THE WATER OF WISDOM, AND THE WATER OF LIFE: A discourse on Morality and how it can be taught.

A pupil said to his master. 'What can I do, master, to be as wise as you?'


The master said, 'You must climb that hill.' He pointed to a steep hill with a winding path. 'And carry two buckets of water without spilling a drop, you must do this every day until you have gained wisdom.'


After some days, months, and then years of carrying water up the hill the pupil came to his master and said. 

'I have not learnt any wisdom at all, I am almost middle aged and I am still the same. Carrying that water up the hill has not made me wise for I cannot even prevent myself from spilling water. I have learnt no skill! At the top I am the same as I am at the bottom. Then I have to descend and take more water up the hill again.'


The master said. 'What has changed? Are your legs not stronger than when you began?'

'Yes.'

'Is the path more worn?'

'Yes.'

'And did you not see further at the top than at the bottom?'

'Yes.'

'Is the path now more alive with plants than before?

'Yes.'

'But you have not yet learnt how not to spill water, is that it?'


'I still spill water all the time. The trouble is, the stronger I have become, the faster I can walk up the hill and the faster I walk up the hill, the more worn the path becomes, and for both these reasons it is harder not to spill water!'


'So you have found the paradox.'

'The paradox?'

'Ideas that are contrary and must live side by side....this is the path to wisdom.'


'I don't understand!'

'Wisdom is not found at the bottom of the hill for this is ignorance, nor is it at the top of the hill for this is knowledge. The greater the knowledge, the harder is the task to stay balanced and to contain what one knows, but the paradox is this, the containment of knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom must be carried but it must also be released.'

'So, you mean, that wisdom is knowing that the water I have spilt on my journey is really wisdom?'

'Wisdom is life. Your journey, each day, each month and each year has created new life along the path. You have become a creator, you have changed yourself and in doing so, the world. You have used the faculty of transformation! When one realises that one walks the path of change for the sake of the world, one is wise.'

'Then what is love?'

'When one consciously walks the path, each day, each month and each year, knowing one already knows the view at the top, knowing the changes to the soul have already been made...why does one do so?'

'Merely to water the plants, to bring them life!'

'This is morality, my son! Morality is the greatest wisdom of all...for it is the fruit of a path to wisdom which is life and in bestowing life, becomes love. That is what this means: to be a lover of wisdom.

Now you are wise...go and take life and love to the world!'