Knowledge and Wisdom

There is a great deal of difference between Knowledge and Wisdom. Knowledge connotes facts crammed into the memory, certainly necessary in this life. However, Wisdom means, in the spiritual sense, that which is intuitive and profits from the Universal Mind (if we can use that expression) and goes beyond what is the known. We all have touches of the latter, at times, unless we totally suppress it with drugs or some unnatural means.

Recently there was a gathering, at my house, of meditators. Afterward we had the usual discussion and Kathy Grassel read from a book that contained Ramana Maharshi’s answers to questions from seekers who had come to see the great Sage, who was certainly not a scholar.

Occasionally, someone would ask me to comment on or explain the subject that was being dealt with. It gradually became clear to everyone, including me, that my comments were such that they preceded what was written in the book. I would say something and Kathy would laugh. She would then read the next paragraph, or the one following that, which would echo, in the same words, what I had just said. It was laughable, and it was not because of effort on my part. Also, I am not Clairvoyant. Whatever I said would then be repeated as Kathy read from the book.

This is Prajna, the inherant wisdom that was not learned. We all have it, but we cover it up with our mental processes. No amount of learning will cause it.

When I came to Albuquerque, in 1993, to meet Carmen Brocklehurst and go to the Television station to make plans for the T’ai Chi Chih Program on PBS stations (which is still playing in its sixth year), I suddenly got the idea of buying a house and living in Albuquerque (I was then stationed on the Monterey Peninsula in California). When a Real Estate agent came to the house with a list of 40 available places, I said “I don’t have time for all that.” She answered that it usually took months to suit a client, and she asked how I expected to do it. I replied: “Let’s just get in your car and let it take us there.” Looking at me as though I was slightly off my rocker, she agreed. Doug Shilson and Carmen got in the car with us, and within five minutes we were in front of a house-for-sale, just several blocks away (and not on her list). You know the rest: by 10 o’clock that night I had bought just the right house for me. One spiritually advanced friend said: “It had your name on it. Nobody else could have bought it.”

Over the last 40 years, since my time in India, Japan, Chinese cities, etc., my life has pretty much progressed in that manner. My studies and practices in the Far East had opened me to such things.

I am not patting myself on the back. Many others have the same experiences. What can we do to encourage such ‘intuitive’ living? Practice T’ai Chi Chih and, possibly, do the type of Meditation that takes us to the Turiya State (the fourth state of consciousness). These methods do not usually fail.