There is so much we know that we don’t even know that we know,

We start learning as soon as we are born. We learn to recognize people, learn a language, and so many things we observe and experience. As time goes by, the utility of many learnings becomes irrelevant, and they automatically get filed away – in a mental closet. They are never lost. They sit forever in that closet in the mind. There is a lot that is in there, but we rarely ever open it to see what is there, because a need doesn’t arise

I suddenly thought about it yesterday. I took a peak in the closet, and saw many gems. The learnings from my childhood. Lessons from my grandma. Wisdom of the Vedas from from Dharma classes in the middle school, home remedies used at home for various ailments like headache or common cold.

And so much more. Our culture, history, values, ethics, morality, social norms, codes of conduct, respect for elders.

I felt happy and sad at the same time. Happy because all that is still there in the hidden closet, and sad because the world has changed so much that much of that beauty, norms and wisdom seem to have disappeared. But, again, it is not. All of it is still there. At least within me. If I choose to take it out of that closet.

Our lives were profound in the early ages. But as time has progressed, they have become mundane – and we don’t even know it. In early days, there were Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Aristotle, and the Rishis and Seers in India who wrote Veda and scriptures on papyrus. They must have invented the papyrus as well and writing for this purpose – to preserve the centuries of learning and knowledge for the future ages.

Even before the writing was invented, the knowledge was passed to the next generation through oral tradition. Human mind has infinite capacity to store knowledge. In the Vedas, ancient Hindu scriptures, it uses a phrase – Ahm Brahmand, I am the Universe. What it means is that I, myself, am a tiny but inseparable part of the Universe. Therefore, I am the universe. We do not need to seek it outside of ourselves. If we explore within ourselves, all we need is right there.

The Rishis or scholars of the early ages studied this phenomenon and concluded that the whole universe is created from five elements – earth, water, fire, air and ether. It includes all living and non living things. All life and all matter. An early periodic table of elements. They also concluded that everything in the universe is inseparably linked and related to each other. It is also co-dependent. We can all choose to help each other, or destroy each other.

Lately, humanity has taken a destructive path. Nature provides sustenance for humanity. In return, humanity has a responsibility to protect nature – in its own self interest. But, it is clearly evident from the climate change that we are hurting nature, and as a result experiencing increasingly more natural disasters every year, and hurting ourselves.

Human mind still has the same capacity. Times have proven that. But we now choose to employ it differently. People who created computer memory chips that can store a library on something the size of a thumbnail, or Steve Jobs who was no less than modern day Leonardo da Vinci and created things that all living human beings use today. Or people who create weapons that can vaporize the entire universe in an instant are not less gifted. Human mind needs to invent and create. That is its given nature.

But, somehow, it has gotten misdirected. The road not taken, that it has taken, is taking us to the oblivion. That’s the way I see it, but don’t know what’s the answer.

As an old phrase is often used to describe close resembling relationships, “Chip off the old block”, we all are chips off the same old block – a big block, this universe! We are the universe. Whenever we hurt even a tiniest part of this universe, we in fact, inadvertently are hurting ourselves.

I still do have the faith in humanity and the creative potential of human mind and imagination. I have no doubt that we will solve all these issues one day and make this world better again. But, I don’t know when that may happen. I may not be around to see it. Perhaps, all that I am saying today will survive, if only in my own mind’s closet.