Look deep into the heart without preconceived idea or label
Learn to look intelligently into the hearts of men. Never mind intelligence, we don't even bother to look - what to say of intelligence? we don't want bother of looking inside another's heart. The truth is we form opinions about others without ever having understood them. We are only driven by our own ideas, we make up our minds as to how people are, without ever bothering to look into the hearts first. And once our minds are made up, we seek out facts to support them. We have hundreds of strategies which help us avoid looking into the human heart. This saves us trouble; we do not have to worry about it.
You are sitting next to someone, and you ask him, " Please Sir, what is your name? What religion do you belong to? what is your cast, what are your credentials, where do you live/' and so on. You ask all this so that you can save yourself the trouble actually looking inside him. If that person replies, I am Brahmin and if you are also a Brahmin, this reassures you , and you feel that now there is no need to probe any further: you already know all about brahmins but no two brahmins are ever alike, every man is different.
And if the same person were to say, I am a Mohammedan, You would definitely feel that now their is no point in conversing in any further. The man is a Mohammedan, and for a hindu a Mohammedan is a bad person. If the questioner were a Mohammedan, for him a Hindu is a bad person. The thing is settled; now there is no need to look into the individuals. We have already stuck a label on that person, that he is a Mohammedan. In our hearts we already know that this person is bad and now it is not right to have any further relationship with him. And had that man said, I am a communist, you would have thought it wise to move your seat even further away. We try to avoid knowing other people; we put labels on them.
Art two Mohammedans ever alike, are two hindus, or are two communists? Every human being is unique nobody else can be like him. But it is not convenient to think like this - because if we acknowledge that each person is a unique being, we will have to study each and every one of them. Whose going to be bothered with all this? so instead we ask about the person's business, his occupation and so on, and leave it at that. We feel that this much information about him is enough for us to know what sort of a person he is. ON the basis of this we make up our minds about him, this little bit of introductory cit chat settles what sort of a person the other is.
