A Word to the Wise

“The beginning of wisdom is to desire it.”
- Ibn Gabirol (c.1020 – 1070), Jewish poet & philosopher

What a simple, yet incredibly powerful tool in our toolbox for living. Passed down to us in myriad forms throughout history, this gem is truly one of life’s most priceless instructional artifacts – one that we’re clearly intended to uncover no matter from where we hail or from what religious or spiritual tradition we’re taught. The inherent promise that comes with this is that to truly desire wisdom is to have it, and having it is to know depths of peace and joy beyond description. Sounds pretty good doesn’t it?

Here’s a small sampling of versions from other places and other times:

• “The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.”
• “No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth.”
• “Everyone who asks, receives. He who seeks, finds. To him who knocks, the door will be opened.”

So what exactly is “wisdom”? The answer to that seems to depend on who is asked. There often appears to be conflicting viewpoints about what wisdom is because historically we insist on defining it from two distinct, contrasting thought systems – one intellectual, centered in the mind, and the other intuitive, centered in the human spirit. This conflict of perspectives is at the very root of why genuine wisdom seems so often to elude us and why we are repeatedly reminded of these instructions again and again and again throughout time.

Our intellect tells us that wisdom is an accumulation of knowledge acquired through sacrifice, extensive education and disciplined study. By this definition, wisdom becomes exclusive, available primarily to those with an aptitude for education, high enough IQs and who are willing to strive to achieve it. Our intuition on the other hand tells us that wisdom is a natural state of being, characterized by the demonstration of discernment and balanced judgment, guided by ever-deepening spiritual insight. By this definition wisdom is all-inclusive, available to everyone with a genuine desire to become aware of, and then practice, this natural state of being.

Furthering the perceptual divide, our intellect would have us be convinced that we come into this world as empty vessels, to become something by filling our minds with worldly or divine knowledge before we depart it in order to ensure we are among the winners and not the losers, the saints and not the sinners. By sharp contrast, our intuition gently reminds us that we both enter and depart this world entirely whole, that the experience of wisdom is the letting go of all beliefs we choose to make up and accumulate about ourselves while we appear to be here. It teaches us that wisdom is experienced in the practice of letting go of our “stories”… the letting go of everything that we are not.

What we cannot help but miss under the guidance of our intellectual thought system is that wisdom is always accompanied by humility, and humility is something our intellect is utterly incapable of grasping. Underneath all the vast layers of accumulated knowledge, human intellect would have us believe it makes us what we are, it differentiates us from all other life forms, even from our fellows, and it ultimately provides and decides our value as human beings. Humility, on the other hand, takes no issue whatsoever with simply saying, “I am as I was created, not as I have made myself to be.”

Intellect can certainly be a useful tool for navigating this world. It enables us to conjure up any destination we wish to travel to within our lives, be they physical, intellectual, emotional, philosophical or spiritual destinations. But, that’s just it… our intellect is a tool, and tools are intended to be of service, not to reign. It is our intuition that inspires to make the journey of our lives purposeful, joyful and peaceful – these are the attributes of wisdom. It’s in the conscious choice and regular practice of placing our intellectual mind under the guidance and service of our intuitive, spiritual self that the door to wisdom opens wide.

Even with all his intellectual knowledge, Albert Einstein in his wisdom and humility put it this way: “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” This gift is knowing that we lack absolutely nothing in our lives but the awareness of our own intuitive spiritual guidance. Here lies true wisdom.

Love and Light friends,

Patrick

Surrendering Beliefs, Winning Vision

“A disciple said to him, “I am ready, in the quest for God, to give up anything: wealth, friends, family, country, life itself. What else can a person give up?” The Master calmly replied, “One’s beliefs about God.”
- Anthony de Mello (1931-1987), Catholic theologian & spiritual teacher

We’ve cultivated our beliefs about God over years, lifetimes, centuries, and millennia. We’re certain that our human intellect, through dedicated study, has enabled us to accumulate a vast wealth of knowledge about our Creator. Our religions are built on the very concept of carrying on the torch of God-knowledge to subsequent generations. So the question is… why on earth would we want to, or be willing to, surrender our beliefs about God?

For some, such a suggestion might seem like sheer nonsense; for others, too fearful to fathom; and still for others, utter blasphemy to even entertain the thought. Our answer, though, is not concerned with what makes sense to the human intellect. Nor is it concerned with mankind’s ancient belief in the ‘fear’ or retribution of a punishing God, or with religious doctrine of any kind. Our answer is one of spiritual experience, which leads us far beyond the limits of our human fears and intellectual pride. Our answer is simply this: to surrender our beliefs of God, to God, is one of the greatest acts of faith, humility and devotion that we can demonstrate in life. As the disciple above is guided to learn, surrendering our beliefs far exceeds any physical act of giving up material possessions, because the concept of ‘sacrificing something to God’ is utterly meaningless.

What faith, what courage, what fearless, unconditional love it demonstrates to humbly express to God, regardless of where we are at in our understanding, “I surrender to You this moment every belief I ever held of You, and wholly open my mind for You to teach me about You from now on.” We don’t need to look hard in this agreement to see a deep acknowledgment and vow of love and unity between Creation and Creator. It is from this very place of unity we were taught that “everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”

This expression is not something we do only once ceremoniously or think about only on Sabbath or Sundays – it’s something we practice, and practice, and practice again until we come to know the experience that everyone and everything can be perceived as an extension of God. As such, our perspective of the world becomes ”unchangingly new”. From such an experience we can look back in hindsight and see that it had been our attachments to past beliefs that limited what we were able to experience in our “quest for God”.

Imagine how our human relationships could benefit from continually seeing each other with this fresh perspective rather than through a lens of ’good or bad’ based on judgments and beliefs formed by past experience.

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If you want to read more from Anthony de Mello, I highly recommend a great, easy read of his titled Awareness.

Also if you’d like to read more on the topic of surrendering beliefs, here is an earlier post you might find useful: Wanted: Peace of Mind, No Worries and Freedom from Worldly Woes

Letting Go, Knowing Peace

“If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace. If you let go completely, you will have complete peace.”
- Ajahn Chah (1918-1992), Thai Buddhist monk

It seems we’re often willing to let go of some things, but insist on holding on to others. This is either because we believe we know what’s best for us, or because we’re afraid of not getting something we believe we want, or because we’re afraid of losing something we believe we have. Each of these beliefs is based on our limited vision of “what is” as well as a belief that there is something out there that will fulfill our desire for happiness. Hindsight often teaches us that what we thought was good for us turned out to be a detour through pain, what we thought we wanted turned out to be a lesson in “be careful for what you wish for,” and what we thought we ‘owned’ was only temporary, like nearly everything in life.

To “let go completely” is to acknowledge our limited vision of what is, to trust in something bigger than ourselves and therefore have no investment in our little, pre-defined outcomes… to let all things be as they present themselves without exercising the impulse to make them something we want instead. Doing so, we experience an ever deepening peace regardless of what seems to happen around us – what happens around us no longer dictates our experience of peace.

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Read more about Ajahn Chah.