Meditations — Marcus Aurelius

I live by this principle in life- “Don’t read 1000 different books but select best 100 books and reread them at least 10 times”

Photo by Teslariu Mihai on Unsplash

You’ll definitely notice that every time a same book will be perceived by your brain differently. The book which I am going review is quite under-rated to our generation and it is written by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor from AD 161 to 180. This book(Meditations) have wider connotations of stoic philosophy, which is often narrated in movie like “The Gladiator”.

But Why Stoicism?

I know this is quiet ancient philosophy but I think after all this technological intervention human beings haven’t changed much.

Sure, we have advanced technology, but we still want the same things (shelter, food, cloth, security, respect, love, a sense of meaning and a meaningful life), and are afraid of the same things (poverty, shame, disease, death and uncertainty ). Somehow, our ancestors figured out the basic answers to our wants and fears.

The most relevant things about human beings, as a species, are that we are highly social and capable of reason. It follows that one conception of a good human life is one spent using reason in service of the community. Stoicism, therefore, like most of the other major philosophies and religions of the world, tells us that a meaningful life isn’t made of wealth and fame, but of a morally good stance toward others. That’s why Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic emperor-philosopher, Wrote in the book :

Labor not as one who is wretched, nor yet as one who would be pitied or admired; but direct your will to one thing only: to act or not to act as social reason requires.

To understand basic meaning of Stoicism following quotes from the book can be useful:

1. Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.
2. Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what’s left and live it properly. What doesn’t transmit light creates its own darkness.
3. You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can’t control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.
4. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.
5. It is in your power to withdraw yourself whenever you desire. Perfect tranquility within consists in the good ordering of the mind, the realm of your own.
6. Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun. If you do not, the sun will soon set, and you with it.
7. How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life.
8. If any man despises me, that is his problem. My only concern is not doing or saying anything deserving of contempt.
9. Whatever anyone does or says, I must be emerald and keep my colour.
10. Humans have come into being for the sake of each other, so either teach them, or learn to bear them.
11. Do what you will. Even if you tear yourself apart, most people will continue doing the same things.
12. Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you live and it is in your power.
13. The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.
14. Accept whatever comes to you woven in the pattern of your destiny, for what could more aptly fit your needs?
15. A person’s worth is measured by the worth of what he values.
16. Regain your senses, call yourself back, and once again wake up. Now that you realize that only dreams were troubling you, view this ‘reality’ as you view your dreams.
17. Observe always that everything is the result of change, and get used to thinking that there is nothing Nature loves so well as to change existing forms and make new ones like them.
18. If you are pained by external things, it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgement of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgement now.
19. Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.
20. Or is it your reputation that’s bothering you? But look at how soon we’re all forgotten. The abyss of endless time that swallows it all. The emptiness of those applauding hands. The people who praise us; how capricious they are, how arbitrary. And the tiny region it takes place. The whole earth a point in space — and most of it uninhabited.
21. The happiness of those who want to be popular depends on others; the happiness of those who seek pleasure fluctuates with moods outside their control; but the happiness of the wise grows out of their own free acts.
22. Take full account of what Excellencies you possess, and in gratitude remember how you would hanker after them, if you had them not.
23. That which is really beautiful has no need of anything; not more than law, not more than truth, not more than benevolence or modesty.
24. No one can lose either the past or the future — how could anyone be deprived of what he does not possess? … It is only the present moment of which either stands to be deprived: and if this is all he has, he cannot lose what he does not have.
25. Live out your life in truth and justice, tolerant of those who are neither true nor just.
26. All things of the body stream away like a river, all things of the mind are dreams and delusion; life is warfare, and a visit to a strange land; the only lasting fame is oblivion.
27. Anger cannot be dishonest.
28. The time is at hand when you will have forgotten everything; and the time is at hand when all will have forgotten you. Always reflect that soon you will be no one, and nowhere.
29. Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself.
30. Do not think that what is hard for you to master is humanly impossible; and if it is humanly possible, consider it to be within your reach.
31. As far as you can, get into the habit of asking yourself in relation to any action taken by another: “What is his point of reference here?” But begin with yourself: examine yourself first.
32. And in the case of superior things like stars, we discover a kind of unity in separation. The higher we rise on the scale of being, the easier it is to discern a connection even among things separated by vast distances.
33. It is within our power not to make a judgement about something, and so not disturb our minds; for nothing in itself possesses the power to form our judgements.
34. Remember two things: i. that everything has always been the same, and keeps recurring, and it makes no difference whether you see the same things recur in a hundred years or two hundred, or in an infinite period; ii. that the longest-lived and those who will die soonest lose the same thing. The present is all that they can give up, since that is all you have, and what you do not have you cannot lose.
35. When force of circumstance upsets your equanimity, lose no time in recovering your self-control, and do not remain out of tune longer than you can help. Habitual recurrence to the harmony will increase your mastery of it.
36. Everything in any way beautiful has its beauty of itself, inherent and self-sufficient: praise is no part of it. At any rate, praise does not make anything better or worse. This applies even to the popular conception of beauty, as in material things or works of art. So does the truly beautiful need anything beyond itself? No more than law, no more than truth, no more than kindness or integrity. Which of these things derives its beauty from praise, or withers under criticism? Does an emerald lose its quality if it is not praised? And what of gold, ivory, purple, a lyre, a dagger, a flower, a bush?

PS: My personal favorites are in bold letters*

The Stoic goes through life by making sure she is acting virtuously, acting with reason to make the world a better place. This doesn’t mean sacrificing yourself to the altar of pure altruism, however. The Stoics understood that we live in a world in which everything, and everyone, is interconnected by a dense and complex web of cause-effect. In a sense, whenever I improve as a person, I make the world a better place; likewise, whenever my actions make the world a better place, I am better off as a person. By “The first century Roman politician, philosopher, and playwright Seneca”.