Yoga: The Miracle Of Education

By Sajeeva Samaranayake -April 26, 2014 |

Sajeeva Samaranayake

Since the dawn of thinking mankind knowledge has been a source of power, and a means of control. (We are less familiar today, with knowledge as virtueand a resource for caring and understanding.) Ideas from God down to human rights have become subject to the corrupting influence of human thought. This corruption takes place through a deliberate or unconscious tendency to possess and objectify ideas. They are turned into ‘things,’ weapons and grand symbols which can then be used to bolster your identity and dominate others. All this is the work of the thinking ego – our monkey within.

All philosophies and religions recognize this possibility – of the devil appropriating the scriptures and using them for its own worldly ends. Yet this appreciation can become progressively dim in some religious traditions. We can now see, very clearly, the consequences of the failure to guard against this within the Buddhist tradition of Sri Lanka. Taoism is rather unique in its insistence on invisibility and on the ultimate powerlessness of thoughts and words. As Ron Hogan puts it delightfully in his ‘off beat’ version of the Tao Te Ching:

Tao doesn’t have a name

Names are for ordinary things

Because the ego stands for a sharp separation and division of this from that; of the right from wrong and good from bad these ideas (from God to human rights) have helped to disconnect man from man instead of helping to unite them. Great ideas and ideologies have thus become great dividers – thus defeating their basic purpose of functioning as great connectors.

How do we avoid this elephant trap?                                          Read More