I’d like to share an experience I had, actually, just this morning, which kind of set me back for a little while. I arrived at school, and one of the young secretaries came up to me, and I could see in her eyes that she was distressed, right?
Pardon me. So I asked her, what’s wrong? And she said, I can’t tell you right now, but you could see that she was greatly not herself, greatly distressed.
So I couldn’t leave it, you know? And I said to her, I kept thinking to myself, now it’s a long life, right? And all of us deserve an element of peace at times, right?
And we have to choose this piece because it’s seemingly we’re living in an extremely complex society. You know, there’s digital devices, there’s airplanes, there’s cars, there’s movement, much more so than we’ve seen perhaps forever.
I was listening today, Jordan Peterson was making him, Dr. Peterson was making the point that we were basically at peace with our natural environment until some 300 years ago. Now think about this.
We were in harmony with nature virtually until the industrial revolution. And then we began to follow the edict from the Old Testament, from Genesis, that we are going to dominate the earth, basically, in one interpretation. And we’ve done so.
We’re on our way to destroying our natural environment. And we’re also on our way to destroying our personal environment. So how am I gonna grasp hold of this situation, if you will?
So, back to the problem that first confronted me this morning. So, not knowing what to say at all, I said to this young woman, I said, Look, two things are true in any situation, any situation at all.
The first one is that it is probably not as bad as you truly think. Probably not. The second thing, whatever it is, it will be corrected with time.
With time, as long as you’re alive, you’re going to effectively correct that given situation. But it got me thinking, you know, that gosh, we really gotta be fighters at times for our own sense of peace. Don’t we?
Because the only person I truly know is me. I can reach out, I can touch you, I can feel the warmth of your body. But who are you?
Honestly, who are you inside your personal being? And yes, the great psychiatrists can tell us what is really the truth.
Carl Jung, for instance, says some statements along the line, that if we don’t have some form of God or spirituality in our lives, if we stumble into a mental crisis, we’ll never ultimately get out of it.
So, you know, all of these parameters are in existence, but I’ve got to grasp my own sense of peace at times. So how am I going to do it?
Well, one of the ways I just suggested in any circumstance, any circumstance, it’s not as bad as you probably think it is. And secondly, time will correct all. And then in other circumstances, I’m really stressed, really frustrated.
What am I going to do? Well, I went to a yoga conference, of all things, about five years ago in Kumbhator in southern India.
And the guru there said, look, when you wake up in the morning, when you wake up, you can decide whether it’s going to be a good day or a bad day, barring any circumstance.
And many great intellectuals and writers had said something similar, that I’m in control of this moment. This now, if you will, whatever the external circumstances.
So, he suggested that when I’m really stressed, really stressed, find a bit of grass, find a bit of grass, take your shoes and socks off and put your feet right on the grass and walk.
Take a walk, one minute, two minutes, five minutes, whatever you can spare. And somehow that will bond you with nature and you will feel calmer.
And then, of course, if you’re not too well dressed, if you’re wearing perhaps some leisure attire, you can also roll over on the grass and stare down. Stare down at the bugs, the ants, all the centipedes, whatever is crawling along.
And somehow it will put you in harmony with nature. There is also another technique. This is one of those emergency techniques, if you will.
One of those techniques is called the four times four. If your heart is just thumping away, my God, I can’t control it, gotta give a major speech, breathe in, shh. And as you do, count four.
And then upon filling your lungs, count four again, when your chest is full of air. And then breathe out, counting once again, four, rest four, four, and do it again, four times. So about four times four, or three more times.
Four times four, right? So this is the way that you start to realize that I am an independent being. I’m not totally subject to all the things that are coming at me on an on-going basis.
Because as we know, today, virtually everyone lives an external life. I was in a hospital the other day and I was looking at all the screens, I certainly mentioned this before, and the screens were filled with games.
They weren’t filled with any type of reading or knowledge. People were just playing mindless games, right? Now, many people, Michael Pollan finished his book recently on consciousness.
He says that most of us get a consciousness. So 10% of the population, really foolish. 5% brilliant in another sphere, I’m sure.
85% just like you and me, just like you and me. We’re given a consciousness, let’s say a 20 or so, but like any muscle, like any muscle, I must practice it again and again and again. Intelligence is something I nurture, I nurture.
And education plus experience equals, of course, expertise. But a lot of those experts, if you will, are not necessarily brilliant men. They just did the work.
They did the work and part of the work is also to be able to control your sense of peace. It is extremely hard to do. Extremely.
We’ve got this mucky brain running around inside of us all the time, filling us with thoughts.
One of our classes today was about morality, moral action, immoral action, how we constantly compete with these two actions in our brain, depending on the circumstance, right?
So, in the end, I think if I begin to say to myself, wait a moment, just wait a moment. Leon is in control of Leon here.
And yes, Leon is a man, and yes, Leon is 70 years old, and yes, Leon has two children, certain amount of money, certain amount of intelligence, but everything else is possible.
Given I have consciousness, my consciousness extends on in this reality. So I don’t have to suffer God, and I don’t have to be a victim, unless I want to. I mean, there are people for sure that want to be victims, the poor me.
Oh, poor me. I’m poor because some excuse. Lost all my money on the stock market, never had love, can’t meet a girl.
It goes on. It’s kind of nauseating in a sense, because all of us know, you know and I know, life is hard. Anyone that tells us that life is easy is a fool, basically, right?
Life is hard. If I want to extract the best from me, from me in my life, I got to work at me, right? And it’s hard work.
It’s hard work to get a PhD in Leon, isn’t it? Or anyone else for that matter. Very truthful.
But along the way in searching this great goal of the ultimate development of me, I must give myself those moments of peace, to rethink, regroup and rest, for sure. Because as we know, it’s a wonderful life, but I have to make it so, don’t I?
And you know what they say, you know what they say, critical thinking is everything, especially if I’m going to find those moments of peace in my life, which I deserve, by the way. And critical thinking is great, truly great. You take care.
God bless. Bye bye.