Wisdom

We often associate wisdom and the state of being wise with age. We bow to the wisdom of the ages, and revere the wise woman or wise man of the tribe or community. If a younger person speaks wisely, then he or she is beyond their years, or they are wise because they are an old soul. Yet in actuality, wisdom is neither dependent on age, nor does age guarantee that wisdom will be achieved. Wisdom is present only when an individual can integrate experiences, knowledge, and intuitiveness into daily living. As one journeys towards wisdom, they become wiser and may even be seen as wise, however accomplishing wisdom as a state of being one operates from, is far more than being wise in an ordinary way. True wisdom is best role modeled and is shared only when asked for. Forcing your "wisdom" on another is very unwise indeed.

So what is the journey to wisdom? How does one achieve it? We will begin by looking at the definition I just used for the word "wisdom": the integration of experiences, knowledge, and intuitiveness into a consistent and ever-changing way of being.

When I was meditating on how to best guide my readers in stepping onto the path of wisdom, my crafty side came into play and I saw an image of hair being braided. One braid was experience, one knowledge and the last, intuitiveness. But to stay braided, the three sections need something to tie them together. In wisdom, that tie is being able to live within the truth of the spiritual paradoxes. For that moves you from the place of having occasional wise insights into actually living in wisdom. Even in the definition, I’m referring to consistent and ever-changing ways of being, and that in of it self has a paradoxical element, does it not?

In this article, I will elaborate on the three "strands" of wisdom.

The first braid of wisdom is the integration of experiences. In order to fully integrate experiences, we must understand what experiences are and what our resistances to integrating them may be.

Experiences are teachers that offer us opportunities to grow and develop, the key word being "offer". When that offer is refused, the opportunity to learn (and thus the experience) will continue to return to us, in one form or another. Consistent refusal and return creates a pattern. Patterns indicate refusals to learn important life lessons. Oftentimes, this happens because instead of taking ownership in an experience that victimizes us, we embody the victimization, becoming victims. Why would we want to become or remain victims? A few reasons: first, because it frees us of any responsibility, second, it allows us to avoid change. And lastly, for many people, it is a comfortable and familiar place to operate from. So how do we overcome resistance to integrating experiences?

First, we must move from the place of victimhood or even innocent bystander in our life to key player and co-creator of whatever happens in our lives. Next, we must embrace all experiences, positive or negative, as teachers, and embody the lesson. Finally, it is the integrating of experiences into positive changes of behavior, thought processes and feelings, which helps us be in wisdom. Integrating experiences requires continual self-reflection.

Let’s begin by defining what we need to integrate. Knowledge is information acquired through other people’s experiences. Knowledge allows us to have an insight or understanding without having the experience per se. A book or movie might allow us to experience what it was like to live in ancient Rome. Now we don’t actually experience living in ancient Rome, but there is wisdom that we can acquire through the sharing of the knowledge of what it was like to live in ancient Rome. The secret to the integration of the knowledge is to understand and embrace what we can learn or discover from that information in a tangible way. First, we must acknowledge that we can grow through experiences that are not ours. Then we must proceed to extract what it applicable to us in the now, and hold in reserve those things, which might be usable to us down the road. Lastly, we must apply the critical thinking skills that allow us to evolve because of that knowledge, in a positive way, in our thoughts, feelings and actions, thus living a better life. Just as integrating experiences requires continual self-reflection; integrating knowledge requires continually examining other people’s experiences, so we may grow from them as well.

Finally we come to intuition, which is simply information which comes to us through something other than the five senses; information that comes to us from our psychic or intuitive sense.

Do you remember the quote from Hamlet: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy"? Hamlet said that trying to convince the rational thinking Horatio, that he was speaking to his father’s ghost. To take this one step further, however, I would add that the "more things" include a whole lot more than just ghosts. Recognizing your own ability to access information that would fall in the intuition/psychic category is the first step towards being wiser. Accepting it as another source from which to get more information with which to make better decisions is the next step. However, it is not until we truly move into a place of being always open to receive intuitive guidance for yourself and apply it in a way which creates positive changes of: behavior, thought processes and feelings that one adds that strand to the braid that makes wisdom.

Now that we have examined these three necessary qualities of wisdom, I’ll let you contemplate on where they stand in your life.