The Way of Wisdom

(Introduction)

If only we were a little wiser, life could be so different. We might make fewer mistakes, of either the commission or omission type, of either the major or minor type. We might have much better, smoother, closer relationships. We could live our lives well and make them more fulfilling, more meaningful, more productive, more effective, more useful. We might see the best course forward, both for ourselves and for our society, and steer in that direction. We might have fewer regrets and more fun.

But what is this elusive something we call wisdom? First, we note the difference between wisdom and experience. Everyone has experience and the longer we live the more experience we have. We would not say that everyone is wise, nor that age necessarily brings wisdom. We meet young people who are wise and older people who are not. Thus, we cannot consider wisdom to be solely a distillation of experience. We could say that wisdom understands the lessons of experience and applies them well.

But wisdom seems to go well beyond experience. It is rooted in a universality that is filtered through experience to obtain local, personal, and specific guidance.

Does our contact with wisdom fluctuate? That appears to be the case. Sometimes, in retrospect, we feel that we have done the wise thing. Other times, not so much. Is this merely accidental, randomly getting something right?

Maybe not, because in some of those cases, we feel that we have seen clearly and deeply into a situation and acted accordingly. That clear, subtle, and unbiased perception must also be part of wisdom. But at other times we feel that we cannot see through the fogs of time and uncertainty, competing desires and needs, the sheer complexity of life, and the rapidly multiplying possibilities and unknowns as we look into the ramifications of our choices and decisions. Because certainty about the future and certainty about the results of our actions are not possible, we are left to rely on instinct, guesswork, and preferences, whereas what we want is an intuitive, clear, and deep seeing of the current situation and the most likely best course of action. We want wisdom.

Yet the need for wisdom raises many questions. Does wisdom come from the higher Sacred, or does it come from within, or from the higher within us? How can we set ourselves on a course toward greater wisdom? Would it help to:

Practice paying attention to our intuitions of right and wrong, to our conscience and to acting accordingly.
Observe our own biases and how we are drawn off the right path by them.
Develop our attention, our will, our ability to act, to open, to receive, to be.
Practice seeing the needs of other people and serving those needs.
Notice our self-centeredness, our egoism, and how that poisons wisdom.
Notice when we have done something well, maybe even perfectly, and how that came about.
Practice being in and acting from the whole of ourselves, not from just a part.
Practice opening our innermost core to the Sacred, higher, more inclusive will of which we are a part.

Unbiased, clear, logical, rational thought processes help with analysis, consideration of viable alternatives, examining possible outcomes, and so on. Emotional responses can alert us to the ethical, moral, and aesthetic aspects of a situation. Rightly together they can support wisdom, which adds the missing ingredients of deep insight, creativity, and values. But biased thought and reactive emotions can be a toxic mixture that closes the door on wisdom.

Practicing clear thinking and moral acting seems necessary but not sufficient for wisdom. As long as we have an ego, self-centered biases can slip in, however subtly, to twist any choice or decision. This consideration makes obvious the connection between spiritual inner work and the development of wisdom. But the connection goes deeper still. There is a greater wisdom to which we can aspire, the Sacred wisdom that can enter us. The door to Wisdom cannot fully open as long as we live from our ego. By our inner work we can hope to transcend ourselves, empty ourselves of ourselves so that Wisdom might enter us, enabling us to act objectively from the Whole.

Of course, the wise person not only sees what to do, but actually does it. This is an issue for many of us. We know what we should do, yet we do not act on that, or act half-heartedly, with reservations, resentment, and reward seeking.

Presence, wisdom, and attention, all of which are manifestations of will, flow from the universal to the personal, from the global to the local. In true presence, with real wisdom, we are an emanation of the universal into our own individuality; we maintain that connection, that backstop, that background to who we truly are.

In the coming weeks, we will delve into wisdom with the aim of setting ourselves on the path toward it. For this week, see if you can notice some of the biases that shape your perceptions and reactions.

Wisdom and Conscience

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