Blog 12:: What is knowledge?

Fiddling with a pencil, I stroke my hair consistently and stared at the words of the Torah. Engaged and captivated by Noah’s persistent and humble character, I read the holy verses attentively as the spiritual journey of the slender, reflective Siddhartha from Herman Hesse’s novel danced in my mind. Only a week after I had completed the philosophical novel in my junior year, I found myself continually questioning the concept of learning, teachers, books, and doctrines in everything I read and performed.
Endowed with intellectuality, wisdom, and a handsome physique, the protagonist Siddhartha goes on a spiritual quest to find himself. Siddhartha discerns early in the novel at his acquaintance with the highly esteemed Buddha that the key to gaining true wisdom lies not in the words of the Samanas or holy books, but experience to search for himself. The theme of learning in Hesse’s novel challenged the concept of learning that I had believed since I was a child. I had always thought learning was limited to simply memorizing, nothing more than that.
Siddhartha’s simple quest to find himself through learning struck me. Socrates once said, “Know thyself.” Yet, I had never realized that even after studying several holy books and reading all sorts of books, magazines and newspapers, I had, like Siddhartha, never found myself. I kept asking myself, “What is the meaning of the holy books, history and text books if they are not applied in real experience to finding ourselves? Shouldn’t learning be more than just grades?”

Upon finishing the novel, I was left with utter confusion as the message that Hesse conveyed shed new light upon my understanding of the world. Yet, at the same time, I was swimming in a pool of tranquility as I now understood the meaning of learning and knowledge. I learned since then to take in knowledge, learn from it, and apply it to my own life and self.