Saturday, January 29, 2011

An "AHA" moment is.........

An "AHA" moment is not an "Aha" moment because I am discovering something new. It is an "Aha" moment because I knew it all the time, and  I am stunned by the sudden realization that I just hadn't been paying attention to it.

To put it another way: I did not 'Know' it consciously until something happened that lifted the lid off the Not-Knowing and allowed Knowing to bubble up.

Most of the time the thing that keeps the lid on not knowing something is the constant effort to Know; the dislike of, the not allowing of 'Not-Knowing.' We don't really like not knowing what we want to know or feel like we should know. 

I am perfectly OK with not knowing how to program a computer, or not knowing anything that I do not care to know. I am talking here about the things you care about knowing.  (Read Peter Ralston's amazing, "The Book of Not Knowing")

One of the things we all, as human beings, want to know is: What is Life? Why are we here? What's it all about Alfie?

And most of the time I am so concerned with trying to know what I do not know, that I forget to enjoy/allow the not-knowing.

I think that the Not-Knowing is something to be done away with, to be fixed, to be eradicated by coming to know, one by one, the things that I do not Know... until gradually all that Not-Knowing will be replaced by Knowing.

And, in my ignore-ance, I think that happiness lies in knowing things. Until I allow myself to not-know, to REALLY not-know; to Not-Know as a state of being; like being hungry or sad or happy or tired ......... AND it is the most meltingly, WONDER-FULL, WOWNDER-FULL  experience.  I have experienced a LOT of highs, both man-made and natural in my 62 years; Deep Not-Knowing is the real deal.

And, unlike man-made substances, it is available all the time.

Over and over again I wonder, after coming out of the Not-Knowing state, why we humans seem to be afraid of not-knowing what we want to know; why a large part of our energy is spent trying to appear knowing-full and avoiding looking like we don't know something. I see it alllllll the time in the corporate work I do. People rarely get promoted for not knowing things and consequently spend a lot of time pretending that they know a lot more than they actually know.

If you are pretending to know something that you do not know, then you are not being who you are.  You are actually pretending to be who you are not (Like the Emperor's New Clothes).  Being who you are is the key to 'getting' Life; to melting into God. A couple of quotes illustrating that point:

1) Luther D. Price said, "Be what you IS, not what you ain't. 'Cuz if you ain't what you IS, then you is what you ain't."

2) Shakespeare: This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

One last thing, because I dislike overly long blog posts,,,,

When I truly 'Don't Know' what Life is, Life reveals itself to me and I get a pass backstage.

This I have known.


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