Now we move on to the creative mind. What are the characteristics of this creative mind? Obviously, the characteristics of the creative mind are the opposite of those of the reactive mind. The creative mind doesn't just react. The creative mind, so to speak, operates on its own. The motivating force, movement, inspiration, so to speak, of the creative mind comes from the depths of the mind itself. Not just from external stimuli. External things can, so to speak, give rise to, become a hint or a suggestion, and the mind, the creative mind, can accept them, but it is not a reaction. It is rather, one might say, a kind of answer.
Let's take an example, a concrete example. Let us assume that misfortune has befallen us. We have lost something or lost something. Something happened. Perhaps something tragic that we don't like - so what usually happens? Usually, of course, we grumble, we complain, we complain, so to speak: "Why did this have to happen to me, why did this have to happen to me?" This is the reactive mind. This is how we react if we do not think, if we are not aware. But suppose we take this misfortune, this deprivation or this loss as a kind of challenge, as a kind of opportunity for discovering within ourselves what is not conditioned by the object, then this is the creative mind in action. The reactive mind is often negative and pessimistic, while the creative mind is positive and optimistic. Optimistic not in an artificial sense. Optimistic not in the sense that we see everything in a rosy light, but in the sense that creativity continues, despite even rather unpleasant external conditions and incentives. Now, since it doesn't really depend on an external object, because it doesn't really depend on it, doesn't react based on it, the creative mind is the unconditioned mind. Its existence, functioning does not depend on any external objects. He may be using occasions from the outside world, but he is not really conditioned by them.
So because he is not conditioned, he is independent, he is, so to speak, free. It is spontaneous, and at its highest level, as this inner freedom and spontaneity develops more and more in it, it becomes, so to speak, the Unconditional, Unconditional Mind with a capital "B", so to speak, with a capital "U". ", and this coincides, this is identical with the Absolute Mind itself. Because it is unconditioned or unconditioned, it is real and truly free. And, being creative, being free, he is also original in the sense that he creates something new from his own depths, their inner treasures. And it is characterized, one might say, by unceasing productivity. He creates all the time, gives birth, becomes the source, the cause of the emergence of new and new things.
This creativity is not necessarily just artistic, or literary, or even spiritual. It can also extend, one might say, to personal relationships, because when two people meet or communicate, something more is born, something more extensive than themselves.
In summary, the creative mind is, among other things, the conscious mind, the mind that is awake, the awakened mind, the mind that is actually awareness itself. And because he is aware, he is actually truly alive. The reactive mind is a dead mind. It is like a machine, and the creative mind, because it is non-reactive, because it is spontaneous, because it is free and unconditioned, is truly alive, it is a living mind.
In Buddhism we have two very important symbols. We recently had a rather busy schedule of lectures on Symbolism at Kingsway Hall. We have touched on one or two of the symbols that I am going to mention now, but in Buddhism we have two very important symbols illustrating these two kinds of mind - the reactive mind and the creative mind, the reactive functioning of the mind and the creative functioning of the mind. Some of you are already quite familiar with these symbols, and I am sure that in at least some people these symbols have seeped deep into the unconscious, and these symbols are what we call the Wheel of Life and the Path. Or, if you like, more geometrically, so to speak, the Circle symbol and the Spiral symbol. In connection with our, I think, the second lecture at Kingsway Hall, a diagram has been created which, among other things, illustrates these two symbols, and if anyone is interested or wants to have a copy of this diagram, which also partially illustrates this lecture, I I think there are still a few copies in Sakura.
These are the two great symbols of Buddhism: the Wheel of Life and the Path, the circle and the spiral. Some of you, I know, have seen the Wheel of Life. Some of you - those who attended the second week of the retreat - spent a very pleasant hour actually copying the Wheel of Life, which I sketched very roughly on the board. But all of you know, I think, or most of you know, that the Wheel of Life has a very important place, an outstanding, even a central place in the religious art of Tibet. The Wheel of Life is divided into four concentric circles. In the center is a hub with three animals. These three animals symbolize different aspects of the reactive mind. That's what they are, in essence. There is a rooster, symbolizing longing, a snake, symbolizing anger, and a pig, symbolizing ignorance or defilement. And these are the three main aspects of the reactive mind. Ignorance, the pig, symbolizes the darkness and blindness of the reactive mind, while craving and hatred symbolize its two main blind and ignorant functions.
Then, secondly, in the second circle, which is divided into two parts, there are black and white halves. In the dark half, people are carried away down. In the white half they are understood to the highest states of existence. But both parts are inside the wheel, inside the circle of life, which means that conventional morality and conventional religion, purely external morality or religiosity are still part of the reactive mind. They are not truly religious or spiritual - they are inside the wheel. They are more refined products of the mind, but still a reactive mind.
Then, in the third round, we move on to the division into five or six realms of conditioned existence. That is, to the realm or realms of gods, asuras who fight gods, human beings, animals, hungry ghosts, and beings in a state of suffering. Traditionally these five or six realms are interpreted or understood cosmologically as different planes of existence located somewhere in this universe, but we can also interpret them as different aspects of human existence itself: the world of the gods symbolizes states of happiness or even, one might say, abundance, the world of the titans symbolizes the state of enmity and even war with other forms of life. Then the human condition, ordinary human life - a little pleasure, a little pain. Then come the hungry ghosts, people who are deprived of anything, undernourished, who do not have enough food and even water, as happens to many people even today in the so-called undeveloped countries. And then there are beings who actually experience torment and suffering, which happens very often anyway, even in our twentieth century, with people in different places, different parts of the world, whether it be a concentration camp, a torture chamber, or even a prison. In some countries of the world, extremely terrible things are still happening, and we can rightly say that hells can be found on the surface of our Earth.
Thus states of existence are thus understood, so to speak, within the framework of human life, human existence, and they are depicted, as I have already said, in this third round of the Wheel of Life. But, as I said, traditionally Buddhists understand all this in terms of cosmology.
And finally, the fourth and last circle is divided into twelve nidanas or twelve links, which explain the whole process of karma and rebirth, which, by the way, I have referred to in the course of this discussion. These twelve nidanas or links are links in the chain of the reactive mind, and they are, in short, just to give you names, because this basis we find everywhere, these are: first of all, avidya or ignorance, spiritual blindness or ignorance. Under its influence, samskaras arise, various functions of the body, speech and mind that grow out of this ignorance. Then, thirdly, comes the vijnana, the flash of consciousness that occurs in the new life in the mother's womb. Fourthly, the nama-rupa, the psycho-physical organism which, so to speak, clusters around this initial flash of consciousness. Fifthly, salayatana, the six sense organs with which the psychophysical organism is equipped, that is, the five sense organs and the mind. Sixthly, sparsha or contact, which occurs when the six sense organs come into contact with the corresponding sense objects.
Seventh, vedana, the feelings or sensations that come next are pleasurable, painful, and neutral. Eighth, trishna, craving or craving, which arises under the influence of pleasant sensations. Ninth, upadana, grasping, the tendency to hold on to pleasant sensations for as long as possible and repeat them. Then bhava, the process of the conditioned mind, the mind becoming rigid and, so to speak, reactive. Eleventh, birth (jati), as a result of all this in a new life, a new existence. And then, twelfthly, jara-marana, aging and new death.
These twelve links, which I have described very briefly - many much more detailed explanations can be found - are divided into three lives: the first two belong to the previous life, the middle eight belong to this life, and the last two belong to the next life. Thus, the twelve links are distributed over three lives and explain the process of karma and rebirth, how we generally appear in this world, within these twelve links. Hence, they depict in very specific, simple terms the whole process of the reactive mind: how it simply reacts when faced with pleasant stimuli and continues to evolve in conditioning. At the same time, although all these twelve links are distributed over three lives, it is also said that they are all present in the same life. But whether they are distributed over three lives or contained in one, this sequence shows exactly how the reactive mind works. This is, so to speak, the mechanism of the whole process, and it is for this reason, because of the process reflected in these twelve nidanas, that the mind goes round and round like in a wheel. That is why we speak of the Wheel of Life, and the wheel, as you know, is a machine, the simplest of all machines. Therefore, the fact that the reactive mind is represented in the concept of a wheel, the Wheel of Life, very aptly illustrates that its nature is like a machine.
So this is the first great symbol of Buddhism, the symbol of the Wheel of Life with its hub and three animals, the white and black paths, the five or six realms of conditioned existence and the twelve links that explain the process of karma and rebirth in general, the process of the conditioned mind. It reflects the mechanism, the machine, so to speak, of this conditioned reactive mind that we use most of the time, if not all of the time, and illustrates how we are bound by it, imprisoned by it, and just going round and round like a squirrel in a wheel inside its cage.
The other day, a friend of mine hinted that he was looking forward to the emergence of autonomous cars, as this would help reduce the number of accidents on the roads and the death rate in accidents, which are often caused by distracted drivers. I agreed with him, but with one caveat: what would be an advantage on the roads could be detrimental to our attention. Having another place with the possibility of distraction (after all, the car will follow the road itself) will not add to our mental and social health.
It is of little use to be distracted, but we seem unable to even focus. A recent study showed that creativity suffers from constant employment no less than other qualities of ours. The ability to switch between attention and fantasy is an important skill, the loss of which cannot go unnoticed for creative thinking. As Stanford research psychologist Emma Seppala writes:
It is necessary to balance linear thinking, which requires intense focus, with creative thinking, which is born in doing nothing. Switching between the two modes seems to be the optimal way to invent something new.
She's not the first to talk about this. Neuroscientist Daniel Levitin made a similar claim in his book The Organized Mind in 2014. From information overload, we wallow in noise. As he notes, in 2011, Americans consumed five times more information than 25 years before. Every day outside of work, we process approximately 100,000 words.
This drains not only our willpower (which we have limited), but also our creativity. Levitin uses a slightly different language than Seppala. In his opinion, linear thinking is part of the central executive network, our brain's ability to focus, while creative thinking is an integral part of the brain network that runs in the background by default. Levitin, being a former musician who once contributed to the recording of the Grateful Dead and Santana, writes:
Artists reconstruct reality and offer to see what was previously invisible to us. Creativity directly turns on the dream mode and stimulates the free flow of consciousness and the integration of ideas, building connections between concepts and neural modes that could not be formed otherwise.
Getting creative requires hitting the reset button, which means you have to set aside time in your day to just lie down, meditate, or stare into nowhere. This is impossible when every free moment - at work, in line, waiting for the green light at the traffic light - you are sitting on your phone. Your brain's attentional system gets used to constant stimulation; you get jerky and irritable when you don't have input. You become dependent on employment.
However, this directly affects the quality of our life. As Seppala points out, many of the world's greatest minds made important discoveries without doing anything at all. Nikola Tesla got insight into rotating magnetic fields on a leisurely stroll in Budapest; Albert Einstein liked to relax and listen to Mozart while resting from intense contemplation.
Paying tribute to boredom - a very valuable tool in an era of overload - journalist Michael Harris in the book "With everyone and with no one. The book is about us - the last generation that remembers life before the Internet, ”writes that we begin to appreciate unimportant and fleeting sensations, and not what matters. He instructs to use the policy of reducing everything during a typical day.
Perhaps we now need to artificially create a deficit in our communication, our interactions with others, what we consume. Otherwise, our life will be like a transmission of Morse code, in which there are no interruptions - a swarm of noise hiding valuable data underneath.
But how to turn off at the moment when bosses, peers or friends demand to turn on? Seppala has four suggestions:
1. Make a long walk without your phone a part of your daily routine.
2. Get out of your comfort zone.
3. Make more time for entertainment and games.
4. Switch between focused work and activities that do not require much intellectual effort.
The latter is also recommended by computer science professor Cal Newport, author of Deep Work. Newport isn't on any social media and probably doesn't check email more than once a day. Most likely, even the time is strictly regulated in his life. What we lose in "connection" can be used to focus on important projects. Without that time, according to Newport, our neural patterns will be rewritten into distraction patterns.
Spending enough time in a state of frenzied narrow-mindedness will gradually diminish your ability to do deep work.
This is not a good sign for those who want to create something, to create, that is, for all of us. Research shows that a persistent fear of missing out, or the fear of missing out (FOMO), increases our anxiety and ultimately affects our health. Of the entire spectrum of losses, creative thinking is one of the biggest. Whatever your calling, mental flexibility and openness to new ideas and approaches is invaluable. Lose it in order to check the latest tweet or post a selfie? This tragedy can be avoided, but more often than not, we go the other way.
There are eight basic types of mind, and each child is given them from birth in different proportions. All these kinds of intelligence are like paints with which we can paint the pattern of our life. The varieties of mind are: academic, emotional, physical, creative, artistic, practical, intuitive and talented. These kinds of minds are given to each child in varying degrees from birth, and any kind can be developed with the help of appropriate kinds of training.
academic mind
Children with a strong academic mind do well in school. They know how to sit, listen and learn. They are able to assimilate, understand and repeat the knowledge taught to them well, easily remember the information provided to them. This does not necessarily mean that they will be able to constructively apply their knowledge in life.
Adults know that most of the knowledge gained in school is eventually forgotten, but school teaches us to think, analyze, understand and find sources. The academic mind develops in the process of reading, writing and understanding the information provided in lectures. Parents should give children with this kind of mind opportunities for academic education.
emotional mind
Children with strong emotional minds are able to create and maintain healthy relationships with others and with themselves. They are more aware of what others think and feel; It is easy for them to understand someone else's point of view. This capacity for compassion and networking benefits a person not only in his personal life, but also at work. To be successful at work, you need to have a strong emotional mind. This kind of intelligence also determines the ability to control and express one's feelings and desires. A growing number of schools are including courses on understanding feelings, developing empathy and improving interpersonal communication in their programs. Parents should provide these children with opportunities for social interaction and improve themselves in the art of communication.
physical mind
Children with a developed physical mind achieve success in sports and easily maintain strength, health and vigor in their bodies. They instinctively feel the body's need for exercise and healthy food. For the development of innate inclinations, these children require physical training. Their abilities are greatly enhanced if they are given the opportunity to compete with other children. A healthy spirit of competition awakens the best qualities in them. These children require positive recognition in order to develop self-esteem. Not only do they feel good, but they also know how to look good. The scope of the physical mind is not limited to sports and the health of the body. These children need to know more about their own body and what makes it strong and alert. Blooming appearance and cheerfulness help them to achieve success in life.
creative mind
Children with a creative mind have a very developed imagination. To play such a child, a few cubes or a doll without a face are enough. They often make friends with imaginary beings. Such children should not be overloaded with impressions. If you provide them with too many ready-made images, their imagination does not develop. It is good to read fairy tales to them, because in doing so they have to use their imagination to imagine scenes and characters.
If such a child watches too much TV, which offers ready-made visual images, his ability to imagine is blunted. To develop any kind of intelligence, you need to use it - this is how a creative mind develops when you stimulate the imagination of children and encourage them to think differently from others. Often such people succeed where others fail, because they are able to see any problem from an unexpected perspective.
Many successful entrepreneurs did not receive formal education and did not excel in school. The secret to their success is creativity. It was not uncommon for someone to encourage them to think outside the box as children, and as a result, they developed the strength to carve out their own niche in life. These people are usually original and succeed in life by going their own way. They are often left-handed. Parents should encourage such children to think outside the box and solve problems outside the box.
Artistic mind
Children with an artistic mind have an interest in singing, drawing, modeling, writing, drama, and other arts. They need stimulation from people who have achieved mastery in certain arts. Role models are necessary for all children, but this one in particular, otherwise it is difficult for them to develop their artistic mind. These children are particularly sensitive and often do not receive the emotional support they need.
Parents should encourage such children to pursue their dreams and develop their artistic talents. To develop abilities, children need appropriate role models, the opportunity to develop and exercise their minds, and the encouragement and evaluation of their parents.
practical mind
For children with a practical mind, theoretical lectures often inspire boredom. They need information that they can use. This kind of intelligence is now flourishing in the West. Now there is so much information available that many are ready to perceive only what is necessary. These children focus on what is good for them and often criticize the school curriculum for offering too much information that will never be useful in life.
In order to interest children, many schools adjust their programs, coordinating them with the needs of the time. Practical minds require basic skills that are essential for everyday life, interpersonal relationships and job success. They have no incentive to absorb information if it has no functional value.
A practical mind gives a person the opportunity to gain stability and confidence in life. Such a person is not attracted by lofty ideas that are not directly related to modern reality. He strives to put into practice what will bring him immediate benefit. Such children should be given the opportunity to apply their knowledge in practice; they learn in the course of activity and evaluation of its results. For the development of this kind of mind, it is necessary to give the child structured activities in conditions of freedom and independence.
intuitive mind
Children with strong intuition simply know. They don't need to be taught, they don't need to be explained. Information just comes to them. This may be information about the subject of study or the individual knowledge of another person. Such children are inclined to spiritual activity. Once they read a few sentences from a book, they intuitively know most of the content. Not only do they intuitively recognize the content, they then benefit from this knowledge.
For example, if you read a book on the art of communication, in the future the information you learned will serve as the basis for the correct response to a particular situation. You better understand what to do. This is the benefit of reading this book. Intuitive children do not need to delve into the details of the subject to benefit from the teacher's knowledge.
Children with intuitive minds are often not taken seriously. Most parents and schools do not purposefully develop this kind of intelligence. Parents of a child with a strong intuitive mind should not worry too much about his academic performance, but should appreciate the sixth sense that helps the child know what he needs. This kind of intelligence is primarily stimulated through face-to-face interactions rather than through TV programs, computer work, or reading.
Talented mind
Talented children tend to develop one type of intelligence exceptionally strongly, while the rest remain weak. All children are born with a strong mind, but different kinds of it develop to varying degrees. In children with a talented mind, one kind is very strong, but the rest are weak.
In order to live life happily and fully, talented children need special support and guidance so that they can use their special abilities, otherwise they will be bored and uninteresting in life. In addition, these children need special support to develop skills and minds in which they are weak.
People with brilliant abilities in one area often suffer in life, because the rest of their minds are not developed. A great scientist or a brilliant entrepreneur is sometimes simply not able to say "I love you" to his beloved. Many people who are generously endowed with an emotional mind are in poor health. These loving people are very caring about others, but neglect their own body, not giving it regular physical activity. From century to century, the life of great artists is full of suffering, because they lack the practicality necessary in order to raise money and provide for their daily needs. There are no number of examples when great talents suffered severely in life.
Some people are gifted with the strongest physical mind. They always look great. And these people are so accustomed to receiving love and support for their appearance that they are afraid to show their inner qualities so as not to lose the attention and admiration of others. Therefore, "beautiful people" are often very superficial. Their development is inhibited because they do not want to risk the love of others, which they receive by demonstrating their external qualities.
The same principle is true for all other varieties of the mind. For example, people with a strong academic mind sometimes have a poor command of the art of communication. They like to excel in one area. They receive the love and attention of others due to their outstanding success in one area or another. Fear of failure can keep a child from trying to learn new skills. Trying to work on themselves and develop a different, weaker kind of mind is too big a risk for them. The reasoning here is simple. If I excel in one area or another, I receive love and support. If I do not excel others, I will lose love and support. In order to refute these arguments, such children need encouragement to develop other kinds of minds in which they are not so gifted. In the process of learning, they will see for themselves that in order to receive love, there is no need to surpass others. As a result, they will be able to live more balanced, full-blooded and successful lives.
“A dog, a cloud, water and a door. Find a criterion by which one of the four words becomes superfluous, ”is one of the tasks for warming up the brain, which Estanislao Bahrah cites in his book The Flexible Mind, published by Mann, Ivanov and Ferber.
Modern society is “teeming” with various stereotypes, arguing that all people are divided into creative and completely unsuitable for creativity, capable of producing thousands of brilliant ideas in a certain period of time and only born to execute them according to instructions.
Molecular biologist, doctor of sciences, lecturer Estanislao Bahrah openly refutes almost all of the above, confirming his judgments with research results.
The main thesis of the book can be summarized as follows: being a creative person is a free choice for everyone and hard work in developing and maintaining this skill throughout life. Everyone is initially born with the same inclinations and creative potential, but again, everyone disposes of their genetic heritage in different ways.
Skills can be developed!
Our creative abilities are a direct reflection of the process that takes place in our "on-board computer" - the brain. According to Bahrach, we can develop our creativity only if we clearly understand how it (the brain) functions, what happens to us at different periods of life, how our emotional states are reflected in neural connections and, conversely, how neural connections generate emotions. how men and women react differently to the same situations. The use of modern technologies has allowed neuroscience to achieve real breakthroughs over the past decades, making it possible to practically “photograph” different states of the brain and explain in far from scientific terms how these states affect our daily lives.
Estanislao cites the example of children under 6 years old and their way of exploring the world, trying to prove that everyone is born with creative abilities. Children note in the world around them what an adult can not immediately see, children try to connect things that are completely unrelated at first glance.
“Subsequently, under the influence of school and society, we stop using these neural networks, concentrating on logic and analysis, which become the main models of thinking.”
Exploration of space - on the one hand, this is a childish characteristic, on the other hand, this is exactly what distinguishes creative people. Artists, researchers, inventors test the world and its components for fidelity, strength, efficiency, usefulness, and in this test, innovative ideas are born that decorate and greatly facilitate our lives.
Creativity is also, in a sense, a muscle. If you are preparing to run a marathon, then, of course, working on the state of your body becomes an important component of your life: you regulate your sleep and rest patterns, your nutrition structure and, of course, train so as not to lose the race in the first kilometer. The development of creativity and the study of the brain is the same marathon, only a lifetime.
Bahrach writes:
“The brain has the ability to recover and learn until the last days. Until recently, scientists believed that the development of creativity in adults is impossible and that neurons and synapses that have not been used for a long time cannot be restored. The good news is that this assumption has been scientifically refuted.”
Hooray! Once you let social or self-imposed limits fall and feel like a child again, you can start exercising your creative muscle, no matter your age.
Think outside the box and see things differently
The main problem due to which many people consider themselves uncreative or cannot come up with radically new ideas, according to Estanislao Bahrach, is that our thinking can be called "reproductive", that is, when trying to find an answer to a question, we turn to to our past experience, to what, one way or another, had to do with us. These are the so-called dominant thought patterns, which greatly simplify our lives.
“We can work, drive, or ride a bike with these models, which help us quickly absorb complex data.”
Creativity begins at the moment when we try to solve a problem, not armed with the experience of the past, but start from scratch: trying to understand, for example, how many points of view there are on the question posed.
If we are given the task of connecting two completely unrelated objects, for most of us these two objects will remain two different objects, even if we can find an association that would unite them. For a creative person, the rule works: "one plus one equals one." The author gives a simple and very understandable analogy with water: if one drop connects with another, it will turn out ... one drop, not two separate ones!
We and our brain
Still, a little about what you need to understand about the brain in order to be able to find an approach to it.
In the second chapter of the book, Bahrach writes:
“Actually, we have three brains. It can be said, greatly simplifying, that in the course of evolution, before becoming primates, we were simple mammals, and before that - reptiles. We still have a lizard-squirrel-monkey brain that determines behavior. It's called the "triune brain," one of many models that scientists use to describe the hierarchy of brain structures."
The "oldest" area - reptilian brain- more than 500 million years, and it is responsible for all the basic functions of our body: breathing, awakening, sleep, heart rate. limbic system younger, about 200 million years old. She is responsible more for animal reactions: saving decisions to run or hit in an extreme situation, as well as such basic functions as reproduction and nutrition. By the way, it is in the limbic system that the mysterious amygdala, hippocampus and thalamus.
The amygdala is responsible for the formation of emotions and the emergence of memories associated with them, it is she who makes us feel annoyance, fear and pleasure. The hippocampus is involved in the transition of short-term memory to long-term memory. The thalamus is responsible for redistributing information from the senses, with the exception of smell, to the cerebral cortex.
The youngest (only 100 thousand years old) and the most human part - cortex- specializes in vision, language, memory and all functions related to decision making.
For a long time, it was generally accepted that a person is a rational being (cerebral cortex) with feelings (limbic system). But, according to Estanislao Bahrah, today scientists agree that emotions have much more power over the mind, so we do many things unconsciously, under the influence of instincts or memories.
Knowing these features of our brain, understanding the importance can become the basis on which creativity is born.
Blind spot of the expert
Estanislao divides the typical creative process into five stages:
- Preparation: in fact, setting a creative task;
- Pondering: ideas at this moment swarm at the unconscious level and unusual connections appear;
- Evaluation and decision on the value of the idea;
- Development: one of the most difficult stages, as it requires not a flight of fancy, but perseverance and patience in order to turn the sketches of the right hemisphere into a complete picture.
The sequence and number of stages should not be taken literally: the creative process, as a rule, is thorny and tortuous, with a huge number of dead ends in which a person finds himself. However, this simple scheme allows you to find a way out of a seemingly unsolvable situation and either abandon your idea or see where the mistake was made and how it can be corrected - the so-called "expert's blind spot".
Albert Einstein left a deep mark on the history of mankind as an outstanding physicist, the creator of a number of revolutionary physical theories, and the author of many scientific papers. But not everyone knows that this remarkable scientist was also one of the wisest people of his time, who shared with us in his publications a lot of life advice and observations. We will remind you of some of them in this article.
1. We are all born geniuses, but life fixes it.
“We are all geniuses. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb trees, it will live its whole life believing that it is a fool.”
2. Treat everyone with dignity and respect
"I talk to everyone the same way, whether it's a scavenger or a university president."
3. We are all one
“A person is a part of the whole, which we call, a part limited in time and space. He feels himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from all those around him, which is a kind of optical illusion of his consciousness. This illusion has become a dungeon, imprisoning us in the world of our own desires and attachments to a narrow circle of people close to us. Our task is to free ourselves from this prison, expanding the scope of our participation to every living being, to the whole world, in all its splendor.
4. There are no coincidences
"Coincidences are one way God maintains his anonymity."
5. Imagination is more important than knowledge
“Imagination is much more important than knowledge. Knowledge is based only on what we now know and understand, while imagination includes the whole world and everything that we will ever understand and know.
The real sign of intelligence is not knowledge, but imagination.
“Logic will help you get from A to Z; imagination will take you around the world."
6. Loneliness can be delightful for a mature person.
"Loneliness is painful when one is young, but delightful when one becomes more mature."
“I live alone; it is disgusting to the young, but it tastes great with age."
"The value of a man lies in what he gives, not in what he is able to receive."
16. Never stop learning
"Intellectual growth should begin at birth and stop only at death."
17. Don't stop asking questions
“Learn from yesterday, live today, hope for tomorrow. It's important to keep asking questions. Curiosity has every reason to exist."
“People like you and me, although mortal, of course, like everyone else, but never grow old, no matter how long we live. I mean that we will never stop standing like curious children before the great Sacrament into which we were born.”
18. It's all up to you
"Our world is a dangerous place to live, not because some do evil, but because everyone else sees it and does nothing."
19. Don't be afraid to speak your mind
“Few people are able to calmly express an opinion that contradicts the prevailing prejudices in society. Most people are not even capable of forming such an opinion.”
20. Let nature be your teacher
“Look better at nature, and after that you will understand much better.”
21. Change your mind and it will change your life
“The world we have was created in the process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our consciousness."
We cannot solve our problems with the same mindset that we created them with.
22. Purpose is everything
“If you want to live a happy life, then you must be attached to goals, not to people or things.”
23. We become happier by making others happy.
"The best way is to please someone else."
24. You have no limits other than those you set for yourself.
"Only one who tries to do an absurd thing can achieve the impossible."
"Here's a question that sometimes puzzles me: am I crazy or is everyone else?"
25. Doing the right thing doesn't always make you popular.
"What's right isn't always popular, and what's popular isn't always right."
26. Difficulties give new opportunities
“Among the clutter, look for simplicity. Look for harmony in the midst of dissonance. Find opportunities in obstacles.”
27. You can't make peace with force.
“Peace can never be achieved through force. It can only be achieved through mutual understanding.”
"You cannot prevent and prepare for war at the same time."
28. There are no small things
"He who is careless with the little things, there is no trust in the important things."
29. Walk your own paths
“A person who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. A person who walks by himself can probably find himself in places where no one has ever been.”
30. Listen to your intuition
“Intuition is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and forgets about the gift."
"I would never have made my discoveries in the process of rational thinking."
31. Wisdom is not the result of learning
"Wisdom is not a product of learning, but a lifelong endeavor to acquire it."
