November 9, 2017
Gautama Buddha is inspired by the power of curiosity who gave a direction and a perspective to the world in today and he guided many people to have productive and meaningful life. According to one source, one day, as Siddhartha—Buddha—was touring a park area of the kingdom, he saw four things that changed his life. First, he saw a sick person. He had never seen a sick person before and was shocked at the sight. Next, he saw an old person, someone stooped over and suffering the effects of old age. Again, he was shocked for he’d never seen this suffering before.
Then, he saw a corpse! He’d certainly never seen a dead person before, nor did he even really understand the reality of death. His father had kept him sheltered from all these things, particularly death. Finally, he saw a sage or holy man walking up the path. The sage passed by the sick person, the old person and the corpse – and as he did so, his face and demeanor was filled with compassion, peacefulness and joy.
Siddhartha at that moment recognized for the first time the profound suffering that even the best of lives involves. He resolved to be like the sage, who in the midst of sickness, old age and death could still live a life of compassion, peacefulness and joy. So, he returned to the palace and made plans to renounce the kingdom and his life, and to wander into the forest to seek enlightenment.
Afterwards, he taught his own revelation after he received and entered the valley of Enlightenment, the Four Noble Truths: the existence of suffering, the cause of suffering, that the cause of suffering can end, and the path to the end of suffering; and the Noble Eightfold Path, namely right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.
Curiosity is one of the most useful and important virtues in human way of life and in these worlds. In such city of curiosity, asking question is a tool by which people try to quench their thirst of curiosity in their own way since people are not curios, they cannot know anything. And there is no harm in knowing something or anything about any given aspect of life in this world since knowing something is better than knowing nothing.
A person who lives without curiosity is half dead and dull. A person who lives without curiosity is half lived. A person who lives without curiosity is lifeless. A person who does not have sense of curiosity is living under jeopardy without even realizing it.
However, it is not naturally possible to have the sense of curiosity since it is endowed within beings, but this depends upon on how one is making use of it. There is no need to go to school or have prestige education to be curious. But, there is a need to develop it since it is useful tool for life and to develop effective social skill in life too.
As people become more curios, they ask more and as they ask more, they find more answers and as they find answers, they obtain useful and productive perspectives of life and as they get productive and useful perspective of life, they obtain meaningful and purposeful life. These are interconnected and interlinked aspect of the human way of life.
Curiosity is the cause for any people to derive knowledge since the basis of curiosity is the desire and need to know something. The instrument by which people employ to know something is thru asking question since they want to know something about any given matter which is very human. And people ask many questions about many things, but what is different here is the type and strength, which matters on the level of education one possesses and the way people understand things which is mainly dependent upon experience and exposures which people possess in life.
Our search towards any reality is dependent up on the degree of our curiosity in nature and life too. Curiosity is a key that unlocks the door of the city of search, for in it many virtues are hidden. One of the virtues that is hidden in such city of curiosity is the power and urge to know something in which such knowing is derived due to the fact that people are curious to know something in life.
And thus, it is a portal to know new realities and leads us to use our potentialities on the process of investigation of many matters we do not know. While knowing new realities of life, people contribute something to this continuing and ever advancing world and civilizations in way helping humanity to lead a productive and meaningful life as well.
People say curiosity kills the cat that only works for cats, which may not apply to human beings for it gives life to our mind, and it is an essential attribute to acquire if we really want to know mysteries in life. Unless and otherwise we are not curious towards any reality in this objective world, we cannot learn and know much.
In a very fact there are two types of curiosity, one is a noble one and the other one is the idle one. The noble type of curiosity always directs to the noble way, where it assists us to reach a higher level of thinking and reality, so that we can enter a new level of mentality and station.
Most people could be interested in the idle curiosity since this is how far they can go as result of their given exposures in life in which they prefer to dwell in lower aspects of human life which involve idle human affairs of life and their intention is to hurt and harm people at present and in the future as well. They are found plotting against people and they exert all kinds of resources and energies to attack and destroy other people’s destiny and life.
This kind of idle curiosity is something that leads one to be in a state of confusion in the reality one is trying to govern. Instead of directing us to the desired and correct path, it may lead us to the way we have never thought and sought, due to failures and errors people are constantly committing. Many unexpected bad conditions could visit such kinds of people’s lives since their motive is bad. Probably, this kind of curiosity kills that cat.
Our curiosity should be to know a reality higher and greater than what one knows in today since tomorrow is another bright day due to the fact people know something new and different things in every day. Curiosity should have a noble purpose. One may need to exert energy and thoughts for valuable objectives. Otherwise our curiosity would be futile. It should lead to realize a reality, which was not revealed before. It may not be important to know in which restaurant one’s friend has drunk coffee last night.
One needs to be able to identify one’s priority in life and try to apply to know a reality by the useful means, for the type of things one knows in life affects, in one way or the other, our thinking. In general, curiosity is a useful instrument to know and understand any reality. The best means for acquiring curiosity is through asking question, which needs inquisitive and investigative mind set.
To question is the very nature of our intellectual reality as far as our reality as a human being is concerned. One of the effective instruments and ways one can acquire curiosity is through questions. The more one asks and the better curious one becomes.
Although it is dependent up on the type of society one is living and trained in, questions are a powerful means for acquiring and developing curiosity and knowledge. One may not find suitable answers for the many of subtle questions one have in life and in mind; and one may get inclined to be tired of having questions in mind. However, never give up asking!
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