00:00:00
to most of us life seems like a constant
00:00:02
battle a constant struggle to either
00:00:05
attain something that we desire or to
00:00:08
fend off things to get away from things
00:00:11
that we do not desire that we want to
00:00:13
avoid in life but by the end of this
00:00:16
video I want to hopefully have convinced
00:00:18
you that all this struggling all this
00:00:21
fighting all this
00:00:23
battling and all this push and pull that
00:00:25
we feel of things that we want and
00:00:28
things that we want to avoid
00:00:30
is really largely if not completely self
00:00:34
Afflicted and can be stopped within a
00:00:37
moment and I know this is a concept that
00:00:40
seems really
00:00:42
radical but in essence and that's
00:00:46
another thing I hope to show you is that
00:00:48
it's also extremely simple and that the
00:00:52
only thing that keeps people and that
00:00:54
most people come in contact with it
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throughout their lives but what keeps
00:00:57
them from seeing it understanding it
00:00:59
belie leaving it and applying it is a
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very simple but fundamental
00:01:04
misunderstanding of the entire
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concept and to convince you of this fact
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I'm going
00:01:11
to get some help from multiple people
00:01:15
one of them
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being Meister ekart or Master
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eart he was a uh
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German um well here I I'll read you more
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commonly known as m akart was born near
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gotha in Eastern Germany in around 1260
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he had an illustrious career in the
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Dominican order holding senior
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ecclesiastical and teaching posts all
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over Europe including sexy Bohemia Paris
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Strasburg and cologne eart is one of the
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great speculative Mystics of Western
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Europe who sought to reconcile
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traditional Christian belief with the
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transcendental metaphysics of neop
00:01:56
neoplatonism so he was very much a big
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Christian figure a SC a scholar a
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preacher
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and he has very
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interesting ideas and
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insights about the human intellect and
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how we suffer through it and how we're
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how we can also be saved by it and he
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Likens the human intellect to God's
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intellect who is the intellect of
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intellect and how we become can become
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like God if only we apply this god-given
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gift this potential that we have it's
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like senaka says we are born for virtue
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but we are not born with virtue we need
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to acquire it
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ourselves and master eart is just um
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like we said he's a
00:02:50
Mystic so like most other Mystics both
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in the Christian as well in the Muslim
00:02:55
tradition uh they're very poetic they're
00:02:57
very eloquent and they're very
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emotional and get to the point in that
00:03:03
way rather than a purely academic or
00:03:06
Scholastic way you could
00:03:08
say and right on page 59 of this penguin
00:03:12
edition of some of his
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work he
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says now I say further that all
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suffering comes from our love for what
00:03:23
Misfortune takes from us if the loss of
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external things causes me pain then this
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is a clear sign that I love external
00:03:32
things and thus in truth love suffering
00:03:36
and despair is it surprising then that I
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suffer since I love and seek suffering
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and
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despair and that's really the heart of
00:03:46
the matter and just like I've called in
00:03:50
the help of master echart master eart
00:03:53
calls in the help of another friend of
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ours
00:03:58
Sena he says Sena a pagan Master asks
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what is the best consolation in
00:04:05
suffering and distress and gives this
00:04:08
answer it is this that we should accept
00:04:11
everything as if we had desired it and
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prayed for it for you would have desired
00:04:16
it if you had known that all things
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happen from with and in the will of God
00:04:22
another Pagan Master says Lord Supreme
00:04:25
father Master of the highest Heavens I
00:04:28
am ready for all that you will give me
00:04:31
the will to will what you
00:04:35
will and here we have
00:04:39
it and this is what all helenistic
00:04:43
philosophy what the Ancients talk about
00:04:46
what Christianity talks about what Islam
00:04:49
talks about what Buddhism talks about
00:04:51
what the bakat Gita talks about and many
00:04:54
other philosophers schools of thought
00:04:57
religions and philosophies whoever they
00:05:00
are if they are in
00:05:03
search in an
00:05:05
open-minded and objective
00:05:08
way of
00:05:10
meaning then they all come to the same
00:05:13
conclusions and you see someone like
00:05:15
master eart who lived in the 13th
00:05:17
century referencing Sena who in his own
00:05:21
words was a pagan Someone who lived
00:05:24
before
00:05:26
Christianity yet he finds the same
00:05:28
thought and he believes in the same
00:05:32
thought and what is this
00:05:36
thought we often
00:05:39
say in our other videos which are much
00:05:42
more based on people like senica than
00:05:45
than Christians such as master
00:05:48
eart
00:05:49
that when we do not act indifferently to
00:05:55
indifferent
00:05:56
things when we love externals
00:06:00
when we depend on externals and not on
00:06:03
internals when we try to control what by
00:06:06
Nature cannot be
00:06:08
controlled that's when we find distress
00:06:11
anxiety fear anger and everything else
00:06:14
that we commonly experience in our daily
00:06:17
lives that we want to get away from but
00:06:21
again what does senica
00:06:22
say he says if you knew that God willed
00:06:25
it you would have willed it too
00:06:27
everything that fortune throws at you
00:06:30
what we tend to do is when externals
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such as say a job loss say a fire in
00:06:36
your house say someone gets sick say
00:06:39
your dog runs away it doesn't matter
00:06:41
what it
00:06:43
is when these things happen to us we
00:06:46
immediately label them as either good or
00:06:48
bad and when we do label them as bad we
00:06:51
think we're in a bad way and that we
00:06:53
need to now fight against these things
00:06:56
that we need to fight to preserve
00:06:58
something or fight to keep something
00:07:01
away but that is the same
00:07:06
thing in
00:07:08
essence as trying to stand up to
00:07:12
something to fight something that by its
00:07:15
nature is
00:07:17
invincible and not possible to fight not
00:07:20
possible to
00:07:22
overcome think of it in physical terms
00:07:24
if you were at a
00:07:26
beach and the water's nice and calm but
00:07:29
all of a sudden you see a 40ft wave come
00:07:31
toward
00:07:34
you you would not try to fight that wave
00:07:38
you would try to get out of its way if
00:07:40
anything you would not stand up against
00:07:44
it you would not try to win over it you
00:07:47
would not try to defeat
00:07:49
it yet when it comes to things like
00:07:52
death disease or even smaller things
00:07:56
such as Financial loss Financial ruin
00:07:59
even even if you will any of our
00:08:01
possessions being damaged or destroyed
00:08:03
we think we can prevent that by fighting
00:08:06
against it we think we can win over
00:08:09
that and especially with things like
00:08:12
death we think well if we never think
00:08:16
about it if we act like it doesn't
00:08:19
exist then that's us fighting against it
00:08:22
maybe that way we can win over it but no
00:08:26
as as epitus says
00:08:30
to learn how to live is to learn how to
00:08:33
die
00:08:36
meaning we should not try to forget
00:08:39
about death we should not try to ignore
00:08:40
it we should not try to not think about
00:08:42
it and act like it doesn't exist quite
00:08:44
the opposite we should study it if we
00:08:47
would study how to die we would
00:08:50
essentially study how to live because to
00:08:53
study how to die well is to study how to
00:08:56
live well
00:09:01
and look at all those people who do not
00:09:06
surrender and when I say surrender I
00:09:08
know there are lot of connotations
00:09:11
attached to that and this is exactly the
00:09:12
misunderstanding I was speaking of when
00:09:15
we say that we should
00:09:16
surrender we always have this idea of it
00:09:22
being an act of weakness and not an act
00:09:26
of strength at all but quite the
00:09:28
opposite I want to convince you that
00:09:30
surrendering that to will what God Wills
00:09:34
what Fortune Wills what happens to us to
00:09:37
want what is happening to us instead of
00:09:39
trying to fight it is surrendering and
00:09:42
it's an act of strength not an act of
00:09:48
weakness rather look at it this way all
00:09:51
those people that we sometimes hear
00:09:53
about who end their lives because
00:09:56
because something they've experienced
00:09:59
terrible Financial
00:10:00
loss or their loved ones left them even
00:10:03
sometimes if it's a short relationship
00:10:05
they say how can I go on living even
00:10:07
though they don't realize they've been
00:10:09
living quite well up to that point
00:10:11
before they met that person and when
00:10:13
they're in their lives we say we wish
00:10:18
you could have adapted we say we wish
00:10:21
you could have realized that this is not
00:10:23
that big of a deal that you could have
00:10:26
learned to live and that you would have
00:10:28
come back from
00:10:30
this and that nothing that can happen to
00:10:33
you is as big as you make it out to be
00:10:35
this fight this trouble this battle you
00:10:37
make it out to
00:10:39
be and we say I wish I could have been
00:10:41
there to show you that but I didn't know
00:10:43
I wasn't there sometimes we hear of
00:10:45
these people
00:10:47
right so that if
00:10:50
anything is weakness but to say no I
00:10:54
will overcome this I will learn to want
00:10:57
what is happening to me and I will learn
00:11:01
to live with it I will learn to even
00:11:03
like it and to draw Advantage from it
00:11:07
because we talked about earlier in every
00:11:09
disadvantage there's an advantage and in
00:11:11
every Advantage there's a disadvantage
00:11:12
but again when we Face these so-called
00:11:15
bad things negative things in our
00:11:17
lives if we learn to not only accept
00:11:22
it but to love it to see it as something
00:11:27
that is happening to us
00:11:29
and that we should not just wish to be
00:11:32
over and done with it but that we can
00:11:35
draw an experience from it a lesson from
00:11:38
it an advantage from it and to become
00:11:43
better through
00:11:44
it what what better thing is there I
00:11:48
forget who said this now but the the
00:11:50
quote goes something like
00:11:52
this I step on to my Misfortune and as a
00:11:56
result I stand taller and that's that's
00:11:59
exactly what it is life throws us all
00:12:01
kinds of things we are the ones that
00:12:03
label them as good or bad but what if we
00:12:07
labeled even the so-called bad things as
00:12:10
good things because we've learned how to
00:12:12
turn them into our
00:12:13
advantage what if we could become better
00:12:16
through all the so-called good things
00:12:18
and also through all the so-called bad
00:12:22
things wouldn't life be not only
00:12:26
infinitely be worth more living but
00:12:29
also would it not be a much better
00:12:33
life even though we're so-called
00:12:35
surrendering to these things even though
00:12:38
we're so-called submitting to
00:12:43
them if you try to fight something as
00:12:47
big as a depression an econ economical
00:12:51
downturn and your financial
00:12:53
loss or if you try to find fight disease
00:12:57
illness death in yourself or in
00:13:01
others you will lose that
00:13:04
battle and you will break
00:13:08
yourself but if you are more bending
00:13:10
more flexible if you adapt to the will
00:13:13
of
00:13:14
Fortune if you will to will what God
00:13:18
Wills what life Wills what the universe
00:13:20
Wills the word does the word God doesn't
00:13:22
matter you can replace it with the
00:13:24
universe or or life or whatever you
00:13:27
want but if you learn learn how to do
00:13:29
this your suffering will stop
00:13:32
immediately and everything will become
00:13:34
easier and another thing is realize that
00:13:37
every time you're battling something
00:13:39
every time you're fighting
00:13:42
something you wish to be out of that
00:13:45
situation as quickly as possible a
00:13:48
battle a fight a struggle is not
00:13:49
something we want to be in so we always
00:13:52
look for the future for release for
00:13:57
relief but not only will that future
00:13:59
never come because with that mentality
00:14:01
there was always there will always be a
00:14:03
battle battle there will always be a
00:14:05
fight there will always something
00:14:06
so-called negative and bad happening in
00:14:08
your
00:14:10
life and another fact is that we only
00:14:14
inhabit the Pres the present the the
00:14:16
future is not here
00:14:19
yet and the past is
00:14:21
gone so it's just a simple fact that
00:14:24
we're only Moment by moment living in
00:14:27
those very moments
00:14:30
and anyone who battles or fights or is
00:14:32
in the middle of a war cannot inhabit
00:14:35
the present because they don't want to
00:14:36
be in the present they want to do what
00:14:39
they need to do get over their
00:14:41
struggle and live a happy life
00:14:44
afterwards
00:14:45
maybe but they never get
00:14:48
there and that's another thing that
00:14:50
surrendering allows you when you try
00:14:54
this in in every situation from now on
00:14:56
that you think is a bad situation that
00:14:58
you think is a a negative situation try
00:15:01
this just accept the situation as what
00:15:04
it needs to be in fact want what is
00:15:08
happening to you
00:15:09
currently if you start doing that you
00:15:12
will look around for opportunities to
00:15:14
advance yourself instead of for
00:15:17
opportunities to exit
00:15:21
it this could be as simple as going to
00:15:24
the DMV and and having to wait in line
00:15:26
for hours it's a perfect example even
00:15:29
though it's very small of
00:15:31
course when we wait in a line like that
00:15:33
we just want to get do what we're there
00:15:37
to do get it over with as quickly as
00:15:39
possible and we're agitated the whole
00:15:41
time
00:15:42
through we never stop to think and look
00:15:45
around but if you accept the situation
00:15:47
if you say the line is what it is it's
00:15:50
bigger than I am if I fight something
00:15:54
that is bigger than I am I will lose
00:15:59
but ironically it seems if I surrender
00:16:02
to what is bigger than I am to what is
00:16:04
stronger than I am then I win because I
00:16:08
start inhabiting the only place in life
00:16:12
that I could possibly inhabit and that's
00:16:15
the present that's the
00:16:17
now so when I Surrender when I accept
00:16:20
the
00:16:21
situation when I even want the situation
00:16:24
to occur exactly as it is occurring
00:16:26
right this instant
00:16:29
then all of a sudden I inhabit the
00:16:31
present I inhabit the room that I am
00:16:33
that I'm in I look around I see things I
00:16:37
see opportunities maybe I can relieve
00:16:39
someone else's stress maybe I can put a
00:16:42
smile on my face and and make someone
00:16:44
else realize this is not that big of a
00:16:47
deal that we waste Moment by
00:16:50
moment the only moment that we
00:16:55
have look around for opportunities want
00:16:58
what you're going through because if you
00:17:00
start want wanting what you're going
00:17:02
through you start living and as long as
00:17:05
you're fighting
00:17:06
battling and hating your current
00:17:09
situation the current place you're
00:17:11
in then you're not
00:17:14
living and if you never start living you
00:17:17
will nevertheless die without ever
00:17:19
having
00:17:21
lived all right so these are just couple
00:17:24
of things I would like you to think
00:17:26
about it's one of the biggest keys to
00:17:27
happiness and it's also one of the
00:17:29
biggest keys to
00:17:31
understanding every thought every school
00:17:33
of thought that has ever existed in
00:17:35
including religions philosophies
00:17:37
everyone who is after in terms of again
00:17:41
a school of thought or religion everyone
00:17:43
who is after the truth in an objective
00:17:46
and open-minded
00:17:47
Way Comes to these ideas and that's why
00:17:50
we call them Universal and
00:17:55
Timeless and we find them everywhere
00:17:59
so I I would recommend you to read read
00:18:01
Master eart if you sort of want to dive
00:18:03
into that if you're a Christian
00:18:05
certainly you should but even if you're
00:18:07
not maybe you want to see how these
00:18:10
Timeless and Universal ideas regardless
00:18:12
of religion regardless of school of
00:18:14
thought regardless of who the person is
00:18:17
if they are that kind of person who is
00:18:18
looking for meaning in life nevertheless
00:18:21
comes to the same ideas it's very
00:18:24
interesting all right and then I also
00:18:26
have a little bit of an announcement for
00:18:29
those who are still watching at the end
00:18:31
of this
00:18:34
video um I thought it'd be maybe fun to
00:18:37
do a live
00:18:38
stream um answer some questions just
00:18:42
just have a chat
00:18:44
live and um in that live stream I think
00:18:47
I'm also going to have an announcement
00:18:49
or two for you about the the future
00:18:54
of the work we want to do here of the
00:18:57
work that we can do here
00:19:00
possibly and that um some maybe bigger
00:19:02
things are
00:19:04
coming and uh it also just give me an
00:19:07
opportunity to or us an opportunity to
00:19:10
reflect together of the sort of Journey
00:19:13
we've been on right um a lot of people
00:19:16
have joined I'm sort of I'm a little bit
00:19:19
amazed at at how many there are now in
00:19:22
terms of
00:19:24
subscribers and so we'll just have a
00:19:26
little chat have a couple announcements
00:19:28
answer a couple of questions and just
00:19:30
have a good time I'm
00:19:33
thinking I'll still announce this in a
00:19:35
in a community post but I'm
00:19:37
thinking
00:19:40
Sunday at uh 11: a.m. Central
00:19:46
Time might be a good time to do
00:19:49
it but I'll still announce it look out
00:19:51
for that
00:19:53
and I hope we'll have a good time and
00:19:55
I'll I'll see you then