When knowledge becomes power - by Archana Ghosh

 It is a typical January morning. I look up and out the window after collapsing a digital one. The sky is gray, the street bare as are the branches. Nothing seems to have shifted in the outer environment. 

I was feeling good after a very productive class I just finished. It was the last class in a series of 7 I had signed up for. The information provided by the teacher, the sharing by participants and the a-ha’s I experienced from being in that container had the potential to be truly transformative. 

As I sat reflecting, I became aware of this feeling that I can best describe as a resistance; a non-readiness to fuse or integrate with what I had learnt in such earnest. I felt a sense of separation from all of that great information that I seemed to connect with so much ease on a mental level. I was able to consume it all intellectually, but there was something lacking in the full integration of it which is required to power any meaningful transformation. 

A connection is not a one way street. In fact a passive consumption of anything is a guarantee that it will not develop that velcro and will wither away from our field over a period of time. In order for anything to transpire, there needs to be an exchange. A giving and receiving of energy. 

Surprisingly, underneath all that feeling of resistance was actually a pretty strong desire to be able to freely and readily integrate, much like I saw some others do. I was seeking it and was resisting it at the same time. One manifest and the other unmanifest. 

So what was stopping me from being readily and fully available to this experience I was willfully participating in. Where was this disconnect? I needed to connect with my disconnect to make any sense of this! 

Through many classrooms, readings and lectures I have attended, and through my own experience, I have come to know that we don’t just live in one dimension or in one body. We incorporate within us a multitude of layers and personalities that form the who that we are. Each of these bodies, personalities, layers (call it what you feel resonance with) carry imprints from our past and all of these pieces of us have a ticket in the board room of our mind; conscious and unconscious. We may not be aware of them consciously, but they can be those sub-liminal dog whistles that direct our behaviors. They will include both positive and negative experiences. They may be completely repressed from our conscious mind and can even be generational and ancestral. 

 We may find evidence of these sub-personalities in our behaviors. In that vein, a self-sabotaging behavior will likely be getting a payoff for non-engagement by a sub personality who might feel feel threatened with the decision. These sub-personalities are indeed a part of us that feel vulnerable and may refract the lens through which we view a situation or guide its aperture of how open we might be in bringing our whole selves to it. 

Why such a long discussion of our sub-personalities into a subtle resistance that I am feeling in integrating to the course? Well, I believe there is a larger payoff in doing this kind of discovery or inquiry of self. Our outer experience is merely a projection of the who that we are. We can only become available to the outer world and experiences as much as we are available to our inner world and our inner experiences. We can only be willing to meet another as much as we have met ourselves, our light as well as our shadows. 

It is only when we can be present to integrate all of these experiences within us with compassion, understanding, love and light can we become fully present and available to integrate with the experiences outside of us. 

We can then become truly available to alchemize Knowledge into Power.