We are the Wise Ones

The teachers of the world, the spiritual educators, the wisdom keepers, the priests and shaman cannot give me wisdom. Pure wisdom comes only from loss and failure, from mistakes and disappointment, from pain and sorrow and breath and presence. You cannot make this shit up, and shame on you for those who try to. Don't pretend wisdom! How could you do such a disgraceful thing. That is like lying to yourself, denying your true nature, slaying your own blood. You have all the answers you are capable of receiving right now.

Many argue that you must have faith, but I think faith is for wimps. Faith is an invisible hope that something that you will never experience is real after all. I say, develop trust. Build it like a sculpture, or a house. Grow it like a garden or a forest. Trust is an agreement between souls, an acknowledgment of the existence of a consciousness. Simply look back and see how your life and the event of your life have effortlessly guided you towards this present state and now you are reading this.

This writing, like all the other reflections in your life, is a sign that you have arrived even here, to this present moment, and that you are ready to receive this message. Now you can trust that there is a force both within you and around you, call it God or love or the river of life, that is guiding you towards your own inner wisdom. You can trust that you are on the right path, that you are growing and changing, expanding and becoming stronger and more aware.

Some people struggle in the darkness for their whole lives and never feel any solid object, and semblance of constancy, of love, of trust. They are also guided by these same forces. And though it may seem utterly hopeless to them, there are always signs along their path beckoning them to embrace their inner wisdom, if only they could see them.

The signs are here all the time, in every moment of every day. It is as if God has his hands stretched out in ever moment to guide us onward if only we are to trust and reach for it. Even the pain and sorrow, even the difficulty and struggle, pushes us to dig deeper for those things that matter the most.

Do you notice how loving people get after there is a crisis? How environmental people get after there is an oil spill? How spiritual people become after there is an idiot criminal president? Do you notice how filled with love and surrender people become when they know that they are dying?

These moments of hardship are the most potent sign posts of all. These tribulations are our priests and shaman. Look deeply into the eyes of your fear, of your pain, and their lies your wisdom. There lies your knowing, your truth, what is most important to you. When we strip back the layers of this existence and just allow ourselves to be who we are without judgment and fear. When we trust that we are gifts to the universe, that we are special and unique like each individual star in the multitude of stars, then we see that we are the wise ones.

I did not learn this from some book. In fact, I don't even read spiritual books, and self help texts. I did not learn this from someone else. This was written from my own experience, from my own observation, our of my own pain and suffering and love and trust. I am allowing myself to hear myself.

I did not write this for you. I wrote this for me.

This is my experience, my life, my journey. I wanted to hear myself say it, I wanted to see the words on paper for myself so that I could trust in my own wisdom. I wanted to hold them, embrace them, cherish them like my own blood, like my family. This is how I will become a father. This is how I will be strong for my friends in my community. This is how I will enter the kingdom of heaven right here on earth.

No one can tell you how to live your life. It is not a question of morals or virtue. It is a quest for inner knowing. It is a quest for personal truth. Your truth is not my truth. Let it be known that whatever happens with the world, with the economy, with the environment, with war, and grief, and solitude, and destruction, that we are wealthy in wisdom, that we each bear bountiful truths, that we are brilliant little stars.

And through these dark times, may we find trust in ourselves and the forces of nature and spirit the strength and inner knowing. Like a moth that struggles to free itself from the cocoon, we will find that all of our struggle was only strengthening us for flight.