"The seeing-eye, the beating wing, the bird that laughs at everything.
Misunderstood by everyone, who can not see all things as one".

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

The Nature Of Reason.

With the advent of Rene Descartes, western civilization reached a fork in the road.
Deciding to doubt anything that could be not proved, sealed our fate.
The method of providing proof, effectively built a wall,
separating what could be proved, from what could not.
If something could be proved, it was true.
If it could not, then it was false.
We are reaping the inevitable rewards of this profound mistake.

For the very nature of what can not be proved,
is that it is the most rewarding truth of all.
The purpose of life itself.

Imagine a bacteria grown in a petri dish, by a scientist.
Does the bacteria decide if the scientist exists?
Hardly likely.
If it reasons at all, it accepts that it exists,
and gets on with the business of existing.
Thus it may be harvested by the scientist as Penicillin.

Our most intelligent minds are hobbled by the conviction that if they are unable to prove a thing, then that thing is false.
While they might be leading the rest of us, lesser endowed with the ability to reason, they are - in fact - dooming us to never know, or fulfil, our potential.

And there can be no meeting point between those who reason, and those who know.

Of the several enlightened beings who have existed throughout our history, not one of them ever mentions reason as being of any importance.
Because it is of no value whatsoever in the process of enlightenment.
It would be like trying to use an ox-cart to get to the moon.
While useful, an ox-cart is simply not the tool for the job. 

There comes a time to lay down a tool that has served well until now, for a different tool that is more adapted to the work-in-progress.
The mind can do many more things than simply apply reason:
Perhaps its greatest ability, dormant and unused,
is the ability to be able to step aside, and get out of its own way.

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