Daily Meditation: Saturday, February 19, 2011

Experience - more convincing than explanations

02/19/2011

Experience is always more convincing than any explanation. Imagine it is winter, and I go into someone’s house as a guest. Everything is closed up, and to save on heating they never air the place. So by keeping themselves in this atmosphere the occupants of the house have become chloroformed, stupefied; they can no longer think or feel properly. If I explain to them now that the way they are living is unhealthy, they will not understand, it will lead to endless arguments, and I’ll be wasting my time. So I invite them to go for a little walk with me in the fresh air… Then we come back. As soon as they open the door, they exclaim out loud, wondering how they could have lived in such an atmosphere, in other words – since this anecdote is symbolic – with such ideas and such a philosophy. Without my saying a word, they have understood for themselves by feeling the difference. Perhaps they did not quite realize when they went out how wonderful it was to breathe fresh air, but on their return, when they felt suffocated, they understood.