I just read a very well written and thought provoking piece by a fellow blogger entitled 'The mysterious Avoidance of Philosophy in American Schools,' and it got me thinking.
The writer in the blog in question read Alan Watts for the first time when she was 18 and as a result saw the world differently.
The awakening she experienced with Mr Watts was akin to myself, when I first read 'The Tibet Book of Living and Dying.'
I too started to look at things in a different light and question what I had always perceived to be real - all there is. The whole business was indeed an eye opener, and something that required further investigation.
Being educated in the West only teaches the existence of duality, and it's unwavering commitment to rational thought. We are only here on this tiny planet for a infinitesimal period of time, thus to say one understands 'life' as we know it; is to show an arrogance that I can't comprehend.
For when when one looks at a great piece of art or stands on top of a mountain and gets that feeling that there is more to all of this than form, that we are connected and interconnected to the greater scheme of things; the duality that we once held close to our hearts fades away into nothingness.
Essentially though, this only happens for a short period of time, then the 'thinker' and the 'doer' come back into play, and the separation from the nature of reality steamrollers on with it's desires, expectations and frustrations.
It really would be proper if the education system in the West made provision for the teaching of some basic Eastern philosophy, as it would give many people a chance to see life in a way that they had never imagined.
There is more to life that rationality and definite conclusions.
I think everyone deserves that chance to see themselves without the shackles of a pronoun and battle with the idea that the mind itself creates our reality, nothing else.
'I think therefore I am not,' as the dictum so imperiously states.
Mike
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