If the truth is timeless (and it is) then I suggest it’s hanging around somewhere in plain sight, like it always has, just waiting for us to trip over it.
Before our current information age, many believed that there were ancient texts that held our truths and that these ancient texts were the domain and dominion of the ‘keepers of the wisdom’. You know, those scholars and believers who had access to these writings by virtue of rank, wealth, title or theft. These texts and these individuals were considered as ‘authorities’ on various subjects. Knowledge was indeed power, even in the Middle Ages. They kept their cards close to their vests and guarded both access and interpretation diligently.
The printing press began the dissemination of information and the internet is currently its culmination. More people than ever have direct access to rare and treasured books, practices and ideas. Yet more people than ever seem to be struggling to make sense out of their lives or to discover their path to fulfillment and happiness.
We really do seem to have access to all of the ideas we’d ever need. They have been put into and passed down to us through fables, songs, poetry, novels, folklore, sacred texts, proverbs from the Far East and (need I add?) bumper stickers. Some of these ideas have been codified into religions and other institutions craving certainty and structure. Regardless of where we search for it, however, we must acknowledge the abundance of wisdom that’s available to most of us.
So, I must conclude that it’s not the lack of ideas or insights from those who have come before that has many of us so lost, despondent, lethargic, confused, unfulfilled and unhappy.
It is that these insights, these wisdoms, must somehow become relevant to us in our own day to day lives before we can tap into and experience their meaning and draw from the strength of that truth. Wisdom is not found in the abstract but in the concrete choices and actions that manifests a truth.
Wisdom is not to be found in a book but in the moment of courage to act upon what we know to be true. We grow whenever we do that. We grow in wisdom and strength.
Somehow, we’ve forgotten that by and large. We behave foolishly instead.
Without action, all wisdom is theoretical. It might look good on paper and sound good to the ear. But until we act upon it, it isn’t real.
It isn’t relevant.
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