Friday, April 10, 2009

Commandments (II)

Rocketstar took up my challenge thusly:

1.Question Everything!
2.Treat others as you would like to be treated
3.Do not blindly believe anything you hear or read and half of what you see. 
4.Understand that YOU are the driver of your life, not anybody or any supernatural mystery power.
5.Success will be created by your hard work and perseverance.
6.Respect every living creature.
7.Study, Teach and Trust Science, Reason and Logic in depth for your entire existence.
8.Do not waste your time on this planet because as far as we know, you only get one chance at life.
9.If something appears to be too good to be true, believe that it isn’t true because it most likely is not true.
10.Do not seek happiness from external means as happiness comes from within.

I like 'em.

Here's mine:

Empathize 

This is a one-word Golden Rule that has served me well. 

Question

Like Rocket, this is fundamental to me. Any faith that calls for unquestioned belief isn't worthy of the name, much less any god.

Understand 

This covers a lot of ground, and reinforces the first two. Without empathetic questioning, there can be no understanding, and without understanding, one can not

Accept

whatever comes in life. Do not blame misfortune on others; always seek to find and exploit the opportunity inherent in every circumstance, "good" or "bad".

Love

Again, this builds on the first four: absent any one, love is impossible. It is not necessary that all love be expressed, but it is important to try to love every moment of one's life and every person in it...even those (perhaps especially those) you would hate if permitted. After all, even they have something important to show you.

Imagine

This is one of the qualities that elevates us as a species. Use it. Visualize where you want to be, and odds are pretty good you'll get there. 

Trust

in yourself, because you have your best interests in mind; trust in others because people tend to reflect your level of trust in them right back at you. (Not the only way other people are mirrors, either.)

Inspire

which literally means "breathe upon". There are a great many New Age neologisms that summarize this teaching: be the love you want to see is one of them; you teach what you have to learn is another. The surest way to be inspired is to inspire someone else. 

Evolve

in your knowledge and aspirations, in your inner and outer life. To live is to change; to change is to grow.

Serve

which embodies a host of attitudes such as helpfulness, humility, community and enlightened self-interest. Strive always to serve something greater than yourself. Your family is a good start. Ultimately, you'll serve the world. No...ultimately, you'll serve yourself. 

You'll note the first letter of each of my ten commandments spells out EQUALITIES. That reflects my core belief in equality: that, while each person is of course different, every one of us deserves a fair shake;  that our species is no more important than others which which we share the planet; that this philosophy works for me, but is no more special for so doing. To reiterate another teaching in Conversations with God, "mine is not a better way, mine is only another way."
 

3 comments:

Rocketstar said...

I love the acronym, great idea man. As I will write about in my nexy post linking to this one, the Biblical "Ten Commandments" are very weak, they could have done SUCH a better job.

Rocketstar said...

If we could institute your 10 to the world, think what a better world we would have.

Ken Breadner said...

Or yours, Rocket. I agree, the biblical Big Ten are pretty weak. I mean, the first five are there at the whim of a capricious God (or more likely, its priests)--and there are reasonable, in my mind, exceptions to the second five. "Thou shalt not kill?" Even the updated "ten commitments" I quoted in the last post qualifies that "without the most sacred justification."