Inner Knowing

"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." --Book of Matthew

Our lives are full of uncertainties. These uncertainties are the result of suffering. We grapple our ways towards many fixations, of making life more secure and comfortable. We have sought ways in which we can stabilize the flow of life through the best ways we know, be it money or job or some sort of meaningful task or endeavor. We always make sure that whatever that is uncertain, which we always fear, must vanish through our efforts of creating a life that is more predictable and measurable. We often design ourselves like cogs in a machine, following the gears of a mechanistic, fated universe. So whenever we encounter the opportunity to change, we often shun them away, or worse we dread them, for these are uncertain choices that do not fit our expectations and assumptions. My former classmate raised a question during our usual group conversations a few years ago: "What happens to our lives after college? We'll finish school, get a job, get married, have a family, have kids, send kids to school, travel places, collect things, shop and buy, yet what will happen next? It is as if our lives is just a cycle of repeating experiences. I guess there is more to life than just these things." Yes, there is more to life. This is for sure. Still, what we are always missing is the certainty, the decision, the courage to take the risk and dare to venture the uncharted wilderness of that more in our lives.

Uncertainty is not just a fact, it is the truth. Through this, we can be always certain that there is more to life. But too seek this more outside ourselves is a futile venture. Because whatever we find outside, paradoxically, is all inside of us. Within us is the power to find the immensity of life. Our very tool is our Soul's Inner Knowing. It is both our tool and our being. The Inner Knowing brings us to this core of awareness, of being deeply certain in the middle of countless uncertainties.

Our Inner Knowing is the sense of our Soul. It knows what it both knows and does not know. It is our connection to the mysteries of Life, to the things we are yet to experience, to the possibilities we desire to achieve. Our Inner Knowing cuts through our vague understanding and brings us to reexamine our decisions and choices, and leaves us a question: "Am I coming from Love?" We become aware through our Inner Knowing when we can sense that deep essence of Love, and we answer our life's puzzle through the test of doing and acting from that very Love. Within this Knowing, we discern the passion of our hearts, on how it wants to express and experience Life in the grandest way possible. Often, the world around us, and the people we know will find that our choices that come from Love will always be absurd. It is because Love never follows the standard of this world. It has its own Inner Knowing. This Inner Knowing is always sure of what it chooses. It is always an empowered choice. And it transforms our Life into its truest fulfillment.

This Inner Knowing is the Kingdom of God and Christ encourages us to tap into it. We could find it nowhere nor sooner. Because it is, in Christ words, within and among us. We never wait for it, for this Inner Knowing only knows that the only moment is this very moment where we can always give the world what our Soul can offer, and that is Love. So we must stop seeking it elsewhere or waiting for tomorrow to let the Inner Knowing come. The here and now is the best time and place we can Love.

And it what ways this Inner Knowing knows and does Love? Our Inner Knowing knows Love if we stop judging and comparing ourselves with others. It does Love if we stop worrying of whatever happened in the past and will happen in the future. There is no Soul better than us, except the illusion that we are being compared and measured. These illusions stop us to acknowledge our Inner Knowing, but remind us that it is there. Soul has no time to wait, for there is really no time at all. In timelessness of the Inner Knowing, we have already achieve our desires, what we just need to do is to recognize them that we do. It is so obvious, but we think our Inner Knowing is still unknown because whatever unknown must be feared of. Fear of the unknown prevents us to seek this mystery, of diving to this overwhelming dimension of our Inner Knowing, of this Love within. Thus the paradox: the more we look for some known goal we are badly obsessed to grab, the more we lose our chance of being aware of the blessings that is right in front of us.

This Inner Knowing is the door leading to our awareness. Once we become aware, we are less afraid of what we don't know. Delving to this unknown, to this mystery of Life is the first step to our own transcendence. Life, however predictable it may seem to be, is no longer reduced into redundant routines. Each experience, even if it is so mundane and ordinary, becomes a sacred moment, where Love radiates into being. We can do things with Love, even as simple as washing the dishes or riding a bus. This awareness of Love moment to moment is the Inner Knowing that knows itself being known, and allows itself to be known in its most unknown and unlikely manner. It directs us into the state what our Soul really is. Inner Knowing is always sure and never fails to be sure, because the only thing that is exact to it is the certitude of Love.

In the unfathomable depths of our being, we have always known our Inner Knowing. It only waits for us to choose to know. There is no other way. Once we do, whatever limited things we know about Love expands. We will finally know that Love and Inner Knowing are both the same. This is the ultimate knowing that finally puts our hearts at peace with Life, and our Soul in the womb of Love.

Paradox of Love

Truth is ultimately paradoxical. None of us can fashion any box of thought that can contain it. No one has any absolute power to make Truth absolute. The true nature of Truth both complements and contradicts itself. There is more to truth than what the eyes meet. There is more to how our senses interpret what we have always thought is real. Reality, after all, in Einstein's physics, is relative. Our own limited realities of Truth can disenchant us in a very drastic way, unless we open ourselves in realizing beyond how we have recognized and accepted them. If reality is dependent on what we choose, therefore, Truth follows suit. But it does not mean that its universality is compromised. Simply put, the Truth of how all Life organically grows is discovered through its DNA, and still the same structure of any DNA remains the same, but combines in infinite ways that makes many creatures different while expressing the same basic features and functions. Likewise, it is the Truth that every human being, despite cultural differences and beliefs, has always the same deep, inner perennial need: to Love and be Loved. If we humans find and express Love through many ways, labels and tools, the nature of Love remains the same.

How paradoxical is Truth? Since Love and Truth are just different words of the same essence that sets us free, why does the contradictory happens? Why are we still enslaved by the trappings of Truth and unable to discern the indescribable essence? To search for Truth is a great adventure, much as to experience Love. Going deeper beyond the surface of our own limitations can we be able to find how Truth and Love become clearly understandable. To understand them is to see the other side, what is unseen. Truth is always deceiving, until we let our inner Truth reveal itself.

This shows us how mind-boggling paradoxes are. The Western foundation of Logic has kept us thinking in terms of polarity: that anything has its opposite, and this opposite opposes the other; that anything has a category, a certain truth where anything can only belong, a compartment of reality that can never be lost. For instance, we have always believed that everything is solid, and categorized them accordingly. Yet our new physics tells us that everything is energy, nothing is solid. It puzzles us to comprehend this nature of reality, because however we can establish the Truth, it becomes more erratic and unstable within the dimension of our limited consciousness. Following Socrates' famous paradox, we can only know the Truth if we acknowledge that we really don't know it. It is only in darkness that one can see inner Light.

Christ foretold it: The Truth will set us free. But how? We must now begin with Love.

Love is the only Truth. We might contend it through time-tested philosophies, doctrines and premises. We might say that Love is just an aspect of Truth. Yes, another paradox: it is and it is not. Love is the trunk of a big tree called Truth. And Love is the big tree itself. We can only see beyond the baffling paradox if we see the big picture: that the Truth remains whole even if we often cut it into pieces. It goes beyond our common assumptions that anything can be divided and separated. Whatever you see incomplete, separated or fragmented is always complete, connected and whole. In this light, there is much to be said about Love.

The Paradox of Love is very true in each of us. We can only find Love if we stop finding it. No one can give us Love but ourselves. Much of our Love deserves the person that we are. We can Love anyone and be Love if we Love ourselves and be Love.

When we Love, we become powerful. But we can only wield power if we throw it away. We don't throw away Love, but the baggage that stops us from Loving, the overpowering manipulation and control we want to impose on others, and the standards of perfection we impose on ourselves. We wield this power but not to be powerful upon others, but to be and have the power of Love inside ourselves. Rather than seeking for the illusion of being perfect by rejecting our imperfections, we must accept them. When we do, we become perfect.

We are butterflies inside caterpillars. Within us, we find our true courage in our fears, our strengths in our weaknesses, our potentials in our frailties. We are humbled if we exalt ourselves, and we are exalted when we humbled down. When we begin to face our own demons, they transform into angels, who are messengers of our true Loving selves.

Beyond these paradoxes is an inherent reality that nothing is really paradoxical at all. That seems to be another paradox, and perhaps the ultimate paradox of all paradoxes: the paradox that there is no such thing as paradox. Because in the ultimate Truth of Love, nothing can be labeled, categorized, compartmentalized, dichotomized, contradicted or simply separated. In the presence of these ways of understanding, the Truth becomes automatically paradoxical. Nonetheless, putting an end to all of them, Truth is simply Truth. And that's how we begin to understand Love.

On Soul

What is essential is invisible to the eye -- Antoine St. Exupery, The Little Prince.

Anything that carries mystery is often unseen. Such is the Soul. It is the invisible fragment of the invisible whole. The Soul is a fragment, yet it is not fragmented. The fragment is whole in itself. It remains invisible for those who remain blind to the truth it embodies. It cannot be seen through the eyes of doubt, through which most of us use. The naked eye that sees physical things in this physical world is incapable of seeing non-physical things in the non-physical world. Nevertheless, the truth never hides itself. The lovely, wise seagull of Richard Bach advises a little hummingbird: But remember that not being known doesn't stop the truth from being true. Truth stays, waiting for our inner eyes to see.

Truth of the Soul continues to be the truth as it is. But that truth is far from being defined by words or described by sight. A friend once said that The Soul is so abstract that it is so difficult to comprehend; it seems so far from concrete reality. She argued that there must be some way to make the Soul concrete, like some operational theory or explanation. Yes, there is one way, I thought. For us to understand the Soul, we must stop thinking of labeling it as abstract and reality as concrete. Because every thing that is concrete comes from the abstract, just how many sages of the past told us. The Soul is never an opposite of the flesh and bones or sticks and stones that we can see and touch. Rather, the Soul is all-embracing, as it embraces and permeates every physical thing that we see. The Soul is reality itself. It is both abstract and concrete. It never opposes anything, for all things are manifestations of the Soul.

Our visible reality is deceiving. It deceives us to believe that anything invisible cannot be described, and therefore untrue. But absence does not mean non-existence. The Soul does not just exist. It lives among and within us. The Soul is us, yet to be acknowledged. The Soul is real, yet to be described.

The Soul often appears to be a metaphor and a symbol of that which is indescribable. Since the Soul is beyond description, we have used many things that we can see, touch and feel as tangible metaphors and symbols.

Wind is one. It is invisible, yet it is felt. A Filipino riddle tells us that wind is something that comes yet still unseen. Wind blows between branches and rustles among leaves. It can always be gentle, sometimes fierce. The whole earth inhales and exhales it. Nobody can say that even wind is unseen, it is not true. Everyone feels how cool and strong the wind is. This is the same for the Soul. The Soul does not need to be seen in order to be true. Great truths, like the Soul, need more than physical sight. We must feel the Soul. Feeling the Soul becomes truer than it seems to be. To feel the Soul is to find it more than its existence. We must experience the Soul. Wind becomes real when kites fly or when flag waves or pinwheels spin. Kites, flags and pinwheels are useless without the wind. Or they won't even exist if not for the wind. Wind gave birth to them, and they bring life to the wind. We are all kites and flags and pinwheels that came from the invisible Soul. The Soul gives life to us as we feel its presence. And the Soul becomes more real because of us.

We need not to prove how real Soul is. It is. We can see it everywhere. We can find it anywhere. We can hear it. We can touch and feel it. Soul is as real as you and me. We are taught that Soul is something that resides in us and makes us alive. I would add more to that: It is within us, and yet it is absolutely us. The Soul faces us when we face the mirror after we wake up in the morning. And deep beneath pale cheeks and drowsy eyes, there is the Soul that stays unseen. The Soul is the life in us that makes our hearts beat, arteries throb and blood flow. Soul is Life itself, beating, throbbing, flowing.

From our hearts, arteries, veins and capillaries branch out. Blood traverses this web of intricate vessels, woven within layers and layers of tissues and flesh. It is a network, coming from a center. Tony Buzan calls this the natural architecture. Natural architecture is present in all things in nature. In fact, it is the only universal structure ever present in all things natural. A spider web is a network of fine web threads. A Tree is also a network of branches and leaves. Even brain itself is a network neurons. They are all natural architecture. Something from the center shoots up, grows, branches, and expands. But each outgrowth is a center itself. Each node is a new center, a new source where something again grows. In a whole network, each new source is complete. They are all centers. Nietzsche once said the center is everywhere. Likewise, each of us is a Soul, a center of being, a divine node capable of growing. We interconnect, like a huge invisible network. Indra's net. Jewels - we as Souls - are interwoven to this network.

In this light, the Soul is in fact the Soul of many Souls. We are individual Souls, woven together by underlying truth of the collective Soul. Together, we become a universal Soul. In our unconscious consensus, we are all One Soul. Oversoul, like as Emerson put it. It is called in many names. As we work in both as individuals and a collective, Our One Soul is our greatest aspiration and existence. We are not separate from the rest, because our One Soul is the encompassing reality of Love. The Soul we discover is the Love we can create.