invites you to ask and answer questions covering social themes of global significance. When you ask in order to understand, when you answer in order to share, this is what we mean by dropping knowledge.
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Ashok Gangadean's
biography
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QuestionWhat does courage mean now? Sarah FrancisAnswer
Ashok Gangadean: I love this question because the question of courage has always been alive in my feel of philosophy. To be courageous, of course takes wisdom. When we think of Socrates, for example, looking at the great virtues of courage and wisdom and temperance and justice, these are integral. And in terms of my understanding of the meaning of the "courage" - core rage or rage of the heart, enlightened rage, proper rage that comes for being outraged at injustice. That sense of the heart rage, "courage" and the real courage, what does it mean now? It truly does shift according your context, but what doesn’t shift is a genuine courage that comes from awakened consciousness and genuine knowledge or wisdom. And wisdom and courage are inseparable. And temperance and justice, these are all interconnected, as we saw from Plato and Aristotle and our Greek traditions.
But, it was also clear in all of our great spiritual traditions, that it takes courage to be human being. It takes courage to be. Because in these great traditions, the attempt to step back from privileging one's ego and clinging to the ego as the true self, the illusion of the ego, takes enormous courage. It always has taken courage to let go of one’s ego identity and dare to have the courage and the faith in the wisdom to let go and cross into allowing the true awakened self, the self of interconnectivity, to come forth.
All human beings are called to have this profound courage, to step back and let go of that artificial self, so that their higher self may come forth. And we are challenged for that kind of courage. And, whether it’s in ancient times or now, this courage of the heart to dare to become a true human being is more required now than ever, as we enter our global age of awakened human beings.
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