Sources of Wisdom

Tags

children, flowers, fruit, knowledge, letting go, play, spirituality, spring, wisdom

A single pear tree is planted in front of each house by the developer, after the construction of each new home is complete. The trees bear beautiful flowers every spring, and for a few days, the streets are resplendent in white during the morning walk. Then, just as quickly they bloom, the small petals are shed by each tree in the span of a few days. It is a sign that spring is moving towards summer, the work of the flowers is done, and the tree is transitioning to the next phase of its life.

Nature does so much work to create the beauty of flowers, and yet, the pear trees do not cling to them. When it comes time, the trees readily let go and move on. The process of nature is a source of some great wisdom for us humans, isn’t it? How often do we hold on to those ‘flowers’ in our life whose work is long done, and hold back our ‘fruit’ in the process? Are there any other wisdoms that we can learn from observing the march of spring?

In addition to observing nature, there is much wisdom to be gleaned from watching children at play. The chalk art they create in the driveways, the impromptu baseball games in the parking lot next to my house, the kid practicing hitting a ball off the tee as he waits for the school bus in the morning, and so much more. There is much fun, simplicity and lightness about a child’s play which we ‘adults’ could benefit from bringing back into our lives, yes? How would our inner condition change if we were to do some ‘chalk’ art on paper, find a playground and go down some slides or get on some swings, or even jump in some puddles?

There are many more sources of knowledge and wisdom that we can think of. We have our wisdom that comes from books, our favorite speakers and artists, our friends, our teachers, mentors and coaches, our parents, and yes, occasionally, even some relatives and co-workers! Who or what did I miss?

Perhaps most importantly, if and when we learn to trust it enough, one great source of wisdom that is always available to us is our heart. Each of us has unlimited capacity to refine the wisdom within our heart through our daily practices of kindness, empathy, connection with kindreds, small acts of service, and more.

When our heart thus grows lighter, it fills us with peace and light, connects us to higher wisdom. Clarity of mind follows. With clarity, we can make better decisions on what to keep and what to let go of in our hearts. Can you think of some more ways that we can make good use of the (sources of) wisdom available to us in our lives?

Do share.

Kumud

P.S. Do join us and share your wisdom sources, and your wisdom with us in our weekly twitter chat with the Spiritchat community on twitter. We will meet at 9amET / 630pm India on Sunday, May 1 2022. Namaste – @AjmaniK

A pear tree in full bloom in mid-April…

A Spirit of Acceptance

Tags

acceptance, healing, knowing, knowledge, pain, remembrance, suffering

ery time I tried to come out of it, I kept falling back into the light – that’s what happened multiple times as I tried to emerge from the morning meditation session. It was a bit like the oceans current pulling you back as you try to come ashore after a swim. I did not resist the pull of the light. Every time I was pulled back, I emerged a bit lighter as a result. 

It was a good thing that this happened on a Saturday morning and I could engage this dance without any time constraints of a work day or a school day. Any other day, and I would have resisted being pulled back or falling back, because I had ‘other things’ to do. Such is the nature of the balance between acceptance and resistance. 

How much time and energy are we willing to give to the clearing of our mind and the opening of our heart? When the messengers of pain and suffering come our way, are we going to be accepting of their messages and sit with them, or are we going to rush them away like unexpected guests at our doorsteps? 

Acceptance has another dimension. Our acceptance of our own beauty, our talents, our abilities and our frailties often meets with internal resistance. At some point in our lives, we all have perhaps had a nagging sense that we are not enough, that we don’t belong, and that we are somehow even deserving of our undue share of pain. Our emotional and mental health suffers as a result. 

One pathway to acceptance of our selves is knowing who we are. This self-knowing is different from the knowledge (about who we are) given to us by others, no matter how well (or ill) intentioned they may be. It is useful to ask the question, and ask it often – who am I in this moment? What is my truth? What am I feeling and where did this feeling come from? And so on.

Eventually, when we have had enough immersions in the answers, we may not need to question any more. We come to realize that we are the ocean, and that our separateness from it is a form of forgetfulness of that knowing. 

Through remembrance, comes the knowing of “I am That”. From knowing, come acceptance. With knowing, we can then stay in the ocean or emerge from it. It does not matter either way, because we are then in constant remembrance that we belong to each other. True healing and helping can then begin.

Kumud

P. S. Join us for our weekly gathering with the #spiritchat community on Twitter, Sunday May 16 at 9am ET / 630pm India. We will talk about acceptance over tea, fruit, flowers and cookies. Namaste – @AjmaniK

The sun crests over the trees on a spring morning…

On Knowledge and Knowing

Tags

acceptance, awareness, choices, healing, invitation, knowing, knowledge, remembrance

It’s good to be welcomed back home again

— where all the stress that you brought with you is instantly dissipated by the first few steps of immersion in the stillness of the forest where the leaves are turning orange

— where all the energy that the trees have accumulated in your absence is seemingly showered on you in the falling of a single leaf

— as if you had walked into the ocean whose waves instantly wet every corner of your body – no matter how long you might have been away

— the ocean and the forest does not ask – where have you been? What did you accomplish there? Why have you been gone so long? How come you never wrote or called?

Maybe the ocean or the forest don’t ask these questions because of their state of being. Or maybe they won’t ask those questions because those answers would be from knowledge – whereas they are immersed in their own knowing.

Their own awareness, and their existence is not really influenced by our comings and goings — to them, all our knowledge is of no matter. Our knowing? That is a different matter.

I had been gone for six months. The fisherman’s trail off of the entrance path into the forest was welcoming as always, with the murmuring of the river inviting me to go left or right – or maybe straight down the middle to the bank where the trees overhang the water in suspended animation amid the stillness, and the mosquitoes immediately find you unless you find a spot with the slightest of breezes, whence they will leave you alone.

The crushed rock of millennia still holds the bank in place for those days when the river will rage – but not today, certainly not today. Today, the invitation is to walk into the middle of the river as the invisible force guides me with one hand and holds the flowing waters at bay with the other . And so, I accept the stillness and the gentility and the whisperings and the noontime birds speaking sweet nothings, stepping gently on one flat rock at a time, some of them barely big enough to hold all of my toes — and as soon as I can go no further into the river, the breeze that comes around the huge bend upstream greets me with an embrace that turns my heart into the wings of the monarch that has long gone South.

And yet, no matter all of that. You are here, You are home, in the center — maybe slightly left or right of it, but the center holds you— and you stand still. And then, an unprecedented invitation, to sit on the dry part of the river bed beneath your feet. You hesitate, but then you decide, that this is the moment for you to surrender to knowing.

So, you sit on the rock in the middle of the stream and absorb all the energy flowing upwards into you from the earth, flowing downwards into you from the overcast sky, from the waters flowing on either side of you, a bit faster on your left because it is devoid of the cluster of rocks that form eddies and lagoons on your right — so much peace, feeling the universe holding you in its knowing — and all you had to do was to accept the invitation.

In his book on Zen, Osho talked about the difference between knowledge and knowing. They are both limitless, and yet, knowledge binds us and knowing frees us. Knowledge creates desire to know even more, whereas knowing releases us from desire. The wave that surges from the ocean to touch the sky of knowledge, falls back into the ocean and is home again — in the ocean’s acceptance is the wave’s knowing of peace, love, joy, serenity, tranquility, silence, stillness, truth and kindness.

I am sure that you have all felt the light and lightness of this knowing in your experience with certain people, places and practices. I hope that you choose to accept their invitation, visit with them, and sit with them for a while in the days ahead.

Kumud

P.S. Join us Sunday, October 11 at 9amET / 630pm India as we gather on twitter for our weekly #SpiritChat in the knowing that we will partake of tea and cookies 🙂 Namaste – @AjmaniK

Author’s note: ‘stream of thought’ written while walking the Rocky River Reservation, October 6 2020.

Sitting… in the knowing that the Universe holds me with Love

The world flowing around me… as I sit in the river bed

The Art and Science of Truth

Tags

art, imagination, knowledge, science, truth

There was a heavy frost on the car because I had forgotten to park it in the garage on the cold but clear night. As we made our short drive to school, I thought I would quiz her about the science of why the car frosts over on clear nights but not the cloudy ones. So, I asked her – do you know what caused the car windows and the grass to frost over last night? Through her half sleepy state, totally not in the mood for science, she said

Dad. Don’t you know that frost is created to cover the soft plants at night – it is their  warm blanket to protect them from heavy snows?

My first reaction was one of total surprise, and I asked – where did you get That? Without batting an eyelid (or was it a silvery wing?) she replied – “Dad. I got that from Tinker Bell. Did you forget about her?” In that instant, I was even more flummoxed. So, I mumbled something about dew point, condensation, water vapor in the air and how water droplets form on the outside of a cold glass of water. So much for science!

Yes. I had the scientific answer, and I was trying to use a real-world observation to teach her about the value of arriving at the truth through science. And yet, her answer, inspired by art and imagination, was equally, if not more beautiful. Don’t you think? The search for truth and understanding has inspired scientists, their experiments, and a lot of scientific research over the past few centuries since the renaissance. Science has even made inroads into how humans perceive the truth.   

How do we define truth, how do our brains process it and why do we fight over it? What does it look like in our brains when we process the truth?

Our brain is the processing centers for our senses. The inputs and sensations that our senses receive, are converted into perceptions by the brain. Over time, our sensations and perceptions form memories related to the events that we have experienced. For example, the first time I walk a new trail in the forest, I am creating a new memory. My mind learns some new truths about where the trail narrows or widens, where the river forms a sweeping arc, where the horses cross from one bank to another, and more.

The next time I walk the same trail, the truths about the path get verified through the repetition of sensation and perception in the mind. Verification means that I begin to trust the path and my walk. When I learn to trust myself, I open my heart and mind to form a new pathway for truth. Science has shown that when we learn new things by walking new paths, new grooves are literally being cut into our brain. Our new learnings increase our willingness to trust others who have walked their own paths and discovered new scientific truths.

And yet, science and scientists are often not enough by themselves to convey the truth. Science often needs the support of art and artists to infuse truths into the depths of our lives. We may read about the science behind making the perfect cup of tea – the exact amount of tea to use per cup, the ideal temperature of water to use, and so on. Beyond the science, it is the art of sensing and perceiving the tea experience that creates new truths for us. The warmth of the cup against our palms, the steam that rises as it floods fragrance into our nostrils, the first sip that awakens us and the senses of those that we sit around the table with.

Immense is the power of personal truth when manifested by the confluence of science and art. Science also says that we are more apt to accept others’ truth when delivered to us by the people, communities, and institutions that we trust. Leave it for science to make it easy for me to verify my daughter’s truth that a coat of frost keeps the warm fairy’s wings safe while in the cold.

Yes. Sometimes, new truths can travel on iridescent, translucent wings flecked with a light frost of imagination. Who knew!

Kumud

P.S. Join us Sunday March 8 2020 at 9am ET / 630pm India as we gather in #SpiritChat on twitter to talk about the Art and Science of Truth. Bring your wings, and your imagination, as we celebrate International Women’s Day, and discover some new truths. Namaste – @AjmaniK

”Tinker Bell by A. Ajmani” © 2020 

Spiritual Uncertainty and Unknowns

Tags

knowledge, spirituality, uncertainty, unknown

We often talk about the role of faith and truth in spirituality, and how they influence our daily practice. However, in the face of change, which is endemic to life, we are often subject to uncertainty about what lies ahead for us. While we may not like to be subject to uncertainty, we may want to think twice about living a life of absolute certainty…

For example, if you knew for certain exactly how long you were going to live, would you live your life the same way you live it right now? Or would you change the way you live? It may sound paradoxical but uncertainty can allow us to focus on the present moment – for there is no certainty about whether the next moment is even promised to anyone. In the face of uncertainty, we can be innovative about what we do with the present moment. We can bring all the awareness that our conscious nature will allow us, to influence and infuse the present moment with empathy, joy, and friendliness.

While some thrive and flourish in uncertainty, some of us let it sow the seeds of doubt and breed fear within us. Taken to the extreme, uncertainty can influence our emotions and (lack of) actions to such an extent that fear becomes our default operating mode. While a certain amount of fear can help us avoid life-threatening situations, we all know the disempowering feeling that excessive fear can create within our mind. So, we have to remain vigilant and aware that uncertainty does not cut off our access to courage and heart-based action.

Those of us who are cognizant of our spiritual journey through daily life, may have experienced the uncertainty brought about by our first-time experiences of the ‘unknown’. In trying out a new spiritual practice, in reading a new book, in listening to a new piece of music, or merely taking a walk in a new forest – we may come to a place of higher awareness which was unknown to us… The unknown can invoke uncertainty – what are we supposed to do with this new sliver of light? Is this new vista that lies spread before us on our spiritual path an invitation to more ‘unknowns’? Will we trust our ‘guides’ and move forward despite the risk of greater uncertainty? Or will we pause and maybe even retreat to our well worn paths which are informed by knowledge and the apparent promise of certainty?

In the seasons of change – of weddings and graduations, of end-of-school-year goodbyes and moves across towns or across states or countries, of children moving away and parents moving back in – uncertainties and unknowns are inevitable. Our faith, our courage, our truths, our values, our actions, our commitments, our intentions, our capacity for love, and a sense of humor, will determine our journey through the rock-strewn paths of life…

Regardless of the unknowns that we may experience, of that, I am certain. How about you?

Namaste,

Kumud

P.S. #SpiritChat convenes on twitter at 9amET/1pmUK/6:30pmIST on Sunday, June 7th 2015. Please join us!

The Path of Knowledge

Tags

action, knowledge, spiritchat, spirituality

For as long as I can remember, I have been a voracious reader. As a teenager, I would read anything and everything I could lay my hands on. It was all fiction – Enid Blyton, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Alfred Hitchcock, Robert Ludlum, Ken Follett – I can go on and on. It wasn’t until I was in graduate school that I lost interest in fiction and started reading non-fiction – Og Mandino, John Maxwell, Dale Carnegie, Osho, Vivekananda, Yogananda, Krishnamurti and so forth. I read in order to become more “knowledgable” about “life” matters.

Now that I look back, I am grateful that I switched to non-fiction, but I often wonder – how did that book-derived knowledge really benefit me in a practical way? The benefit invariably seems to have come when I acted on that book-derived knowledge, and put the learnt principles into practice. So, was it the action, and what I learnt as a result, truly result in converting what I had learnt, into knowledge?

The #spiritchat discussion in the first week of January was focused on the path of spirited action. Some folks commented that action without proper knowledge can actually hurt our progress on our path, rather than help us. So, in order to examine this assertion we will devote an entire chat to discuss “The Path of Knowledge”.

Please join us Sunday, January 12th at 9amET in our live twitter chat in #spiritchat. Namaste!

Kumud

The full transcript (#hashtracking report) is available at https://www.hashtracking.com/reports/spiritchat/spiritchat/knowledge – 156 contributors, 1405 tweets, 0.76M reach, 5.70M deliveries.

Ready? Q1. Where does knowledge come from? Where does it reside within us? #spiritchat

Q2. What kind of “education” and/or practice(s) create (spiritual) knowledge? #spiritchat

Q3. “Knowledge is power”. What is this “power”? What do we need it for? #spiritchat

Q4. Does the path of knowledge hinder the path of action? Or enhance it? #spiritchat

Q5. Does more knowledge bring us closer to “truth”? If so, how? #spiritchat

Q6. “Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.” -Confucius. How can we know ignorance and move forward? #spiritchat

Q7. “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing”. Does the same hold true for “a little action”? Or not? #spiritchat

Q8. In 2014, what actions will create balance for us – in seeking knowledge… #spiritchat

Some quotes on the subject of knowledge:

Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof. -Khalil Gibran

The fruits of the tree of knowledge are various; one must be strong indeed who can digest all of them – Mary Coleridge (1861-1907)

Knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be. -Albert Einstein

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance. -Confucius

Knowledge will give you power, but character respect. -Bruce Lee

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors. -Thomas Jefferson

Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge. -Khalil Gibran

All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions. -Leonardo da Vinci

The Spirit of Knowledge

Tags

action, knowledge, spirit

The first week’s topic of discussion in 2012 in #spiritchat (in the context of spiritual growth) was “The Spirit of Action.” This week, we will attempt to address the role of “Knowledge” and it’s role in spiritual growth.

We are all born with very little knowledge of the physical world around us. Most of our ‘knowledge’ comes from our environment, our caregivers and our connections. Some have argued that a child learns more about the physical world in their first five years than during the rest of their lives.

As the child grows older, and they engage more with the world, by say, going to school, they are given even more ‘knowledge’. They are expected to learn about stuff and acquire skills that are supposed to help them function in the world. And this phase can last anywhere from twelve (high school) to sixteen (college) or even more (graduate school) years.

When the child’s education is ‘complete’ (is it ever complete?) they are sent into the world of ‘work’ – which may consist of a ‘job’ or ‘business’. Then they move to the next stage of life, and so on. This reminds me of a quote:

The fruits of the tree of knowledge are various; one must be strong indeed who can digest all of them – Mary Coleridge (1861-1907)

In all these stage of life, the ‘knowledge’ that affects our spirit or our non-material self also needs to be addressed. Some may call this knowledge ‘intuition’ or ‘core principles’ or ‘values’ with which we lead our lives, regardless of the ‘stage’ of life that we may be in.

But where does this knowledge come from? Can this knowledge for spiritual growth be acquired or shared? Is this knowledge the same as truth? Is knowledge even necessary for spiritual growth? Or is a spirit of action enough to move you forward?

I invite you to come and share with the #SpiritChat community on Sunday January 8th at 9am ET/2pm GMT ~ What does ‘spirit of knowledge’ mean to you? As always, I appreciate your spirit of sharing with the community.

Thank you. Please consult the FAQ if you need information on how to participate in the live tweetchat.

Kumud @Ajmanik

P.S. We would love to hear your feedback on ‘The Spirit of Knowledge’ in the comments. Thank you!