Digesting Knowledge Into Wisdom
The term, "undigested knowledge" leapt off the page recently as
I read "The Autobiography of a Yogi" by Paramahansa Yogananda,
as he quoted his guru, Sri Yukteswar: "Do not confuse
understanding with a larger vocabulary," he remarked. "Sacred
writings are beneficial in stimulating desire for inward
realization, if one stanza at a time is slowly assimilated.
Otherwise, continual intellectual study may result in vanity,
false satisfaction, and undigested knowledge." It left me
wondering what knowledge becomes once it is digested and what
exactly is the process of digesting knowledge? Here's what I've
come up with. Knowledge once digested becomes wisdom, and the
process of digesting takes the raw food of knowledge and
converts it to wisdom. This appears to me to be a combination of
inner reflection and outer application to life.
I think one can map this pretty well to a favorite coaching
formula that I learned from my first coach, Judy:
Insight + Action = True Growth and Development
Knowledge is the insight, the raw material of reading spiritual
material, or listening to a conversation, or simply sitting and
wondering about life. The digestive process that turns the
knowledge into wisdom is integrating the insight into your life
through action and application. This is also where you test the
waters to see if the insight is actually true, as in useful,
valuable, and practical. Now, lest I be misunderstood around
this last point, what do I mean by the word, "practical?" Here's
my simple test for what is practical. Does the knowledge enhance
life? Not just the life of the person doing the digesting but
hopefully and ideally in some way also enhancing life as a
whole, even if only on a small scale.
So an insight that is practical may or may not be measurable at
the 'bottom line' that we so often get caught up with and use as
our yard stick, especially in our Western world. It may not make
us financially richer, provide us with more possessions or make
us sexier, and it can still be quite practical in that our lives
are holistically made richer and more rewarding.
This is what I came up with as I digested Yogananda's writings.
How about you? What insight might you glean from this purposeful
pondering? I'd love to hear from you. REALLY -- I would.