Those who know do not talk.

Those who talk do not know.

Keep your mouth closed.

Guard your senses.

Temper your sharpness.

Simplify your problems.

Mask your brightness.

Be at one with the dust of the earth.

This is primal union.

He who has achieved this state

Is unconcerned with friends and enemies,

With good and harm, with honor and disgrace.

This therefore is the highest state of man.

Thanks. The pleasure is entirely mine. ))

Living in a hurry
A head without ‘deep thoughts’
A dress without taking a probe
An act without rehearsal
Planning to be planned for
I don’t know the role
I am playing on the scene
Only that it is entirely mine
Not to be changed
For anything else.

Aren’t you a bit Egocentric ?
This way of neurotic hurry and way of life. Isn’t that a bit disturbing ?

Moralist: Your whole trouble is that you are too egocentric. All you ever think or speak about
Is yourself – your problems, the ways you have been traumatized , your reactions to them .etc. You seem to be so obsessed , that one gets the feeling that you have no serious interest in other people.
Victim : This obviously can’t be so ! As you well know, my main interest these days is in literature, biographies and autobiographies. If I wasn’t utterly fascinated by these people I read, why would I spend so much time reading and thinking about them and the weight of the world I carry on my shoulders ?
Moralist : Because all these people you spend so much time reading and thinking about are people who are exactly like you.

Subconsciously, I tried to make a difference between an optimist and an incurable optimist ?
Well, an optimist is one who says : “everything is for the best; mankind will survive.”
An incurable optimist is one who says : “Everything is for the best; mankind will survive. And even if mankind doesn’t survive, it is for the best.”
Then there is what I call a pessimistic optimist. A pessimistic optimist is one who sadly shakes his head and says : “I am very much afraid that everything is for the best!”

A Sad Story – Once upon a time there was Somebody who spend the first half of his life trying to become famous. He failed in that. Then he spend the second half of his life trying to get into that mystical state in which it was no longer important to him whether or not he was famous. He failed in that too.
Another Sad Story – Once there was Somebody who was overcome by mystical inspiration. He had all sorts of remarkable insights as to the ultimate nature of reality. He wrote voluminously; he wrote and wrote. He was not however ego-less, for he took a great pride in what he had written. For many months after he had finished writing, he read his manuscript over and over again with great pride and joy……During the next couple of years he slowly but surely lost all his mystical insight. Then one day, he reread his manuscript but could not understand a word of what he had written.

Famous ? – I was once discussing the subject of fame with a very astute friend of mine. At one point he said : “ It all depends on what you mean by famous : For example, would you call God famous ?”
Existence is the very opposite of nonexistence! I know they are the opposite! But so is minus zero the opposite of plus zero.

Bob Weisenberg

Failure, in this case being choked out or joint-locked, identifies your weak points so that you can work on them. If you’re winning all the time, you’re probably not learning much. If you’re losing a lot, you’re probably improving by leaps and bounds. Those students who shield their ego learn more slowly because they a) tend to avoid fights or positions where they might lose, and b) reject advice that would help them, because that require accepting that they were WRONG, implicitly accepting that somebody else knows more than them. I’ve come to see “being wrong” in general as a GOOD thing, as an opportunity to learn, and not a hit to my self-esteem, something to be resisted.

This is all very different from my upbringing, where for various reasons, being wrong was something to be avoided at all costs. Looking back, I certainly feel that approaching life ego-free would have led to more eventual successes in both my business and personal life. …Then again, maybe I would have been completely content living in a trailer and working at McDonald’s. Is that “success”? But if I’m happy, where’s the problem? Again, it’s the contentment vs. complacency dilemma.

Although I’ve never practiced Yoga, I see Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu as a sort of competitive one-on-one Yoga mixed with real-time chess, where body positioning plays a large role, but strategy is just as important. (Fighting a high-level practitioner feels like fighting a psychic — s/he will usually defend your moves before you’ve made them!) Like Yoga, I’m sure, the benefits to physical fitness are almost a side-benefit!

This subject is of great interest to me. As I described in the first comment above, I came to Yoga in retirement to support my goal of having very few goals. I’ve always wondered if Yoga would have been any use to me during the hard-driving, optimize-each-moment-toward-the-achievement-of-goals phase of my life.

The answer is unequivocally yes. Yoga philosophy has a clear, simple and convincing answer to the dilemma you describe in you comment. The answer is to act and strive and achieve, but DETACH YOUR EGO FROM THE RESULTS!

That means, go for whatever you want, fulfill whatever destiny is yours, but don’t attach any ego judgment on whatever happens. It also means that, no matter how hard you strive, you would never “saddle oneself with discontent and self-shame…” Work hard but don’t attribute any ego value at all to the results, whatever they are. Takes some practice. But this is one of the greatest principles of Yoga.

One could even say this is the core message of the entire Bhagavad Gita. See “What Is It That Brings Us Happiness” http://wp.me/PlUox-f0 and Yoga Tennis http://wp.me/PlUox-iN

Thanks for the excellent comment.

Bob Weisenberg

More on-topic, I think there’s a fine line between complacency and contentment. As great as it feels to get things done, it seems a shame to perpetually saddle oneself with discontent and self-shame for not being as productive as one could be. At some point, the drive for “bigger, better, more, more, more!” becomes an enemy, rather than a friend, and you gotta step back and enjoy the wonderful life you’ve built. I certainly don’t mean to champion mediocrity, but sometimes “good enough” is good enough.

@Armen: I love “boldness” – there is nothing like self-confidence in the face of adversity or just plain old every day life which seems to not adverse but just feeds complacency to us sometimes. And you being most grateful of all (as I know already), it’s only natural to look for that inspiration to others to help us stay on track with that self-discipline!