Friday, May 27, 2005
Experiments with Truth
Gandhi called his peace movement the "Experiments with Truth".
One of the main reasons why, despite all the advances in contemporary sciences, there remains many unsolved problems in our world, is that science taught to the younger generations ignored the fundamental issue of life.
The English-speaking world, such as me and my peers are over-exposed to the Western philosophy which resulted in us mistaking that our quest for knowledge is the equivalent to the search for truth and the meaning in life.
But the ultimate purpose of our lives is not to search for truth, but to seek happiness. And happiness is achieved only by cultivating values.
How do we cultivate values?
We simply need to experiment with what is true.
When shot with an arrow and bleeding, it is pointless to ask what make the arrow was. The type of wood and the quality of the arrow-tip is unnecessary. Instead, we ask how to stop the bleeding, clean the wound and dress it for recovery.
One of the main reasons why, despite all the advances in contemporary sciences, there remains many unsolved problems in our world, is that science taught to the younger generations ignored the fundamental issue of life.
The English-speaking world, such as me and my peers are over-exposed to the Western philosophy which resulted in us mistaking that our quest for knowledge is the equivalent to the search for truth and the meaning in life.
But the ultimate purpose of our lives is not to search for truth, but to seek happiness. And happiness is achieved only by cultivating values.
How do we cultivate values?
We simply need to experiment with what is true.
When shot with an arrow and bleeding, it is pointless to ask what make the arrow was. The type of wood and the quality of the arrow-tip is unnecessary. Instead, we ask how to stop the bleeding, clean the wound and dress it for recovery.
# posted by Raymond Chng @ 1:01 PM 
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Hm.. hard to explain kel, but say, we all know that reading is good right? Reading good book actually expands our minds indefinitely.
But reading them alone serves no purpose until you applied the insights from the book into your life. One must be active in society instead of being passive in order to derive joy in our existence.
More important than expanding our minds is to expand our lives. That is a lesson we can learn from great men like Mohandas K Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr, Daisaku Ikeda, etc.
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But reading them alone serves no purpose until you applied the insights from the book into your life. One must be active in society instead of being passive in order to derive joy in our existence.
More important than expanding our minds is to expand our lives. That is a lesson we can learn from great men like Mohandas K Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr, Daisaku Ikeda, etc.
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