“Do not lock yourself into the idea of ‘I already know’; you do not need to know anything, you need to live it.”From El refugio del corazón
My spiritual search was a long journey, and I assure you that you do not need to make it yourself. All of it led me to find in the Being a devotion that came naturally. When I finally surrendered as if I were a little child, innocent, without knowledge, experiences, titles, techniques or learning, I found myself before the majesty of Divinity.
There I understood my divine ignorance: that nothing we can do or say will ever bring us closer to the infinite. I simply felt like the little son of an amazing father, and all I wanted was to embrace him and give myself to him, to be held in his love.
It is that innocence and that ignorance I want to talk to you about. Not as a limitation, but as a door.
Three drawn lines
From the moment we are born, anywhere in the world, in a poor cradle or a rich one, we begin to explore our surroundings and we marvel at the diversity of the world of forms. With a beautiful childlike innocence we perceive what is new. You can show a baby an object many times, and the baby’s open, uncontaminated mind will keep perceiving it as something new and almost mysterious.
But as we grow up and are educated, reeducated and domesticated in how we should perceive the universe, we begin to lose our innocence. We see the world as something repetitive, mechanical and materialistic. We give each form a name and believe we understand and know what we are living. We adults tend to be unaware of the luminosity that accompanies certain experiences children have, and our beliefs end up weighing more than their innocent curiosity.
The moment we believe we know something about the universe, we have lost our innocence, and we do not realize it. Do we really know something, or a lot, or nothing, about the things we perceive?
Do this exercise with me. Look at the letter “A.” Do you know what it means? Your mind immediately associates it with a letter of the alphabet and starts thinking of words that contain it.
But if you observe it closely, do you know what it really means? They are three drawn lines. What are they, truly?
It is the mind that gives meaning to experience and knowledge. For our consciousness, on the other hand, experience is only an extension of itself.
When fear enters the scene
We human beings are innocent by nature. But as we live, we experience all kinds of joys, and pain as well. Each time an experience causes us pain, the soul memorizes it so that it can avoid it in the future.
Think of a child learning to ride a bicycle while his father runs behind him, holding it straight and steady to give him confidence. When the child has had enough practice, the father lets go. At first the child does not even notice that he is riding alone; when he notices, he may lose focus and fall. On the second try there will be a certain respect for the bicycle: fear will have entered the scene, and now he will know that he can fall and get hurt. That is to say, innocence toward the experience has ended, simply because we now create the possibility of experiencing pain.
The more pain we feel, the more we contract, and we begin to see this amazing garden that is creation as something dangerous. We have become masters at hiding from pain, handing all the power over to the mind and believing that its programming can save us. In this way we move even further away from our own being and from its relationship with Divinity. We have become afraid of our own power.
And yet the soul is that dragonfly flying in the night, shining with its own light beneath the twinkling of the stars. There are shadows around it, but in the end, with its own light, it will leave the thick shadows behind and rise toward the abode that awaits it.
The highest form of devotion
This vision asks us to become children again, to become innocent again. Each time we do so, we allow ourselves to play freely through life, and innocence becomes the most powerful magnet by which we draw the Father closer to us. That state of innocence is the purest, clearest and highest form of devotion.
You do not own innocence: it is a natural feature of your own spirit, and you can always become fully innocent again, because that is your true nature. When we allow ourselves to laugh at everything we believe we know without actually knowing it, when we allow ourselves to feel like children again, the spiritual Father takes us by the hand and our innocence becomes divinity.
All you need to establish a connection with God is to activate your innocence. A know-it-all attitude—I know, I understand, I experience—robs you of your naiveté, even if your experiences are real. That great inner child is divinity’s best hook, because God is the most innocent of all.
Many people cannot even imagine how innocent we human beings can be. Our essence is so pure that I still struggle to understand how easily we lose it.
Divine ignorance
We are all ignorant, because our Being was created in the image of the Father, who is Consciousness and Spirit in their purest form. The only direct knowledge the Being can acquire in the universe is that of its own Consciousness. There comes a time when ideas and concepts are pure ignorance compared to lived experience. We cannot boast of knowing everything when in truth we know nothing.
Do not take this divine ignorance as an intellectual limitation: in the end, the mind is just a tool. Matters of the spirit are best lived from ignorance. The only way to learn is by living your own experiences, not through others. When you are truly in a devotional process, you understand how little you know about everything. And you are not unprotected: if you enter this process with innocence, your essence is protected by God, who does know everything.
Do not insist on owning a piece of knowledge because a master taught it to you, because you had beautiful experiences, or because it has to do with your culture or your way of thinking. You will have to let go of it all. Those ideas are not even yours; they are borrowed from others. But once you accept that you know nothing at all, your divine ignorance connects you to the wisdom of the heart, which is neither rational nor literal.
Those who have not awakened keep roaming around in their heads, because that is where they have full access to their identity. Those who have awakened dwell in their hearts, in unity with life, with the Universe and with God. That state of grace comes when you feel divine ignorance: when you finally accept your lack of knowledge and realize that the one who claimed to know was an invention of the mind. Divine ignorance brings you peace.
Empty yourself
My recommendation to you is this: accept that you know nothing at all. Surrender all concepts, beliefs and dilemmas. What could you see in a light so incandescent that it no longer lets you see a beginning or an end?
There is nothing to learn. Do not fill yourself with more concepts and beliefs. Clear yourself out, empty yourself, be innocent, and so the Father will carry you in His arms to guide you.
From Dr. Zuluan Orion's books: Illumination · El refugio del corazón · Deshojando el Corazón de la Eternidad