Where is Wisdom to be found?

I believe I remember when it was, and from whom, that I first began learning that Wisdom may be found virtually anywhere one might choose to look.  I think I correctly owe thanks for my 1980-ish encounter with this lesson to Richard Bach, although precisely in which of his many books is not so clearly still in memory - my guess is that it was in "Illusions - the Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah".

The "secret" of this lesson is that where one happens to look pales in comparison to how the search for wisdom is pursued.  Which is to say, paraphrasing as faithfully as I can, that: holding a question firmly in mind, one can find answers by opening any book, newspaper or magazine - to any random page.  The "trick" (if you'd rather), then, is not in the choice of which particular printed matter one uses.  If one prefers an historically esteemed holy book, for instance, that's just fine.  But truly, any old thing will do just as well - when the question one seeks an answer to is held clearly in one's mind.

Have you ever had the experience of "discovering something new" in the second reading of a book, or watching a movie again?  Those things "missed" the first time around, I think, are one demonstration of this same Majik.  Your mind was merely in a different place, the first time.  The busiest lanes of mental traffic - then - were simply not the same ones as - now - when you've seen a film again.  And, as our mental activity fluxes and flows, so does our experience of the world around us also change.

I've seen reflections of this same truth about the power of our thought in scripture and commentary of both Buddhist and Christian teachings.  "As ye believe, so shall it be done to you" (Matthew 9:29); a teaching of Jeshua ben Jusef, which I grant, is primarily to do with Faith - which surely involves the Mind,as well as the Heart.  Buddha, also, said, "We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think", and, "We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world".

What got me started blogging, today, was the photo at right.  It depicts a child, among the poor who lived in London around 1900, as photographed by Horace Warner.  Because, I trust, my mind was appropriately focused, I immediately thought of Gautama Buddha.  With my eyes, that is, I see the poor London child, holding a stick, a cat at his side.  And interpreting it in my mind, I perceive a stern visage, the master's staff, and a right hand raised in the Tarjani Mudra, meaning: threat, or warning.  The extended index finger is pointed at the opponent - which is ignorance or delusion, and a traditional gesture in depictions representing the Awakened One teaching that the antidote is Mindfulness.