Finding the Wisdom Within
Wisdom always brings us clarity. It's a knowing that feels right.
How to get the most out of these Wisdom Quotes:
Put aside everything you think you already know.
Open your mind and heart to receive something new.
Take your time going through each point.
Return to any points that particularly touch you.
In the coming days, listen carefully to the wisdom within you.
1. Having the Courage to Look Within
"No one can give away wisdom. A teacher can only lead you to it via words, hoping you will have the courage to look within yourself and find it inside your own consciousness - beyond the word.
The wisdom humanity seeks lies within the consciousness of all human beings, trapped and held prisoner by their own personal minds.
Wisdom is not found in the world of form, nor in remote corners of the globe. Wisdom lies within our own consciousness.
Only you have the golden key to your soul and the wisdom that lies within."
~Sydney Banks, The Missing Link
COACHING NOTES:
Whether we realize it or not, we have many preconceived ideas about wisdom. We tend to believe that wisdom is to be found somewhere outside of us, and that it takes many years to find it. Many of us don't even dare to believe that we can access the wisdom we need directly, always looking to others for guidance.
Let us, then, begin this exploration by putting aside all our misconceptions, and finding the courage to look within ourselves. After all, if we are to believe the wise ones throughout history, they have always pointed us to the wisdom we already have within us.
See this post in the Facebook Group
2. Hearing the Wisdom Flute
"Our thinking obscures our wisdom; indeed, it is the only thing that can.
Our thinking obscures our wisdom the way a veil covers a beautiful sculpture. Even though we can't see the sculpture, it is there. Our thinking is the veil. When the veil is pulled off the sculpture it is there for everyone to see because it never went anywhere in the first place. We can have faith in that. We could have the same kind of faith in our wisdom and innate health.
Our wisdom is infinite intelligence always speaking to us. There is one catch: We can only hear it with a clear mind.
George Pransky uses a metaphor I find myself using a lot:
Our wisdom is always playing like a soft flute in the background; the rest of our thinking is like a brass band. When the brass band is playing we can't hear the soft flute. As soon as the band in our mind stops, even for a second, the flute-wisdom can be heard, because it never stopped playing in the first place.
What we are looking for appears automatically when our mind clears. There really is nothing we have to do to get where we want to be because we are already there!
We are only in our own way with our very own thinking interfering with our intrinsic state of wisdom and peace, using our gift of Thought against ourselves."
~Jack Pransky, Somebody Should Have Told Us!
COACHING NOTES:
Here we have a beautiful analogy of the brass band of our thinking drowning out the soft flute music of our innate wisdom.
With the realization that infinite intelligence is always speaking to us, and all we need to hear that speaking is to have a clear mind, suddenly the focus changes. Instead of trying to find wisdom that is mysteriously hidden somewhere, we discover that, when we are in a calm and clear state of mind, that wisdom spontaneously appears. It's just waiting for us to be still enough to hear it.
See this post in the Facebook Group
3. Guided by Intuitive Knowing
"There’s a deeper intelligence that wants us to move toward being more connected with life in a healthy way, for our own sake and for the sake of the world. That’s why it’s called wisdom.
Time and time again, when I work with people who have had horrific things happen, they’re trying to use their ego to decide how to forgive. The intellect will never figure that out.
It’s in quiet moments that we’re taught by a deeper wisdom. Wisdom isn’t egocentric - it’s moving us toward what’s best for everything and everybody that’s involved.
If you want to learn about love, if you want to learn about truth, if you want to learn about understanding, if you want to learn about the spiritual nature of life, there’s only one requirement. You have to be willing to go beyond all your precious thoughts, ideas, beliefs and concepts, to a space of pure presence, and then wisdom will speak, guide, move, surprise and uplift.
It's unbelievable that we’re connected to an intelligence that can do that - whether we think it or not, believe it or not, understand it intellectually or not.
You don’t have to comprehend. If you know that when you’re caught up and stressed and struggling, or having difficulty, or feel awkward... If you know that that’s thought in the moment and you let it go, you’ll come back to that space within that is characterized by deeper feeling and feelings of connection.
In that space, wisdom reveals itself as intuitive knowing on what to do, how best to deal with things. It’s where our kindness always comes from. Dealing with the most difficult of circumstances, that’s where our answers come from."
~Dr. Dicken Bettinger, from the Crazy Love Course
COACHING NOTES:
"It's unbelievable that we’re connected to an intelligence that can do that..." Consider these words and what it means to have such a connection with infinite intelligence.
This is something we didn't learn at school and, in many cases, didn't learn until much later in life (if at all), that we have this innate wisdom, built-in guidance that deals with the most difficult of circumstances. Fortunately, it's never too late to discover this most precious gift.
"It’s in quiet moments that we’re taught by a deeper wisdom." As you go about your days this week, allow yourself some quiet moments by not paying attention to your thinking, and falling back into the present moment, where wisdom is waiting to give you the answers you seek.
See this post in the Facebook Group
4. Wisdom Working in Harmony With the Intellect
"Let's consider for a moment what it means to look in the right direction. This means looking toward the true source of your experience. When you look in this direction your mind naturally quiets down. Your intellect can rest. There is nothing for it to do.
Doing nothing is allowing your personal thinking to fall away. Then you will fill up with deeper feelings and understanding, and this guides you into the world in a proactive way so, at that point, you don't sit around doing nothing.
Wisdom brings you into engagement with life, with your children, with your job, with other people, or with your challenges.
Doing nothing does not mean your thinking stops. When your intellect is at rest, wisdom still draws upon anything that is helpful from the intellect. Then wisdom works in harmony with the intellect.
One example of this is if you have been unhappy with your job for a while, and you have been thinking about what to do about it. As soon as your mind starts to quiet down, wisdom can break through with a new thought of how you might proceed. Now the intellect can be used to put this new idea in motion, drawing upon all your skill and experience.
In this way, wisdom and the intellect make a good team."
~Dr. Dicken Bettinger & Natasha Swerdloff, Coming Home
COACHING NOTES:
Go back and reread the first two sentences. When we look at the true source of our experience, we are looking inward. Our feelings come from our thoughts, not from anything outside of us, therefore, when we look within, we are looking in the right direction.
The focus then shifts. Instead of looking at our outward circumstances or people we might be blaming for how we feel, the noise quietens down. We "do nothing" and allow our personal thinking to fall away, trusting in wisdom to take the lead.
Wisdom always brings us clarity, thereby paving the way for the intellect to operate in a natural and harmonious way, without having the headache of trying to figure everything out.
Practise trusting wisdom to lead you in the right direction.
See this post in the Facebook Group
5. Recognizing the Voice of Wisdom
"You have a thought, "I should do this," and then this thought goes, "No, you don’t have to do that." It’s like the cartoons, you’ve got the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other shoulder. If you don’t listen to either voice, then a third voice comes in.
It’s just a knowing. It has nothing to do with voices, it’s just a knowing. Now, there may be words that accompany that knowing, but it’s a knowing. I started seeing wisdom as a guiding force.
A lot of people worry, "If I sat quietly, I’d become a sponge and I wouldn’t do anything." I’ve never seen that happen. It’s always the opposite. You get really quiet, quiet, quiet, quiet… There’s an emptying. And then there’s this infilling, where you just start to feel better, more relaxed, more present, more awake, more alive.
And the more you fill up with that feeling, at some point, the wisdom in that feeling just gets you up and doing something. You call a friend who’s in trouble, or you go for a walk, or you go take care of some business that you need to take care of, or you go have that heart-to-heart talk with somebody because there was some injustice that you want to address. But it comes from here [patting the heart].
It’s a knowing and it feels right.
A friend of mine helped me with that because I was always getting into thinking that would be confusing: "I should, I shouldn’t, I need to, I don’t have to, I can’t, I can…" I was really good at that kind of thinking: confusion, ambivalence, uncertainty… and I figured one of those two sides must be right.
Then Syd [Banks] comes along and says, "All that thinking is ego. There’s no wisdom in either of those thoughts." Why is that? Because there’s two.
A friend of mine finally just said the simplest thing I’ve ever heard: "Dicken, when it comes up as two for me, I throw it back on wisdom until it comes back as one." There’s no other side to it. There’s no argument, no fight, no confusion, no uncertainty. There’s just, "Oh, that’s right."
There’s a rightness to wisdom that has nothing to do with the should and shouldn’t. That’s all our conditioning: "I know what I should do, I know I shouldn’t be this way…" all that is your conditioning.
~Dicken Bettinger, from the video: Where is Wisdom?
COACHING NOTES:
With a deeper understanding of wisdom comes discernment and the ability to recognize what deserves our attention.
Any time you feel confused with all your thinking, see it as an opportunity to rest, letting all the thoughts settle down like the glitter in a snow globe. Let go of everything and wait for wisdom to give you the clarity you long for.
See this post in the Facebook Group
6. Wisdom Applied to Society
"Our intellect and our inner wisdom should work together to create harmony in our lives. However, if the intellect lacks wisdom, chaos reigns. This is the state of the world today.
As human beings, we must look closely at the relationship between our spiritual nature and our psychological nature. Here we will find the answers we seek to change the deplorable state of the world.
The consciousness of humankind must be elevated. Only then, when the spiritual and physical realities are united, will we find the power and intelligence to guide us through life.
Wisdom cleans the channels of your mind and brings sanity into your life. Wisdom is divine nourishment for the soul; it is a God-given intelligence before the contamination of form or personal thought.
With wisdom, people see beyond the filters and biases of race and culture to realize the beauty in everyone. Such understanding enables people to stop fearing and distrusting those who are different, to see the commonality of human beings regardless of cultural differences.
Wisdom applied to society would do more than anything else to halt the ethnic clashes and wars the world suffers from today.
Our psychological nature and our spiritual nature are entwined, and the more they are harmonized, the more contented we will be. Wisdom brings common sense to those who find it."
~Sydney Banks, The Missing Link
COACHING NOTES:
"With wisdom, people see beyond the filters and biases of race and culture to realize the beauty in everyone."
The way to a kind and peaceful world is not through systems, rules or well meaning effort, but rather, through wisdom. The most important thing any of us can do, is to find the wisdom within.
See this post in the Facebook Group
7. Summary
A short video summarizing the main points to take away.