to know or not to know.

The way I grew up, and generally most people who grew up with a Western mindset, is to believe that knowing amounts to acknowledging something in my brain. 

Knowing god, meant knowing things about god, although it was rarely explicitly said that way. 

In the East, from what I have learned, knowing amounts to experiencing something. 

So knowing god, means experiencing god. 

Who knew that the definition of what it means to “know” can change everything? 

Jean-Pierre de Caussade goes so far to say that some forms of knowledge, not only don’t mean very much but they make real knowledge even worse. 

When one is thirsty one quenches one’s thirst by drinking, not by reading books which treat of this condition. The desire to know does but increase this thirst.

I think we generally know this. If you want to know how to ski, you don’t read books about skiing. If you want to know how to write, you don’t read books about writing.

If you want to know God, you don’t read books about God? 

When one is thirsty one quenches one’s thirst by drinking, not by reading books which treat of this condition. The desire to know does but increase this thirst.

If one wants to know god, reading books about god, like the Bible, might be the worst way to do that... and only leave the reader more thirsty for something “real” (an experience).

Or going to seminary to gain a bunch of head knowledge, has the possibility of really pushing someone back from actually gaining the kind of knowledge that matters. (My dad, who went to seminary, calls this cementary, and the cement is not a good thing.)

If we bring the varying concepts of god into the definition of “know”, we get a whole bunch of really interesting things to think about what people might be referring to when they say that someone needs to “know god”. 

It could mean that someone should acknowledge a bunch of information in their brain that doesn’t really amount to much and actually might be preventing them from real knowledge or it could mean they should experience “the metaphor of the mystery that transcends all categories of human thought including being and non-being” to paraphrase Joseph Campbell. 

And, of course, a whole host of other things. 

God, as I define God, seemed pretty intent on constantly trying to remind humans that a knowledge of God is not nearly as powerful as an awareness of God because awareness of something is that different kind of knowledge that leads to experience.