This is part 5 of a 6-part series that looks at the main steps in inner work exercises, explains why each is important and provides some tips for increasing one’s skills with each step.
In the 1970s TV series, Kung Fu, the central character Kwai Chang flashes back to the wise Master Po, a blind Shaolin monk, who teaches him about being aware of the world around him, including noticing the grasshopper at his feet. Thereafter, Master Po calls his student Grasshopper.
Most inner work will help you with recognizing wisdom or an important suggestion by taking a new perspective or allowing yourself to use abilities that you cannot yet see in yourself. Once you have become aware of the quality or figure your inner work has led you to, if you can sink deeply into your most sentient or lucid awareness, you may become aware of a wise message, important feeling state, or special point of view or tendency that feels congruent and organic with this figure.
Inner work processes often culminate with an essential quality that provides a new or transformative perspective. Looking and listening from within this point of view or state of mind helps you to notice what you could not be see or hear previously. This an important step because it is where you connect the learning available from your process to the problem or question you noted at the outset of the exercise. Receiving this wisdom can be effortless if you use your awareness.
Here are some tips to recognize wisdom:
- Your figure will speak in its own language and style, perhaps as a song, poem or prayer. Allow yourself to record the message exactly as it comes to you.
- If you have lost touch with the figure, go back to the last moment when you felt the energy of the figure and take as much time as you need to become the figure fully.
- See the world thru your figure’s eyes, feel what they feel, hear what they hear, notice their state of mind, and then you may be recognizing wisdom that this figure brings.