I walked into the café at the beautiful Royal Library in Copenhagen a few weeks ago, during a visit to the city. Sunlight pooled through the tall glass windows as the room buzzed softly with voices. There was just one round table left, so I took it, placing my tea down and opening my laptop.

Soon a group of four wearing name badges—three men and a woman—walked over, smiling, and asked if I would share the table with them.

“Of course,” I said, smiling back. “I’m happy to.”

They sat down, continuing their conversation.

After a while, I asked, “Are you here for an event?”, nodding toward their name tags.

“Yes,” one of them replied. “There’s a European science conference underway, on Quantum Computing.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful,” I said, peppering them with questions on how quantum physics was being applied to computing, and on how far we were from quantum computers becoming everyday reality.

Three of them were happily engaged in the conversation with me. The fourth remained silent. His eyes were lowered, as if listening to a different conversation happening somewhere inside.

He must be distracted by some other matter, I thought.

“And what are your interests? What do you do?” one of my new acquaintances asked me.

“I never went as far into science as you have so admirably done,” I confessed.

I did want to build a bridge with them, though. So I continued, “But I have a deep and enduring love for mathematics, for the way it reveals timeless truths. It is, after all, the language of science, isn’t it? Like E = mc².”

Three of them smiled. The silent one remained inscrutable.

“My focus today is not mathematics, however. I develop and teach pathways for people to live and lead from their inner core—their soul.”

“That’s fascinating,” the woman among them said. “How are you doing that?”

I shared some of the principles and practices we teach at Mentora. This led next to a vibrant discussion about the nature of one’s soul, and its relationship with the Creative Spirit.

We all agreed that there are deeper truths—truths about who we truly are, and what we are capable of—that science hasn’t yet investigated.

By now, I had quietly given up on the silent one. His mind is probably immersed in deep scientific thought, involving bits and bytes and who-knows-what.

I decided it was time to build another bridge with my three favorite people of the day. 

“You and I, we aren’t that different. We are basically engaged in the same pursuit.”

The three looked at me, slightly puzzled.

“In what way are we doing the same thing?”, one of them asked.

“You see,” I continued, “Einstein once said, ‘The difference between what the most knowledgeable person knows and what the least knowledgeable person knows is trivial compared to what is not known.’

“You and I—we’re both peering beyond the edges of what humanity knows, to illuminate some part of what is presently unknown. You’re probing the mysteries of the outer physical world, and I’m probing the mysteries of the inner mystic world.”

“That is true,” one of them said quietly. “Quantum science is still very young.”

“We know so little, we know so little.” another nodded and murmured.

“And yet,” I pondered, “some people seem so perfectly satisfied with what they know.  That always puzzles me—how confident some people are in their understanding of Truth, when so much is yet to be discovered.”

It was then—just then—that I saw, from the corner of my eye, the quiet one stir.

He opened a notepad, and drew in it a single circle.

Oh dear, I thought. He’s doodling now. He must be so bored.

And then—without warning—he looked up at me and broke his silence.

“You are a mathematician at heart, from what you’ve told us. So perhaps I can show you the geometry of human nature.” His voice was unhurried, gentle.

“Oh? Sure.” I replied, both confused and curious.

“This circle I’ve drawn—it represents how much you know. The area inside this circle is all the knowledge you have. The boundary—the circumference—is the edge of your knowledge, and beyond it, all that is not known to you.”

“All right,” I said slowly, waiting.

“Now,” he continued, “what happens when your knowledge grows?”

The faintest smile appeared on his face.

“Well,” I said, “it’s obvious. The circle grows.”

“Good!”, he said affirmingly, drawing a second, larger circle.

“And the boundary—the circumference—what happens to it?” he asked.

“Well, as the circle grows, the circumference also grows.” I replied.

His eyes were now lit up. “So, do you see?”, he asked, pointing to the small circle and then the large circle. “As your knowledge grows, the circle grows, and as the circle grows, the circumference grows, and as the circumference grows, your appreciation of how much is not known grows.”

“Ah!” I exclaimed. “The more you know, the more you know how much you don’t know.”

He smiled and nodded.

How simple. How beautiful. How true. He’d given me a mathematical way of seeing why the least informed people are often the most confident, and how, as you grow in wisdom, you grow in humility.

Oh, my. The silent one had been fully engaged all along. He had been silent not because his mind was elsewhere, but because he might have felt he had nothing notable to add to our exchange. Until he did.

“Sir, you have just given me a most precious gift,” I said, deeply moved. “I will never forget this conversation.”

The café had grown still, as though it, too, was holding its breath. The four friends returned to their conference, and I returned to my non-quantum computer.

Each of us, I mused, lives within our own circle of knowing—and the edge of that circle is where wonder begins.

I left the Royal Library that evening having just expanded my circle—a little wiser about the possibilities the silent ones carry within them, and a little humbler about how little we truly know of people’s inner world.

So that is my invitation to you today. To keep expanding your circle of knowing, to honor the ones who whisper, to remember that wisdom often arrives quietly, and to marvel at the vast unknown.

Warmly,
Hitendra

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