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Working with aphorisms can also help you to discover for yourself the root causes of many of the deeper questions you may have about your life.
All of the aphorisms are interrelated, so, although it may seem that they can be worked with fairly simply, if you keep searching for the correspondences, you will find that they lead into many different aspects of the teachings.
By working with the aphorisms within the context of your everyday life, you will not only gain a wealth of knowledge about yourself, your behaviour and the behaviour of others, but you will also gain invaluable insights into your life and your fate and purpose.
Example: The only failure in life is the failure to fight
What does this aphorism mean? At first sight it seems quite straightforward with not much to it. However, in using aphorisms you need to go beyond the face value, and start using the aphorism as a sounding-board in order to see what you can find out about yourself from your own experience.
So, you would ask yourself questions that relate to your own beliefs and behaviour, such as; "What do I regard as failure?" "What do I do, to myself, and to others, when I see myself as having failed in anything? "Do I take it out on myself, or others?" "Do I indulge in feeling guilty?' "Do I give up?" "Do I know how to turn an apparent failure into success - so that all can benefit?" "If not, how do I keep myself stuck and timid after having made a 'mistake'?"
"What does it mean to fight?" "What does it mean to fail to fight?" "What are the rules by which I should fight?" "If the only failure in life is the failure to fight, then what is the purpose of life?"
You see, the questions can go on and on! But, if you are honest in gaining your own answers from your life, you will uncover a wealth of knowledge about yourself - about how you think and feel about yourself and others, and about life in general. Practically, you will also discover the many different ways in which you trip yourself up, and how you prevent yourself from materialising your dreams. This knowledge will be your knowledge.
Knowledge of the self is true power - power that nobody can take away from you.
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