silence shared in words
presents
My principal in high school ,
was a mathematician.
I was not a student of mathematics
but I used to go
to his office whenever I saw that he was alone
and talk about
higher mathematics --
because now the older mathematics
is not applicable any longer
to
physics,
biology,
chemistry,
biochemistry.
They are going beyond it.
So he told me, "Why don't you start attending my classes?"
I said, "I have no problem,
I am not a student of mathematics,
but
whenever I am free and you have a class I would love to come if you allow me.
But then don't get disturbed by me because I will not just be
dead there, I will be alive."
He said "What do you mean by being alive?"
I said, "Exactly what it means: being alive.
Just give me a chance and see."
I was
always interested in many things,
trying to find out
whether they were really based on knowing or were only hypothetical --
because if they were hypothetical then they were not
really true;
they were just pragmatic,
helpful,
convenient
For example, Euclidian geometry
that's the class he was teaching when he allowed me for the first day...
Now Euclid's definitions -- even a child can see that they are wrong.
Euclid says: "A line has length but no breadth."
Now, without breadth,
how can a line be?
It is so simple, one does not need
to be a mathematician. I am not a mathematician, and I was not at all at that time.
And I said to him, "This is stupid what you are saying, that it has length but no breadth
it does have breadth.
Draw a line on the board without breadth, just with length,
then I will accept your hypothesis."
He said, "Now I know what you mean by being alive.
I have done post-graduation mathematics
and this question never came to my mind
Euclid says so;
every school, every college, every university teaches it,
so I never thought... But perhaps you are right. I can see, there is..."
And I said, "It is measurable.
With the chalk you draw a line on the blackboard, and still you're saying
that it has no breadth
And the point' Euclid says, 'has neither length nor breadth.'
Then how can it be?
It may have a very, very small length,
a very, very small breadth,
but that does not mean that it has none.
You just need a magnifying glass.
Just wait and I will run to the chemistry lab and bring the magnifying glass and show you.
He said, "There is no need to go; I can understand.
But then what am I to teach?
Euclid is finished, because these are basic definitions." I said, "These are hypotheses.
You have to accept just one thing: that these hypotheses are
practical,
but not truth."
So you have to find out about whatsoever you know: whether it is just hypothetical
useful in life,
or really a truth that you know,
that you have felt,
that you have experienced.
If it is only a hypothesis, put it aside
and you will feel such an unburdening.
All hypotheses, all borrowed knowledge that has gathered there and which you are carrying --
you are dragging a mountainous load,
you are being crushed under it --
just put it aside.
Be ignorant;
accept that "I am ignorant."
And from that point
you can start the search.
Every child is going to be burdened
I hope that someday it will not be so.
In fact there is no need,
because when you are teaching Euclid, you can teach very simply that this is not truth,
it is only a hypothesis
With this hypothesis it becomes easier to understand the triangle,
the circle and everything
But remember that at the base there is a hypothesis,
and the whole palace is hypothetical.
Similarly, your God is a hypothesis
and the whole
pyramid of theology
is based on nothing but that hypothesis.
If you start looking into things it does not need great intelligence,
it needs only simple innocence
to see.
That principal called me into his office and he said, "You are not to come again to my classes
because now
it will be difficult for me to deal with the children
They have seen me
as ignorant
and up to now I was an authority.
You destroyed that.
" But he was a sincere man in a way.
He said, "I can understand you,
but don't do it to any other teacher, because they may not understand it.
And now I know why so many complaints go on coming against you:
that you are a disturbance.
But this was not a disturbance.
You have opened my eyes;
I will never again be able to be the same.
But what puzzles me is that I never thought about it,
I simply accepted it."
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