Ralph Waldo Emerson het op ‘n keer geskrywe: “Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.” Ek het hierdie woorde as student die eerste keer gelees, en om een of ander rede het dit vasgesteek. Ek het dit saam my gedra en elke keer wat ek ‘n nuwe boek oopgemaak het, het dit by my opgekom. En het dit my gerig. Sodoende het ek oor die jare heelwat aanhalings bymekaar gemaak. Wel dalk meer as net heelwat, heelwat meer. Ek wil ‘n paar daarvan met julle deel. Lees dit aandagtig en laat die wysheid daarvan insink. En hopelik sal jy, nes ek, ‘n “blast of a trumpet” belewenis hê. Ek kies so ‘n paar uiteenlopende mense se woorde van wysheid.
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi (Persiese Soefi-mistikus en digter, 1207-1273): “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
Matsuo Basho (een van die bekendste digters in die Edo periode in Japan, 1644-1694): “Seek not to follow in the footsteps of Sages; seek what they sought.”
Henry David Thoreau (Amerikaanse digter, skrywer en filosoof, 1843-1916): “As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”
Marcel Proust (Franse skrywer en filosoof, 1871-1922): “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
Bertrand Russell (Britse skrywer, wiskundige, politieke aktivis en Nobelpryswenner, 1872-1970): “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wise people so full of doubts.”
Albert Einstein (Duits gebore teoretiese fisikus, 1879-1955): “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
Joseph Campbell (Amerikaanse skrywer, mitoloog en akademikus, 1904-1987): “We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.”
Allen Ginsberg (Amerikaanse digter en vrede-aktivis, 1926-1997): “To gain your own voice, forget about having it heard. Become the sage of your own province and your own consciousness.”
Thich Nhat Hanh (Viëtnamese Zen Boeddhistiese leermeester, 1926-): “In our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work.”
Rajneesh (ook bekend as Osho, Indiese spirituele leermeester, 1931-1990): “Discover yourself; otherwise you have to depend on other people’s opinions who don’t know themselves.”
Carl Sagan (Amerikaanse astronoom en kosmoloog, 1934-1996): “The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”
Leonard Cohen (Kanadese skrywer, digter en musikant, 1934-2016): “Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”
En laaste maar nie die minste nie, Ahmed Kathrada (politikus en anti-apartheid politieke gevangene, 1929-2017). ‘n Stil en sagte mens. Iemand wat gestaan het vir dit waarin hy geglo het, selfs bereid was om daarvoor te sterf. Ons groet hom vandag met sy afsterwe. Volgens hom: “Hatred, revenge, bitterness – these are negative emotions. The person harbouring those emotions suffers more.”
Hou aan met lees en leer. Moet nooit ophou soek en ontdek nie, want iewers is daar iets ongelooflik verligtend en bevrydend om te ontdek. En onthou altyd die wyse woorde van die filosoof André Gide: “Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.”
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