Opening the Wisdom Eye

"When we open our wisdom eye, we don't necessarily get to choose what we see. It's just what is."

-- Lama Surya Das

The world of wisdom is not about flash and glitz. It's not The Wisdom Circus, or some Vegas psychic playing in the lounge at Caesar's Palace. Wisdom is "merely" a deeper understanding of reality. It is a clear and unobstructed view of what is. 

People have all kinds of erroneous notions. They think that in opening the wisdom eye they will become psychic and thus able to predict stock prices, do card tricks, channel disembodied spirits from far off planets, and talk to Aunt Tilly on "the other side."

Nothing could be further from the truth. Wisdom shuns parlor tricks. Even when some so-called paranormal powers do accrue, the wise person refuses to exploit them. Instead, he or she lets them come, lets them go, maintaining a bemused watchfulness and a focus upon what is.

Wisdom is the slayer of fantasy. Especially spiritual fantasy. Reality is never what you imagine it to be. It is always greater, higher, deeper, more all encompassing, more mind blowing.  And that's the whole point -- wisdom blows the circuits of the discursive mind and melts our fantasy desires in the light of truth. 

We don't get to choose what we see. Wisdom is not all rainbows and unicorns like some tween girl's fantasy. Neither is it necessarily a Moses coming down from the mountaintop type experience. It may be more like the burning off of a particularly thick morning fog. Or it may not. As they say in all the weight loss ads, "Individual results may vary."

Our only choice is to be open to opening. Wisdom comes when we let go of how we think life ought to be, should be, has to be. Wisdom comes when we accept life as it is. What could be simpler?