Search This Blog

Monday, February 20, 2017

Questions and Answers


Tom Stoppard, “My whole life is waiting for the questions to which I have prepared answers”.

Some such quotes shake up the thought process and stir us to reflect on our past, present and future and end up setting us to question lot of things in the process.

1. Oh what a quote from Tom Stoppard, “My whole life is waiting for the questions to which I have prepared answers”.

2. Excellent and I used to say these in my adolescent life but then slowly life's experiences splashed the scent of humility on me [I use the word scent because we are not sure which letter is silent in ‘scent’ either the‘s’ or ‘c’] and humility too lingers only temporarily like a whiff of scent till the pungent fragrances of ego, prosperity, popularity and so on drive it away or subdue it or place it in abeyance.

3. Slowly after that I started seeking answers to many things and at some point realized the meaning of also awaiting questions for some answers probably because as Ram Dass  says, “Across planes of consciousness, we have to live with the paradox that opposite things can be simultaneously true.” 



4. However, I never failed nor still fail to question anything as I feel that educates me in a way and also help me to get better clarity, not necessarily acceptance or approval or rejection or refusal as Rainer Maria Rilke says, “I beg you… to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”


There are certain questions for which one can never get convincing and satisfactory answers but just ask the question and remain silent because they have to be realized or felt as indicated in Tirumoolar Tirumanthiram in a verse titled, Kelvi ketu amidhal’


Even Voltaire said, “Four thousand volumes of metaphysics will not teach us what the soul is”.




Then ultimately I realize the immense value of this statement.
विद्या ददाति विनयं विनयाद्याति पात्रताम् 
पात्रत्वाद्धनमाप्नोति धनाद्धर्मं ततः सुखम् 
vidyA dadAti vinayaM, vinayAdyAti pAtratAM |
pAtratvAddhanamApnoti, dhanAddharmaMtataH sukhaM || 5 ||

(true/complete) knowledge gives discipline [humility], from discipline [humility] comes worthiness, from worthiness one gets wealth, from wealth (one does) good deeds, from that (comes) joy.



No comments: