The Essence of Wisdom
I would speak to you this evening on the third and most elusive of the Three Tenets : Wisdom.
Please keep in mind that I know absolutely nothing about it. As it were, it is directly from the heart of foolishness that I write a Sermon on Wisdom …
Wisdom cannot really be a goal, that is, one really cannot seek to 'become wise'.
One may of course display some wisdom from time to time.
For some, it is frequent – for some others far less so.
Strangely enough, Wisdom often comes across as absurdity, as contrary or contradictory to what we are sure we 'know'.
It tends to rise out of what our focus has left out. It eludes our grasp.
Wisdom is a lonesome thing, for it avoids the 'common sense' of the crowd.
What everybody thinks and what everyone knows is as far from Wisdom as remembrances of yesterday are from the hopes for tomorrow.
Wisdom isn't 'knowing' anything in particular.
It isn't true Wisdom to be able to parrot parables and proverbs.
It is nothing one can hold onto like a position or a title or a status …
One often looks to the lofty heights toward a light of Wisdom, but notices nothing in one’s own shadow before one's own feet.
In other words, contemplating the 'vault of heaven' is much more likely to cause one to stumble and fall over something than to render Wisdom.
In fact, one may very likely find more glimmers of Wisdom during a walk in the garden than in the Library.
One can go around and around it and never find a way in …
It doesn’t come with references or in a well-annotated bibliography.
It isn’t obtained by quoting philosophers or poets word for word.
It is as a train ticket that has already been punched – it can get you where you’re going once, but then it becomes rubbish …
It is as common as grass, but we can’t feel it everywhere because we think we ‘know’ what we’re looking for.
‘Ordinary’ doesn’t seem the right shape.
‘Extraordinary’ seems too bizarre.
Reflected in still waters and teardrops, its Image dries away with the out-breath …
Wisdom rarely shouts ; neither does it accompany ‘always’ nor ‘never’.
It cannot be known, thus it comes more readily to the un-clever. It makes its home in the present, and neither protects the ‘old ways’ nor presses toward ‘progress’.
Ergo :
When one comes to the Knowledge that ‘one does not know’ –
And can Focus on the Moment (rather than concentrating on cause and effect) –
One resides in Wisdom and no longer needs to ‘have’ it …
***
For those who would like to, please join me in the recitation of our Creed :
I am a Jedi, an instrument of peace ;
Where there is hatred I shall bring love ;
Where there is injury, pardon ;
Where there is doubt, faith ;
Where there is despair, hope ;
Where there is darkness, light ;
And where there is sadness, Joy.
I am a Jedi.
I shall never seek so much to be consoled as to console ;
To be understood as to understand ;
To be loved as to love ;
For it is in giving that we receive ;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned ;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
The Force is with me always, for I am a Jedi.
***
May the Force be with you all …
