Well, they aren't really
commandments, in that rather angry “Thou shall not” authoritarian sense. They
are more like suggestions. And there aren't 10 of them either.
1. You have freedom of thought - use it.
You have the freedom to think without constraint. So, take care in what you believe, remembering that which sounds too good to be true, invariably is. Don't accept any orthodoxies or doctrines or creeds, just because lots of others do or because you were brought up by your elders to believe these things were so. The truth or perhaps we should say reality, has never been dependent upon the views of the majority and is very often the opposite of it. Once, we all believed the earth was flat.
2. Don't fear the dark.
Don't entertain notions of your immortality, for you are not a supernatural entity. There are no such things so best you don't allow yourself to be deluded and misled by those who tempt and seduce with sweet promises of everlasting life and happiness. Remember, when you are laid to rest in the cool dark earth of this world it will be as a dreamless sleep from which there will be no waking. So do not fear the dark, for the days of your life are here and now; do not live for a time that will not come to pass.
3. Lead a life of decency.
You shall lead your life in harmony with those around you and you will do no harm. This is because it is by helping others to lead fulfilled lives themselves, that yours too will be one of fulfilment and happiness. You will be successful and experience contentment by enabling the same in others with whom you have contact, no matter how brief an occasion. Remember, there is no situation where you cannot act with humility, thoughtfulness and compassion.
4. Don’t Despair
Every night-time of the soul must break. Without moments of despair, we would never know happiness and joy. There would be a bland greying spectrum to the course of our lives. Those times of despair cannot last, because the swirl of events about you will mean it must itself take on new shapes and forms and ultimately pass. So take action in your despair, speed up the flow of events that wash along in the river of your life and which will transport you to new scenes and vistas.
1. You have freedom of thought - use it.
You have the freedom to think without constraint. So, take care in what you believe, remembering that which sounds too good to be true, invariably is. Don't accept any orthodoxies or doctrines or creeds, just because lots of others do or because you were brought up by your elders to believe these things were so. The truth or perhaps we should say reality, has never been dependent upon the views of the majority and is very often the opposite of it. Once, we all believed the earth was flat.
2. Don't fear the dark.
Don't entertain notions of your immortality, for you are not a supernatural entity. There are no such things so best you don't allow yourself to be deluded and misled by those who tempt and seduce with sweet promises of everlasting life and happiness. Remember, when you are laid to rest in the cool dark earth of this world it will be as a dreamless sleep from which there will be no waking. So do not fear the dark, for the days of your life are here and now; do not live for a time that will not come to pass.
3. Lead a life of decency.
You shall lead your life in harmony with those around you and you will do no harm. This is because it is by helping others to lead fulfilled lives themselves, that yours too will be one of fulfilment and happiness. You will be successful and experience contentment by enabling the same in others with whom you have contact, no matter how brief an occasion. Remember, there is no situation where you cannot act with humility, thoughtfulness and compassion.
4. Don’t Despair
Every night-time of the soul must break. Without moments of despair, we would never know happiness and joy. There would be a bland greying spectrum to the course of our lives. Those times of despair cannot last, because the swirl of events about you will mean it must itself take on new shapes and forms and ultimately pass. So take action in your despair, speed up the flow of events that wash along in the river of your life and which will transport you to new scenes and vistas.
5. Liberate yourself and
take personal responsibility
6. Understand that you do not always understand.
Do not fear that which you cannot explain or understand. It has ever been thus with our kind. Gradually we are discovering more about the world and the cosmos within which we exist. Yet there is still much we do not know and may never know. Indeed, the more we find out, the less we realise we know. We will always know less than we don't know. Accept it. Do not seek to answer that which cannot yet be known with supernatural, fictional or wildly fanciful stories that you heart wishes were so, but your head knows are not. You cannot comfort yourself with a delusion; it's only reward is blindness, and the intolerance of others.
7. Be spiritual
Instead of thinking of our gods as supernatural versions of ourselves, imagine that God is a metaphor for those undefinable aspects of our lives that can fill us with wonder. For God is like time passing, or perhaps not passing, like the line of a horizon that never ends and is never reached. God is the expanding universe, God is what will forever lie beyond the light of the Big Bang, God is the Big Bang and the time before the Big Bang. God is the honesty of open thought, unbounded like a sky. God stands for those things we cannot understand and will never understand. God stands for those things we must accept; that we exist and that we will never know why we exist.
God is a moment when we contemplate our infinitely small and brief place in an order of things so vast and so timeless that we might even, in a moment of warm irony, call it miraculous that we can comprehend it at all. It is finally knowing that we cannot know and finding the liberating freedom to reject the doctrines and orthodoxies of those who claim to have the knowledge of that which is unknowable. So, understand that the sweet beguiling guarantee of a specific eternal outcome to your life is merely a dream, and instead marvel at your own bright and shimmering moment of being in the vast and measureless span of the infinite.
Do not fear that which you cannot explain or understand. It has ever been thus with our kind. Gradually we are discovering more about the world and the cosmos within which we exist. Yet there is still much we do not know and may never know. Indeed, the more we find out, the less we realise we know. We will always know less than we don't know. Accept it. Do not seek to answer that which cannot yet be known with supernatural, fictional or wildly fanciful stories that you heart wishes were so, but your head knows are not. You cannot comfort yourself with a delusion; it's only reward is blindness, and the intolerance of others.
7. Be spiritual
Instead of thinking of our gods as supernatural versions of ourselves, imagine that God is a metaphor for those undefinable aspects of our lives that can fill us with wonder. For God is like time passing, or perhaps not passing, like the line of a horizon that never ends and is never reached. God is the expanding universe, God is what will forever lie beyond the light of the Big Bang, God is the Big Bang and the time before the Big Bang. God is the honesty of open thought, unbounded like a sky. God stands for those things we cannot understand and will never understand. God stands for those things we must accept; that we exist and that we will never know why we exist.
God is a moment when we contemplate our infinitely small and brief place in an order of things so vast and so timeless that we might even, in a moment of warm irony, call it miraculous that we can comprehend it at all. It is finally knowing that we cannot know and finding the liberating freedom to reject the doctrines and orthodoxies of those who claim to have the knowledge of that which is unknowable. So, understand that the sweet beguiling guarantee of a specific eternal outcome to your life is merely a dream, and instead marvel at your own bright and shimmering moment of being in the vast and measureless span of the infinite.
