Muses of Murari

I decided to read this book, after hearing many good reviews & praises on it. Initially, I had imagined the book would be about the self-observation. It turned out to be exactly the same. I also expected it be story like. But it is not. It is full of many short notes of self critical observations with brutal honesty.

When I read, I felt many of the observations, are very common in nature, that we experience in deepest of our consciousness. But, the observation we have/had, just loses in the chaos of thoughts and never cache in our memory. Some of the observations, I thought, we can find, with just a bit of drilling into our self with honest introspection. But, poor souls we, many of us don’t have time to stand and stare.

Most often, it is very difficult to articulate them out. But, the author of this book, Hugh Prather, did an extraordinary job to articulate his in depth observations of deepest of his thoughts, actions, intentions, feelings, reasons with utmost truthfulness. I think, not everybody can do this. Only few have gifts of this level of self-examination.

Some of the axioms I am quoting here :

• The key to motivation is to look at how far I have come rather than how far I have to go
• I live from one tentative conclusion to the next, thinking each one is final. The only thing I know for sure is that I’m confused
• If I work toward an end, meantime I am confined to a process
• My trouble is I analyze life instead of live it
• I can have self or I can have consistent behavior. I cannot have both
• Because the results are unpredictable, no effort of mine is doomed to failure. And even a failure will not take the form I imagine, ‘It will be interesting to see what to happens’ is a more realistic attitude toward future consequences than worry
• I don’t need a “reason” to be happy. I don’t have to consult the future to know how happy I am now
• If the desire to write is not accompanied by actual writing then the desire is not to write
• I don’t exist to like, but I do exist to love. Contrary to liking, love demands nothing in return.
• It is 9:58 and it is now. Tomorrow at 3:00 it will be now. On my deathbed it will still be now, learning respond to now is the only thing there is to learn.
• Calmness accompanies the whole. Fear accompanies the part. Intuition looks beyond the latest object of my concern to see the stillness of all outcomes.
• The tools of the mind can be wrongly used, but the mind possesses no wrong tools.
• I don’t feel “I want”. I feel “I lack”. I decide “I want”

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