What does our culture teach us? It impresses the young mind to be obedient to elders and teachers. No doubt, obedience is a great quality that one should learn and practice from the young age. At the same time when obedience transforms to complete compliance without gaining conviction, it takes away the elements of individuality from a person. We are asked not to question parents and teachers even to gain conviction. If a child asks his/her parents about the rational for asking him/her to carry out or not carry out something, most often we hear "do what I say"? If a student points out an inadvertent mistake of a teacher, it is most likely that the teacher would find it insulting. In the name of obedience, our kids are slowly transformed as dumps. When this author asked for the meanings of mantras that a bridegroom has to repeat during wedding as he viewed few mantras as objectionable, he was mistaken as the disobedient and immodest person. He was ridiculed as one of the few persons who bother about the meanings of mantras closer to the wedding time instead of enjoying the presence in the cloud nine. Such ridiculing happens around us when a person seriously analyses the government policies, strengths and weakness of our judiciary with a genuine concern for the well being of our country's future.

Modesty is the cousin of obedience in killing one's individuality. Again in many contexts modesty highlights one's nice personality. However, modesty invariably comes in the way of expressing oneself on a topic of discussion. Normally, a debate or a discussion happens on a topic for which there are no concrete or obvious right or wrong answers. In such situations, every opinion has its own value. If a person is not sure of his/her opinion on an issue and because of this he/she refrains from expressing own opinion that may be valid. If one is not expressing oneself due to modesty before the seniors or elders in the discussion group, it is not good. Basically many kids grow and end up as shy personalities due to the lack of skills to gain conviction, and obedience/compliance and modesty further weaken this handicap. A shy person is created in this world due to excessive stress on modesty and obedience. It is also equally important that we put across our convictions in an acceptable and pleasant way rather than being crude and arrogant. A hard-earned conviction can taint a person as arrogant if it is expressed in a discourteous and indisciplined manner. It is also to be mentioned that a person with strong conviction is likely to be identified as a 'rigid' person.

Another impediment to gaining conviction without fear or favour is the experience driven prejudice. We second-guess persons, incidences and what is told or written. Every one of us ventures in second-guessing rather than straight analysis with the data or information available. This tendency is due to the eagerness to show our prowess to predict what is hidden. We give way to our innocence when we grow out of childhood. In this competitive world, smartness takes dominance over straight and innocent simple thinking. Coming back to prejudice as the impediment, it is only fair to say that we should treat our experiences as our masters to learn from them and it does not mean that we become permanent slaves of our past experiences. Prejudice is the assertion or evidence that we are the slaves of our past experiences. It is highly unlikely that our prejudiced driven decisions were always proven correct. In spite of that we quite often fall into the trap of prejudices. The prejudices mostly lead to negative thinking of a person or incidence. It is very important to stay clear of prejudice while trying to gain conviction.

Excessive involvement or obsession with a person or a topic of discussion and also excessive hatred towards a person or a topic would affect the skill to gain conviction. It is quite important to be unbiased. Again, keeping oneself detached and unbiased is not an easy thing. Especially when a person gets more and more information on a person or topic of discussion it is very difficult to resists the temptation to stay cool and wait till the final picture emerges. Normally, one would jump to a conclusion as the data or information is made available to him. It is an essential requirement to keep the balance in order to get to the bottom of the truth. Thus to gain conviction on a subject or about a person, complete information is needed and it would not be available at a single shot. Sometimes a small element of truth, which is hidden or unavailable, would hold the key for gaining conviction. As mentioned earlier, like patience and perseverance, a balanced and unbiased approach is the key quality of an 'individualistic' person. Likewise, when there are two different schools of thoughts, one should analyze both the schools of thoughts to the hilt and core before making up the mind. It is tempting half way through to take side with one of them. These are stressed to make a point that if the effort is not genuine backed with all the essential qualities discussed above, one would end up as a person having half-backed knowledge.

All our intelligent predecessors like Avvaiyar, Thirunavukkarasar, and Bharathiar had prayed for only one thing and that is the 'uncorrupted, pure knowledge' ("Thelinda Gnanam"). A pure knowledge is not possible unless one masters the skills of gaining conviction. The knowledge earned through self-conviction is much stronger and pristine than the foisted knowledge through curriculum and our surroundings.

Picture Courtesy : Net resources