Another one of our goals in presenting to you this course is to create an awareness of the importance of wisdom. Wisdom evokes a variety of connotations. It can be defined as the difference between knowledge and experience. The more experience an individual has with a certain activity, the better the person is able to perform that activity and the more the person can speak and relate the specifics of that activity from an experiential viewpoint. Reading and studying spiritual texts may provide you with intellectual knowledge, but without actual experience to accompany the knowledge, wisdom is lacking. Wisdom as acquired through experience is genuine because once you have gained experience you “know” what you are speaking about. Wisdom can be equated with experiential proficiency. We as potential disciples seek wisdom. We want to know what makes us tick. Remember the questions we just addressed? Who am I? Why am I here? What is my purpose? If we want answers to these questions, we should be willing to make the deepest commitment to do whatever it takes to get them. In making such a commitment and striving to learn what life is really all about, we seek what is referred to as spiritual wisdom.

Wisdom of spiritual matters can also be referred to as esoteric knowledge. The general connotation of esoteric is 'knowledge of reality.' Esoteric knowledge, while deeply rooted in metaphysical concepts and hard to initially grasp, is no different than any other knowledge. Esoteric knowledge stimulates action within the soul and may crack open a few doors of your prospective new home. It is you; however, who must engage in the process of opening those doors all the way and facing whatever lies on the other side. This is accomplished by dispensing with all of the books, preconceived ideas and intellectual wisdom you have and venturing into the maze of your mind empty handed, carrying only the lighted torch within your heart to illuminate the way. In short, you must go beyond knowledge and gain the wisdom of experience.

While wisdom is commonly defined as the difference between knowledge and experience, for purposes of our course in self-mastery, we seek spiritual wisdom for it stands as the highest form of wisdom. We seek experiential proficiency and knowing of the truth of God. We want to know who we are. These are aspects of wisdom that we will continue to learn throughout these texts and more importantly, as we strive to bring to the surface of our being the wisdom that God has instilled within us. We previously addressed a few aspects of wisdom in volume one our course, such as the wisdom of silence, confidentiality and the attainment of wisdom. Building further on these qualities, we have compiled a short discourse on spiritual wisdom that we will share with you now.

Spiritual wisdom, when developed in true fashion, is knowledge acquired through internal experience. Spiritual development in true fashion means that the individual desiring divine truth or Atruth that stands above all else,@ must seek this knowledge through what we would call a direct connection with it. Remember that the universal life force is intelligent. Direct connection means that the seeker aligns his or her individual consciousness with the greater life force or universal blanket of consciousness. The individual receives whatever information he or she is capable of receiving and then proceeds with the long and sometimes arduous process of assimilation and deciphering the information in order to make sense out of it. Accessing this infinite library of knowledge constitutes spiritual wisdom in true fashion. Reading about spiritually related matters is certainly beneficial and highly encouraged, but this activity is only a first step in the spiritual development process and a distant second in attaining true spiritual wisdom. This is so because reading about spiritual matters or for that matter, any subject material, produces understanding that is for the most part, limited to intellectual perspective. For example, reading about scuba diving does not give you valid experience because you have never submerged yourself beneath the waves.

Tapping into the universal library of knowledge for purposes of information, while exciting and inspiring, is just the tip of the iceberg. Information, regardless of its relative importance or in what way it is received, is oftentimes overrated. Though the universal library is an infinite bank of informational knowledge, its source is not the biggest computer you could imagine or a vast array of books hidden somewhere on the other side of Jupiter. The basic essence of informational knowledge is a glorious and unfathomable system of invisible light energy. This energy carries a multitude of varying vibrational frequencies. The goal in developing our individual spirit is to align our consciousness with the highest frequencies with which we are able to invoke the deepest and most inspirational aspects of our creativity. The high energies have the innate ability to provide us not only with knowledge, but stimulate and enhance attributes within our personage that have been lying dormant within us. Through the combined efforts of open-minded receptive awareness, silent communion, music, affirmations and other spiritually related exercises, we can effectively enhance our levels of self-confidence, self-esteem, self-responsibility, maturity, creativity and trust in ourselves (to name just a few of the self-improvement initiatives we can foster).

The cultivation of spiritual wisdom means that you begin to understand the intricacies of how and why everything in life works the way it does. This process begins with understanding how the most important thing in your life works...you. You understand why you feel the way you do, why you think the way you do, why you love, why you dislike, why you hurt and why you suffer. You will learn and accept who you have been in years and incarnations past. You will learn what characters you have played and certain circumstances you faced while playing those roles. In short, you will attain answers to all those questions you ask yourself about the most important issues of life experience.

Since the intricacies of life and death are understood from an entirely new and awakened perspective, one finds him or herself in a very realistic position of conquering death, the greatest mystery and experience of fear that we must confront. The previously held notion of immortality changes from being something that is unheard of and literally impossible to something possible and attainable. Understanding or conscious awareness makes a world of difference.

The good news is that you already have the potential to actually realize, bring forth and live these aspects of spiritual wisdom. You are a spiritual being. You just may not realize it. Your spirit yearns to come up from the basement of your new home and help you to experience your greater potential. The first step in attaining spiritual wisdom is accepting the fact that you are a spiritual being and that you have the innate ability to access your spirit through meditation and an open minded awareness of the greater potential of our soul. Our soul is an individualized piece of energy within us. The energy of the soul is an extension of God. God is that power which is generated and exhilarated by our own thought action.

Discovering our individual spirituality is realizing that what we are looking for we already have. It is remembering who we really are or can be equated with finding something we did not realize we had. For example, you lose your job and find yourself increasingly filled with despair and hopelessness. You want to distract your worried mind, so you decide to put a new floor in a room that you have wanted to renovate. After tearing out the old floor, you discover a small chest covered with layers of dust which has been hidden under the floorboards. Opening the chest, you make an even grander discovery. You find a million dollars in cash! Finder's keepers? Oh yes!

You have a treasure chest within you, filled not with money, but with a wealth of spirit. The treasure chest within you is also covered with layers of dust that must be cleansed. The key to the chest is your desire to know God and yourself more fully. The more diligently and sincerely you pursue your desire, the more the key turns, slowly unlocking your chest of treasures. You will find yourself regularly visiting the universal library of light energy and knowledge will flood your awareness. This spiritual energy has been lying dormant within you for eons and it is time to bring it to the surface and reactivate it.