Zohar talks about meaning in life, and wisdom

I ask, “What do I know?”

Zohar responds, “What do I know” and “What do I believe” are the same question. What you believe is what you know, because your world paradigm is based, indeed predicated, upon your beliefs. This defines what you know. You cannot know anything outside your paradigm. You must change that paradigm to access knowledge that is beyond present human contemplation, or understanding, or belief.”

 

I ask, “What am I searching for?”

Zohar responds, “Meaning. What everybody is searching for; meaning. That is what gives the soul purpose and drives it forward through later life. It is not so much present in earlier life when attending to the needs and wants of the self, of the ego, but it takes precedence when older and we consider our life’s legacy. What do I leave behind? How do I justify my consumption of oxygen in this world? How do I live my life so it will one day be noticed after my death? How many people are likely to show up at my own funeral, and is this a measure of a person’s worth? These are the questions that plague us as we age. They start in earnest when we reach middle-age and only increase in intensity and urgency as we approach our final years at the age of 70 and beyond. For those people who have defined their lives by the work they do, the age of 65 is particularly disturbing. That is the age at which people traditionally retire. They leave a lifetime of work to enter what is euphemistically called the golden years. In truth, this time of life brings the challenge of finding meaning even stronger. By retirement, children grow-up and leave the nest, parents die and we are left with a deep, longing sense for purpose. So, meaning, purpose, legacy, however you wish to phrase it, is the goal toward which we work with ever increasing, frantic obsession.”

 

I ask, “What is Wisdom?”

 Zohar responds, “Wisdom is what we possess as new born babies. It is what we secretly lose in early childhood as our ego asserts itself and separates us from the simple wisdom of babies. If only they could talk! They would tell us of their simple needs, for food, clothing, and nurturance. They would speak of the importance of nurturance above all else. We drift away from this as childhood leads to young adulthood and we find our perceived needs multiply. I say perceived because the basic needs have not changed. We still need food, clothing, and nurturance, and of these three, the nurture of other people is far and above the most important. The process of individual growth is a process of separation, of asserting one’s individuality. It leads the person through a process of growth in which we ideally learn to nurture others. Thus, we give and receive in kind the nurturance we and others around us so desperately need. So, what is wisdom? I would love for you to have the half the wisdom you had as a child. Wide eyed curiosity and a thirst for knowledge. Indiscriminate consumption of all things new. Everything is a novelty and a chance for play. Were you to return to that state of innocence combined with the world knowledge you now possess, then you would be wise. The east speaks of a “wise fool.” That is the goal of wisdom.  Mere knowledge untampered is not to be confused as wisdom. It is the unabashedly self-confessed fool who possesses the knowledge of the world and yet is comfortable in contemplating such simple things as a flower without picking it apart with their mind but takes it in as a whole, as beauty personified in form, therein lies wisdom. Judgement, discernment, the ability to break down the complex to the simple and obvious is wisdom. It is knowledge tempered by naiveite and simplicity that makes for wisdom.”