Okay Not to Understand

We don’t have to understand something in order to change it, any more than we need to understand electricity to be able to change a light bulb. In fact, analysing situations is often a defence mechanism the ego uses to protect itself from needed change. The quest for knowledge has its place. It is helpful on the material plane and can get us a diploma or a job. But, as seekers, we are trying to transcend this plane, and for us, the realm of reason is too restrictive. A hot-air balloon can lift us above the hills, but it cannot take us to the stars. People who are too rational may actually hinder their spiritual growth. What we really need is not mental understanding but wisdom, which entails the marriage of head and heart. Normally, wisdom grows gradually, as the mind learns discrimination, and as the heart becomes expanded by love and softened through pain. A shorter path to wisdom can be found by concentrating at the spiritual eye in deep, silent meditation, and by attuning oneself to a truly wise guru. At times, we need to toss thinking aside and let activity become our teacher. Swami Kriyananda encouraged me to paint because, as he said, “It will help you develop your intuition.” He knew that unleashing the creative flow would lift me above the dry desert of an overactive intellect. Just as a snake must shed its old skin, we grow by casting off old self-definitions. We already have what we seek: we don’t need to learn anything in order to know Him, but only to remember and realise what we truly are.

Source: Economic Times, 17/10/2018