From the barren land comes universal Wisdom

Your roots were set in barren land

Your existence was set in the heavens was unexpected 

You stood alone and brave

Your body was green with life

You first appeared in a dream

And took your time to appear in this life

You came out through the barren land
Your soul already filled with wisdom

And you presence brings hope to our lives

~ Nil

This is the story of Wisdom. Wisdom in Sanskrit is the word Prajñā.

It also means understanding, discernment or cognitive acuity.

Such wisdom is understood to exist in the universal flux of being and can be intuitively experienced through meditation.

In some sects of Buddhism, it is especially the wisdom that is based on the direct realization of such things as the four noble truths, impermanence, interdependent origination, non-self and emptiness.

Prajñā is the wisdom that is able to extinguish afflictions and bring about enlightenment.

This is the story of Wisdom and her existence in the world.

Wisdom is the daughter of my dear friends.

When she was 3 years old and cuddling with her mom, she tapped the mom between her brows and told her that she should think, feel and hear from this spot. She had tapped her mom's third eye.

On the third year of marriage, my friend's husband had a dream where Goddess Saraswathi placed a baby girl in their arms and said, "This is Wisdom, I am giving her to you. She is part of me." You see, Goddess Saraswathi is the Goddess of Wisdom.

This was after 3 miscarriages and the doctor had told her, "Sorry Madam, you are barren, you have no eggs."

My friend had accepted that she would not get pregnant, and did not pray for a child nor question God about it.

She had accepted the doctors words and moved on and got the first of her German shepherds.

But after three years of marriage, a few days after the wonderful dream, the home pregnancy kit confirmed that she was pregnant with Wisdom.

Wisdom was due before Christmas but took her time and did not want to come out just yet. Wisdom likes to take her own time.

However, she was not moving much and felt heavy and uncomfortable and on New Year's Eve, just before the fireworks to bring in the new year, Wisdom has to be taken out as the amniotic fluid in the body was already very low.

She came out flatline. There was no lusty cry, the doctor had to get her heart working. Her Apgar was 5 and a repeat a few minutes later showed the same. The mother heard the nurse say "Doctor, Apgar still only 5".

The Apgar score was devised in 1952 by Dr. Virginia Apgar as a simple and repeatable method to quickly and summarily assess the health of newborn children immediately after birth. Apgar was an anesthesiologist who developed the score in order to ascertain the effects of obstetric anesthesia on babies. The Apgar score is determined by evaluating the newborn baby on five simple criteria on a scale from zero to two, then summing up the five values thus obtained. The resulting Apgar score ranges from zero to 10. The five criteria are summarized using words chosen to form a acronym (Appearance,Pulse,Grimace, Activity, Respiration. Scores 3 and below are generally regarded as critically low, 4 to 6 fairly low, and 7 to 10 generally normal. (Source: Wikipedia)

There were whisperings among the staff nurse, and team of doctors which were called into the labour room, whisperings which the mother could hear and the words "brain damage".

The nurse gingerly placed Wisdom in the mother's arms as if she was unwanted. The mother was bewildered - what happened to everything in the space of 8 hours?

But when she looked down at Wisdom, she saw her gift from God and she told God, "Thank you for this gift for you have given me a part of You." She thanked God for trusting her to love His gift.

I have not had the privilege of meeting Wisdom but I have had the honor and privilege of being friends with both her parents. As her mom puts it, "Wisdom is whole, she is perfect. She is not brain damaged. She likes to take her time but this world neither respects nor have patience for beings who savour time."

Wisdom has already imparted so much wisdom to her parents, she has even taught them about God.

Knowing about the third eye at age three as mentioned above.

At age six, when a medium sized rat was caught in a trap in the kitchen at home, Wisdom "advised" her mom to tell the mouse that they loved it and that were sorry they had to kill it and that they bless its soul to find happiness in death.

Wisdom said they should not let the mouse die in fear but that it should know that it was loved.

I'm sorry, please forgive me, I love you and I thank you.

What wisdom, a child of God truly.

When Wisdom was age 8 plus, the mother was going through a spiritual crisis and had a to walk away from a guru that she had been with for 10 years, and was grappling with thoughts on God for a year.

Wisdom said to her mother, "Mom, you can read about the guru in books, you can hear the guru's talks from all the various swamis that come and go from India, but until you realise that the Eternal Guru is in you, you will never know God."

At less than 9 years old, I was in standard 2 playing marbles in the school yard and reading Asterix and Tintin comics. Here is Wisdom with profound knowledge, universal wisdom,

Wisdom is now 11 years old, and as her mom puts it, she is a tween and a tantrum waiting to happen.

"Will she score all A's for her upcoming exams? Probably not. But it doesn't matter," the mom ends in her email.

And she is absolutely right, all the A's in exams do not truly matter, what matters is love, what matters is forgiveness, what matters is wisdom - all fine qualities in life.

I am grateful for my friend sharing this story of her daughter with me and allowing me for sharing this story with all of you.

Take care and be well.