Blood & Ink: Sacred Knowledge

The Hopi, a Native American tribe, have a term called ‘sacred knowledge’…

It is knowledge that comes with responsibility.

It’s a package deal. Gain the knowledge, get the associated responsibility.

Humour me for a moment, as we explore a metaphysical implication of this.

The flipside could be: Be careful what you learn, because if you don’t act on it properly (responsibility), you will suffer greatly.

There’s something profound in this.

Because while many of you—and certainly myself—view gaining knowledge as a good thing, you lose one essential thing every time you learn something new: the excuse of ignorance.

You lose the get-out-of-jail-free card of saying “Ahh I didn’t realize I had to do that,” or “Oh, I wasn’t sure I wanted that anyways.”

Without the ignorance card, it is simply your fault. And you know it.

As much as we may hope, you simply cannot lie to yourself.

The pain of not doing something you know you should have, or wanted to, can far exceed the momentary discomfort of making an ‘innocent mistake’ because you didn’t know better.

Over the long run, it’s easier to do the thing.

You can’t run away from it. Knowledge is a Pandora’s box, once it’s opened, it’s open.

Rob Burbea in his fantastic work on ‘Soulmaking Dharma’ extends this as far as anything that enters your imagination, you have a responsibility to steward.

Things arise in your consciousness, sparks of inspiration, a calling toward a path, a momentary epiphany, because they are YOURS to work with. Even a dream can be considered a form of ‘new knowledge’.

And you don’t act on that at your peril.

Do the best you can until you know better. Once you know better, do better.

The temporal distance between the idea and your action is the suffering you will incur.

Knowledge and responsibility. Knowledge and response-ability.

This is Sacred Knowledge.

Let’s act on it,
EB.