Wayne W. Dyer
WISDOM of the AGES

Eternal Truths for Everyday Lives

Copyright

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An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

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First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 1998. This edition published by Thorsons 1999.

Copyright © Wayne Dyer 1998

Wayne Dyer asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the publishers for permission to reprint the following works: ‘For Anne Gregory’ by William Butler Yeats: Reprinted with the permission of Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster, from The Collected Works of W B Yeats, Vol. I: The Poems. Revised and edited by Richard J Finneran. Copyright 1933 by Macmillan Publishing Company; copyright renewed © 1961 by Bertha Georgie Yeats. ‘The Road Not Taken’ by Robert Frost: From The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright 1916, © 1969 by Henry Holt & Co. Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt & Co. Inc. ‘So That’s Who I Remind Me Of’ by Ogden Nash: From Good Intentions by Ogden Nash. Copyright © 1942 by Ogden Nash. By permission of Little, Brown and Company. ‘On Being a Woman’ by Dorothy Parker: From The Portable Dorothy Parker, edited by Brendan Gill. Copyright 1991 by Viking Penguin. Reprinted by permission of Viking Penguin.

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Dedication

To Our Son

Sands Jay Dyer

Bodhisattva Extraordinaire

Epigraph

When you are dead,seek for your resting placenot in the earth,but in the hearts of men.

RUMI

Lives of great men all remind usWe can make our lives sublime,And, departing, leave behind usFootprints on the sands of time.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Introduction

Pythagoras and Blaise Pascal Meditation

Buddha Knowing

Lao-tzu Leadership

Confucius Patience

Patanjali Inspiration

Marcus Tullius Cicero Triumph

Jesus of Nazareth Being Childlike

Epictetus Divinity

Zen Proverb Enlightenment

Omar Khayyám The Now

St. Francis of Assisi Prayer

Jalaluddin Rumi Grief As a Blessing

Leonardo da Vinci Balance

Michelangelo Hope

Sir Edward Dyer Mind Power

William Shakespeare Mercy

John Donne Oneness

John Milton Time

Alexander Pope Humility

John Keats Truth/Beauty

Percy Bysshe Shelley Passion

William Blake Communication

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Boldness/Action

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Imagination

William Wordsworth Nature

Elizabeth Barrett Browning Romantic Love

Henry David Thoreau Nonconformity

Chief Seattle, Oren Lyons, Wolf Song, Walking Buffalo, and Luther Standing Bear Reverence for Nature

Ralph Waldo Emerson Judgment

Ralph Waldo Emerson Self-Reliance

Henry Wadsworth Emerson Enthusiasm

Emily Dickinson Immortality

Robert Browning Perfection

Herman Melville Soulcenter

John Greenleaf Whittier Regrets

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Fear and Risk-Taking

Walt Whitman Physical Perfection

Lewis Caroll Agelessness

Stephen Crane Kindness

Algernon Charles Swinburne Laughter

William James Visualization

Joyce Kilmer Family and Home

Ella Wheeler Wilcox Solitude

William Jennings Bryan Mystery

Kahlil Gibran Work

Rudyard Kipling Inspiration

William Butler Yeats Soul Love

Rabindranath Tagore Highest Self

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi Privacy

George Bernard Shaw Self-Image

Paramha Yogananda Suffering

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Love’s Energy

e.e cummings Individuality

Robert Frost Independence

Dorothy Parker Appreciation

Langston Hughes Forgiveness

Martin Luther King, Jr. Nonviolence

Ogden Nash, Comparision

Mother Teresa Action/Doing

Wayne W. Dyer Awe

Keep Reading

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

INTRODUCTION

In my mind I can picture what the world was like in other times, and I am fascinated by what those people who lived before us might have felt in their hearts. To imagine that Pythagoras, Buddha, Jesus Christ, Michelangelo, Shelley, Shakespeare, Emerson, and so many of those we revere as our teachers and spiritual leaders actually walked on the same ground, drank the same water, watched the same moon, and were warmed by the same sun as I am today intrigues me considerably. Even more intriguing is what these greatest minds of all time would like us to know.

I have come to the conclusion that in order to effect deep inner spiritual change in our world, we need to know and live in our personal lives the wisdom these eminent teachers from our past have left us. Many of these profound teachers were considered troublemakers, and some were even put to death for their beliefs. Their teachings, however, could never be silenced, as evidenced by the variety of topics from differing historical eras that are in this book. Their words live on and their advice for having a deeper and a richer experience of life is here for you to read and apply. This collection is a compendium of the wisdom from those topics and times, and what I feel those wise and creative thinkers are telling us now about how to create deep inner spiritual change.

In a sense, those of us who now occupy Planet Earth are in many ways connected to all those who lived here before us. We may have new technologies and modern conveniences, but we still share the same heart space, and the same energy or life force that flowed through their bodies now flows through ours. It is to this mind picture and shared energy that this book is dedicated. What do those ancestral scholars, whom we consider the wisest and most spiritually advanced, have to say to us today?

Their observations of life’s greatest lessons are in the prose, poetry, and speeches that they left for us to read and listen to. Though they lived in a separate time with quite different living conditions, they still speak to you and to me. In essence, these brilliant minds of our past are still with us through their words.

I have chosen to highlight sixty of our ancestral teachers, all of whom command my admiration and respect. They are a diverse group, representing ancient, medieval, Renaissance, early modern, and modern times, from all around our world. Some lived into their nineties and others died in their early twenties. Male, female; black, white, Native American, Far Eastern, Middle Eastern; scholars, soldiers, scientists, philosophers, poets, and statesmen, they are here, and they have something to say to you personally.

The choice of these sixty people in no way infers that those who are not in this book are any less significant. Each selection and each contributor were simply my choices to illuminate these subjects. It is as simple as that. Had I included all the great teachers of the past, you would need to rent a trailer and a crane just to lift this book, so prodigious are the offerings of our ancestors!

I have written each piece in a way that explains how these noble masters’ works might benefit you directly, here and now. Each contribution is designed to speak to you personally, with specific suggestions at the end of each short essay explaining how you can implement the lessons in your life. I want to provide you with insights that you can apply from some of our most esteemed teachers, rather than have you learn their poetry and prose and passively conclude, “Well, that’s nice for a literature or humanities class, but that was then and this is now.” I recommend that you read each selection with an openness to the idea that these towering minds share the same divinity and life force as you do and are talking to you directly in their own unique language and art form, and that you are going to apply their wisdom to your life beginning today!

As I wrote each of these essays, I looked at a portrait or photograph of the teacher I was highlighting and I would literally ask the individual, “What would you like those of us here today to know?”—and I would listen and surrender. I allowed myself to experience their guidance and my writing became almost automatic. It may sound strange, but I actually felt the presence of those writers and poets with me as I wrote each of these sixty pieces.

Many of the selections in this book are poems. I view poetry as a language of the heart-not just a form of entertainment or a subject to get past in school, but another way to transform our lives by communicating our wisdom to one another. Here are three examples from my own life of how poetry, the language of the heart, has touched me.

Many years ago, when I received my doctorate, I was at a festive celebration where I was given many nice gifts. The gift that touched me most deeply was a poem written by my mother, which still hangs in my office almost thirty years later. I reproduce it here to illustrate how poetry, which doesn’t have to originate in the minds of renowned celebrities, can touch us where we live.

A mother can but guide …

then step aside—I knew

I could not say, “This is the way

that you should go.”

For I could not foresee

what paths might beckon you

to unimagined heights

that I might never know.

Yet, always in my heart

I realized

That you would touch a star …

I’m not surprised!

When my oldest daughter, Tracy, was just a toddler of five or six, she sent me a picture she had drawn in school along with a poem that expressed from her tender heart how she felt. Her mother and I had separated, and she knew the pain that I felt in not living with her every day. This too has been framed and hangs on the wall next to my desk.

Even if the sun stops shining,

Even if the sky is never blue

It won’t matter

Because I’ll always love you.

Reading those precious thoughts expressed poetically from my daughter never fails to tug at my heart and produce tears of gratitude in my eyes.

Finally, our daughter Sommer wrote this poem as a Christmas gift for her mother. It sits, framed, beside her bed for her to read every night.

What Your Love Means to Me

Knowing your smile greets

Me at the door

And your kind words leave

Me with no worries.

Every time I slip a step

You help me to my feet

And when you and I laugh

Together I only feel complete.

Your love for us shines through

On every cloudy day

To think you’d ever abandon

Us isn’t possible in any way.

A Mom like you is impossible

The kind you’ll never see

That’s why I love you

That’s what your love means to me.

As I said, poetry is the language of the heart, and you are about to have your heart touched by sixty majestic souls who wrote directly to you from another place and another time. This book will serve you best if you think of it as a way of reconnecting to those great souls who have left our material world in body form but are still very much with us in a spiritual sense.

I encourage you to make this book a two-month renovation project of your soul in which you read only one selection each day and then make a conscious effort to apply the suggestions that day. When you have completed the sixty days, use this as a reference book. Look at the sixty subjects in the table of contents, and if you need a boost in patience, mercy, kindness, meditation, forgiveness, humility, leadership, prayer, or anything else covered by our ancestral masters, then read that contribution. Review the essay and work on applying the specific recommendations. Let your life be guided by greatness!

To me, this is the way to teach poetry, prose, and literature; let it come alive, let it shimmer in your mind and then take that inner awakening and put it to work. All of us are deeply grateful to those who make life throb to a swifter, stronger beat. These great teachers from the past have done that for me, and I encourage you to apply this language of the heart from the wisdom of the ages to your life.

God bless you,

Wayne W. Dyer

MEDITATION

Learn to be silent.

Let your

quiet mind

listen and absorb.

PYTHAGORAS

(580 B.C.–500 B.C.)

A Greek philosopher and mathematician, Pythagoras was especially interested in the study of mathematics in relation to weights and measures and to musical theory.

All man’s miseries derive from not being

able to sit quietly in a room alone.

BLAISE PASCAL

(1623-1662)

Blaise Pascal was a French philosopher, scientist, mathematician, and writer, whose treatises contributed to the fields of hydraulics and pure geometry.

This is the one time in this collection of great contributors that I have elected to highlight two writers on the same subject. I selected two men whose lives were separated by over two millennia, both of whom in their own times were considered the most knowledgeable in the rational fields of mathematics and science.

Pythagoras, whose writings influenced the thought of Plato and Aristotle, was a major contributor to the development of both mathematics and Western rational philosophy. Blaise Pascal, a famous French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher who lived twenty-two centuries after Pythagoras, is considered one of the original scientific minds. He is responsible for inventing the syringe, the hydraulic press, and the first digital calculator. Pascal’s Law of Pressure is still taught in science classes around the world today.

Keeping in mind the left-brained scientific leanings of these two scientists, reread their two quotes. Pascal: “All man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.” Pythagoras: “Learn to be silent. Let your quiet mind listen and absorb.” They both speak to the importance of silence and the value of meditation in your life, whether you are an accountant or an avatar. They send us a valuable message about a way of being in life that is not popularly encouraged in our culture: that there is tremendous value in creating alone time in your life that is spent in silence. If you want to shed your miseries, learn to sit silently in a room alone and meditate.

It has been estimated that the average person has sixty thousand separate thoughts each and every day. The problem with this is that we have the same sixty thousand thoughts today that we had yesterday, and we’ll repeat them again tomorrow. Our minds are filled with the same chatter day in and day out. Learning to be quiet and meditate involves figuring out a way to enter the spaces between your thoughts; or the gap, as I call it. In this silent empty space between your thoughts, you can find a sense of total peace in a realm that is ordinarily unknowable. Here, any illusion of your separateness is shattered. However, if you have sixty thousand separate thoughts in a day, there is literally no time available to enter the space between your thoughts, because there is no space!

Most of us have minds that race full-speed day and night. Our thoughts are a hodgepodge of continuous dialogue about schedules, money worries, sexual fantasies, grocery lists, drapery problems, concern about the children, vacation plans, and on and on like a merry-go-round that never stops. Those sixty thousand thoughts are usually about ordinary daily activities and create a mental pattern that leaves no space for silence.

This pattern reinforces our cultural belief that all gaps in conversation (silence) need to be filled quickly. For many, silence represents an embarrassment and a social defect. Therefore we learn to jump in to fill these spaces, whether or not our filler has any substance. Silent periods in a car or at a dinner are perceived as awkward moments, and good conversationalists know how to get those spaces occupied with some kind of noise.

And so it is with ourselves as well; we have no training in silence, and we see it as unwieldy and confusing. Thus we keep the inner dialogue going just like the outer. Yet it is in that silent place, where our ancient teacher Pythagoras tells us to let our quiet mind listen and absorb, that confusion will disappear and enlightened guidance will come to us. But meditation also affects the quality of our nonsilent activities. The daily practice of meditation is the single thing in my life that gives me a greater sense of well-being, increased energy, higher productivity at a more conscious level, more satisfying relationships, and a closer connection to God.

The mind is like a pond. On the surface you see all the disturbances, yet the surface is only a fraction of the pond. It is in the depth below the surface, where there is stillness, that you will come to know the true essence of the pond, as well as your own mind. By going below the surface, you come to the spaces between your thoughts where you are able to enter the gap. The gap is total emptiness or silence, and it is indivisible. No matter how many times you cut silence in half, you still get silence. This is what is meant by now. Perhaps it is the essence of God, that which cannot be divided from the oneness.

These two pioneering scientists, who are still quoted today in university courses, were studying the nature of the universe. They struggled with the mysteries of energy, pressure, mathematics, space, time, and universal truths. Their message to all of us here is quite simple. If you want to understand the universe, or your own personal universe, if you want to know how it all works, then be quiet and face your fear of sitting in a room alone and going deep within the layers of your own mind.

It is the space between the notes that makes the music. Without that emptiness, that silence in between, there is no music, only a noise. You too are silent empty space at your center, surrounded by form. To break through that form and discover your very creative nature that is in the center, you must take the time to become silent each day, and enter that rapturous space between your thoughts. No amount of my writing about the value of daily meditation will ever convince you. You will never know the value of this practice unless you make the commitment to do it.

My purpose in writing this brief essay on the value of meditation is not to tell you how to meditate. There are many fine courses of study, manuals, and audio guides to give you instruction. My purpose here is to emphasize that meditation is not something that is exclusively for spiritual seekers who want to wile away the hours and days of their lives in deep contemplation, oblivious to productivity and social responsibility. Meditation is a practice advocated by those who live by their faith in reason, by number crunchers and authors of theorems and believers in Pascal’s Law. You may feel much as Blaise Pascal did when he wrote, “The eternal silence of these infinite spaces terrifies me.”

Here are some suggestions for overcoming your terror and learning to be silent and able to sit quietly in a room alone:

 Practice noticing your in and out breaths as a way to cultivate turning inward to the silent self. You can do this in the middle of meetings, conversations, even parties. Just notice and follow your breathing for a few moments, many times during your day.

 Give yourself time this day to simply sit in a room alone and observe your mind. Keep track of the various thoughts that enter, exit, and lead to the next thought. Your awareness of the frenetic activity of your mind will help you to transcend the frenzied pace of thoughts.

 Read a book on meditation to learn how the practice can be initiated, or join a meditation group. Many teachers and local organizations can get you started on this path. The Chopra Center for Well-Being in La Jolla, California, headed by my friend and colleague Deepak Chopra, teaches meditation as a part of its large offering of services.

 Many CDs and tapes are available to guide you in meditation. Find one that appeals to you. I have published one entitled Meditation for Manifesting in which I teach a specific meditation called JAPA. I guide you through a morning and evening meditation using my voice to assist you in repeating the sounds of the divine. The profits go to charity.

KNOWING

Do not believe what you have heard.

Do not believe in tradition because it is handed down many generations.

Do not believe in anything that has been spoken of many times.

Do not believe because the written statements come from some old sage.

Do not believe in conjecture.

Do not believe in authority or teachers or elders.

But after careful observation and analysis, when it agrees with reason and it will benefit one and all, then accept it and live by it.

BUDDHA

(563 B.C.–483 B.C.)

Founder of Buddhism, one of the world’s major religions, the Buddha was born Prince Siddhartha Gautama in northeast India, near the borders of Nepal. Seeing the unhappiness, sickness, and death that even the wealthiest and most powerful are subject to in this life, at age twentynine he abandoned the life he was living in search of a higher truth.

The name Buddha is actually a title that translates to the “awakened one” or the “enlightened one.” It is the title given to Siddhartha Gautama, who left behind the princely life at the age of twenty-nine and went on a lifelong search for religious understanding and a way of release from the human condition. It is said that he discarded the teachings of his contemporaries and through meditation achieved enlightenment or ultimate understanding. From then on he assumed the role of teacher, instructing his followers in the “dharma,” or truth.

His teachings became the basis for the religious practice of Buddhism, which has played a major role in the spiritual, cultural, and social life of the Eastern world, and much of the Western world as well. I have deliberately chosen not to write, in this essay, on the tenets of Buddhist doctrine, but rather to take this often-quoted passage of the Buddha and discuss its significance to you and me today, some twenty-five centuries after the death of the enlightened one.

The key word in the passage is “believe.” In fact, the key phrase is “Do not believe:” Everything you carry around with you that you call a belief has become your own largely because of the experiences and testimonies of other people. And if it comes to you from a source outside yourself, regardless of how persuasive the conditioning process might be, and of how many people just like you have worked to convince you of the truth of these beliefs, the fact that it is someone else’s truth means that you receive it with some question marks or doubts.

If I were to attempt to convince you about the taste of a delectable fish, you would perhaps listen but still have your doubts. Were I to show you pictures of this fish, and have hundreds of people come to testify about the veracity of my statements, you might become more convinced. But the modicum of doubt would still remain because you hadn’t tasted it. You might accept the truth of its deliciousness for me; but until your taste buds experience the fish, your truth is only a belief based on my truth, on my experience. And so it is also with all the well-meaning members of your tribes, and their tribal ancestors before them.

Just because you have heard it, and it is a long-surviving tradition, and it is recorded over the centuries, and the world’s greatest teachers have endorsed it, those are still not reasons to accept a belief. Remember, “Do not believe it,” as Buddha instructs.

Rather than using the term “belief,” try shifting to the word “knowing.” When you have the direct experience of tasting the fish, you now have a knowing. That is, you have conscious contact and can determine your truth based on your experience. You know how to swim or ride a bicycle not because you have a belief, but because you have had the direct experience.

You are being reminded, directly by the “enlightened one” of twenty-five hundred years ago, to apply this same understanding to your spiritual practice. There is a fundamental difference between knowing something and knowing about something. “Knowing about” is another term for belief. “Knowing” is a term reserved exclusively for direct experience, which means an absence of doubt. I recall a well-known Kahuna healer responding to my questions about how a Kahuna becomes a healer. He said to me, “When a knowing confronts a belief in a disease process, the knowing will always triumph. Kahunas,” he explained to me, “were raised to abandon all doubt and to know.”

When I think of the parables of Jesus Christ as a great healer, I can’t conjure any doubt. When Christ approached a leper he wouldn’t say, “We haven’t been having a great deal of success with leprosy lately. But if you follow my advice you’ll have a thirty percent chance of survival over the next five years.” You can see all the doubt that is present in such a stance. Rather, he would say from an absolute state of knowing, “You are healed.” This is the same state of conscious contact with knowing from which St. Francis performed his healing miracles as well. In fact, all miracles come from shifting out of doubt and into knowing.

Yet the persuasiveness of tribal influences is exceedingly powerful. You are constantly being reminded of what you should or shouldn’t believe, and what all our tribal members have always believed, and what will happen to you if you ignore these beliefs. Fear becomes the constant companion of your beliefs, and despite the doubts that you may be feeling inside, you often adopt these beliefs and make them crutches in your life, while you hobble through your days looking for a way out of the traps that have been carefully set by generations of believers before you.

The Buddha offers you some great advice, and you can see that his conclusion is devoid of the word “believe.” He says when it agrees with reason—that is, when you know it to be true based on your own observation and experience—and it is beneficial to one and all, then and only then, live by it!

Throughout this book I offer you a summation of some of the most famous and creative genius minds of all times. They give you advice from another time, and I encourage you to do the same thing with all the words that come to you from beyond this contemporary world that you do with the words that have been handed down many generations. First and foremost, try the advice in this book. Ask yourself how it equates with your own reason and common sense, and if it benefits you and others, then live by it. That is, make it your knowing.

Resisting tribal influence is often perceived as being callous or indifferent to the experience and teachings of others, particularly those who care the most about you. I suggest that you read these words of Buddha again and again if this is your conclusion. He does not speak of rejection, only of being grown-up and mature enough to make up your own mind and live by your knowing, rather than through the experiences and testimony of others.

You cannot learn anything through the efforts of others. The world’s greatest teachers can teach you absolutely nothing unless you are willing to apply what they have to offer based on your knowing. Those great teachers only offer you choices on the menu of life. They can make them sound very appealing, and ultimately they may help you to try those items on the menu. They can even write the menu. But the menu can never be the meal.

To put this wisdom to work I offer you these appetizers on my menu:

 Inventory as many of your beliefs as you can think of. Include such things as your attitude toward religion, capital punishment, minority rights, reincarnation, young people, old people, nontraditional medicine, what happens at death, your cultural biases, the ability to perform miracles.

 From this inventory be honest about how many of your firmly held beliefs are the result of your own life experiences, and how many have been handed to you. Make an effort to open your mind to experiencing things directly before proclaiming them as true and living by them.

 Expose yourself to belief systems that are in opposition to those you are familiar with. Experience what it is like to walk in the shoes of those who are different from you. The more of these “contrary” experiences you allow yourself, the more you will know your truth.

 Refuse to be seduced into arguments on the basis of ideas that have been foisted upon you by well-meaning others. In other words, stop giving energy to the things you don’t believe in, or know to be inapplicable to you!

LEADERSHIP

ACTING SIMPLY

True leaders

are hardly known to their followers.

Next after them are the leaders

the people know and admire;

after them, those they fear;

after them, those they despise.

To give no trust

is to get no trust.

When the work’s done right,

with no fuss or boasting,

ordinary people say,

“Oh, we did it.”

LAO-TZU

(SIXTH CENTURY B.C.)

Chinese philosopher Lao-tzu wrote the Tao Te Ching, which means The Way. It is the basis for the religious practice of Taoism.

I am frequently amazed at how many contemporary politicians refer to themselves as “leaders” by virtue of the fact that they hold public office. Historically it is clear that public office holders are seldom the true leaders causing change. For instance, who were the leaders of the Renaissance? Were they the public office holders? Were the leaders the mayors, governors, and presidents of the European capitals? No indeed.

The leaders were the artists, writers, and musicians who listened to their hearts and souls and expressed what they heard, leading others to discover a resonating voice within themselves. Ultimately the entire world listened with a new awareness that was responsible for the triumph of human dignity over tyranny. True leaders are rarely the officials who are addressed by a title.

Consider what titles you are known by and how you attempt to live up to them. You may carry the title of mother or father, which is an awesome responsibility. When your advice is sought because the kids see you as a leader in the family, keep in mind that what you truly want them to be able to say is, “I did it myself,” rather than give you credit. Seek to enhance your leadership qualities by being constantly alert to the mistake of thinking that your title makes you a leader. True leaders are not known by titles. It is ego that loves titles!

Helping others to become leaders while exercising your own true leadership qualities means having to work hard at suspending ego’s influence. True leaders enjoy the trust of others, which is very different from enjoying the perks and flattery and power that ego insists are the signs of being a leader. You need to give trust to others in order to receive that trust.

Notice the times that you are inclined to insist that others do it your way or take the highway. Lao-tzu tells us that the leader with this attitude is the least effective and most despised. Your leadership style may tend to create fear with statements like, “I’ll punish you if you don’t do it my way.” Lao-tzu tells us that fearbased leaders are poorly qualified to genuinely lead. The leader whose motivation is to bask in admiration, according to Lao-tzu, is still not a master at leading. This style might say, “I’ll give you a reward if you do it the way I want you to.” The true leader acts in such a way as to be hardly known in the entire process. This leader offers trust, encouragement, and congratulations as others find their own way.

When our lawmakers tell us what we need, or use scare tactics to predict dire consequences, or attempt to get us to act out of admiration for their leadership, they are not true leaders. To qualify as true leaders they must silence themselves and hear the populace express, “Yes, we created this great economy ourselves.”

And so it is with you also. To be a true leader in your own life, and in the lives of others, practice resisting the need to be recognized. Lead unobtrusively, offering trust whenever possible. Gently smile at your ego’s desire to take credit and silently acknowledge your true leadership when you hear others say, “Oh, yes, we did that ourselves.” Here are some suggestions for applying the wisdom of Lao-tzu:

 Before acting, stop and ask yourself if what you are about to say is going to create hate, fear, admiration, or self-awareness. Choose to nurture self-awareness.

 Act on your desire to be a true leader by being as quietly effective as possible. Catch someone doing something right!

 Become aware that it is the ego part of you that is suggesting you are a failure. Rather than seeing yourself as a failure when no credit comes your way, remind yourself that you have succeeded as a leader, and good-naturedly let your ego know that this is the way to successful leadership.

PATIENCE

Do not be desirous of having

things done quickly. Do not

look at small advantages.

Desire to have things done

quickly prevents their being

done thoroughly. Looking

at small advantages prevents

great affairs from being

accomplished.

CONFUCIUS

(551 B.C.–479 B.C.)

Confucius was a Chinese teacher and philosopher whose philosophy strongly influenced Chinese life and culture for over two thousand years.

I have this quote from the ancient Chinese teacher and philosopher Confucius pasted above my typewriter as a gentle daily reminder not to do anything that will prevent “great affairs” from being accomplished. It seems to me that we have a great deal to learn from our nature about how we hinder our greatness. Yet it is our nature that we often ignore in favor of what our mind tells us is the way things ought to be.

Patience is a key ingredient in the process of the natural world and in our personal world. For instance, if I scrape my arm or break a bone, the healing process proceeds precisely at its own pace independent of any opinion I may have about it. That is the natural world at work. My desire to have it fixed quickly is of absolutely no consequence. If I apply that impatience to my personal world, I will prevent it from healing thoroughly, as Confucius advised over twenty-five centuries ago. Shakespeare matched the wisdom of this ancient Chinese predecessor when he wrote, “How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degree?”

When I was a child, I remember planting some radish seeds in springtime. When early summer arrived I noticed green leafy shoots protruding above the ground. I watched them grow a bit taller each day and finally I could stand it no longer and I began to tug at those radish shoots, trying to get them to grow faster. I had not yet learned that nature reveals its secrets on its own time schedule. As I pulled at the little leaves, they emerged from the ground sans radishes, and my childish impatience to have this thing done quickly prevented it from happening at all.

Now, when I am asked if I am disappointed because one of my books did not appear on a best-seller list as my earlier books did, I think of this observation of the wise Chinese sage, “Great things have no fear of time.” What a compliment it is to the genius of Confucius that his words are still being quoted and his knowledge still being applied twenty-five hundred years after his departure. I too write for those souls who have yet to materialize, and if that means sacrificing the small advantage of a position of prestige on a list somewhere today, my impatient ego may be puzzled, but I am content!

There is a line in A Course in Miracles that perplexes anyone who is imprisoned by ego because it appears to be a contradiction. The line reads, “Infinite patience produces immediate results,” and it echoes the twenty-five-hundred-year-old advice that you are reading about here. Infinite patience describes the condition of faith or absolute knowing. If you know with a complete absence of doubt that what you are doing is consistent with your own purpose and that you are involved in accomplishing a great affair, then you are at peace with yourself and in harmony with your own heroic mission. The sense of peace is your immediate result and is a state of enlightened bliss. Thus infinite patience takes you to a level of faith where doing things quickly is of no interest. You shift out of the need to see the results right now, just as when you know that your cuts, scrapes, and injuries will heal as your nature dictates, rather, than as your impatient self dictates.

This kind of knowing has aided me immensely in my writing and in all of my life work. With my children, I am not always overly concerned with a test score or a subpar performance as it registers in this moment because I can see the bigger picture in their lives. As the Oriental proverb, perhaps inspired by the words of Confucius, says, “With time and patience the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown,” so do I think of my children as silk gowns in the making. Certainly we savor the small advantages in the here and now. However, I also know that any current setbacks will enhance rather than tarnish their greatness.

Impatience breeds fear, stress, and discouragement. Patience manifests in confidence, decisiveness, and a feeling of peaceful satisfaction. As you look at your own life, examine how frequently you demand an immediate indicator of success for yourself and others and attempt instead to see the larger picture. When you are on purpose and see the larger picture, you are able to let go of an inclination to seek validation in the form of merit badges and immediate applause.

My experience with addictions and overcoming them may parallel some of your life situations. While still being addicted I would think about quitting the addictive substance, such as caffeine or alcohol. Then I would look for a small advantage, such as no drinking for one day, and when that was accomplished, I would let up on my vigilance and go back to a cola or a beer to celebrate. By looking at my small victories I was preventing the job from being done thoroughly. When I developed infinite patience with myself I turned the whole thing over to God and remembered how perfect God had always been with me, even in my lowest moments. By being infinitely patient I could see that toxic substances interfered with my highest purpose and life mission, and I left those addictive ways behind me.

Make no mistake about it, all my thoughts about quitting, all my trials and failures—those “small advantages” as Confucius calls them—were part of the process of purification. By being patient with myself I could stay patient even with those small victories, and thus they did not deter me from my greater accomplishment. I allowed the process to move at its own pace, and today I can see clearly how getting rid of impatience gave me the ability to move to a level that I never imagined when I kept congratulating myself for my little victories and then retreating back to defeat. If you are appreciating the paradox in this situation, you will enjoy these two paradoxical sayings: “Infinite patience produces immediate results” and “One day at a time produces eternal results.”

To see the absurdity of impatience in your life, set your watch ahead several hours and tear off several months on your wall calendar. Then see if you have advanced time! The failures and frustrations, along with the immediate successes, are a part and parcel of the perfection of it all. By observing nature—your nature and the natural world around you—you will see that you must allow a wound to progress at its own pace; to eat a fig you must first let it flower, put forth fruit, and ripen. Trust in your nature and let go of your desire to have things done quickly.

To accomplish this:

 Abandon your conditioned means of evaluating yourself as successful or not on the basis of immediate indicators. If you have a knowing within that you are on a much higher mission than what might show up today, you will free yourself from the folly of those current results. To be ahead in the beginning of the game can be a big disadvantage if it obscures your vision for the entire game.

 Think about what you are doing in increments of five centuries rather than five minutes. Produce for those of us who will be here five hundred years from now and your emphasis will shift off of your immediate results to much greater affairs.

 Be as patient with yourself, through all of your successes and disappointments, as you feel God has always been with you. When you can turn a problem over to a higher authority to which you are connected, you immediately shift to that knowing state of infinite patience, and you stop looking for little indicators of success for today only.

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