Knowledge can be Conveyed, but not Wisdom
by Herman Hesse
[Listen to Audio!]
 Look, my dear Govinda, this is one of my thoughts, which I have found: wisdom cannot be passed on. Wisdom which a wise man tries to pass on to someone always sounds like foolishness."
"Are you kidding?" asked Govinda. "I’m not kidding. I’m telling you what I’ve found. Knowledge can be conveyed, but not wisdom. It can be found, it can be lived, it is possible to be carried by it, miracles can be performed with it, but it cannot be expressed in words and taught. This was what I, even as a young man, sometimes suspected, what has driven me away from the teachers.
I have found a thought, Govinda, which you’ll again regard as a joke or foolishness, but which is my best thought. It says: The opposite of every truth is just as true! That’s like this: any truth can only be expressed and put into words when it is one−sided.
Everything is one−sided which can be thought with thoughts and said with words, it’s all one−sided, all just one half, all lacks completeness, roundness, oneness. When the Buddha spoke in his teachings of the world, he had to divide it into Sansara and Nirvana, into deception and truth, into suffering and salvation. It cannot be done differently, there is no other way for him who wants to teach. But the world itself, what exists around us and inside of us, is never one−sided. A person or an act is never entirely Sansara or entirely Nirvana, a person is never entirely holy or entirely sinful. It does really seem like this, because we are subject to deception, as if time was something real. Time is not real, Govinda, I have experienced this often and often again. And if time is not real, then the gap which seems to be between the world and the eternity, between suffering and blissfulness, between evil and good, is also a deception." […]
"Here on this ferry boat, for instance, a man has been my predecessor and teacher, a holy man, who has for many years simply believed in the river, nothing else. He had noticed that the river spoke to him, he learned from it, it educated and taught him, the river seemed to be a god to him, for many years he did not know that every wind, every cloud, every bird, every beetle was just as divine and knows just as much and can teach just as much as the worshipped river. But when this holy man went into the forests, he knew everything, knew more than you and me, without teachers, without books, only because he had believed in the river."
About the Author: Excerpted from Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha, Ch 12: Govinda.
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Knowledge can be Conveyed, but not Wisdom
How do you relate to the notion that anything that can be thought with thoughts and said with words is one-sided? Can you share a personal experience of a time you realized that the opposite of a truth was also just as true? What helps you value living wisdom over knowledge transfer? |
| david doane wrote: We live in a reality that is dualistic. Our thoughts and words are part of that dualistic reality and we think and talk in terms of either-or, this or that, which is one-sided. We d… |
| Jagdish P Dave wrote: Knowledge and wisdom are different. Knowledge is acquired, knowledge is taught. With knowledge, we become knowledgeable. Such acquired knowledge of what is, what is real, is dualistic.It is one… |
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Editor’s note: Dear Friends, Mother’s Day is a beautiful reminder to be extra grateful for all that nurtures us and nourishes our soul. For everything that teaches us how to stand on our own two feet and confidently move forward in life. For everyone that catches us when we fall. For everyone that never stops cheering for us from the sidelines. May we be aware of all our blessings, in whatever form they come.
Sangha of Auspicious Companions 