Edward's Diary Entry 8 - Reading or Doing?

The Life Plan was an all-out acceptance of a commitment to do something practical. Whatever you are ready for and think you can do, you should just go ahead and do it. No more balking. I decided on charity and on planning practical things to do. Some of us need an outline to keep us on track. There’s a big difference between reading about human development and spirituality, and actually doing something. A world of difference. I don’t go back to my books anymore, unless it’s for an occasional quote or a reference I need for something. I have read ever since I could read. But I have not always talked since I learned to talk. Isn’t language a strange thing? Just like we have no idea who really invented languages in the dim past, and very powerful old languages too, like Sanskrit, in which the mind of man was described millennia ago; we have no idea how we actually learned our language. So when we come to think about ourselves, our world, our planetary problems, we are using a set of terms and ideas that we learned unconsciously, by imitating the words of our parents and families. Our world is based on words, and then as soon as we can read, we start reading more words. Yes, we all need basic information, we need experience, book lovers need their books. But at the end of the book excursion comes the real-life endeavour of sitting down and looking into our minds to see what, if anything, we have really learned from our books. That’s what a Life Plan was all about. Look at the world: energy is scarce, we have to save it. And “mind energy” is scarce, too, and it has to be concentrated so we can work. Therefore, I arranged my daily activities according to a plan, with morning exercises, work activities, socialising and home duties, then afternoon exercises, work, and then social life. At bedtime weekdays there are more exercises. During the day, at work and during social life, the exercise of Presence or Self-Awareness also continues, and walking is especially conducive to mental exercises and semi-meditation, maybe as in Van Gogh’s “Evening Stroll” depicted here. I had either been unable or afraid to do this before, and contented myself with reading about it. No more. It was now a question of “do or die”.