The Wonder of It All

The ability to wonder is a state of pure innocence. The more we know, the less we really know. Notice how it makes you feel in that place of “not-knowing”, how does it make you feel?
Many today have lost the ability to wonder, to simply sit in not-knowing … that place of childlike open curiosity, and allow for their heart to reveal itself.
A friend of mine recently commented that kids these days have had their God-given ability to wonder hijacked by technology. He told me about a family gathering that took place where during a discussion someone raised a question no-one had an immediate answer for. One of the children rushed to an iphone and googled an answer. “Here it is.” Everyone now knew, but did they really? The not-knowing as an opportunity to deepen into the unknown and allow for life to deliver a degree of insight or awakening was replaced by someone else’s knowledge. How much growth comes out of this?
Rumi once said: “Conventional opinion is the ruin of our souls, something borrowed which we mistake as our own. Ignorance is better than this.”
The most direct way back in to our own Eternal Self is to simply allow the not-knowing the space to be, to have a place within ourselves.
Knowledge is a crude substitute for the Knowing that arrives when we are willing to sit in wonder… wondering how life will reveal itself to us today. Our minds are in such desperate need of security that the not-knowing is never a comfortable place for it … but it is the most precious place for the soul.
This gift of wondering is pure contemplation. It is a profound spiritual practice that requires no technique … we innately wonder at every given opportunity. We know it so well, as little children we were totally immersed in it, embraced by it … our whole life was an expression of it. Recapturing this place of innocence is vital in our times. From this place of wonder, we are able to open up to the infinite opportunities of each moment.
Dare to not-know for a while … sit in the purity of not-knowing and see what a difference it brings to your life. Come back to that place of innocence and wonder …

“Returning to the root,
We get the essence.”
-Hsin Hsin Ming

Take a moment ... why not this moment.
Pause within its sweet embrace.
Wondering what to do with it?
Ignore that ... there's deeper work to be done.

Wonder instead at the miracle that's holding you.
Wonder at the breath that's breathing ...
The ears that are listening ...
the thoughts that think themselves into being ...
then dissolve back into emptiness again.

Wonder at just who this is that woke up this morning.
Groggy-eyed ... hardly a movement ... then suddenly it's here.
But where were you while the body was sleeping?
Wonder about where you were while the body was dreaming
and deeper still wonder about
what existed in deep dreamless sleep.

Wondering about such things is why we are given
this miraculous ability to wonder.
I wondered when I was four ...
I continued to wonder when I was seventeen ...
I'm still wondering now ...
and I thank God for it ... for the wonder of it all.

I wonder ... what will I see today?
What will I be today?
I pause and I open up to This ...this Eternal Wonder glistening forever here in my heart.
Wondering my way back into You.
God I wonder ... and I thank You for it.