Knowledge or Experience?
by
Sarah Varcas
As this powerful week progresses Jupiter and Mercury have a message to share, reminding us that self-knowledge is only as useful as we make it and at a time such as this, when the challenge is to look within and change without, we run the risk of assuming that just because we see something in ourselves or develop insight or understanding in a new way, that’s change enough. The cosmos tells us now that’s not true. Insight needs to be made whole through living and breathing it, not just writing it in a journal or sharing it with a friend. Self-knowledge is only of use when it changes us, moving us towards a greater and fuller expression of our essential self. Insight left to get dusty on the shelf is nothing but a theory untested against reality. Yes, we may be like that, or function in that way, but until we test out the insight against our everyday life, putting it to work in our psyche and spirit, incorporating it into our choices and behaviour, we won’t know how well it holds water or even if it’s accurate or true.
Often the path of self-inquiry and spiritual growth can become an intellectual one. We explore ideas, apply them to ourselves, tell ourselves stories about who we are and what’s going on in our lives; we give ourselves labels, adopt a set of beliefs and think we’re changing, growing, expanding. Instead we’re just adding more and more mind stuff to an already clogged and stagnant energetic field. Ideas are great, understanding is useful, the mind is a fabulous tool, but when it becomes the master of our destiny, dictating what is of value, what should be ignored and where we go from here we can end up lost in a sterile world of thoughts and abstractions whilst the rest of our life and experience withers on the vine.
Today Mercury and Jupiter, planets who work together to expand both the mind and experience alongside it, team up to help us blend mind-knowing with heart-knowing, ideas with intuitions, theories with experience. They remind us that only through living a belief can we really claim it as our own, and only by living it can we know its essential truth which may be something other than what we originally thought. We can be told a thousand times that a particular fruit is absolutely delicious, and we may tell others that it’s true because we’ve heard it so often, but only once we taste it for ourselves can we know whether it’s true for us. And what’s true for us is what matters right now, in a world where there are so many ideas, beliefs and theories about what’s really going on, we need to know, not just in our mind, but in our heart and soul, the truth for who we are.
This week, as we work through the intensity of karmic fields and emotional healing, we are encouraged to ask ourselves ‘What, in all of this, is true for me?’. If we can ask this question at all levels of our being, we may discover some answers we never imagined could be available to us. A long held belief may prove itself to be entirely false, or a new one lose its sparkle. We may discover that who we thought we were is so far off the mark we’re not even close. We may know, without being able to offer any justification, our next move which looks like the most unlikely one available. And in the midst of all this we may come to experience, first hand without the need for commentary or belief, the truths of life as whispered all around us by the very air itself.
The Full Moon is approaching now (12th July), so to engage in these contemplations just prior to it enables us to resonate with the mounting energy which seeks to cast light upon all that needs to be seen. The more of us that can sit with the question ‘what is true for me?’, dance our way through it, paint it, sing it – whatever works for you – the more truth will be available to the world as the Moon reaches her brightest. For at that point we must ask not only ‘what is true for me?’ but also ‘what is true?’. A shorter question perhaps with a different answer, as we follow the path ahead and allow ourselves to be led into the absolute which knows nothing but what is.
Truth…it’s a slippery fish! But as this week progresses the heavens support us in penetrating a little more of it, embracing its deeper message on the path to freedom and beyond.
Sarah Varcas
