Two ways of being curious

I am so thrilled I can hardly stand it! All morning as I contemplated this posting I have been thinking, 'I wonder if two images can be put on the page?' By golly, they can! This is one

of the lovely gifts available when we use our capacity for being curious to wonder about possibility; if you allow wondering to work it's magic, i.e., if you remain open in a desire to expand understanding, voila. somehow a new little window appears! Or maybe the window was there all along and the curtain opened, either way a bit of new goodness has been seen.

The reason I wanted two images today is because I knew I was going to use the empty box to illustrate the concept of impertinent curiosity and I kept wishing that the image from yesterday illustrating the positive aspects of being curious: awakening, ability to understand how you are perceiving and then to then have the capacity to increase understanding and discover hidden truths, sit right next to it.

Yesterday we discussed the human capacity for being curious which is an eager desire to learn. Until I began pulling the word curiosity apart I had not consciously (you'll see later why I choose to say 'consciously') really considered that there could be a difference between curious and curiosity. But there is a difference from the aspect that when you add the suffix "ity" what happens to the word is the suffix signifies that the meaning will be defined by the quality or characteristics that come into play when being curious. When I discovered this little fact, I began to wonder what the qualities of being curious could be. This new and big wondering sent me to my 20 pound dictionary where I learned that the word curiosity was defined as an eager desire to know. Curious without it's 'ity' tail retained the use of the word 'learn' in its definition. So here we we have two different kinds of eager desire.

One kind of eager desire is for awareness, understanding and insight: accumulating knowledge {to learn} and the other type of eager desire was to pry, meddle and intrude {to know} - it was from the 20 pound dictionary I learned the term impertinent curiosity which was in the dictionary's definition for when the activities of prying, meddling and intruding are used when being curious in a desire to know rather than to learn.

This is fascinating, I thought, because this way of looking at curiosity also indicates a difference of quality between to know and knowledge. Which is actually quite true I just hadn't thought much about the differences. To know something is actually simply accumulating facts: bits of information about. To have knowledge however is much closer to acquiring wisdom as knowledge indicates that 'information' has been combined with how to use the information and then those two factors have been combined with your experiences, personality gifts and abilities. The experience of acquiring knowledge which demands the use of being curious will always expand the self. Seeking simply to 'know' does not expand anything because the bit of information just sits without really being 'used': you can stick it in an empty box and it will just help fill the box, it will not expand anything. Somehow, life always seems to come down to willingness to work: acquiring bits of information does not require work, acquiring knowledge does require work.

Possibly one reason the bits of information are just sitting in the box rather than expanding as in the mandala is that the 'information' acquired through inquisitiveness may actually be none of your business. Inquisitiveness which is the condition of inquiring or asking is the distinguishing "ity" - the quality used when being curious and therefore inquiring into or asking about.

After drawing the word pictures I create when I'm dissecting a word and seeing with clarity the differences in the quality of curious and the differences between 'knowing' and 'knowledge' I swear to you what I heard was my mother's voice in my head - the voice used when speaking to an impertinent child (which would have been me) "are you asking for your edification or are you just being nosey?!" And yes, my mother really did use the word edification. It is no accident that I love words so much since I often needed to grab a dictionary after listening to Mom in order to discover exactly what she meant. And that question from her (which I heard more than once in my life) meant are you seeking this information for your own improvement, enlightenment and guidance or are you trying to appear superior by meddling where your attention does not belong? Clearly when she asked me that question it was to point me toward the fact that I was probably prying, meddling, intruding or attempting to cast myself in a superior light rather than paying attention to what I needed to pay attention to.

My mother firmly believed that raising a child was all about creating the foundation for an adult who would function in the world responsibly. Most likely it was this belief which guided her life as mother to ten children, that demanded she both ask such questions and as well as possibly why she used the word 'edification.' My mother would have been fully aware I would need to look up the meaning and fully aware that by needing to do this I would be forced to think about what she said. She was not always an easy woman to be around but she was one heck of a woman and parent. Her questions to me as I grew up taught me that being an adult meant I was responsible for a 'continual learning' program in life that would guide me into new learning: enlightenment.

Enlightenment is often seen as a 'final' attainment by great saints or sages who have spent their lives seeking ultimate truths. In reality enlightenment is exactly what happened to me this morning when I was curious and wondered if two images could be added to the posting and so I used being curious to investigate and voila a curtain over a window in my mind parted and there was a little more light available for me to use. When we use our human capacity for being curious in order to seek greater awareness of what we know, deeper understanding and clarity of insight we are able to add layer upon layer of light to our life and become enlightened.

Last Sunday I wrote about the sunflower as being symbolic of what we as persons are here on earth to do: gather light and then impart the light. When we use our ability to be curious as a means to expanding our self in understanding, then we are gathering light and light by it's nature desires to radiate outward and be shared. And this is the difference in quality of inquisitiveness illustrated by the two images at the top of this page: are you using being curious; is your inquisitiveness to simply fill an empty box with bits of information or are you gathering knowledge in order to expand your capacity for wisdom to greater clarity and depth as seen in the green mandala? One action has the capacity to participate in what enlightenment does: help to repair the world.