Thomas Alva Edison had gone for a holiday to a resort village. The village had a small high school, and they were having their annual function. The students from different departments had made things as an exhibition for all the villagers to come and see. The art students had made paintings, toys. The science students had made a few electrical things which amazed the villagers.
He went into the school, he saw the trains running, he saw the water coming from the tap just by the presence of the hand underneath it. He asked a student – who was very happy to show him because he knew that this was not a man from the village; just by his dress and everything he looked like a visitor. The student was very interested to show him everything, and Thomas Alva Edison took great interest in everything that the students had made. Then he asked a question: ”How are these things working?”
The boy said, ”Electricity.”
Edison asked, ”What is electricity?”
The boy said, ”What is electricity? That I don’t know. I know how it works. But I will call my science teacher, he is a graduate, a B.Sc. first class; he will certainly know.”
So he called his science teacher, who also said, ”Forgive me, sir. We know how to use it, but we don’t know what it is. But perhaps our principal, who has a Ph. D. – he must know what electricity is.”
So they took the principal aside, and the principal said, ”Forgive me, sir. I know how it works, but what it is, I am sorry to say I don’t know.”
Edison laughed. He said to them, ”Don’t feel embarrassed. I am Thomas Alva Edison, and I also don’t know what electricity is. All that I know is Electricity is a form of energy and I know how it works.”
Science will accept Buddha’s statement, ”Truth is what works.” Don’t ask what it is. Another great philosopher, G.E. Moore, has written a book on ethics, and the only subject in two hundred and fifty pages is ”What is ‘good’?” Without knowing good, how can you manage ethics, morality, and all kinds of things? First you should define exactly what ‘good’ is. And after two hundred and fifty pages of very dense argumentation, finally he comes to the conclusion, ”Good is indefinable.”
It is just as if somebody asks you, ”What is yellow?” You can say, ”Yellow is yellow,” but what is it? We are living in a mysterious world where nothing is known. All that we know is how to use things. If we go to the root of knowing, we will be confronted with an immense mystery which has not been, solved even in ordinary matters. What is yellow? What is good?
The boy said, ”Electricity.”
Edison asked, ”What is electricity?”
The boy said, ”What is electricity? That I don’t know. I know how it works. But I will call my science teacher, he is a graduate, a B.Sc. first class; he will certainly know.”
So he called his science teacher, who also said, ”Forgive me, sir. We know how to use it, but we don’t know what it is. But perhaps our principal, who has a Ph. D. – he must know what electricity is.”
So they took the principal aside, and the principal said, ”Forgive me, sir. I know how it works, but what it is, I am sorry to say I don’t know.”
Edison laughed. He said to them, ”Don’t feel embarrassed. I am Thomas Alva Edison, and I also don’t know what electricity is. All that I know is Electricity is a form of energy and I know how it works.”
Science will accept Buddha’s statement, ”Truth is what works.” Don’t ask what it is. Another great philosopher, G.E. Moore, has written a book on ethics, and the only subject in two hundred and fifty pages is ”What is ‘good’?” Without knowing good, how can you manage ethics, morality, and all kinds of things? First you should define exactly what ‘good’ is. And after two hundred and fifty pages of very dense argumentation, finally he comes to the conclusion, ”Good is indefinable.”
It is just as if somebody asks you, ”What is yellow?” You can say, ”Yellow is yellow,” but what is it? We are living in a mysterious world where nothing is known. All that we know is how to use things. If we go to the root of knowing, we will be confronted with an immense mystery which has not been, solved even in ordinary matters. What is yellow? What is good?
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