All of us engage
in day-to-day activities, often without thinking about what
exactly is going on. We tend to live on a day-to-day basis,
reacting to each event, without seriously thinking about what
exactly is the overall scheme of things in this universe.
We
fail to visualize the complete picture of life. We do not
understand why things take place in the way they do. In order
to understand the underlying cause of all actions that are
taking place around us , we need to have a philosophical perspective.We
would feel as if we have no control over ourselves. E are
likely to simply drift long, misled by the reactions of our
body, by the analyses of our intellect and by our emotions.
This is because our body, mind and emotions are fundamentally
reactive in nature.
We need to know the cause, the instruments,
the purpose and the outcome of action, and our own role in
the process. This is called the holistic view of life. Philosophy
means having a holistic view, having knowledge of the total
picture.
The philosophical or spiritual
way of thinking is nothing else but keeping such a total picture
in mind, so that the individual fragments of the total picture
do not delude us.
The spiritual man is one who has
conquered fear, or rather understood then fear. The spiritual
man understands and accepts the inevitable, and tries to find
joy in the himself from the restricting influences of the body,
the intellect and the emotions. In fact the yogi, the spiritual
man, is beyond and cut off from these factors that are limited
by the fear of survival. Thus, a truly spiritual man can never
be affected by the ill effect of negative stress.
The
Essence of Philosophy: Everything
is temporary
- We
behave and act as if we are here for good. We tend to overestimate
our problems, as if these problems are permanent. We rarely
view our
problems in the backdrop of the transitory nature of everything.
We Must always keep this in mind that neither our problems
nor our physical
body happen to be immortal. Everything is temporary and continuously
changing. Life is a short journey
on earth
- Life
is short span of time that the body has to spend on earth.
This time can be spent in happiness or in unhappiness. Whereas
some suffering
and unhappiness would come to us from the situations of this
world, we can at least decide that we would not ourselves
be unhappy,
that there is no point spoiling this brief time by our own
thinking and our own acts. Nothing is really very
important
- We
feel that we are important enough for the situation to change
itself to suit our requirements. We also feel that situations
are important enough
to feel happy or sad about. But situations keep changing.
Everything keeps changing. This is a dynamic world and nothing
is permanent.
Everything is not in
your hands
- Everything
is not because of you. Many of our problems arose because
we attach too much importance to ourselves. We think that
we are in
change of things and that everything depends on us. We get
worried and anxious when we find that while we should be in
charge of the situation,
this in not actually so.
Since
the whole world cannot act in concert for our satisfaction,
we are likely to remain anxious and unsatisfied most of the
time. In our effort to control everything, we often fail.
Then we feel guilty about our own failures.
