“Wisdom is not in words, it is in understanding.” Hazrat Inayat Khan1

Happy Sunday!

Earlier this week the quote above on Wisdom caught my attention in among the daily email newsletters of health, spiritual, and political subscriptions. I flagged it to get back to this morning. Happily, more ideas regarding Wisdom have been arriving in my consciousness to give me ‘food for thought’ to aid me in my reflections for this Sunday morning.

“The memory without the emotional charge is Wisdom.” Dr. Joe Dispenza 2, is a quote from a Youtube video I watched yesterday.  

Father Richard Rohr podcast homily of 9-15-2019 about the parable of the prodigal son I listened to this morning. 3

Wisdom, what is it actually? How do we get there?

Dr. Joe, if you are not familiar with his current work, does a great job explaining how our beliefs, when turned into the actions, then habits, of our daily lives become our personality (my summary). Some beliefs, like those created by past trauma, are emotionally charged so we keep re-living the emotions of the event long past the time of its occurrence as within our minds we have created a system of beliefs related to the experience. Dr. Joe does great work with students on understanding how to release the emotions.

So, his statement about Wisdom that I have posted above, is poignant to me in this way; when we have had a significant event in our lives we need to allow the body to process the emotion, to accept the anger, sorrow, betrayal, shame, or other negative emotions and allow that energy to flow through and pass.

The past is gone.

But, it is not forgive and forget … just the FORGIVE part. I’ll write more on that further down.

When we can just hold the memory of the experience and have an understanding of what happened, why we felt the way we did and why the other person(s) might have acted the way they did, we gain Wisdom from the experience. This allows us to act wiser during similar future events.  Or, to have the experience of an elder, to share with those who might benefit from our describing of the experience – just like Jesus using parables to teach.

In the homily podcast by Fr. Rohr he read the gospel of the Prodigal Son as he explained his thoughts on the meaning of the verses as his homily. The part that stuck in my mind was at the end with the Father of the parable speaking with the elder son who didn’t want to partake in the welcoming back of the younger son; the Father tries to explain his perspective on accepting back of the younger son. “Your brother was lost and now is found.” The Father is acting as we now describe as “being in the Now”. (How else would the metaphor for God act?) He does not hold onto the past behavior, he can see and accept the son who is now before him.

I can only live NOW!

People change. We all live through experiences and can learn and grow. There are those, such as the younger son in the parable, who must reach rock bottom to be ready to release their beliefs driving their behaviors to then move toward change. Fr. Rohr and many others teachers tell me that this is the basis for the success of the ’12 Step Program’ utilized by AA and other addiction relief services.

Forgiveness breeds Wisdom.

For those of us who might identify with the elder brother … how do we get to Forgiveness?

Forgiveness is the release. It’s the clearing to be able to hold onto the memory, accept it as an experience, and to release the emotions that were felt at the time of the experience. This comes from understanding.

Here are some tools that I have learned for gaining understanding:

Question your perspective. A lesson I gained from A Course in Miracles was to learn to ask of myself, “How can I look at this differently?” I take the time to consider the other’s perspective. When I can think back to times when I made mistakes or wrong choices I recognized that I usually had good intentions, perhaps mistaken, or that I was acting out of fear. This helps me to understand that the other person may have acted the way they did by reasoning that made sense to them at the time or, that they thought would be helpful.  

Be mindful. The best teacher on this, in my opinion, is Michael Singer and he best teaches this in a lecture he gave in 2015, ‘Mindfulness as a Way of Life’ 4. He describes mindful as being present in the moment and bringing consciousness to bare.

Look for the meaning. Another question to ask within your mind is one I have posted in black letters over my writing desk (can’t remember where it came from). It is, “There is something else happening here!” It prompts deeper inner investigation into what is really going on.  

I have the belief that there is a lesson to everything therefore I know that there is more going on with the experience I’m experiencing. This belief could easily be attributed to my accepting blindly the words of spiritual teachers who say that Life is just the Earth School. My belief is formed by the recognition that my emotions and my body send me energy signals that sometimes there is no choice but to investigate and address immediately.

If an experience happens and I feel strong emotions (sometimes even ‘heart pain’) then this has triggered something within me. The something else that is happening is what I need to look into (by looking inward) as to why the emotion rose up within me.

Why am I feeling the feelings I am about the situation? (Michael Singer is a great resource for understanding your triggers as well. 5)

Once I have spent the time reflecting on my own triggers then I can go back to reflecting on “how can I look at this differently?” I always gain better understanding of how the other person might have acted the way they did OR, the way that I perceived the situation.

Forgiveness comes easy with understanding. Understanding opens our hearts. When we have taken the time to reflect on OUR role, noticing OUR emotions that came from OUR triggers, we can have compassion from consideration that we may have acted the same way if we were in the other person’s situation.

When the blessing of forgiveness moves through us, clearing out the energies of the stuck emotions connected to the memory of an experience, then the memory becomes a lesson learned.

Wisdom. 

1. Hazrat Inayat Khan, Bowl of Saki 11-15-19

2. Dr. Joe Dispenza, ‘Dr. Joe Q&A – Emotions’ Youtube video.  

3. Father Richard Rohr homily of 9-15-2019 on cac.org, “God running after humanity, who barely wants to be found”.

4. Michael Singer on Youtube, 2015 lecture, ‘Mindfulness as a Way of Life – Michael A Singer’. (I can’t recommend this video enough. I do recommend starting the video at over 2 minutes in to get to where Michael starts speaking.)

5. Michael Singer, book “The Unteathered Soul” and Youtube video with the title ‘Remove Your Inner Thorn | SuperSoul Sunday | Oprah Winfrey Network’).