing the worldly ‘Desirables’ and still achieving all the ‘Benefits’.
So the question comes?
Were they not educated? Why did they take to this path of self-realization?
Actually, knowing them, one will learn how they were able to taste what is the meaning of life, what is the meaning of pleasure.
So by now, it is clear that —
There is no connection between the “Desirables” and the “Benefits”!
It is a myth that the “Desirables” bring the “Benefits”. It is in fact possible to
possess the “Benefits” without having the “Desirables”.
This is the biggest and longest-running SCAM that mankind has been fed with.
Just analyze the generation before us.
Beta! IIT JEE ke liye prepare kerlo!
Beta! Government job ka form bharo!
Beta! 25 ke ho gaye ho SHAADI ker lo!
These are common rhetorics in Indian homes. The truth is even though they see everyday students from IIT committing suicide, people in a government job getting frustrated, and divorces happening all around, still, they think that our son/daughter will definitely reap the benefits.
I agree that many people might be reaping some of the benefits, all I am questioning is the direct relation which society has brainwashed us to accept.
If at all someone discovers that he has been taken on a ride by this hoax, he is already too old or has too large an ego to accept that he has been cheated. And hence he is preaching —
Chewing the chewed — You chew something, you throw it, and again somebody comes, chewing it.
You think you failed, but the next generation will be able to get the Benefits
from the same Desirables and thus continues the grand hoax — generation after generation.
So do you also want to chew the chewed?
Or do you want to break away from this scam?
Wait for our next article where we will discuss the ways you can do that no matter where you come from.
…until then, Hare Krishna!
The science of the soul is described very elaborately in the book Science of Self Realization, based on Bhagavad Gita, the timeless jewel from the Indian Vedic texts. A full understanding can be gained from this source.