From IIM Ahmedabad To Happiness

Author(s): Vijay K Jain
Publisher: Vikalp Printers

Page 80

FROM IIM-AHMEDABAD TO HAPPINESS
wisdom is sure to reveal itself there, sooner or later. 3416Ha [5: 341547: - soul is the guru (teacher) of the soul.
What is commonly understood by knowledge does not include feeling and mental tendencies within its scope. We are accustomed to apply that word exclusively to ideas deliberately formed or to dry facts and formulae of logic and other sciences and arts. Strictly speaking, though, knowledge is preserved in the modifications of feelings and mental tendencies. Hence, we may say that knowledge exists in two different ways in the soul, namely, in the shape of mental tendencies or feelings, and as ideas. In the former case, it determines our instincts, that is, disposition, and in the latter leads us to conscious deliberation in thought.
It will not be difficult to understand how knowledge can be preserved in the shape of tendencies and feelings if we study the effect of education on ourselves. A child, by nature, is of an inquisitive and explosive temperament, and devoid of scruples and consideration for others. But a grown-up man is generally a very different being, and has little of the savageness of the child about him. The difference between these two states is undoubtedly due to the education received by him as a member of the society. The question now is, what is that faculty of organ which is modified in consequence of education?
Superficially we point to the brain as the repository of education, but that cannot be. For the brain is essentially perishable, while the effects of education linger in the soul, even when the intellect has fallen into decay. In order to be of any service to the soul, education must first modify disposition. But disposition cannot be modified purely and simply by the dry formulae of knowledge; it yields only to experience, since we adopt what is pleasing and avoid the unpleasant. We thus get the clue to the nature of the faculty in which the results of education are retained. It is that which feels.
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