Just a Thought… (1)

“No man can reveal to you nothing but that which already lies half-asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.”—Kahlil Gibran

Each one of us has great potential—as a matter of fact, I will go so far as to say that each one of us can become whoever and whatever he wants to become.  There’s no such thing as “impossible.”  We were all created by God—he breathed his air of perfection into our existence—and yet, we still go on…mumbling day after day…that we can’t do this or we just don’t get that.  But having read through several spiritual texts and studied several doctrines, I have to object.  Why?  It’s simple.  If we are, in fact, created by a perfect, unchanging, eternal and Supreme Being, then we must carry within us a speck of the divine.  And if the latter is the case, then how is it possible that we can’t acquire whichever skill we long for?  I just finished reading St. Augustine’s On Christian Teaching, and again he emphasizes that we are full to the brim with knowledge and insight; the divine is not revealed to us out of nowhere, on the contrary, it already lies within us, and on the set date it appears—from within. And yet, we fail to recognize it and thus do not grow to reach our full potential.  Martin Heidegger, the German philosopher, also stressed potentiality, giving it greater weight than actuality.  I could go on and on about the credible sources that support this theory, but it would truly be a waste of time.  The same applies to Gibran’s quote, “no man can reveal to you nothing but that which already lies half-asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.”  We already know everything—it’s already there, resting within our souls—what we lack, however, is the key to unlock the doors that keep these mysteries safe—but that doesn’t mean that they don’t exist.  As children we learned to walk, talk, go to the bathroom, change our clothes, then later we learned how to study, to dress properly and to have intellectual conversations—but we already had all of that within ourselves—and when the time was right, we suddenly got up and walked, we uttered the first “mama,” we ran to the bathroom for the first time, we started matching our clothes, started getting As or failing, began wearing the proper attire to match whichever occasion…and the list goes on.  These “habits” or “acquired knowledge” didn’t just “appear.”  Think about it.  Does it really make sense to say that you learned everything you know because someone taught you?  Sure, they guided you, helped you unlock the door, but if these things didn’t already dwell inside you—if you weren’t full of potential—don’t you think that no matter how hard they had tried, you still wouldn’t have acquired whichever skill they wanted you to learn?