If you shut your door to all errors, truth will be shut out
—Rabindranath Tagore—
Since so much of the world remains mysterious, how can we rule out new possibilities? It’s very human to want to cling to the little bits of truth we’re sure of; but we mustn’t use those bits of knowledge to keep us from the possibility of further discoveries.
True wisdom includes the humility to acknowledge what we don’t know. The careful scientist and the experienced physician are humble before the immensity of what they don’t know. New experiences, new relations and connections can reveal more and more, if we are open to them. Once we decide we know something—and close our minds to the possibility that we don’t—we’re keeping ourselves willfully ignorant. Filtering out life’s richness robs us of our birthright experience. Nothing is true that can’t stand to be tested against life’s flow. Even welcome visitors can only enter through a door I’ve opened.