Surpassed Reason is not only left behind, reason is transcended, surpassed. There is a difference, a great difference, a difference that makes the difference. I have heard a story. It happened in the Second World War: In a thick, primitive part of Burma, a small airplane was left by the army. They were in a hurry, they were retreating, and for some mechanical reason they could not manage to take it with them. The primitives found the plane; they could not understand what it was. They figured out that it must be some kind of bullock cart – that was the only possible thing for them to think; the bullock cart was the ultimate vehicle in their vision. So they started using the plane as a bullock cart, and they enjoyed it. It was the best bullock cart they had ever found! Then somebody was passing by – a man who lived a little further away from the primitive tribe but was part of the tribe. He knew, he had come to experience cars, trucks, buses. He said, “This is not a bullock cart, this is a car, and I know something about cars.” So he fixed it, and they were immensely amazed that without horses, without bulls, the machine was working. It was such a toy! Every morning, every evening, they enjoyed just looking at it again and again from all sides, entering it, sitting in it, and because there were not many roads, even to go a few feet was a great excitement. Then one day a pilot passed by the primitive forest and he said, “What are you doing? This is an airplane, it can fly!” He took two primitives with him, and when they left the ground they could not believe it. This was absolutely beyond their imagination, beyond all their dreams. They used to think that only gods could fly; they had heard stories about gods flying in the sky. Yes, they had seen airplanes in the sky, but they had always believed they belonged to the gods. Now, the same mechanism can be used as a bullock cart or as a car, but between the bullock cart and the car the distinction is only of quantity, not quality. The moment the airplane takes off from the ground it changes its plane: it surpasses the bullock cart, the car. It moves in a totally new dimension. So reason is not left behind, reason is simply transcended.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Jun 2013 07:29:19 +0000