“How easy to become learned, how difficult to become truly human.” Ostad Elahi, thinker, judge, and remarkable musician of the 20th century, having spent his lifetime studying the essence and core principles of religions and the universal sayings of the wise and the sages, he conveys the quintessence of all religions : The religions differ only in their secondary aspects; otherwise, their fundamental objective and principles are the same. What is so particular about his thought is that he did not contend with the theoretical perspective of matters which he studied so meticulously. Instead, he experimented the …
Category: Psychology
“It is human misery and not pleasure which contains the secret of the divine wisdom. In general, we must not wish for the disappearance of any of our troubles, but grace to transform them. For men of courage, sufferings are often a test of endurance and of strength of soul. ” The French philosopher and social activist Simone Weil (1909-1943) described by many as a saint like personality and a genius endowed with intellectual powers, stands out to be a solid example of a life truly lived. She earned the highest degree in Philosophy and Logic from École Normale Supérieure …
Laughter is the closest distance between two people. –Victor Hugo “The sound of laughter is universal” state linguists and psychologists. Humans are born with the instinct of laughter. Having asked the question “what makes people laugh?”, the philosophers of ancient Greece said that one laughs at his own past self, as well as at the sense of superiority they felt over others in the face of adversities and unexpected situations. 2500 years after Plato, Nietzsche argued that laughter is simply a reaction to the existential loneliness and sense of death people feel. When triggered by joy and humor, Freud …
“Our eyes, our pupils, our hands, our gestures … it is our whole body that will be called upon to transmit our emotions when wearing a mask,” says neuropsychologist known with her research on vision and cognition, and psychology of perception. “Wearing a mask can prevent us from decoding what the facial features radiate,” she says and continues : To communicate, we need to process the information which is emitted in the triangle formed between the eyes and the mouth. This information we gather from the facial emotions allows us to understand the state and the intention of the …
Peter Wohlleben, forester and the author of international bestseller The Hidden Life of Trees reflects: “Our need of nature is an integral part of our humanity,” and he proposes ways to meet that part of us which draws us to nature. He discovered it in himself some twenty years ago at a time when he was working to optimize the forestry output to provide the lumber industry, and when trees were nothing more than economic commodities for him. During the same period, he witnessed the wondering passion of scientists conducting research in the forest, and with what he learned from …
We are witnessing a real revolution in thought, in the hierarchy of moral values, in ethos ! …
Boris Cyrulnik articulates that human evolution takes place only in crises. "When the epidemic is over, we will see that we will have dusted off old values that will help us to develop a new way of living together. There will be profound changes, this is the rule." …
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn. –David Whyte “One wonders only when he is alone, and seeks the truth, ” said Einstein. The great thinker Goethe said that creative inspiration comes only when he is alone. Winnicott, one of my favorite psychologists, defines “the capacity to stay on his own” as a crucial indicator of child development. H.D. Thoreau, the notable American philosopher and nature lover proclaimed that he made his spiritual discoveries during his walks in nature. He wrote in Walden that being on his own in nature provided him …
Love is really the only thing we can possess, keep with us and take with us when we depart. Dr. Elizabeth Kübler-Ross (1926-2004), in her pioneering work with patients nearing the end of their lives in palliative care, interviewed them on their feelings about life and death, and how they measure the life they lived. The results of her work proclaim that the patients unanimously express their emotional state as “yearning for love,” a shield needed against the fear of death, and the measure of the degree of inner peace and contentment they savor at the end of their life …
“When we are about to choose a partner, or get married to a certain partner –that’s the kind of decision that we cannot make based on a cold cognitive calculus” says Richard Davidson, the seminal neuroscientist known for his research on what determines our emotional styles. In the interview with Krista Tippet, he adds “we consult our emotions for making that decision, and if our emotions were disrupted, it will really impair our capacity to make those kinds of decisions.” In the assessment of the functioning of the emotional brain, he identifies six innate capacities which constitute our emotional …
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