An Understanding of our Understanding

Why understanding is called so? Does it stand under anything? Recently I found that understanding indeed stands underneath our lives forming a basis to our very existence. We build up our life upon our understanding of life. Our understanding of life determines how we live our life. Whatever we do is based on our understanding of it.

It follows that if we want a life of quality, our understanding of life also must have quality. It must be deep rather than superficial. It must be well-informed rather than naïve.

What exactly do we mean by understanding of life? It means how we answer the basic questions of life such as what is life, why do we live, how should we live, how we are related to others, and how we are related to this world.

As children we inherit an understanding of life from our parents and from the community we are brought up. Unfortunately we inherit a lot of misunderstandings as well. As we grow up we gain first-hand experience of life, which helps us to verify the information we have inherited from others. Our experiences strengthen our understandings and weaken our misunderstandings. As long as our life is based on a misunderstanding, we are in bondage or slavery to that particular misunderstanding. We gain freedom from it when we get rid of it. As we grow up gaining experiences, we keep on getting rid of misunderstandings, and gaining freedom.

Do we ever become fully free? It is a possibility. When we become fully free of all misunderstandings, we become free to be and grow to our maximum potential. That is probably what the religious traditions project as the goal of human life. “You shall know the truth, and shall become free,” Jesus said. This is what is probably called heaven, paradise, moksha, Buddha, jivanmukta, etc in various religious traditions.

How can we speed up this process of eliminating our misunderstandings?

1. We need an earnest desire within our heart for it.
2. We need to be aware that we are in bondage to a lot of misunderstandings. 
3. We need to keep our mind quiet, clean, and calm by means of regular mental exercises.
4. We should be willing to learn from every situation. 
5. We should share our experiences with each other so that we create a common pool of experiences from which we all can learn.
6. We should be willing to learn from our ancestors by reading and studying the writings we have inherited. 
7. We should be aware that meaning is always context-dependent.
8. We need to learn to distinguish between facts and beliefs. 
9. We need to learn to distinguish between literal and metaphorical. 
10. We must have the honesty and courage to live our life based on the truth of life as we understand.