[Uma]

Day 24 of 40: April 18, 2016 link

I can make all these posts and share my knowledge and get nowhere if I am not putting everything I have learned into practice WISELY. The educated person is a mouthpiece only, a parrot repeating words it doesn't understand, if they do not put what they have learned into action because action modifies everything. Sri Vasudeva said it's like the fat caterpillar eating all this knowledge then getting caught up in the knowledge, in the pride of knowing, in the competition with others of having knowledge, rather than moving on to cocoon themselves in a transformative process that results in the beautiful butterfly :)

Swadhyaya - contemplation of my Self - in ACTION
Following his previous talk about the importance of maintaining self-discipline (tapasya), Sri Vasudeva spoke today very briefly about putting the teachings into practice by the way of wise action: "swadhyaya: that use of knowledge that will help to liberate us." What he was talking about is WISE action, not just taking the teachings literally and using them indiscriminately in any old context. It's not about fanaticism, it's about becoming the teachings - being the message - in a way that is harmonized with God's will.

When I act with wisdom I am in oneness with everything and everyone around me. It's when synergy happens, when I feel supported and carried and motivated by God. I am not following a cookie-cutter recipee from this dogma or that dogma.

My understanding of swadhyaya ("self study"), is that it is a multi-step process of taking all the knowledge I have learned, allowing it to percolate deep in my subconscious mind like a fat caterpillar in a cocoon so that it goes through a transformation process that changes it from intellectual knowledge into intuition, and then it goes through my inner Guru (the awakened Kundalini) who further refines and purifies it (through awakening superconsciousness) so that it emerges as divine inspiration to act in a way of Light not ignorance, and to take me another step into enlightened consciousness. I think of it as a refining process, sort of like a processing plant extracting sugar from beets:

"Centering" not "focusing" in meditation
Sri Vasudeva explained this far more eloquently at the beginning of the meditation:

"Observe that inner space. Clear the mind of thoughts and open up the space to the fullness of being. Do not be limited. Open up your space intuitively to wisdom, to intuitive insight, to the Guru Principle (to the guiding principle inside of you). It's not about focusing to a point. It is about centering in another space. The focusing is different: [it's] centering (opening up) as though you're listening to a universe within you."

This crucial step requires that I know what centering feels like and when centering happens. And then I need to know how to access intuitive information, not blindly, but with an awareness of my awakened Self prompting me to act in the best way.

Many years ago he told us, "Intuition is really a process of picking up more information than that which is available to us through the senses," and he also said somewhere that wisdom is the kind of intuition that takes one to enlightenment.* And today he spoke about putting that wisdom into practice. So he really only touched on the subject today.

Am I making any sense???

Wisdom as a lifestyle practice
Wisdom is not an easy concept to grasp intellectually or to explain intellectually. It has been the subject of scholarly debate and poetic flights of fancy since humanity began to record about self-inquiry. But it is understood by mystics and by those of us who have a communicative relationship with our divine self and that's why wisdom can come through a child. A child is unencumbered by book knowledge and too much ego.

Intuition development for me is a by-product of meditation although I work on developing it consciously and carefully. Carefully - because I want it to be reliable. I want it to prompt my higher nature and not my lower nature to fulfill God's will in my every action. Wisdom comes when I have learned enough (mostly through bitter life experiences) and have followed my intuition enough that I automatically know what to do in situations and it always works as win-win situations and then I feel uplifted by it, re-energized, joyful in feeling that God presence. And when I feel that divine presence, I know myself for who I am in oneness with all of life, even if for only a brief precious moment. And that's the Self-study idea of swadhyaya as I understand it so far! (((!)))

Bottom line: spiritual knowledge is useless unless it makes me wiser about who I am and what I need to do or not do.

*p.s. I just got this:

*"Wisdom is when intellect shines with spiritual consciousness or when intellect is operating fully in the light of Higher Self" ~ Sri Vasudeva