Instead of thinking, “How can I alter or small-print this wisdom to fit my beliefs, perspective or desire?” … try saying, “I don’t understand how that wisdom gets applied in this instance. I wonder what I don’t know?”
What if there is no small print that comes after “do not kill” or “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” or “when you attack another you harm yourself” or “what you resist, you strengthen.” What if they are all true exactly as they are, and applicable exactly as they are, without caveats or small print?
If we don’t understand how they can possibly apply to us in this or that situation, what if it is not because the wisdom needs to be footnoted, rather could it be because our perspective is smaller than the one that reveals this wisdom; or because our perspective contains fear and is self-serving or protective due to that fear; or because we believe that we are the story and need an identity that we derive from it? I am good; they are bad. I am wise; they are foolish. I am correct; they are mistaken and must be corrected/ fixed/ healed/ silenced?
“I don’t know,” is liberating. We are not encouraged to pause within wondering – to savor not knowing, to enjoy pondering, waiting. Try it … ask a question and instead of asking someone else for an answer, instead of making up potential answers in your mind, instead of running around trying to find an answer, … craft your question.
Craft your question carefully so that it is your real question, the thing you really want to know. Then try asking that question out into the universe … and then relax. Wait. Be still. Be in wonder.
Perhaps an answer will come to you… maybe today, maybe in ten years. If you are content here now, in wonder, it won’t matter.
-Natalie Sudman
