Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Characteristics of a philosopher - Epictetus - (commonplace entry from June 2006)

The condition and characteristic of an uninstructed person is this: he never expects from himself advantage or harm, but from externals.
The condition and characteristic of a philosopher is this: he expects all harm and all advantage from himself.

The signs of the one who is making progress are these:
  • he censures no man
  • he praises no man
  • he blames no man
  • he accuses no man
  • he says nothing about himself as if he were somebody or knew something
  • when he is impeded at all or hindered, he blames himself
  • if a man praises him, he ridicules the praiser to himself
  • if a man censures him, he makes no defence
  • he removes all desires from himself and he transfers aversion to those things within power and contrary to nature
  • He employs a moderate movement towards everything
  • Whether he is considered foolish or ignorant, he cares not
And, in a word, watches himself as if he were an enemy waiting in ambush.
- Epictetus - Enchiridion.

(June 18, 2006, Commonplace from journal (Miquelrius) )

Friday, June 12, 2009

A page from my diary - September 11, 2008


If you treat your thoughts as clean and precious
clear as a fresh brook, pure as the bright sun
your mind will soar, till you need it no more,
with the whole world you will be one...
for with a being so pure, there's nothing more sure -
the soul shines through, and to think - is to become.


-----------------------

Here you are you puny body,
seated on the brink of death.
you sordid tale of like and dislike
the Elements bound by cords of breath

yet within, a temple lies
be still and you will see
'tis open, vast ... like the boundless skies,
nothing was, or is, and will be.

-----------------------
Repetition of message to self:
Know very well that as you were born without too much control over where you were going, this body too will die. Live every moment then in oneness with whatever is around the body at the moment (in other words, like a God :-D)
For to be one with any one thing is to be one with it all. Yoga is holographic.

Consumption - Production game, who's who?

Thinking about true cost and the story of a one rupee coin - had gotten me thinking about the dual meme nature of production and consumption.
Trying to get down to the essence of this dual meme led me to this -

The desire to desire is the consumer.

That which believes it exists is the consumed. 



To clarify - that which believes it exists is - basically everything that 'is'. I use the word 'belief' for want of a closer word - for example, if you believe 'you' exist, you are binding this concept of self with space and time, and will thus be subject to the consumption process - if by nothing else then by time (which is to say - desire operates in time-space co-ordinates - and desire being the urge for something other than what is, what is - must be consumed.) Yoga enables 'one' to free 'oneself' perhaps, by neatly transcending this dual-meme.  
What this implies in space-time terms, may be understood by trying to practice the Yogasutras.

(from somewhere in early 2008)