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PART III
(APPENDIX ‘A’)
DAILY LESSONS & GUIDANCE
THE TEN PRINCIPLES
Non-action does not mean doing nothing and keeping silent. Let everything be allowed to do what it naturally does, so that nature will be satisfied.
This entire book, with all of its philosophical explanations, its thought exercises, its mental gymnastics into the realms of cosmology and quantum mechanics, contains only a single liberating message which can be stated in a single sentence;
“The appearance of Separateness, temporal, spatial and otherwise is entirely an illusion.”
All else of which we have spoken stems from this realization.
Yet, of what value is this realization to us in our daily lives ? For those of us who must take the train to work at 8am, who have deadlines to meet tomorrow, who have mouths to feed, bills to pay, and obligations to meet (meaning each one of us), how do things now change ?
First of all, the single message of this book, breaks down into ten basic day-to-day guidelines for living in the “real” world (the world that we have been conditioned to imagine as real, but which we have logically shown to be other). These Ten Principles, so to speak, are explained below. It is recommended that only one Principle should be practiced each week. Review the week’s Principle upon waking, before each meal, and before going to bed (five times a day). At the end of ten weeks, review the first two Principles together in this manner for one week, then the first three for another week, and so on until the end of the twentieth week at which point you will review all Ten Principles five times a day. In this manner, these guidelines for daily living become internalized as second nature. As this is practiced, month after month, you will notice a greater inner peace begin to develop within. With this “quieting” of the inner self, as the waves of inner turmoil are calmed, notice how much deeper you are able to see within yourself. Now contentment and inner peace begin to take root regardless of the external daily circumstances. One is “stressed-out” less frequently, and eventually, nothing can touch the inner peace which resides deep within permanently. Now, we begin to welcome adversity. Each new circumstance, however inconvenient it may be, begins to seem like a test of our new found awareness of the true nature of reality. Every day now becomes like a day in college with impromptu tests to which we eagerly look forward so that we can finally gain our passing grade and graduate. In fact, we can begin anew this grand adventure that is “Life”. Each period of relative uneventfulness begins to seem like time wasted on a summer vacation when we would have preferred to be in school learning and taking the tests which just a few months earlier, we so much despised and avoided. Without constant tests of greater and greater levels of adversity we feel we are merely wasting time. Finally, when we have passed all the tests, we find that nothing can touch us, nothing can disturb us, we enjoy all of the colors of life equally. We are at peace, completely still, unruffled, undisturbed, in honor and in dishonor, in failure as well as in success, in poverty as in wealth, in health and in sickness. We are a pillar of constancy. We can begin to touch the Eternal Greater Self Within.