The Garden of Reason by Robin Bloor
For the most part, we learn by rote. Indeed, there is very little of our intellectual education that is not "learned by rote." Mathematical techniques and some scientific methods call for a little more than the repetition of what others have written or said. But in the main our education is by rote and its efficacy is tested by our ability to repeat and regurgitate. Thus, while on occasion we may be able to impress others with our "grasp" of some academic field by our ability to "articulate" such "learning," in reality we may understand almost nothing of the field of study.
The third striving - the conscious striving to know ever more and more concerning the laws of World-creation and World-maintenance - requires a conscious knowing, not unconscious repetition.
So the question naturally arises:
How can this be achieved?
It may help us if we embrace the metaphor of The Garden of Reason. Set aside for the moment every notion you have of how we come to know and understand the world, and instead consider the intellect to be an inner garden, the management and maintenance of which is our responsibility.
Acknowledge that until now, we have, for the most part, let this garden grow wild. We have neglected it for years, distracted by the events and non-events of our lives. The flowerbeds are in disarray. There are weeds growing everywhere; even saplings of trees that we neither want nor need in the garden. Some plants, although highly valued, have established themselves in quite the wrong place. Few of the trees have been pruned at the appropriate time or in the correct way. In some places the garden is strangled by weeds, while in other areas the soil has been trampled down so frequently that it is hard for any plant to take hold. The compost heap is long abandoned and the soil has not been turned or nourished for years. The paths have fallen into disrepair. And, to cap it all, the gardening tools are rusty and some clearly need to be replaced.
And yet this is an extensive garden. The acreage is more than enough to grow everything we might need or want to grow. Large areas could be given over to root crops and fruit bushes. We could establish orchards to gift us with apples, peaches and even pomegranates. To these we could add fig trees and walnut trees. There could be salad crops: cucumbers, lettuces, peppers and tomatoes. In one corner we could create a fragrant herb garden. We might devote a special area to establishing a tapestry of flowers that changes with the seasons, interspersed with rose bushes that bloom from the spring through to the autumn. Perhaps this gesture to beauty would border a rich lawn, encircling a fountain, so that in the summer the perfume of roses might complement the moisture in the air and the music of running water.
We can plan our Garden of Reason in a similarly varied and extensive manner. We can be inventive in shaping the landscape. All areas of knowledge and art can be allotted their locale and their reach: physics and astronomy, mathematics and metaphysics, poetry and literature, history and geology, alchemy and chemistry. We could plant side-by-side together those disciplines that naturally grow together and complement each other. We might contrast the soaring ideals of philosophy with the complex weave of history. We could enshrine the enduring traditions of the great religions within the surprising varieties of sacred architecture. We could seed the many varieties of science within the fertile soil of topology, geometry and algebra.
And at the very heart of the garden, where it can influence can shine out to enhance the growth of every variety of intellectual discipline, we will establish the ideas of The Work.
We shall fashion the whole area after the shape of the enneagram, planting at its very center the Ray of Creation, surrounded by different families of ascending and descending octaves. And here at the apex of the triangle we shall plant the perennial Law of Three, and there at the next corner of the triangle we'll place the evergreen Law of Seven. And the third corner perhaps we will build and fashion the pond of self-observation, wherein we can grow the lilies of self-knowledge and perhaps also the reeds of revelation. On still summer days, no doubt we will clearly see our own reflection on the surface of the water.
At the other points of the enneagram we can place concentrations of concepts; some biological, some psychological and yet others cosmological. We shall provide space and freedom in which they can multiply, flourish and evolve. And over here, against the wall of identification, we shall set the creeping vine of negative emotions, so we may see, whenever we care to look, how the one embraces the other. And interweaving the heart of the garden we shall plant the seeds of self- remembering in well tilled soil so that we can preserve these fragile plants from the weeds of imagination, vanity and self-love.
There is work to be done, for our current garden is nothing like the garden we aspire to create and yearn to establish. It is overgrown and wild, and it needs to be tamed before we can proceed. Whole trees of misconception need to be felled and chopped up for fire wood. Many weeds of old beliefs and superstitions must be uprooted and tossed onto a newly fashioned compost heap. We must meticulously scour every square yard of earth, uprooting pointless ideas and conceptions, but taking care to leave in place those plants of whose virtue we are as yet unsure. And on the compost heap, in time, the weeds we pulled will decompose, providing nourishing food that will enrich our soil, and encourage new plants to grow.
Let a single master gardener come forth to manage this effort, and let all who would labor in the garden answer to him and follow his orders with grace. He will furnish us with new tools and teach us how to tend the Garden of Reason. He will demonstrate the virtues of intellectual honesty and the power of sincere questions. He will guide us in the methods of constatation and logical confrontation, representation, pondering, contemplation and every other kind of rational mentation. And he will imbue us with patience - for this garden will take time to mature and become established. While some of the new plants we introduce may flourish in a single season, others will surely take years to mature.
And as for the wind and the rain and the sun. Those are the events of our lives, some joyous and others, perhaps, difficult to bear. But every one of them can, and if we allow it, will nourish the garden. With their indispensable assistance, The Garden of Reason will grow, and it will flower and bear fruit, and there will be a harvest time.
For the most part, we learn by rote. Indeed, there is very little of our intellectual education that is not "learned by rote." Mathematical techniques and some scientific methods call for a little more than the repetition of what others have written or said. But in the main our education is by rote and its efficacy is tested by our ability to repeat and regurgitate. Thus, while on occasion we may be able to impress others with our "grasp" of some academic field by our ability to "articulate" such "learning," in reality we may understand almost nothing of the field of study.
The third striving - the conscious striving to know ever more and more concerning the laws of World-creation and World-maintenance - requires a conscious knowing, not unconscious repetition.
So the question naturally arises:
How can this be achieved?
It may help us if we embrace the metaphor of The Garden of Reason. Set aside for the moment every notion you have of how we come to know and understand the world, and instead consider the intellect to be an inner garden, the management and maintenance of which is our responsibility.
Acknowledge that until now, we have, for the most part, let this garden grow wild. We have neglected it for years, distracted by the events and non-events of our lives. The flowerbeds are in disarray. There are weeds growing everywhere; even saplings of trees that we neither want nor need in the garden. Some plants, although highly valued, have established themselves in quite the wrong place. Few of the trees have been pruned at the appropriate time or in the correct way. In some places the garden is strangled by weeds, while in other areas the soil has been trampled down so frequently that it is hard for any plant to take hold. The compost heap is long abandoned and the soil has not been turned or nourished for years. The paths have fallen into disrepair. And, to cap it all, the gardening tools are rusty and some clearly need to be replaced.
And yet this is an extensive garden. The acreage is more than enough to grow everything we might need or want to grow. Large areas could be given over to root crops and fruit bushes. We could establish orchards to gift us with apples, peaches and even pomegranates. To these we could add fig trees and walnut trees. There could be salad crops: cucumbers, lettuces, peppers and tomatoes. In one corner we could create a fragrant herb garden. We might devote a special area to establishing a tapestry of flowers that changes with the seasons, interspersed with rose bushes that bloom from the spring through to the autumn. Perhaps this gesture to beauty would border a rich lawn, encircling a fountain, so that in the summer the perfume of roses might complement the moisture in the air and the music of running water.
We can plan our Garden of Reason in a similarly varied and extensive manner. We can be inventive in shaping the landscape. All areas of knowledge and art can be allotted their locale and their reach: physics and astronomy, mathematics and metaphysics, poetry and literature, history and geology, alchemy and chemistry. We could plant side-by-side together those disciplines that naturally grow together and complement each other. We might contrast the soaring ideals of philosophy with the complex weave of history. We could enshrine the enduring traditions of the great religions within the surprising varieties of sacred architecture. We could seed the many varieties of science within the fertile soil of topology, geometry and algebra.
And at the very heart of the garden, where it can influence can shine out to enhance the growth of every variety of intellectual discipline, we will establish the ideas of The Work.
We shall fashion the whole area after the shape of the enneagram, planting at its very center the Ray of Creation, surrounded by different families of ascending and descending octaves. And here at the apex of the triangle we shall plant the perennial Law of Three, and there at the next corner of the triangle we'll place the evergreen Law of Seven. And the third corner perhaps we will build and fashion the pond of self-observation, wherein we can grow the lilies of self-knowledge and perhaps also the reeds of revelation. On still summer days, no doubt we will clearly see our own reflection on the surface of the water.
At the other points of the enneagram we can place concentrations of concepts; some biological, some psychological and yet others cosmological. We shall provide space and freedom in which they can multiply, flourish and evolve. And over here, against the wall of identification, we shall set the creeping vine of negative emotions, so we may see, whenever we care to look, how the one embraces the other. And interweaving the heart of the garden we shall plant the seeds of self- remembering in well tilled soil so that we can preserve these fragile plants from the weeds of imagination, vanity and self-love.
There is work to be done, for our current garden is nothing like the garden we aspire to create and yearn to establish. It is overgrown and wild, and it needs to be tamed before we can proceed. Whole trees of misconception need to be felled and chopped up for fire wood. Many weeds of old beliefs and superstitions must be uprooted and tossed onto a newly fashioned compost heap. We must meticulously scour every square yard of earth, uprooting pointless ideas and conceptions, but taking care to leave in place those plants of whose virtue we are as yet unsure. And on the compost heap, in time, the weeds we pulled will decompose, providing nourishing food that will enrich our soil, and encourage new plants to grow.
Let a single master gardener come forth to manage this effort, and let all who would labor in the garden answer to him and follow his orders with grace. He will furnish us with new tools and teach us how to tend the Garden of Reason. He will demonstrate the virtues of intellectual honesty and the power of sincere questions. He will guide us in the methods of constatation and logical confrontation, representation, pondering, contemplation and every other kind of rational mentation. And he will imbue us with patience - for this garden will take time to mature and become established. While some of the new plants we introduce may flourish in a single season, others will surely take years to mature.
And as for the wind and the rain and the sun. Those are the events of our lives, some joyous and others, perhaps, difficult to bear. But every one of them can, and if we allow it, will nourish the garden. With their indispensable assistance, The Garden of Reason will grow, and it will flower and bear fruit, and there will be a harvest time.