Doubt destroys

Over the last eighteen months, we have been bombarded with so much contradictory, and often unsubstantiated information on the pandemic that mistrust of whatever is read and heard has taken strong roots in our minds. The only firm belief that has remained is that nobody knows anything about the disease and that life will never be the same again.

While navigating through such bewildering times, a street vendor of vegetables provided a moment of epiphany. He was an old-timer who kept regular timings and rarely took a day off. But that day, his cart was sparsely loaded. When queried, he said that he needed to clear the stock as, post-lunch, he was going to the hospital for his second dose of the Covid vaccination and wouldn’t be coming for a day or two. “They told me to come after 84 days” he said, “I had it marked on the calendar. Today is the 85th day.” His face mirrored the satisfaction of having reached the target date. “Some people say that the disease will never go away and many more are going to die from it,” he said nonchalantly, “but I don’t let such thoughts trouble me. I will follow the government’s order and take the vaccination on time. After that, it is in Paramathma’s hands.”

The lines stayed in my mind all day. I could see the direct correlation between the erosion of trust and the state of joylessness in my kind of people. We dismiss statistics as fake, fear a hidden agenda in every announcement, and doubt even the efficacy of the vaccines in providing lasting protection. And whenever news of the death due to Covid of a friend or a relative or of someone we had heard about comes in, we get terrified and wonder if even prayers are efficacious anymore.

In Chapter 4, verse 40 of the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna talks about the three negative qualities that are responsible for a person’s downfall and destruction. The first two are Avidya (lack of knowledge) and Ashraddha (lack of conviction) and the third is Samshaya (doubt, in matters both worldly and scriptural). Of the three, Lord Krishna says that the Samshayatma or the one who has a doubting mind is the worst off. For such a person, happiness does not exist either in this world or in the next.