1 :: (Cultivating the Witness)
If we are to ‘become like God’, or rather become That in us which shares identity with God – the Atman – we must see the validity and sacredness for all things as they are. We must not turn our gaze away from that which we hate, fear, or find deeply disgusting or distasteful. It is in turning towards these things and recognising the necessity of their existence unflinchingly that we transmute aversion into divinity.
2:: (Cultivating the Witness)
“Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone” – Alan Watts
3 :: (Multiplicity (our “Symphony of Selves”)
If I know what to do, why don’t I do it? Because the “I” that knows what to do is not the same “I” that doesn’t do it. We are a multiplicity – until our parts befriend each other and become a unity. Then the I becomes one and is free to dissipate into the All.
4 :: Multiplicity (our “Symphony of Selves”)
Take deadly seriously that there is living inside your mind a world of smaller islands of consciousness – sub-minds: inner children, inner villains, inner heroes, frozen-off men and women. They are listening all the time. They await from you a message of compassion and reconciliation. This transformed me.
5 : (Philosophy)
The greatest gift of philosophy is the opportunity for the evolution of our consciousness, a process that is synonymous with the accumulation of the deep wisdom of which philosophy is the love, and which is known elsewhere, depending on one’s preferred language game, as enlightenment, nirvana, salvation, or liberation.
6 : (Philosophy)
To the extent that we buy into false philosophies, we will keep finding ourselves pulled towards states of discontent. Delusion tends to be unstable, unproductive, and unpleasant, whilst “The truth shall set ye free”, even where it may at first be hard to stomach.
7 :: (Money and the Rich)
The problem is the same with the rich and the evil. At a certain point, their being so rich or so evil makes the rest of us lose any sense that they are still a human being in pain, stuck inside a prison of their own making. Both need a genuine and compassionate hand reached out to them.
8 :: (Money and the Rich)
Money makes the world go round only because we (the world) let it push us. Why not fight back with something far stronger – like wisdom, or love?
9 :: (Physical Appearance)
It is hard not to be concerned with one’s physical appearance (and appearances in general) when we are so unaware that the real source of our value is far beyond the surface at the centre of existence.
10 :: (Physical Appearance)
We are anxious about our physical appearance in proportion to the amount of shame we hold attached to the belief that our value is dependent on what we look like. If we did not hold this belief, if we did not harbour this shame, we would feel simple. There is nothing mysterious about it – we just have never been taught that these things can be resolved – and resolved permanently – if only we learn how to get to the root of things and see what it is we have been unconsciously believing, and what feelings we have unknowingly been refusing to feel.
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