Discovery of Ignorance

By Lunminthang Haokip *

ORIGINAL IDEAS: Philosophers down the ages vied with one another to give the best definition of education. To Aristotle, it meant a succinct, "Creation of a sound mind in a sound body." Plato was more eloquent, "I mean by education that training which is given by suitable habits to the first instincts of virtue in children". The definitions evoke profound thoughts but, at the same time, invoke one's sensibility to disagree a bit that the statements, despite reflections of high intellectual potency, partly border on rhetorical idealism.

Ignorance Fades Out: Education, indeed, is an endless series of systematic instructions that enlighten the mind, mould the character and strengthen the mental power. It throws light upon areas of ignorance that handicap the unlettered from making a scholastic and intellectual headway. Cobwebs of doubt and notional errors gradually fade out in the course of its progress as doses of learning trickle in. It also brings about considerable restraint in one in the discernment of the right and the wrong and in adherence to traditional dos and taboos.

Lunminthang: the Author

Thought Fine-Tuning: However, for all the amazing acceleration to advancements of knowledge and technology it had achieved for humanity, education did and does little to belittle the penchant to break God's Laws in a mortal being. This unfortunate lapse cripples the growth of the soul and the spirit to fine-tune their bent of thought to that of the Creator's.

Remember Thy Creator: "Remember Thy Creator in the days of the youth (Ecclesiastes 12:1)". I can't spin yearns about religions I don't know much about. But the religion I follow thrives on its relevance to the Creator and His Creation. We owe everything to Jehovah who made us with a purpose. As the planets revolve around the sun, we are to be God-centered. Its antithesis is being self-centered. The moment the earth ceases to move in an orbit around the sun, there'll be no season and no life on it. The same fate will befall an education devoid of the Word of God to keep it under check and the inspiration to stimulate subjection to His will, to balance it.

The Days Of Thy Youth : Youth is a time when you care about a thousand matters bouncing about. You abound in boundless raw energy and potential. Properly tapped, the natural endowments can catapult you to peak performance facilitating your dream ambitions to come true. It's when the foundation of life's later-day storey are laid. If you wouldn't play ball with the voice of your conscience by willing to do what your Maker insists, the tower of your hopes will crumble down like a house of cards. The Hangover: It's tougher than you imagine, to undo in middle-age the medley of bad things you did in your adolescence.

Once bloomed, the rose can't shut and become a bud again. One's life is built on the values and beliefs one absorbs and cherishes in one's formative days. Youth's when you don't even know what's good for you to do to ensure a happy manhood, old-age and ending. So, there's no better insurance than to bet on and intertwine the gamut of your juvenile interests with that of an all-knowing God who "Declares the end from the beginning, and from ancient times, the things that are not yet done (Isaiah 46:10)."

Need For Shepherding: A youth, at his best, is like a sheep unsure of his next step. Jehovah said, the shepherd-boy-turned-king David was a man after his own heart. Yet, in selfless meekness, David wrote is Psalm 23:1 "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. " If David needed it, how much more shepherding you and I need? The Ultimate Truth : Tagore opined, "Education enables the mind to find out the ultimate truth which emancipated us from the bondage of dust and giving the wealth not of inner light, not of power but of love making this truth its own and giving expression to it."

Collision Course: It sounds great. Yes, education helped us in finding the hidden truths in artistic, scientific, cosmic and atomic ventures. But are we emancipated in the true sense? Taught to be ultimately under the bondage of prejudice-tainted parochial and paranoiac pulls and pushes, the world's region-compelled contradicting national priorities-in-conflict are on an accursed course of a head-on collision.

The Last Fight: This restlessness spreading between two poles is destructively tearing itself apart from blast to blast. Thanks to hi-tech atomic conceptions and perverted religious fanaticism, weapons of a last reel-climactic global annihilation are piled up and used in striking strategic venues. The new defense system is to go nuclear. At this rate of It may not be long before modernity's marveled monuments of pride are blown up to cinders. Is our education taking us to such a horrible holocaust?"

Samuel Haokip: A young learner; Sainik School

Limited Truths: Education also is a progressive learning and application of relative truths that do wonders to improve the lot of mankind. Relative truths have their own limitations. They do add to head-knowledge and contribute a great deal in attainment of excelling know-how in various fields. Using them, citadels of economic power and military might can be built up. When that's done, the morale of the soul, the seat of one's emotions, is boosted sky-high. But, in the absence of a diligence- controlled piloting of a sane spirit, all that human sentiment can command to be carried out from the cardiac cockpit will end up in smoke.

The Soul And The Spirit: The natural mind is seized by fleshly designs unlimited. The spirit alone can relate to the mind of God. A strong spirit will rein in the soul and the body which represent the outer-man. But it's often the other way round. In most persons, the godly promptings of the inner-man, the spirit, are choked and rendered ineffective by the emotional concerns of the flesh and the soul.

The Good And The bad: Everybody has traits and traces of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in himself. If Dr. Jekyll is to hold ground, Mr. Hyde shall have to go underground. The corporeal demeanor stems out of a mindset steeped in a soulical disposition. When the soul asserts itself full force, the spirit is weakened, shaken and can scarce hold its ideals on like a hubby made a cuckold of. And, the inner-man, the epitome of virtue and righteousness, becomes a helpless puppet on the string pulled with gusto by the outrageous outer-man.

Truth That Delivers: What's the ultimate truth that will deliver the soul from the deception of the evil gambit the devil cunningly moves to trample the spirit upon? "Jesus saith unto them, I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me (John 14:6)." He's the son of God who's the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. His teachings are absolute truths that mirror the sin-filled state-of-the-heart like a state-of-the-art closed-circuit camera does to the surreptitious movements in its focus.

The Weakness of Learning: University academics may confer a big degree to a studious scholar. But will the accredited academic accomplishment actuate his heart to appropriate the calling of his conscience? No. A college-level certification qualifies a man to teach, but can it guarantee the qualified teacher to do justice to the ethics of his profession? Will the knowledge he gathered in his head make him shudder from engaging a proxy-teacher for himself at a pittance while he noses around for means to earn an extra-income? A big no. An officer may have all the Rules and Acts his job requires him to be conversant in at his finger-tips. But can that stop him from holding back impulses to bend rules and act against his own conscience? Experience proves the contrary true.

Ruthless Wizardry: Focused study of and training on a specialized discipline turned a few young zealots into dare-devil aeronautical wizards. Fervidly set to avenge a jingoistic grudge triggered by religious fervour, no sense of professionalism could divert the minds of the ruthless terrorists from being hell-bent on the suicidal aerial attacks. All the hi-tech expertise they imbibed with no stirring of the spirit, failed to kindle in them a feeling of sympathy for the thousands of comparatively innocent family-men and women who were burnt alive when they in full consciousness, rammed the hijacked jetliners against the twin WTC towers on Sept. 11 last. Why ? Because their spirits were dead while the soulical temper was super active at supersonic speed.

The Key To Rid Guilt: Repentance, confession of sins, cleansing of the conscience and accepting Lord Jesus as one's personal Saviour alone can sensitize the spirit to life and grace. That's the ultimate truth that will save a guilty wretch from the pincer-clutch of such a bohemian bondage. "And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free (John 8:32)."

Being Made Free: What's it like being freed by Jesus? Now you have complete victory over the sinning tendencies harboured by and harnessed in the old nature. Having forsaken ways abominable and crazes deplorable, the Lord of Lords gives you a new contrite heart that throbs and thirsts to do things righteous. The trying traits you hated but couldn't do without trouble you no more. Earlier, your eyes mechanically went through your lessons in study. But your mind drew a blank because it was in use elsewhere in a mental date with someone who'd stolen your heart or you'd given your heart to. But now, the spirit of the Lord keeps you in perfect liberty to concentrate upon your studies by being spiritually anchored to the power of the cross.

Fear God For Wisdom: " The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10). " Because you fear the Lord and obey His words, the flood-light that the Gospel truth trails along leads you to deeper truths. It helps you realize that romancing around with a boy-friend or a girl- friend, instead of patiently praying in chastity to God for a suitable partner of His choice, would certainly end up in heart-breaks. If broken hearts aren't taken out of emotion-driven agony by calming with healing words of grace and not mended with the love of Calvary, the devil may bluff and turn the love-story into a tragedy of suicide. Parents should take a serious mental note of this.

The Spirit-Led: The light also exposes the devouring darkness in succumbing to "the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life", subtly opposing the Gospel, knowing people after the flesh etc. Your renewed spirit steers your way clear from all these diabolic snares as a flying plane does from a solid object to avert a crash. God's name is hallowed when one lives a holy life. Spiritual promotion follows. Joseph was jailed for his aversion to amorous advances made by Potiphar's wife. Later, Pharoah declared his spiritual stature in purity, "Can we find such a one as this, a man in whom is the Spirit of God (Genesis 41:38)."

Wisdom From Above: Worldly wisdom wavers. Godly wisdom doesn't. But it comes with a heavy price-tag of strict bodily discipline and spiritual sagacity. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon of yore had a dream that hassled his spirit. There was not a man on earth who could interpret it. But, because "Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the King's delicacies nor with the wine which he drank (Daniel 1: 8), "God gave him knowledge and skill in literature and wisdom and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams (Daniel 1:17)."

The Excellent Spirit: The succeeding King, Darius, the Mede, was equally impressed by the unblemished deportment of young Daniel. The king made him one of the three governors. The other two got jealous. A wicked plot was hatched to implicate and finish off Daniel who the king favoured. But, "Because an excellent spirit was on him (Daniel 6:3)," he never wavered in his wisdom to worship anything other than the true living God. He was thrown into the lion's den for his daring faith. However, he came out unscathed. Darius wrote in owe, "I make a decree that in every dominion of my kingdom men must tremble and fear before the God of Daniel (Dan 6:26)". What a blessing it will be if our present rulers follow suit.

Discoveries By Providence : It gives a tangible touch to the Almighty's supreme authority over the universe to learn that most of the greatest discoveries on earth didn't happen by chance but providence. Obedience to the word of God provided solution to the most mind-boggling problems in scientific research and findings. The right stance taken by the Wright Brothers to keep the Sabbath holy received divine reward in the form of the invention of the aero plane. The God fearing Brothers had to deny an audience to the king of Spain who came all the way to America to watch a test-flight on the Lord's day.

The Silver Is The Lord's : A Christian who doesn't bring one-tenth of his income in the holy church will squander ten-tenth of the same in an unholy search. A reversal of the above act of unfaith, however, pays rich dividends. Colgate, the entrepreneur's faithful tithing from a normal one-tenth to an incredible nine-tenth of his earnings, endeared him to Him who reigned in heaven. The Colgate brand of products, became a household name worldwide. "The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine, says the Lord of host (Haggai 2:8)".

A Call To Heaven : It was another spirit-guided brother in Christ, Samuel Morse, who sent the first telegraphic message from Washington to Baltimore in 1791. Even in the wording of the first message ever transmitted, the Maker of heaven and earth was glorified. It read, "What God hath wrought." This paved the way for other line discoveries like the telephone, the wireless, the TV etc. It all proved that Heaven's ears are open to the broken-hearted who, equipped with a faith that matches the value of the genius sought to be gifted, dials the following verse as heaven's telephone number, "Call to me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things which you do not know (Jeremiah 33:3)."

Faith Discovered America : Great wisdom that education knows nothing about are stored up in the scriptures of the Bible. Concealed to the atheistically ambitious, the Creator did not and will not hesitate to reveal the mysteries of the earth to the intrinsically righteous seeker, "But there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets (Dan 2:28)."

The Big Question: Towards the close of the 15th century, Christopher Columbus was a spirit-charged soundly converted young navigator all set for an around-the-world trip by sea. But he wasn't quite sure whether the earth was round or flat. Starting the gripping experimental journey from a place in England, was it possible for him to come back at the same point of departure after a round trip by ship?

The Revelation: So, in sanctified zest coupled with a zeal extra-ordinary, Columbus knocked heaven's door in passionate prayer. God gave his perplexing doubt a history-changing clearance in Isaiah 40:22, "It is He who sits above the circle of the earth." This miraculous guidance was the backing basis Christopher deciphered and translated into oceanic adventurism that finally discovered the blessed America. Written about 681 years before Christ, God had already revealed to the prophet Isaiah then, that the earth was spherical. It took a deeply devoted believer to find out the universal truth 2180 (approx.) years after Isaiah's prophesy.

Job-Cuts And Life-Cuts : At present, the country as well as our state, Manipur, is burdened with the exploits of the educated unemployed. Disappointment looms large in the placement scenario here, and even in a super-rich nation like the U.S. The situation worsened after the multi-national Executive-laden WTC buildings were reduced to rubbles and debris. Job-cuts hurt some more than life-cuts in the terrible strikes by fully-fuelled jet planes.

At times, one can't help wondering whether the hard-earned money shelled out through their noses by high-strung parents in their children's academic pursuits will ever bring remotely proportionate returns. Is there enough job-opportunities for all the wannabe techies undergoing diversified courses in the promissory institutes of this country and beyond? If the supply by far exceeds the demand for degree-holders angling for big-salaried vacancies, who should we blame? Ourselves, of courses.

God Honours Those Who Honour Him : God is not blameworthy. Everything, including the air, the waters, the continents and the cosmos belong to Him. "For Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory for ever (Mathew 6:13)", is the bottom-line of the Lord's prayer. He's under no compulsion to bestow blessings upon any land. He's in full liberty " to honour those who honour Him (1 Sam. 2:30)." Jehovah is the unseen force behind the rise and fall of every regime. "Most high rules in the Kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever He chooses (Dan 4:32)."

Honour Who?: So, if from Him we get with the good tidings, an assortment of curses like floods, droughts, earthquakes, tsunamis, wars and super-cyclones at regular intervals, let's search ourselves. Hardest hit is our economy which isn't likely to recover unless retrenchment is well entrenched in it. Let's ask ourselves. Whether we honour or dishonour Him in our policies, their execution, and formulation of controversial agenda? Or do we defy the Creator and deify the creatures in the curricular syllabi we endorse in the top-level councils for our schools and col¬leges to feed upon?

Human Wisdom: No Patch On God's: Education articulates knowledge and religion provides the edges of the hedge that silently pledges to guard the soul and prevent the abuse of know-how. Imbalanced imposition of the former activates atheism and excessive enthusiasm about the latter fans fanaticism. God approves neither. He has scant regard for the puffed-up psyche that inflates the ego of the proud. Mussolini, in the height of his notoriety, dared challenge the existence of God. The all-hearing Author of lives saw to it that the fascist leader died a dog's death on the streets. Womenfolk spat upon him. "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing understanding of the pru¬dent (1 Cor 1:19)." Nobody, how wise, de¬rides the Almighty and gets away with it.

Super-President?: Bill Clinton got excellent ranking as the president of the globe's only remaining super-power worth its fighter-bombers. The maverick former Prez's statesmanship is talked about in glowing terms. His speeches are given at a hefty price around the globe, even today.. But because he himself violated the 7th Commandment of God, the guilt-ridden Prez removed the 10 Commandments from the wall of the White House, said Dr. Joshua Daniel, an international radio Preacher and Revival¬ist, recently. This could have partly accounted for the unexpected WTC devastation.

The Unexpected: In the Truth-emboldened Preacher's own words, "Who could have conceived of a passenger plane with it's full complement of flight attendants and crew loaded with 60,000 gallons of aviation fuel being turned into a powerful missile which would be expertly diverted into those massive towers, causing their collapse on six thousand men and women who were outstandingly brilliant leaders in various fields of commercial and technological enterprise."

Perfect Education: Perfect education, therefore, is a system of learning in which, other things remaining equal, God is reverenced, pure hearts are produced and eternal values are introduced. Here, we are just pilgrims under-transit awaiting a grim judgement by the son of God. Then, we'll regret being born if we had not been born again in Jesus. "For there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12). "

Mesmerized by the glitz and glitter the corrupt world entices by, the scowling scoffer will not buy that. St. Paul had written about it in the first century itself, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God (1 Cor 1:18)." And that's the ultimate truth we know and need to know on earth so as to be emancipated from death's dust and hell-fire's ashes.

Greatest Discovery : And what's the greatest discovery? Sir James Simpson who made a number of scientific discoveries, including that of the anesthetic property of chloroform, when asked this question, answered in humility, " The greatest discovery ever made was that I am a great sinner but that Jesus Christ was my Saviour."

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Lunminthang Haokip

* Lunminthang Haokip, a resident of Old Lambulane, Imphal is a regular contributor to e-pao.net.
The writer self-describes himself as 'an occasional pen-pusher and a regular reader of E-pao!!!' . He can be contacted at minth8657(at)gmail(dot)com.
This article was webcasted on August 15, 2010.

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