Friday, June 12, 2009

Conferencing only briefly my furry little dudes...

because today Caltech will celebrate the graduation of students who have been developing some aspects of their knowing capacity, which means Mummy has to leave on time. However, this is a good introduction to our discussion of the capacity of knowing as the second most important capacity in developing our true selves.


This won't come as a surprise that teaching and learning are reciprocal aspects of the knowing capacity. Neither should it be surprising if I were to say that our institutions of higher education contribute to this process incompletely. Our educational systems, at their best, teach students scientific methods and a lot of facts. How those facts are used, how they are applied to the advancement of civilization, how they are internalized...all different stories.


Augustus was somewhat startled to hear this as you can tell from the expression on his cute little cat face,


and Ollie didn't know what to think.


We decided to search on google for some appropriate and inspiring quote concerning 'knowledge' and here's what we found:

…the religion of God is the promoter of truth, the founder of science and knowledge, it is full of goodwill for learned men; it is the civilizer of mankind, the discoverer of the secrets of nature, and the enlightener of the horizons of the world. Consequently, how can it be said to oppose knowledge? God forbid! Nay, for God, knowledge is the most glorious gift of man and the most noble of human perfections. To oppose knowledge is ignorant, and he who detests knowledge and science is not a man, but rather an animal without intelligence. For knowledge is light, life, felicity, perfection, beauty and the means of approaching the Threshold of Unity. It is the honour and glory of the world of humanity, and the greatest bounty of God. Knowledge is identical with guidance, and ignorance is real error.
(“Some Answered Questions” (Wilmette: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1984), p. 137)

'Nice', they said.
'Yup', I said.

And this brings us to the end of today's very short blog that we hope you liked.
Happy Friday to All.

PS-  I will try to post the commencement talk delivered by Steven Chu (Secretary of Energy) as soon as it goes on-line.  It will be posted here. Please listen if you can; he is really impressive not to mention an eloquent speaker.

2 comments:

  1. I love attending graduations. I cry like at weddings. It is so wonderful to see so many people celebrating their achievements.

    I hope you have a happy and cat cuddle filled weekend.
    xo

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  2. Thank you Miss LBR. I was trying to direct you to the May 4th blog but that's OK. I like the story in that one. Graduation was great and our commencement speaker was Steven Chu, and I was totally surprised. He was good. I expected differently. Happy weekend to you too.

    xoxo

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