Ignorance doesn’t understand wisdom, and before wisdom comes into a being, there’s a long state where that being has to have the capacity to be silent and patient in order to allow the teaching to be absorbed so that there can be some understanding. And while this is going on ignorance is constantly doubting. Ignorance is constantly pushing you away from the path because it argues with wisdom. It tells you that there is no sense to wisdom. It explains to you that the only things that are real are the things that you touch and feel, and see, and hear and smell, and the things that are unseen are make-believe.
Why is this? Because the body is elemental and made of the elements, the brain is elemental and made of the elements, and the intellect can only deal with the elements. What people have before they have wisdom is intellect. And because man’s intellect is so much greater than a worm’s intellect, or a bull’s intellect, or an elephant’s intellect man has given enormous credit to the intellect for being able to accomplish things, for being able to know things, for being able to understand things.
Man is very impressed by the intellectual accomplishments of the mind. Man is impressed by the computer. Man is impressed by the rocket ship. Man is impressed by the airplane. Man, as he looks through history, sees these things didn’t exist and now these things do exist. And what did them? The intellect, so man pushes the superiority of the intellect, and pushes superiority of what can be seen, and what can be accomplished in this world.
Well this body, this material body that’s made out of earth, air, fire, water and ether is a house with a limit. It’s a house that has a certain amount of time and then it dissipates. There’s cooperation between the elements that stays together for a certain period of time, and then this cooperation begins to fall apart. And the elements, which are naturally opposed to each other, begin to fight again as opposed to staying in cooperation to keep us alive.
If we give this house of the elements full credit for existence and say that this is who we are then we are living in a temporary home, a home that will disappear from us and will leave us stranded…
