Do you have a thirst for knowledge, for learning new things? I know over the years I have. I have read hundreds of books, been to courses and seminars, gained qualifications and diplomas and expanded my interests in many directions. I would say that my spiritual journey has encompassed many new learning experiences as I have sought to gain knowledge of the world's religions and to find out what answers a multitude of spiritual gurus and teachers could offer me.
In our culture, there has been huge emphasis on academic education. The government created a Lifelong Learning Campaign and seeks to ensure that, throughout our lives, we become more and more educated. Is this a good or bad thing? Like all things, it is neither good nor bad except in the meaning you give it. Within our striving for learning and greater knowledge, we often have invested a sense of our very identity. Our learning may give us access to new roles in life, new jobs and acquired status. And by our roles and our knowledge we may define ourselves. The more we can wrap up that definition of ourselves, the better we seem to feel. We are finding our place in the world. All that sounds alright but have you noticed it is never done? We have to do some more, rise to a new challenge, until we become "enough" to be satisfied with ourselves. It can become like a treadmill that we can never step off.
In my own experience, I have often delayed doing things because I didn't know enough. Once I had learned this, that, and the other, then I would be ready. But there was always still more to learn and the perfectionist voice in me kept telling me I was not expert enough, not yet competent, not sufficiently watertight in my knowledge that no-one could trip me up and make me look foolish! How the ego puts us down incessently! This website is a case in point - I wanted to do it for years but didn't know enough about web design, search-engine optimisation, internet marketing, autoresponders, blogging, and on and on and on..... In the end I decided to do it anyway. Learning can happen as I go along, there are people to help and it need not be perfect (because everything is perfect anyway!)
As seekers we exhaust ourselves trying to figure out the missing piece of life's puzzle that has eluded us but, somehow, we think we will find. If we learn enough, amass enough knowledge, there it will be to transform our lives. Then everything will be alright and we can relax and enjoy life at last. What I have discovered is that life will forever be the most delicious and enticing mystery. There is no missing piece to the puzzle and we can RELAX AND ENJOY LIFE NOW!
I have found that the more I can "unlearn", the more I can embrace the totality of life. Not that tiny, limited, defined self that I have made up over my years of learning and conditioning. But a limitless and joyous self that can arise without struggle. Letting go of learned behaviours, reactions, responses, prejudices, fears, and limitations is what sets us free. In this state of unlearning we can see with new eyes. Jesus said that only when we became like little children could we enter the Kingdom of Heaven. As we see life without our baggage, learned over our lifetime, heaven is there in everything.
We will still go on to learn new things but we will do it for the sheer pleasure of learning, just like an infant learning to walk - something which comes naturally, born out of a desire to reach out and explore. When we give up the striving, the knowledge of the mind will be joined by the wisdom of the heart. From this new perspective we will not be learning for the purpose of who we can become. We are already infinite and eternal and nothing can be added to make us perfect and complete.
Thank you Dawn, you are giving me the power I need to get off the ground with my blog.I still feel the need to "know everything" before I start, with the result that nothing gets done and I am getting more and more frustraded with myself.
Even though there is some truth to the advice "if you fail to plan, you plan to fail", plan to plan to plan never got you anywhere.
Congratulations to your website. I am very proud of you.
Hugs from your old mastermind friend
Posted by: Charlotte | Aug 02, 2009 at 18:07
Lovely to hear from you Charlotte and thank you for your comments.
I look forward to reading your blog soon!
Love Dawn x
Posted by: Dawn Dowsett | Aug 02, 2009 at 20:32