Life is an Open Road
Daily Wisdom — Day 2
First in The Morning: 365 Uplifting Moments to Start the Day Consciously
Each age needs a new kind of spirituality because each age is different from any other; hence messengers keep on coming. A messenger is nothing but a man who translates the eternal truth for contemporary man.
The Pivot Year: 365 Days to Become the Person You Truly Want to Be
There is great power in not knowing. Not knowing what is next, not knowing what to decide, not knowing how you will make it to where you know you want and need to be. Every given moment contains within it doorways of opportunity, and when you choose to walk through one, you make realities available to you that were once invisible. When you do not know what is next, you enter the realm of infinite potential.
Instead of trying to plan your life so safely and so succinctly, you can begin to plan for the moment, the joy, the journey. Instead of living on autopilot, you can learn how to continuously meet the ever-changing, ever-possible now.
When you finally admit that you do not know what is next, you enter the golden vortex — the space between everything you know you’re meant for and anything you had previously imagined to be.
The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
EDUCATION IS FREEDOM
“What is the fruit of these teachings? Only the most beautiful and proper harvest of the truly educated — tranquility, fearlessness, and freedom. We should not trust the masses who say only the free can be educated, but rather the lovers of wisdom who say that only the educated are free.” — EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES , 2.1.21–23 a
Why did you pick up this book? Why pick up any book? Not to seem smarter, not to pass time on the plane, not to hear what you want to hear — there are plenty of easier choices than reading.
No, you picked up this book because you are learning how to live. Because you want to be freer, fear less, and achieve a state of peace. Education — reading and meditating on the wisdom of great minds — is not to be done for its own sake. It has a purpose.
Remember that imperative on the days you start to feel distracted, when watching television or having a snack seems like a better use of your time than reading or studying philosophy. Knowledge — self-knowledge in particular — is freedom.
The Daily Laws: 366 Meditations on Power, Seduction, Mastery, Strategy and Human Nature
Reconnect with Your Childhood Obsession
When Marie Curie, the future discoverer of radium, was four years old she wandered into her father’s study and stood transfixed before a glass case that contained all kinds of laboratory instruments for chemistry and physics experiments. She would return to that room again and again to stare at the instruments, imagining all sorts of experiments she could conduct with these tubes and measuring devices. Years later, when she entered a real laboratory for the first time and did some experiments herself, she reconnected immediately with her childhood obsession; she knew she had found her vocation.
Daily Law: You were obsessed with it as a child for a reason. Reconnect with it.
Mastery, I: Discover Your Calling — The Life’s Task
A Calendar of Wisdom: Daily Thoughts to Nourish the Soul
One of the worst prejudices known is held by the majority of the so-called scholars of our time, who claim that a person can live without faith.
Throughout the centuries, in every age, people have wanted to know or at least have a vague idea about the source, the beginning, and the final purpose of their existence. Religion satisfies this requirement, and makes clear those connections which unite all people as brothers, revealing to them that they have the same source of origin, the same task for their lives, and the same general final goal. — GIUSEPPE MAZZINI
The essential meaning of every religion is to answer the question “Why do I live, and what is my attitude to the limitless world which surrounds me?” There is not a single religion, from the most sophisticated to the most primitive, which does not have as its basis the definition of this attitude of a person to the world.
At the heart of all religions lies a single unifying truth. Let Persians bear their taovids, Jews wear their caps, Christians bear their cross, Muslims bear their sickle moon, but we have to remember that these are all only outer signs. The general essence of all religions is love to your neighbor, and that this is requested by Manuf, Zoroaster, Buddha, Moses, Socrates, Jesus, Saint Paul, and Mohammed alike. — EWALD FLÜGEL
The life of a person without faith is the life of an animal.
365 Tao: Daily Meditations
Ablution
Washing at dawn: Rinse away dreams. Protect the gods within, And clarify the inner spirit.
Purification starts all practice. First comes cleansing of the body — not to deny the body, but so that it is refined. Once cleansed, it can help us sense the divine.
Rinsing away dreams is a way of saying that we must not only dispel the illusions and anxieties of our sleeping moments but those of our waking ones as well. All life is a dream, not because it isn’t there, but because we all project different meanings upon it. We must cleanse away this habit.
While cleansing, we naturally look within. It is believed that there are 36,000 gods and goddesses in the body. If we continually eat bad foods, intoxicate ourselves, allow filth to accumulate anywhere outside or inside of ourselves, then these gods abandon us in disgust.
Yet our concerns must ultimately go beyond these deities in the temples of our bodies to the universal One. After we clear away the obscuring layers of dirt, bodily problems, and delusions, we must be prepared even to clear away the gods themselves so that we can reach the inner One.
The Daily Dad
Never Let Them See You Act Like This
I think of myself as a philosopher only in the sense of being able to set an example. — Friedrich Nietzsche
There is a story in Seneca’s famous essay “On Anger” about a boy who at a very young age went to live in the house of Plato to study under the famous philosopher. Returning home to visit his parents, the boy witnessed his father lose his temper and yell at someone. Surprised by this violent outburst, and with the simple innocence that children are capable of, the boy said, “I never saw anyone at Plato’s house act like that.”
However we conduct ourselves in front of our children — particularly at home, in private — they will come to see as normal. If we are rude or unkind to our spouse, they will assume that is an appropriate way to treat people they love. If we are anxious and overly worried, they will come to think that the world is a scary place that must be feared. If we behave unethically or cynically, they too will begin to cheat and lie.
