Discernment is the foundation of human growth. Through discernment we are able to distinguish between good and bad, friend and foe, healthy and unhealthy, and so on.
Without discernment we would act in ways inimical to our own interests and thereby harm ourselves without intending to do so.
This discernment is present in all human beings since it is the foundational apparatus for growth.
However, there are levels of discernment that we must grow into.
At the lowest / simplest level, discernment means distinguishing things at a sensory / biological level – it is a physical process of distinguishing between good and bad.
However at this stage itself, there are risks – what first appears attractive may in fact be poisonous for a person in a forest. Similarly, we can mistake friend for foe or vice versa thereby putting ourselves at risk. Thus, the capacity for discernment needs to be developed and finetuned at the biological level itself.
At the next level, the psychological discernment becomes even harder. Our biggest challenge at this level is to distinguish between what is pleasant and what is good (Preyas and Shreyas). This is because we have trained ourselves to actively seek the pleasant even if it is harmful to ourselves. We see this in eating, in attraction to the opposite sex, in the way we avoid study and seek enjoyment despite the consequences. In fact, we find discernment at the psychological level a very hard capacity to develop and apply on a consistent basis.
At the third level, the spiritual discernment is quite subtle. It forces us to ask fundamental questions – what is better for our long0term sustainable growth? It forces us to make choices related to our desires, our aspirations, our decision-making criteria, and so on. It is at this level that the architecture of our life is decided and the journey path we take gets established.
How to develop discernment at all three levels – biological/physical, psychological, and spiritual? This becomes our next question.