Theos-Talk Archives (November 2006 Message tt00496)

Friends, 

This is away from other issues under discussion now.
 
 
Freezing opinions about issues or personalities,  and looking at the world as if one already knew it all, is a psychological resource used by smart people so that they don?t have to think all the time for themselves.  

One who does so can develop closed opinions about nearly everything.  This could be called  ?precocious omniscience?. 
 
In fact, many people who appear to be quite smart  rarely think for themselves. On the other hand, really intelligent people rarely look like ?smart? ?  in the sense I am talking about. 
 
Intelligent people ?know that  they don?t know?. Thus they can doubt, question, research, and learn.  They have enough self-confidence to run the risk of believing in the realm of the higher mind or divine world.  They are willing whenever necessary to harvest the sour results of self-illusion ?  for they know the path is not easy,  and defeats inevitable. 
 
In Judo, the first thing to learn is how to fall.  Falling is learning. 
 
You must fall hundreds of times, until you learn how to fall  with perfect detachment and equilibrium. This must be done in a light way, not loosing time or energy  with personal feelings of any kind, but confidently ?flying? as it  were towards the soil. Then you can quickly get on your feet again,  completely alert and ready for the next effort.  
 
The ?next effort? and the actual  situation in the next fraction of instant are not written in any book: but you can always intuitively anticipate its range of possibilities out of your own accumulated experience. 
 
People who want to look like smart  are essentially unexperienced.  They are smart in appearance but they can?t understand things in depth, because, among others factors,  they don?t  know  ?how to fall? yet.  
 
Intelligent people, on the other hand,  often look un-intelligent and un-perceptive at the worldly level of events.  They  know ?how to fall?; they can easily learn from  their mistakes. 
 
We should allow ourselves to look like stupid people in the eyes of others, whenever this is the price for thinking in an authentic and responsible way.  This will entitle us to go beyond automatic and unconscious kinds of mental behaviour,  and in time it  will show us further and better phases of the path.     
 
Regards,   Carlos. 
 
 
 
 
 


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