There is a difference between knowing something and truly
comprehending it. I know a light-year is
the distance that light travels in vacuum in one Julian year. It amounts to just under 10
trillion kilometres. Can I wrap my brain around it? Absolutely not. I know a
baby takes 9 months to develop and grow in her mother’s womb. Can I grasp the
mystery of a new life? No way.
The same principles apply to the human condition. I may know about
the effects of a romantic crush, but until I have experienced the rush of hormones and the sleepless nights, it will merely be an idea.
I believe it is the experience itself that is the alchemical force transforming knowledge into understanding. It is only when we go through a challenge that we can start saying: “A-ha! Now I see!” Without experience,
knowledge is a collection of facts that have little power over us and our lives.
Ask a person of faith. It is not the reading of a holy scripture that makes you
believe, it is the experience of what
it teaches, that makes you believe and that
changes your life. It is and always will be about experience.
A while ago I felt that I needed a new experience, something
to shift my perception to teach me something extraordinary and how does the
saying go? When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Enter Eli Stone.
It was this seemingly ordinary TV series
that ignited a remarkable epiphany. Paul and I watched as the characters of the
story experienced the familiar emotional highs and lows of love and everyday
life. It is not unlike many other stories, but somehow I was more immersed and
involved in this show. When it finished I felt a strange sense of loss. I had
to say goodbye to everyone I got to know so well and I felt foolish for feeling
this way about people that did not even really exist.
It was just what I needed to see so I could
understand the most vital element of emotional well-being. I wish I could bottle
this elixir and give it to the world, but alas, I can only write about it. I
can give you the knowledge of what I experienced, but not the experience
itself. You see, as I was feeling upset about the end of the show, I had an a-ha
moment and as far as insights go, this was the most important one of my life.
I suddenly realised, or rather, I intuitively felt that I was much stronger than the anguish I went through in that moment. I was more
connected to my strength than to my fear. In one single instant I knew I was truly
powerful and completely invulnerable to the pain my ego was suffering.
I
realised that any feelings, sad or happy, are just temporary rivers that flow
over a bedrock of strength. This bedrock of strength is my Essence, the core of
who I am. It is there for me to access
any time I need. I always have a choice. Either I can immerse myself in the
temporary rivers of my ever changing feelings and drown in it or I can connect
to the vast and immense solidity of unchanging peace underlying the surface of
it. It is self-pity vs self-confidence. It is letting go of all illusions of control in order to genuinely take charge. I realised that the power was in
me. I simply had to experience it to earnestly recognise it.
Although there have been times since this particular experience
that I have felt worried and happy and sad and anxious and confused, I have
been able to take a deep breath, shift my perception and touch the peace that I
know to be far more powerful and vast than anything else I have ever felt. It is the kind of peace that exudes a quiet confidence; a humble whisper of thundering strength.
As René Daumal’s
famous quote goes:
“You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come
down again. So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows
what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one
sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art of
conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher
up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know.”
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