Last Line of Serenity Prayer

 ...and the wisdom to know the difference. 

Last line of Serenity prayer

Hmmm! What does this last line of the serenityy prayer have to do with our lives?

Wisdom

What is 'wisdom' and why are we asking for it anyway?

Wisdom, is not determined by how well we score on  intelligence tests , nor is it based on how many years of education we have, or the  amount of conceptual knowledge we have stored in our brains.  It is not about  how quickly and effeciently  we can use these minds of ours, either. Wisdom does not come from thinking.  It comes from accessing that place beyond thinking.  

A wise person, then,  is a person who has tapped into the inexplicable realm of spacious truth within themselves. When we ask for wisdom in this prayer, we are asking for answers from the One Mind...not ego's version of truth that comes from the activity of the little mind. We as little clumps of flesh and individual minds cannot know this on the superfical level. When we seek wisdom we are seeking to  tap into spacious truth where the solutions to all our problesm lie. There is a spiritual solution for every problem. That is wisdom

To Know

To know something from this place of wisdom isn't based on an idea of knowledge.  It isn't conceptual at all.  It can not be reduced to words or explanations...thoughts or ideas.  It is experienced.  Knowing is experiencing something beyond the thought of what that something may be. You may have  a graduate degree from  Oxford, read every book there is to read...but you may 'know' nothing.  If it isn't expereinced, felt, remembered as truth...it isn't true knowledge. 

I can look at a tree and know on the conceptual level that  it is a tree.  I may have learned about the species of that tree, how it grows and bears fruit.  I may have studied in great detail about the molecular structure of that tree...but do I know the tree?  No...I just collected concepts and ideas about the tree.  To know the tree  is to expereince the tree without the need for words, labels, concepts.  To know the tree is to go beyond what is stored in the mind about the tree to the tree. It is to go beyond the perceptions and intrepretations, judgements and assumptions we make about something to the "essence". 

To know is to see beyond the information the five senses provide us, beyond what the mind does with that intrepretation to experiencing Truth. 

Difference

As soon as we speak of "difference" we are spekaing to this idea of duality...one way or the other.  The serenity prayer keeps us in duality while it guides us to the infinite space of "Truth" where there is no duality.  

When we speak of the difference between what we can control and what we cannot...we are speaking about the difference between what is real and what isn't, Life's plan for us and egos, what is eternal and never changing and what is temporary and forever changing.   We are asking that we 'know', 'feel' experience   the difference between what is valuable and valuless so we do not waste our effort on the superficial plane of existence doing things that do not take us to our true goal...Self. 

Self is serenity!

Putting it all together

So we pray to a higher power and we ask that higher power to guide us deeper into Self so we can see clearly that which is important and that which isn't...that which is God's plan for us and that which is ego's. 

We ask for the ability to accept, allow and  surrender to God's plan .  We ask for the willingness to walk through fear to do our part in that journey...if it is something we can effectively change...it is our part.  And finally we ask for the true clarity that comes from the deeper "I", the higher Self so we can determine the difference between the "human" part of our mission here ( the doing)  and the spiritual part which is our "being" in this life as human beings.  

"What can and  is the human part of me to do until I completely realize Self?  And what do I leave to the higher demension where I simply am? Please show me. "

Hmmm!  All is well in my world.