Wisdom and Consciousness — A Direct Connect

I recently accompanied my sister to our neighborhood Veterinary Hospital in Kolkata. It was a public hospital and was crowded. And one pet parent just ahead of me was taking a very long time asking the same questions about his dog to the doctor. Over a very long time.

After a while, I snapped. I asked the doctor to please ask the individual to wait for all the patients to be done, and then come back with his questions. Of course, the other pet parent retorted, and there was an unpleasant scene.

I later found out that the puppy which the parent had an ongoing issue for months, and strong antibiotics were not working. In retrospect, I can now appreciate the situation better. Maybe I should have been more understanding, rather than just focussing on the delay issue.

I am sure this will happen with all of you. In the leadership course, we discussed it under “Paradigm Shift”.

If you recall, in the book “Seven Habits of Highly Successful People”, author Steven Covey recounts an encounter in the London Metro. He was two kids who were running a riot, disturbing everyone around, and the father was sitting idle, saying nothing.

At some point, Steven walks up to the father and asks him to control the kids. And father says — “they just lost their mother, we are coming back from the cremation. They don’t understand it yet, and I don’t know what to say”.

And Covey says that the moment his perspective completely changed — the paradigm shift happened. The context moved, and his mind was filled with empathy.

It is no secret that paradigm shift happens to people who are aware, that there is a need to revisit our past and think about what we could have done differently, and what can we learn from that. Ideally, we should have the sagacity to avoid the situation in the first place, but things are not always that easy.

I recently attended a discussion with a friend of mine, who works in the area of making people more aware and enabling them to change their fundamental constitution. Yatin Samant, my friend, laid out the stages of consciousness, which I liked.

1. Unconscious — when we just do things at an existential level

2. Aware during the event, but unaware of the response

3. Aware during the event but can’t calibrate (rather react)

4. Aware during the event and calibrate

5. Aware before the event

There is another strand that works with this, our evolution of the surroundings. And that to evolve in a staged manner:

1. Unaware (when our senses are stunted)

2. Absorption of data from the surroundings

3. Absorption of data to transform into information and learning

4. Information processed with knowledge, and critical + creative thinking to build wisdom

If we go back to the stages of consciousness, we will see a connection between that at the wisdom tree. At the highest level when we anticipate an event and control our emotions, we are also having wisdom.

There is no doubt that we all want to reach Level 5 of anticipation, and want to attain wisdom to do that. The question is, how do we do that?

Let me hear your thoughts.