*
Knowledge
Truth is a compass that is always available but rarely used. That’s because the mind forms a deceptive alternative to our vast inner wisdom.
Our minds, fueled by ego’s desires, would have us believe that life revolves around the pursuit of material wealth, the chase for elusive status, and accumulating more possessions. It forms thoughts around these very desires so that they never leave our minds. Only when we strip away the deceptive illusions of the mind and confront what we know to be true can we embrace the authentic essence of our existence.
Here is the Truth: We are destined to grow old, to experience the fragility of our bodies, and ultimately, to face mortality. Everything and everyone we hold dear is bound by the same immutable and inevitable departure. The only enduring possessions we carry – from the day we are born until the day we die – are our actions. We are a product of our actions, and we must endure the consequences of our actions.
When we hold this truth close to our hearts, we recognize the incongruence between our thoughts and reality. The walls of ego crumble as discernment takes the lead.
Are you taking the right actions with your one life?
What illusions have been holding you back?
What do you know to be irrevocably true?
In this pursuit of greater understanding, the magnificence of existence is unveiled, the clarity of one’s purpose is exposed, and the authenticity of one’s actions is validated.
*
“Science is not the truth. Science is finding the truth. When science changes its opinion it didn’t lie to you. It learned more.”
Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart
If my wealth were to disappear, it would merely be a loss of possessions. However, should your wealth vanish, it would leave you in shock, as if a fundamental part of your identity had been taken away.
To me, wealth holds a specific place. In your case, it holds the utmost importance. To put it simply, I possess my wealth, while your wealth possesses you.
Based on the teachings of Seneca
“We’re all islands shouting lies to each other across seas of misunderstanding.”
Rudyard Kipling, The Light That Failed
The Five Remembrances:
I am sure to become old; I cannot avoid old age.
I am sure to become ill; I cannot avoid illness.
I am sure to die; I cannot avoid death.
I must be separated and parted from all that is dear and beloved to me.
The only possessions I have are my actions. I am subject to the consequences of my actions.
Adapted from the Upajjhatthana Sutta
Be an advocate for every person’s entitlement to their own viewpoint, no matter how divergent those views may be from your own. Anyone who refuses this right to someone else becomes a prisoner to their own current perspective, as they deny themselves the ability to reconsider it.
Based on the teachings of Thomas Paine
Man can learn nothing unless he proceeds from the known to the unknown.
Claude Bernard
“You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Seeking fulfillment from others will never bring true satisfaction. Relying on money for happiness will lead to discontent. Find delight in what you possess and take joy in the present circumstances. When you understand that there is nothing missing, you will possess the entire world.
Based on the teachings of Lao Tzu
“We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.”
Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant.
We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
Unknown
Your life has a limit, but knowledge has none. If you use what is limited to pursue what has no limit, you will be in danger.
Zhuangzi
“The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know.”
Blaise Pascal, Pensées
“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”
Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt
“Children (the ignorant) pursue external pleasures; (thus) they fall into the wide-spread snare of death. But the wise, knowing the nature of immortality, do not seek the permanent among fleeting things.”
Katha-Upanishad (Swami Paramananda)
The first duty of man is the seeking after and the investigation of truth.
Cicero
Etymological explanation for Wisdom:
Old English, “knowledge, learning, experience.”
⁂
Experience teaches us the practical aspects of life, offering a deeper understanding of how the world works. Through successes and failures, we discover the consequences of our choices and actions.
“I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.”
Plato, The Republic
Knowledge is not something that can be passively absorbed, but rather something that must be actively pursued and ignited. The love of learning and the love of truth are the sparks that kindle the fire of knowledge.
Based on the teachings of Plutarch
“Sometimes it seems as though each new step towards AI, rather than producing something which everyone agrees is real intelligence, merely reveals what real intelligence is not.”
Douglas Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
William Shakespeare, As You Like It
Scientia potentia est.
(Knowledge is power.)
Unknown
“The truth may be stretched thin, but it never breaks, and it always surfaces above lies, as oil floats on water.”
Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote
“You will be much more in control, if you realize how much you are not in control.”
Benjamin Graham, The Intelligent Investor
“I pretend not to teach, but to inquire.”
John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
“Man cannot endure his own littleness unless he can translate it into meaningfulness on the largest possible level.”
Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death
To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.
Nicolaus Copernicus
⁂
Recognizing the limits of one’s understanding is a fundamental aspect of true wisdom.
“Knowledge is love and light and vision. It is the path that leads to freedom and growth.”
Helen Keller, The Story of My Life
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.
Marie Curie
“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”
John Milton, Paradise Lost
“The splitting of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.”
Albert Einstein, in a telegram to President Franklin D. Roosevelt
*
Jen Hitze 