Journeying through the unknowable – what if life is not meant to be tamed?

image: Robin Schreiner | Unsplash

by Patricia Isley

Spiritual knowledge is readily accessible to each of us. We can Google it, read a self-help book, attend a seminar or meditate for clarity. But what if life is not meant to be tamed? The Unknowable is a paradox – a door without a key, an answer before there is even a question. It waits to support us in our journey toward a fulfilled life.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy". [Hamlet]

2013 was a big year for new questions. What if life is not meant to be tamed? What if my meditation practice, my daily affirmations, and my plan for manifesting are incomplete in attracting a peaceful, abundant and fulfilled existence? Am I left with only faith that, given enough time, all will be revealed? Or could it be that in every moment, energy from the elusive and wild ‘realm of the Unknowable’ is guiding my path toward enlightenment? After 40 years of practice, I have more questions than answers.

Known, unknown and unknowable

For readers unfamiliar with the terms ‘known,’ ‘unknown’ and ‘Unknowable,’ there are variations in interpretation. In my experience, only the known (articulated facts) and unknown (facts yet to be discovered) are the focus of most of our progress in spiritual education. The ‘Unknowable’ is just that – Unknowable. It remains sitting in the background, sometimes resistant to our steps and plans, and often uncooperative in the linear process of manifesting. We may be hungry and asking for bread, but it will bring us an unfamiliar food because that is what we need. We will be disappointed because we expected bread, and may be confused about the link between our desire and what has manifested. Unfortunately, gifts from the Unknowable rarely come with explanations. It is a subtle distinction that the Unknowable never becomes the known. It therefore requires a constant shedding of our personal and collective dogmas to open new doors of perception. We have been cycling through this process since life began.
The Unknowable is a constant but intangible companion on our path to enlightenment. Even to name it – God, Spirit, Universe, Source – reflects an attempt to tame it into human familiarity, taking it out of the realm from which it came. Simply put (and acknowledging the limitation of words), the Unknowable is the energy that makes perfect sense of life at the deepest level – a feeling, a flash of insight, a clarity of purpose. It is wild and it is conscious and it takes us on a journey that is a holographic representation of itself in all its dimensions. It is simultaneously a Zen pool and a raging tidal wave.

Managing our lives without ever touching the inner dimensions

After 40 years of exploration, three earned degrees (BS, MBA, PhD) and four decades of travelling and teaching, I have come to the realisation that we can get very good at managing our lives toward outward peace and security without ever touching the inner dimensions of ‘natural turmoil’. And for me, this insight was the beginning of a new process – ‘journeying through the Unknowable.’
In recent years, Deepak Chopra, Debbie Ford and Marianne Williamson have collaborated on alternative philosophies, delving more deeply into the shadow effect from wounding in childhood. I prefer to think of their concept of ‘shadow’ as an ‘echo from the Unknowable’ rather than to use a term that connotes something dark and fear-based that we project onto others so we can see it in ourselves. The continual practice of taming life through good intentions, good behaviour and forgiveness leads to love at the end of the journey, but are there other philosophies that do not fit so nicely onto a self-help bookshelf?

This complexity in growth is reflected in the myth of the goddess and innocent maiden Persephone, daughter of Zeus and Demeter, who is abducted by Hades and tricked into spending six months below as Queen of the Underworld and six months above. It is only her promise to live underground and return each Spring to live with her mother Demeter that inspires the sun to return and renew the Earth’s crops.

Our wound is our gift

Collingwood football star Harry O’Brien, author of It’s Cool to be Conscious, opened a similar dialogue at the Hay House Writer’s Workshop when he reminded us that our wound is our gift and the more we can open up that gift – the deeper we go into the wound – the more the light comes through.

Perhaps this is one way to open a door to an experience with the Unknowable – by going deeper into what we fear and do not understand, rather than finding ways to mitigate the pain of the known or quell anxiety from the uncertainty of the unknown. Perhaps we need to accept the Unknowable as it is, where it is, without the need to bring it into the realm of the known so we can name it and find ways to tame it as our servant. It is not likely to come when called.

In some cultures, ceremonial drugs have been used, as have mystical meditative practices, but methods that require too much self-directed action, decisions, steps, or preparation in an attempt to attract the Unknowable are also likely to obscure its messages.

Journeying through the Unknowable is a paradox – doors without keys and answers to questions that haven’t yet been asked or understood. In keeping with the call of this untamed but conscious resource, I propose four possible access points: serendipitous meetings with strangers, actions of the child ego state, the arts, and sex. This article describes one entry point – the wisdom of strangers – as a doorway to messages from the Unknowable.

We have become comfortable, perhaps even complacent, with gaining wisdom from talking with like-minded friends, reading self-help books and magazines, attending conferences, meditation groups, and practising our daily chosen dogma. We seek answers. We get answers. We act on answers. But what of the wisdom of strangers – people we have never met, who have no stake in our lives or decision-making, who spontaneously show us important, amazing things about ourselves, even before we can formulate the questions?

Without preparation or expectation

Many years ago, I attended a two-day seminar in Tampa, Florida, on becoming a better consultant. We were hosted at a five-star hotel with renowned speakers. I found the room confining (no windows) and the speakers boring. I couldn’t wait for it to end. On the last evening, my work group drove to a famous Cuban family restaurant in an historic part of town. At the end of the meal, I went to the restroom and came across an elderly African-American attendant who sat on a wooden chair by the sink and handed out towels and toiletries to the patrons. I said something as simple as hello, thank you, and how long have you worked here? She said she had worked there 50 years – at the same job! She said it was the best job because she could sit there and meet people from all over the world. I asked her if she had met anyone famous. She had. And then she told me about the night Marilyn Monroe walked into her little corner of the world wearing a white dress and spoke to her.

I still remember this shy, ageing black woman’s transformation – telling the story as if she were suddenly speaking as the regal queen of her own realm. I recall the love in her eyes as she spoke of this meeting with Queen Marilyn, the most beautiful woman she had ever seen – who had come all the way from her own realm in Hollywood to meet her. And I wondered if Marilyn felt the presence of this Sister Queen – the Queen of Joy and Peace, with her profound contentment to sit for five decades in a two-stall toilet, keeping postcard stories her patrons left in her regal care.

So why was this an echo, a message, from the realm of the Unknowable? This powerful event came without preparation or expectation. I had never used a restroom with an attendant and I certainly wasn’t looking for an answer there. And yet, I still remember the lesson, the feeling that I had been so bored with my cushioned existence in a five-star hotel seminar after only two days. And the wisdom of this stranger I had never met until that moment spoke loudly from the Unknowable about the joy and peace of existence. It was her gift bestowed on me.

More doorways to discover

I travel alone a great deal and speak often to people whenever they come into my circle. Perhaps this is how the Unknowable speaks to me. Through ‘the wisdom of strangers’ I often get answers before the questions are fully formed. Once formed, I have often resorted too quickly to meditating and asking for clarity. And, while that has worked well over the past 40 years, it seems that the results have been diminishing. Perhaps the wildness of life has caught up with me. I am like Persephone and need to travel back through the Underworld on my way to my own renewal.

There are other doorways to be explored and discussed. It is not easy to articulate something that is diluted as soon as it is reduced to words, but I do believe it is important to try. It is a work in progress, as I am.

– first published 1st January, 2014

About the author:
Dr Patricia Isley is a life-transition coach and author of The Wisdom of Strangers: Everyday Encounters with Spiritual Messengers. She specialises in harmonizing personal belief systems with the power of the Unknowable to navigate major changes in lifestyle and career.

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