Friday, June 23, 2006
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A place to meet for honest and positive dialogue about the School, and about the Teaching it exists to offer. Stop, listen, respond and participate. A principal reference point is the words of His Holiness Sri Shantananda Sarasvati.
3 comments:
I suppose this could be stated better. There are numerous traditions in which wisdom or knowledge is said to be pre-existent: Platonic 'ideas', Vedic knowledge, "in the beginning was the Word". Gaining wisdom is a matter of mystic connection with the higher realm.
Over against this, we have the modern tradition, inspired by science, whereby knowledge or wisdom is evolved over time.
It's not as simple as old v new, of course - both approaches have always existed and always will.
The less attractive side of the older tradition - which is why perhaps it has faded - is that it tends to create secret or esoteric societies; whereas the evolutionist wisdom requires that everyone shares their knowledge with everyone else.
I think that the School has some fairly fixed ideas about the relative status of these two, and that it would be good to question.
In his talk yesterday Mr Jaiswal said that philosophy is translated as love of wisdom. The West usually thinks that wisdom arises from revelation, a divine source. Not so. There is a divine source everywhere. Wisdom simply means wise judgement. So philosophy means love of wise judgement.
Every new problem, he continued, demands a new wise judgement. If we can train ourselves in constant awareness this can give the best of answers.
Then, to laughter, he said, Let us not have sacred cows. Reason is not a sacred cow. Every sacred cow is a limited cow.
Keep on marching. There are possibilities for you to create and enrich the School.
I also liked the other cow he mentioned - the cow of language. If you can grab hold of its tail it will drag you through the ocean of life to the other side.
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