Wisdom: The Understanding Heart

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Wisdom: The Understanding Heart

By Osterhage

" Light for the mind, love for the heart, understanding for the intellect: all three must be satisfied in every man before he has real peace. " -- G. de Purucker

Wisdom. Knowledge. These are often used interchangeably, but are they the same? The dictionary defines wisdom as discernment or insight and knowledge as acquaintance with facts, truths, or principles. It seems possible to know a great many things but not fully integrate them into our daily lives. We may know the difference between right and wrong but not have the ability to " discern " between them. We must understand the differences, I may even say the far-reaching effects of them, to be able to incorporate them seamlessly into our lives. Until then we may act as little children who have knowledge of right and wrong in many cases but not fully ingrained enough to actually make it a force in their lives.

There is a path which leads to the heart of the universe. Different for every one of us, it is our journey through life, which is wider and longer than this single earthly lifetime. On this path we learn who we are, what we are doing here, and where we are going. In some ways it is ironic that we learn from ourselves and not from others. Others may point the way, but it is we who actually inculcate the knowledge and develop the wisdom to climb our mountain path. We use our inner faculties to separate useful information from what we discard along the way. In this fashion we put together concepts from different sources, find relations between them, and use them to build our knowledge and grow our wisdom.

In our spiritual course through the universe we have available to us our various vehicles of expression, intuitional, intellectual, emotional, and so forth. Generally they are divided into heart and mind. Now these are not the physical organs we normally associate with those terms, but their spiritual counter-parts which are seated in the physical organs. They are part of what ties the part of us we can see with the part of us we cannot see. We have a vast and varied composition, not limited to the purely physical being we normally think of as ourselves. The heart and mind are where we respectively store our under-standing and knowledge.

Understanding indicates that we have grasped the significance, implications, or importance of something. We may comprehend some piece of knowledge well enough to see its impact on our life and the lives of others. We can see the implications of choices, how certain actions may affect others. Understanding also conveys accepting something or someone sympathetically. Often when we see how our actions may affect someone, and we ourselves have experienced that same effect, we are enlightened with an understanding of how our actions actually affect other people, beings, and things.

Somewhere deep inside us this knowledge is transformed into understanding and inculcated into our hearts as a way of life. The next time we come across similar situations, through our wisdom we are able to apply principles that allow us to work more in harmony with nature, rather than against her. H. P. Blavatsky wrote: " Help Nature and work on with her; and Nature will regard thee as one of her creators and make obeisance. . . . To live to benefit mankind is the first step. "

Through careful observation and vigilant attention to our thoughts and actions we will become more meaningful and considerate creators of our own lives, and more unselfish forces in others' lives. It is our path, and we each are literally the path we seek. We are already there, we have nowhere to go but within ourselves for answers to the perplexing questions of Life. We have the answers. Our highest spiritual essence, connected to the divine source of All, is constantly at our disposal. We only have to ask, in a diligent, honest, and unselfish manner, and it will be answered. Knock, and it will be opened unto us! The Delphic Oracle rings true by simultaneously instructing and cautioning us: " Know thyself! "

What a comfort to know that we are divinity at our innermost! We have only to see past the veil to the true meaning and essence of life. We are all interconnected in one universal brotherhood. Race, sex, age, religion, are all effectually inconsequential. We must let the Oneness reign supreme in our lives. The Golden Rule is golden because of the heartfelt wisdom it imparts. Every religion has it version; from Native American to Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism, all evoke the same tenet: Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you. This is possible only with an understanding heart.

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All truly wise thoughts have already been thought thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe