02 Sep Yoga concepts- What does it mean to live in Wisdom?
Yoga concepts ? What does it mean to live in Wisdom?
“Arjuna:
Tell me of the man who lives in wisdom,
Ever aware of the Self, O Krishna;
How does he talk, how sit, howmove about?
Sri Krishna:
He lives in wisdom
Who sees himself in all and allin him,
What does it mean to live in wisdom?
In the time of financial crisis in America, Obama, torestore public and global confidence, gave a speech but unlike his predecessorsto kick start the economy he did not suggest we go out and spend and neitherdid he say to trust the President or the country what he did say in fact was toput aside childish things: he instead appealed to our virtue. This is the solution he employed to our nowcutting edge environment.
What are virtues? They involve intrinsic personal qualitiesof human beings that allow us to care for each other through kindness, love,empathy, compassion, sharing, etc these improve the qualities of everyone’slives. In our lives of struggle, conflict and chaos we look toward these virtues to find solutions or to think-out-of thebox to ever changing problems. Merely caring for yourself is not a virtue as you would extinguish yourself and othersaround you.
These virtues are not written down or spelt out in any wayand neither are they academically learnt. They are moral skills learnt fromexperience, arising from ourselves provoked by circumstances and solutions applied through wisdom and good judgement for the wellbeing of all.
Wisdom is therefore practical and is necessary in a changingenvironment and as Buddha said the only thing that is constant is?change?. Practical wisdom requires usto go deeper within ourselves to look for solutions to changing conflicts whichis usually in service for the good of all.
Aristotle saidpractical wisdom is the combination of moral will and moral skill.
Hence moral will or the desire to want to help others is ofcourse important!
In short, a wise person knows
– how to make “the exception to everyrule”
– When and how to improvise – real world problemsare ambiguous and not well defined and the context is always changing. A wiseperson is like a jazz musician using the notes on a page but dancing around them inventing combinations that are appropriate for the condition and peopleat hand changes
– Knows how to use these skills in pursuit of right aims which is to serve other people and not to manipulate other people.
– a wise person is made not born
Practical wisdom comes from a lot of experience.
o You need the time to get to know the people youare serving, the permission, to be allowed to improvise, to try new things,occasionally to fail and learn from them, you need to be mentored by wiseteachers,
o It takes lots of relevant skill to care for people and skill comes from the act of caring: so you just got to get in there and get your hands dirty!
o Waiting for someone else to come and help unfortunately does not count!
NOTE: You do not need to be brilliant to be wise but without wisdom brilliance falls short.
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