WISDOM FINDS TRUTH Rishika Arya UPSC Essay Sun, Feb 06, 2022, at ,09:38 PM Mahatma Gandhi once said, “truth and non-violence has been core to his philosophy”. His philosophy also reflects Indian philosophy as truth is the aim of belief. Truth is the property of being in accordance with fact and the reality. While wisdom is the ability to make sensible decisions and judgements with your knowledge and experience. The nature of both wisdom and truth is highly subjective which means the inherent character of the two is influenced by personal feelings or opinions. Perhaps this is the reason Gautama could not find the answer to end suffering although he took the help of the wisest teachers of the time. He realised that enlightenment was beyond objective facts. And that “beyond” has always been wisdom.Wisdom is about the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgement. People need the truth about the world in order to thrive. The spirit of enquiry and reasoning about social and natural phenomena is basically an endeavour to find truth. It is important to know and understand truth for the betterment of human life in all respects— material and spiritual. Human has been seeking answers to such perplexing questions as who we are; what is the purpose of our life; what is the right path? Does God really exist or is she or he a figment of imagination? Is there a divine creator and regulator of the universe or it is automatically run by its own laws called natural laws, that evolved in the past and are still evolving? Truth, like knowledge, is surprisingly difficult to define. And it is difficult to find the truth without wisdom. We at large, know ethics of the Bhagawad Gita. It talks about the truths which are universal, so they have universal application. These truths are immorality of soul, immanence of God, impermanence of the world, and immediacy of liberation. If we do not know the truth, it causes ignorance, fear, superstition, prejudices leading to injustice and exploitation, wrong judgments and decisions, wrong and misdirected actions etc. So, quest for truth is one of the noblest purposes of life. In ethics and human interface, Aristotle categorized the virtue as moral and intellectual. He recognized a few more intellectual virtues, the most important of which was wisdom. Wisdom is also explained as prudence or the ability to judge between action with regard to appropriate action at a given time. Historically, this can be seen with European Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution where scientists like Newton used wisdom to disobey Church's handholding and led the world towards the scientific truth. In Indian context, great King like Ashoka gain wisdom after much bloodshed and lived rest of his life while spreading true values of human life. Wisdom helps us to choose from multiplicity of truths, meanings of life, relations, purposes and the responses. Wisdom helps to tackle problems of life, take a decision or make a judgment in order to act righteously and most beneficially. The times, in which we are living, truth is not only blurred, but has become multi-faceted. The quest for truth has become difficult. The paradigms of life are shifting fast. Truth has taken a backseat while success and winning has become the primary goal.It is this modern view about wisdom that makes it relevant for solving the contemporary problems, setting higher moral and ethical standards and benchmarks and making things more human. Confucius said about the method of learning very concisely: “By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”Today, the world is grappling with a phase of doubt, mistrust and non-cooperation. The whole world is facing natural disaster of mammoth proportions due to climatic change. The developed economies are reeling under recession or facing worsening economic prospects; the wars and civil wars of the middle east and North Africa have led to desperate migration of their population to European countries where they are unwelcome; economic nationalism and hence protectionism is increasing because such policies are being advocated and resorted to by a headstrong President of a powerful nation which is fighting a trade war with China, an emerging power. The US President is dividing America in black and white and Hispanics and Americans for the sake of domestic electoral expediency. Right in our own subcontinent where poverty and unemployment, disease and malnutrition and inadequacy of basic infrastructure are writ large, the leaders of two big countries are busy in jingoism, side-tracking the issues which are important.These are times when wisdom needs to guide us. Wisdom is knowledge. Wisdom is light. It is courage, it is honesty and integrity; it is made up of sensitivity, sympathy and empathy; it is marked by love and compassion, it is realization of interdependence and mutual respect. It is about valuing peace and happiness. Problems like sustainable development, terrorism, civil wars, nuclear wars, food and energy shortages, new diseases and resistance of pathogens against medicines are rising while poverty and inequality and different forms of slavery are peeping into the eyes of human civilization. So, Knowing the truth is not about finding it. And to find the truth one must recognize it. Recognizing truth requires realising wisdom which means a blend of experience, knowledge, and good judgement about subject has utmost importance.Or simply the journey from Prince Siddhartha, the son of the king of the Sakya people, to Gautama Buddha was all about “the dynamics of wisdom-truth relations” which concluded with “four noble truths”: existence is suffering, this suffering is caused by human craving, there is a cessation of the suffering, which is nirvana; and nirvana can be achieved, in this or future lives, through the “eightfold path” of right views, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right mindfulness and right concentration. The above postulations have empirical realizations experienced in the form of a dignified human life which confirms that truth and wisdom are “conjoint, covalent and reciprocal”. And the importance of wisdom in finding truth is eternal.