Brilliance Is Not A Surface Quality - Grasshopper

Our brilliance may show on the surface but its origin is much deeper.

This message isn't addressed to the brilliance that's associated with smart people, although it applies to them as well. Brilliance in this context is our overall ability to shine.

 

Smart and not so smart people have the ability to shine. Shining is the ability to let what's deep in you shine through. We all have brilliance as our base but grime occludes it.

 

But just polishing our surface doesn't guarantee that our brilliance will shine completely through. We have to get the deeper diffusers of our light source out of the way. They sit just below the surface and are known as our habit patterns.

 

Most of our habits act as a buffer between our deep natural brilliance and what shows on the surface. Some habits diffuse our inner light even more. As an example, let's go back to smart people for a moment . . .

 

Here's a generalization I've noticed in many highly intelligent people I've encountered: They think that what they think is all that there is. That thought pattern often keeps them from shining as brilliantly as they're capable of.

 

Yes, their brilliance is on display when they expound on that which they know, but it often goes behind a cloud when it comes to solving the challenges of every day life. Those answers aren't available in books or in their thinking.

 

Back to the rest of us . . . our brilliance can be brighter too. We just have to temporarily remove ourselves from the every day world of ado.

 

We do that by visiting the world beneath our surface: the source of all our brilliance.

 

It's here that the uber educated and uninformed alike bathe in their natural light. A prerequisite to getting to this place is to quiet our thoughts. Thinking, no matter how brilliant, will never take you here. It's the absence of thought that is our passport.

 

Find a mind quieting practice that works for you and make it a daily practice. Each time you go beneath the surface, you gather cleanser for the trip back to the surface and the muck of habitual occlusion gets washed away. It's a way to get brilliance to shine through to the life we lead every day.

 

Bottom line: I think even smart people will agree that going below the surface is a brilliant idea.

 

All the best,

John