Flame Pillar of Rizal

It's just a Myth: Rizal's Famous line

"He who does not know how to look back at where he came from will never get his destination." (Ang hindi marunong lumingon sa pinanggalingan ay hindi makakarating sa paroroonan)

It was came from Rizal, right?

But had you've wondered where this exact famous line came from his citations? We all know that he actually said this but it's just a MYTH. I can't find anywhere the real origin about this: WHO? WHEN? WHERE? WHY? HOW? From our childhood we learned that Rizal quoted this one of his works but not really came from his. It's a proverb at all, a mythical but half-true about the essence and importance of history.

In fact, Rizal had a better glimpse about the past to the future destination and truly rare to everyone of us that really stunning to know the true quote. It came from his play, "El Consejo de los Dioses" (Council of the Gods). This play was Rizal's entry in the literary contest of 1880, college days at UST.

One of this line or Rizal's epigraph fitted the real essence about the past, "I enter the future remembering the past. (Con el recuerdo del pasado entro en el porvenir).

Wikipedia: "It was an allegory in praise of Cervantes as a co-equal of Greeks Homer and Virgil. The play exposes how an Asian teenager seizes the cultural elements of the Western humanistic tradition. Rizal further explores the true meaning of human desire for knowledge and designs the guidelines for a Filipino speculative thought."

The entry was judged the best entry in the competition that year. The jury, however, upon discovering that it's author was a Filipino decided to confer the grand prize to a Spaniard.

Many websites, info-gathering, media, even books are substantial in spreading fake quotes in which does not know what is the true origin behind. Misinterpretation of contexts. Though that famous line is much confusing nowadays for a somewhat digging again the anger and pain of history's dark pages especially in Martial Law regime, showing off to the public that Rizal was claimed right to that quote instead of "I enter the future remembering the past." And what does it says?

We must free ourselves - free of anger, pain, worries, sickness, etc. Read the past, think, and liberate from the dark past not by only moving on and forgetting, but by looking forward and remembering.

Simply moving on by wisdom heart.