Do you know what you know?

How often does it happen that  you ask someone for advice, they give you the best that they can and your response is 'I know'?

If you knew why were you asking?

We know a lot but do we actually know it? 

There are 3 stages of knowing. In Hebrew they are called chachma, bina and daas.

Chachma is the moment of inspiration, you cant explain it yet its still not clear in your head and you need to clarify it still, but you know it. its the light bulb moment. 

Bina is when you know it well enough to teach it to someone else, you have the words to express it and you understand it enough to explain it to someone else. 

Daas is when the knowing translates to feelings and action. You have an emotional response to this piece of knowledge. 

How do you bring something down from to daas, something that you know in theory 'a nice thought' down to the level where it effects changes for you in the realm of action and feelings.

You meditate on it.

Meditating is not as scary as it sounds, in fact we do it all the time.

Meditating is the power of concentration. Focusing on a thought.

Have you ever let your mind wonder and you remember the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you in your life as you think about it you start to feel that warm wash of embarrassment overcoming you once again. you are not in that place, or in that time, the event is not happening all over again in the present other than in your own mind, yet you are able to bring up the exact same feelings that you did at the time as if its happening again right now at this very moment.

Same with thinking about the things you are scared of, lets say you are afraid of spiders, if you start to think about them, the big ones with long skinny legs that run so fast... you start feeling the fear, your body responds as if its right here in front of you, though its not.

That is the power of mediation and we do it all the time.

We can choose what we mediate on, we can change channels in our head, we can choose to think about the deep truths of the universe. That we are deeply loved by Gd. That he is with us always. He intimately knows us. He is the source of empathy, compassion and all love. He is validation itself. 

When we change our thinking we actually change our feelings, our actions and the ripple effect is that it changes our reality.

(Based on chapter 3 Tanya)