July 11, 2025 • 15 mins
Episode 26 – IndoctrinatedWhat if the beliefs you hold weren’t yours to begin with?In this episode, we explore how stories, culture, and repetition shape our minds — and how reclaiming those stories can lead us back to freedom, self-discovery, and truth.
my email address gholamrezava@gmail.com
Twitter account is @rezava
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Hello and welcome.
My name is Reza Sanjideh andthis is another episode of
Philosophy of Life.
Today's episode is calledIndoctrinated, a word that
(00:21):
traces back to the Persian termstalagin, a concept that lives
somewhere between instructionand and imposition between
teaching and programming.
It's an exploration of thebeliefs we never chose, the ones
handed to us before we even knewwe had a mind of our own.
(00:42):
And I want to begin with a storyfrom a book three of Romi
Masnavi, a beautiful poem abouta very, very kind of experience
He recited over 750 years ago,and yet somehow still speak to
the moment we are living intoday.
(01:05):
Here's how it begins.
In a dusty corner of a madrasa,an old schoolhouse, children
once sat in perfect rows, silentand obedient.
They weren't learning.
They were being molded.
It begins not withenlightenment, but with
repetition.
(01:26):
In a dusty schoolroom, quiet andgray, children sat still as
though carved from clay, notlearning but repeating again and
again, words without meaning,knowledge without flame.
Then one day the teacherfaltered, fell, and silence
broke with a questioning swell.
(01:47):
What if truth is not taught butfound?
What if wisdom need doubt?
to resound.
I must say that poetry in thePersian language has a distinct
sound.
Although I am not in a positionto assess the quality of the
translation, there is no doubtthat translating poetry is a
(02:08):
challenging task.
Still Rumi's original Persianpoems are quite exceptional.
Indoctrination doesn't wear auniform.
(02:30):
It doesn't knock on the door andannounce itself.
It arrives quietly, in bedtimestories, in classrooms, in
prayers whispered over our headswhile we're still in the crib.
It begins with love, and that'swhat makes it so hard to
question.
A child is born with open eyes,open hands, but not with a
(02:52):
worldview.
That gets built by those aroundthem.
Parents, teachers, television,religion, nationalism, all pour
into the cup before the childknows how to hold it.
And the child drinks, not out offaith, not out of logic, but
because they must, because theytrust.
Indoctrination hides inside thattrust.
(03:15):
It speaks in the language of,this is for your own good.
And it's not always malicious.
Most of the time it's inherited,passed down like a family
heirloom.
This is who we are.
This is what we believe.
This is how the world works.
These phrases build identity,but they also build walls.
(03:39):
Rumi's classroom is a symbol.
The students who repeat and obeywithout understanding, that's us
before we wake up.
And the teacher who falters,that's the crack in the system.
The first doubt.
The moment something doesn't addup.
when the story we've been toldstarts to sound off.
It could be a small thing, aquestion in school, a
(04:02):
contradiction in scripture, amoment when we realize that our
beliefs are identical to ourgeography, that if we were born
elsewhere, we might believe theopposite.
That's when indoctrinationbegins to lift, not because it's
removed, but because we see it.
Indoctrination isn't alwaysloud.
(04:23):
Sometimes it came throughstories.
And when I was growing up, thosestories were part of everyday
life.
Stories about God.
Stories from history books.
How kings ruled Iran.
How empires rose and fell.
The teachings of Rumi.
These weren't just bedtimestories.
They were blueprints.
(04:44):
Blueprints for belief.
For identity.
For obedience.
These stories taught us what tothink long before we knew how to
think.
But today, we don't live insidethose stories anymore.
We live inside screens.
WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok,Facebook, Twitter.
We scroll and scroll.
(05:05):
And somewhere in that scroll,we've lost the rhythm of deep
memory.
The small window to reflection,to culture, to meaning is
closing.
And if we don't act, it mightclose for good.
So maybe it's on us now to bringthe stories back, not to
control, but to awaken.
(05:26):
We need Rooney again, OmarKhayyam, Abbas Sana, not to
repeat them blindly, but torevive their spirit, their
questions, their humanity.
Because at the end of the day,we may have different religions,
different languages, differentskin and stories, but we are all
sons and daughters of thisearth.
(05:48):
And if we want to survive, if wewant to understand each other,
We need stories that don'tdivide us, but remind us who we
really are.
Not just followers, not justconsumers, but humans.
(06:15):
Let me tell you the full storyRumi shared in his poem,
Talghin.
Indoctrination.
A school teacher, healthy,content, and strong, walks into
class as he always does.
It's an ordinary morning, butsomething strange happens.
One by one, his students come tohim.
(06:36):
Not all at once, but spacedapart, like a ritual, as if time
itself were conspiring.
Master, are you feeling alrighttoday?
You look pale.
The color of your face is faded.
Are you sick?
The teacher brushes it off.
But the words keep coming, againand again.
(06:58):
30 students all planting thesame seed.
And that seed begins to grow.
The teacher's posture weakens.
His steps slow.
His confidence fades.
By the end of the day, hebelieves he is sick.
He leaves early, dragging hisfeet like a man already halfway
(07:19):
to his grave.
And when he arrives home, Hiswife is alarmed.
What happened to you?
You left this morning full oflife.
But instead of clarity, heblames her.
Why didn't you say something?
You saw me this way and let mego out without a word?
The next day, friends andneighbors visit.
(07:39):
They remember seeing him healthyjust yesterday.
But the teacher tells them, Thestudents saw something in me,
and I didn't see it.
Now I do, and I feel worse everyday.
This is the quiet horror ofindoctrination.
It turns suggestion intoself-perception.
A healthy mind convinced it issick.
(08:01):
A free person convinced they arebound.
Not through violence, butthrough repetition.
This is how control works in thesoftest, most dangerous form.
Indoctrination doesn't needforce.
It needs only authority andtime.
Doubt is not a failure.
(08:21):
It's a door.
For those indoctrinated, thatfirst doubt feels like betrayal,
like you're dishonoring yourparents, your faith, your
country, your culture.
But in truth, it's the beginningof freedom.
Indoctrination teachesobedience, but philosophy
teaches inquiry.
(08:42):
And the moment you begin toquestion, the spell begins to
crack.
How about, for many of us, thecost of unlearning is high?
You don't just lose ideas, youlose belonging.
You risk being calledrebellious, ungrateful, a
traitor.
In some cultures, questioning isconfused with corruption.
(09:05):
You're told, don't ask too much,don't think too deeply.
But Rumi, like Socrates, likeBuddha, like Jesus, all asked
too much, all thought toodeeply, all disturbed the
comfort of certainty.
And they were punished for it.
But what they discovered was adeeper kind of knowing.
(09:26):
A knowing that doesn't need todominate others.
A knowing that can holdcontradiction.
That can evolve.
That kind of wisdom can beindoctrinated.
It must be lived.
It requires silence and solitudeand courage.
The courage to say, maybe I waswrong.
(09:46):
The strength to ask, what elsehave I believed wrong?
We begin our lives repeatingothers, but we are meant to
discover ourselves.
In the next part, we'll explorethat discovery, how to rebuild
what was broken, and how tochoose belief over inheritance.
(10:20):
Why you stay in prison when thedoor is so wide open?
Rumi The prison is built fromborrowed beliefs, from fears
inherited, from truths untested,from rules we never agreed to.
But the door is always there.
The door is awareness, notrebellion for the sake of pride,
(10:43):
but inquiry for the sake oftruth.
Leo Tolstoy the great Russianwriter who gave us war and
peace, has everything a mancould want.
Fame, wealth, family.
And yet, in his 50s, he fellinto the spiritual collapse so
(11:03):
deep, he locked away his ownhunting rifle.
Fear he would use it on himself.
He wrote, I felt that somethinghad broken inside.
within me on which my life hadalways rested.
I could not call up in myself asingle desire.
(11:24):
I had no answers.
That's the moment the spellbroke.
He realized he had inherited alife, not created one.
And so he began again, fromsilence, from simplicity, from
faith that wasn't handed down,but chosen.
He didn't find certainty, but hefound peace.
(11:48):
And then, there's Nietzsche.
Born into the house of a devoutLutheran pastor, he was expected
to carry on the torch oftradition.
Instead, he shattered it.
God is dead, and we have killedhim.
That wasn't mockery.
It was grief.
Nietzsche mourned the way beliefhad become hollow, automated,
(12:11):
deadened by ritual.
He wanted something real.
something that could survivepain, contradiction, and chaos.
He said, They build somethingtheir own, and so can you.
(12:48):
To reclaim your mind, you don'tneed to know all the answers.
You just need to stop pretendingyou already do.
That's where it starts.
One honest question, one painfulrealization, one moment when you
say, this idea lives in me, butit is not mine.
(13:10):
When indoctrination phase wasleft is often silence, and that
silence can feel terrifying,because for the first time you
must choose what to believe, notbecause it's safe, not because
it's familiar, but because itfeels true, even if it's still
(13:30):
unfolding.
That's what it means to be free,not certain, not untouchable,
but awake, awake enough to ask,what kind of life do I want to
live?
Who would I be without theirvoice in my head.
Rumi once said, Try to learn whoyou really are.
(13:50):
What kind of person are you?
Know your own essence.
That is the work of a lifetime.
And maybe that is what freedomactually is.
Not doing whatever you want, butbecoming someone you trust.
Someone who questions boldly andchooses gently.
SPEAKER_00 (14:17):
Thank
SPEAKER_01 (14:25):
you for joining me.
My name is Reza Sanjide and thishas been another episode of
Philosophy of Life.
Today, we explored the quietpower of indoctrination.
How ideas passed down withoutquestion can shape our lives
more than we realize.
But we also remembered thestories.
(14:46):
the stories that wake us up,that help us trace the path back
to ourselves.
These stories from Rumi, fromour ancestors, from our
childhood, hold the keys to realfreedom.
They remind us how we becamehuman.
They carry precious truths aboutour existence, not to trap us,
(15:08):
but to teach us how to discoverentire worlds inside ourselves.
And that's how I want to endthis episode with the belief
that if we bring those storiesback to life, we just might
learn how to live more deeply,more honestly, and more free.
(15:28):
Until next time, stay awake,stay questioning, and stay free.
Hello and welcome.
My name is Reza Sanjideh andthis is another episode of
Philosophy of Life.
Today's episode is calledIndoctrinated, a word that
(00:21):
traces back to the Persian termstalagin, a concept that lives
somewhere between instructionand and imposition between
teaching and programming.
It's an exploration of thebeliefs we never chose, the ones
handed to us before we even knewwe had a mind of our own.
(00:42):
And I want to begin with a storyfrom a book three of Romi
Masnavi, a beautiful poem abouta very, very kind of experience
He recited over 750 years ago,and yet somehow still speak to
the moment we are living intoday.
(01:05):
Here's how it begins.
In a dusty corner of a madrasa,an old schoolhouse, children
once sat in perfect rows, silentand obedient.
They weren't learning.
They were being molded.
It begins not withenlightenment, but with
repetition.
(01:26):
In a dusty schoolroom, quiet andgray, children sat still as
though carved from clay, notlearning but repeating again and
again, words without meaning,knowledge without flame.
Then one day the teacherfaltered, fell, and silence
broke with a questioning swell.
(01:47):
What if truth is not taught butfound?
What if wisdom need doubt?
to resound.
I must say that poetry in thePersian language has a distinct
sound.
Although I am not in a positionto assess the quality of the
translation, there is no doubtthat translating poetry is a
(02:08):
challenging task.
Still Rumi's original Persianpoems are quite exceptional.
Indoctrination doesn't wear auniform.
(02:30):
It doesn't knock on the door andannounce itself.
It arrives quietly, in bedtimestories, in classrooms, in
prayers whispered over our headswhile we're still in the crib.
It begins with love, and that'swhat makes it so hard to
question.
A child is born with open eyes,open hands, but not with a
(02:52):
worldview.
That gets built by those aroundthem.
Parents, teachers, television,religion, nationalism, all pour
into the cup before the childknows how to hold it.
And the child drinks, not out offaith, not out of logic, but
because they must, because theytrust.
Indoctrination hides inside thattrust.
(03:15):
It speaks in the language of,this is for your own good.
And it's not always malicious.
Most of the time it's inherited,passed down like a family
heirloom.
This is who we are.
This is what we believe.
This is how the world works.
These phrases build identity,but they also build walls.
(03:39):
Rumi's classroom is a symbol.
The students who repeat and obeywithout understanding, that's us
before we wake up.
And the teacher who falters,that's the crack in the system.
The first doubt.
The moment something doesn't addup.
when the story we've been toldstarts to sound off.
It could be a small thing, aquestion in school, a
(04:02):
contradiction in scripture, amoment when we realize that our
beliefs are identical to ourgeography, that if we were born
elsewhere, we might believe theopposite.
That's when indoctrinationbegins to lift, not because it's
removed, but because we see it.
Indoctrination isn't alwaysloud.
(04:23):
Sometimes it came throughstories.
And when I was growing up, thosestories were part of everyday
life.
Stories about God.
Stories from history books.
How kings ruled Iran.
How empires rose and fell.
The teachings of Rumi.
These weren't just bedtimestories.
They were blueprints.
(04:44):
Blueprints for belief.
For identity.
For obedience.
These stories taught us what tothink long before we knew how to
think.
But today, we don't live insidethose stories anymore.
We live inside screens.
WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok,Facebook, Twitter.
We scroll and scroll.
(05:05):
And somewhere in that scroll,we've lost the rhythm of deep
memory.
The small window to reflection,to culture, to meaning is
closing.
And if we don't act, it mightclose for good.
So maybe it's on us now to bringthe stories back, not to
control, but to awaken.
(05:26):
We need Rooney again, OmarKhayyam, Abbas Sana, not to
repeat them blindly, but torevive their spirit, their
questions, their humanity.
Because at the end of the day,we may have different religions,
different languages, differentskin and stories, but we are all
sons and daughters of thisearth.
(05:48):
And if we want to survive, if wewant to understand each other,
We need stories that don'tdivide us, but remind us who we
really are.
Not just followers, not justconsumers, but humans.
(06:15):
Let me tell you the full storyRumi shared in his poem,
Talghin.
Indoctrination.
A school teacher, healthy,content, and strong, walks into
class as he always does.
It's an ordinary morning, butsomething strange happens.
One by one, his students come tohim.
(06:36):
Not all at once, but spacedapart, like a ritual, as if time
itself were conspiring.
Master, are you feeling alrighttoday?
You look pale.
The color of your face is faded.
Are you sick?
The teacher brushes it off.
But the words keep coming, againand again.
(06:58):
30 students all planting thesame seed.
And that seed begins to grow.
The teacher's posture weakens.
His steps slow.
His confidence fades.
By the end of the day, hebelieves he is sick.
He leaves early, dragging hisfeet like a man already halfway
(07:19):
to his grave.
And when he arrives home, Hiswife is alarmed.
What happened to you?
You left this morning full oflife.
But instead of clarity, heblames her.
Why didn't you say something?
You saw me this way and let mego out without a word?
The next day, friends andneighbors visit.
(07:39):
They remember seeing him healthyjust yesterday.
But the teacher tells them, Thestudents saw something in me,
and I didn't see it.
Now I do, and I feel worse everyday.
This is the quiet horror ofindoctrination.
It turns suggestion intoself-perception.
A healthy mind convinced it issick.
(08:01):
A free person convinced they arebound.
Not through violence, butthrough repetition.
This is how control works in thesoftest, most dangerous form.
Indoctrination doesn't needforce.
It needs only authority andtime.
Doubt is not a failure.
(08:21):
It's a door.
For those indoctrinated, thatfirst doubt feels like betrayal,
like you're dishonoring yourparents, your faith, your
country, your culture.
But in truth, it's the beginningof freedom.
Indoctrination teachesobedience, but philosophy
teaches inquiry.
(08:42):
And the moment you begin toquestion, the spell begins to
crack.
How about, for many of us, thecost of unlearning is high?
You don't just lose ideas, youlose belonging.
You risk being calledrebellious, ungrateful, a
traitor.
In some cultures, questioning isconfused with corruption.
(09:05):
You're told, don't ask too much,don't think too deeply.
But Rumi, like Socrates, likeBuddha, like Jesus, all asked
too much, all thought toodeeply, all disturbed the
comfort of certainty.
And they were punished for it.
But what they discovered was adeeper kind of knowing.
(09:26):
A knowing that doesn't need todominate others.
A knowing that can holdcontradiction.
That can evolve.
That kind of wisdom can beindoctrinated.
It must be lived.
It requires silence and solitudeand courage.
The courage to say, maybe I waswrong.
(09:46):
The strength to ask, what elsehave I believed wrong?
We begin our lives repeatingothers, but we are meant to
discover ourselves.
In the next part, we'll explorethat discovery, how to rebuild
what was broken, and how tochoose belief over inheritance.
(10:20):
Why you stay in prison when thedoor is so wide open?
Rumi The prison is built fromborrowed beliefs, from fears
inherited, from truths untested,from rules we never agreed to.
But the door is always there.
The door is awareness, notrebellion for the sake of pride,
(10:43):
but inquiry for the sake oftruth.
Leo Tolstoy the great Russianwriter who gave us war and
peace, has everything a mancould want.
Fame, wealth, family.
And yet, in his 50s, he fellinto the spiritual collapse so
(11:03):
deep, he locked away his ownhunting rifle.
Fear he would use it on himself.
He wrote, I felt that somethinghad broken inside.
within me on which my life hadalways rested.
I could not call up in myself asingle desire.
(11:24):
I had no answers.
That's the moment the spellbroke.
He realized he had inherited alife, not created one.
And so he began again, fromsilence, from simplicity, from
faith that wasn't handed down,but chosen.
He didn't find certainty, but hefound peace.
(11:48):
And then, there's Nietzsche.
Born into the house of a devoutLutheran pastor, he was expected
to carry on the torch oftradition.
Instead, he shattered it.
God is dead, and we have killedhim.
That wasn't mockery.
It was grief.
Nietzsche mourned the way beliefhad become hollow, automated,
(12:11):
deadened by ritual.
He wanted something real.
something that could survivepain, contradiction, and chaos.
He said, They build somethingtheir own, and so can you.
(12:48):
To reclaim your mind, you don'tneed to know all the answers.
You just need to stop pretendingyou already do.
That's where it starts.
One honest question, one painfulrealization, one moment when you
say, this idea lives in me, butit is not mine.
(13:10):
When indoctrination phase wasleft is often silence, and that
silence can feel terrifying,because for the first time you
must choose what to believe, notbecause it's safe, not because
it's familiar, but because itfeels true, even if it's still
(13:30):
unfolding.
That's what it means to be free,not certain, not untouchable,
but awake, awake enough to ask,what kind of life do I want to
live?
Who would I be without theirvoice in my head.
Rumi once said, Try to learn whoyou really are.
(13:50):
What kind of person are you?
Know your own essence.
That is the work of a lifetime.
And maybe that is what freedomactually is.
Not doing whatever you want, butbecoming someone you trust.
Someone who questions boldly andchooses gently.
SPEAKER_00 (14:17):
Thank
SPEAKER_01 (14:25):
you for joining me.
My name is Reza Sanjide and thishas been another episode of
Philosophy of Life.
Today, we explored the quietpower of indoctrination.
How ideas passed down withoutquestion can shape our lives
more than we realize.
But we also remembered thestories.
(14:46):
the stories that wake us up,that help us trace the path back
to ourselves.
These stories from Rumi, fromour ancestors, from our
childhood, hold the keys to realfreedom.
They remind us how we becamehuman.
They carry precious truths aboutour existence, not to trap us,
(15:08):
but to teach us how to discoverentire worlds inside ourselves.
And that's how I want to endthis episode with the belief
that if we bring those storiesback to life, we just might
learn how to live more deeply,more honestly, and more free.
(15:28):
Until next time, stay awake,stay questioning, and stay free.
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