This book provides openings to “seeing the world anew.” It presents 24 patterns of wisdom that map the road to finding out who you are, why you are here and where you are going. These patterns are visual diagrams of consciousness, illustrations that offer insight about where you are on your human journey and how one stage of experience grows into the others. This sequence of drawings helps free you from any single phase of development. It opens the way to engaging natural tides of change with greater happiness, peace and creativity.
The patterns of wisdom presented here provide essential understanding for navigating the world. To find our way takes all sorts of knowledge. We need varied and specific skills to make money, engage in a relationship, parent a child, cook a meal, write a poem and do the thousand other things that make a life. Through every pursuit, patterns of wisdom help us see what is happening and help us comprehend our connections to our surroundings. In contrast, lack of knowledge contracts us in fear and overwhelms us with confusion. When that happens, all the information in the universe cannot make things better. When we understand patterns of wisdom we feel expanded, peaceful and clear. We are more energized, imaginative and loving.
People throughout time have enhanced their knowledge by sensing the patterns that influence their thoughts and actions. When we understand this wisdom about the workings of life, we are better prepared to deal with each situation that arises. We can see what to avoid, what to embrace and when to remain neutral. Reference points can be found for steering a course through upheavals and down times. If we do not understand the patterns of wisdom shaping ourselves and the world, we become victims of circumstance. We can miss what is happening right in front of us and overlook clues about what is coming our way. Our actions can become mechanical, have limited effect and restrict our satisfaction.
24 Patterns of Wisdom provides tools for finding harmony in conflict, clarity in confusion, and comfort in chaos. By understanding the map of how wisdom transforms our lives, we discover what transforms the world. In random events, we can discern coherent sequences of development. As we are bombarded by swiftly changing information, we can find stability. In the radical reshuffling of society occurring in this century, we can be better prepared to maintain our true natures and stay connected to our authentic purposes.
The patterns of wisdom presented here are not rules for action or ideals for living. Instead, these visual diagrams of knowledge depict the unseen currents shaping who we are, what we do and where we go. Learning how to detect these patterns of wisdom alerts us to unconscious habits that can undermine us and put us in conflict with life. Having greater awareness of our autopilot actions allows us to be less dominated by worn out and rigid ways of thinking. It offers us greater freedom to choose how we want to live. Recognizing the wisdom in these diagrams improves our ability to see through surface appearances to the core of what shapes our lives. It opens the way to perceiving the wellsprings of inspiration at the heart of each situation.
The diagrams of wisdom on the following pages distill knowledge for living that has been developed through centuries of experience. Symbols and stories providing insights about the human journey are at the heart of every spiritual path, scientific discovery, psychological realization and artistic creation. Sacred teachings portray these revelations through the lives of Buddha, Christ and other sages. They depict them with images of the Wheel of Dharma, the Cross, the Star of David and other revered icons. Science describes this knowledge through formulas for gravity, the speed of light and the other forces structuring the universe. Psychologists convey this wisdom through archetypes of personal growth. Artists express this understanding through forms and colors that ignite vitality and inspire awe.
24 Patterns of Wisdom conveys this timeless knowledge in a unique way. It traces the path of growing wisdom through a new sequence of symbols. Each symbol depicts a stage in the process of gaining knowledge without referring to a particular religion or philosophy. Instead, this series of images depicts how our daily experience travels from the limits of the physical world to the freedom of consciousness shimmering through every detail of living.
The symbols illustrated here are archetypes of human experience. Archetypes are like the bones that give our bodies structure. They are essential, but unseen. Archetypes are the organizing principles that support and guide our emotions, actions and achievements. They are patterns that we fill with real-life experiences. Archetypes of life stages such as birth and death, are filled with the real-life experiences of our specific births and deaths. The archetypal roles of the Child, the Mother and the Hero are filled in with the details of our personal childhoods, our specific mothers and the particular heroic acts we encounter on our way. The archetypes of wisdom presented in this book describe essential patterns of experience such as the Circle of the Senses, the Primal Wound, the Belief Grid and Flowering.
Archetypes hover below the surface of every thought, word and action. We do not acquire them the way we acquire the knowledge of driving a car. Like the knowledge of breathing, the wisdom of archetypes is already guiding our lives. Yet, we can be unaware of the archetypes motivating and shaping us. To benefit from their guidance, we must learn to see and feel them. When we can directly experience these archetypes of wisdom and live in harmony with them, we can access the fullness and vitality of life.
Archetypes are not passive structures. They are vital links to the subtle, luminous forces that power our thoughts and gestures. These links are found at the overlaps between matter and energy, the interfaces where energy sparks matter alive. In this sense, archetypes are forms of potential, the readiness for action and achievement. Because archetypes already exist and are always behind everything we do, they are indestructible. Connection with them opens our lives to experience what is beyond change.
By learning to perceive archetypes, we learn the pathways through which consciousness is expressed in us and in our surroundings. Carl Jung, who developed the concept of psychological archetypes, said that whether we understand them or not, we must remain conscious of their influence. Archetypes are vital parts of nature and, therefore, connect us to our roots in the world. If we are cut off from these primordial images of existence, we are cut off from the profound richness of life.
By exploring archetypal wisdom, we not only enhance our personal journeys, we also connect to the rest of humanity. Joseph Campbell beautifully describes this experience in relation to the archetype of the Labyrinth: “Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.”
24 Patterns of Wisdom provides visual symbols you can use each day to guide and support your unique passage through the world. As you navigate the winding trail of day-to-day challenges, you can bring these images to mind as you would recall inspiring sayings and quotations to strengthen you with uplifting insights and motivating knowledge. By doing so, these 24 symbols become allies for making every step of your way a homecoming to the harmony, joy and abundance of your luminous nature.
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24 PATTERNS OF WISDOM
Print edition
available in November 2011
