Knowledge and Wisdom

Hi All

I was thinking back to the levels of learning and how these apply to life in general. People read books, gain knowledge, learn new skills and then apply these to life. But do they really gain any wisdom from these or are they just increasing their knowledge and skills base.

When does this knowledge become an understanding (wisdom) that can be applied to life?

Wisdom in this case being defined as an accurate account of reality, of what is really taking place.

I went to a workshop on the weekend and something about the “believe nothing test everything” principle came to mind, so I asked the question, if we are to pass on our knowledge to help others live better and more productive lives, what then are the true lessons about life that we should be teaching? No definitive lessons were given, mmmmm, I wonder are there any true lessons?

IMO, we all have beliefs and values that we live life by, some of these are life truth, an understanding that enables us to live life more smoothly. In other words a lesson that we have learnt is applied to a similar situation and we discover that the emotional response to the event is decreased.

I believe that we learn from our environment and then make up the rules that we live life by ….rules that work for us at this point in our lives …though they may or may not be a life truth. As our understandings deepens and grow, we upgrade these rules, through learning about life and from our environment we begin to understand more and more of these life lessons. These understandings eventually become wisdom. A rule or belief we apply to situations that allows us to see through the confusion of an event to see it for what it really is, an opportunity for us to learn and grow from.

I hope I am making sense and is this actually how life works or am I eating too many magic mushrooms.

There are many people out there teaching and passing on their wisdom model of life, psychologists, counsellors, therapist, and the like, that are helping people deal with events in life. Who is to say that these people have a better understanding of reality than the people they are helping? Is it knowledge or wisdom they are passing on? Sure I understand that many will be helpful because of the fact that the person they are helping is an emotional wreck and is having trouble processing what is happening in their life.

For example, understanding that we each select the best choice/make the best decision based upon our beliefs and what we are experiencing at that particular point of time. Having this insight, means that we could not have acted any differently in that situation. Therefore it is now possible to neutralise any ill feelings towards ourselves or others associated with the event.

Not every person has the same reaction to similar events, perhaps the people who cruise through these situations have an enhanced understanding of reality.
I am now beginning to wonder, can we cut out the middle man and teach people lessons that will enable them to help themselves, in other words to neutralise the events themselves before they need professional help.

I am using the presuppositions of NLP as the foundation point to begin exploration on living consciously and invite you all to add your ideas on what are the important lessons in life. What have you discovered that has enabled you to see through the confusion of an event?

Hopefully we can help each other grow and have some of those moments of clarity.

Have a great day

Frederic

I've been quite ill and still not commanding too many brain cells, but I wanted to comment on this before it slips off the New Posts list. I won't get to every point, but wanted to say something about this point to keep what seems like a great thread alive:

"Is it knowledge or wisdom they are passing on?"

I'd invite you to consider the possibility that anything we take in is data. Knowledge and wisdom (knowing and living/thinking/doing wisely - and that open to individual interpretation) might emerge from data once we put it through various ways of thinking and making meaning about it, but at the transmission and reception level that's what we've got.

"Having this insight, means that we could not have acted any differently in that situation. Therefore it is now possible to neutralise any ill feelings towards ourselves or others associated with the event."

As NLP practitioners, most of us learned to do something like this before tea break on Day One of Prac training, even if our understanding of that particular presup was still a bit hazy. It's what we learned that day, and what we learned about what we learned that day as our training progressed, that can be transmitted to others to "neutralise the events themselves...". Or so it seems to me. Is that even close to what you're trying to say, or is my fuddled brain missing something important?

And of course some people have a natural ability to move on from an "event" that others might benefit from being taught (as we were, 'way back then). I had a client who believed in letting life's current carry away past traumas, and she was pretty darn good at it. She had one recent one, however, that still brought her to tears and shaking when she thought about it. So we did some work on that, and a few minutes later she had apparently not only forgotten there was a trauma, but that we had done the work! It was all somewhere downstream now, and she was tranquil as a lotus . Did she have an enhanced understanding of reality? I don't know, but she had a strategy that worked a treat for her where traumas were concerned.

I'll add more, perhaps, when I can stay upright longer; for now it's back to bed.

Hi Bridget,
Great post for a woman that's not well!! If the way your brain cell are working has any refelection on your body, you are surely well on the way to a speedy recovery!

All the best, Violeta

A man walks through a low doorway and bangs his head. That is knowledge...he knows to lower his head next time he enters.

Another man sees him bang his head and knows to lower his head too...that's wisdom.

Hi Bridget

It was all somewhere downstream now, and she was tranquil as a lotus .

Thanks for your reply and hope you start to feel better, perhaps you could use your clients strategy now to send your illness somewhere downstream and you too can be as tranquil as a lotus. Great to see your sense of humour shining through.

Did you realise that lotus flower is renowned for its healing qualities hence the name Tranquil Lotus, Add the tranquil be cause you need those moments of rest and tranquillity to allow your body to fully mend itself and "Voila" you now have a double healing matrix at your finger tips.

I'd invite you to consider the possibility that anything we take in is data.

I strongly believe that as this data comes in, from our daily lives, we store it and it accumulates, eventually we reach a tipping point.

I like to use the metaphor of a jigsaw puzzle , we start out by sorting through all the pieces ……eventually we start to put the framework /border of the puzzle together … possibly start to sort the remaining pieces into like piles … slowly we start to join the pieces together… we make little clusters of pieces.

Some we join to the puzzle …. others we have not yet figured out how they fit into the puzzle , for now they are stand alone ….. the puzzle begins to take shape but it is still somewhat fuzzy….. as we find more of the pieces .... we fit these into the puzzle…. perhaps we add some of the stand alone clusters.

Eventually, we reach a tipping point .... where we have enough pieces .... the puzzle is no longer fuzzy …. Its clear …though, its not fully completed. We have reached a point where we can NOW easily distinguish the pieces … a point that when, we look at an individual piece we can recognise it for what it is...and know where it belongs or does not belong in the puzzle. :cool:

Other pieces we are yet to recognise...though our level of understanding allows us to acept that it is only a matter of time before we discover where the piece belongs. We no longer sweat on finding the missing pieces -we just enjoy the process of doing the puzzle - we keep picking up and trying different pieces - eventually finishing the puzzle.

As I was typing this, I realised that a deeper level, what is meant by the saying, It’s not about the destination its about the journey”. The fun is not in completing the puzzle. The fun is in finding where the pieces belong, laughing, pleasure, anger, frustration, relief; numerous emotions are associated with doing the little things that eventually allow us to look at the beauty of what we have created.

As I think about it, like in life, we can get frustrated and feel bad for not achieving ( finding the missing piece) our goals. If we focus on one piece and keep trying to find where that one piece fit ... over and over again ... it just wont fit in or we give up, we feel bad, perhaps even consider ourselves a failure.

Though on the other hand, if we put the piece back down and pick up the next piece (try another piece) and we turn a piece around , we try a different side, eventually we will find a piece that fits.

I suppose that this post is about becoming a wise and experienced puzzle player, working together to sort and join the pieces, perhaps even making larger clusteres.

I hope that this post will help you discover that the piece you are currently holding in our hand fit perfectly into the puzzle, you just need to spend the time to enjoy completing the puzzle until you dicover exactly where the piece fits.

Even if we put a piece in the wrong place, sooner or later we will discover our error and correct it.

I was just thinking then that our outcomes in life would equate to the box that puzzle came in, the picture is on the lid.

Doesnt having that picture make all the difference.

So what are your life outcomes, what does your picture look like?.

I am so looking forward to putting the pieces together.

Have a great day.

Frederic

I know the ledge and avoid falling off of it, by using wisdom to transcend space and time to soar off above and beyond the ledge that keeps most from seeing beyond their own knowledge.

a wee bit ambiguous...

I think my summary works well, but for those scratching their heads, I imagine it in my neural-inventory that knowledge is what we understand as our limits, it is what we live within, and wisdom is the ability to have faith and believe in the phenomenon of "beyond that" it's a certain creativity (wisdom is) it is a way of making distinctions or recognizing certain patterns . Knowledge is shared understanding, and wisdom is inner more kinestetic in my experience and perhaps in yours I don't know, but I believe there is a difference between the two, there have been many a better paper written on Wisdom & Knowledge by religious people from recent times and antiquity.

for instance "The Interpretation of Knowledge" in the Nag Hammadi Library and .. .unfortunately I can't think of any more at the moment :P lol but it is definitely not something you can transport around in a wheelbarrow being as such many things are quite subjective.

Hi All

Something new that I learnt and which I am playing with for a workshop that I am developing is the achievement model. I will use to show how we associate our worth/beliefs to our achievements, and how thinking this way is fundamentaly flawed. So far I have discovered that some beliefs will revolve around something to do with missing out on something, and this is attached to achievement, hence the name The Achievement Model. It is based on rules from our early childhood learnings and the beliefs we made from our interactions with our family, teachers, and society. "If I am good I will get = If I am bad I will miss out.

For example as we grew up it has been reinforced that if we are good we will get rewarded,..... Ok Frederic, we are going to visit Grandma for lunch and if you are a good boy (Y) and eat all your vegies (X) you will get to go to the fair afterwards(Z). In short this means that if I do X then I have achieved Y means I am rewarded with Z.

MMMM I don't know about you but hated Brussell Sprouts, the flip side of if i am good i will get is that if I do not eat my brussell sprouts (X) I am not good =bad (Y) I miss out on going to the fair (Z). That equates to , If I dont achieve X then I miss out on Y means I am not rewarded with Z.

Think of the implications of this - as an individual you focus your worth on your achievement - so based on achieving you are good / sucessful or worse still not achieving as meaning bad / failure .

If I achieve this goal (owning a house -X) then I will have security (Y) which means I am (safe -Z) and I feel good.

Flip side - If I don't achieve this goal (owning a house -X) then I will not have (security -Y) which means I am (not safe -Z) and I feel Bad.

If I am married and have children then I will have a family which means that I can be a productive member of the community. As you read it it sounds silly, though this combination was actually one persons belief structure, imagine what happened to their world when their partner left them. They were bordering on suicide, fortunately their kids sought proffesional help.

I wonder, could this be one of the reasons for the levels of stress and unhappiness in our world?

If you pay attention you will learn something new and can use it to help others.

Feedback would be greatly appreciated

Have a great day

Frederic

I wonder, could this be one of the reasons for the levels of stress and unhappiness in our world?

Definitely!!!

[WARNING. Meta monster on the lose. Those of a fragile disposition should look away NOW]

If you pay attention you will learn something new and can use it to help others.

According to whom.

Here is the key to this for me. The model is attempting to influence by taking away power from the subject. Good models, for me, provide data and allow individuals to make there own decisions based on their own outcomes. The purpose of this model to to achieve the outcomes of the person making the statement.

It is also couched in binary terms so does not recognise partial achievement. What about a reward for a good effort?

This model is a common one and the the basis for nearly all advertising we see especially on television.

If you don't use this fragrance then you won't attract
men and you will be lonely for the rest of your life etc.

An impoverished approach in my view.

How were you planning to tackle this on your workshop?

John

Eternity is a long time especially towards the end

Hi John

Thanks for you feedback, sorry if it was not clear, the model is to highlight the dangers of flawed thinking and how looking at life through this achievement model is in fact dangerous. There is also another part to it called the wisdom model that I have yet to find the time to type up and post.

I am killing two birds with one stone, posting and formulating my draft notes at the same time.

Now. "If you pay attention you will learn something new and can use it to help others." BTW the preceding statement was just me being cheeky. I just forgot to put on the smilie.

Now. "If you pay attention you will learn something new and can use it to help others." BTW the preceding statement was just me being cheeky. I just forgot to put on the smilie.

I thought you were being ironic. It was still a good example to illustrate the point though.

John

Very true and thanks again for the feedback John. I have gone back and added flawed thinking to the opening paragraph of Achievment Model post.

Have a great night or day and this little black duck is of to bed.

Frederic

Hi all

While discussing the issue of Life Purpose on another thread, I came to realise that this is also relevant for this thread and decided to go into it with a little more detail

For sometime I have been using the slogan "Everything happens for a reason" as one door closes another opens type philosophy. I have recently really understood the deeper meaning of this slogan, as well as how it fits in with learning and life.

Recently, a door opened that led me to a seminar where I discovered numerous missing pieces of information that, for me, clarified numerous aspect of life. :cool:

For those who do not know me too well, I am from a mechanical engineering background, I have trained and become qualified as a fitness trainer, a massage therapist, I have studied and attended numerous meditation and new age and spirituality workshops and more recently trained in NLP. When I decided to study these different fields I never understood why, just that they sounded cool or there was something I would gain from by learning these skills.

I remember that when I went through a particularly trying time in my life. I fought to hold onto anything I could, when these types of event run simultaneously and are ongoing our bodies take a beating and often become emotionally and physically depleted.

I perceived that everyone and everything was against me, it was everybody else’s fault. As you can imagine, it all got too much and I burnt out and was sent to a psychologist who was pretty cool and fortunately for me she used hypnosis, and for some reason the glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel was in fact hope and not another train coming to run me over.

What I did is what RB would call stupid, I prefer the term inflexible, I am much nicer to myself.

It was am extremely painful time in my life, the light were on but no-one was home, I was devouring books, tapes, workshops, anything I could do to move forward. I had some moments of clarity, a few wins and moved a little forward. I was still very unhappy internally, to the outside world I appeared to be fine, though I was in fact internally drained and empty.

As I learnt more it became apparent that helping other men deal with this was something I would like to do . At this time, I was still living very unconsciously but the seed was planted, it should be obvious by now that how could I teach something that I was unaware of and did not really understand.

If I keep explaining it will become apparent that I had the knowledge but no wisdom or real understanding. I had no way of neutralising the self defeating behaviour. Even when I discovered NLP a few years later, I had tools to use but was reluctant to use them on myself, a crazy little thing called fear.

The point I wanted to make, was that we often receive information and use this information ..... though on some levels it does not make sense or we ourselves are not ready to consciously understand it. Be it NLP, spirituality, reality, what ever it is, it has yet to be fully accepted into the system. :s

So there I was, I knew what I wanted to do, what I believed was my life purpose, my spiritual path, what made feel alive and passionate. Though I was still very unconscious, unmotivated and unhappy on some levels nor did I know how I was going to achieve this life purpose.

Then a door opened and I was invited to attend a weekend workshop and within myself I had to attend. Destiny had spoken, clients rang me to cancel appointments, my partner mentioned she was considering visiting her mother on the weekend and I had nothing else planned. Coincidence, perhaps but it was enough for my unconscious mind to take over and my congruency and opportunity alarms began ringing, so I decided to attend.

Now, remember back to the part I mentioned about all those books and courses I had devoured and not really understood. Well the information I received at this workshop joined a lot of those pieces of knowledge together and they became understandings. I learnt something there they called the Wisdom model, but that is another story.

The information I learnt at that workshop, would have had an impact on way I looked at things... that is for sure. Thought it would not have had the significant life changing impact it did ...had I not experienced life - the way and in the order - that I experienced it, I would not have understood the information.

Meaning that had I not undertaken all the training and courses that I did, it would have been difficult for me to see the deeper implications and the links between all the different fields. Nor would I have detected the underlying patterns and links in the material taught. All the courses books and unrelated studies all came together and hit me all at once. It is similar to the head spin you get from sniffing petrol

It was as if I had a few missing binary codes that were stopping the software program from running the computer effectively. Removing a few erroneous scripts and adding these binary codes allowed the program to filter and sort all the data and over the next weeks returned the answer on how to achieve my life purpose.

Once again destiny and my unconscious steps in, people begin to ask me to do presentations and I begin to notice new opportunities and try new things. Funny what happens when you chat with NLP trainers, watch NLP DVD's, listens to hypnotic CD's, read NLP books and forums.

I had often discounted the worth of my own life experiences; after all I saw them more as life failures. With this new information I actually could see how others could benefit through my life experiences. A wondrous thing happened to my limiting internal thoughts and my self worth, one disappeared and the other appeared.

I also discovered that I had actually been using NLP and numerous other things, they were slowly unpacking and I was gaining a conscious use and mastery of these. Nowadays, I often smile and laugh as I catch myself using a new pattern unconsciously and realise what I have being doing. That's NLP and sneaky trainers for you.

Now, when I look at life and the things that happen in life, my outlook is completely different. All the feelings of emptiness, unhappiness have disappeared, the emotional rollercoaster ride levelled out, my lack of motivation has been replaced by drive and passion.

Now, if I can transform myself from being a completely unaware person with zero emotional intelligence and turn my life around ....it means that there is hope for anyone wanting to do the same thing, because we all have the same abilities.

My slogan has changed slightly to become “Everything happens for a reason and exactly when it is meant to happen”. The beauty is that I know there is so much more for me to learn, and I can just enjoy life knowing that these lessons will come, as and when I need them…. and regardless wether I want then to or not

I hope that others can get as much out of this as I have because one thing I have learnt from this forum is that the the more I share the more that I learn.

So next time someone tells you this NLP type stuff does not work, as some one recently posted on another thread, stick this in your pipe and smoke it.

Have a great day

Frederic

Hi Frederic,

Absolutely...!

Violeta