Turning information into knowing

Information is not knowing.

I have been learning all my life. I love to learn about health, and different approaches to healing. This love of learning has motivated me to learn a great deal of information from various healing traditions.
Information is just a bunch of data rolling around in my conscious mind. Much of what I have stored in my intellect has great potential. Potential and possibility are offered to us from many sources and teachers. It only becomes truly valuable when it is merged with authentic action, through behavior in everyday life.
For instance, I know that french fries are not “healthy.” But I eat them anyway. I know from both Chinese medicine and western medicine how french fries challenge my body. I eat them anyway. The information is just a sign pointing toward a possible direction of action that has the potential to improve my well-being.
I know first hand the challenge of living in a culture that rewards the amount of data we can hold in our intellect, yet ignores the value of what it takes to actually live what we know. Changing habits is challenging. Putting information into action challenges our habits of thought, action and belief. This process can seem so mighty, that we give up trying.

Putting one good idea into practice yields big results.

I have found that practicing just one “simple” principle affects all other aspects of my life. In reality, all the information I know can often be boiled down to a few simple premises:

1. We have within us a “spark” of the Mysterious Source of Everything.
   Having a reliable avenue of communication with that Inner Source offers us the potential to “listen within for the answers.”
2. Our bodies are brilliant.
   Our bodies speak to us all day and night. If we could listen to, and respond to, what our body is saying, we would make little adjustments in our actions and thoughts. These personalized changes would support the balance, health and happiness of our body-mind-spirit.
3. What we are remains mysterious.
   There is a collaboration of body-mind-spirit that apparently is able to be understood by self-awareness. We can delve into ourselves to explore and learn directly from the “things” we are.
4. Self-knowledge is precious.
   This is the stuff we figure out at the end of a crisis, in the middle of a long lonely night, in the pit of our stomach, in the endless center of our heart. It’s the stuff we cannot explain, it’s the stuff we “just know.”

Simplest practice:

Listen, feel, look within and respond to the whispers, sensations, inspirations and ideas that are discovered.
As we head toward the longer nights of winter in the northern hemisphere, we may find it a bit easier to go within. The intellect may slow down in response to the universal energy of Winter’s quiet and stillness. Sink below the habits of thought, and find your way to your “spark” of the Mysterious Source of Everything.
Wishing you steadiness and perseverance as you find your way to your own self-knowing.