God forbade...must reading!

Ruling principle- Marcus Aurelius, 30 AD- Meditations








   You are able to recover your life. Look at the things the way you used to, for in this is the recovery of your life.



   I continually ask myself. What am I doing about my soul. What is this they call the ruling principle? Whose soul do I have now? A child’s, a young man’, an old woman’s, a tyrant’s or wild beast’s?



  Examine other men’s ruling principles, even wise men, what kind of things they avoid and what kinds they pursue.



   Don’t waste the rest of your life wondering what others do, when you don’t refer your own thoughts to some object of common use. When you have such thoughts you lose the opportunity to do something else; what is so and so doing, why, what’s he saying, what’s he thinking of, what’s he planning..and so on making us wander away from the observation of our own ruling power.



  Value the part of your mind that forms opinion. By this faculty, you will isolate inconsistencies with nature and the constitution of the rational human animal. To form opinion you will be free from hasty judgment, offer friendship toward men and obedience to the gods.



   No longer wander by chance. You don’t read your own memoirs nor the acts of the ancient Romans, nor selections from books you keep for your old age. Throw away idle hopes and come to your own aid. If you care for yourself, hasten to the end before you while it’s in your power.



  The ruling principle rouses and turns itself. While it makes itself as it is and as it wills to be, it makes everything that happens appear to itself as it wills.



  The ruling principle doesn’t disturb itself. It doesn’t frighten itself or cause it self pain. The leading principle itself wants nothing, unless it makes a want for itself and is so free from agitation and is unimpeded.



   The ruling part, consider this: You are an old man, no longer be a slave, no longer pulled by the strings like a puppet to unsocial movements, no longer dissatisfied with what you have, don’t shrink from the future.



  Retire into yourself. The ruling principle has this nature. When it does what is just, it is content with itself and so secures tranquility.