Digesting Knowledge Into Wisdom



Learn Spirituality on spirituality-info.com. Digesting Knowledge Into Wisdom article will help answer your questions on Spirituality.We at spirituality-info.com specialize in Spirituality. Spirituality at spirituality-info.com provides the most up to date news and articles. If you have questions please do not hesitate to contact us.

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.

©2005 Brad Swift of Life On Purpose Institute, Inc. This article can be reprinted freely online, as long as the entire article and this resource box are included.



RoHs Weee And Lead-Free. - Achieve RoHs compliance in only 6 months. Critical regulatory knowledge for electronics businesses worldwide.
Building A Blog Empire For Profit. - Learn the secrets for blogging for traffic and cash with the knowledge you already have.


Article Index: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59


More Articles:


1. Oh My God By Roy Klienwachter
“Oh my God,” or “Oh God,” are common expressions used world wide involuntarily at moments of recognition of an intense experience.Some say it is a quick prayer or mini prayer and it comes out during extreme emotion. In my experience, I have heard it used as acknowledgement of a horrific event, an orgasm or news of a winning ticket. So I believe that it is simply an acknowledgement or affirmation but I don’t really connect it to the physical body so much as I do with the spiritual body.I believ…


2. I Am Apart of the Universal Life Force By George Lockett
Speaking in public is challenging for a number of people.Public speaking is said to be one of the biggest challenges in many people’s lives. This is all about perspective and who we think we are?If we think that we are this human body and all out there is different from us, and separate, then this leaves a gap in which fear can creep in.If we feel that we are a part of the universal life force that shines through all of life. Our body is just one aspect of a greater whole and we are part of th…

3. The Ten Commandments Starring Charlton Heston By Dawn Fields
Last Saturday, the children were down at their grandparent’s house and my husband was out of the house working, and I found myself home alone. This is very unusual for me. A quiet house doesn’t often happen for me, so I savored the favor. It’s a rare treat when I can actually watch television without any interruptions.So, as I relaxed by lying in bed with a bag of microwave popcorn and a bottle of Poland Spring, I clicked through the hundreds of channels that Optimum Cablevision provides. I ca…

4. Afraid of Living, Scared of Dying
As most of you will recall, I've been in New York now for several weeks. This is the first time I've left Wyoming in almost a year, and my first visit to a big city in almost a year. I guess I'd forgotten what city life is like. People here -- not all, but certainly most -- are living fear-filled lives. In Wyoming we have all the same problems of places with far more people. But the energy, the feeling of Wyoming and the rural Far West is much different, more positive and upbeat. I suppose one r…