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Knowledge

Man's consciousness coming into contact with objects through his physical senses produces sensory experiences of sight, sound etc. which when translated in the mind as mental expressions become facts of life, information, observed results which are stored in the memory. That part which does this function in the mental plane is called physical mind.

Mind is capable of dwelling on physical objects or non-physical phenomena without resorting to the aid of the physical senses and the channel of sensation that accumulate observed facts. This is the beginning of the birth of knowledge. Birth of knowledge in the mind requires the mind raising itself above the need of sensory experience, resort to the physical senses and in the mind itself, rising above the plane of the physical mind to the centres of thinking mind and ideative mind. Senses dwell on the objects directly, physically. Mind dwells on the idea about the object. This capacity of the mind to relate to or dwell on an idea of an object is thinking. Out of this mental endeavour thought is born. Further, when the thinking mind tries to relate two or more such thoughts, the processes of deduction, inference, etc. are born. These are the areas proper to the functioning of thought.

When a great many thoughts are co-related by an effort of mind, original thought can arise. And this is creativity in thought. Thought has a well-defined form defined by its material organisation. It is possible to abstract the essence from thought which will be less defined for the thought-mind but more proper for the ideative mind. Owing to its rarefied structure, the ideative mind feels more at home with the less defined essence than the more delineated, structured thought. Ideas are in the realm of higher thought. Higher still, ideas rise into mental light. Higher education in the world today tries its best to centre itself on data, statistics, verifiable phenomena, observed facts and proven tracts.

Intelligence is inherited and its quality is decided by the quality of what is inherited. The longer a society is used to education, the greater is the quality of intelligence it can pass on to its successive generations. The post-war world has witnessed widespread extension of education in all countries. The post-war generation in USA is endowed with a greater intelligence and comes into a society where activities that foster general growth of mental capacity are in a great abundance. The youth of each decade is far better equipped mentally than the previous decades. This is reflected among other things by the number of international prizes won in USA annually. At least in one year all the 5 Nobel prizes went to USA. That appears to be an indication of the exhaustion of mental effort in the horizontal plane.

The educational system in USA was originally created on the distant models of Oxford and Cambridge. During the 18th and 19th centuries, all over the world a great effort was made to wean the minds of people away from superstition to science. Science relies on verifiable laws and facts, the laws having been discovered by a genius during one of his inspirations or intuitive moments. By long decades of exercise in scientific research, universities have come to forget the essential role played by inspiration and intuition in discovering laws of science and have entrenched themselves in verifiable processes. With a vengeance this is being extended to all fields. The result is that even the successful effort of mind to postulate theories in different subjects has come to a halt, the last known being in the thirties. No department of knowledge any longer produces inspiring ideas that can enthrall inquisitive minds and keep them in the field of search. An increasing number of youngsters with great mental capacities wander away from universities only to be further frustrated. The US educational system can and must endeavour to rise to the occasion by providing these promising minds fields of engaging inquiry. Surely the trend is in the opposite direction. One of the reasons for high level institutions not keeping its best minds and losing them to industry is the lack of intellectual stimulation.

The problems of pollution, exhaustion of resources, erosion of currency, lowering of values and standards remain on the horizon unsolved. Any successful effort so far made is in the direction of greater effort in the old direction that created the problem or in its opposite direction still in the same plane. So far no effort seems to have arisen that looks at these problems in their right perspective. Human problems are within human ingenuity to solve. As man is not faced with problems of others' creation, it is possible for him to solve the problems he has created. He must look at the origin, growth and its existence to understand a problem. A problem is best understood when man rises above it and looks down on it, from a wider perspective. Presently he is so much identified with the problem that he IS the problem. Fixing himself at the centre of it, he tries to solve it. What is lacking is the perspective, knowledge. General intellectual training fosters this attitude.

There is no problem of humanity that does not lend itself to solution. But if an alcoholic wants to get rid of drinking by drinking another type of alcohol, it is futile to consider it. The real solution must be started at the universities. Knowledge must be saved from the data. The master has to be saved from his servant. The ends must be saved from the means to which they have become subservient.

Man must rise above from physical knowledge to mental thoughts and higher ideas and finally seek light. Now he is exercising the tyranny of the small on the delicacy of the great only to smother its birth. Presently he has successfully estranged the capable minds from the effort of seeking real knowledge.

Knowledge is based on thoughts. Information is based on facts. Knowledge cannot issue from examination of data. Knowledge comes from thought and inspiration. Data can only be useful to verify or confirm knowledge, not create it. What the higher mind discovers, the lower can verify at its own level



story | by Dr. Radut