The Gnostics call Wisdom “Sophia”. She is considered to be feminine. As such, she exhibits many feminine traits.
Wisdom is transparent and receptive to all impressions. Wisdom is like the canvas which receives a painter’s work. It does not judge, exclude or forbid whatever the painter may choose to create on it, but instead receives all in the understanding that the true gestalt, the accurate perception of what is and what may be (Being and Becoming) can only be apprehended by the inclusion of all disparate elements for the display of the final work.
Wisdom is passive, yet thoroughgoing. Wisdom does not jump here and there, like cleverness or cunning. Wisdom is not active or ambitious, like intellect or street-smarts.
Wisdom is innocent. One who may be wise occupies a state of essential innocence when Wisdom comes forth, like that of a child. This is not to suggest that Wisdom is naïve – the innocence of Wisdom includes a deep familiarity with the tendencies of the manifest world.
Wisdom is enamored of and flirts with those who look with fresh eyes and unconditioned minds. Wisdom is always original in essence. One may show development towards Wisdom by always looking anew and always attempting to describe in a new language or original thought. Wisdom can manifest through old terms and tongues, ossified names, constructs, and ideas, her delight and attraction is always drawn towards the effort to be original and new in one’s thought. Such expression may sound incomplete, stumbling, and inadequate even to the speaker – almost foolish – but Sophia is enraptured by the willingness of the seeker to be foolish for the sake of Wisdom.
Wisdom is the fruit of detachment. Wisdom arises from dispassion, from not being invested in particular outcomes. To cultivate dispassion or detachment, one needs to go into the core in openness and sensitivity.
A key element of all Wisdom is the capacity to observe. Observation is not limited to things, persons, or surface circumstances. It includes at other levels attention to and recognition of the recurring pattern and play of forces and movements, both possible and actual. It includes observation of tendencies and likelihoods, both personal and collective. It includes discernment of the purity and strength of motives and intensions. It includes noting of sensations and emotions, their duration or transience, and assignment of the proper degree of significance to them.
Wisdom shows a level of uncommittedness, a stately sovereignty that declines to be owned or manipulated. It is not a possession of the ego – instead, the individual is a possession of Wisdom.
Wisdom is ultimately impersonal and impartial. Wisdom cares not about appearances presented to it, reputations to be preserved, or egos to be placated or glorified. Wisdom is not a respecter of names or forms, but instead sees through names and forms to apprehend and discern according to the essence.
The paradox of Wisdom is that while she is always original in essence, she is also eternal and unchanging. Wisdom is not temporal. Wisdom is not flighty. What is once wise will always be wise.
Wisdom is like respiration – it comes forth, recedes. It lives and breathes. Intellect is merely mechanical. Knowledge is even more lifeless and dead. Only Wisdom is alive. Wisdom arises from silence and retreats into silence.
Glory be to Queen Wisdom – Sophia.
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