Truth is the Foundation That Leads to the Healing Wisdom of Right-Action
To Know-Thyself is part of philosophy, which is philo-sophia, the "love of wisdom". Wisdom is not simply knowledge or understanding, but acting on that understanding and living a certain way based on moral truth. Philosophy, the love of wisdom, is the love of right-action.
True philosophy is based in moral truth and determines our conduct in life to act rightly. A way of living not based in truth, is not a philosophy but an ideology that leads one astray into foolishness and suffering. The "love" of wisdom to behave and conduct our lives in a way that is conducive to producing rightness, and reducing wrongness, is how we heal ourselves and the world from its current condition. This is the foundation which drives ancient "occulted" disciplines such as alchemy, Kabbalah, Tarot and Freemasonry, and also religions, despite the corruption in teachings they have incurred over time.
The "spiritual"/consciousness journey and search for truth, knowledge and understanding is also a search for answering the question “who am I?”/“who are you?” (know-thyself). What we do as we manifest our consciousness through action and behavior, is a part of who we are. Wisdom is doing something with what you know. If you don't act on what you understand to be right, then you don't really understand the responsibility that comes with the knowledge and understanding of what is right to do.
“To know and not to do, is not to know.”
~ Wang Yangming
There is a difference between having internal knowledge and understanding, and properly applying that knowledge and understand to externally act upon it. The knowledge and understanding gained is meant to be applied as action, right-action.
Understanding must be unified with action at some point in order for something to result from that understanding. This is the basis of the Trivium Methodology (knowledge, understanding and wisdom). Otherwise, understanding without action leads to nothing in the end. Nothing will end up changing or being healed in the world. Action through conscious will-power is required for things to change around us. The change and healing that first occurs is internal through knowledge and understanding of our attachment to falsity, lies, deceptions and immorality, and then external action needs to be applied. Having accurate understanding of what ‘is’ in reality is the first step.
Once we know, what are we going to do with what we know?
Knowledge and understanding is not power in itself. Right-action developed through accurate understanding imbues knowledge with power. Knowledge alone has no power. Our will-power makes knowledge powerful because we act upon it.
Right-action is knowing and understanding properly, and then acting upon it. We can act from a position of lack of knowledge and understanding and hope to get the results we want. But since we don't know enough about the situation to produce the results we want, acting from a position of ignorance is not likely to produce the results we really want. Only by understanding the core foundational root causal factors of the situation/problem we are in, can we come to a position of accurate understanding in order to apply proper solutions.
Aligning with Moral Truth/Law will provide us with the wisdom of right-actions to take.
*“Under analysis a person discovers that situations consist of elements, some of which are wrong and others right. If he sorts out and examines those elements, truth is easily separated from error. Some tasks of sorting are more difficult than others, but only because they are more complicated. They have more elements; therefore, they take more time to analyze, or perhaps the individual lacks knowledge of how to deal with them.
Often it is hard to collect all the pertinent facts. Some facts must be filled in by speculation, and here it is important that the speculation be done by a scrupulous person. If those analyses are continued long enough, there finally emerges a clear pattern of distinctions between right and wrong. Those who act before a clear pattern emerges are the persons whose irresponsibility is causing much of society’s trouble.”*
~ Right is Might by Richard W. Wetherill, pg. 23
Knowledge and understanding can be used irresponsibly to create falsity, deception and manipulation, to keep people ignorant and under control. Or it can be used for good to elevate, expand and evolve consciousness. We must know the truth in order to not be fooled, conned, manipulated, hoodwinked, bamboozled and tricked.
Accepting the idea that there is "negative" information you should not learn, ignore, deny, reject and refuse to acknowledge, prevents one from embracing the truth in all its beauty and horror, light and dark, positive and negative, good and evil. Refusing to look at the shadow, darkness, "demon" and negative that dwells inside each of us (consciousness, psyche, mind and "heart", "spirit", all the same), will halt the journey and path towards truth and prevent us from getting to the “heart of the matter", the core foundational root causal factors of our current condition.
The only way out of the problems we have created is by confronting them, and in the end, the source of the problem is us, humanity as a whole that chooses to live in a certain and create what we create as our human way of life. The only way forward to overcome a problem and correct it, is to face it and go through it, not ignore it. The only way to overcome the darkness is by shining a light on it.Knowing ourselves by looking in the mirror, into the "heart of darkness", allows us to face that which needs to be transmuted, sublimated, transformed, healed or purified.
Turning our backs to the hard uncomfortable truths is not a solution. We can learn and develop the wisdom to know what the right-action is to take. We can learn from our mistakes, correct them, and become new, truer, higher, realer more authentic potential versions of ourselves. We can continually self-renew who we are. We can change for the better.
Empower yourself with the care, courage and will-power to face the truth. Care for Moral Truth.
Accept the personal responsibility and take the time, energy, effort, dedication, determination, persistence and perseverance required to learn and understand what is going on in the world and in yourself. We can heal ourselves and the world.
Truth takes time. Healing takes time. There is no time like now to start the journey forward and heal! If not now... when?
Thank you for reading.
Take care. Peace.
Author: Kris Nelson / @krnel
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