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As I was re-reading some of these and remembering why I love writing, reading, and the
power of words, I thought perhaps someone somewhere out there might be feeling the
same as me before I started writing this post.
So, here are 20 of the most beautiful passages (in no particular order) I have ever read on
life and related subjects, and which have helped me become a better version of myself
over the years. These exclude everything I have learned from Warren Bu ett and Charlie
Munger (there’s anyways an overdose of these two wise men on this blog).
Hope you nd these passages of some help, and worth your time. Ready? Let’s go.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by
dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise
of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the
courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly
want to become. Everything else is secondary. (Source)
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We are such social creatures, we’re more like bees or ants, that we’re externally
programmed and driven, that we just don’t know how to play and win at these single-
player games anymore. We compete purely on multi-player games.
The reality is life is a single-player game. You’re born alone. You’re going to die alone.
All of your interpretations are alone. All your memories are alone. You’re gone in three
generations and nobody cares. Before you showed up, nobody cared. It’s all single-
player. (Source)
Scholars can debate the point forever, but when the Gita is practiced, I think, it becomes
clear that the struggle the Gita is concerned with is the struggle for self-mastery. It was
Vyasa’s genius to take the whole great Mahabharata epic and see it as metaphor for the
perennial war between the forces of light and the forces of darkness in every human
heart. Arjuna and Krishna are then no longer merely characters in a literary masterpiece.
Arjuna becomes Everyman, asking the Lord himself, Sri Krishna, the perennial questions
about life and death – not as a philosopher, but as the quintessential man of action. Thus
read, the Gita is not an external dialogue but an internal one: between the ordinary
human personality, full of questions about the meaning of life, and our deepest Self,
which is divine.
There is, in fact, no other way to read the Gita and grasp it as spiritual instruction. If I
could o er only one key to understanding this divine dialogue, it would be to remember
that it takes place in the depths of consciousness and that Krishna is not some external
being, human or superhuman, but the spark of divinity that lies at the core of the human
personality. (Source)
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Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some
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privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet
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is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this
vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
It is up to us. It’s been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-
building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of
human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our
responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve
and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known. (Source)
And you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm.
No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will
cut through esh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed
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too. Hot, red blood. You’ll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood
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of others.
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And once the storm is over you won’t remember how you made it through, how you
managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But
one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who
walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about. (Source)
“Anyone can carry his burden, however hard, until nightfall,” wrote Robert Louis
Stevenson. “Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day. Anyone can live
sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, till the sun goes down. And this is all that life really
means.” (Source)
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
so as the unintended side e ect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than
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oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself.
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Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not
caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go
on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-
run—in the long-run, I say! — success will follow you precisely because you had
forgotten to think about it. (Source)
Imagine a speck of dust next to a planet a billion times the size of the earth. The speck of
dust represents the odds in favour of your being born; the huge planet would be the odds
against it. So stop sweating the small stu . Don’t be like the ingrate who got a castle as a
present and worried about the mildew in the bathroom. Stop looking the gift horse in the
mouth – remember that you are a Black Swan. (Source)
People are liberated from su ering not when they experience this or that eeting
pleasure, but rather when they understand the impermanent nature of all their feelings,
and stop craving them. This is the aim of Buddhist meditation practices. In meditation,
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6.3k you are supposed to closely observe your mind and body, witness the ceaseless arising
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and passing of all your feelings, and realise how pointless it is to pursue them. When the
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pursuit stops, the mind becomes very relaxed, clear and satis ed. All kinds of feelings go
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on arising and passing – joy, anger, boredom, lust – but once you stop craving particular
feelings, you can just accept them for what they are. You live in the present moment
instead of fantasising about what might have been. The resulting serenity is so profound
that those who spend their lives in the frenzied pursuit of pleasant feelings can hardly
imagine it. It is like a man standing for decades on the seashore, embracing certain
‘good’ waves and trying to prevent them from disintegrating, while simultaneously
pushing back ‘bad’ waves to prevent them from getting near him. Day in, day out, the
man stands on the beach, driving himself crazy with this fruitless exercise. Eventually,
he sits down on the sand and just allows the waves to come and go as they please. How
peaceful! (Source)
She looks devastated. Murphy, too, is unhappy. Satan frowns and chews on his lip. He doesn’t
like to leave them like this.
“I’ll teach you a trick,” he says. “I’ll teach you an incantation that will protect against despair.
If things are dark, and I’m not around to help, you can repeat it a few times and it’ll help.
Murphy and Eva both repeat this very slowly. Eva says, “That’s lovely.”
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Satan nods. “Just repeat it to yourself when things are bad. You could try di erent translations
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too. ‘Do not make yourself afraid, the whole world is a narrow bridge.’
The point is this life we’re living—this world we inhabit—is a scary place. If you peer
over the side of a narrow bridge, you can lose your heart to continue. You freeze up. You
sit down. So too with life. If we think too much about the journey we have to make, the
one that begins with the trauma of birth and ends with the tragedy of death, the one that
is so perilous and unpredictable, we’ll never make it.
The important thing is that we are not afraid. That we don’t overthink things. That we
don’t give way to fear, as the Stoics tell us over and over again. Just repeat it to yourself
—The world is a narrow bridge and I will not be afraid—and keep going. Like the
thousands of generations who have come before you. (Source)
Happy living!
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Comments
Very true sir & thank you for sharing things I am following your way of thinking . I m
appreciate you sir .
Reply
True sir & thank you sir for sharing the such beautiful articles .
Reply
My life has changed when I read book called ‘the Secret ‘ by Rhonda Byrne.
It’s awesome book.
I just follow simple steps to manifest what I want :
Imagine it.
Believe it
Receive it.
I even read ‘ the power of your subconscious mind’ which has also helped me in changing my
mindset.
Reply
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It just connected by the very rst line “Whenever I feel uninspired..” and I was in to explore
the push I could give to myself and feel good. And, it was done.
Thank you for putting together the nice pieces.
Reply
devraj says
April 5, 2019 at 3:57 pm
Reply
ranveer says
April 5, 2019 at 5:08 pm
Hello, vishal,
thanks for your mail and content and information that you have shared within mail.
I loved to read this mail and will read it again after some days as in this mail i will nd
something new always whenever i will read this mail.
regards
ranveer singh
Reply
S G Arun says
April 5, 2019 at 5:57 pm
“no investing stu please, and no quotes, but only passages on life and living, with name/link
to the original source)” Of course we know that…this blog is not about investing at all
Coming to the subject at hand, it is astounding that not even one thought from our ancient
tradition matters and the only two Indian names among the rest of West! Has nothing in
Geeta or Upanishads, or Panchatantra, or even Rabindranath Tagor, or Mahatma Gandhi
shaped you at all?
Reply
ranveer says
April 5, 2019 at 6:29 pm
As Tagor Sahab called as Gurudev, Father of Intellect did not get the space in this wisdom
series.
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Sameer says
SAFAL NIVESHAK April 6, ARTICLES
2019 at 10:15NEWSLETTERS
am COURSES BOOKS WALL RESOURCES LOGIN ABOUT
Valid point
Reply
In fact, the two Indians- Naval Ravikant and Eknath Easwaran, are Indian born but have
spent considerable time in the US. But then how does the nationality of a person even
matter when it comes to shaping an individual’s life? The message is important than the
person. Also, not all are from the West. some are from Asia which is East and a few are
from the middle east which the west de nitely considers are east.
It may very well be possible that all the above names mentioned may have been inspired
by the eastern philosophy. Like Steve Jobs was deeply into Zen Buddhism, Albert Einstien
had a huge admiration for Mahatma Gandhi. Eknath Ji had translated Geeta, Upanishads,
Yuval talks about the power of meditation and it can continue.
We have a tendency of attaching too much of importance to a person whereas all that
these greats persons preach are a re ection of all the experiences that they must have had.
It would serve us all better if we appreciate the message more.
Vishal Sir, thank you so much for sharing this beautiful article. There’s so much to learn
from all of it. For a 23-year-old, its a bit di cult to appreciate all at this juncture of my
life but I am sure with more experince in life all of these will come back as an opportunity
to re ect.
Reply
Thanks for bringing all the wisdom in one place. Very insightful and humbling as well.
Reply
LIFE IS ALL ABOUT KNOWING,IMPLEMENTING, HAVING UTMOST FAITH IN GOD & NEVER
GIVING UP.
Reply
Amazing collection Vishal… It somehow feel awkward to collect what is yours… but it is a
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6.3k treasure. Thx for this inspiring piece.
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L.Kavin says
April 6, 2019 at 3:36 pm
1)I want to live like my father,who doesn’t care about external factor like going to job in
urbanized city where we didn’t get good food,pure air etc,and he was an farmer and he knows
only that occupation, he lived like a butter y by working daily in his land.
2)until 2013, I was very happy, the way i live in my village,i didn’t get access to mobile
phone,never know about FB,INSTA,TW, But i lead a peaceful life and never i got irritated.
3)After graduating in Multiplayer Society,like other,I went to work in a company and i lose my
mind,i didn’t know whether i was working for me or others and i was fully controlled by
external factor like repaying my education loan, father medical expenses.
4)My heart follow a dream of working like my father in my agricultural land and after
knowing about the real face of the world.I changed my mind and made a plan to work very
hardly until my age of 35 to save enough money and invest wisely in stock market,gold
6)But, my situation never happened to my children, i allow them to y on their their dreams
and i make them to learn farming the most essential tool made and access by human
Reply
Sankar S V says
April 6, 2019 at 4:45 pm
Hi Vishal,
I am a regular reader of your posts and have found it to be immensely helpful. Thank you for
taking the time to share your learnings to a larger group. I had written an article on the
purpose of life and here is the link.
Reply
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