I recently attended a lecture at the Centre for Social Innovation, sponsored by New Acropolis Toronto, and presented by guest speaker and philosopher, Parth Doshi. The lecture was titled Gandhi…The power to change the world. The afternoon presentation was divided into two sections: the first, providing an overview of Gandhi’s life – emphasizing Gandhi’s concept of satyagraha– and the second, focusing on the early influence of theosophy on Gandhi’s spirituality.
Doshi is a very interesting, eloquent and articulate speaker, and he interspersed clips from the film Gandhi (played by Ben Kingsley) to provide a great visual complement to the lecture. Although I enjoyed the lecture very much, I couldn’t help but feel that the second section – with Doshi overly using the word spirituality – became more of a religious sermon rather than a philosophical lecture.
Don’t get me wrong. I can appreciate that when speaking about Gandhi one may need to make use of the word spirituality to describe the personal and powerful drives that contextually influenced him during his life – and that make Gandhi one of the great leaders and influencers of the 20th century and today. However, spirituality is now such a historically heavy-laden and currently alienating term for many that perhaps speaking more about the enduring and deep humanvirtues of love, compassion and peace – without alluding to spirituality – might be better suited for a “philosophical” lecture.
Does religion/spirituality have any place in a philosophy lecture – especially in a world that continues to be divided by such ideals? We now live in a world today where spirituality and religion are far too often conflated and marginalizing. Perhaps it’s my own bias against the alienating use of the term spirituality that’s showing.
Any of my KMbeing blog followers will know that my emphasis on the power of knowledge sharing to make the world a better place does includes the human virtues of love, compassion and peace – but I never want to alienate anyone by sending out unintentional messages of religion or spirituality.
As someone who has extensively studied philosophy, theology and comparative religions, I now recognize that knowledge sharing may include views of spirituality, but the human virtues of love, compassion and peace as part of knowledge sharing (or philosophy) need not include spirituality. We live in a world where many still believe in the power of spirituality, but I think we need to move beyond the divisiveness of using spiritual concepts to embrace the basic human values of love, compassion and peace – based on personal lived experiences – that also shape our knowledge sharing – which can exist regardless of spiritual beliefs. I believe we are now living in a time when we need to emphasize the power of basic human values like love, compassion and peace as part of basic human knowledg sharing rather than spirituality to make the world a better place.
Gandhi said, “Be the change you want the world to be.” I say, make the knowledge sharing decisions you want the world to be.
Gandhi also said, “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
The need to share knowledge encompasses every area of our lives. Since time is limited, we need to choose wisely the knowledge we’re going to share that will take up that time. Since knowledge can be used for benefit or knowledge can be used for harm, we need to choose what we will use our knowledge for. Are you making the world a better place with the knowledge you share or are you contributing to the problems that constrain humanity?
I know some people who ignore the knowledge of others or don’t value their own knowledge. They don’t practice knowledge sharing for social benefit at all – they never sit down and ask “is this type of knowledge sharing making the world a better or worse place?” “Is this type of knowledge sharing alienating others or focusing on our common human values?” They tend to live without being aware of the needs of others, without being able to see when certain knowledge sharing is harmful or when it might be of value.
Life is short – we all know that. We may get overwhelmed by what’s going on in our lives, but each experience – either negative or positive – can be turned into knowledge. When we learn to choose to share our knowledge for benefit, our personal knowledge becomes effective. When all is said and done – life is about making knowledge decisions. The world of tomorrow depends upon the knowledge decisions that each of us make today. And how do we learn to choose wisely the knowledge we’re going to share? We observe the results of our knowledge decisions. Do I reflect on my own knowledge? Do I value my own knowledge? Do I feel my knowledge sharing is making the world a better place? Am I open to the knowledge sharing of others? Do my knowledge decisions bring peace or conflict? Are my knowledge decisions inclusive or marginalizing? It certainly is not my intention to alienate as well with this blog, and I hope this blog will only help to further enlighten.
Doshi spoke about how Gandhi used a cycle of study, action, experience and reflection to live his virtuous life.
I couldn’t help but think that knowledge should have been included in this cycle. As two of my earlier blogs point out (previous blog & previous blog) knowledge is not something stagnant, it’s a dynamic process – a cycle – that continues to flow and be re-evaluated to create new knowledge – especially for social benefit.
Once we learn to observe and reflect on the value of our own knowledge – for everyone has knowledge to share – then we can make knowledge decisions that will truly help all of us in life that is inclusive for all of humanity.
There is knowledge in every person. It only needs to be recognized by yourself as powerful knowledge that can contribute to making a difference in making this world a better place. Do you limit your knowledge by throwing it away in a selfish little world of doubt and grievances by complaining about the world – or do you use your knowledge to share with others – and learn from others – to contribute to improving the world?
I may seem a little harsh on the people who spend their time whining and complaining that life isn’t fair and that there’s nothing they could possibly do to improving the world, but when you consider how much more many complain without taking action – such harshness is warranted. Every person’s knowledge can be turned into action to make this world a better place to live in. It all comes down to how we choose to use our knowledge.
There is so much to do in this world and so many ways to share our knowledge in every single conversation we have with someone else. And we don’t always have to be actively contributing knowledge – sometimes taking quiet moments to reflect on our own lives and how we fit into this world to make it a better place is one of the best things we can do for ourselves and others.
We all have knowledge and we all have a purpose for being here. One of our most important tasks is sharing our knowledge with others that serves other human beings – even in some small way. Knowledge starts with self-reflection and becomes significant when it moves into active use for others.
Life is about sharing our knowledge with each other. Each of us gets one chance – one life to fit into the bigger picture of this world we all live in. When my life is over I want to look back and say – I did all I could to learn much from the knowledge of others and I did all I could to share my own knowledge to improve this world – even in some small way.
I don’t want to look back and think about how much I sat around and complained. I want to look back and say I took some responsibility to make our humanity more loving and accepting of every person on this earth. I want to say – I chose to use knowledge wisely for myself and for others.
