GO BEYOND UNDERSTANDING
Very often when people come to me for support on their journey of awakening and deepening, they expect to receive nuggets of wisdom they can take home and place on a mantelpiece as a trophy. The mind wants to accumulate knowledge, as if knowledge is proof of our progress and status and worthiness.
But I tell you, dear friend, do not worship the words. Do not try to understand with your mind, for the mind is a limited vessel that likes to acquire more flotsam and jetsam that matches the shape and size and quality of that vessel. What it does not understand, it simply ignores or throws away. And yet in that self-created rubbish heap lies the true treasure.
The treasure is in the unknown, in that which is beyond understanding. Beyond the acquisitive mind is a wealth of intelligence that is not in the realm of knowledge. It’s an intelligence that reveals itself to you when you allow the words to penetrate your heart, in that tender place that “does not know” and yet is touched by truth because it is the truth of your innermost.
So, my friend, do not try to understand the words, do not try to fit them into the conceptual framework of your understanding, do not be afraid of “listening and not knowing”. Let your mind be confused, let your mind be scrambled, let your mind be washed free of knowledge.
Instead, listen from a deeper place — listen from the silence of your innermost, the place of “unknowing”. Listen with your heart, with your whole body. Listen without grasping onto the words — let them be carried in the gentleness of your breath, and let them fall into the emptiness of being.
The words are simply arrows — fingers pointing to the moon. Do not confuse the finger for the truth. Do not look at the finger for the definitive answer, but look into the fathomless pool within. Let the truth be a fresh revelation, not a pre-packaged concept nor a stale ideology that satisfies the mind. Be still, be silent — and wait. Wait for the infinite intelligence of the stars and the supernova to explode in you and set you alight with a truth that is beyond time and beyond reason.
My friend, go beyond understanding.
(image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay)