This Just In: Knowledge ISN'T Power

Decartes may have had the best of intentions when he concluded that “knowledge is power,” but that doesn’t absolve him from the fact that he was utterly wrong. Ironically, he lacked a piece of knowledge that would have informed him, fully, that knowledge isn’t power at all.

Now THAT’S ironic, isn’t it? Much more than rain on your wedding day or some good advice that you just didn’t take.

What Decartes “missed” was that power doesn’t come from knowledge; all that comes from knowledge, really, is fear and confusion. Hence, the most knowledgeable people in the world are usually the most frightened (just walk into a hospital or university and stare into the faces of the people who work in them – if these places aren’t terror factories, I don’t know what is).

The plain – and rather ordinary – reality is that CLARITY is power. Clarity is the ability to understand a situation…well, clearly. Sometimes knowledge is helpful to achieve that clarity, but only sometimes – and then, when it is, it’s not totally helpful. Knowledge is based on memory, and memory is always based on the past. Either facts that have been stored and remembered, or “projected” into the future in terms of probabilities.

Clarity is real power, because clarity is an authentic response to reality. Clarity doesn’t bring old, dusty facts to a fresh, new situation. Yes, it may refer to facts – but it doesn’t depend on them exclusively.

For example, if you read this post ONLY through knowledge, you will constantly be assessing this with what you think you know. And that process – that constant assessment – will compel you to miss what I’m trying to say. You may catch a small piece of it, but you’ll miss the heart; the essence. You’ll be filtering this through knowledge, and knowledge is never of the present moment – never of the now. Knowledge is always of the past – always. Knowledge cannot LIVE in the present, because knowledge is absolutely derived from mind, and mind cannot live in the present. Mind lives in the past and in thee future – to “places” that don’t exist. Mind cannot live in the now; and hence, knowledge cannot live in the now.

And if knowledge can’t live in the now…how can it be power!? How can living in either the past or the future – two NON-places – be powerful? It is actually the very definition of weakness. The present contains power – and to SEE the present, you must be clear; clear of the past, clear of the future.

How Seriously Do You Take Yourself?

One of the most...confusing things about spirituality is the belief that it, by definition, must be very very serious. We're talking seeeeeeeeeeeeeriously serious. Trauma ward-serious. Funeral serious. Monday morning oh God please don't make me have to get up and go to work serious.

But...who really says that it has to be serious? Think about it. Who is forcing you to take yourself (and the things that you do with your self) so utterly seriously? Chances are, nobody is forcing you to see life that way. It's probably coming from within.

Now, here's my idea of why people take things so seriously -- especially anything that has to do with spirituality. It's because there's this belief that unless you take something seriously, you aren't taking responsibility for it. It's as if one of the characteristics of responsibility is seriousness; and if you aren't being serious, you MUST be irresponsible, careless, and just plain sloppy in whatever it is that you're doing.

But...like so many things in life: this is a really baseless belief! You can be extremely effective and surprisingly productive when you aren't serious; or, when you "give yourself some inner space." In fact, I'd say that folks who take things so seriously -- and always look at life through serious eyes -- are really quite unproductive when you look at what they actually DO with their time. And what's more, they're not just unproductive, but they're also very unhappy -- and they make other people unhappy, too!

Yes, the task facing you may be one that requires concentration. Perhaps in the relative scheme of things, it's a high priority task. And perhaps the context of the situation or event dictates that you remain quiet or that you clearly direct others -- perhaps you're a surgeon in the emergency room, or a school teacher, or a parent teaching a child how to cross the road...there are millions of situations where "looking and acting" serious are appropriate. But inside there is actually no need to clog up your inner space with serious noise. In fact, what you truly want to do is create INNER SPACE so that you can clearly see what needs to be done -- and see what doesn't need to be done.

So yes, act as the situation requires; respond to it naturally and appropriately and, indeed, effectively.

But seriously? Come now.

Have you ever seen a serious flower?