by Linsey McLean
Tradition always has, at its foundation, a purpose, a useful practicality, some thing, or some principle that applied to the problems or questions of life at some previous point in time. Tradition, then, by its very nature, cannot be expected to serve in the same efficient ways in a future world that is constantly changing. And we, as a human society, do not easily see that.
In fact, we strengthen Tradition to the point of unwritten law when it is challenged or threatened by observations that it is no longer relevant to the current society. Progressive thinkers, who do not limit their visions to the confines of Tradition, and therefore, are able to see the future possibilities of better quality of life or a deeper understanding of the world we live in, are often castigated severely, sometimes to the point of ostracism from society.
Then, many years, or centuries later, Humanity caught up with them and suddenly they are, posthumously, of course, heroes. We have many, many examples of this narrowness and destructiveness of thinking in our history books: Galileo, Jean D'Arc, and Einstein, to name but a few. After all these lessons in history, does it never occur to Man to learn these lessons as they are being taught, instead of so many years later?
Does it never occur to Man that perhaps his mode of thinking is in terms of the past (Tradition) that may not, and probably does not, apply to the present, or even the future? It seems that there is great security in Tradition. Using pre-formed walls of Tradition to surround one's thinking gives great security to the masses of those who do not want to think, who are too lazy to think, or maybe - too scared to think. For thinking, without pre-formed walls, is like cooking without a recipe. It takes guts, pure and simple. But look at the possibilities -awesome opportunities for invention! To see what few others will even gaze at!
Only those thinkers who can think beyond these walls, can see the other side - and sometimes that view can be scary. Sometimes tradition can be completely contradicted, such as the practice of putting butter on burns. It wasn't until an oil tanker burned and sank in the ocean, badly burning its crew and leaving them stranded in icy water for 6 hours before being rescued, that we discovered cold water as the best treatment for burns. It was also discovered that butter was probably the worst treatment. Prior to that time, we even used butter in the hospitals!
Now, what if butter was near and dear to our hearts, and quite permanently locked into our Tradition thinking. What if the believers in butter for burns refused to accept the fact that those crewmen with the severe burns were hauled from the icy waters in remarkably good shape, considering the severity of their burns? And what if future test cases on other burn patients with cold water also showed to be a better treatment than butter?
Now we have an intellectual war between the old butter lovers and the "new wave" cold water therapists. The butter lovers will continue to justify their obsolete beliefs with "evidence", probably gained from the sacrifice of current burn patients to butter therapy, when they could have had more healing benefits from the cold water, in addition to the reduction of pain. The intellectual wars go on, and on, and on, in all levels of our learning and knowledge, wasting valuable time, money and human and animal suffering in the maintenance of an obsolete "Tradition".
Now, we can see these intellectual wars for what they really are, wars of stupidity!
Why do we persist in the sustenance of obsolete knowledge? Why are we so antagonistic to change? To Learning? To expansion? To growth? Why can't we understand that the discovery of new knowledge never THREATENS Tradition, but only serves to enhance it, to expand it, to broaden it's application. It gives us, who incorporate the new knowledge, a greater depth of understanding of ourselves and the world around us, and broader minds to accept the next new package of information that comes our way.
This is the great gift that the "seers who look beyond the walls"give to those of us who don't - or can't, for some reason. We need to learn how to accept the gift of knowledge in the great spiritual way it was intended, instead of immediately rejecting it in a fit of narrow-minded human frailty. This only perpetuates the stupidity of intellectual wars in their all-out effort to preserve "Tradition" for its own, comfortable sake.
Humanity is like a bunch of nearly blind mice with glasses, who have fitted themselves with glasses. Only some have better glasses than others. Some see more and different things, even looking at the same scene, than others do. And then there are some who refuse to even look, for fear they see something that might challenge their currently held beliefs, their Tradition. And they argue and fight about what each other sees, for what IS there to some, IS NOT there for others, no matter how much proof be shown.
Wars, traditionally in history, hinder the progress, of societal development, because everyone is not pulling in the same direction. Countries continually involved in war throughout much of their history and are not nearly as "developed", as we say, as those who were not. Intellectual wars cost dearly too. They cost us intellectual and technological advancement and spiritual development, and the price is dear. As history repeats itself in cycle after cycle, we are still trying to learn the same elemental lessons after thousands of years.
The intellectual wars permeate all levels of thought, too. Physics, Philosophy, Geography, Sociology, Psychology or any other classification of knowledge, for that matter. And, nowhere are the intellectual wars of stupidity more sorely felt today than in Medicine, the subject matter of this book. Laws are even evoked to protect The Tradition, as individuals struggle to enforce their civil rights and their choices for treatments of diseases outside of "The Tradition." As a society, we continue to be our own worst enemy.
How should we deal with the "butter lovers"? The blind mice who refuse to see? The ones who war over Tradition? These are questions that must be solved by all human society in order to finally break the cycles of repeating history, and stay on the path of true progress.
This article is for those who are truly willing to see what they have not seen before. It was written for your empowerment, to help you understand the forces at work around you, and enable you to significantly improve the quality of your life.
So, if you can put your Traditional orientation to rest, in a respectable place of course, and follow me through the walls, I will lend you my glasses.
© 2011 Vita Royal Products Inc.
For security purposes we are required to take your credit/debit card information via phone. We can keep all your billing and shipping information on file, with the exception of your 3 digit CID number near the signature line, on the back of your card (which you will need to provide for each order).
After you place your first order with us over the phone, for future orders, you can simply email it to us at sales@vitaroyalproducts.com, with your CID#, and we'll ship it out to you immediately with confirmation.
