Philosophy

"Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd's bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine." (1Sam 17:40). There are many lessons for life that can be learnt from this episode of David. However, one of the most fascinating lessons is the lesson of knowing what it means to have a balanced faith. Why did David choose 5 stones when he had to use only one? I've heard sermons that talked about the rest of the stones reserved for the other giants. One can find lessons for his own life from a story; a lesson that speaks to him in his own situation. But, looking directly at the very stage of the incident, I find one thing very instructive about faith: Faith is not an excuse for not putting the best of all we can gather into our bag. Faith is not an excuse to say, for instance, that I don't need to learn this or I don't need to concentrate on polishing my skills, or I don't n...

An interesting example of contradictory interpretations is borrowed by G.P. Deshpande [1] from Indian philosophy to evaluate the ambiguous nature of the play and its production. "There are two texts by Shankaracharya: one is called Sarirakabhasya while the other bhasya is a commentary on Gaudapadakarika . There is a basic contradiction in both.... drishti-srishtivada and sristidrishtivada .... These two terms represent the schools within which the Vedantins are divided. The problem is whether what you see defines reality ( drishtisrishtivada ) or whether what exists defines your vision ( srishtidrishtivada ). "It is a typical theatre problem.... Suppose you take that text to be a srishti . Then the director looks at it in a particular way, and the actor looks at it in a particular way. When happens next is the case of drishtisrishtivada . The vision or the way the text is looked at ultimately decides its character. And that is why you have different productions of the same...