Join Sr Jayanti as she is interviewed by Ntombikanina during her live program on the 24th June in Johannesburg.

The world around us, offers many possibilities for learning, experimenting and experiencing.  We are surrounded by information, in fact the times we live in is called the information age.  The easy access and information, may have stimulated us and made us more knowledgeable.  However, when we look at the human condition we seem none the wiser, in fact in some ways the quality of our lives has deteriorated.

The need of our times is to extract deeper wisdom.  Why?  So that our decisions can serve and provide long term benefit, not only for ourselves but for the communities we live in.  Where do we derive deeper wisdom from?  Wisdom doesn’t come from outside of us, wisdom is a process of emerging a deeper truth from within.

“What is education?  One lovely definition is being able ‘to draw out’ that which is within us – the English word ‘education’ derives from the Latin ducacre, meaning ‘to lead, draw or bring’ and e, meaning ‘out’.  If we wish to be educated, then, we must trustingly assume that we have, at our core, both sound qualities and a bank of well-judged experiences and knowledge.”

To begin to sow the seeds of deeper wisdom begins by cultivating the practice of learning to look within, reflectively and with loving kindness. When attention is turned inward, awareness is created to the quality of my thinking.  Our thoughts are powerful packets of energy, powerful seeds which can have a huge impact.  From the tiny acorn the mighty oak grows – similarly, our thoughts grow into ideas, vision, attitudes, relationships and perceptions.  In other words with our thoughts we create the world we live in.  Remembering this can chart the course of your life onto a path of possibility or obstacles.

Learning to create a moment of pause, to reflect within allows us to listen to the voice of our conscience.  Therein lies the wisdom – the inner knowingness that guides our outer life.  Wisdom emerges from this practise of creating a pause in the mind to listen … and hear through the silence. To create this inner silence, focus the mind on the inner self, as an energy of peace and light.  Just knowing that peace is innate, it comes from within.  It is your most natural state.

One of our greatest challenges is learning the art of creating balance.  We often find ourselves working at extreme ends of the pendulum – this lack of knowing how to integrate all the aspects of my life can lead to inner frustration and tension.  Instead of segmenting our lives into sections, spiritual consciousness makes us aware of things moving in cycles.  One of the very first aspects of spirituality, knowing the self, means not only knowing your present state of consciousness – whether you think of it as masculine and analytical or feminine and intuitive –but actually being able to stand back, become detached and able to see the self in the awareness of eternity.  When you willing to step away from the consciousness of matter, step away from the body and step back a little, then in that consciousness you begin to have a tiny glimpse of eternal consciousness.  It’s only through this very personal awareness and feeling of eternal consciousness that you’re then able to look at the world around you and the concept of time  and become able to see time as a cycle.  Within the soul there is a part that is recorded, which is why at times you intuitively know what you are going to say to me, or intuitively I know what is around the next corner.  It’s as if there is an awareness recorded within the self.  Sometimes, especially when we hear spiritual teachings, we have a sense of having heard all of this before, of it being pre-recorded within the self.  Someone has just come along and been the stimulus, awakening that consciousness.  So as you listen it doesn’t feel like listening to new information, it’s as if you listening to things you already know, knowledge that you have heard before, facts that perhaps you intuited previously but were not able to formulate in words.  Within this eternal being that you are is this amazing storehouse of information- everything is already recorded within the self and the insight you gain through meditation and spiritual study will open it up for you.

Extracted from Awakening Your Inner Wisdom by Sr Jayanti