Wisdom of The Ages: 60 Days to Enlightenment. Wayne Dyer W.

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       KNOWING

      Do not believe what you have heard.

      Do not believe in tradition because it is handed down many generations.

      Do not believe in anything that has been spoken of many times.

      Do not believe because the written statements come from some old sage.

      Do not believe in conjecture.

      Do not believe in authority or teachers or elders.

      But after careful observation and analysis, when it agrees with reason and it will benefit one and all, then accept it and live by it.

      BUDDHA

      (563 B.C.–483 B.C.)

       Founder of Buddhism, one of the world’s major religions, the Buddha was born Prince Siddhartha Gautama in northeast India, near the borders of Nepal. Seeing the unhappiness, sickness, and death that even the wealthiest and most powerful are subject to in this life, at age twentynine he abandoned the life he was living in search of a higher truth.

      The name Buddha is actually a title that translates to the “awakened one” or the “enlightened one.” It is the title given to Siddhartha Gautama, who left behind the princely life at the age of twenty-nine and went on a lifelong search for religious understanding and a way of release from the human condition. It is said that he discarded the teachings of his contemporaries and through meditation achieved enlightenment or ultimate understanding. From then on he assumed the role of teacher, instructing his followers in the “dharma,” or truth.

      His teachings became the basis for the religious practice of Buddhism, which has played a major role in the spiritual, cultural, and social life of the Eastern world, and much of the Western world as well. I have deliberately chosen not to write, in this essay, on the tenets of Buddhist doctrine, but rather to take this often-quoted passage of the Buddha and discuss its significance to you and me today, some twenty-five centuries after the death of the enlightened one.

      The key word in the passage is “believe.” In fact, the key phrase is “Do not believe:” Everything you carry around with you that you call a belief has become your own largely because of the experiences and testimonies of other people. And if it comes to you from a source outside yourself, regardless of how persuasive the conditioning process might be, and of how many people just like you have worked to convince you of the truth of these beliefs, the fact that it is someone else’s truth means that you receive it with some question marks or doubts.

      If I were to attempt to convince you about the taste of a delectable fish, you would perhaps listen but still have your doubts. Were I to show you pictures of this fish, and have hundreds of people come to testify about the veracity of my statements, you might become more convinced. But the modicum of doubt would still remain because you hadn’t tasted it. You might accept the truth of its deliciousness for me; but until your taste buds experience the fish, your truth is only a belief based on my truth, on my experience. And so it is also with all the well-meaning members of your tribes, and their tribal ancestors before them.

      Just because you have heard it, and it is a long-surviving tradition, and it is recorded over the centuries, and the world’s greatest teachers have endorsed it, those are still not reasons to accept a belief. Remember, “Do not believe it,” as Buddha instructs.

      Rather than using the term “belief,” try shifting to the word “knowing.” When you have the direct experience of tasting the fish, you now have a knowing. That is, you have conscious contact and can determine your truth based on your experience. You know how to swim or ride a bicycle not because you have a belief, but because you have had the direct experience.

      You are being reminded, directly by the “enlightened one” of twenty-five hundred years ago, to apply this same understanding to your spiritual practice. There is a fundamental difference between knowing something and knowing about something. “Knowing about” is another term for belief. “Knowing” is a term reserved exclusively for direct experience, which means an absence of doubt. I recall a well-known Kahuna healer responding to my questions about how a Kahuna becomes a healer. He said to me, “When a knowing confronts a belief in a disease process, the knowing will always triumph. Kahunas,” he explained to me, “were raised to abandon all doubt and to know.”

      When I think of the parables of Jesus Christ as a great healer, I can’t conjure any doubt. When Christ approached a leper he wouldn’t say, “We haven’t been having a great deal of success with leprosy lately. But if you follow my advice you’ll have a thirty percent chance of survival over the next five years.” You can see all the doubt that is present in such a stance. Rather, he would say from an absolute state of knowing, “You are healed.” This is the same state of conscious contact with knowing from which St. Francis performed his healing miracles as well. In fact, all miracles come from shifting out of doubt and into knowing.

      Yet the persuasiveness of tribal influences is exceedingly powerful. You are constantly being reminded of what you should or shouldn’t believe, and what all our tribal members have always believed, and what will happen to you if you ignore these beliefs. Fear becomes the constant companion of your beliefs, and despite the doubts that you may be feeling inside, you often adopt these beliefs and make them crutches in your life, while you hobble through your days looking for a way out of the traps that have been carefully set by generations of believers before you.

      The Buddha offers you some great advice, and you can see that his conclusion is devoid of the word “believe.” He says when it agrees with reason—that is, when you know it to be true based on your own observation and experience—and it is beneficial to one and all, then and only then, live by it!

      Throughout this book I offer you a summation of some of the most famous and creative genius minds of all times. They give you advice from another time, and I encourage you to do the same thing with all the words that come to you from beyond this contemporary world that you do with the words that have been handed down many generations. First and foremost, try the advice in this book. Ask yourself how it equates with your own reason and common sense, and if it benefits you and others, then live by it. That is, make it your knowing.

      Resisting tribal influence is often perceived as being callous or indifferent to the experience and teachings of others, particularly those who care the most about you. I suggest that you read these words of Buddha again and again if this is your conclusion. He does not speak of rejection, only of being grown-up and mature enough to make up your own mind and live by your knowing, rather than through the experiences and testimony of others.

      You cannot learn anything through the efforts of others. The world’s greatest teachers can teach you absolutely nothing unless you are willing to apply what they have to offer based on your knowing. Those great teachers only offer you choices on the menu of life. They can make them sound very appealing, and ultimately they may help you to try those items on the menu. They can even write the menu. But the menu can never be the meal.

      To put this wisdom to work I offer you these appetizers СКАЧАТЬ