Is the mind held captive by knowledge?

It is when I read a blog recently, which spoke about the mind and its struggles with its own ego, that set me thinking on whether indeed we could define tangible boundaries to the minds capabilities.

Later on in the week while discussing topics for a debate competition, we hit upon an argument on whether a topic could favour someone who has an idea about the topic. Yes, it could in terms of facts and figures, but what about abstract thought flows, ideas, logic and reasoning? Are these affected? That brought me right back to the question on being able to define a clear boundary for the mind’s capability.

Encouraging a parallel line of thought, I arrived at the next question : Do we need education? Is it a barrier to free thinking? Does it keep the mind captive within its realm?

Cogitating over this left me rather confounded. The very process of thinking about the mind, if I go by the questions raised above, would be limited by my knowledge and the ability of my own mind to think beyond the boundaries of its knowledge. But at the same time the very knowledge that ‘knowledge could be a barrier to the way my mind functions’, could empower me to think beyond what knowledge would permit me to otherwise.

So then, knowledge certainly does not restrict us but only acts as a guiding light. For most a guiding light can prove very useful. It takes an exceptional mind, an Einstein or a Newton, to find its way in darkness.

What knowledge also provides is a template to discipline the mind. We are all aware of the vagaries of the mind and for most it is a constant struggle, consciously or unconsciously, to bring it back on track. Whether it is a simple task like reading a book or writing this article, the mind is relentless in its efforts to attain freedom. As the Gita put it very simply, the mind is like a monkey. That one statement says it all. Doesn’t it?

Without education the mind is like a blindfolded monkey on a very tight leash. It jumps around having no clue what its treading on, but is limited by the area it can tread on.

Education takes the blindfold off and provides a longer leash. Now the monkey can not only see what its jumping on, but is also able to toy around with many more things.

What happens in most cases is that people end up getting tight ‘inelastic’ leashes for their minds. Thus limiting themselves to only the length of the leash provided by knowledge.

So people make sure you get yourselves ‘highly elastic’ leashes . So you can stretch it way beyond where knowledge could take you.

Hmmm!! This is getting recursive. The mind thinking about the mind.....