jump to navigation

Balance in personal development: The Bhagavad Gita on happiness and distress April 24, 2012

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Personal Growth Books.
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
add a comment

Personal development, or self-improvement literature, is an ancient tradition. Often called Wisdom Writing, particularly when it refers to older literature, personal development writing has been applicable and beneficial throughout the ages, because essentially, human nature does not change.

The same problems and personal challenges that confront us today in the modern world of technological advancements were also matters that the ancients struggled with in their efforts to live a better and more emotionally balanced and spiritual life.

One of the tendencies of our human nature is to subconsciously immerse ourselves in a strong current emotion, such as being happy or worried and “blue” and either want the feeling to persist forever, as in the case of feeling happy, or wish the feeling to go away, as we would with feeling worried or “down.”

The reality however is that, generally, we cannot “will” a feeling or emotion to persist; unforeseen and uncontrollable good or bad circumstances can alter our perceptions and therefore our feelings. There is an old saying, “This too shall pass” and it applies to enjoyable states of emotion and to distressing states of emotion. The trick is to realize the transitory nature of the events of the world and to neither get unduly uplifted by a state of happiness or overly perturbed at a state of distress.

The ancient 700-verse Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita in Chapter 2, Verse 14 (2:14) sheds light on this (I have edited proper names from this excerpt for greater clarity) “…the non-permanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons. They arise from sense perception, and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed.” (1)

There are a number of websites providing interpretation and translation of the Bhagavad Gita, including an article in Wikipedia.

(1) The Bhagavad Gita: Translation source: http://www.bhagavad-gita.us

Searching for the ultimate personal development book February 27, 2012

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Personal Growth Books.
Tags: , , , ,
add a comment

In trying to reach our personal development goals, many of us have spent a lot of time looking for the ultimate self-help book that would help us with solving our problems. And throughout the years we bought many such books. But if your experience is anything like mine, we found there was, unfortunately, no ultimate book with all the answers to our personal difficulties.

In my home, what seems like hundreds of these books are stuffed in bookshelves, and lurking in every corner, many of them with multi-colored Post-It  notes sticking out of certain pages, and littered with red underlining.  “Especially important” insights in these books might have extra underlining in blue or green.

And yet, the search for the perfect book with all the answers goes on.  Despite having enough personal growth books to start a small library on the topic, I continue to buy them. If I had $5 for each self-improvement book I have bought over the years, I could probably afford a very nice vacation and thereby improve myself by relaxing and meditating on a beach in some exotic location.

Generally, I have found that  each of these books do  usually contain some helpful advice or kernel of information,  that might help with a particular problem such as trying to manage our ego, control our temper,  accomplish more in less time, help us to stop procrastinating, or live in the present moment – you know the rest of the list.

The Internet and search engines, of course, have simplified this quest for personal growth information, and it’s usually free. So now, although I still buy a few of these books I am not spending a lot of money on them.  I am however spending a lot of time online in a continuing search for the answers to life’s challenges.

Ultimately, I suppose this is a harmless habit , but I sometimes  need to remind myself, that in some instances, just doing something proactive and taking even small steps towards a achieving a goal, or overcoming a problem, might be more reassuring and productive  than reading yet even more about how deal with my problems.