The term, "undigested knowledge" leapt off the page recently as I read "The Autobiography of a Yogi" by Paramahansa Yogananda, as he quoted his guru, Sri Yukteswar: "Do not confuse understanding with a larger vocabulary," he remarked. "Sacred writings are beneficial in stimulating desire for inward realization, if one stanza at a time is slowly assimilated. Otherwise, continual intellectual study may result in vanity, false satisfaction, and undigested knowledge."

It left me wondering what knowledge becomes once it is digested and what exactly is the process of digesting knowledge? Here's what I've come up with. Knowledge once digested becomes wisdom, and the process of digesting takes the raw food of knowledge and converts it to wisdom. This appears to me to be a combination of inner reflection and outer application to life.

I think one can map this pretty well to a favorite coaching formula that I learned from my first coach, Judy:

Insight + Action = True Growth and Development

Knowledge is the insight, the raw material of reading spiritual material, or listening to a conversation, or simply sitting and wondering about life. The digestive process that turns the knowledge into wisdom is integrating the insight into your life through action and application. This is also where you test the waters to see if the insight is actually true, as in useful, valuable, and practical. Now, lest I be misunderstood around this last point, what do I mean by the word, "practical?" Here's my simple test for what is practical. Does the knowledge enhance life? Not just the life of the person doing the digesting but hopefully and ideally in some way also enhancing life as a whole, even if only on a small scale.

So an insight that is practical may or may not be measurable at the 'bottom line' that we so often get caught up with and use as our yard stick, especially in our Western world. It may not make us financially richer, provide us with more possessions or make us sexier, and it can still be quite practical in that our lives are holistically made richer and more rewarding.

This is what I came up with as I digested Yogananda's writings. How about you? What insight might you glean from this purposeful pondering? I'd love to hear from you. REALLY -- I would.

2005 Brad Swift of Life On Purpose Institute, Inc. This article can be reprinted freely online, as long as the entire article and this resource box are included.