Thinking versus Knowing
Every human is familiar with their brain’s ability for rational thought and decision. Nearly all organized schooling is focused on training the brain how to remember and to think. This system of internal communication within the body, heart, mind system is relatively well understood within science and medicine as electrical signals traveling through synapses at the speed of light. And our minds are well equipped with five sense organs to help direct our thinking and our control over our life.
At the same time, we also have those moments of conscience and instinct which comes from a different place than mind giving us that “gut feeling” about people, places and possible actions. Something in us, we will call knowing, is also communicating with us, especially in extreme and dangerous circumstances. There is another communication system with its own set of senses that transcends thinking and the speed of light. It is called knowing.
Modern science cannot find the method of communicating knowing or how it moves faster than the speed of light. Yes, there is quantum physics and field theory which recognize the phenomenon but what is the mechanism by which individual cells of an organism can feel simultaneously? How do herd animals, a school of fish and a flock of birds coordinate their movements? it is beyond thinking and mind. They feel the change. These non-human citadels that appear separate are deeply connected within the same organization by a communication system that transcends the limits of space and time.
Humans attempt and can succeed in exercising knowing by prayer and meditation. By allowing our attention, which is normally concentrated in the mind, to return to the individual cells of the body we quiet the active, light speed communication system by closing the inputs to the senses feeding the brain. The brain uses citadelization to separate us from the outer world. And the cells of the body use citadelization from the mind to connect with a deeper, faster and more ancient from of knowledge we call knowing.
Life as humans is designed to allow for separation to create uniqueness. Our human selves tend to forget how precious and fragile our uniqueness is in the face of Eternity. Life and death is the creation and the testing of uniqueness before possibly entering Eternity. Knowing is the language of Eternity and Eternity loves uniqueness and supports its growth by encouraging separation thru thinking while alive. Why? Because Eternity craves change. Not chaos, but change that can stand up to and survive its encounter with Eternity.
Life as a human with these two communication systems is a microcosm of the citadelization that must be practiced in life for your uniqueness to survive Eternity. Day and night is our exercise of these two ways of thinking and knowing with their own communication system. Both thinking and knowing are required to be an independent being, a citadel, within the body of God and Eternity.
Thinking and knowing are the Yang and the Yin of our journey through life. The Tao, the union and harmony of Yin and Yang, is the being we create from thinking and knowing. We are all children with a father voice and a mother voice within. Our challenge and our opportunity is for we stem cells of Eternity to become unique and resilient and purposeful while training here on Earth.
The God we live within is a macrocosm of life on Earth. Our own cells need their sense of unique purpose to serve just like our liver cells and our brain cells. They need to act in concert with their “tribe” in response to their God, us, sending signals through the nervous system. At the same time, they need their own knowing to defend themselves against a neighboring cancer cell or a confused signal from the brain. Yes, our cells systematically “rebel” against their God. Nightly.
Too often religion devolves into such a separation from God, we become dogmatic or lazily listen to the priest class. True spirituality involves an intimate relationship with many layers and aspects of God which awakens our knowing. God is One…but no human can comprehend or approach God as One while alive. So we wisely explore our relationship with Earth, the Sun, plants, animals, other humans. We live inside the body of God with many other types of cells and organs. Thinking about God involves separation while union with God involves knowing.
The journey into separation by thinking is sacred to God as is knowing. When these two communication systems arrive at the same place we are very close to Eternity.