Feb. 18, 2002

Youth and the Wisdom of the World

• As generations pass the spearhead of wisdom moves down from age to youth. It appears now it has further moved to juveniles.
• The phrase juvenile delinquency may soon be changed into juvenile wisdom or juvenile leadership.
• This confirms the truth that man is born with an open soul and is closed up later.
• By the time he has experienced enough to collect wisdom, his soul is either dried up or closed.
• Leadership of the world moving down indicates that the age of acquiring practical wisdom in the collective is also moving down.
• Extremes of exception are the rule of Life.
• At all periods, age did collect eternal wisdom.
• It might have been in rare individuals but the world cherishes it till now.
• Youth was always rightly urged to disown the habits of the collective condensed into the Establishment.
• Youth that has rebelled against the establishment rebelled also against the wisdom of ages.
• Always youth in its age has gratefully returned to that wisdom.
• Knowledge, Power, Love, Goodness, Honesty, and Loyalty are eternal values understood variously and accepted in their best manifested form.
• Civilisation and its march demand that the collective -- especially those below the average line -- imbibe them fully.
• The march of civilisation is to discover those VALUES in more minute details of life.
• For that, one should acquire all those values as early in life as possible.
• Adventure, exploration of the physical, romance, devotion and courage of the vital, enlightenment, inspiration and revelation of the mental are exceeded by the Silence, Vision and intuition of the Spirit.
• The best of men explore inside. The least of them seek security and luck.
• The order of the world presses for global expansion as does the trade.
• Formal education should desert the individual as early as possible, initiating him into the exploration of the invisible.
• The world has certainly not exhausted the wisdom of the sages in its collective organised living.
• A sample of it will be an endless list.
• The wonder of it is, it is enshrined in stale proverbs, simple folk tales and bedtime stories for children.
• Let the youth that aspires to take the world ahead first acquire all of them without exception.
• It is better to devise an educational system wherein children will SEE their values on their own.
• There are hilarious stories about stupid people all over the world. Let us take the gnawing issues in the international arena, and in our own inner life of personal intimacies see how many of them come under those heads.
• When you discover that the truth is all of them have failed the elementary test of age-old wisdom, you will have known the secret of life.


• It will be interest to mention a few.

— All the ten commandments of the Bible.

— The fools of Goatham.

— Midas.

— The man on the branch cutting at its root.

— Sour grapism.

— Blind men describing the elephant.

— The man who has cut the goose for the egg.

— Basmasuran.

— Shylock.

— The wisdom of the lark in the corn fields.

— The secret of friendship in Panchatantra.

— All the tricks of Krishna.

— The jealousy of Duryodhana.

— The saint who was humbled by a housewife.

— Birth mistaken for spiritual capacity

— Form posing for content.

— Deserted Draupadi.

— Arjuna’s misgivings.

— Tolstoy’s cobbler.

The wisdom of Thirukural of 2000 years ago.

— World begins in God.

— It is rain that sustains life.

— One demeans himself by seeking help.

— The distance from the throne.

— The uselessness of anger.

— Measure that cautions the excess.

— The freedom of the depraved.

— World is sustained by mature good men.

— Not even the fort can protect the timid.

— Woman, the complement.

— Wisdom of delegation.

— Culture is the preservative.

— Content, not form.

— Intimacy in friendship.

— The joy of woman that intoxicates.

— Possessiveness of women.

— Fulfilment in posterity.

— Spiritual significance of the character of children.

— Sin or virtue is not in the act.