Daniel’s Nugget: Many Paths Leads To The Truth

By PenTales Pundit Elise Nardin, Zurich, Switzerland

From dreaming of becoming an ice cream seller on the beach to wanting be a dentist, after a brief ‘zoo keeper’ stint, this is quite a stretch. Maybe Daniel wanted to sell ice creams, he then realized he’d like to be able to serve another kind of fauna and ended up wanting to treat cavities resulting from too much sugar? Are you following me?

Anyhow, over 40 years later, Daniel never worked any of these jobs. He surely did eat a lot of ice cream and visited a lot of zoos. Older, wiser (?), he quotes Indian philosopher Krishnamurti: “Truth is a country without roads”. It doesn’t matter what path you take, it will eventually lead you to the truth. Has he found his truth yet? Only he knows, but his nugget of wisdom certainly is to let your opinions aside and feel confident enough that time will do the rest.

Today, Daniel answers PenTales 5 Life Lessons Questions. (Got some heard-learned lesson or some nuggets of wisdom to share? Time to spill them here.)

1. How is your hero and why?

Quite difficult to pick just one! But on top of the list is Krishnamurti. He is Indian and we would probably call him a ‘philosopher’. Obviously the reasons are his approach to the most fundamental questions of human being. There is one sentence that can illustrate his approach: “TRUTH is a country without roads”. This means that there never is one single way towards the truth. Many paths lead to the truth.

2. What was your dream job when you were a child?

Different ones at different stages: It started with ice cream seller on the beach, then moved to any role in a zoo (10) and finally I wanted to become a dentist (14)!

3. How did you choose your children’s names?

We picked names with roots in history that would not become old fashioned after 10 or 20 years.

4. Is there any motto you follow? What’s something that you think always holds true?

I believe any of us looks at the world on the back of self, meaning what we have experienced, where we were born, what we did study, and so on. The consequence is that we all only have a very partial view of life. As a consequence, our opinions are, by definition, partial and limited. There was a man asking a guru how to get to wisdom. The guru answered: “It is enough of you to put your opinions aside. You will be given the rest on top.”

5. What’s something your parents told you that turned out to be right?

Children look at what parents do, not at what parents say, and most of the time that is very different. So in summary, I got from my parents a sense of modesty, not trying to always stand under the projectors, feeling like the best with a definitive opinion on everything. The opposite attitude leads to the respect of the other, to admiration but oftentimes to fear and jealousy.