Cultivating a Sense of Proportion

For some people, a primary goal in life is to enjoy its treasures, such as beauty, goodness, harmony, and wisdom. These qualities have balance and symmetry and show little or no trace of excess.  If they are tainted by extremes or become disproportionate, they acquire opposite characteristics; for example, when distorted, beauty turns to ugliness, goodness to evil, harmony to disharmony, and wisdom to folly. Cultivating a fine sense of proportion in our thoughts and deeds is key to attaining a dazzling mind. This way of thinking provides us rich insights and perfects our judgement.

Balance and proportion are found abundantly in nature. Notice the beautiful geometrical patterns of snowflakes or the majestic display of colors in a rainbow. The multi cellular pattern of a honeycomb and the intricate design of a maple leaf also show symmetry in nature. Over the centuries, artists have embodied this symmetry into their works by freely imitating patterns found in nature.

Paradoxes to Ponder

I believe that contradictory statements are fascinating. They challenge our minds to think deeper about what exactly is the truth.

Here is a paradox for you to ponder:

What is hard than rock or softer than water? Yet soft water hollows out hard rock. Persevere.  -Ovid

How did you figure that out? Do not give up easy. 

Here is a statement for you to be a little humble in order to realize why some people are so confused. The nature of truth is such that it is ambiguous. Consider this statement:

The only certainty is that nothing is certain

This statement makes me more humble, and more tolerant about the opinions of others. People who are 100% sure about a societal issue are putting themselves out on a limb. 

         You have to study a lot to know a little.

It has been my good fortune to interact with some of the worlds greatest minds, all of whom were nobel prize winners. What distinguished them was their learning, but they were very humble people. They showed their greatness by making a little guy like me feel great. 

            People have one thing in common: they are all different. - Robert Zend

The author of this brief statement was indeed a genius. What a remarkable insight it contains that opposite features can be true.  It helps us to appreciate how all of us are more different and the same at the same time. 

              When people are least sure they are most dogmatic. - John Kenneth

We do not know for sure what will happen to us after death. Heaven and Hell could be a state of mind and weather they really exist we do not know for sure. However, we can accept them on faith. Sometimes it troubles me that some people are 100% sure about the existence of Heaven and Hell, they are to my mind, being dogmatic.

                We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.  -  George Bernard Shaw

Did you get a chuckle from that statement? I surely did! 

Give Yourself a Dazzling Mind

The human  mind is infinitely richer than any gold mine. The mind embraces the vast universe, peers into an atom, composes melodious music, and designs a plane that can fly faster than the speed of sound.

While it is true that animals are able to think to some degree, the power of the human mind is infinitely superior, our brain stores knowledge and uses the information whenever it is needed. In a sense, we are walking libraries.

Nimbleness is an extraordinary feature of our mind. Within seconds, it can shift its focus from one phenomenon to another: from answering a simple question to the working of a complex crossword puzzle, playing an easy game of cards to a challenging game of chess. The mind is indeed very nimble.

In this chapter we shall discuss many ways to give ourselves a dazzling mind and explore how to achieve our real potential. Because the mind is a single entity, the following points are interrelated and reinforce one another. I hope this discussion will enable you to acquire flashes of wisdom and moments of delight.

A diamond with many facets will shine brilliantly.  Similarly, the mind will shine best when its many facets can radiate with the light of reason. It its objective and subjective, or scientific and artistic. It is able to glow with its latent power and be luminous about reality in a dark world of doubt and error. In a word, the mind is a gift endowing us with a divine quality.

The Wisdom and Delight of the Desiderata

A Book of Wisdom and Delight can be summed up in the following edited version of Desiderata

Go placidly, amid the noise and haste and discover your peace in silence. Without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.

Be not cynical about love, for in the face of all apathy and harshness it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the thinks of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. Do not distress yourself with worries. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

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Control yourself, but also be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore, be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be.

Whatever the labor and aspirations in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace with your soul – with all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, wee still live in a beautiful world.

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Let Compassion Prevail

The more I reflect, the more I am convinced that life is a mystery. Today, thousand of  babies will be born and thousands will die. From where have these babies come and where have these people gone? The music of Mozart enchants us and the writings of Shakespeare fascinate us. But where have they gone? Still more pertinent is the question, “Where are we going?” Is there a life after death, and will our good deeds ever be rewarded?

There are no clear answers to these questions except through religion based on faith. People devoutly search for meaning through diverse religious traditions, but they are seldom fully satisfied. These traditions do not offer a genuine dialog on the purpose of life in a true ecumenical spirit. The various groups remain largely compartmentalised.

What is most needed  today is compassion to understand the deep spiritual crises facing people. Much of our restlessness, even in the midst of plenty, is rooted in this spiritual crisis, and we need to lot of compassion to address it.

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One eminent thinker who wrestled with this spiritual crisis was Johann Goethe, the nineteenth-century German philosopher. He spent most of his life, from age twenty-five until about seventy-five, pondering the purpose of life. His ideas are reflected in his masterpiece, Doctor Faust. Goethe claimed that the purpose of life lies in the meanings we attach to life. The pursuit of power or pleasure, or the practice of virtue will dictate the type of life we lead. Life is like a journey, and we must do our best to get the utmost out of our brief sojourn on earth. During this journey, let compassion prevail.

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Be Magnanimous

To be magnanimous is to show extraordinary generosity. This is a rare virtue about which we do not hear too much. 

To Aristotle, the most important and most beautiful of all virtues was magnanimity. While it is good to love and care for others, magnanimity does something superior. It seeks to increase our resources in order to enhance our capacity to be more generous.

Possessing a magnanimous spirit is a definition of a noble and virtuous character. Why is magnanimity such a magnificent virtue? Aristotle argued that it embraces a host of other virtues. If we are magnanimous, we also display towards our fellow human beings an attitude of respect, goodwill, kindness, gentleness , and, above all, forgiveness.

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Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, the eighteenth-century French philosopher, wrote that when people are kind and sensitive, they are more likely to be happy, particularly when this happiness is shared.

The “Toronto Appeal,” a manifesto written by the author in 1992 and signed by four Nobel Prize winners, stated the followin: “In today’s world, let the hungry child in Kabul become your child in spirit. Let the poor widow in Sri Lanka become your sister in spirit. Let a hundred flowers bloom within your heart.”

A magnanimous spirit opens a passage to inner harmony. An East Indian proverb advocates “if we are truly generous, we can also be truly wise” and that kindness is the greatest wisdom.

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Expecting the Unexpected

I find that my life is full of surprises. They make life more interesting and also more difficult.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Life is a series of surprises.” It is therefore wise to leave a wide margin for shocks and surprises. By doing so we may, to some degree, cushion ourselves from the pain of sudden contingencies. While it is impossible to fully anticipate the future, sound preparations must be made to confront unforeseen circumstances. A good example would be to buy full medical coverage for traveling abroad or to keep a special fund to rely on during emergencies. Sometimes when luck smiles on us, we should be ready to seize it – for example, opportunities to make handsome profits in the stock market. Norman Cousins wrote, “Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences.”

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It is prudent to take ample safeguards against the unpredictability of people. Whether they are friends, associates, or even family members, we cannot always be sure that they will act in a way we expect. To avoid disappointments, we should learn to cope with the fickleness and erratic nature of some people.

Many time what we anticipate may not occur, and what we least expect may occur.

The behaviour of people often surprises me. People are generally not as good or bad as they first appear. Coping with this unpredictability, for me, is a major challenge.  What do you do with those who renege on their word, for instance? On way I found to tolerate such behaviour is to realize that I have also been, at times, unpredictable.

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I hope you have enjoyed this excerpt from my book.  I will be posting more excerpts in future posts, so please come back.  Click here to buy your copy of A Book of Wisdom and Delight from Amazon today.