Adam smith the well-known philosopher and the economist, uttered above words about almost two and half centuries ago. Which is valid for every time, even today. As modern generation is more and more distracted by the technology, it is utmost important and urgent to exhumated these hidden buried Jems back again into human circulation. In my previous article what is the most important question to ask, I have written about asking the question who you are? Hence, obviously I follow Adam Smith's vision on this quote. The complete quote is as follows and there is more for the discussion.
First thing you have to know is yourself. A man who knows himself can step outside himself and watch his own reactions like an observer. Adam smith
What did he mean? by stepping outside yourself? Does this mean mindfulness? Obviously as a big fan of mindfulness, (Hence the blog) I do agree mindfulness have some properties like stepping outside yourself and observing yourself. As mindfulness is defined in this blog as being aware of the awareness, it really can mean something like Adam Smith suggests. Hence, maybe he meant that too. However, I like to highlight the difference. The difference being the wisdom of the world, and its formation. The knowledge about the truths of the world, duality of the nature, values, consciousness and the process of thinking, changes the mindfulness practice completely.
Imagine you want to travel in a dessert, and you have vague idea, which direction you need to go. And I am sure you will collapse and die stranded in the dessert without any resources like a mad man. Next time you travel you learn about the signs of stars and avoid travel during the day without wasting your resources you can reach the destination. No matter how much you try, without wisdom, mindfulness cannot shine. Hence, it is essential to have a basic idea how the monkey mind works, before start watching. With this knowledge in hand, we will look at the Adam smith quote again.
First thing you have to know is yourself- Adam smith
A man who knows himself can step outside himself and watch his own reactions like an observer.
There are two ways one can read the second part of the quote. And one is wrong and the other is relatively correct.
You may think that it means, you are looking at your actions, your speech and your thoughts like an observer in silence inside the brain. And mind you the mind is just like a magician. If you wish to see something as is, the job of the magician is to invent it if it is not there. You would even not know, and next second you will fall into this delusion, of someone is looking at something.
You may also think, with prior knowledge, that this means, the world you see is just a reflection. Whatever the reality is not touchable, and comprehensible, as only we can know about this outside, is by combining our previous knowledge (which is human made) with the reflections made by our sensory organs. (mental objects) And Krishnamoorthi's famous quote 'the observer is observed' comes handy here. Observer and the observed are like two sides of a coin, one is there when the other is there, there exists no independent observer.
Next, you may ask, if that is true, why it is relative?
I would say, that is because, whatever you understood, by reading above answer, is just another reflection made by the same process. So, still it is the work of the magician. If the second is true, the observer is the observed, there cannot be separate independent truth, as the truth is again relative to the observer.
Again, if you would like to read more on the topic, following article would help, on what you see.
Let's deviate from the topic and give the poor mind a rest. Let's think about the pink elephant.
When you walk down the road, you notice an elephant. It is a big Asian elephant brought to the suburb by the local circus. It is huge, built out of everything it has eaten since it was a calf. Now, this massive moving mound of flesh and bones, made you to stop whatever you are doing, and prompt you to investigate. You notice it's big ears, are dotted with pink color skin, so as its forehead. It keeps on moving from side to side while using its trunk to get a trunkful of leaves. The majestic animal, with attitude in the wild, is brought to become a pet, under the developed human's consciousness. You wonder, how it came to be? Is it the total effort of the mahout? is it the chains and the Ankus?
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