Knowledge of water quenches no thirst. Drinking the water does.
Knowledge is what you gather. It is a collection of information and an armor in its shadows. Like two sides to a coin, too much knowledge will leave you contradicted and torn, with your mind in an overdrive. Where is knowledge coming from? From others! When you rely too much on secondhand experiences, you become a secondhand human being.
I heard a wise monk once say "If you want to get away from poetry, do a PhD in it." There's a lot to unpack in that paradox. Essentially what the mind is constantly craving is validation for its fears. Mind is continually seeking knowledge, and suffering more in imagination than in reality. Fear is what the self-help industry of our times feeds on, and the reductive advice is fast food of healing which makes you unhealthy but keeps you coming back. It's like planting seeds and expecting flowers to grow the next day without tending to the garden.
Wisdom is a hiccup, catching you off guard. If you are aware, you can catch it back. You notice what it does to your body and your mind. It comes from within on its own but through mind-body connections. Simply put, testing what you know gives you the wisdom of self-knowledge. Wisdom is the path to becoming a firsthand human being. A Zen Master stating "I don't know what happens after death because I am not yet dead" holds timeless wisdom for our contemporary troubles. Hence, your insight and wisdom are validated by your body. You must physically put yourself through enough situations to realize that wisdom beats knowledge and if you aren't wise enough, no amount of borrowed knowledge will make up for that. Our bodies are more intelligent than our minds. They hold evolutionary wisdom. Cultivating wisdom is the outcome of practicing life in awareness, like tending to the garden so flowers start to grow.
Realization is a change at a fundamental level; a revolution. Realizations build your core through Mind - Body - Soul connection. Your deep psyche, your subconscious, and your unconscious are what you never truly escape. You can't be saved from yourself by borrowed knowledge or empty wisdom. It's quite befitting to say "No man steps in the same river twice, he's not the same man, it's not the same river." Agility in bending and being open to not clinging to your dated wisdom puts you on the real test of uncertainty. And that makes the unconscious - conscious. Becoming friends with paradoxes will make it easier to accept the truth. A true realization is a jolt to your whole being, a confrontation with an invisible force deep within you. Only what your body carries as its memory becomes a true realization. A realization can show in the form of disease or dysfunction. A realization can also show in the joyful ways you flow through life; Transcendence and Bliss. Awareness of our realizations creates a foundation for agility through different phases of life. Time and again different realizations will arrive from within you and for a "know-it-all," there's no saving from the inevitable.
Take care of the weeds, tend to the gardens, and plant the seeds so the flowers can thrive. And watch for the spontaneous wilderness finding its way that you didn't know was buried within.
