Building upon many years of privately shared thoughts on the real benefits of Stoic Philosophy, Liam Milburn eventually published a selection of Stoic passages that had helped him to live well. They were accompanied by some of his own personal reflections. This blog hopes to continue his mission of encouraging the wisdom of Stoicism in the exercise of everyday life. All the reflections are taken from his notes, from late 1992 to early 2017.
Reflections
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Primary Sources
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Thursday, January 23, 2020
Wisdom from the Bhagavad Gita 8
59. Objects fall away from the abstinent man, leaving the longing behind. But his longing also ceases, who sees the Supreme.
60. The turbulent senses, O son of Kunti, do violently snatch away the mind of even a wise man, striving after perfection.
61. The steadfast, having controlled them all, sits focused on Me as
the Supreme. His wisdom is steady, whose senses are under control.
62. Thinking of objects, attachment to them is formed in a man. From attachment longing, and from longing anger grows.
63. From anger comes delusion, and from delusion loss of memory. From
loss of memory comes the ruin of discrimination, and from the ruin of
discrimination he perishes.
64. But the self-controlled man, moving among objects with senses
under restraint, and free from attraction and aversion, attains to
tranquillity.
65. In tranquillity, all sorrow is destroyed. For the intellect of him who is tranquil-minded, is soon established in firmness.
66. No knowledge of the Self has the unsteady. Nor has he
meditation. To the unmeditative there is no peace. And how can one
without peace have happiness?
67. For, the mind which follows in the wake of the wandering senses,
carries away his discrimination, as a wind carries away from its
course a boat on the waters.
68. Therefore, O mighty-armed, his knowledge is steady, whose senses are completely restrained from their objects.
69. That which is night to all beings, in that the self-controlled
man wakes. That in which all beings wake, is night to the Self-seeing
Muni.
70. As into the ocean—brimful, and still—flow the waters, even so
the Muni into whom enter all desires, he, and not the desirer of
desires, attains to peace.
71. That man who lives devoid of longing, abandoning all desires, without the sense of 'I' and 'mine,' he attains to peace.
72. This is to have one's being in Brahman, O son of Prithâ. None,
attaining to this, becomes deluded. Being established therein, even at
the end of life, a man attains to oneness with Brahman.
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