I was reading through some Marcus Aurelius quotes and I found a reference to "The Ruling Principle" and it got me to wondering. Aurelius mentioned it in passing... as if anyone who was reading his passage would know exactly what he was talking about. And yet, I didn't know what he meant by that phrase.
Well, I ended up looking it up on the internet to see whether or not I could at least get a hint about this important principle. There was a lot of writing on the subject. Much of it seemed to be by charlatans who wanted to reel you in with their thoughts on the principle, and then sell you something. Well, after reading through a couple of articles, I came up with the following points:
Some people believe they "have" a soul.I believe I am the soul. The difference is subtle, at the surface, yet the roots go deep. A person who thinks they "have" a soul must believe they are the body. The body is purely physical and finite. Whether they believe they have a soul or not, much of their thinking needs to be geared to the physical and those things that impact the body. . By acknowledging that you are the soul, you are aware that it is "you" doing the thinking and that you do it consciously. Your body is the vessel that holds the soul. When the body dies, the soul lives on. The difference is between finite and eternal thinking. The ruling principle, to me, means that I am in control of my body and thought processes. By ruling myself, I can control what happens to me better. I do things consciously and for reasons that I define... Not just because it feels good or is easy to do. I can also think rationally about what is happening around me and keep it in perspective. One interesting paragraph I read is below. The author talks about "true" impressions and then how we perceive them. He states that the perception happens in our mind, and that it is not necessarily always accurate. Read his example. He believes that we would be better off not adding value judgments to the things that we experience... or at a minimum, to be very careful about those judgement and to at least try to recognize that our judgments can distort the truth or at a minimum, change it. "“At every instant the objects and events in the world around us bombard us with impressions. As they do so they produce a phantasia, a mental impression. From this the mind generates a perception. But it may not be. It may be blurred, or it may include shadow images that distort or obscure the original. Chief among these are inappropriate value judgments: the designation as “good” or “evil” of things that in fact are neither good nor evil. For example, my impression that my house has just burned down is simply that—an impression or report conveyed to me by my senses about an event in the outside world. By contrast, my perception that my house has burned down and I have thereby suffered a terrible tragedy includes not only an impression, but also an interpretation imposed upon that initial impression by my powers of hypolepsis. It is by no means the only possible interpretation, and I am not obliged to accept it. I may be a good deal better off if I decline to do so. It is, in other words, not objects and events but the interpretations we place on them that are the problem. Our duty is therefore to exercise stringent control over the faculty of perception, with the aim of protecting our mind from error.” By having the ability to step outside ourselves and recognize that we are the soul and that we have a body, many of the authors believe that a people are better able to separate the real from their value judgments. By doing this, they are thus better able to act correctly to true information. Wow! I am really not sure if all of this stuff was really what Marcus Aurelius was pointing to. I have to admit that I have not yet read all of his Meditations. I am finding it by bits and pieces on the internet. Maybe, once I read the entire text, I will find some clue as to what he really meant. This post has rambled a bit tonight. Sorry. If any of you really have a clue as to what Aurelius was alluding to, leave me a comment or shoot me an email. I'd really love to know what he was alluding to.
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