Reading, books, and blah blah ...

***a half baked thought!

The wise are not learned,
the learned are not wise.

Lao Tzu, Father of Taoism

There is an independent book store across from my office building. I often stroll through it to browse at what's new? I am sure that I am not the first one to just stand there for a few seconds and look at the racks and racks of books - pages and pages of strings of words - which sit there staring at you promising to add something new to your knowledge bank. Literature, biographies, history, poetry,new age, religions, astrology, theoretic, criticism and analysis, philosophy, how-to cook and clean or raise a child, etc. The list is endless.

Everyone has a story to tell - everyone can tell a story. Quite a few make that effort to pen it down - whatever they believe is unique due to their circumference of exposure life has provided them but not all get an opportunity to take a shape of a text and end up on those prestigious shelves. Majority don't make it. Those who do, really have something worth hearing/reading/thinking about.

I love to read because it transports me into the world full of possibilities (and sometimes it is a wonderful escape - like the movies). When reading fiction, I go on a ride with some amazing characters - I still remember reading The Fountainhead and feeling the sense of helpless desperation of Howard Roark. These days I have picked up the English version of the Bhagwad Gita and feel like a recharged person.

However, I am also a bit torn between the other side of the coin - best expressed in the words of Nida Fazli,

dhoop mein niklo, ghataaon mein naha kar dekho
(go out and soak in the sunlight, bathe in the clouds - no exact trans for ghata)
zindagi kya hai kitaabon ko hatakar dekho
(to know what is life, move beyond the books)

or like Bagat Kabir said:

Pothi Padh Padh Kar Jag Mua, Pandit Bhayo Na Koye
(Reading books everyone died, none became any wise)
Dhai Aakhar Prem Ke, Jo Padhe so Pandit Hoye
(One who reads the word of Love, only becomes wise)

What exactly are we looking to gain from the all the knowledge?
Ever have a conversation with a child - how do children manage to think outside the box and ask questions which can stupefy the best of the minds?

Does the written word suppress the practical knowledge we are all born with? Have we gotten to comfortable with one book or another telling us how to - with a manual here, an Idiot's guide there! Looking for answers in a Life101 type of books.

Osho narrated a story which I am going to attempt to retell here: A woman bought a complicated jar from the market. When she got home, she pulled out the manual which had come with the jar; the manual gave a step-by-step procedure of how to open the jar. While she was busy reading the manual, her servent walked and asked, "what are you reading?". The woman said, "instructions to open the jar". The servent examined it for a few seconds and opened it for her... Osho said that the fear of doing things out of the "ordinary" had not touched this woman - for her there are more possiblities out there; more than one way of doing things!

Reading is great! But reading for knowledge to win some game show is useless. Mere facts are only helpful for so long ... whats more important is - was the reading able to send you into a contemplative mode? Was the text able to become and extension of you rather and a mere jewel on the shelf? And more importantly, was the text worth becoming that extension of you?

I am glad I am reading, the Bhagwad Gita!