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The Wooden Horse and the Burden We Carry: Knowing or Becoming?

Ismail Gokdeniz
Founder of Cogletta

In the Masnavi, the masterpiece of Mevlana Jalal al-Din Rumi, there is a powerful metaphor about the relationship between human beings and knowledge: children riding wooden horses.

A child takes a stick, places it between his legs, and runs through the streets pretending to ride a horse. In the child's imagination, that simple piece of wood has transformed into a real horse. It carries him, gives him speed, and takes him somewhere.

Yet from the perspective of an observer, reality is quite different.

The child is not riding a horse. He is carrying the very thing he believes is carrying him.

Rumi applies this simple childhood game to the workings of the human mind. Human beings often see their thoughts, concepts, and accumulated knowledge as tools that elevate them. The books they have read, the ideas they have learned, and the opinions they defend give them a sense of intellectual height.

However, they often fail to notice something important: they themselves are the ones carrying the weight of this intellectual accumulation.

This leads to a fundamental question: does knowledge always liberate us, or can it sometimes become another burden that we carry on our shoulders?

Rumi offers a remarkably concise yet profound answer to this question in the first volume of the Masnavi:

When knowledge reaches the heart, it becomes a friend; when it reaches only the body, it becomes a burden.— Rumi, Masnavi, Book I

The wordplay in the original Persian is significant. Yar means friend or companion, while bar means burden or weight. The difference between them is only one letter. Yet for Rumi, this small linguistic distinction represents two completely different outcomes of knowledge in human life.

When knowledge enters a person's inner being, transforming their character and actions, it becomes a companion. But when knowledge remains only an intellectual possession, serving pride, status, or a sense of superiority, it becomes a heavy burden.

Three Philosophical Approaches to the Transformative Power of Knowledge

The idea that knowledge should liberate human beings is one of the oldest questions in the history of philosophy. Yet Socrates, Spinoza, and Rumi approach this transformation from different directions.

Human beings are not transformed simply by possessing knowledge. What truly matters is what knowledge does to the person who possesses it.

Socrates: Knowing That You Do Not Know

Socrates' central concern was not ignorance itself, but the illusion of knowledge.

In his conversations with people who considered themselves knowledgeable, Socrates questioned the very things they claimed to understand. A person might speak confidently about courage, justice, or virtue; yet through careful questioning, Socrates would reveal that their understanding was often incomplete or based on assumptions they had never examined.

The purpose of this method, known as elenchus, was not humiliation. Socratic questioning aimed to free the mind from false beliefs and unexamined assumptions.

This is where Socrates' famous wisdom appears: he was considered wise because he recognized the limits of his own knowledge.

The problem is not simply being ignorant. The deeper problem is believing that we know when we actually do not.

This perspective strongly connects with Rumi's criticism of knowledge that becomes a burden. When people turn their knowledge into a part of their identity and stop questioning themselves, knowledge no longer serves as a path toward growth. Instead, it becomes a defense mechanism for the ego.

For Socrates, genuine knowledge must transform the way a person lives. If someone truly understands what is good, that understanding must appear in their actions. Otherwise, what they possess is not wisdom but merely information stored in the mind.

Spinoza: Becoming Free Through Understanding

Spinoza approaches human freedom through the power of understanding.

According to him, human beings are often controlled by their emotions, desires, and external influences. Fear, ambition, and prejudice can shape our decisions without us fully realizing it. However, when we truly understand something, our relationship with it begins to change.

Freedom does not mean simply doing whatever we desire. True freedom comes from understanding causes.

When an emotion or thought controls us, we merely experience its effects. But when we understand why it exists and what causes it, we gain a more conscious position toward it. We are no longer completely governed by it.

In this sense, Spinoza's philosophy also depends on the relationship between knowledge and transformation. Knowledge is not merely an intellectual possession; it is a force capable of changing the way we exist in the world.

However, Spinoza's path primarily moves through reason. His goal is to understand the order of nature, recognize our place within it, and reach a higher form of awareness.

Rumi: When Knowledge Reaches the Heart

Rumi's approach moves in a different direction. For him, the question is not only whether knowledge is correct or accurate. The deeper question is where that knowledge has reached. Has it reached the mind, or has it reached the heart?

For Rumi, true knowledge (irfan) is revealed not by how much a person knows, but by what that knowledge has transformed them into.

A person surrounded by books is not necessarily a wise person. Knowledge can remain trapped in memory or language. Someone may speak about many ideas, use sophisticated concepts, and impress others with their intellectual ability; yet if none of this produces a change in their character, the knowledge has not reached its true purpose.

This is why Rumi's image of the donkey carrying books is so significant. The donkey carries the weight of the books but never reaches their meaning. There is a burden, but there is no transformation.

The essential journey is not from ignorance to knowledge, but from knowing to becoming.

Knowing the value of compassion is different from becoming a compassionate person. Explaining the importance of humility is different from actually becoming humble.

Knowing is only the beginning. The true measure of knowledge is the person it creates.

The New Burden of Knowledge in the Modern World

Today, this question may be more important than ever, because never before in human history has knowledge been so easily accessible.

With a single screen, we can reach thousands of books, articles, lectures, and experts within seconds. Yet the expansion of access to information does not necessarily mean an increase in wisdom. Sometimes, the opposite may even be true.

Knowledge is no longer used only for learning; it is also used for constructing identity. The books we read, the thinkers we follow, and the concepts we use can sometimes give us an image of who we are rather than genuinely transform who we become.

Is the knowledge we carry carrying us forward, or are we simply carrying its weight on our shoulders?

Putting Down the Weight We Carry

Plato asks human beings to free their minds from illusions. Spinoza argues that we become free by understanding causes. Rumi invites us to look more deeply into ourselves.

Because the most difficult question is not how much we have learned. The more difficult question is whether we have truly changed as a result of what we have learned.

If what we learn does not make us lighter, does not transform our actions, and does not reach our hearts, perhaps we are still trying to ride a wooden horse. Perhaps the thing we believe is carrying us is, in reality, something we are carrying ourselves.

As Rumi reminds us, the purpose is not to accumulate more knowledge. The true question is what knowledge becomes within us.

Genuine knowledge should not be a burden that we carry on our backs; it should become a companion that carries us forward.
A child running with a wooden stick held between his legs as if riding a horse
The essential journey is not from ignorance to knowledge, but from knowing to becoming.

References

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