In Fact, We Know Nothing

When two lovers under the moon contemplate it captivated by its silvery rays, when the soul next to the sea sways moved by its sounds, when the silence finds shelter in the heart while contemplating the immensity of the desert or the infinite blue of the sky, or the sight gets lost while looking at the orifflame color of a fire, then something indefinable connects us in mysterious ways with all the universe and at the same time with our innermost side. Then the time stops, and with it the anxiety, despair and uncertainty.

Then we are filled with a sort of knowledge without words, something related to the ultimate reality of the things.

And here comes the problem, because today Man forgot how to do this, he forgot to connect to the Mystery.

Today, in a world in which the constant flow of information is hitting our ears every day through the mass media, newspapers and TV, in a world in which any book can be obtained through Internet in few seconds, which is something that hundred years ago would had cost numberless difficulties and efforts, we have the false sensation of knowing everything.

When Plato wrote his divine dialogs or Aristotle his scientific works, none of them though to make a fortune out of that, nor to become a bestseller author. In that epoch there were not international publishing houses, nor even written newspapers. Their works were the result of deep meditations and experiences. They were public men who lived in small cities, adequate to human scale. Their personal deeds were well known and also their style of life. The did not and they could not lie to anyone with empty words.

For this reason, devoutly, their students copied by hand their manuscripts, knowing that they were treasures of the human wisdom. And while they were doing it, they were carefully weighing up the written words, those words belonging to wise people and therefore something of importance no to be wasted. Perhaps they only could read some books, not many, for they were rare and expensive, but those few that fell on their hands were literally absorbed by their characteristic thirst as aspirants to wisdom. They also run after them, to listen their teachings, but not like today's people who run to home to throw themselves to a sofa to watch television for hours.

Therefore, their eyes learnt to look at the world in a special way, and in everything they saw they projected their own soul, the magic that everyone encloses inside, though many times is covered by tons of dust, of useless information, of transitory data, that prevent us to recognized the clean, sharp and bright Truth.

Today we are not touched anymore by a landscape, for we saw it before in a photo, nor even in front of famous ruins, nor besides a beautiful river, nor even in front of the sea, for we believe that we know everything. We do not realize that is not the same to look at a picture of the Himalayan picks as to ascend alone to the heights of the mountains, overcoming with each step the human barriers and opening a sparkling future for our spirit.

We should recognize that we know nothing, perhaps in this way our disease of ignorance might be cured, because only the one who knows what he lacks may go in search of what he needs.