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<title>The Significance of Dates</title>

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<p class=MsoNormal align=right style='text-align:center; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><b style='mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal'><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>
<font size="4">The Significance of Dates</font><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><i><span style='font-family:
"Arial Narrow";mso-bidi-font-family:"Arial Narrow"'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></i></p>

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<b><i>
<span style='font-family:
"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-font-family:"Arial Narrow"'>Does </span>
<span
style='font-family:Times New Roman'>a particular date or a series </span>
<font face="Times New Roman">£if </font> 
<span
style='font-family:Times New Roman'>dates carry any special significance?</span></i></b></p>
	<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>&nbsp;</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0;text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-bottom:0'>THE
way of framing a calendar is a convention. If the convention is made general,
as there is an attempt now to do, it can become a very powerful formation. But
in order to become significant for many, many must first accept it. I mean by a
formation an image infused with a force that makes it something living, an
image which can be used as a symbol. There are people who may form images and
use them as symbols, but all is done only for themselves, as in the case of
dream-symbols. These are purely subjective and valid in so far as those people
are personally concerned.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.25pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>But
if your calendar is adopted by almost the whole of mankind, then the symbol is
capable of acting upon a very wide field. You can act upon the major bulk
population through this formation. As it is purely conventional, I repeat, it
is fruitful only in the measure in which it has been accepted. If instead of
millions of people who are now following the European calendar there were only
three or four persons, then it would be symbolic only for these few. The thing
itself has no value, its value depends upon the use you make of it.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.75pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>The
conventions are useful as symbols, I said, that is, they are a means to put you
in contact with what is more subtle, to put what is material in contact with
the more subtle. That is their use.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.0pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Here
comes also the error which people make in respect of stars and horoscopes. For
all that is simply a language and a convention. If you accept the convention
you can use it for a particular world. But it has value and importance only in
proportion to the number of people who believe in it. But if you<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

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mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;'>Page – 107<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>simplify,
the more you do so the more the thing becomes a superstition. For, what is
superstition? It is the abuse of generalisation from a particular.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.75pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>I
always give the example of a person passing under a ladder. A man was working
on its top rung and accidentally he dropped his instrument on the person below
who got his head broken. The witness of this whole incident then made a general
rule that to pass under a ladder was a bad sign. Well, it is superstition pure
and simple.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.2pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>In
fact, much of our knowledge originates in the same way. Thus, a certain medicine
is found, because of <span lang=EN-GB style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>favourable</span>
circumstances, to cure a number of people suffering from a particular
disease. Then it is announced that the medicine is an absolute remedy for that
disease. But it is not true. If the same medicine is given to a hundred
persons, it will affect them in a hundred different ways: sometimes the
reactions are quite opposite. In no two cases will the result be similar.
Therefore it is not the virtue of the medicine itself that effects that cure.
It is a superstition to believe in the absolute efficacy of medicines.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.7pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>But
going further we can say that there is very little difference between science
and superstition! The only difference is in the manner of expressing oneself.
If you take care to say like the scientists, &quot;it seems it is like that,
one might conclude that things appear like that&quot; etc., etc. then it is no
longer superstition. But if you assert point-blank, &quot;it is like
that&quot;, then you land in superstition.<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

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mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;'>Page – 108<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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