A common space for harmonic peacemakers

II: 54

Chapter 2, Verse 54

Arjuna says,

“How can one identify those

Whose wisdom is steady, Krishna?”

Swami Chidbhavananda:

“Arjuna’s question sets the stage for the final eighteen verses of this chapter which are devoted to the one who possesses Self-knowledge. Those who want to improve their handwriting choose to copy the model letters. This method is adopted in all fields, including the spiritual. While the illumined one established in wholeness is being described in the following verses, the method and means of attaining that state are also contained in the description. The goal and the path are simultaneously presented. A diligent enquiry into them and an ardent practice are needed to achieve the Ideal.”

Eckhart Tolle:

“Wisdom is not a product of thought. Wisdom dissolves the barriers created by conceptual thought and brings the recognition that nothing exists in and by itself. Wisdom is the healer of separateness. One’s sense of self shifts from identifying with a mental activity to the space in which the mental activity arises and subsides.”

Ram Dass:

“In a non-traditional culture such as ours, dominated by technology, we value information far more than we do wisdom. Information involves the acquisition, organization, and dissemination of facts; a storing-up of physical data. But wisdom involves another equally crucial function: the quieting of the mind and the application of the heart. In the wisdom mode, we’re not processing information analytically or sequentially. We’re standing back and viewing the whole, discerning what matters and what does not, weighing the meaning and depth of things. This quality of wisdom is rare in our culture. More often we have knowledgeable people who pretend to be wise, but who, unfortunately, have not cultivated the quality of mind from which wisdom truly arises.

To be here for fifty or eighty years only to be annihilated at the end just doesn’t make sense. Nothing else in the universe is that inefficient. We have to be here to gain wisdom; otherwise our difficulties are truly meaningless. For the ego, the roles we grow into and the positions we hold are the culmination of life. For the soul, wisdom is the culmination.”