What is the difference between doubt and curiosity?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
question what is the difference between doubt and curiosity curiosity usually is an eagerness to know more doubt is a question about what we know that means curiosity we are if i’m here right now curiosity is the eagerness to know what is there ahead but once we come to know what is there ahead doubt is something is a hesitation about whether this is right or not so you there is in that sense primarily a difference of intent so certainly we should be curious and it’s not that we should not be doubtful but rather we need to get doubts addressed properly and you should recognize that doubts are a natural part of the process of learning and wherever we get them addressed properly that’s how from there we can move onwards in our spiritual life so now if you look at the sanskrit generally curiosity is translated as inquisitiveness that’s the word shila prabhupada will usually use but curiosity is also more or less synonymous with that word now doubt is samshay and whereas jignansa is almost universally treated in a positive tone that we should be spiritually we should be inquisitive brahma jignansa is definitely appreciated lauded and even mandated in one sense the first sutra of vedanta of vedanta sutra that now inquire about brahma so therefore the point is that inquisitiveness is positive because it takes us onwards in our quest for knowledge whereas samshay is usually treated in a negative way that we should get over some we should be able to get over our samshay so in one sense we could say that inquisitiveness is like the fuel that moves us onwards and doubt is what prompts us from what checks us from moving onwards now if we hear something and we get a question about it is it inquisitiveness or is it doubtfulness largely the difference will depend on our intention so if our goal is just to know more then to get some of these clarified that is inquisitiveness and inquisitiveness is healthy whereas generally doubts will be de-energizing doubts will be paralyzing doubts will be disempowering so if that inquisitiveness is is channelized properly then it will energize in our spiritual life on the other hand if doubts are not addressed properly they will choke our spiritual life so essentially i would say rather than getting into a hell splitting difference between inquisitiveness between curiosity and doubt focus on the point that try to get answers to questions wherever possible and when certain answers are not possible then keep them in the car park when we meet the devotees who are learned enough or we become ourselves spiritually intellectually mature enough to understand the answer so be patient so if we just hold on to the doubts then that will choke us but if we just give up the curiosity in the pure and doubtful then we will not grow also we will not learn and then we will not be able to relish much philosophy so much we will not be able to share the philosophy also so much so that’s why focus primarily on so the kind of questions that we can get answers to the kind of questions whose answers enliven in our spiritual life that is the kind of questions that we should encourage and we should we should cherish them more and more and the kind of questions that land us in controversies the kind of questions for which there are at least the wherever we are we are not getting easy answers then keep them in suspension and wait for them when the appropriate forum comes we meet the devotees or we get appropriate we ourselves get adequately mature we will get those answers so focus primarily on this principle of what is favorable in bhakti do that what is unfavorable avoid that thank you