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Saturday, November 20, 2010

Between Ignorance and Illiteracy

THE COST OF IGNORANCE AND ILLITERACY


Mankind’s greatest challenge in all spheres of human endeavour often is with lack of true knowledge and understanding. This lack of understanding can stem from either of two culprits. Ignorance and Illiteracy are the two suspects, and every person should deal with them decisively in order to grow and mature.

Of the two, that is ignorance and illiteracy, ignorance is more abhorable, and usually self-inflicted and a result of inner indolence or complacency. Ignorance, in my view, is the absence of enlightenment, while illiteracy could be the absence of or lack of opportunity to acquire erudition or intellectual learnedness. One can possess erudition (be literate) and yet be a sorely ignorant person; hence the statement that ‘there are so many educated derelicts’.

Education, in the way we have planned it today can produce a lot of ignorant persons, or how else do you explain the situation where most sectors of human activities are occupied (manned) by certificated ‘educated’ men and women, and yet virtually all sectors are collapsing. World economy is in an all time low performance. Social and religious life of mankind have also not fared any better. The crises in Iraq today is chiefly that of religious intolerance from differing sects of the one Islamic faith. Only recently the German political leadership lamented what it called the collapse of multi-cultural or pluralistic society, meaning that mankind could not integrate, one with another, in their differences of religious and social characteristics.

Virtually every much praised scientific discovery or invention, by the educated man, has got equal amount of concern with their harmful side effects. In effect it seems that the gains man has made with his inventive strides are written off or nullified by their harmful impact on the same society and man. The continued depletion of the ozone layer and consequential climatic challenges are chiefly man-made, and a direct result of the so called technological advancements of man.

These then bring up the urgent need for a different kind of ‘education’, the sort I called enlightenment. It comes like a glowing light shined upon basic everyday knowledge. Indeed it is what gives understanding to knowledge. It serves to bring the real man, the inner core of man, the spirit, to an enduring appreciation of life and existence. It helps man to arrive at the point of self conscious existence, and the necessary appreciation of the knowledge of the Natural order in creation, which we generally call the Laws of Creation.

Every human being, and also his structures of existence, such as the state, community, industry, technology, etc, all are dependent on the forces in creation. Whether man is aware of it or not, his actions and inactions are influenced by these Laws of Creation. Man’s true education, that is, enlightenment, is in understanding and living in accordance with these Natural Laws in Creation.

Let me use the ‘Law of Balance’ as an illustrative example. Capitalism and ‘western civilisation’ are collapsing because they operated more in the abuse of the law of balance than in its observance. Right from the time of slave trade, capitalistic ideology has progressed on the basis of ‘accumulating as much gains or profits as possible, without necessarily giving anything or much in return to the source of wealth production’. This practice creates an imbalance which revolts or runs contrary to the ‘Order’ in creation. Creation law demands that giving and receiving must achieve a balance. At any time where one is favoured against the other, the balance tilts, and disharmony, disintegration and eventual collapse, must arise. It was this thinking that wisely advised the accounting ‘credit’ and ‘debit’ system of book keeping. Anytime there is an imbalance, the accounting system will tilt, and raise an alarm. That is what is happening today with all world economies.

Governments have started making profits from the citizens, and the citizens have started taking undue advantage of the common wealth kept in the custody of the government. Each party is not giving back as much as it is taking away from the other. The ground is then set for mutual distrust and conflicts.

Worldly education therefore has to incorporate the knowledge of the understanding of the Laws of Creation, the platform upon which any enduring human society could be built. Knowledge is power, no doubt, but the power in knowledge comes through enlightenment given by the spiritual laws or the laws of creation.

Illiteracy is not necessarily a hindrance to the acquisition of knowledge of the natural laws; hence our ancestors often displayed rich understanding of these spiritual laws even with their crass illiteracy status. However continuing in ignorance in the face of much sources of enlightenment is unacceptable and could lead to dire spiritual consequences; for indeed, ignorance of the law (spiritual) shall not be used as an excuse.

IkeChukwu Unegbe




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