Philosophy To Rewire Your Brain For Resilience

i believe that i am not responsible for the meaningfulness or meaninglessness of life but that i am responsible for what i do with the life i've got when someone is seeking said siddhartha it happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that he is seeking that he is unable to find anything unable to absorb anything because he is only thinking of the thing he is seeking because he has a goal because he is obsessed with his goal seeking means to have a goal but finding means to be free to be receptive to have no goal you a worthy one are perhaps indeed a seeker for in striving towards your goal you do not see many things that are under your nose [Music] i have always believed and i still believe that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value it may be important to great thinkers to examine the world to examine and despise it but i think it is only important to love the world not to despise it not for us to hate each other but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love admiration and respect most people i like a falling leaf that drifts and turns in the air flutters and falls to the ground but a few others are like stars which travel one defined path no wind reaches them they have within themselves their guide and path every man is more than just himself he also represents the unique the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world's phenomena intersect only once in this way and never again that is why every man's story is important eternal sacred that is why every man as long as he lives and fulfills the will of nature is wondrous and worthy of consideration in each individual the spirit has become flesh in each man the creation suffers within each one a redeemer is nailed to the cross learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest if you hate a person you hate something in him that is part of yourself what isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us to hold our tongues when everyone is gossiping to smile without hostility at people and institutions to compensate for the shortage of loving the world with more love in small private matters to be more faithful in our work to show greater patience to forego the cheap revenge obtainable from mockery and criticism all these are things we can do there is no reality except the one contained within us that is why so many people live such an unreal life they take the images outside of them for reality and never allow the world within to assert itself words do not express thoughts very well they always become a little different immediately after they are expressed a little distorted a little foolish what could i say to you that would be a value except that perhaps you seek too much that as a result of your seeking you cannot find i have been and still am a seeker but i have ceased to question stars and books i have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me some of us think holding on makes us strong but sometimes it is letting go i began to understand that suffering and disappointments and melancholy are there not to vex us or cheapen us or deprive us from our dignity but to mature and transfigure us wisdom cannot be imparted wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else knowledge can be communicated but not wisdom one can find it live it do wonders through it but one cannot communicate and teach it oh love isn't there to make us happy i believe it exists to show us how much we can endure those who are too lazy and comfortable to think for themselves and be their own judges obey laws others sense their own laws within them often it is the most deserving people who cannot help loving those who destroy them i learn through my body and soul that it was necessary to sin that i needed lust that i had to strive for property and experience nausea and the depths of despair in order to learn not to resist them in order to learn to love the world and no longer compare it with some kind of desired imaginary version of perfection but to leave it as it is to love it and be glad to belong to it each man had only one genuine vocation to find the way to himself his task was to discover his own destiny not an arbitrary one and to live it out wholly and resolutely within himself everything else was only a would-be existence an attempt to division a flight back to the ideals of the masses conformity and fear of one's own inwardness it is not for me to judge another man's life i must judge i must choose i must spurn purely for myself for myself alone we are sun and moon dear friend we are sea and land it is not our purpose to become each other it is to recognize each other to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is each the other's opposite and compliment youth ends when egotism does maturity begins when one lives for others whoever wants music instead of noise joy instead of pleasure soul instead of gold creative work instead of business passion instead of foolery finds no home in this trivial world of ours trees have always been the most penetrating preachers i revere them when they live in tribes and families in forests and groves and even more i revere them when they stand alone they are like lonely persons not like hermits who have stolen a way out of some weakness but like great solitary men like beethoven and nietzsche in their highest bows the world rustles their roots rest in infinity but they do not lose themselves there they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only to fulfill themselves according to their own laws to build up their own form to represent themselves nothing is holier nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful strong tree when a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death wound to the sun one can read its whole history in the luminous inscribed disc of its trunk in the rings of its years its scars all the struggle all the suffering all the sickness all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written the narrow years and the luxurious years the attacks within the storms endured and every young farm boy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest wings that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible the strongest the ideal trees grow trees are sanctuary whoever knows how to speak to them whoever knows how to listen to them can learn the truth they do not preach learning and precepts they preach undeterred by particulars the ancient law of life a tree says a kernel is hidden in me a spark a thought i am life from eternal life the attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique unique the form and veins of my skin unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark i was made the eternal in my smallest special detail until you make the unconscious conscious it will direct your life and you will call it fate your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart who looks outside dreams who looks inside awakes people will do anything no matter how absurd in order to avoid facing their own souls one does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light but by making the darkness conscious be silent and listen have you recognized your madness and do you admit it have you noticed that all your foundations are completely mired in madness do you not want to recognize your madness and welcome it in a friendly manner you wanted to accept everything so accept madness too let the light of your madness shine and it will suddenly dawn on you madness is not to be despised and not to be feared but instead you should give it life if you want to find paths you should also not spurn madness since it makes up such a great part of your nature be glad that you can recognize it for you will thus avoid becoming its victim madness is a special form of the spirit and clings to all teachings and philosophies but even more to daily life since life itself is full of craziness and at bottom utterly illogical man strives towards reason only so that he can make rules for himself life itself has no rules this is its mystery and its unknown law what you call knowledge is an attempt to impose something comprehensible on life [Music] everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves i am not what happened to me i am what i choose to become a man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them as far as we can discern the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darkness of other people loneliness does not come from having no people about one but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible the pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense not between right and wrong there are as many nights as days and the one is just as long as the other in a year's course even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness it all depends how we look at things and not on how things are in themselves the least of things with the meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it the first half of life is devoted to forming a healthy ego the second half of life is going inward and letting go of it where love rules there is no will to power and where power predominates love is lacking the one is the shadow of the other i am astonished disappointed pleased with myself i am distressed depressed rapturous i am all these things at once and cannot add up the sam i am incapable of determining ultimate worth or worthlessness i have no judgment about myself and my life there is nothing i am quite sure about i have no definite convictions not about anything really i know only that i was born to exist and it seems to me that i have been carried along i exist on the foundation of something i do not know we should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect we apprehend it just as much by feeling therefore the judgment of the intellect is at best only half of the truth and must if it be honest also come to an understanding of its inadequacy mistakes are after all the foundations of truth if a man does not know what a thing is it is at least an increase in knowledge if he knows what it is not no tree it is said can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell it is my mind with its store of images that gives the world color and sound and that supremely real and rational certainty which i can experience is in its most simple form an exceedingly complicated structure of mental images thus there is in a certain sense nothing that is directly experienced except the mind itself everything is meditated through the mind translated filtered allegorized twisted even falsified by it we are enveloped in a cloud of changing and endlessly shifting images every form of addiction is bad no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol morphine or idealism [Music] about a third of my cases are suffering from no clinically definable neurosis but from the senselessness and emptiness of their lives this can be defined as the general neurosis of our times mid-life is the time to let go of our over-dominant ego and to contemplate the deeper significance of human existence wholeness is not achieved by cutting off a portion of one's being but by integration of the contraries in all chaos there is a cosmos in all disorder a secret order i have frequently seen people become neurotic when they content themselves with inadequate or wrong answers to the questions of life they seek position marriage reputation outward success of money and remain unhappy and neurotic even when they have attained what they were seeking such people are usually confined within too narrow a spiritual horizon their life has not sufficient content sufficient meaning if they are enabled to develop into more spacious personalities the neurosis generally disappears as a child i felt myself to be alone and i am still because i know things and must hint at things which others apparently know nothing of and for the most part do not want to know the acceptance of oneself is the essence of the whole moral problem and the epitome of a whole outlook on life that i feed the hungry that i forgive an insult that i love my enemy in the name of christ all these are undoubtedly great virtues what i do unto the least of my brethren that i do unto christ but what if i should discover that the least among them all the poorest of all beggars the most impotent of all offenders the very enemy himself that these are within me and that i myself stand in need of the arms of my own kindness that i myself am the enemy who must be loved as a rule the christian's attitude is then reversed there is no longer any question of love or long-suffering we say to the brother within us wrecker and condemn and rage against ourselves we hide it from the world we refuse to admit ever having met this least among the lowly in ourselves we are not rich by what we possess but by what we can do without act in such a way that you treat humanity whether in your own person or in the person of any other never merely as a means to an end but always at the same time as the end all our knowledge begins with the senses proceeds then to the understanding and ends with reason there is nothing higher than reason seek not the favor of the multitude it is seldom got by honest and lawful means but seek the testimony of few and number not voices but weigh them genius is the ability to independently arrive at and understand concepts that would normally have to be taught by another person enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another two things fill my mind with ever increasing wonder and awe the more often and the more intensely the reflection dwells on them the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness rules for happiness something to do someone to love something to hope for the people naturally adhere most to doctrines which demands at least self-exertion and the least use of their own reason and which can best accommodate their duties to their inclinations our age is the age of criticism to which everything must be subjected the sacredness of religion and the authority of legislation are by many regarded as grounds for exemption from the examination of this tribunal but if they are exempted they become the subjects of just suspicion and cannot lay claim to sincere respect which reason accords only to that which has stood the test of a free and public examination one who makes himself a worm cannot complain afterwards if people step on him skepticism is thus a resting place for human reason where it can reflect upon its dogmatic wanderings and make survey of the region in which it finds itself so that for the future it may be able to choose its path with more certainty [Music] if the truth shall kill them let them die it was the duty of philosophy to destroy the illusions which had their origin in misconceptions whatever darling hopes and valued expectations may be ruined by its explanations look closely the beautiful may be small innocence is a splendid thing only it has the misfortune not to keep very well and to be easily misled as nature has uncovered from under this hard shell the seed for which she most tenderly cares the propensity and vocation to free thinking this gradually works back upon the character of the people who thereby gradually become capable of managing freedom finally it affects the principles of government which finds it to its advantage to treat men who are now more than machines in accordance with their dignity for peace to reign on earth humans must evolve into new beings who have learned to see the whole first in all judgments by which we describe anything is beautiful we allow no one to be of another opinion how then is perfection to be sought wherein lies our hope in education and nothing else man must be disciplined for he is by nature raw and wild out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made space and time are the frameworks within which the mind is constrained to construct its experience of reality thoughts without content are empty intuitions without concepts are blind nothing is divine but what is agreeable to reason a man abandoned by himself on a desert island would adorn neither his hut nor his person nor would he seek for flowers still less would he plant them in order to adorn himself therewith it is only in society that it occurs to him to be not merely a man but a refined man after his kind the beginning of civilization for such do we judge him to be who is both inclined and apt to communicate his pleasure to others and who is not contented with an object if he cannot feel satisfaction in it in common with others again everyone expects and requires from everyone else this reference to universal communication of pleasure as if it were from an original compact dictated by humanity itself whereas the beautiful is limited the sublime is limitless so that the mind in the presence of the sublime attempting to imagine what it cannot has pain in the failure but pleasure in contemplating the immensity of the attempt in the midst of winter i found there was within me an invincible summer and that makes me happy for it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me within me there's something stronger something better pushing right back for years i've wanted to live according to everyone else's morals i forced myself to live like everyone else to look like everyone else i said what was necessary to join together even when i felt separate and after all of this catastrophe came now i wander amid the debris i am lawless torn to pieces alone and accepting to be so resigned to my singularity into my infirmities and i must rebuild a truth after having lived all my life in a sort of lie if absolute truth belongs to anyone in this world it certainly does not belong to the man or party that claims to possess it you will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of you will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life blessed are the hearts that can bend they shall never be broken [Music] don't walk in front of me i may not follow don't walk behind me i may not lead walk beside me just be my friend i do not believe in god and i am not an atheist there can be no question of holding forth on ethics i have seen that people behave badly with great morality and i note every day that integrity has no need of rules an intellectual yes and never deny it an intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself i like this because i am happy to be both halves the watcher and the watched can they be put together this is a practical question we must get down to it i despise intelligence really means i cannot bear my doubts in the world there is parallel to the force of death and constraint an enormous force of persuasion that is called culture nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal get scared it will do you good smoke of it stare blankly at some ceilings beat your head against some walls refuse to see some people paint and write get scared some more allow your little mind to do nothing but function stay inside go out i don't care what you'll do but stay scared as hell you'll never be able to experience everything so please do poetical justice to your soul and simply experience yourself when you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him [Music] the only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion a man wants to earn money in order to be happy and his whole effort and the best of her life are devoted to the earning of that money happiness is forgotten the means are taken for the end find meaning distinguish melancholy from sadness go out for a walk it doesn't have to be a romantic walk in the park spring at its most spectacular moment flowers and smells and outstanding poetical imagery smoothly transferring you into another world it doesn't have to be a walk during which you'll have multiple life epiphanies and discover meanings no other brain ever managed to encounter do not be afraid spending quality time by yourself find meaning or don't find meaning but still some time and give it freely and exclusively to your own self opt for privacy and solitude that doesn't make you anti-social or cause you to reject the rest of the world but you need to breathe and you need to be the evil in the world comes almost always from ignorance and good will can cause as much damage as ill will if it is not enlightened people are most often good than bad though in fact that is not the question but they are more or less ignorant and this is what one calls vice or virtue the most appalling vice being the ignorance that thinks it knows everything and which consequently authorizes itself to kill the murderer's soul is blind and there is no true goodness or fine love without the greatest possible degree of clear-sightedness i continue to believe that this world has no ultimate meaning but i know that something in it has a meaning and that is man because he is the only creature to insist on having one [Music] people hasten to judge in order not to be judged themselves in short whoever does violence to truth or its expression eventually mutilates justice even though he thinks he is serving it from this point of view we shall deny to the very end that a press is true because it is revolutionary it will be revolutionary only if it is true and never otherwise man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is [Music] you're worried about getting things successfully done in order to attain some degree of self-worth your soul is for sale you most likely deceive yourself in order to convince yourself letting go equals failing isn't that right and you forget outstandingly well don't you you forget that it takes admirable courage not only to try but also to gracefully give up men are never convinced of your reasons of your sincerity of the seriousness of your sufferings except by your death so long as you are alive your case is doubtful you have a right only to their skepticism beauty is unbearable drives us to despair offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity we should like to stretch out over the whole of time we all carry with us places of exile our crimes our ravages our task is not to unleash them onto the world it is to transform them in ourselves and others we rarely confide in those who are better than we rather we are more inclined to flee their society most often on the other hand we confess to those who are like us and who share our weaknesses hence we don't want to improve ourselves and be better for we should first have to be judged in default we merely wish to be pitied and encouraged in the course we have chosen in short we should like at the same time to cease being guilty and yet not to make the effort of cleansing ourselves every time i hear a political speech or i read those of our leaders i am horrified at having for years heard nothing which sounded human it is always the same words telling the same lies and the fact that men accept this that the people's anger has not destroyed these hollow clowns strikes me as proof that men attribute no importance to the way they are governed that they gamble yes gamble with a whole part of their life and their so-called vital interests [Music] i see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living i see others paradoxically getting killed for the ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living what is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying i therefore conclude that the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions when i shall be dead the principles of which i am composed will still perform their part in the universe and will be equally useful in the grand fabric as when they compose this individual creature the difference to the whole will be no greater betwixt my being in a chamber and in the open air the one change is of more importance to me than the other but not more so to the universe he is happy whose circumstances suit his temper but he is more excellent who can suit his temper to his circumstance beauty is no quality in things themselves it exists merely in the mind which contemplates them and each mind perceives a different beauty one person may even perceive deformity where another is sensible beauty and each individual ought to acquiesce in his own sentiment without pretending to regulate those of others to seek the real beauty or real deformity is as fruitless in inquiry as to pretend to ascertain the real sweet or real bitter be a philosopher but amidst all of your philosophy be still a man heaven and hell suppose two distinct species of men the good and the bad but the greatest part of mankind float between vice and virtue [Music] men's view of things are the result of their understanding alone their conduct is regulated by their understanding their temper and their passions the identity that we ascribe to things is only a fictitious one established by the mind not a peculiar nature belonging to what we're talking about generally speaking the errors in religion are dangerous those in philosophy only ridiculous when men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities [Music] epicurus's old questions are still unanswered is he god willing to prevent evil but not able then he is impotent is he able but not willing then he is malevolent is he both able and willing then why evil if we take in our hand any volume of divinity or school metaphysics for instance let us ask does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number no does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact in existence no committed then to flames for it can contain nothing but self-history and illusion i may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind but they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity and are in perpetual flex and movement the sweetest and most inoffensive path of life leads to the avenues of science and learning and whoever can either remove any obstructions in this way or open up any new prospect ought so far to be esteemed a benefactor to mankind it is an absurdity to believe that the deity has human passions and one of the lowest of human passions a restless appetite for applause and while the body is confined to one planet along which it creeps with pain and difficulty the thought can in an instant transport us to the most distant regions of the universe or even beyond the universe into the unbound chaos where nature is supposed to lie in total confusion what never was seen or heard or may yet be conceived not is anything beyond the power of thought except what implies an absolute contradiction all sentiment is right because sentiment has a reference to nothing beyond itself and is always real wherever a man is conscious of it but all determinations of the understanding are not right because they have a reference to something beyond themselves to wit real matter of fact and are not always conformable to that standard in our reasonings concerning matter of fact there are all imaginable degrees of assurance from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence a wise man therefore proportions his belief to the evidence does a man of sense run after every silly tale of hobgoblins or fairies and canvas particularly the evidence i never knew anyone that examined and deliberated about nonsense who did not believe it before the end of his inquiries we make allowance for a certain degree of selfishness in men because we know it to be inseparable from human nature and inherent in our frame and constitution by this reflection we correct those sentiments of blame which so naturally arise upon any opposition nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few and the implicit submission which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers when we inquire by what means this wonder is affected we shall find that as force is always on the side of the governed the governors have nothing to support them but opinion it is therefore an opinion only that government is founded and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments as well as to the most free and most popular the soldier of egypt or the emperor of rome might drive his harmless subjects like brute beasts against their sentiments and inclination but he must at least have led his mamaloo so pratorian bands like men by their opinion for my part when i enter most intimately into what i call myself i always stumble onto some particular perception or other of heat or cold light or shade love or hatred pain or pleasure i never can catch myself at any time without a perception and never can observe anything but the perception if anyone upon serious and unprejudiced reflection thinks he has a different notion of himself i must confess i can reason no longer with him all i can allow him is that he may be in the right as well as i and that we are essentially different in this particular he may perhaps perceive something simple and continued which he calls himself though i am certain there is no such principle in me you

Channel: Orion Philosophy

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Keywords: quotes, motivation, orion philosophy, wisdom, philosophy, philosophy quotes, carl jung

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Length: 53min 28sec (3208 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 26 2021