He Who Knows.

To know and to be known.

To know or not to know.

 

He who knows not and knows not he knows not, he is a fool. Shun him.

He who knows not and knows he knows not, he is a student. Teach him.

He who knows and knows not he knows, he is asleep. Wake him.

He who knows and knows he knows, he is wise. Follow him.

 

How to begin?

When thoughts do come but do not stay

When those we write don’t hold their sway.

How to start?

(This is the difficult part.)

For when you start and a direction you choose, the words pour out in a flood.

 

Is she a fool, just simple, asleep or wise?

Well, all or some, sometimes.

What the question really is is, “What does he know?”

Then we ask, “Does he know if he knows?”

 

Born a babe knowing nothing. A fool?

We stumble, we mumble, we blunder too.

But we learn. With time.

Life teaches. Our small worlds and environs have a lot to say.

With our senses we perceive and we learn.

 

We learn to speak

And to understand when spoken to.

[Well more of the latter since our million and one questions aren’t always entertained,

And there’s much to be taught,

And our parents and such have lessons, instructions and orders to give.]

 

But with time there’s more we know for we learn.

We absorb much of these lessons all these teachers have to teach.

Yes we learn.

We’re students now ‘cause we know there’s much we don’t know.

No longer fools to be shunned and in some respects wise.

 

We then learn to read

And more voices are added to the chorus.

We now have many more teachers.

 

Along the way, there are things we come to know that we don’t know we know.

Yet, we’re not asleep.

Many of these things we taught ourselves through our interactions with our unique realities.

But since there were no tests,

We didn’t study them.

 

Some things fell by the wayside, others on stony ground.

Others sprung up well, but among thorns

And so produced no fruit.

The remnant falls to good ground.

There were detractors who yet saw us as fools

And so cunningly plucked out those seeds of knowledge we had by the wayside.

Other things we came to learn found little sustenance

And so quickly died.

Seeing us as simple or as simply students, the many voices gave no support to our own.

 

Later when we were able to find root and to grow,

Our thoughts again died since they were crowded out and stifled

Stifled by the many voices of the multitude of teachers competing for our attention.

 

The flood is too great.

He drowns.

She’s swept away.

 

The few seeds of our own discoveries (of our own knowledge) that survive

Are hardly well tended

But they yield the first fruits of doubt, of longing, of desire

To find your own self, and to discover what is pure, what is truth.

 

For the first time

You question the power and the authority of the voices you’ve listened to.

Truth becomes relative, and now

Frequent juxtapositions poke at ambiguities and contradictions in what you’ve been taught.

They try to resurrect the seeds that were stifled and ignored

And try to rediscover that which was plucked away.

 

But now you’re less wise.

[You know that you know less and less.]

You’re almost asleep, you’re in a daze

‘Cause you know that you know but know not what you know.

But this is only sometimes.

 

The road to being wise is a long one,

Is a hard one.

It is one, however, you know that you must take.

It will involve dark days and alone days.

 

But the seed of self must be buried,

Cut off from the light and away from the winds.

It must draw and find nourishment in that darkness

Before it’s strong enough to push into the light.

 

Who knows?

It may just come to stand tall

To give fruit and shade and homes

Even as it basks in the sun

Glistens in the rain

Dances in the wind

Knowing and being known.

May 2018