“The Last Secret I Have Learned”

268.01For many years I have reflected about life.
There is nothing under the moon I cannot understand.
I know that I do not know anything–
This is the last secret I have learned.
(Attributed to Omar Khayyam)

Question: Is the correct outcome of life that a person realizes that he knows nothing?

Answer: Yes, this is really so. He comes to the end of his life and realizes that he does not understand anything from it!

Comment: Although during his life it seemed to him that he was accumulating knowledge.

My Response: Yes, he was a great sage and philosopher.

Question: Yes, he had children, raised them, raised others, taught others. As a result, he comes to the conclusion that he knows nothing and has not attained anything?

Answer: No, that life is something that cannot be attained.

Question: “This is the last secret I have learned.”

That is, it turns out that throughout life this is a secret, a person does not understand this. Why is it revealed at the end of life? Why not tell him this so that he would be wiser in the middle of life or at the beginning?

Answer: He will not accept it.

Question: So, go through life like that and as a result find out that nothing has been achieved by me and I have done nothing. Is that right?

Answer: This is obviously true.

Question: I wonder, are we still shown this along the way? Are there any such signposts that tell us: “Understand that you will achieve nothing or that you are nothing”?

Answer: I think this will not calm a person down. That is, youth and strength take their toll. He searches all the time until already in adulthood, especially in old age, he understands that the main thing for him is to live today. Tomorrow will come, he will live it the same way.

Question: This is when he comes to wisdom, to old age. But during his life, he still has a lot ahead of him, and he still goes on and on, right?

Answer: Of course, there are all sorts of plans.

Question: Is it right to live like this? Or is it necessary to come to the point somewhere in the middle of life that, as you say, we start living day by day?

Answer: But it is difficult for a person to agree with this. It is against our nature. We want to go forward all the time and achieve something. But in fact, we are not achieving anything. We quietly live this life as biological beings and that is it, and then we pass away.

Comment: But we are still somehow enjoying the challenge that we have.

My Response: This is like kids in a sandbox.

Comment: Look at Elon Musk, for example. He is on everyone’s radar all the time. He is enjoying himself. Sometimes he launches something into space, then he wants to move everyone to Mars, then something else, then to implant microchips. He is full of energy and pleasure.

My Response: Such people are indeed full of pleasure and energy and try to make everyone follow them. But does it have a meaning? This is a question.

Question: Why does a person not want to come to the conclusion that “I am nothing”?

Answer: Because he says, “I am nothing,” and other possibilities are revealed behind this.

I am nothing, and then what? Am I then nothing in trying to do what: to get rich, to control? And then what? Here he has all sorts of dilemmas.

Question: Is that why he is afraid?

Answer: Yes. He also does not want to stop.

Question: Does he then stabilize his life by running, creating, and inventing?

Answer: Yes, there are many like this.

Question: But in fact, do you think that one way or another they are destined to come to such an end anyway?

Answer: Everyone knows the end.

Comment: Yes. “For dust you are and to dust you will return” (Genesis 3:19).

My Response: Yes. But the fact is that it depends on what goals he sets for himself, and they give him life, and the strength to move, get up, wake up in the morning, and do something.

Question: Do you think this is a sandbox game?

Answer: Yes, it is a sandbox game.

Question: What wisdom should come to him then?

Answer: If this is balanced with his general theory of life, then it is probably a good thing. But if this is just to run from Earth to Mars and somewhere else and back, then of course there is no point in that.

Question: What if a person suddenly stops and asks a question: “What is after that, what is next?”

Answer: It can be very bad for this person. Then he loses his bearings in life. This is even worse!

Comment: This is called depression.

My Response: Yes. So it is better to let him play in the sandbox and not think about anything else.

Question: Is it better when the questions: “Why am I running? What do I live for?” do not pop up?

Answer: Yes.

Question: But you insist all the time and say that a person should still come up with the question “What am I living for?” People who have this question come to us to study. Does it mean that it is good?

Answer: If they come to study with us, then they go further in their development besides building all sorts of ships to Mars. But we still do not know the meaning of life.

Question: But if we want to attain it, is that a good thing?

Answer: I do not know that. Whoever wants to live for this will of course come to us. The rest will be satisfied with less.

Question: If there is this question we have come to it, there is no escape. We came to the question: “What is all this for? What am I running for? What is this life for? For what?”

If this question “What do I live for?” does not stop, but on the contrary gives a person life, can we say that it is good? Does it turn out that this is a different kind of person, a different character? That is, he is not satisfied.

Answer: Yes, it depends on the character of the person.

Question: How was it with you, may I ask?

Answer: I had this since I was a kid. Therefore, the sandbox game for me was something…

Question: But you had it, right?

Answer: Yes!

Comment: Indeed! You were a scientist, you wanted to be a scientist, and so on.

My Response: Yes.

Comment: Then something happened to you.

My Response: I realized that it was all pointless.

Question: Is it because you were stopped, you were not allowed to go where you wanted to go?

Answer: This as well, but still, the desire to attain is disappointing in itself. No matter how much you yearn to attain, you see that it all leads to infinity.

Question: Does it not give you additional desire to live? To infinity, after all, the infinite. endless knowledge, the infinity of everything.

Answer: No, even new knowledge, even if you reveal something new every day, you still need to continue tomorrow. I do not see any special, good impulses in this.

Question: Please tell me, we are getting a little closer to a dead end. How can a person live with this? With what you are saying, how can he live?

Answer: I do not know. I sometimes think of my history teacher from school. He was saying: “A person’s life consists of watching a movie, reading a good book so that it is somehow interesting. And that is life.”

Question: Is that all? No need to rush anywhere, just live like that?

Answer: Yes, he was already elderly.

Question: But you were eager, were you not?

Answer: I was eager. I was not particularly impressed by these words of his. But still, in some ways they remained in me.

Comment: You said that one of the happiest moments of your life was the moment you suddenly started to get answers to your questions. You suddenly realized that there is what you were looking for behind this.

My Response: Yes!

Question: Are you personally still in this state?

Answer: Maybe not as much as before, but I am moving forward, yes.

Question: So, after all, when you get answers to these eternal questions, is this life?

Answer: This is life. Because these answers are in turn new questions.
[321824]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/13/23

Related Material:
The Whole History of Humanity in One Phrase
An Unhappy Sage
The Plague Of The Century

Discussion | Share Feedback | Ask a question




Laitman.com Comments RSS Feed

Previous Post: