By Dr. Dimitri Karalis
A friend of the Greek philosopher Isocrates spotted once a tall young man with large strong arms in a gymnasium of the ancient agora in classical Athens and remarked! “He is an ideal model to become a good boxer with a little training, he said”. “Yes, replied Isocrates, but only if the winning trophy hangs high up and he has only to win it by reaching for it”. We observe in nature that tall trees do not always resist storms more than the smaller shrubs, but sometimes uproot and crumble easier instead. The strongest wood in nature is a little shrub called “crania” which bares delicious read fruit in the mountains of Europe in early winter. It is valuable wood for making shepherds sticks and a reliable defending weapon against any given danger.
In the kingdom of insects, we observe the lice that are the smallest and most disgusting parasite in nature upset whole societies with their microscopic colonial skill. “Weight, said the well-known German physician Louis Kuhn, is not indication of power but rather serious metabolic disease”. A hyper-muscleman may appear stronger than a man of nerve and sinew does, but he cannot do the work or endure the disease as his slimmer brother does. A well-proportioned healthy body is usually elastically supple like weaving reed, and elegant like cypress tree. The impressive power of a boxers and wrestlers is due to the gravity of earth. Outside in space where there is no gravity, mass-weight has no power.
Mass and physical strength does not represent the real inner power. What is power then? Certainly not weight neither lots of food and regular gymnasium. All of them waste energy for transportation, digestion, and exercising when abused excessively. Every gram of food more than the body requires, means waste of energy in expelling it again. If we leave this excess of food and replace it with extra work instead, we will gain both in body‘s strength and business profitability as well.
A physical power is not generated in the stomach with lots of food and drink, but from a long and restful sleep. Tiredness is not an indicator for food, but always for sleep; we renew our energy in the bedroom and not in the dining room. Excess of food usually kills not only many dreary hours, but kills also many dreary people. We observe many enthusiastic athletes who spend lots of time in the gymnasiums to become strong physically, as they say. Of course, they eat a lot if they exercise a lot, but what is the use? When with less food and exercise we become quickly healthy and strong, saving time, money and energy. We know from experience that when the body is overdeveloped the brain usually is underdeveloped.
Corpulent people are often course and make their living by fighting or as bouncers in nightclubs. It has been said, that when the muscles of the ancient Hellenes started to expand, they lost also their admirable culture simultaneously. They violated their well-known proverb “miden agan”= nothing in excess. Perhaps they were misleading themselves by the course and spiritually indifferent Roman conquerors. The ability to do well in our work comes from the heart, lungs, brain and soul. The soul needs no nourishing at all, the brain almost next to nothing and lungs with heart so little, that I do not need to mention here at all. All physical power comes from the breath, mental from the brain and spiritual from the soul.
Man is a gigantic electric dynamo and does not need many coals like a steam engine to produce power; he generates enormous energy with pure food and less of it. We need an alert brain, steady nervous system, elastic body and soul courage to be whole as human beings. None of those qualities must be absent if we wish to succeed in life. No one can think and a waste his energy with heavy meals and hedonistic excessive pleasures at the same time. Saving nerve energy is more vital, than economical thriftiness. The illusive impression that one feels stronger after a meal is the waste of nerve energy to throw off the excess or unnatural food from the body. In other words, it is a reaction of the body against the unwanted intruder. This is the reason that misleads many unfortunate individuals into gluttony, alcoholism, narcotics, insolvency, jail and eventually death.
The orthodox medical profession has a sacred duty to enlighten humanity and to prevent them from early physical and mental degeneration. That prevention is more effective and less costly therapy than the pharmaceutical prescriptions, no one can deny. The healing profession supposed to be educational one, and not exclusively profitable institution that keeps people in ignorance for their personal gain. We need more enthusiastic educating doctors to distribute knowledge to humanity beside with their therapeutic services; and not dispensing of drugs that enriched the pharmaceutical industries and their own coffers.
Dr Dimitri Karalis
South Africa
Friday, January 23, 2009
THINKING AND DESTINY
By Dr Dimitri Karalis
In my early youth, I became aware of the effect of thinking upon human destiny. I was wondering though, why parents, schools and societies were not aware of this vital issue. How is it possible I was asking myself, such a conspicuous effect of the mind upon our life to remain entirely unnoticeable?
Nothing in life arrives by luck or accident without first being planted by our own thoughts and deeds? Wealth, poverty, happiness, unhappiness, success, failure and what else, are all part of our thinking process. We become what our thoughts and deeds are -and harvesting exactly what we have planted there. Good luck, co-incidence and external opportunities for success in life, are only random voices of ignorance and superstition. They resemble the hooting of the owls in the night, which only the daylight will calm and silence.
Little knowledge makes man dogmatic, superstitious and intolerant towards others. It closes his mind from any light, like the sea oysters do. Advance self-awareness though, opens the mind and brings wisdom, calm and tolerance towards all others. It understands the ever-present cosmic law around us, which respects and corporates like an inner sacrament. Deeper self-knowledge clears and brightens the spiritual horizons for soul’s eyes to wonder a little further.
The human destiny as I said before is the result of personal thoughts and deeds. We are the sum of our inner thinking and personal actions. Each human face represents its thoughts and deeds in life. Confusion of character diagnosis is very rare, not even from blind humans. We single out the refine, sincere and disciplined characters, from the unrefined and undisciplined ones, like the partridges from the night bats. We are the architects of our future destiny, so no one is to blame or praise for our present fate but ourselves.
We progress in life with the cosmic accurate law and not by pseudo-technical tricks. “Every physical and mental deed has its rewards and punishments accordingly”, said Oscar Wilde.
Success, fame and prosperity, are the sum of many little good deeds, like the countless little unnoticeable night stars that makes up the luminous Milky Way. Failures to succeed in life are the accumulation of many selfish thoughts and deeds that extinguish any luminous achievement. We are wasting our time and effort in trying to pretend and hide the dirty tricks in life. They ripen slowly by themselves and appear wide open one day with the strong voice of thunder. The whole world has to hear and know what we did in our secret chambers. A few examples here I think are essential.
DESTRUCTIVE THOUGHTS
1. Animalistic thoughts usually crystallize in to sensuality, alcoholism and coarseness, which lead to diseases, insecurity, fear and unhappiness.
2. Dirty selfish thoughts, waste nerve energy and the loss of trust from society.
3. Doubts fear and indecisions crystallize in cowardly and unmanly behaviour, which ends in failure to succeed in life and eventually to slavery one day.
4. Laziness and gluttony, leads to unclean physical habit that ends up in disease and intolerance to wards others.
5. Hate, blame, jealousy, criticism and sycophantic thoughts, lead to hostility, loneliness and to court of justice many times.
6. Egocentric (selfish) thoughts lead to a habit of grabbing and loneliness, which builds the repulsive face like a vampire eventually.
CONSTRUCTIVE THOUGHTS
1. Pure thoughts lead to temperance and self-control that ends up with mental and spiritual tranquillity.
2. Courageous, confidant and decisive thoughts, lead to initiative, leadership, trust and economical independence.
3. Physical and mental activity leads to physical and mental health with creativeness and economical prosperity as compensation from it.
4. Calmness, un-peevishness and forgiveness bring refinement of character and love and protection from the public.
5. Loving and compassionate thoughts, lead to family and social harmony, which ends in enviable happiness and prosperity.
6. Openness, progressive thoughts and tolerance for others, leads to intellectual and spiritual blooms that the world loves and admires everlastingly.
The cosmic wheel turns and writes uninterrupted and without a single omission. All our deeds and thoughts have been stored in its mental soil that we will harvest definitely some day. They are written with flaming words upon the door of eternity. Nobody can deny them; non-can remove and nobody can escape. He, who put his hands in the flaming fire, will pay always with burning skin. The same exactly happens with our thoughts and deeds. Hate, jealousy, envy, revenge, fear, sycophancy, and all other selfish deeds, are fires that BURN.
I hope some day; parents, schools and societies, will become aware about this vital truth and teach their offspring as soon as possible. Sooner than the alphabet, I would rather say. Only then and not sooner will we feel safer as a community, with less need for police protection, costly armies, courts of justice, prisons of embarrassment and the poverty at our doorstep; Poverty that tortures and agonises three fifths of our planet for centuries now.
Johannesburg
In my early youth, I became aware of the effect of thinking upon human destiny. I was wondering though, why parents, schools and societies were not aware of this vital issue. How is it possible I was asking myself, such a conspicuous effect of the mind upon our life to remain entirely unnoticeable?
Nothing in life arrives by luck or accident without first being planted by our own thoughts and deeds? Wealth, poverty, happiness, unhappiness, success, failure and what else, are all part of our thinking process. We become what our thoughts and deeds are -and harvesting exactly what we have planted there. Good luck, co-incidence and external opportunities for success in life, are only random voices of ignorance and superstition. They resemble the hooting of the owls in the night, which only the daylight will calm and silence.
Little knowledge makes man dogmatic, superstitious and intolerant towards others. It closes his mind from any light, like the sea oysters do. Advance self-awareness though, opens the mind and brings wisdom, calm and tolerance towards all others. It understands the ever-present cosmic law around us, which respects and corporates like an inner sacrament. Deeper self-knowledge clears and brightens the spiritual horizons for soul’s eyes to wonder a little further.
The human destiny as I said before is the result of personal thoughts and deeds. We are the sum of our inner thinking and personal actions. Each human face represents its thoughts and deeds in life. Confusion of character diagnosis is very rare, not even from blind humans. We single out the refine, sincere and disciplined characters, from the unrefined and undisciplined ones, like the partridges from the night bats. We are the architects of our future destiny, so no one is to blame or praise for our present fate but ourselves.
We progress in life with the cosmic accurate law and not by pseudo-technical tricks. “Every physical and mental deed has its rewards and punishments accordingly”, said Oscar Wilde.
Success, fame and prosperity, are the sum of many little good deeds, like the countless little unnoticeable night stars that makes up the luminous Milky Way. Failures to succeed in life are the accumulation of many selfish thoughts and deeds that extinguish any luminous achievement. We are wasting our time and effort in trying to pretend and hide the dirty tricks in life. They ripen slowly by themselves and appear wide open one day with the strong voice of thunder. The whole world has to hear and know what we did in our secret chambers. A few examples here I think are essential.
DESTRUCTIVE THOUGHTS
1. Animalistic thoughts usually crystallize in to sensuality, alcoholism and coarseness, which lead to diseases, insecurity, fear and unhappiness.
2. Dirty selfish thoughts, waste nerve energy and the loss of trust from society.
3. Doubts fear and indecisions crystallize in cowardly and unmanly behaviour, which ends in failure to succeed in life and eventually to slavery one day.
4. Laziness and gluttony, leads to unclean physical habit that ends up in disease and intolerance to wards others.
5. Hate, blame, jealousy, criticism and sycophantic thoughts, lead to hostility, loneliness and to court of justice many times.
6. Egocentric (selfish) thoughts lead to a habit of grabbing and loneliness, which builds the repulsive face like a vampire eventually.
CONSTRUCTIVE THOUGHTS
1. Pure thoughts lead to temperance and self-control that ends up with mental and spiritual tranquillity.
2. Courageous, confidant and decisive thoughts, lead to initiative, leadership, trust and economical independence.
3. Physical and mental activity leads to physical and mental health with creativeness and economical prosperity as compensation from it.
4. Calmness, un-peevishness and forgiveness bring refinement of character and love and protection from the public.
5. Loving and compassionate thoughts, lead to family and social harmony, which ends in enviable happiness and prosperity.
6. Openness, progressive thoughts and tolerance for others, leads to intellectual and spiritual blooms that the world loves and admires everlastingly.
The cosmic wheel turns and writes uninterrupted and without a single omission. All our deeds and thoughts have been stored in its mental soil that we will harvest definitely some day. They are written with flaming words upon the door of eternity. Nobody can deny them; non-can remove and nobody can escape. He, who put his hands in the flaming fire, will pay always with burning skin. The same exactly happens with our thoughts and deeds. Hate, jealousy, envy, revenge, fear, sycophancy, and all other selfish deeds, are fires that BURN.
I hope some day; parents, schools and societies, will become aware about this vital truth and teach their offspring as soon as possible. Sooner than the alphabet, I would rather say. Only then and not sooner will we feel safer as a community, with less need for police protection, costly armies, courts of justice, prisons of embarrassment and the poverty at our doorstep; Poverty that tortures and agonises three fifths of our planet for centuries now.
Johannesburg
THE MEANING OF MYTHS
By Dr. Dimitri Karalis
Myths or mythos for the ancient people was an allegoric vehicle to awaken the soul from its forgetful past for those who were spiritual and sensitive enough to recognise the veiled truth behind it. The Greek word μύθος= myth, derives from the sound ‘mou’=murmur, which we produce when our lips are closed and the word Μυστήριο= mystery= inexplicable, adjoins with it. Together they form a secret communicating organ for every soul who is ready to recollect the forgotten experience from their previous incarnations.
Every mystical truth when presented by a normal open concrete language, usually is misconceived and rejected by the undeveloped intellectually insensitive individuals. For this reason philosophers, mystics, poets and even prose writers of all times used myths, allegorises and parables to veil the truth from the unready ones and to unveil for those who were ready to understand.
The soul of man possesses the capabilities to recognise and respond to truth that the myth carries, even before the mind grasped and analyse it. Most of us have been touched with this type of phenomena in the past and especially in our youth, before our minds and souls have been wounded and cobbled by dogmatism and wrong education. Soul responds sensitively to truth and its poetical beauty that encompasses the myth –and which has been lost through countless incarnations. Here, we see clearly the Socratic theory that our soul pre-existed and that all knowledge is nothing more than αναθύμισης= anathimisis= recollections from the past.
The inclination for a certain talent and the easier understanding of some life issues, are nothing more than recollection, says the English Platonist Thomas Taylor. The aim of a myth is not to entertain the senses and the mind by telling interesting stories, but to awaken the soul from its lethargic past. The Greek word αλήθεια =alitheia= truth, is derived from the word λήθη= lithe= forget -and the letter a’ in the front which means to throw away the forgetful-ness. In other words, the meaning of this word it speaks clearly, that truth searching is nothing more then throwing away the forgetfulness of the past or ανάμνησης= anamnesis= remembrance, as Plato used to call.
Every free and undamaged soul wakes up joyfully like a child by listening to the poetic beauty and the truth that myth unveils.
It feels exited, like re-meeting old friends and known events from its forgotten past. This is the grace and the glory that the myth brings- and of which the ancient Hellenes have so generously endowed us with.
The exegesis (explanation) of myth is a valuable exercise for the wandering soul. Although initially it appears as a fable, nevertheless when analysed, creates enthusiasm and reveals the depth and glory that contains.
Plato was one of the greatest skilful masters of myth producers with his brilliant written dialogues. He often used myths, imaginations and metaphors to pass the knowledge and the deep mystery, which our life hides. He proceeded bit by bit in lengthy dialectic conversations, manufacturing with scrupulous care the foundations of truth, leaving no ignorance and microbes behind, neither allowing lies nor doubts to creep between his celestial edifices. Suddenly without notice or argument, he calmly finishes his intellectual masterpiece to glisten everlastingly in the minds and souls of humanity.
When Socrates was conversing with his friends about soul and knowledge, he introduced myths and metaphors experimentally and almost hesitatingly at first, as if he was entering a holy ground. As he new well the misunderstanding of the myth initially by those unfamiliar and has taken the necessary steps to make it easier conceivable. Great care is needed to interpret a myth and especially Plato’s. When he speaks of a human soul turning to an animal, he doesn’t mean that man becomes a beast, but he wants to say that when man cares only for his sensual pleasures (hedonism), he descends voluntary to an animal level, without intellectual and spiritual thoughts as higher human being.
Soul is an abstract word without material substance. No language ever yet managed to outline its subtle nature. For this reason Plato often used symbols, myths and fantasies to lead the human intellect higher and closer to their soul. The myths in his dialogues of Gorgias, Phaedra, Pheudo, Republic and Symposium, are the most valuable treasures that he left us behind to read.
Homer with his story of Achilles heel did not mean surely that the only vulnerable spot of Achilles, was his heel, but he was allegorising that for every bad act that we do, we will not escape our punishment no matter where we will hide our self’s, it will find us like in the secret venerable heel of king Achilles.
The well-known myth of Odysseus, who was wandering in the stormy sea for ten years before reaching his Ithaca home, meant that every soul goes through testing hurdles and sufferings before it reached intellectual awakening, of spiritual destination.
The ancient sphinx that gave a riddle to passing pedestrians with a risk of losing their life if not answering correctly had metaphoric meaning. It was saying that our life has new riddles daily to be solved, and if we don’t answer them correctly, our future life will not be safe.
Resuming for a moment the enormous and admirable Hellenic mythological inheritance, I ask myself with a heart yearning: Why we are not taught this valuable truth and analyse them from our young age? Why such enormous valuable treasures remain untaught and hidden away from our schools and societies today? Although we see clearly the advanced of their culture, we remain indifferent and apathetic to learn or study them theoretically.
What would we loose by being taught the meanings of these mythological treasures from the past? Would it not be useful to know little more about the meaning of our present earthy existence, - rather to accept blind beliefs without any knowledge of our life purpose what so ever?
Johannesburg
Copyright © 2003 Dr.D.Karalis. All Rights Reserved.
Myths or mythos for the ancient people was an allegoric vehicle to awaken the soul from its forgetful past for those who were spiritual and sensitive enough to recognise the veiled truth behind it. The Greek word μύθος= myth, derives from the sound ‘mou’=murmur, which we produce when our lips are closed and the word Μυστήριο= mystery= inexplicable, adjoins with it. Together they form a secret communicating organ for every soul who is ready to recollect the forgotten experience from their previous incarnations.
Every mystical truth when presented by a normal open concrete language, usually is misconceived and rejected by the undeveloped intellectually insensitive individuals. For this reason philosophers, mystics, poets and even prose writers of all times used myths, allegorises and parables to veil the truth from the unready ones and to unveil for those who were ready to understand.
The soul of man possesses the capabilities to recognise and respond to truth that the myth carries, even before the mind grasped and analyse it. Most of us have been touched with this type of phenomena in the past and especially in our youth, before our minds and souls have been wounded and cobbled by dogmatism and wrong education. Soul responds sensitively to truth and its poetical beauty that encompasses the myth –and which has been lost through countless incarnations. Here, we see clearly the Socratic theory that our soul pre-existed and that all knowledge is nothing more than αναθύμισης= anathimisis= recollections from the past.
The inclination for a certain talent and the easier understanding of some life issues, are nothing more than recollection, says the English Platonist Thomas Taylor. The aim of a myth is not to entertain the senses and the mind by telling interesting stories, but to awaken the soul from its lethargic past. The Greek word αλήθεια =alitheia= truth, is derived from the word λήθη= lithe= forget -and the letter a’ in the front which means to throw away the forgetful-ness. In other words, the meaning of this word it speaks clearly, that truth searching is nothing more then throwing away the forgetfulness of the past or ανάμνησης= anamnesis= remembrance, as Plato used to call.
Every free and undamaged soul wakes up joyfully like a child by listening to the poetic beauty and the truth that myth unveils.
It feels exited, like re-meeting old friends and known events from its forgotten past. This is the grace and the glory that the myth brings- and of which the ancient Hellenes have so generously endowed us with.
The exegesis (explanation) of myth is a valuable exercise for the wandering soul. Although initially it appears as a fable, nevertheless when analysed, creates enthusiasm and reveals the depth and glory that contains.
Plato was one of the greatest skilful masters of myth producers with his brilliant written dialogues. He often used myths, imaginations and metaphors to pass the knowledge and the deep mystery, which our life hides. He proceeded bit by bit in lengthy dialectic conversations, manufacturing with scrupulous care the foundations of truth, leaving no ignorance and microbes behind, neither allowing lies nor doubts to creep between his celestial edifices. Suddenly without notice or argument, he calmly finishes his intellectual masterpiece to glisten everlastingly in the minds and souls of humanity.
When Socrates was conversing with his friends about soul and knowledge, he introduced myths and metaphors experimentally and almost hesitatingly at first, as if he was entering a holy ground. As he new well the misunderstanding of the myth initially by those unfamiliar and has taken the necessary steps to make it easier conceivable. Great care is needed to interpret a myth and especially Plato’s. When he speaks of a human soul turning to an animal, he doesn’t mean that man becomes a beast, but he wants to say that when man cares only for his sensual pleasures (hedonism), he descends voluntary to an animal level, without intellectual and spiritual thoughts as higher human being.
Soul is an abstract word without material substance. No language ever yet managed to outline its subtle nature. For this reason Plato often used symbols, myths and fantasies to lead the human intellect higher and closer to their soul. The myths in his dialogues of Gorgias, Phaedra, Pheudo, Republic and Symposium, are the most valuable treasures that he left us behind to read.
Homer with his story of Achilles heel did not mean surely that the only vulnerable spot of Achilles, was his heel, but he was allegorising that for every bad act that we do, we will not escape our punishment no matter where we will hide our self’s, it will find us like in the secret venerable heel of king Achilles.
The well-known myth of Odysseus, who was wandering in the stormy sea for ten years before reaching his Ithaca home, meant that every soul goes through testing hurdles and sufferings before it reached intellectual awakening, of spiritual destination.
The ancient sphinx that gave a riddle to passing pedestrians with a risk of losing their life if not answering correctly had metaphoric meaning. It was saying that our life has new riddles daily to be solved, and if we don’t answer them correctly, our future life will not be safe.
Resuming for a moment the enormous and admirable Hellenic mythological inheritance, I ask myself with a heart yearning: Why we are not taught this valuable truth and analyse them from our young age? Why such enormous valuable treasures remain untaught and hidden away from our schools and societies today? Although we see clearly the advanced of their culture, we remain indifferent and apathetic to learn or study them theoretically.
What would we loose by being taught the meanings of these mythological treasures from the past? Would it not be useful to know little more about the meaning of our present earthy existence, - rather to accept blind beliefs without any knowledge of our life purpose what so ever?
Johannesburg
Copyright © 2003 Dr.D.Karalis. All Rights Reserved.
HOW TO BENEFIT FROM ENEMY
By Dr Dimitri Karalis
The most frightening enemy of the primitive man were the wild beasts around him, until he learned to tame some of them and others to be train as useful tools for his daily tasks. He ploughs the soil with them, transport, assisting in war, hunting and become his best friends to protect him from any danger. He adopted their milk and flesh for food, skin, and hair for cloths and shoes, the bones for needles and musical instruments and the rennet with the bile to manufacture cheese and for medication. Nothing left out to be wasted, even the excrement used for agricultural fertilizer and kindling the fire. The same he did also with the vegetable kingdom. Poison trees and vegetables used for furniture and medication. The Stinkwood used for luxury furniture, the poison belladonna as nostrums, and the toxic herbs for tea refreshment and mental boosters.
The sea is salty, undrinkable, and dangerous to live on, yet men learned to play with the waves, mining precious diamonds, gold, pearls, sponges and catch tasty fishes for his food. He drilled at enormous sea depth to extract petrol, gases, and other valuable minerals. He learns to sail the oceans to any part of the world, with large luxurious boats more romantic than any land transport. Nothing left unexploited no-matter how difficult or dangerous was. Like certain wild beast with their strong digestion who eat poison snakes and Scorpios without any risk to their health? When the Greek philosopher Chilon listened once to a man saying that he avoided all enemies as useless and dangerous, he replied. “If you act like this, you won’t be able to exploit the hidden treasures that hide often in difficult man, neither to grow strong and respectable human.”
The man who is able to extract skillfully and peacefully the most benefit from his enemy, is at the same time the most suitable leader to govern the world. “One receives often profit from an honest enemy than from a flatter friend. The enemy looks for faults to justify his anger, while a friend ignores them because of courtesy”. Since the prime object in life is “to know our selves”, we do not mind if an enemy unwillingly helps us to correct our faults and arrive at self-realization. The fire burns and kills, but at the same time gives light, heat, and assist in cooking and for all the arts if we learn to use them skillfully. The same applies also with an enemy, in spite of his angry behavior; we must try to look deeper if there is a possibility to convert his rage and to benefit, instead of reprisals, hate and revenge like the animals in jungle.
Thyme is a juiceless, bitter, and astringent herb, but the bee’s with skill extracts the tastiest honey from it, and sheep produce the best milk when they eat it. When one despises the unpleasant and difficult things, one loses also an opportunity to discover the hidden treasures. Like the unpolished diamonds on our open path, we walker over them some times without realizing their hidden treasure. Coco and macadamias nuts are very difficult to crack their shells, but when we manage to open them, the delicious meat inside was worthy of our effort. To listen and respect the words and opinions of others is an indication of prudence and respectful human being. We gain dignity when we remain calm, and attentive to opinions of others. They are some individuals who like to be noisy when their idle talk, like the bubbles in waterfall, that soon break and leave just wind behind.
Many times, we regret that we spoke prematurely or foolishly, but never when we remained silent. Once at an Athenian symposium, Socrates spotted a young man that remained silent all night, at the end approached him and whispered into his ear. “Young man, he said, if it happens that you are a fool, it was a good choice to remain silent to night, but if you are wise, you are a fool to stay so mute”. Personally, when it happens to be in uncongenial environment, I remain silent like a grave tomb; sporadically I throw a word here and there to warm a bit the frigid atmosphere. The worst behavior is when one over talks and is trying to undermine the mentality and dignity of others. “What I gain to try to convince an angry man, said the cynic philosopher Diogenes, when I know when that neither knows what he is talking about neither what he is doing”.
Annoyed, by the naked truth of the writer Andreas Lascarattos, who published his views in a weekly newspaper on the Greek, island Kefallinia; the local authorities sent him a parcel with beastly waste as a blasphemous revenge. Unaffected from hurt or anger Lascarattos, gathered some roses from his garden and sent them back as gratitude. He also placed a card on the rose-bouquet with the following, “every body sends what he has”. Restrain, respect, and love are precious natural gifts that adorn the human personality with grace, and exemplifying for others to follow alike. The difference between developed and undeveloped human being, is how far behind they have left the animalistic primitive behavior and replaced it with restrain, respect, modesty, knowledge, wisdom and love. All these admirable human qualities the ancient Hellenes with their profound language technique, wrapped them together in a single exquisite tetra-syllable word, which they named “SOPHROSYNI” (PRUDENCE).
Cape Town
South Africa
The most frightening enemy of the primitive man were the wild beasts around him, until he learned to tame some of them and others to be train as useful tools for his daily tasks. He ploughs the soil with them, transport, assisting in war, hunting and become his best friends to protect him from any danger. He adopted their milk and flesh for food, skin, and hair for cloths and shoes, the bones for needles and musical instruments and the rennet with the bile to manufacture cheese and for medication. Nothing left out to be wasted, even the excrement used for agricultural fertilizer and kindling the fire. The same he did also with the vegetable kingdom. Poison trees and vegetables used for furniture and medication. The Stinkwood used for luxury furniture, the poison belladonna as nostrums, and the toxic herbs for tea refreshment and mental boosters.
The sea is salty, undrinkable, and dangerous to live on, yet men learned to play with the waves, mining precious diamonds, gold, pearls, sponges and catch tasty fishes for his food. He drilled at enormous sea depth to extract petrol, gases, and other valuable minerals. He learns to sail the oceans to any part of the world, with large luxurious boats more romantic than any land transport. Nothing left unexploited no-matter how difficult or dangerous was. Like certain wild beast with their strong digestion who eat poison snakes and Scorpios without any risk to their health? When the Greek philosopher Chilon listened once to a man saying that he avoided all enemies as useless and dangerous, he replied. “If you act like this, you won’t be able to exploit the hidden treasures that hide often in difficult man, neither to grow strong and respectable human.”
The man who is able to extract skillfully and peacefully the most benefit from his enemy, is at the same time the most suitable leader to govern the world. “One receives often profit from an honest enemy than from a flatter friend. The enemy looks for faults to justify his anger, while a friend ignores them because of courtesy”. Since the prime object in life is “to know our selves”, we do not mind if an enemy unwillingly helps us to correct our faults and arrive at self-realization. The fire burns and kills, but at the same time gives light, heat, and assist in cooking and for all the arts if we learn to use them skillfully. The same applies also with an enemy, in spite of his angry behavior; we must try to look deeper if there is a possibility to convert his rage and to benefit, instead of reprisals, hate and revenge like the animals in jungle.
Thyme is a juiceless, bitter, and astringent herb, but the bee’s with skill extracts the tastiest honey from it, and sheep produce the best milk when they eat it. When one despises the unpleasant and difficult things, one loses also an opportunity to discover the hidden treasures. Like the unpolished diamonds on our open path, we walker over them some times without realizing their hidden treasure. Coco and macadamias nuts are very difficult to crack their shells, but when we manage to open them, the delicious meat inside was worthy of our effort. To listen and respect the words and opinions of others is an indication of prudence and respectful human being. We gain dignity when we remain calm, and attentive to opinions of others. They are some individuals who like to be noisy when their idle talk, like the bubbles in waterfall, that soon break and leave just wind behind.
Many times, we regret that we spoke prematurely or foolishly, but never when we remained silent. Once at an Athenian symposium, Socrates spotted a young man that remained silent all night, at the end approached him and whispered into his ear. “Young man, he said, if it happens that you are a fool, it was a good choice to remain silent to night, but if you are wise, you are a fool to stay so mute”. Personally, when it happens to be in uncongenial environment, I remain silent like a grave tomb; sporadically I throw a word here and there to warm a bit the frigid atmosphere. The worst behavior is when one over talks and is trying to undermine the mentality and dignity of others. “What I gain to try to convince an angry man, said the cynic philosopher Diogenes, when I know when that neither knows what he is talking about neither what he is doing”.
Annoyed, by the naked truth of the writer Andreas Lascarattos, who published his views in a weekly newspaper on the Greek, island Kefallinia; the local authorities sent him a parcel with beastly waste as a blasphemous revenge. Unaffected from hurt or anger Lascarattos, gathered some roses from his garden and sent them back as gratitude. He also placed a card on the rose-bouquet with the following, “every body sends what he has”. Restrain, respect, and love are precious natural gifts that adorn the human personality with grace, and exemplifying for others to follow alike. The difference between developed and undeveloped human being, is how far behind they have left the animalistic primitive behavior and replaced it with restrain, respect, modesty, knowledge, wisdom and love. All these admirable human qualities the ancient Hellenes with their profound language technique, wrapped them together in a single exquisite tetra-syllable word, which they named “SOPHROSYNI” (PRUDENCE).
Cape Town
South Africa
REFLECTED MOMENTS
By Dr Dimitri Karalis
‘How delightful it will be to converse intimately with someone of the same mind, sharing together the pleasure of uninhibited conversation on the amusing and boring things of this world; but such a friend is hard to find. If we must take care that, our opinions do not differ in the least from those we are conversing with, we might just as well be alone”. It will be more pleasant sit alone in a reclining chair and with a book in our hands to read the thoughts of a distant friend silently without arguments and quarrels. Great thinkers love to be alone; they are willing to give their hands into society but they prefer to keep their thoughts private’.
To listen often into senseless arguments and unripe views of the intolerant crowd, are not only unpleasant and unbeneficial, but intellectually harmful too. Men differ from other men insofar as they keep, or not keep their eyes on the goal for truth; or as they set, or not set, their hearts on reaching it. Most toddlers on their way amuse themselves with hedonistic pleasures that soon turn to pain. The spiritual mountaineer should be free and caring a light load as possible, if he wants to reach the summit faster without obstacles.
There was a Chinese mystic once named Hsu Yu, who lived alone on the mountain without owning anything, not even a pair of sandals. A passing hunter saw him one-day drinking water from the hillside creek, scooping it with his two bare hands. He felt a compassion for the ascetic loner and gave him his calabash to drink the water little easier. Hsu Yu accepted with gratitude the gift and hung it on the branch of an oak tree, but the strong mountain air was rattling the calabash with a disturbing sound. What a noisy thing is this calabash! Said Hsu Yu, and he threw it away into the river. Ah! How clean and pure it was his heart with such material detachment! Even the cynic philosopher Diogenes, will envy him from his barrel dwelling castle.
‘We are all vessels for truth; but we cannot contain any more of it, than we make room for in our souls. We cannot fill a jar with wine that we have filled already with vinegar. Likewise, the heart stocked with earthly passions, unless emptied first cannot stock itself with heavenly desires. In other words, we reflect the truth clearly or tarnished accordingly, as the mirror of our soul is clear or tarnished.’
The American philosopher R. M. Emerson mentioned that he knew once two men in the United States Senate, who were both men of distinction and took an active part in politics. They had also a keen interest in intellectual and other spiritual issues (rare phenomenon of course). They spent lot of time together conversing about philosophy and the destiny of their souls after death. One of them took retirement earlier and left the senate for his faraway hometown. As the distance was long that separated them, they never saw each other for 15 years until one evening in a crowded reception at the president’s house in Washington.
At last, they met again and shook hands long and cordially. Any light Albert?’’ none said Albert. Any light Lewis, ‘None replied he. They looked in each other’s eyes sad and silently, gave one more handshake and parted for the last time. Now, said Emerson, although they were men of a good minds, they were also both strong materialist in their daily aims and way of life. I would like to add said he that the practical faculties develop much faster than the spiritual ones. That is the reason that most people prefer the materialistic road and ignoring the true meaning of life, which is the intellectual and spiritual development. Unfortunately, we cannot shake hands with God and devil at the same time, as we have to choose one or the other.
The father of the Greek writer Kazantzakis complained to his wife one day, that their beloved son was a stargazer and dreamer. Instead of opening, a law firm after his law school gradation and become politician later, he dreams about stars and galaxies, he said; Father! Replayed Nikos, I did not come into this world in order to become court dweller and a vain politician. I do not like to liven like a birdcage that you call office; but I want to know where I belong into universe and what the destiny is of my soul from here afterwards.
Meditating upon Nikos Kazantzakis wise words, I resurface this inspiring incantation of the great Persia poet ‘Jalalu’ddin Rumi’.
“Every shape and word you see and hear around has its archetype in the placeless world; if they perish some day, what does matter since the original is still everlasting? Whereas the springhead is undying, its roots and branch gives food and water to the trunk and branches continually;
Since neither can ever cease to exist, why are you lamenting? Conceive the cosmic Soul as a water fountain and all creation as its rivers. While the main fountain flows, the rivers will never parish.
Put grief out of your head and keep quaffing this crystal river water before you brother. Do not think of the water is failing, for this water it will be run without end.
From the moment you came into this world of human being, a ladder was placed before you that you might escape and climb little higher.
First, you were mineral and after plant and then later animating substance, how this can be enigma and secret to you!
Afterwards you become a man with intellect, reason, knowledge, and spiritual perception. Behold the body, which is a portion of the dust pit, look how perfect it has grown today! When you have travelled the end of the human form, you will doubtless become an angel. Again, you will be progress from angelhood into boundless cosmic sea, which we name God.
Leave this ‘Son’; say ever, ‘One’, with all your soul, if your body has been aged, what does it matter, when your soul is forever young?
Johannesburg 2004
‘How delightful it will be to converse intimately with someone of the same mind, sharing together the pleasure of uninhibited conversation on the amusing and boring things of this world; but such a friend is hard to find. If we must take care that, our opinions do not differ in the least from those we are conversing with, we might just as well be alone”. It will be more pleasant sit alone in a reclining chair and with a book in our hands to read the thoughts of a distant friend silently without arguments and quarrels. Great thinkers love to be alone; they are willing to give their hands into society but they prefer to keep their thoughts private’.
To listen often into senseless arguments and unripe views of the intolerant crowd, are not only unpleasant and unbeneficial, but intellectually harmful too. Men differ from other men insofar as they keep, or not keep their eyes on the goal for truth; or as they set, or not set, their hearts on reaching it. Most toddlers on their way amuse themselves with hedonistic pleasures that soon turn to pain. The spiritual mountaineer should be free and caring a light load as possible, if he wants to reach the summit faster without obstacles.
There was a Chinese mystic once named Hsu Yu, who lived alone on the mountain without owning anything, not even a pair of sandals. A passing hunter saw him one-day drinking water from the hillside creek, scooping it with his two bare hands. He felt a compassion for the ascetic loner and gave him his calabash to drink the water little easier. Hsu Yu accepted with gratitude the gift and hung it on the branch of an oak tree, but the strong mountain air was rattling the calabash with a disturbing sound. What a noisy thing is this calabash! Said Hsu Yu, and he threw it away into the river. Ah! How clean and pure it was his heart with such material detachment! Even the cynic philosopher Diogenes, will envy him from his barrel dwelling castle.
‘We are all vessels for truth; but we cannot contain any more of it, than we make room for in our souls. We cannot fill a jar with wine that we have filled already with vinegar. Likewise, the heart stocked with earthly passions, unless emptied first cannot stock itself with heavenly desires. In other words, we reflect the truth clearly or tarnished accordingly, as the mirror of our soul is clear or tarnished.’
The American philosopher R. M. Emerson mentioned that he knew once two men in the United States Senate, who were both men of distinction and took an active part in politics. They had also a keen interest in intellectual and other spiritual issues (rare phenomenon of course). They spent lot of time together conversing about philosophy and the destiny of their souls after death. One of them took retirement earlier and left the senate for his faraway hometown. As the distance was long that separated them, they never saw each other for 15 years until one evening in a crowded reception at the president’s house in Washington.
At last, they met again and shook hands long and cordially. Any light Albert?’’ none said Albert. Any light Lewis, ‘None replied he. They looked in each other’s eyes sad and silently, gave one more handshake and parted for the last time. Now, said Emerson, although they were men of a good minds, they were also both strong materialist in their daily aims and way of life. I would like to add said he that the practical faculties develop much faster than the spiritual ones. That is the reason that most people prefer the materialistic road and ignoring the true meaning of life, which is the intellectual and spiritual development. Unfortunately, we cannot shake hands with God and devil at the same time, as we have to choose one or the other.
The father of the Greek writer Kazantzakis complained to his wife one day, that their beloved son was a stargazer and dreamer. Instead of opening, a law firm after his law school gradation and become politician later, he dreams about stars and galaxies, he said; Father! Replayed Nikos, I did not come into this world in order to become court dweller and a vain politician. I do not like to liven like a birdcage that you call office; but I want to know where I belong into universe and what the destiny is of my soul from here afterwards.
Meditating upon Nikos Kazantzakis wise words, I resurface this inspiring incantation of the great Persia poet ‘Jalalu’ddin Rumi’.
“Every shape and word you see and hear around has its archetype in the placeless world; if they perish some day, what does matter since the original is still everlasting? Whereas the springhead is undying, its roots and branch gives food and water to the trunk and branches continually;
Since neither can ever cease to exist, why are you lamenting? Conceive the cosmic Soul as a water fountain and all creation as its rivers. While the main fountain flows, the rivers will never parish.
Put grief out of your head and keep quaffing this crystal river water before you brother. Do not think of the water is failing, for this water it will be run without end.
From the moment you came into this world of human being, a ladder was placed before you that you might escape and climb little higher.
First, you were mineral and after plant and then later animating substance, how this can be enigma and secret to you!
Afterwards you become a man with intellect, reason, knowledge, and spiritual perception. Behold the body, which is a portion of the dust pit, look how perfect it has grown today! When you have travelled the end of the human form, you will doubtless become an angel. Again, you will be progress from angelhood into boundless cosmic sea, which we name God.
Leave this ‘Son’; say ever, ‘One’, with all your soul, if your body has been aged, what does it matter, when your soul is forever young?
Johannesburg 2004
PLATO PLATO AND CIVILIZATION
PLATO
Dr Dimitri Karalis
If ever God descended on earth to talk to human beings, surely he will speak like Plato. No other language will suit Him so well, in order to touch the mind, heart and soul of human beings. By reading his dialogues, one rather feels that God incarnated as Plato, in order to distribute knowledge, wisdom and love to humanity. His thoughts are so profound and perfectly chiselled, that no one as yet, managed to add even one iota onto his celestial writings.
Hoping not to exaggerate, I want to voice, like the fanatical Islamite Omar for his Koran, “Burn the voluminous libraries, they are unnecessary, since their true values are all in Plato’s writings”. Whatever one wants to know, he will find it always in his books. Philosophy, physics, metaphysics, immortality, sociology, cosmogony, language, politics, mathematics, justice, pedagogy, literature, astronomy, rhetoric, civil constitution, hygiene, athletics, pure love and whatever else. Plato's book “The Republic” will suffice to educate the world”, said Emerson, no other schooling is necessary.
Without Plato’s thoughts, we would surely all look like the young infants, who scream and kick their little legs, until they learn to speak the mother’s tongue, and say what they want in order to calm themselves.
Plato means philosophy and philosophy means Plato. He is the father and teacher of man’s reason, and without him, societies of today would not be far better than the lower animal kingdom. He established the first organised school on earth, and until today, 25 centuries later, school bells ring in every city and village around the globe.
He consumed, like a silkworm, the undefined and unripe thoughts of ancient Greece, Egypt, Babylonia and Asia, in order to synthesise and deliver them in a more defined and perfect way to Hellenes, and other European nations. Barbarians and savages of the world became calmer psychosomatically by suckling Plato’s mental ambrosia for 2500 years. Philosophers, mystics, poets, prose writers, language teachers, rhetoric’s, astronomers, cosmogonist, pedagogues and dogmatic worshipers, all ran and will still run forever into the mystery, that is named Plato. Many borrowed his intellectual ladder to climb a little higher, in order to gaze at their soul’s loftiest wonder.
Christians have Platonise in their creed; Hebrews have crypto-imitate him, and Muslims copied Plato’s morals, almost identically in their little book on ethics “Ahlak-y-jalaly” Poets and profound sheers like: Amonios, Plotinus, Plutarch, Milton, Dante, Shakespeare, Thomas Taylor, Voltaire, Hugo, Bacon, John Smith, Ralph Cudworth, Carlyle, Emerson, and a thousand others, where all Platonic offspring. Although Aristotle tried to oppose Plato’s thoughts for a while initially, he failed to do so. He too, Platonise in every feather -writing word until the last day of his life.
It is impossible for one to think any further without Plato’s help. He is like a large hairy-handed father, who holds his child tenderly by his hairless hand, to lead him to his first day of primary school.
He was born around 427 B.C, near Pericles, where one of the worlds most known ancient political leaders died. He lived in the glory days of tragedian play-writers - Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, and witnessed the catastrophic side effects of the Peloponnesian war. In spite of his rich and aristocratic upbringing, he refused to follow a materialistic road of plenty and egocentric vanity. He chose instead, the path of temperance and moderate poverty, in order to harvest later, his brilliant intellectual and spiritual glory.
At the tender age of 20, he met the mighty Socrates whom he followed until his death. After the inhuman execution of his beloved teacher, he devoted the rest of his life to talk only about him.
He travelled extensively to the “magna Grecia” of Sicily and visited Egypt and Babylonia, they say that he went even further. Returning to Athens, he opened the first university in the world in 368 B.C, which he named “Academia” after the well know Greek athlete Academos. It was an open aired school among pine trees and olive groves where Aristotle’s would imitate him later with his Lyceum school on the banks of the Illissos River.
Students from all over the world would arrive thirsty to study at Plato’s Philosophical school, but only those who were initiated into his Platonic’s ideas were allowed to enter. On the front of his school gate, you could read from a distance the large inscriptive banner in Pendelic marble. “No entrance to none initiated” He always lectured verbally by conversing with his students like a gentle loving father. Although he never believed in written teaching method, he wrote many books to pass his time. He called his dialectic writings “pagali paidia”, which means, pleasant game or noble amusement. He believed like the mathematician Pythagoras, that the true intellectual system of the universe is mathematically rapt and a difficult one to understand well, without some basic knowledge of geometry. For this reason a second sign-board at his School was written: “Ignorant in geometry should not enter here”.
He absorbed the Hellenic forerunning thinkers like, Homer, Thales, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Pythagoras, Philolaos, Parmenides, Empedocles and Xenophanes, in his mental mill. He re-synthesized them all and reproduced them tastier and more digestible for the Hellenes and the rest of the worlds understanding. Unfortunately they did not have the convenience in those days, like today, of recording lectures for storage, but his feather pen written dialogues, are good enough to make our souls dance like hedgehogs when we read them.
When I read his book “Last days of Socrates” at the tender age of 25 , not only could I not sleep that night, but I also wept like a child and felt very pleased at my new discovery. A spiritual awakening had taken place inside me, like a “purgatory” (cleansing fire) that cleansed my soul like the wheat kernels from other harmful weeds. I did not know to whom I must be grateful first, Plato’s wonderful brain or to Socrates’ mighty wisdom. They were both so God like, that I could not distinguish where the one ended and the other one began. It is impossible for one to remain the same after reading Plato’s thoughts. They are like rare remedies that harness our five senses to obey human reason.
Plato awakens in us the love of learning and our endless spiritual enfoldment. A new and common world opens for all who have been touched by Plato’s magnanimity, leaving behind all ignorance and darkness that made us walk blindly like the sleepwalkers in the midnight hours. He united the European brotherhood intellectually and inspired the rest of the world to follow him. He made all of them feel that he was their compatriot. The English said with admiring voices: ‘A! How English are these Platonic writings! The Normans, Teutonic’s, Slavs, Scandinavians, Latinos, Asians, Africans and all the rest of our global dwellers to own him as well.
All great souls who are surpassing their national borders, become citizen of the universe or cosmos, and called ‘cosmocrats’, which means, citizens of the universal beauty. Souls as Plato’s are cognate with the bright sun that is welcomed immensely and loved wherever its warm shining rays touch. We are all grateful to the mighty Zeus, who descended to earth in the form of Plato, to ignite brilliantly the journey of our souls, to higher planes. Scholars from all over the world translated and will keep on translating Plato’s writings, like the Lord’s Prayer. They wish to learn Plato’s original spoken language, to feel a little closer to his celestial thinking genius.
Plato’s wisdom is the only one in the universe that lifts higher the human intellect, to be free, and spiritually upright. His creator wasn’t a watchful sky-dweller, but earthly collaborator with heart and intellect. God’s height for him was never surpassed the peaks of mount Olympus.
Freedom of the Soul, (salvation) was exclusively an intellectual issue, and never one of a faith, prayer and confession. “Man is the measure of everything” used to voice-out the sophist Protagoras.
He asserted like Socrates, that he knew nothing personally, and that he was learning by conversing with others. The real knowledge, he said, does not derive from to much schooling, but can only be discovered within ourselves through mutual conversation. Wisdom is all in the soul, he said, and can be resurfaced by remembering. What is the first step then in discovering this knowledgeable journey?
The mind should control and direct the wild passions and sentiments first, like the charioteer does with his horses by controlling them through discipline, to arrive safely and on time at his destination.
I have searched for more information about Plato’s life, but unfortunately, I did not find much. It seems that great men have an unusually short biography. No one entered his house, to tell us more about his private life. If he had a wife, friends, girlfriends, weaknesses or other personal peculiarities, we know nothing of it.
All of his private time was converted to contemplation, wisdom and spirituality, like the well-built chimney where the fire burns well and smokeless, to avoid polluting the earthly atmosphere.
They say that he did not smile easily, or hardly ever. He was not far wrong I think, since uncontrolled laughter sometimes can be a sign of a psychosomatic disease and mental anomaly. Schizophrenic or mentally effected people, usually roar with laughter without any reason what so ever. All anecdotes, said Aristotle, are half finished truths without danger, if they end in danger they become tragedies. Plato never loved superfluity and unfinished truths, they did not produce him laughter, but rather sorrow for its plight.
How did Plato’s intellectual flame remains non-extinguishable for so many centuries, in spite of being fiercely persecuted frequently from the religious fundamentalist?
They say, that never has never been more than a hand full of people in every country, who read and understand Plato’s writings well; Certainly not enough reading -force to support a new edition to be published regularly. Despite this, Plato’s books have been republished almost yearly around the globe. Here we see clearly, that some higher cosmic power takes care and regulates Plato’s spirit to flow uninterrupted on this planet. Like the oxygen in our atmosphere that must be constantly regenerated to support life on this globe; so too with Plato’s voice, will his work be republished inexhaustibly, as necessary spiritual food for mankind.
Whatever advances or changes our future brings, even if the earthly axis changes its place or the sky cracks in the middle, Plato will never vanish from our planet.
He will remain like an irreplaceable torch, throughout the ages, to light the mental and spiritual journey of humanity. His books will survive like heavenly heritage, revealing to each of us, how high we can reach, if we choose, and follow the right path in our own life’s journey.
Dimitri Karalis
Johannesburg
Dr Dimitri Karalis
If ever God descended on earth to talk to human beings, surely he will speak like Plato. No other language will suit Him so well, in order to touch the mind, heart and soul of human beings. By reading his dialogues, one rather feels that God incarnated as Plato, in order to distribute knowledge, wisdom and love to humanity. His thoughts are so profound and perfectly chiselled, that no one as yet, managed to add even one iota onto his celestial writings.
Hoping not to exaggerate, I want to voice, like the fanatical Islamite Omar for his Koran, “Burn the voluminous libraries, they are unnecessary, since their true values are all in Plato’s writings”. Whatever one wants to know, he will find it always in his books. Philosophy, physics, metaphysics, immortality, sociology, cosmogony, language, politics, mathematics, justice, pedagogy, literature, astronomy, rhetoric, civil constitution, hygiene, athletics, pure love and whatever else. Plato's book “The Republic” will suffice to educate the world”, said Emerson, no other schooling is necessary.
Without Plato’s thoughts, we would surely all look like the young infants, who scream and kick their little legs, until they learn to speak the mother’s tongue, and say what they want in order to calm themselves.
Plato means philosophy and philosophy means Plato. He is the father and teacher of man’s reason, and without him, societies of today would not be far better than the lower animal kingdom. He established the first organised school on earth, and until today, 25 centuries later, school bells ring in every city and village around the globe.
He consumed, like a silkworm, the undefined and unripe thoughts of ancient Greece, Egypt, Babylonia and Asia, in order to synthesise and deliver them in a more defined and perfect way to Hellenes, and other European nations. Barbarians and savages of the world became calmer psychosomatically by suckling Plato’s mental ambrosia for 2500 years. Philosophers, mystics, poets, prose writers, language teachers, rhetoric’s, astronomers, cosmogonist, pedagogues and dogmatic worshipers, all ran and will still run forever into the mystery, that is named Plato. Many borrowed his intellectual ladder to climb a little higher, in order to gaze at their soul’s loftiest wonder.
Christians have Platonise in their creed; Hebrews have crypto-imitate him, and Muslims copied Plato’s morals, almost identically in their little book on ethics “Ahlak-y-jalaly” Poets and profound sheers like: Amonios, Plotinus, Plutarch, Milton, Dante, Shakespeare, Thomas Taylor, Voltaire, Hugo, Bacon, John Smith, Ralph Cudworth, Carlyle, Emerson, and a thousand others, where all Platonic offspring. Although Aristotle tried to oppose Plato’s thoughts for a while initially, he failed to do so. He too, Platonise in every feather -writing word until the last day of his life.
It is impossible for one to think any further without Plato’s help. He is like a large hairy-handed father, who holds his child tenderly by his hairless hand, to lead him to his first day of primary school.
He was born around 427 B.C, near Pericles, where one of the worlds most known ancient political leaders died. He lived in the glory days of tragedian play-writers - Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, and witnessed the catastrophic side effects of the Peloponnesian war. In spite of his rich and aristocratic upbringing, he refused to follow a materialistic road of plenty and egocentric vanity. He chose instead, the path of temperance and moderate poverty, in order to harvest later, his brilliant intellectual and spiritual glory.
At the tender age of 20, he met the mighty Socrates whom he followed until his death. After the inhuman execution of his beloved teacher, he devoted the rest of his life to talk only about him.
He travelled extensively to the “magna Grecia” of Sicily and visited Egypt and Babylonia, they say that he went even further. Returning to Athens, he opened the first university in the world in 368 B.C, which he named “Academia” after the well know Greek athlete Academos. It was an open aired school among pine trees and olive groves where Aristotle’s would imitate him later with his Lyceum school on the banks of the Illissos River.
Students from all over the world would arrive thirsty to study at Plato’s Philosophical school, but only those who were initiated into his Platonic’s ideas were allowed to enter. On the front of his school gate, you could read from a distance the large inscriptive banner in Pendelic marble. “No entrance to none initiated” He always lectured verbally by conversing with his students like a gentle loving father. Although he never believed in written teaching method, he wrote many books to pass his time. He called his dialectic writings “pagali paidia”, which means, pleasant game or noble amusement. He believed like the mathematician Pythagoras, that the true intellectual system of the universe is mathematically rapt and a difficult one to understand well, without some basic knowledge of geometry. For this reason a second sign-board at his School was written: “Ignorant in geometry should not enter here”.
He absorbed the Hellenic forerunning thinkers like, Homer, Thales, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Pythagoras, Philolaos, Parmenides, Empedocles and Xenophanes, in his mental mill. He re-synthesized them all and reproduced them tastier and more digestible for the Hellenes and the rest of the worlds understanding. Unfortunately they did not have the convenience in those days, like today, of recording lectures for storage, but his feather pen written dialogues, are good enough to make our souls dance like hedgehogs when we read them.
When I read his book “Last days of Socrates” at the tender age of 25 , not only could I not sleep that night, but I also wept like a child and felt very pleased at my new discovery. A spiritual awakening had taken place inside me, like a “purgatory” (cleansing fire) that cleansed my soul like the wheat kernels from other harmful weeds. I did not know to whom I must be grateful first, Plato’s wonderful brain or to Socrates’ mighty wisdom. They were both so God like, that I could not distinguish where the one ended and the other one began. It is impossible for one to remain the same after reading Plato’s thoughts. They are like rare remedies that harness our five senses to obey human reason.
Plato awakens in us the love of learning and our endless spiritual enfoldment. A new and common world opens for all who have been touched by Plato’s magnanimity, leaving behind all ignorance and darkness that made us walk blindly like the sleepwalkers in the midnight hours. He united the European brotherhood intellectually and inspired the rest of the world to follow him. He made all of them feel that he was their compatriot. The English said with admiring voices: ‘A! How English are these Platonic writings! The Normans, Teutonic’s, Slavs, Scandinavians, Latinos, Asians, Africans and all the rest of our global dwellers to own him as well.
All great souls who are surpassing their national borders, become citizen of the universe or cosmos, and called ‘cosmocrats’, which means, citizens of the universal beauty. Souls as Plato’s are cognate with the bright sun that is welcomed immensely and loved wherever its warm shining rays touch. We are all grateful to the mighty Zeus, who descended to earth in the form of Plato, to ignite brilliantly the journey of our souls, to higher planes. Scholars from all over the world translated and will keep on translating Plato’s writings, like the Lord’s Prayer. They wish to learn Plato’s original spoken language, to feel a little closer to his celestial thinking genius.
Plato’s wisdom is the only one in the universe that lifts higher the human intellect, to be free, and spiritually upright. His creator wasn’t a watchful sky-dweller, but earthly collaborator with heart and intellect. God’s height for him was never surpassed the peaks of mount Olympus.
Freedom of the Soul, (salvation) was exclusively an intellectual issue, and never one of a faith, prayer and confession. “Man is the measure of everything” used to voice-out the sophist Protagoras.
He asserted like Socrates, that he knew nothing personally, and that he was learning by conversing with others. The real knowledge, he said, does not derive from to much schooling, but can only be discovered within ourselves through mutual conversation. Wisdom is all in the soul, he said, and can be resurfaced by remembering. What is the first step then in discovering this knowledgeable journey?
The mind should control and direct the wild passions and sentiments first, like the charioteer does with his horses by controlling them through discipline, to arrive safely and on time at his destination.
I have searched for more information about Plato’s life, but unfortunately, I did not find much. It seems that great men have an unusually short biography. No one entered his house, to tell us more about his private life. If he had a wife, friends, girlfriends, weaknesses or other personal peculiarities, we know nothing of it.
All of his private time was converted to contemplation, wisdom and spirituality, like the well-built chimney where the fire burns well and smokeless, to avoid polluting the earthly atmosphere.
They say that he did not smile easily, or hardly ever. He was not far wrong I think, since uncontrolled laughter sometimes can be a sign of a psychosomatic disease and mental anomaly. Schizophrenic or mentally effected people, usually roar with laughter without any reason what so ever. All anecdotes, said Aristotle, are half finished truths without danger, if they end in danger they become tragedies. Plato never loved superfluity and unfinished truths, they did not produce him laughter, but rather sorrow for its plight.
How did Plato’s intellectual flame remains non-extinguishable for so many centuries, in spite of being fiercely persecuted frequently from the religious fundamentalist?
They say, that never has never been more than a hand full of people in every country, who read and understand Plato’s writings well; Certainly not enough reading -force to support a new edition to be published regularly. Despite this, Plato’s books have been republished almost yearly around the globe. Here we see clearly, that some higher cosmic power takes care and regulates Plato’s spirit to flow uninterrupted on this planet. Like the oxygen in our atmosphere that must be constantly regenerated to support life on this globe; so too with Plato’s voice, will his work be republished inexhaustibly, as necessary spiritual food for mankind.
Whatever advances or changes our future brings, even if the earthly axis changes its place or the sky cracks in the middle, Plato will never vanish from our planet.
He will remain like an irreplaceable torch, throughout the ages, to light the mental and spiritual journey of humanity. His books will survive like heavenly heritage, revealing to each of us, how high we can reach, if we choose, and follow the right path in our own life’s journey.
Dimitri Karalis
Johannesburg
THE RIGHT DIRECTION
Dr Dimitri Karalis
`There is a rumor, says Boccaccio that the lungs of the ancient legislator ‘Solon’, were robust and resembled a grand Doric temple that guarded whole the divine wisdom. His holy laws, which were the epexegetic torch for justice in the ancients, remain an indelible instructive guide for us also today. Each state he says, stands and walks on two legs like the human beings. The right foot looks carefully that no felony should ever pass unpunished and the left remunerates each noble action to honor with discreet magnificence.
When the first foot forgets to punish bad actions, from negligence or corruptness, the state begins to limp. And if the second foot does not honor the social benefactors from careless or laziness, the state will not stand erect. With these two simple rules the ancient Greek and later their imitators Romans, were glorified worldwide and their fame touched the stars.
They brilliantly honour their benefactors, certain with Deification, others with marble statues, and all with majestic funerals where poems and anthems rendering for their eternal glory.
For their socially undisciplined individuals, they wrote their names on a peace of ostraco, (part of broken pottery) each January, and at the spring they voted for their punishment. If they gathered six thousands votes (6.000) against, they were ostracized at Delphic temple or other sacrament places for social training and intellectual tuition.
We cannot help but admire their enviable correction system, which so well they studied and irreproachably applied. The felony for them was a psycho-somatic illness which was deeply rooted with the byway of time in a criminal dangerous habit.
They believe that criminals can be rehabilitating with the right correctional treatment. Exemplary noble association and teaching them creative work will change their criminal habit into enviable virtue in the end. Like the wild beasts, where with intensive long training, we change their ferocious nature into useful human tools.
Seeing criminality lately to springing up worldwide as the mushrooms do at first autumn rain, and we worry for the dangerous extension that it takes.
Where we side-stepped socially and took such risky slippery path?
Did we perhaps demolish the human ideal with our erroneous education and social direction that we provide to our youth? If our objective is knowledge, research, creativeness, virtue and love, sure felony has no place in our psycho-somatic constitution? The intellectual journey never accompanied with resentment, crime and religious bigotry. Virtual behavior is lined first from the ideal parents, enriched by the right education and honored from a democratic state and cultural society.
When human thinking wonders away from knowledge, truth and creativeness, intellect seldom reaches spiritual maturity. Like the river who braches into many smaller creeks and dries up before reaches the open sea?
Hermanus- October 2006
Southerner Africa
Email: dkaralis@global.co.za
`There is a rumor, says Boccaccio that the lungs of the ancient legislator ‘Solon’, were robust and resembled a grand Doric temple that guarded whole the divine wisdom. His holy laws, which were the epexegetic torch for justice in the ancients, remain an indelible instructive guide for us also today. Each state he says, stands and walks on two legs like the human beings. The right foot looks carefully that no felony should ever pass unpunished and the left remunerates each noble action to honor with discreet magnificence.
When the first foot forgets to punish bad actions, from negligence or corruptness, the state begins to limp. And if the second foot does not honor the social benefactors from careless or laziness, the state will not stand erect. With these two simple rules the ancient Greek and later their imitators Romans, were glorified worldwide and their fame touched the stars.
They brilliantly honour their benefactors, certain with Deification, others with marble statues, and all with majestic funerals where poems and anthems rendering for their eternal glory.
For their socially undisciplined individuals, they wrote their names on a peace of ostraco, (part of broken pottery) each January, and at the spring they voted for their punishment. If they gathered six thousands votes (6.000) against, they were ostracized at Delphic temple or other sacrament places for social training and intellectual tuition.
We cannot help but admire their enviable correction system, which so well they studied and irreproachably applied. The felony for them was a psycho-somatic illness which was deeply rooted with the byway of time in a criminal dangerous habit.
They believe that criminals can be rehabilitating with the right correctional treatment. Exemplary noble association and teaching them creative work will change their criminal habit into enviable virtue in the end. Like the wild beasts, where with intensive long training, we change their ferocious nature into useful human tools.
Seeing criminality lately to springing up worldwide as the mushrooms do at first autumn rain, and we worry for the dangerous extension that it takes.
Where we side-stepped socially and took such risky slippery path?
Did we perhaps demolish the human ideal with our erroneous education and social direction that we provide to our youth? If our objective is knowledge, research, creativeness, virtue and love, sure felony has no place in our psycho-somatic constitution? The intellectual journey never accompanied with resentment, crime and religious bigotry. Virtual behavior is lined first from the ideal parents, enriched by the right education and honored from a democratic state and cultural society.
When human thinking wonders away from knowledge, truth and creativeness, intellect seldom reaches spiritual maturity. Like the river who braches into many smaller creeks and dries up before reaches the open sea?
Hermanus- October 2006
Southerner Africa
Email: dkaralis@global.co.za
ABOUT FRIENDSHIP
Dr Dimitri-Karalis
‘Honest friendship is a better choice than emotional love for a steady diet, says an American thinker. Suspicion, jealousy, prejudice, and strife follow in the wake of passionate love; and disgrace murder and suicide lurk just around the corner from where lovers cooing like mating pigeons. Emotional love is a matter of proximity; it makes demands, asks for proofs and wants frequent reassurance. Friendship seeks no ownership –it only hopes to serve, and it grows by giving even from a distance. Unfortunately, this does not apply the same with passionate love. Love bestows only that it may receive, and a one-sided passion turns to hate in a night, and then demands vengeance as its right and proportion. Friendship asks no foolish vows, it is strong in absence and most loyal when needed. It lends ballast to life and gives steadily to every venture’.
True friendship unlocks the soul, warms the heart and opens the mind for sharing knowledge, encouragement and human joy. Like the evening burning fireside, that makes cold winter days tolerable and long nights shorter, homely and romantic. Who never had a true friend in life, said Plutarch the biographer; it touches this world just only on the surface. A sincere friend is like the sea level or pine forest air, which cleanse the blood and multiplies red corpuscles rapidly with richer oxygen. Without a dear friend, we feel numb and lonely among the busy crowd. When Alexander the great arrived in India, he wrote to his teacher and friend Aristotle. “Send me something to read, he said, I live alone with my thoughts amidst a throng of men, but without a true friend or companion”.
When Aristotle publishes his philosophical lectures to the world, Alexander, disappointed, wrote to him. “Now the entire world will know what formerly belonged to you and me alone”. Do not worry, replied Aristotle, because they are published and not published; no one can learn from a book what he has not prepared for long before”.
We hear, people feel waiflike, depressed and desperate from the death of a dear friend. Vincent van Gogh’s, Brother Theo, wrote to his sister-in-law after Vincent’s sudden death. “I do not wish to live any longer without Vincent, he said; Vincent was not only my brother, but my only true friend in this world. Theo, died indeed shortly afterwards as result from his great sorrows. Such a friendship, of course, occurs in all nations and all times, but in ancient Greece, it was an institution. Their system of education was taking place through friendship. Every youngster formed a friendship with an older person for his education. They had passion for their friend, which continued for all life long. The famous ‘Theban Band’ it was formed by Pairs of friends, who marched and fought in battle side by side and drew encouragement from each other. King Philip the Macedonian, astonished with their fighting spirit in the famous Chaeronea battle, said. “Perish any man who suspects that these Theban man either did or suffer anything that was base, they fought exclusively with the soul and spirit of Hellenic friendship”.
When the ancient Greek famous man Alcibiades and Pelopidas was wounded in the battle, Socrates and Epaminondas each stood above the body of their friend and fought to save his life. These are names of immortal friendship and glory, which will remain a monument down through human history. This is the ideal spirit of Greek comradeship by supporting each other and assisting with mind, hand with hand perfecting their souls in which they dwell.
“The only reward for virtue is virtue is virtue, said Emerson, and the only way to have a friend is to be first one. You shall not come nearer to man by getting into his house, as his soul flees faster from you and you shall never catch a true glance of his eyes”. Only when our perception arrives at the same level as our friend, we will amalgamate instantly like water with water and ether with ether. Often mental thoughts moving forwards when the soul grows and becomes unable to feed each other as before, like the silkworms that metamorphosed into butterflies. At primary school, we exchange happily gifts of apples, pears and pomegranates with our friends, but as we grow older, the nature of our mental gifts changes too. However, we must not worry so much if we depart from our primary school friends, but we should say with certainty; O! Friend, although we part at moment, we will meet again on a higher platform one day to share more advanced celestial gifts, once over again.
Johannesburg March 2004
‘Honest friendship is a better choice than emotional love for a steady diet, says an American thinker. Suspicion, jealousy, prejudice, and strife follow in the wake of passionate love; and disgrace murder and suicide lurk just around the corner from where lovers cooing like mating pigeons. Emotional love is a matter of proximity; it makes demands, asks for proofs and wants frequent reassurance. Friendship seeks no ownership –it only hopes to serve, and it grows by giving even from a distance. Unfortunately, this does not apply the same with passionate love. Love bestows only that it may receive, and a one-sided passion turns to hate in a night, and then demands vengeance as its right and proportion. Friendship asks no foolish vows, it is strong in absence and most loyal when needed. It lends ballast to life and gives steadily to every venture’.
True friendship unlocks the soul, warms the heart and opens the mind for sharing knowledge, encouragement and human joy. Like the evening burning fireside, that makes cold winter days tolerable and long nights shorter, homely and romantic. Who never had a true friend in life, said Plutarch the biographer; it touches this world just only on the surface. A sincere friend is like the sea level or pine forest air, which cleanse the blood and multiplies red corpuscles rapidly with richer oxygen. Without a dear friend, we feel numb and lonely among the busy crowd. When Alexander the great arrived in India, he wrote to his teacher and friend Aristotle. “Send me something to read, he said, I live alone with my thoughts amidst a throng of men, but without a true friend or companion”.
When Aristotle publishes his philosophical lectures to the world, Alexander, disappointed, wrote to him. “Now the entire world will know what formerly belonged to you and me alone”. Do not worry, replied Aristotle, because they are published and not published; no one can learn from a book what he has not prepared for long before”.
We hear, people feel waiflike, depressed and desperate from the death of a dear friend. Vincent van Gogh’s, Brother Theo, wrote to his sister-in-law after Vincent’s sudden death. “I do not wish to live any longer without Vincent, he said; Vincent was not only my brother, but my only true friend in this world. Theo, died indeed shortly afterwards as result from his great sorrows. Such a friendship, of course, occurs in all nations and all times, but in ancient Greece, it was an institution. Their system of education was taking place through friendship. Every youngster formed a friendship with an older person for his education. They had passion for their friend, which continued for all life long. The famous ‘Theban Band’ it was formed by Pairs of friends, who marched and fought in battle side by side and drew encouragement from each other. King Philip the Macedonian, astonished with their fighting spirit in the famous Chaeronea battle, said. “Perish any man who suspects that these Theban man either did or suffer anything that was base, they fought exclusively with the soul and spirit of Hellenic friendship”.
When the ancient Greek famous man Alcibiades and Pelopidas was wounded in the battle, Socrates and Epaminondas each stood above the body of their friend and fought to save his life. These are names of immortal friendship and glory, which will remain a monument down through human history. This is the ideal spirit of Greek comradeship by supporting each other and assisting with mind, hand with hand perfecting their souls in which they dwell.
“The only reward for virtue is virtue is virtue, said Emerson, and the only way to have a friend is to be first one. You shall not come nearer to man by getting into his house, as his soul flees faster from you and you shall never catch a true glance of his eyes”. Only when our perception arrives at the same level as our friend, we will amalgamate instantly like water with water and ether with ether. Often mental thoughts moving forwards when the soul grows and becomes unable to feed each other as before, like the silkworms that metamorphosed into butterflies. At primary school, we exchange happily gifts of apples, pears and pomegranates with our friends, but as we grow older, the nature of our mental gifts changes too. However, we must not worry so much if we depart from our primary school friends, but we should say with certainty; O! Friend, although we part at moment, we will meet again on a higher platform one day to share more advanced celestial gifts, once over again.
Johannesburg March 2004
BORROWING FOR KNOWLEGE
By Dr. Dimitri Karaliss.
If we observe carefully the parasitic insects and other microscopic beetles in nature, we realised that all borrow food from bigger creatures for their nourishment and growth. Fleas, lice, mosquitoes, ticks, leeches and many others, suck blood where and whenever it is given occasion. The same phenomenon continues also in the vegetable kingdom; Convolvulus, Ivy, beans, tomato and lots of other creepers, need external support for their growth and survival.
In bookshops and libraries we observe humans doing similar things. All search patiently among old and new pages to abstract new ideas for their intellectual growth. Every free intellectual tinker becomes a torch bearer in the stride for spiritual freedom. We all borrow something from somewhere to re-synthesize it afterwards to our likeness. Like the honey bee that sucks only flower water and synthesises it into sweetest nectar in their hive later.
“This is our supreme aim, said the writer Nikos Kazantzakis, to shoulder our ancestor’s heritage renewable and better forwards forever”. It is not enough to reproduce our race forward like in the lower animals, but also to uplift it intellectually and spiritually upwards.
“He who borrows from a similar thinker, said Burke, he doubles his own and he who borrows from his superior, rise intellectually to level with his lender”. Knowledge is free for every one, only it requires a wakened perception and a ceaseless yearning to be harvested. Nothing is completely new; but they are rekindled coals from the forgotten past. Every new idea is a renewable old copy of continuation. Like the primitive wooden plough that developed slowly into mechanical tractor today. All of us carry some ancestral idea and it is our sacred duty to pass it, updated to future generations.
When we read Plato, we discover the thoughts of previous philosophers, Heraclitos, Pythagoras, Anaxagoras and Socrates, much riper for better digestion. When we read the Christian bible, we see the platonic theory reformatted into religious dogma. When we read thinkers like Rabelais and Montainge, we discover the charming thoughts of the biographer Plutarch. The strong borrow bravely and dress it with their personal colour for future storage. Progress, means, to re-synthesize the past with the present and to forward it bettered for the future generations that follow. Every judicious thinker carries with him a private library, and when we read his chiselled thoughts, we ask ourselves with admiration! I wonder which worthy books ripened his mental cells so profoundly! Like when we look at the temple Parthenon and wish to meet its architects Kallikratis, Ictinos and Phidias.
“Libra thesaurus anima” said the Romans, “books are treasures of the soul”. Without books today, mankind would be undeveloped almost in a primitive state. Books are the mental archives for every human to learn and add something new of his own. If Heaven has no books at all, not every thinker wishes happily to inhabit there. What business has the bee in the deadly dessert? When the sterile sand doesn’t offer a drop of flower-water to convert into delicious honey?
Reading, offers mental wealth, -writing, literal precision and speech expressive readiness.
We read to learn, we write to precise and we talk to express.
We are valuated how we think; we appreciated what good we written and loved how eloquently we speak. When we open our mouth we reveal at same time our intellectual level.
Once a senseless flatterer talking to Aristotle, stopped suddenly when he observed the apathy into philosopher’s face, sorry; master, he said, it seems that my longish speech has tired you a little, by no means, answered Aristotle, I wasn’t listening to your speech.
Isn’t our mental ripeness a dignified virtue and best intellectual nourishment to better humanity?
Hermanus-South Africa
If we observe carefully the parasitic insects and other microscopic beetles in nature, we realised that all borrow food from bigger creatures for their nourishment and growth. Fleas, lice, mosquitoes, ticks, leeches and many others, suck blood where and whenever it is given occasion. The same phenomenon continues also in the vegetable kingdom; Convolvulus, Ivy, beans, tomato and lots of other creepers, need external support for their growth and survival.
In bookshops and libraries we observe humans doing similar things. All search patiently among old and new pages to abstract new ideas for their intellectual growth. Every free intellectual tinker becomes a torch bearer in the stride for spiritual freedom. We all borrow something from somewhere to re-synthesize it afterwards to our likeness. Like the honey bee that sucks only flower water and synthesises it into sweetest nectar in their hive later.
“This is our supreme aim, said the writer Nikos Kazantzakis, to shoulder our ancestor’s heritage renewable and better forwards forever”. It is not enough to reproduce our race forward like in the lower animals, but also to uplift it intellectually and spiritually upwards.
“He who borrows from a similar thinker, said Burke, he doubles his own and he who borrows from his superior, rise intellectually to level with his lender”. Knowledge is free for every one, only it requires a wakened perception and a ceaseless yearning to be harvested. Nothing is completely new; but they are rekindled coals from the forgotten past. Every new idea is a renewable old copy of continuation. Like the primitive wooden plough that developed slowly into mechanical tractor today. All of us carry some ancestral idea and it is our sacred duty to pass it, updated to future generations.
When we read Plato, we discover the thoughts of previous philosophers, Heraclitos, Pythagoras, Anaxagoras and Socrates, much riper for better digestion. When we read the Christian bible, we see the platonic theory reformatted into religious dogma. When we read thinkers like Rabelais and Montainge, we discover the charming thoughts of the biographer Plutarch. The strong borrow bravely and dress it with their personal colour for future storage. Progress, means, to re-synthesize the past with the present and to forward it bettered for the future generations that follow. Every judicious thinker carries with him a private library, and when we read his chiselled thoughts, we ask ourselves with admiration! I wonder which worthy books ripened his mental cells so profoundly! Like when we look at the temple Parthenon and wish to meet its architects Kallikratis, Ictinos and Phidias.
“Libra thesaurus anima” said the Romans, “books are treasures of the soul”. Without books today, mankind would be undeveloped almost in a primitive state. Books are the mental archives for every human to learn and add something new of his own. If Heaven has no books at all, not every thinker wishes happily to inhabit there. What business has the bee in the deadly dessert? When the sterile sand doesn’t offer a drop of flower-water to convert into delicious honey?
Reading, offers mental wealth, -writing, literal precision and speech expressive readiness.
We read to learn, we write to precise and we talk to express.
We are valuated how we think; we appreciated what good we written and loved how eloquently we speak. When we open our mouth we reveal at same time our intellectual level.
Once a senseless flatterer talking to Aristotle, stopped suddenly when he observed the apathy into philosopher’s face, sorry; master, he said, it seems that my longish speech has tired you a little, by no means, answered Aristotle, I wasn’t listening to your speech.
Isn’t our mental ripeness a dignified virtue and best intellectual nourishment to better humanity?
Hermanus-South Africa
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