Knowing is everything. In fact, the Talmud says: “If knowing you have acquired, what are you lacking? If knowing you are lacking, what have you acquired? True poverty is only that of knowing.” So what is this knowing? The truth is, it’s not something that can be fully expressed in words. We try the best we can, but in the end, it’s so personal to the self that only you know its true meaning. Nevertheless, qualities of this inner experience include:
1. Awareness and sense of a Universal Intelligence guiding and directing the events in your life with purposeful intention.
2. Awareness and sense of your essence being something not of this world, despite being in the world.
3. Awareness and sensing the good and love that is embedded in the fabric of creation.
Knowing is the way in to God. Knowing is living with the clear notion that there is an all-powerful, loving, and personal God, a Creator Who is guiding, directing, and moving the world toward the highest good. Knowing is recognizing there is no chaos and nothing is random; there are no coincidences and no accidents. Your birthplace, your parents, your skills or lack thereof are all designed to help you achieve your unique purpose.
Meditate on this:
Everything emanates from the same Source. Life is unfolding from the One being that is Truth. There is a prayer that says: “Blessed is the One that spoke the world into being.” This is a reminder of Who is telling the story of life. When we go deeply into this, we remember the story is a good story. The story is a Godly story. There is a Divine need for everything that happens. Everything and everyone matters on a cosmic level because all that exists are cosmic matters of a Divine intelligence, of a higher order of thinking and seeing reality. The cosmos is not chaotic; actually, the word “cosmos” means order. A Divine order.
THERE ARE NO COINCIDENCES. NOTHING IS RANDOM.
Jacob Joseph of Polonne, known as the Toldos Yaakov Yosef, wrote the first Chassidic work ever published. As one of the Baal Shem Tov’s prime disciples, he would say: “I practice Hishtavus by seeing everything as being from God, and so it is of the highest good, the deepest love, and most sincere compassion. I put love, joy, and the infinitude of God in my mind whenever anything happens that seemingly stands against me.” Know that things are, in fact, working out. Things are going your way. Things are perfect and will only ever get better. Even when we descend, it is only for a higher ascent afterwards. We fall to rise. We bend our knees to jump even higher.
That which is real is that which never changes. That which never changes is the still and complete love within all of creation. When you lose your sense of connection to this stillness, you lose touch with who you are. When you lose touch with who you are, you start to get lost in the world. There are no accidents. There are no mistakes in the universe. Know this. God wants more for you than you could ever want for yourself.