Knowledge, Wisdom and Enlightenment.
A tale of three states
The title of this piece came to me whilst reading a book called A World Religions Bible. I generally read widely about other spiritual practices even though I limit my own nowadays to Quakers, Buddhist in the path of Thich Nhat Hanh and my innate Shamanic qualities which I no longer deny or feel the need to deny exist within me all the time. This covers my connections to the teachings of Jesus, Buddha and the connection I deeply feel with the natural world.
I feel the spiritual energy in all living things, some more than others, but I have had many strange experiences when in touch with the physical world or the natural world and those I cannot deny happened when they did or the profound nature of those experiences. I have written about some of them else where and am about to complete the spiritual journeys in my next book. But for now these three surfice and fulfill my spiritual needs in abundance. What I loved about this book was that it all showed how closely all these world religions say the same thing, more or less — with all the twelve great spiritual traditions covered in summary by the learned author Robert Van Der Weyer. And it set me thinking about knowledge, wisdom, and enlightenment as most religions have an opinion on all three.
Once upon a time I loved being knowledgble and often my ego tried to pretend it knew more that it really did. I also have deep respect for people who can clearly demontrate their very widely reaching breadth of knowledge, all given with quotes and references. For instance David and I recently listened to the BBC Reith Lectures on Art given by the amazing artist Grayson Perry, whom we both admire as a person and an artist. He is also a hilarously outrageous cross dresser and I can never stop myself loving anybody who wants to challenge the norms of behaviour, since it is only by challenging these that we can grow and move on as a society, from narrow definitions of what is acceptable into a grand ‘open arms welcome’ for absolutely everyone.
I have had sufficient experiences myself to recognise that knowledge without wisdom is nothing.
I have also met complete experts in their fields who are complete lost souls in their lives.
