"One who has merely heard of fire has ajnana (ignorance). One who has seen fire has jnana (wisdom). But one who has actually built a fire and cooked on it has vijnana (practical spiritual insight)."
~ Ramakrishna
I've always felt pretty comfortable in academic settings. Schools and universities are places where ideas get discussed, deconstructed, and hopefully rebuilt. But the phrase "ivory tower" is used for a reason. There is a divide between theory and practice that most schools have trouble crossing. No wonder many students emerge with their diploma into the "real world" with little preparation, dumped unceremoniously out of the glittering tower into the muddy streets below.
Those who are able to survive the dethroning, who can dust themselves off like Adam and Eve and walk bravely into a world of fragility and confusion, these students will be initiated into a new and more powerful magic: the combined power of independent thought and creative action.
Building and then crossing the bridge between thought and action is a theme tackled in Hermann Hesse's book The Glass Bead Game. His words hammer home the realness of the world, as well as the need for thinking people to be a part of - not apart from - it. After all, "abstractions are fine, but I think people also have to breathe air and eat bread." At the same time, learning (wisdom) imbues action with meaning and spirit, so life becomes more than mere survival. It becomes service.
There is a saying that the longest journey is from head to heart, but I think a parallel journey leads from idea to actuality. The mind is a place of ideas and ideals. Yet both can become idols if they are not broken on the sharp edge of the heart. Because the heart of man is not a smooth, untroubled paradise. It is a jagged wilderness that is the only door to the "real world" we can ever know. For it is not the brain or the senses that grasps reality. It is the heart.
Once a person becomes aware of this interior doorway and takes the trouble to pry it open even a crack, it does not matter whether they remain perched in their ivory tower, or trawl the back-alleys of slums. Because Life will find them. And once Life enters through the heart's rusty door, a bridge appears. It may take a lifetime to cross it, but the wilderness will no longer be completely pathless.
You will find that all the thought and work and theory crafted in school will have formed a very narrow, very treacherous bit of trampled ground. It's not much, I know. Believe me, I've stared at my own meagre beginnings of a path and wondered if all the years of learning and thinking was worth it. Not to mention spending! Over $100,000 and all I get is a few muddy footprints in the forest?
But the farther I've gone, past my first wobbly steps into a terrain where the only guideposts are Trust and Faith and a bit of Chutzpah, I've found a strange truth. It takes years of education to beat down a few feet of bracken, but Life has a wonderful way of clearing whole empires for us - IF we only learn to read the signs we've secretly been scratching to ourselves during all those years of study.
Because no one - no teacher, mentor, parent, or friend - can give you a better start than the one you've given yourself, despite (and because of) any failures, mistakes, or misdirections. This is the only difference between people who've heard of fire, people who've seen it, and people who've learned to make it for themselves. The latter are those who see in their own beginnings the bridge between thought and action. They have broken themselves on the raw edges of their heart, and found that these ruins are really runes - an ancient language of wisdom and service that the world is waiting to hear.
Those who are able to survive the dethroning, who can dust themselves off like Adam and Eve and walk bravely into a world of fragility and confusion, these students will be initiated into a new and more powerful magic: the combined power of independent thought and creative action.
Building and then crossing the bridge between thought and action is a theme tackled in Hermann Hesse's book The Glass Bead Game. His words hammer home the realness of the world, as well as the need for thinking people to be a part of - not apart from - it. After all, "abstractions are fine, but I think people also have to breathe air and eat bread." At the same time, learning (wisdom) imbues action with meaning and spirit, so life becomes more than mere survival. It becomes service.
There is a saying that the longest journey is from head to heart, but I think a parallel journey leads from idea to actuality. The mind is a place of ideas and ideals. Yet both can become idols if they are not broken on the sharp edge of the heart. Because the heart of man is not a smooth, untroubled paradise. It is a jagged wilderness that is the only door to the "real world" we can ever know. For it is not the brain or the senses that grasps reality. It is the heart.
Once a person becomes aware of this interior doorway and takes the trouble to pry it open even a crack, it does not matter whether they remain perched in their ivory tower, or trawl the back-alleys of slums. Because Life will find them. And once Life enters through the heart's rusty door, a bridge appears. It may take a lifetime to cross it, but the wilderness will no longer be completely pathless.
You will find that all the thought and work and theory crafted in school will have formed a very narrow, very treacherous bit of trampled ground. It's not much, I know. Believe me, I've stared at my own meagre beginnings of a path and wondered if all the years of learning and thinking was worth it. Not to mention spending! Over $100,000 and all I get is a few muddy footprints in the forest?
But the farther I've gone, past my first wobbly steps into a terrain where the only guideposts are Trust and Faith and a bit of Chutzpah, I've found a strange truth. It takes years of education to beat down a few feet of bracken, but Life has a wonderful way of clearing whole empires for us - IF we only learn to read the signs we've secretly been scratching to ourselves during all those years of study.
Because no one - no teacher, mentor, parent, or friend - can give you a better start than the one you've given yourself, despite (and because of) any failures, mistakes, or misdirections. This is the only difference between people who've heard of fire, people who've seen it, and people who've learned to make it for themselves. The latter are those who see in their own beginnings the bridge between thought and action. They have broken themselves on the raw edges of their heart, and found that these ruins are really runes - an ancient language of wisdom and service that the world is waiting to hear.
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