Thursday, May 19, 2011

KNOWLEDGE IS NOT WISDOM




Many people think knowledge as wisdom. For them the people who know great things are wise people. If one is well versed in great religious scriptures and sacred texts, he is considered as a wise man. Many intelligent people misuse this assumption to their advantage. Quoting pages after pages from sacred texts is the real indicator of one’s memory and hard work. We may appreciate such persons for their memory and hard work. But if we worship them as wise and holy people we cheat ourselves with our ignorance.

One may ask, “Then, what is wisdom?” We may find answer to the question in Dan Millman’s book “The way of peaceful warrior”. In the book he explains about his friendship with a calm and wise person whom he calls Socrates. He asks Socrates a profound question and receives a great answer. He says “Once Socrates and I were servicing a car, and I was doing the windows and he was pumping the gas, and I said, "Well, what is the difference between knowledge and wisdom?" He just looked at me with a twinkle in his eye and said, "Knowledge is knowing how to clean the windows, and wisdom is doing it." Wisdom is practice, practice, practice.”

Knowledge gives you the tools but never mistake the tools for the treasure. With knowledge you may know what is good to you. But if you do not bring your knowledge into your real life, if your actions are not aligned with your knowledge then your knowledge is useless to you.

Wisdom is using the knowledge to your advantage. It means a great commitment with strong will power. It is knowing what is great and pursuing it with commitment no matter what. Many people feel they like to do something, and they say, "I'm committed." But then an obstruction, a difficulty, comes up in life, and they change their mind. Now, I'm not saying we can't be flexible, but commitment means no matter what comes up, it's like a hurdle we overcome and strengthen ourselves in doing so. Commitment means you go for it whole heartedly.

Wisdom is not only knowledge in practice. It is more. It has deep understanding of the pros and cons of the knowledge. It judges all the knowledge with end results and uses it accordingly. It has a great sense of responsibility and awareness. So it doesn’t use knowledge blindly. Knowledge may boost your ego. But with wisdom, you will not let your ego to run your life. You will eliminate conflict and arguments as you find it unnecessary to prove yourself to any one.

So get knowledge. But don’t stop with the knowledge obtained. Move towards wisdom and live wisely. Then only you will find peace and give back the peace to the world.

- N.GANESHAN

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