Dr. Vijai S Shankar MD.PhD.
Published on www.academy-advaita.com
The Netherlands
12th February 2017
Reading (1)
“Mental Activity”
Reading activity in the mind is an evolutionary process of intellect. Primitive man did not read: reading activity evolved in primitive man and has continued to evolve further in modern man.
Reading activity as it evolves gives rise either to superficial understanding that leads to knowledge or to deep understanding of knowledge as wisdom. This is also observed with writing: writing evolves as either knowledge or as wisdom.
Writing is an evolutionary process of intellect, which involves the muscles of the human hand. Reading, on the other hand, involves the characteristic of understanding, which is an inherent feature of intellect.
Therefore, writing reflects the understanding that has evolved in humans either as knowledge or wisdom. Reading, on the other hand, either deepens the understanding of knowledge as wisdom or remains as knowledge.
Now the important aspect of intellect is: it cannot be controlled by humans to be what it should be. Intellect evolves as it is meant to evolve and it is what it is. It is either as knowledge or as wisdom. Intellect may remain as knowledge or may evolve knowledge as wisdom, and it is not up to humans for either knowledge or wisdom to exist.
Reading once is sufficient for some to understand knowledge and it reflects the evolvement of the intellect. For others repeated reading is required to understand knowledge, which in turn reflects the degree to which the intellect has evolved.
Similarly, reading knowledge once is sufficient for the minority for wisdom to be read, whereas, for the majority, repeated reading of knowledge is required for wisdom to be read.
Reading involves understanding the meaning of words in a language. Therefore, it is the meaning of words that may either remain as knowledge or may reveal wisdom.
It is important to understand that you do not read meanings; you read words in a language, which reveal meaning. A word in a language however is sound, because every letter in a word is a phoneme and phoneme is a unit of sound.
Reading therefore indicates that both a word and its meaning is an auditory illusion of sound. This implies that reading is illusory and not real. The enlightened have rightly pointed that daily life is illusory and reading is included in daily life.
Author: Dr. Vijai S. Shankar
© Copyright V. S. Shankar 2016
Editor’s Note:
There would be no readers, if there were no writers; no reading, if there were no writing. Both reading and writing are gifts of life. Both have evolved as man’s companions in his or her daily life, albeit illusory. Yet both may be harbingers of wisdom. Such is the generosity of life.
Julian Capper, U.K
German Translator’s Note:
Reading makes written words, as these wise words in the article “Reading“ by Dr. Shankar, overcome space and time. They reach whomever they are meant to reach. The written gets precisely synchronized with a thought in the mind of the reader. In this manner nobody can take something from “outside“ which is not present “inside“ already. Such is the mysterious power of reading, gifted to mankind by life.
Marcus Stegmaier, Germany.