winter, elder

"We are knee-deep in a river, searching for water," writes Kabir Helminski, a contemporary Wisdom teacher in the Sufi lineage, using a vivid image to capture the irony of our contemporary plight. The sacred road maps of wholeness still exist in the cosmos...But to read the clues it is first necessary to bring the heart and mind and body into balance, to awaken. Then the One can be known—not in a flash of mystical vision but in the clarity of unitive seeing.

Wisdom abides in deep recesses of the heart;
who is at home to receive Her?

Wisdom without love is like having lungs
but no air to breathe. Do not seek wisdom in order
to acquire knowledge but in order to
live and love more fully.

I believe we are all called by many names, and that the names we are called are directly related to our destiny... The discovery of our destiny is our unique contribution to wisdom. When we achieve a sense of wisdom, we will reflect it and shine as both image and likeness.

What does it mean to be made in the image of God?... In part, it is to say that wisdom is deep within us, deeper than the ignorance of what we may have done or become... When we lose touch with the wisdom that is within us, we live out of ignorance... Grace is given not to implant in us a foreign wisdom but to make us alive to the wisdom that was born in us.

Mystical wisdom derives from an ardent desire to abandon normal intellectual functions so that divine insight may enlighten this ardor and add to it another fire, much stronger, which lifts the burning soul towards an even deeper wisdom.

A holy and disciplined mind turns
from ignorance and falsehood,
ignoring their myriad distractions,
while the soul stands firm, allowing
Wisdom to have her way.

Only in the oasis of silence can we drink deeply from our inner cup of wisdom.

Wisdom teaches us that arriving at the Truth is experiencing the graciousness and loving kindness of God.

Along the way to knowledge,
Many things are accumulated...
Along the way to wisdom,
Many things are discarded.