Oh Noble One, your wisdom shines through. The human mind and heart seeks to soar. God or no god, when I see a bird I want to fly; when I see a dolphin I want to dive into the depths and play. Why is that magister? Do all creatures in the universe seek to be greater? Dream impossible dreams? Does a chimpanzee look at the night moon and dream of walking on it?
What is it within us that, regardless of our condition, looks for the Noble One? And desires to emulate him? It seems that no one would reject the path, but they are afraid. Fearful of climbing down out of the tree or venturing out of the cave. Envious yet fearful of things and ideas that are different.
You paint a beautiful picture magister; an idyllic scene. I think we often mistake human perfection for flawlessness, error free choices. We should consider the Noble One to be the ultimate in the expression of free will and as such will not necessarily always make the best choices. But as the examples of the greatest amongst us (Socrates and Jesus come to mind) consistently show, they will take personal responsibility for their choice.
Unfortunately the angst and resentment is still too apparent. The tomb dwellers and their leaders are in their own way searching in the dark cave and the little light they see in fairy tales is wisdom so don’t begrudge them their sand, for it is through sifting that sand that we find the pearls of wisdom. And their leaders are not bad, though a few self-preening cocks may be, by far most are good and caring.
As for the list of great “geniuses” of history, well other than Galileo and maybe Einstein I think the list is markedly uninspired. If we want to look for lists of greats to inspire us to greatness I would prefer: Socrates, Jesus, Confucius, Buddha and more recently Augustine and oddly enough Marx. An eclectic list perhaps but regardless of what screw ups and fantasies their followers created, the essential message was to seek and live the truth. As for Marx, perhaps it’s more a case of reverse psychology. He inspired much of the world to live the social gospel sans God.
If you want to rescue our Dangling Fury cousins in the trailer parks of the world you’re going to have to expound a philosophy to catch the hearts of the Sisters of the world who, half suicidal, reach out and touch the hearts – a much more powerful tool of change than the mind. The heart? Then why did I include Socrates in my list? He was the father of western secular thought, but more than that, he believed in the rightness of his ideal so strongly that he was willing to take his own life to protect the honor of that ideal. Plato kowtowed to the state and Aristotle ran away. Would Dawkins do that, or Mr. Singer?
Noble One, we do look to you for something new, not to repeat old ideas or replicate and repackage idle thought, but to glean from the past that which is good, find in the fables of old that which is true and inspire our hearts more than our minds, for to soar we first need our heart. Only then do we need our mind to find the way to fulfill the dream.
1 comment:
Beautiful, absolutely lyrical and very touching. Now, let me speak of the Logos and the volition, and see if you and I are not on the same plane of thought. But be patient for each great feast has the hor de oveurs.
Daniel
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