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781. Subtle Insight

The judiciary - the court - is a great institution whatever it is today. In a seminar where speakers were urging the abolition of capital punishment, a High Court Judge said for an earring worth Rs. 4/- a man wrings a child's neck knowing he would hang for it. This is the human attitude to crime when capital punishment is there. Imagine the situation if it were abolished.  Most of the murder cases end in acquittal for want of an eyewitness. It is true the thief will not let anyone see him stealing. Still, the court cannot give a judgement without evidence. Legal justice is restricted to evidence presented to the court. This is necessary. Otherwise great injustices will result. In a novel, the author explains to us the thinking of his characters. In a play, we see the actors acting. Our knowledge of their action is confined to what the actors disclose.

Sherlock Holmes discovers by his own intuition which eludes even Watson. The author has a way of making the characters speak at the end so that the reader may follow the undisclosed train of Holmes's thought. All successful men understand by insight. Whenever we successfully accomplish, our understanding is not overt, plain spoken, or on the surface for us to see. It is by subtle insight. There was an elderly American lady who divorced her British husband after ten years of marriage. Her Principal wrote in one of her books, "Better know she is the Queen". In the sixty-five years of her life before she came to Pondicherry, no one seemed to have her under any semblance of discipline for any length of time. Always she had her way. She was dominant. She came to Mother and stayed here till her death beyond the age of 90. An American who was seeing her at close quarters said, "I wonder how that British husband lived with her even for ten days. I should like to look for him in America and make pranams to him." For over a year she was fully enamoured of Mother's ways.

She too accepted discipline. She agreed to eat one meal a day, agreed not to meet anyone, shut herself in a room and read Synthesis of Yoga. The spiritual progress she made was phenomenal. Then her assertions surfaced. She was freed of the discipline. One young aspirant was for some reason enamoured of her when she left the sanctuary of her discipline. It is not known how long she stayed with him. One day her nephew was sitting on a pavement and saw this giant of a young man walking briskly with a flourish of his arms. He was wondering why the man was taking wide strides on a public road and throwing his arms so powerfully about. It was strange. "Your aunt has left him," was a whisper in his ears. "What! I don't follow." "There is no doubt. This young man is physically expressing the freedom he has recently won," was the reply. Nothing could be proved. It was an inference. People who know the ways of human nature can at once recognise a situation. The nephew did not believe it until later the news was confirmed. For success in life, insight is necessary. For success in academics it is not enough you KNOW, you have to prove until the other Man KNOWS. Academic discipline goes to great lengths to prove what they instinctively know. That is the power of a play which leaves us to infer. Therefore, it is superior to a novel.

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 Para 1-line

 Para 1-line 5-sealing-stealing (correction done:'t' is included)

Sudha Arun

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 Para 1-sealing-stealing(correction done:'t' is included)

-Sudha Arun



story | by Dr. Radut