Affluence & the Goddess of Wealth

Once upon a time in a faraway land, a young man went to the forest and said to his spiritual master, "I want to have unlimited wealth, and with that unlimited wealth, I want to help and heal the world. Will you please tell me the secret to creating affluence?"

And the spiritual master replied, "There are two Goddesses that reside in the heart of every human being. But there is a certain secret that you need to know, and I will tell you what it is.

"Although you love both Goddesses, you must pay more attention to one of them. She is the Goddess of Knowledge, and her name is Sarasvati. Pursue her, love her, and give her your attention. The other Goddess, whose name is Lakshmi, is the Goddess of Wealth. When you pay more attention to Sarasvati, Lakshmi will become extremely jealous and pay more attention to you. The more you seek the Goddess of Knowledge, the more the Goddess of Wealth will seek you. She will follow you wherever you go and never leave you. And the wealth you desire will be yours forever."

There is power in Knowledge, desire, and spirit. And this power within you is the key to creating affluence.

Wealth consciousness is a state of mind, a sense, not of believing, but really knowing that what we need is available to us. Affluence is indeed our natural state of being.

Infinite worlds appear and disappear in the vast expanse of our own consciousness, like motes of dust dancing in a beam of light.

Affluence is reality. When we are grounded in the nature of reality and we also know that this same reality is our own nature, then we realize that we can create anything, because all of material creation has the same origin.

All of material creation is made from the same stuff and comes from the same source. Experiential knowledge of this fact gives us the ability to fulfill any desire we have, acquire any material object we want, and experience fulfillment and happiness to any extent we aspire.

Life experiences are the continuum in the seamless matrix of nothingness. They are our experiences of joy and sorrow, of success and failure, of wealth and poverty. All these events seemingly happen to us, but at very primordial levels we are making them happen. The impulse of energy and information that create our life experiences are reflected in our attitude towards life.

Knowledge has organizing power inherent in it. It is simply enough to know, to be aware of the principles; the knowledge will be processed and metabolized by our bodies, and the result will be spontaneous. The results do not occur overnight, but beguin to manifest gradually over a period of time.

You are where your attention takes you. In fact, you are your attention. When your attention is in the past, you are in the past. When you attention is in your present moment, you are in the presence of God and God is present in you. Simply be aware of the present, of what you are doing. The presence of God is everywhere, and you have only to consciously embrace it with your attention.

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Extracted from:

Creating Affluence by Deepak Chopra
Amber-Allen Publishing and New World Library, 1993

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A Tribute to Nelson Mandela

Born in 1918 in a tribal village in the Eastern Cape and educated as a lawyer, Nelson Mandela joined the African National Congress (ANC), the movement for black rights, beginning a long struggle against apartheid, the system that fostered separation of the races in South Africa.

Apartheid - literally "apartness" - had been established in 1948 by Afrikaner nationalists with the goal of securing white supremacy and ensuring Afrikaner control of political power. Under apartheid, South Africa was divided into ersatz Bantu nations, or "locations" - Africans-only settlements for a rural labor force working in gold and diamond mines. A non-white community, Bantu nations were a pretense for restricting the movement and autonomy of the black African labor force..

South Africa had always been rich in natural resources - in addition to gold and diamonds, it produced more than one-third of Africa's goods and services and nearly 40% of Africa's manufacturing output with only 7% of the African continent's population and 4% of its total land area. But it had been torn by centuries of racial conflict.

In 1944, with close friends Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu, Mandela formed the ANC Youth League (ANCYL), becoming its president in 1950.

In 1953, banned by the apartheid regime from speaking in public for 2 years, he was forced to officially resign from the ANC. He concentrated on the law practice he had started with Tambo - the first black law firm in South Africa.

After the 2-year ban ended, Mandela resumed his public role opposing apartheid. The state's relentless crackdown on the ANC, including widespread arrests, killing of demonstrators, and banning of meetings, eventually led Mandela to conclude that the ANC's policy of nonviolence was not working. He formed and led Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), or "Spear of the Nation", to move the struggle from peaceful resistance to armed reaction. Mandela was eventually captured and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964.

By the late 1980s, South Africa faced a changed post-cold-war global environment and a faltering domestic economy. The apartheid regime became a pariah around the world, with international pressure and sanctions excerbating the economic slump.

Responding to international pressure, F.W. de Klerk, then head of the apartheid government, was ready to free Mandela - after 27 years in prison.

Mandela negotiated the timing of his release on his terms - the unbanning of the ANC and other anti-aparthead organizations on February 11, 1990.

After his release from prison Mandela quoted his well-known statement from the trial that resulted in his confinement:

"I have fought against white domination and I had fought against black domination. I have cherished the idea of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities."

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Pik Botha echoed this hope:

"We [South Africans] are like the zebra. It does not matter whether you put the bullet through the white stripe or the black stripe. If you hit the animal, it will die."

On March, 1990, Nelson Mandela was elected deputy president of the ANC's National Executive Committee.

South Africa held it's first-ever democratic elections in 1994. The ANC was victorious and Mandela was inaugurated in May as the country's first democratically elected president.

As the leader of the new South Africa Mandela had to walk a tightrope between addressing the pain and suffering that millions had experienced under decades of brutally enforced segregation, while fostering a spirit of reconciliation aimed at moving the country forward.

South Africa's black majority, having achieved civil rights after years of struggle, was impatient for economic advancement and the associated delivery of services. But many whites were now living in great fear as to how the past was going to be dealt with and what their future in the new South Africa would be.

Mandela's task was to shift the cycle of decline. Significant challenges stemmed from the legacy of apartheid, including economic inequality, suppression of information, and suspicion and anger of racial groups towards one another.

A 1994 report by ANC and economists detailed the extreme poverty of at least 17 million South Africans who lived below internationally accepted poverty level, including 12 million citizens who lack access to clean drinking water, 4.6 million adults who were illiterate, 4.3 million families without adequate housing and a majority of schools without electricity.

All level of confidence were depressed. Investor confidence had eroded and although the events leading up to Mandela's election had ended international economic sanctions against South Africa, there were the risk that continuing political tensions, including the threat of retaliations, could create economic and social instability.

Mandela had only 5 years to shift the cycle - that is, until the next election. He had announced that he would serve only one term - a remarkable gesture not only in Africa, a continent known for corrupt leaders who refuse to cede power, but also remarkable for someone who had waited so long and given so much to reach this position of power.

Many of the laws that restricted the flow of information had already been removed soon after Mandela was released from prison. Despite some progress, Mandela criticized the press establishment for not changing quickly. Mandela wanted more than just cosmetic change, more than just a few faces of a different color. Mandela was deeply committed to a free press and access to information by all South Africans. "It was the press that never forgot us," he said upon his release from prison.

As president, Mandela continued to champion freedom of the press, which he was as part and parcel of the liberation of the minds of South Africans:

"I don't want a mouthpiece of the ANC or government ... The press would be totally useless then. I want a mirror through which we can see ourselves," he said in 1996."

A freer press was just one way to open dialogue. The electoral process was designed to ensure widespread input. Beyond voting, the public was given direct voice in other significant issues.

Even before he became president, Mandela used his skill as a communicator to try to heal the country. On April 10, 1993, a year before Mandela's election, Chris Hani was shot dead in his home near Johannesburg. Hani was the most popular leader after Mandela, especially among black youth. An Afrikaner woman wrote doen the licence number of the assassin's getaway car and reported it to police. They soon captured the perpetrator, a Polish immigrant. The National Party, still officially in power, feared that all whites would be blamed, and that widespread violence would erupt, paralyzing the country.

Upon hearing the news, Mandela flew to SABC television studio (South African Broadcasting Corporation, the country's largest public broadcaster) in Johannesburg to broadcast a message - one that some recalled as the speech that saved South Africa from chaos. Mandela addressed an emotional country in a calm, deliberate manner:

"A white man full of prejudice and hate came to our country and committed a deed so foul that our whole nation now teeters on the brink of disaster. A white woman, of Afrikaner origin, risked her life so that we may know, and bring to justice this assassin."

These words were aired repeatedly. Mandela had provided crucial direction to South Africans on how to react to the tragic loss of Hani in a way that would not undermine the very thing Hani had also fought for - liberation and democratic elections.

When he became president, Mandela knew that before he could move the country forward as a new South Africa, he would have to reverse the victim culture of anger and blame that stemmed from the legacy of the past. To Mandela, the South African people must take responsibility for their own actions and confess their mistakes, without provoking acts of revenge and hatred that would tear the country apart.

Parliament passed the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act in 1995. Mandela's administration shepherded a program of accountability without rancor, in the form of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The new minister of Justice, Dullah Omar echoed:

"We need understanding, not vengeance, we need reparation, not retaliation, and we need ubuntu [humanity], not victimization."

Mandela emphasized:

"We must regard the healing of the South African Nation as a process, not an event ... it helps us move away from the past to concentrate on the present and the future."

Mandela had begun the process of accountability, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

The structure of Mandela's government signaled inclusiveness and collaboration across political parties. His executive branch had members not only from the winning ANC, but also from the opposition National Party (the previous ruling apartheid govt) and Inkatha Freedom Party, both of which became a part of the Government of National Unity.

Beginning at a press conference soon after his release from prision, and continuing throughout his presidency, Mandela emphasized that:

"Whites are fellow South Africans and we want them to feel safe and to know that we appreciate the contribution that they have made towards the development of this country."

He urges whites to stay in South Africa and pointed out that they, too were a part of the nation.

He told a crowd in the shantytown of Khayalitsha, "Those that do not know how useful whites are know nothing about their own country."

Mandela understood that a strong economy involved active initiative to build new enterprises and upgrade community infrastructures. So, in May 1994, Mandela announced a Reconstruction and Development Plan (RDP) that aimed to tackle the issues at the very heart of poverty and economic opportunity, such as health, housing and education. He reassured international investors that the plan would be financed via cuts and adjustments in government's existing budget. As a symbol of commitment to the process, and setting a personal example of sacrifice, Mandela, together with senior government officials, accepted salary cuts of between 10% and 20% to contribute to social reconstruction.

At the opening of the South African Parliament in February 1996, Mandela issued a call to action:

"We can neither heal nor build with the victims of past injustices merely forgiving and the beneficiaries merely content in gratitude."

Moving poor people from helplessness to hope and enabling them to take the initiative to improve their circumstances was impossible without education. Under the RDP, free compulsory education was phased in for all children, along with a school lunch program aimed at providing at least one full meal per day to children whose families lived below the poverty level.

Opening opportunities meant addressing the racial basis of economic disparities. In October 1998, Mandela signed into law the Employment Equity Act, the goal of which was to eliminate historic race and gender-based discrimination and facilitate a move towardachieving a workplace representative of the country's demographics. Gradually, a new black middle-class began to emerge. A new generation of black business leaders became captains of industry. Great inroads were made in the delivery of essential services. Progress was also occurring in education, with literacy levels increasing across all age and gender group.

Overall, large numbers of people who previously enjoyed no control over their economic circumstances and had to struggle for survival found more opportunities and tools to improve their life situations. Mandela did not guarantee jos or higher incomes, nor shower gravy-trains flooded with free-wealth, equity/shares, licence or schemes to get-rich-quick for the black communities. His Administration created the circumstances to give all the people more capacity to move out of poverty, and to give the more affluent the confidence to invest in growing the South African economy as entrepreneurs or business leaders.

As with all his actions, Mandela was inclusive and practical. He did not want black empowerment to be accompanied by white flight, which would drain the country of capital and talent.

At his inauguration in 1994, Mandela indicated that he would serve only one term as president. On June 16, 1999, nearly 50,000 people from around the world gathered on the lawns of the Union Buildings in Pretoria to witness a historic occasion: the first transition of power in a democratic South Africa. Millions more watched on television.

It was unimaginable, for historically, very few revolutionaries have voluntarily handed over power and Mandela's act was unique for Africa - a peaceful transition of power in a continent torn by violence, and in a country surrounded by neighbors with entrenched and corrupt leadership.

When the incoming president, Thabo Mbeki, stepped forward to take the oath of office, he offered a poignant tribute to his predecessor: Mbeki clasped Mandela's hand and raised it, commenting that the day was a "Salute for a generation that pulled the country out of the abyss and placed it on the pedestal of hope on which it rests today."

Much had been done, and much was still to be done.

Mandela sought power in order to distribute it rather than to use it to dominate others. He was the kind of leader who not only transforms, but elevates all those with whom he is involved.

Mandela said of himself:

"I was not a messiah, but an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extraordinary circumstances."

When asked to comment about those unflattering verdict on his performance as a leader, Mandela simply smiled and replied:

"It helps to make you human."

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Reference/bibliography
Mandela: A Long Walk To Freedom
Rosabeth M. Kanter: Confidence

Smart Girls Marry Money

Smart Girls Marry Money:
How Women Have Been Duped Into The Romantic Dream--And How They’re Paying For It.

Authored by:
Elizabeth Ford and Daniela Drake

Women can't have it all - they can't have romantic life and all the money they wanted, at the same time, sleep with the same man in the same bed, performing the same art, with the same passion.

The thesis - that money and the marrying of it is essential for women, because, given the current working culture, women are rarely able to earn as much as men, and should their marriage fail it is a fact that women rarely bounce back, professionally or financially, as easily as men, nor even romantically. Most men becomes richer after divorce.

In recent research by Professor Stephen Jenkins, director of the Institute for Social & Economic Research, it was reported that 5 years after divorce, men were 25% richer, whereas women has less money than they did pre-split. Professor Jenkins conclude that until true equality exists in the labor market and in the way people come out of divorce, women remains at a disadvantage.

Smart Girls Marry Money was written by Daniela Drake and Elizabeth Ford. Elizabeth is a single mother, whose husband traded their marriage for a younger model - a chick 15-years younger than her. She swears she is not bitter; it's just that if she knew then what she know now, there's a lot of great and essential things she would get from that man she married. "I can attest from almost marrying someone for love (who also happened to HAVE money), there’s no way to prevent or take the burn out of being left brokenhearted, " she added.

MC: You're both accomplished working women, but you're telling us we should marry for money. What gives?

FORD: The juggling act required to be a successful woman, to be a good mom and to be a careerist, makes you want to say, "Screw it, I should've married money."

MC: So you're saying we should quit our careers?

FORD: You should definitely keep your job. But we haven't climbed the ladder as far as we should have. We have to keep that in mind when looking for a partner, and steer clear of seductive slackers.

Miss Drake divorced her first husband because she felt that passion and love were gone from their relationship. She said: "Things might have been different if I'd known then that LOVE is TRANSIENT, that it doesn't exist, that a lack of it is not a reason to get out of your marriage." He first husband has now gone on to be quite rich. She remarried and is now happily married.

So, why does society applaud a girl who falls for a guy with big blue-eyes yet denounces one who chooses a rich-ugly man? After all, isn’t money more a reflection of a man’s values and character?

Smart Girls Marry Money challenges the ideals and assumptions women have blindly accepted about love and marriage—and shows how they’ve done so at their own economic peril.

In their book, Elizabeth Ford and Daniela Drake use cold hard facts and true stories to present a compelling case for why mercenary marriages make the most sense for future happiness.

Smart Girls emphasize on "Female “empowerment” - women working hard to look sexier than ever, while demanding more than their fair share financially. Yet sadly, statistics prove that: not only do women continue to earn far less than their male counterparts, they also suffer far more economically when marriages fail. Ford and Drake think it’s high time that women get their heads out of the clouds and start caring about their own security—the kind that can be measured in dollars and common sense.

In a straight-talk tone, the authors serve up an intriguing strategy for how women can truly “have it all": that sexual fulfillment is dependent on discovering yourself through masturbation; that it is imperative to marry young, while you have the seductive powers of the sexually attractive and fecund; that women must be aware that men are prone to trading up once women no longer have the great skin or looks; that sleeping with your boss is fine if you can do so without harming your feelings or prospects.

According to Merryn Somerset Webb, the editor-in-chief of MoneyWeek, "Even really smart women are victims of their own Cinderella Syndrome." Webb wrote "Love is Not Enough" after her husband asked her: "How do you intend to keep yourself in old age?" "I said, 'I'll share your money. To which he replied, 'No. Sort your own finances out." In the "Marrying-Money" agrument, Webb says, "It's all very well, as long as the money you marry don't leave you on your own in a poor financial position. Marrying money isn't a solution - it is not emotionally satisfying. Marriage is exhausting enough with someone you love - imagine doing it with someone you don't. I don't think people would marry purely for romantic love."

The book would surely spark conversation and controversy, Smart Girls Marry Money intends to empower women with a new way to take control of both their economic and romantic lives.

While the book is intended for the audience of "young supple beauties squandering their hotness," there is good news for single women whose "sell date is long overdue": Women over 40 "may still avoid working until you drop dead." (review by Bonnie Goldstein of doublex.com)

Read: timesonline

Who are the Intellectuals? (Part 2)

Who are the Intellectuals?

"Any man or woman who is willing to think. All those who know that man's life must be guided by reason, those who value their own life and are not willing to surrender it to the cult of despair in the modern jungle of cynical impotence, just as they are not willing to surrender the world to the Dark Ages and the rule of the brutes."

--- Ayn Rand in her book: For The New Intellectual

Who are the Intellectuals? (Part 1)

"The tragic joke of human history is that on any of the altars men erected, it was always man whom they immolated and the animal whom they enshrined.

It was always the animal's attributes, not man's, that humanity worshipped: the idols of instinct and the idol of force - the mystics and the kings - the mystics, who longed for an irresponsible consciousness and ruled by means of the claim that their dark emotions were superior to reason, that knowledge came in blind, causeless fits, blindly to be followed, not doubted - and the kings - who ruled by means of claws and muscles, with conquest as their method and looting as their aim, with a club or a gun as sole sanction of their power.

The defender of man's soul were concerned with his feelings, and the defender of man's body were concerned with his stomach - but both were united against his mind."

--- John Galt in Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin S. Sharma

Peter was a very lively little boy. Everyone loved him: his family, his teachers and his friends. But he did have one weakness. Peter could never live in the moment. He had not learned to enjoy the process of life.

When he was in school, he dreamed of being outside playing. When he was outside playing he dreamed of his summer vacation.

Peter constantly daydreamed, never taking the time to savor the special moments that filled his days.

One morning, Peter was out walking in a forest near his home. Feeling tired, he decided to rest on a patch of grass and eventually dozed off. After only a few minutes of deep sleep, he heard someone calling his name. 'Peter! Peter!' came the shrill voices from above. As he slowly opened his eyes, he was startled to see a striking woman standing above him. She must have been over a hundred years old and her snow-white hair dangled well below her shoulders like a matted blanket of wool. In this woman's wrinkled hand was a magical little ball with a hole in the centre and out of the hole dangled a long, golden thread.

'Peter,' she said, 'this is the thread of your life. If you pull the thread just a bit, an hour will pass in seconds. If you pull a little harder, whole days will pass in minutes. And if you pull with all your might, months - even years - will pass by in days.'

Peter grew very excited at this discovery. 'I'd like to have it if I may?'

The elderly woman reached down and gave the ball with the magic thread to Peter.

The next day, Peter was sitting in the classroom feeling restless and bored. Suddenly, he remembered his new toy. As he pulled a little bit of the golden thread, he quickly found himself at home, playing in his garden. Realizing the power of the magic thread, Peter soon grew tired of being a schoolboy and longed to be a teenager, with all the excitement that phrase of life would bring. So, he pulled out the ball and pulled hard on the golden thread.

Suddenly he was a teenager with a very pretty young girlfriend name Elise. But Peter still wasn't content. He had never learned to enjoy the moment and to explore the simple wonders of every stage of life. Instead, he dreamed of being an adult. So again he pulled on the thread and many years whizzed by in an instant. Now he found that he had been transformed into a middle-aged adult.

Elise was now his wife and Peter was surrounded with a houseful of kids. But Peter also noticed something else. His once jet black hair had started to turn grey. And his once youthful mother whom he loved so dearly had grown old and frail.

Yet Peter still could not live in the moment. He had never learned to "live in the now." So, once again, he pulled on the magic thread and waited for the changes to appear.

Peter now found that he was a seventy-year-old man. His thick dark hair had turned white as snow and his beautiful young wife Elise had also grown old. His wonderful children had grown up and left home to lead lives of their own.

For the first time in his entire life, Peter realized that he had not taken the time to embrace the wonders of living. He had never gone fishing with his kids or taken a moonlight stroll with Elise. He had never planted a garden or read those wonderful books his mother had love to read. Instead he had hurried through life, never resting to see all that was good along the way.

Peter became very sad at this discovery. He decided to go out to the forest to look for the old woman who had given him the ball and the magic thread. But she was nowhere to be found.

"My whole life has passed before my eyes without giving me the chance to enjoy it. Sure, there would have been sad times as well as great times but I haven't had the chance to experience either. I had missed the gift of living."

Peter decides to "live in the now" from now onwards. He will now take whatever time is left tn this world to embrace the wonders of living.

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Adapted from:
Robin S. Sharma's The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari
HarperCollinsPublishers
1997

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The Secret - The Law of Attraction

The Secret
by Rhonda Byrne
2006, Atria Books
available at MPH Bookstore
RM79.90

This is a good book to read.

The Secret unveils the knowledge of ourselves and how we could understand the hidden, untapped power within us.

The Secret contained wisdom from teachers such as Bob Proctor, Dr Joe Vitale, John Assaraf, Dr John Demartini, Dr Denis Waitley, Michael Bernard Beckwith, Lee Brower, Marie Diamond, Mike Dooley, Bob Doyle, Hale Dwoskin, Morris Goodman, Dr John Hagelin, Bill Harris, Dr Ben Johnson, Loral Langemeier, Lisa Nichols, James Ray, David Schirmer, Neale Donald Walsch, Dr Fred Alan Wolf, Dr John Gray and Jack Canfield.

The Secret is about the law of attraction. Everything that's coming into our life we are attracting into our life. And it's attracted to us by virtue of the images we're holding in our mind. It's what we're thinking. Whatever is going on in our mind we are attracting to us.

Go and get one of this book at the bookstore. it is value for money. But I prefer the DVD copy which is also available at MPH; however, the DVD could cost around RM130.

This book was introduced to me by my student from CatLand. Watch the DVD!

Eat, Drink & be Merry

As a Chinese, I often wonder why we Chinese place so much emphasis on food and soup. Often we hear Chinese people says, we live to eat, and not the natural of which we eat to live.

Whenever we celebrate birthdays or festivals, we arrange dinner settings, with plenty of food and drinks.

Lin YuTang posed: "What is the use of saying, “Peace, Peace,” when there is no peace below the diaphragm? This applies to nations as well as individuals. Empires have collapsed and the most powerful regimes and reigns of terror have broken down when the people were hungry.

Why does a husband work and sweat in the office the whole day, except the prospect of a good meal at home? Hence the proverb that, “the best way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” When his flesh is satisfied, his spirit is calmer and more at ease, and he becomes more amorous and appreciative.

Wives had complained that husband don’t notice their new dresses, new shoes or new eyebrows. But have wives ever complained that husbands don’t notice a good meal?

In his book, The Importance of Living, Lin YuTang cited a passage from the prefatory note of a book on the General Art of Living by a Chinese epicure Li LiWeng, and I surely find joy in reading it. Li LiWeng wrote a complaint about our having this bottomless pit called the stomach:

I see that the organs of the human body, the ear, the eye, the nose, the tongue, the hands, the feet, and the body, have all a necessary function, but the two organs which are totally unnecessary but with which we are nevertheless endowed are the mouth and the stomach, which caused all the worry and trouble of mankind throughout the ages. With this mouth and this stomach, the matter of getting a living becomes complicated, and when the matter of getting a living becomes complicated, we have cunning and falsehood and dishonesty in human affairs. With the coming of cunning and falsehood and dishonesty in human affairs, comes the criminal law, so that the king is not able to protect with his mercy, the parents are not able to gratify their love, and even the kind Creator is forced to go against His will. All this comes of a little lack of forethought in His design for the human body at the time of the creation, and is the consequence of our having these two organs.

He has given us not only these two organs, but has also endowed us with manifold appetites or desires, besides making the pit bottomless, so that it is like a valley or a sea that can never be filled. The consequence is that we labor in our life with all the energy of the other organs, in order to supply inadequately the needs of these two. I have thought over and over again, and cannot help blaming the Creator for it. I know, of course, that He must have repented of His mistake also, but simple feels that nothing can be done about it now, since the design or pattern is already fixed.

How important it is for man to be very careful at the time of the conception of a law or an institution!

Chapter 3: Animal Heritage
The Importance of Living

There is certainly nothing to be done about it, now that we have got this bottomless pit to fill. Confucius reduced the great desires of human beings to two: alimentation and reproduction, or in simple term, food and drinks, and woman.

Many men had circumvented sex, but no saint had yet to circumvented food and drinks. The most constant refrain of our thought occurring unfailingly every few hours is, “when do I eat?” This occurs at least 3 times a day. And stomach-gifted that we all are, the best arrangement we can think of when we gather to render public homage to a grandfather is to give him a birthday feast.

There is a reason for it. Friends that meet at meals meet at peace. Put two of the best friends together when they are hungry, and they will invariably end up in a quarrel. It is for this reason that, with the Chinese deep insight into human nature, all quarrels and disputes are settled at dinner tables instead of the court of justice. The pattern of Chinese life is such that we not only settle disputes at dinner, after they have arisen, but also forestall the rising of disputes by the same means. We bribe our way into the good will of everybody by frequent dinners. It is, in fact, the only safe guide to success in politics. Should someone take the trouble to compile statistical figures, he would be able to find an absolute correlation between the number of dinners a man gives to his friends and the rate or speed of his official promotion or approvals.

With this philosophy, therefore, the Chinese have no prudery about food, or about eating it with gusto. When a Chinese drinks a mouthful of good soup, he gives a hearty smack; that would be bad table manners in the West. Western table manners compelled us to sip our soup noiselessly and eat our food quietly with the least expression of enjoyment, which they call, the art of cuisine. Most Americans haven’t got the good sense to take a chicken drumstick in their hand and chew it clean, but continued to pretend to play at it with a knife and fork, feeling utterly miserable and afraid to say a thing about it. This is criminal when the chicken is really good.

Such is the human psychology that if we don’t express our joy, we soon cease to feel it even, and then follow dyspepsia, melancholia, neurasthenia and all the mental ailments peculiar to the adult life.

In fact, I believe the reason why the Chinese failed to develop botany and zoology is that the Chinese scholar cannot stare coldly and unemotionally at a fish without immediately thinking of how it tastes in the mouth. The reason I can’t trust Chinese surgeons is that I am afraid that when a Chinese surgeon cuts up my liver in search of a gall-stone, he may forget about the stone and put my liver in a frying pan. For I see a Chinese cannot look at a porcupine without immediately thinking of ways and means of cooking it without being poisoned, and so was with all the other animals and plants.

By nature, men are not carnivorous animal although they enjoy a good steak. The difference between the cannibals and civilized men is that the cannibals kill their enemies and eat them, while civilized men kill their foes and bury them, put a cross over their bodies and offer up prayers for their souls.

Half of the world spends their time doing things, and half the other half spends its time making others do things for them.

Food, then, is the very few solid joys of human life. There is no question of morality that arises in connection with food. Once food gets inside the lips, there is comparatively little side-tracking. It is readily admitted that everybody must have food, which is not the case with the sexual instinct. At the worst, some people eat their way into dyspepsia or an ulcered stomach or a hardened liver, and a few dig their graves with their own teeth. For the same reason, fewer social crimes arise from food than from sex. The criminal code has comparatively little to do with the sins of illegal, immoral and faithless eating, while it has a large section on adultery, divorce, and assault on women. At the worst, husband may ransack the icebox, but we seldom hang a man for spiking a fridge. Should such a case be brought to court, the judge will be full of compassion. Our hearts go out to people in famine, but not to the cloistered nun.

There is little public ignorance about the subject of food, as compared with public ignorance on the subject of sex. The subject of food enjoys the sunshine of knowledge, but sex is still surrounded with fairy tales, myths and superstitions. There is a closer relation between food and temperament. All herbivorous animals are peaceful by nature: the lamb, the horse, the cow, the elephant, the sparrow, etc; all carnivorous animals are fighters: the wolf, the lion, the tiger, the hawk, etc. nature does not produce a pugnacious temperament where no fighting is needed. Cocks still fight with each other, but they fight not about food, but about women.

In food and at death, we feel the essential brotherhood of mankind. When the stomach is right, everything is right. A well-filled stomach is indeed a great thing; all else is luxury.

Women, wine, and beautiful songs; that's men's life!

Lin YuTang: The Importance of Living

Lin YuTang

The Importance of Living

Cultured Lotus, 2001

(First published by The John Day Company, Inc 1937)

‘The Importance of Living’ by Lin YuTang is a personal testimony, a testimony of his very own experience of thought and life. The main ingredient of his thought is matter-of-fact prose (the ordinary language people use in speaking or writing), natural leisure discourse. Lin YuTang called his writing, a “Lyrical Philosophy” to express his thoughts which is based on highly personal and individual outlook. It lays no claim to establish eternal truths.

When I started reading this book, I was jolted when I read a passage he wrote in the Preface: “I am not deep and well-read. If one is too well-read, then one does not know right is right and wrong is wrong.”

I pondered hard to discover what Lin was trying to express. I am still puzzled and blank.

In the Preface, he expressed his philosophical limitations and said he had not read John Locke or David Hume or Berkeley, and had never taken a college course in philosophy, but only read life at first hand. His sources of knowledge comes from: Mrs. Huang, an amah in his family, a Soochow boat-woman, a Shanghai street car conductor, the cook’s wife, a lion cub in the zoo, a squirrel in New York, a deck steward, and all news in boxes. That’s his source of philosophy of mankind.

While I continued reading, I gather that, Lin had being quoting various sources from (1) Chinese Philosopher & Poets such as: Su Tungpo, ChuangTse, Mencius, Confucius, TseSse (Confucius’ grandson), LaoTse, Po Chuyi, Yuan ChungLang, Chang Tai, Tu ChihShui, Li ChowWu, Chang Chao, Li LiWeng, Yuan TseTsai, Chin ShengTan, Tao YuanMing, Li Mi-an; (2) Western & Greek Philsophers such as: Thomas Hobbes, Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot, Plato, Dr Alexis Carrel (Man, the Unknown), Clarence Day (This Simian World), Lord Balfour, Omar Khayyam, Mussolini, William James, James Harvey Robinson (The Mind in the Making), Shakespeare, Aesop, Chaucer, Swift, Anatole France, Einstein, Newton, Hans Christian Andersen (The Mermaid), Kaiser Wilhelm Hodenzollern, Hitler, Hegel,Walt Whitman (Democratic Vistas), Napolean, Marx, Stalin, Emerson, Amiel, Joubert, James Bryce, George Santayana, and so many, many, more.

The writings in this book covered wide views on human awakenings, views of mankind, animal heritage, human dignity and life’s enjoyment, the importance of loafing, celibacy and sex appeal, enjoyment of nature, culture and travel, man’s relationship to God, and the art of thinking.

This philosophical book is a difficult read. You have to have passion and yearnings to want to learn and find out more about the philosophical views of mankind, in particular, the wisdom and thoughts of a Chinese philosopher; otherwise, you would throw the book away.

In Lin’s own words, “I am only interested to present a view of life and of things as the best and wisest Chinese minds have seen it and expressed it in their folk wisdom and their literatures.” It was surely an idle philosophy born of an idle life which evolved with the time.

I love it when he said that “The Chinese philosopher is one who dreams with one eye open, who views life with love and sweet irony, who mixes his cynicism with a kindly tolerance, and who alternately wake up from life’s dream and then nods again, feeling more alive when he is dreaming than when he is awake, thereby investing his waking life with a dream-world quality.

A “Dream-world” quality, what a nice phrase

Dr Lin was born in Changchow in the Fukien province of China on Oct 10th 1895, son of a Christian Minister. He was raised as a Christian, but soon abandoned Christianity for the old Chinese Pagan religions of Taoism and Buddhism, only to rediscover Christianity later in his life.

He took his degrees in St. John's (Shanghai), Harvard, and Leipzig. He was a teacher at Tsinghua University, Beijing in 1916-1919; married and went with his wife to Harvard in 1919 where he studied Comparative Literature under Bliss Perry and Irving Babbitt until 1920. They then moved to France, where Dr Lin worked with the YMCA for Chinese labourers at Le Creusot, 1920-1921. He studied at Jena and Leipzig (where he received his Doctorate) 1921-1923; was Professor of English at Beijing National University 1923-1926 and Dean of Women's Normal College in 1926.

It was in 1937 that Lin first published the book The Importance of Living. It was pure philosophy, and an ancestor of modern "self-help" books, and it achieved instant fame in the United States.

Though Lin's subsequent works contained many philosophical ideas, The Importance of Living is the only one of his books dedicated solely to the mystery of life and the secret to living it successfully.

In 1959, at the encouraging of his wife, Lin attended the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City. The minister's sermon about eternal life left Lin curious and intrigued, and he began to return "again and again." After some time, he said:

"The scales began to fall from my eyes. I no longer ask, 'Is there a satisfying religion for the modern educated man?' I know there is. Returning to the Bible, I have found in it not merely a record of historical events but an authentic revelation that brings God, through Christ, within my reach. I have returned to the church. I am happy in my accustomed pew on Sunday morning. I believe we go to church not because we are sinners, and not because we are paragons of Christian virtue, but because we are conscious of our spiritual heritage, aware of our higher nature and equally conscious of our human failings and of the slough of self-complacency into which, without help from this greater power outside ourselves, we so easily fall back…. Looking back on my life, I know that for thirty years I lived in this world like an orphan. I am an orphan no longer. Where I had been drifting, I have arrived. The Sunday morning when I rejoined the Christian church was a homecoming.

The result of Lin's conversion was a book, From Pagan to Christian. It is a text that provides valuable biographical information, and a detailed discussion of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, with a final discussion on why he finally chose Christianity. He asserts that no person can rightly claim to have "a monopoly of truth," and spends much of the book pointing out the qualities of other religions.

Lin Yutang died in 1976 and was buried at his home in Yang Mingshan, Taiwan. His old home has now been turned into a museum, which is run by Soochow University.

Chapter 1: The Awakening

I like to share some of his thoughts about mankind. In the first chapter ‘The Awakening’, Lin said that, “It is generally known that the Chinese mind is an intensely practical, hard-headed one … and profoundly sensitive, profoundly poetic and philosophical. It was evident that the Chinese as a nation are more philosophic than efficient, and that if it was otherwise, no nation could have survived the high blood pressure of efficient life for 4,000 years. 4,000 years of efficient living would ruin any nation, says Lin.

Lin expressed: “In the West, the insane are so many that they are put in an asylum, while in China, the insane are so unusual that we worship them, as anybody who has knowledge of Chinese literature will testify.” (Hahahaha, I truly love this phrase.)

In Lin’s thesis, Mankind seems to be divided into idealists and realists, and idealism and realism are the two great forces molding human progress. The forces of idealism and realism tug at each other in all human activities, and real progress is made possible by the proper mixture of these two ingredients, so that the clay is kept in the ideal pliable, plastic condition, half moist and half dry, not hardened and unmanageable, nor dissolving into mud. Some countries are thrown into perpetual revolutions because into their clay has been injected some liquid of foreign ideals which is not yet properly assimilated, and the clay is therefore not able to keep its shape.

A vague, uncritical idealism always lends itself to ridicule and too much of it might be a danger to mankind, leading it round in a futile wild-goose chase for imaginary ideals. If there were too many of these visionary idealists in any society, revolution would be the order of the day.

Human society would be like an idealistic couple forever getting tired of one place and changing their residence regularly for the simple reason that no one place is ideal and the place where one is not seems always better because one is not there.

Very fortunately, man is also gifted with a sense of humor, whose function, is to exercise criticism of man’s dreams, and bring them in touch with the world of reality. It is therefore important that man dreams, but it is perhaps equally important that he can laugh at his own dreams.

So then, wisdom of the highest level of thinking consists in toning down our dreams, or idealism with a good sense of humor, supported by reality itself. That is to say, Reality + Dreams + Humor = Wisdom.

The Dreamer says: “Life is but a dream.” The Realist replies: “Quite correct. And let us live this dream as beautifully as we can.” But the Realist is a poet and not a business man, who is like an old man running his finger through his flowing beard, and speaking soothingly. And the dreamer is a peace lover, for no one can fight hard just for a dream. He will be more intent to live reasonably and well with his fellow dreamers.

But the chief function of realism is the elimination of all non-essentials in the philosophy of life, holding life down by the neck, for fear that the wings of imagination may carry it away to an imaginary and possible beautiful, but unreal, world.

The problem of life for the Chinese is the impatience with metaphysics and the pursuit of knowledge that does not lead to any practical bearing on life itself. It also means that every human activity, whether the acquiring of knowledge or the acquiring of things, has to be submitted immediately to the test of life itself and its subservience to the end of living. The significance is that, the end of living is not some metaphysical entity – but just living itself.

Therefore, the philosophy of the Chinese becomes a matter of direct and intimate feeling of life itself, and refused to be encased in any system. For there is a robust sense of reality, a sheer animal sense, a spirit of reasonableness which crushes reason itself and makes the rise of any hard and fast philosophic system impossible.

Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism are robust, yet common sense dilutes them all and reduces them all into the common problem of the pursuit of a happy human life. The mature Chinese is always a person who refuses to think too hard or to believe in any single idea or faith or school of philosophy whole-heartedly. When a friend of Confucius told him that he always thought 3-times before he acted, Confucius wittily replied, “To think twice is more than enough.”

The final product of this culture and philosophy is that, man lives a life closer to nature and close to childhood, a life in which the instincts and the emotions are given free play and emphasized against the life of the intellect, with a strange combination of devotion to the flesh and arrogance of the spirit, of profound wisdom and foolish gaiety, high sophistication and childish naiveté.

This philosophy of life is characterized by: (1) a gift for seeing life whole in art; (2) a conscious return to simplicity in philosophy; (3) an ideal of reasonableness in living. The end product is, strange to say, a worship of the poet, the peasant, and the vagabond.

Man’s dignity consists of the facts that which distinguish man from animals. First, man has a playful curiosity and a natural genius for exploring knowledge; second, that man has dreams and a lofty idealism (often vague, cocky & confused); third, that man is able to correct his dreams by a sense of humor, and thus restrain his idealism by a more robust and healthy realism; and finally, that man does not react to surroundings mechanically and uniformly as animals do, but possesses the ability and the freedom to determine his own reactions and to change the surroundings at his will.

Somehow, human mind is forever elusive, uncatchable and unpredictable, and wriggle out of materialistic dialectic that crazy psychologists and unmarried economists are trying to impose upon him. Man, therefore, is a curious, dreamy, humorous and wayward creature.

The Scamp as Ideal.

My faith in human dignity consists in the belief that man is the greatest scamp on earth. Human dignity must be associated with the idea of a scamp and not with that of an obedient, disciplined and regimented soldier.

In this present age of threats to democracy and individual liberty, only the scamp and the spirit of the scamp alone will save us from becoming lost as serially numbered units in the masses of disciplined, obedient, regimented and uniformed coolies. The scamp will be the last and most formidable enemy of dictatorships. He will be the champion of human dignity and individual freedom, and will be the last to be conquered. All modern civilization depends entirely upon him.

I do not think that any civilization can be called complete until it has progressed from sophistication to unsophistication, and made a conscious return to simplicity of thinking and living, and I call no man wise until he has made the progress from the wisdom of knowledge to the wisdom of foolishness, and become a laughing philosopher, feeling first life’s tragedy and then life’s comedy. For we must weep before we can laugh. Out of sadness comes the awakening and out of the awakening comes the laughter of the philosopher, with kindliness and tolerance to boot.

This world is far too serious and being far too serious, it has need of a wise and merry philosophy. The philosophy of the Chinese art of living can certainly be called the “gay science”. After all, only a gay philosophy is profound philosophy; the serious philosophies of the West haven’t even begun to understand what life is. To me, the fundamental view is that, the only function of philosophy is to teach us to take life more lightly and gaily than the average business man does. The world can be made a more peaceful and more reasonable place to live in only when men have imbued themselves in the light gayety of this spirit. The modern man takes life far too seriously, and because he is too serious, the world is full of trouble. We ought, therefore, to take time to examine the origin of that attitude which will make possible a wholehearted enjoyment of this life and a more reasonable, more peaceful and less hot-headed temperament.

This is perhaps the philosophy of the Chinese people, a philosophy that transcends these and other ancient philosophers, for it draws from these fountain springs of thought and harmonizes them into a whole, and from the wisdom, it has created an art of living in the flesh, visible, palpable and understandable by the common man.

(The above is only chapter 1. I will cull some of the interesting thoughts and essays later).

Man's Search for Meaning

Viktor E Frankl

Man’s Search for Meaning

Beacon Press, Boston, 1959, 2006

To review this book had been made easy by the Forward penned by Harold S. Kushner. There’s really nothing that need to be said that had not been said by Harold. In Harold’s words, "if a book has one passage, one idea with the power to change a person’s life, that alone justifies reading it, rereading it, and finding room for it on one’s shelves. This book has several such passages."

It is a book about survival. Frankl was cast into the Nazi concentration and extermination camps. Miraculously, he survived. This book is not an account of what he suffered and lost, for it is about the sources of his strength to survive, as Frankl approvingly quote the words of Nietzsche: “He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How.”

Frankl described poignantly those prisoners who gave up on life, lost all Hope for a future, and inevitably died. They died less from lack of food or medicine than from lack of Hope.

But Frankl discovered an enduring insight, in that, “forces beyond our control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.” In Frankl’s words: “You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you feel and do about what happens to you.” “ …that we can never be left with nothing as long as we retain the freedom to choose how we will respond to a suffering.

Camp’s Life

On their admission to the camp, all possessions are taken away from them, and each prisoner had nothing but a number, tattooed on their skin or sewn to a certain spot. They all lost their identity, for they will never be asked for their name except their number; and anyone can claim a fictitious name or profession. Frankl was number 119,104 and most of the time he was digging and laying tracks for railway lines. He also dig tunnel, without help, for a water main under the road.

In his writing, Frankl examines his and the many prisoners’ experiences, and observed that there are three phases of the inmates mental reactions to camp life: the period following the admission; the period when he is well entrenched in camp routine; and the period following his release and liberation.

The symptom that characterizes the first phase is shock. Auschwitz is the name that stood for all that was horrible: gas chambers, crematoriums, massacres. With the outlines of an immense camp becoming visible, step by step they had to become accustomed to a terrible and immense horror.

However, there was a certain “delusion of reprieve”. Nearly every prisoner lived under the illusion that they would be reprieved, that everything would yet be well. Like a condemned man, immediately before his execution, gets the illusion that he might be reprieved at the very last minute. Frankl clung to shreds of hope and believed to the last moment that it would not be so bad.

Slowly, those illusions were destroyed one by one, and then, most of them would overcome by a grim sense of humor, for they had nothing to lose except their naked lives. Only sleep can bring oblivion and relief from the pains they had endured. The thoughts of suicide were entertained by nearly everyone. It was born of the hopelessness of the situation, the constant danger of death and the closeness of death.

There are things which must cause you to lose your reason or you have none to lose. An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior. Newly arrived prisoners experienced the torture of other most painful emotions, all of which he tried to deaden. They were disgusted with the ugliness which surrounded them. At first the prisoners looked away if they saw the punishment of another group; he could not bear to see fellow prisoners being tortured.

Days or weeks passed, and the prisoners soon passed into the second stage of his psychological reactions, for they did not avert their eyes any more. By then their feelings were blunted, and they watched unmoved and unconcerned.

Apathy, the blunting of the emotions and the feeling that once could not care any more, were the symptoms arising during the 2nd stage of the prisoners’ psychological reactions, and which eventually make them insensitive to daily and hourly beatings. This insensibility of the prisoners soon surrounded them with a very necessary protection shell. Beating occurred on the slightest provocation, sometimes for no reason at all. At such a moment it is not the physical pain which hurts the most; it is the mental agony caused by the injustice, the unreasonableness of it all.

Strangely enough, a blow which does not even find its mark can, under certain circumstances, hurt more than one that finds its mark. There are moments when indignation can rouse even a seemingly hardened prisoner – indignation not about cruelty or pain, but about the insult connected with it.

Apathy, the main symptom of the 2nd phase, was a necessary mechanism of self-defense. Reality dimmed, and all efforts and all emotions were centered on one task: preserving one’s own life, and that of the other fellow. Such a state of strain and the concentration on the task to stay alive, forced the prisoners’ inner life down to a primitive level - a “regression” – a retreat to a more primitive form of mental life. His wishes and desires became obvious in his dreams. They dream of brad, cake, cigarettes, and nice warm bath. The lack of having these simple desire satisfied led them to seek wish-fulfillment in dreams. Even the strongest was longing for the time when they could have fairly good food again, not for the sake of good food itself, but for the sake of knowing that the sub-human existence, which had made them unable to think of anything other than food, would at least cease.

Whether these dreams did any good is another matter; the dreamer had to still wake from them to the reality of camp life, which is terribly contrasting between that and the dream illusions.

For those who had not had similar experience can hardly conceive of the soul-destroying mental conflict and clashes of will power which a famished man experiences. Undernourishment, besides being the cause of the general preoccupation with food, probably also explains the fact that the sexual urge was generally absent. The effort of having to concentrate on just saving one’s skin led to a total disregard of anything not serving that purpose, and explains the prisoners’ complete lack of sentiments.

During the later part of his imprisonment, the daily ration consisted of watery soup given out once daily, and a small crump of bread. The diet was absolutely inadequate, taking into consideration the heavy manual work and constant exposure to the cold in inadequate clothing. When the last layers of subcutaneous fat had vanished, they looked like skeletons disguised with skin and rags, and they could watch their bodies beginning to devour themselves. The organism digested its own protein, and the muscles disappeared. Then the body had no power of resistance left. One after another died and each of them could calculate with fair accuracy whose turn would be next, and when his own would come. They were, but a small portion of a great mass of human flesh, of a mass behind barbed wire, a mass of which daily a certain portion begins to rot because it has become lifeless.

There was neither time nor desire to consider moral or ethical issues. Every man was controlled by one thought only: to keep himself alive for the family waiting for him at home, and to save his friends. Only those prisoners who could keep alive who, after years of trekking from camp to camp, had lost all scruples in their fight for existence; they were prepared to use every means, honest and otherwise, even brutal force, theft, and betrayal of their friends, in order to save themselves. With no hesitation, any prisoner would arrange for another prisoner, another number, to take his place to be sent to the gas chambers.

“For each man saved another victim had to be found”


In Frankl’s words, “It is not for me to pass judgment on those prisoners who put their own people above everyone else. Who can throw a stone at a man who favors his friends under circumstances when, sooner or later, it is a question of life or death. No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same.”

The spirit of Love, Art and Nature

In spite of all the enforced physical and mental primitiveness of the life in a concentration camp, it was still possible for spiritual life to deepen. On one of those morning march to work site, a thought of his beloved woman came to mind that transfixed Frankl: for the first time in his life he saw the truth, the truth that, LOVE is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. He understood then, how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way, in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment.

For, Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases, somehow, to be of importance. There is no need for him to know whether she is still alive at all; for nothing could touch the strength of his love, his thoughts, and the image of his beloved. Set me like a seal upon thy heart, love is as strong as death.

This intensification of the inner self helped him to find a refuge from the emptiness, desolation and spiritual poverty of his existence, by letting him escape into the past. When given free rein, his imagination played with past events, often not important ones, but minor happenings and trifling things. His nostalgic memory glorified them and they assumed a strange character. These memories could move one to tears.

As the inner life of the prisoner tended to become more intense, he also experienced the beauty of art and nature as never before. Under their influence he sometimes even forgot his own frightful circumstances.

Humor, the Soul’s Weapon

Humor was another of the soul’s weapons in the fight for self preservation. It is well known that humor, more than anything else in the human make-up, can afford aloofness and an ability to rise above any situation, even if only for a few seconds. The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick learned while mastering the art of living. Yet it is possible to practice the art of living in a concentration camp, although suffering is omnipotent.

A man’s suffering is similar to the behavior of gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore, the size of human suffering is absolutely relative.


Negative Happiness

It also follows that a very trifling thing can cause the greatest of joys. The prisoners were grateful for the smallest of mercies. They were glad when there was time to delouse before going to bed; they were thankful if there was no air raid alarm which would keep them awake half the night. The meager pleasures of camp life provided a kind of “Negative Happiness” – freedom from suffering as Schopenhauer put it – and even that in a relative way only. Real positive happiness, even small ones, were very few.

3rd Stage of Mental Reactions – Liberation

The 3rd stage of a prisoner’s mental reactions is the psychology of the prisoner after his liberation. In the morning when the white flag was hoisted above the camp gates after days of high tension, the state of inner suspense was followed by total relaxation. But it would be quite wrong to think that the prisoners went mad with joy. “Freedom”, they repeated to themselves, and yet they could not grasp it. They had said this word so often during all the years they dreamed about it, that it had lost its meaning. They could not grasp the fact that freedom was theirs. They had literally lost their ability to feel pleased and had to relearn it slowly.

Psychologically, what was happening to the liberated prisoners could be called “depersonalization”. Everything appeared unreal, unlikely, as in a dream. They could not believe it was true. They had being deceived by their dreams so often in the past years. And now the dream had come true, but could they truly believe in it?

The body has fewer inhibitions than the mind. It made good use of the new freedom from the first moment on. It began to eat ravenously, for hours and days, even half the night.

One day, after the liberation, Frankl walked through the country past flowering meadows, for miles and miles, toward the market town near the camp. There was no one to be seen around; there was nothing but the wide earth and sky and the larks’ jubilation and the freedom of space. He stopped, looked around, and up to the sky – and then he went down on his knees. At that moment there was little in mind – always the same: “I called to the Lord from my narrow prison and He answered me in the freedom of space.” How long he knelt, he couldn’t remember. But from that day onwards, his new life started. Step by step he progressed, until he again became a human being.

Frankl’s Logotherapy

Frankl’s experience at the concentration camp serves as the existential validation of his doctrine which seeks to convey the message that life holds a potential meaning under any condition, even the most miserable ones.

For a man’s character became involved to the point that he was caught in a mental turmoil which threatened all the values he held and threw them into doubt. Under the influence of a world which no longer recognized the value of human life and human dignity, which had robbed man of his will and had made him an object to be exterminated, under this influence the personal ego finally suffered a loss of values. If the man in the concentration camp did not struggle against this in a last effort to save his self-respect, he lost the feeling of being an individual, a being with a mind, with inner freedom and personal value. He thought of himself then as only a part of an enormous mass of people; his existence descended to the level of animal life.

It is well known that an enforced community life, in which attention is paid to everything one does at all times, may result in an irresistible urge to get away, at least for a short while. The prisoner craved to be alone with himself and his thoughts. He yearns for privacy and for solitude. It would be a fortune to find solitude for about five minutes at a time. He would then sit and looked out at the green flowering slopes and the distant blue hills of the Bavarian landscape, framed by meshes of barbed wire. He would dream longingly, and his thoughts would wander in the direction of his home, but he could see no clouds. Even the corpses near him, crawling with lice, did not bother him.

It is difficult for an outsider to grasp how very little value was placed on human life in camp. The inmates were hardened. A man is only counted because he had a prison number. The life of a number was completely irrelevant. What stood behind those numbers and that life mattered even less: the fate, the history, the name of the man. They had no documents; everyone was lucky to own his body, which, after all, was still breathing. The prisoners saw themselves completely dependent on the moods of the guards and this made them even less human than the circumstances warranted.

By the above accounts, Frankl might have given the impression that the human being is completely and unavoidably influenced by his surrounding, in this case, the unique structure of camp life, which forced the prisoner to conform his conduct to a certain pattern of life. Is man no more than a product of many conditional and environmental factors – be they of a biological, psychological or sociological nature? Does man have no choice of action in the face of such circumstances?

The experiences of camp life shows that man does have a choice, says Frankl. There were enough examples that apathy could be overcome, irritability suppressed. Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress.

There were sufficient proofs that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

There were always choices to make, every day, every hour, offered opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstances, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate.

Fundamentally, every man can, even under such difficult circumstances, decide what shall become of him – mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp. Dostoevski said once, “There is only one thing that I dread; not to be worthy of my sufferings.”

The last inner freedom cannot be lost. It can be said that the prisoners were worthy of their sufferings; what they bore their suffering was a genuine inner achievement. It is this spiritual freedom – which cannot be taken away – that makes life meaningful and purposeful.

An active life serves the purpose of giving man the opportunity to realize values in creative work, while a passive life of enjoyment affords him the opportunity to obtain fulfillment in experiencing beauty, art, or nature. But there is also purpose in that life, namely, in man’s attitude to his existence, an existence restricted by external forces. If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. For without suffering and death, human life cannot be complete.

The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity – even under the most difficult circumstances – to add a deeper meaning to his life. It is true that only a few people are capable of reaching such high moral standards.

Everywhere man is confronted with fate, with the chance of achieving something through his own suffering. But when we were confronted with a great destiny and faced with the decision of meeting it with equal spiritual greatness, we had forgotten our youthful resolutions of long ago, and we failed. Psychological observation of the prisoners have shown that only the men who allowed their inner hold on their moral and spiritual selves to subside eventually fell victim to the camp’s degenerating influences.

Life in a concentration camp could be called a “provisional existence” or as defined as “provisional existence of unknown limit.” New arrivals usually know nothing about the conditions at a camp. On entering camp a change took place in the minds of the men. With the end of uncertainty there came the uncertainty of the end. It was impossible to foresee whether or when, if at all, this form of existence would end. A man who could not see the end of his “provisional existence” was not able to aim at an ultimate goal in life. He ceased living for the future. Therefore the whole structure of his inner life changed; signs of decay set in which we know from other areas of life.

A man who let himself decline because he could not see any future goal found himself occupied with retrospective thoughts. There was the tendency to look into the past, to help make the present, with all its horrors, less real. But in robbing the present of its reality there lay a certain danger. It became easy to overlook the opportunity to make something positive, opportunities which really do exist. Such people forgot that often it is just such an exceptionally difficult external situation which gives man the opportunity to grow spiritually beyond their inner strength; they did not take their life seriously and despised it, as something of no consequence. They preferred to close their eyes and to live in the past. Life for such people became meaningless. It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future.

Naturally only a few people were capable of reaching great spiritual heights. The words of Bismarck, “Life is like being at the dentist. You always think that the worst is still to come, and yet it is over already.” Most men in a concentration camp believed that the real opportunities of life had passed. Yet in reality, there was an opportunity and a challenge. One could make a victory of those experiences, turning life into an inner triumph or one could ignore the challenge and simply vegetate, as did a majority of prisoners. Spinoza say in his Ethics, “Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it. Those who had lost faith in the future – his future – is doomed. He then declined and become subjected to mental and physical decay.

There is also a close link between the loss of faith in the future and the dangerous giving up. There is a close connection between the state of mind of a man – his courage and hope, or lack of them – and the state of immunity of his body will understand that the sudden loss of hope and courage can have a deadly effect. Where there is a dream of a future, and when this faith in the future and the will to live had become paralyzed, the body will fell victim to illness and the voice of a dream will be right after all.

Therefore, any attempt to restore such a man’s inner strength had first to succeed in showing him some future goal. Nietzsche’s words, “He who has a WHY to live for can bear with almost any HOW”, could be the guiding principle. We had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.

These tasks, and therefore the meaning of life, differ man to man, and from moment to moment. Thus it is impossible to define the meaning of life in a general way. Questions about the meaning of life can never be answered by sweeping statements. Life does not mean something vague, but something very real and concrete. They form man’s destiny, which is different and unique for each individual. No man and no destiny can be compared with any other man or any other destiny. No situation repeats itself, and each situation calls for a different response. Sometimes the situation in which a man finds himself may require him to shape his own fate by action. At other time it is more advantageous for him to make use of an opportunity for contemplation and to realize assets in this way. Sometimes man may be required simply to accept fate, to bear his cross. Every situation is distinguished by its uniqueness, and there is always only one right answer to the problem posed by the situation at hand.

When a man finds it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task. He will have to acknowledge the fact that even in suffering he is unique and alone in the universe. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden.

Once the meaning of suffering had been revealed to him, Frankl refuse to minimize or alleviate the tortures by ignoring them or harboring false illusions and entertaining artificial optimism. Suffering had become a task on which he did not want to turn his backs. We had realized its hidden opportunities for achievement, the opportunities which caused the poet Rilke to write, “Wie vie list aufzuleiden!” (How much suffering there is to get through). There was plenty of suffering for Frankl to go through. Therefore, it was necessary to face up to the full amount of suffering, trying to keep moments of weakness and furtive tears to a minimum. But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer. Only a few realized that.

A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the WHY for his existence and will be able to bear almost any HOW.

Each of us had to ask himself what irreplaceable losses he had suffered up to then. Whoever was still alive had reason for hope. Health, family, happiness, fortune, position in society – all these were things that could be achieved or restored. After all we still had all our bones intact. Whatever we had gone through could still be an asset to us in the future. Nietzsche said: “That which does not kill me, makes me stronger.”

For no man knows what the future would bring, much less the next hour. But we knew better than, with our experience of life, how great chance sometimes opened up, quite suddenly, at least for the individual, for this was the kind of thing which constitute the “luck” of individual.

For what you have experienced, no power on earth can take from you. Not only our experiences, but all we have done, whatever great thoughts we may have had, and all we had suffered, all this is not lost, though it is past; we have brought it into being. Having been is also a kind of being and perhaps the surest kind.

Man’s Search for Meaning

Frankl’s doctrine of Logotherapy focuses on the meaning of human existence as well as on man’s search for such a meaning that is, striving to find a meaning in one’s life. Frankl’s experience in Auschwitz concentration camp let him to experience his key idea, that is, life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, as Sigmund Freud believed, or a quest for power, as Alfred Adler taught, but a quest for meaning, that the greatest task for any person is to find meaning in his or her life. Frankl concedes that in the bitter fight for self-preservation, man may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal.

Successful businessmen who upon retirement may have lost all zest for life, for the fact that, their work had given their lives meaning, without it, they spent their time at home, depressed, with nothing to do, no challenges, and no more meaning in life. They soon died.

Human life, under any circumstances, never ceases to have a meaning, and that this infinite meaning of life includes suffering and dying, privation and death. Frankl saw 3 possible source of meaning: in work, in love and in courage during difficult times. Suffering in and of itself is meaningless unless we give our suffering meaning by the way in which we respond to it. We must not lose hope but should keep our courage in the certainty that the hopelessness of our struggle did not detract from its dignity and its meaning.

In writing this book, Frankl states that he is not writing an account of facts and events at the concentration camp but rather of his personal experiences, experiences which millions of prisoners have suffered time and again. It is about the inside story of a concentration camp told by one of the survivors. It is not about the great horrors within but about the multitude of small torments.

For Frankl, it was easy for the outsiders to get the wrong conception of camp life, a conception mingled with sentiment and pity. Little does he know of the hard fight for existence which raged among the prisoners? This was an unrelenting struggle for daily bread and for life itself, for one’s own sake or for that of a good friend.

In attempting a methodical presentation of the subject, it was difficult, as psychology requires a certain scientific detachment. But does a man who makes his observations while he himself is a prisoner possess the necessary detachment? Such detachment is only granted to an outsider, but that outsider is too far removed to make any statements of real value. Only the man inside knows. His judgment may not be objective; his evaluations may be out of proportion. This is inevitable. Attempt to avoid personal bias may be made but it is real difficult of a book of this kind.

It never occurred to Frank that this book could become a success as he had intended to publish anonymously so that it could never build up any reputation on the part of the author. When the manuscript was completed, Frankl wanted it an anonymous publication but it would lose half its value, and that he had to have the courage to state his convictions openly. However, success follows you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it. We can be said to be indebted to the 2nd World War for enriching our knowledge of the psycho-pathology of the masses, for the war gave us the war of nerves and it gave us the concentration camp.

Frankl had always advise his students not to aim at success, for the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. We can let it happen by not caring about it by listening to what our conscience commands us to do and go on to carry it out to the best of our knowledge. Then we will live to see that in the long run, for success will follow precisely because we had forgotten to think of it.

This is a great lesson for me, and it is truly profound knowledge. I will continue to search for meaning in life, and to live life to the fullest. For what I had conceived, from the knowledge imparted unto me, I now know that, no power on earth can take from me; not only my experiences in life, but all trials and tribulations that I had journeyed through, whatever great thoughts and failures I have had, and all what I had toiled, all these will not be lost, though it had past, for it will be brought back into being.

I had been through, is surely a kind of being, and perhaps the surest kind.

This book, ranks as one of the most profound lessons I had learnt about the meaning of life.

The Nostradamus Code: World War III

I have not bought this book nor read it yet. It sounds interesting.

It is authored by Dr. Michael Rathford who studied Quatrains of Nostradamus since 1975. He is the author of this book, The Nostradamus Code: World War III.

By combining traditional analysis techniques with state of the art data mining algorithms, he made significant discoveries that resulted in the book.

You can find out more of this book from www.nostradamusonline.com/



Excerpts:

With a total of eight chapters, The Nostradamus Code: World War III opens with an overview of the bewildering events currently unfolding on the world stage. You will find out why they are happening...

The years 2008 through 2012 are explained in precise detail by Dr Rathford. Referred to by Nostradamus as the Time of Troubles, this period is full of war, despair, and evil.

When the prophecies-within-prophecies are deciphered, the hidden timeline of World War III is revealed. New predictions include:

• A conflict between the US and Iran
• The next major terrorist attack on the US
• Osama Bin Laden
• The nuclear destruction of Rome

A passage in Chapter 4 caught my eyes:

Chapter Four: The Time of Troubles

Third world country leader creates strife
(Century III, Quatrain 60)

A "young dark man" will arise as a leader in a Third World country; his main goal is to unite the other Third World countries to do battle with the superpowers. The area of conflict will be in Eastern Europe and the Middle East...

A young man from a 3rd world country; who will that be? From Malaysia? Can't be; we're closer to 4th World, aren't we? ehm... I love this piece!!!

Drawing on newly discovered Nostradamus manuscripts, a startling new view of the world is revealed. If you agree that signs like widespread terrorism, a volatile Middle East, and an economic depression could lead to World War III - then you will find this book truly eye-opening.

You can purchase a soft-copy in pdf format online HERE.