ON WITHDRAWING FROM THE EROSIVE

                                         

                        

On Withdrawing from the Erosive

There arrives a point at which patience ceases to be forbearance and becomes self-diminishment . When the soul has sustained repeated lacerations :  from coarse speech, fits of temper, and the arrogance of imposition , it recognises a higher law. The law of preservation. 

To keep such people at bay is not pride.It is hygiene of the spirit. The Stoics termed this 'prohairesis' : the faculty of moral choice.We do not control other men, but we do control the door through which they enter us. As Marcus Aurelius observed:  

"You have power over your mind :  not outside events. Realise this, and you will find strength."

 

(Source: Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations": IV.3)

Nature anticipates this wisdom. Every living being inclines toward the next day’s light. The plant turns its leaves. The animal withdraws to its den. The human being must also withdraw, not from the world, but from what poisons it. And he must do so not from rancour, but from lucidity.

This is  Apavāda, the Vedic discipline of negation. Not through hatred, nor through retribution, but through discernment. One does not dispute with fire in the hope of cooling it. One steps aside, so as to remain capable of warmth for those who are  worthy of it.

Distance thus assumes the character of a sacrament: a deliberate refusal to barter one’s clarity for another’s disorder. It is the conservation of the self. That when dawn arrives, one is not diminished, not seared, not hollowed.  That the sun may find one entire.

Avtar Mota)

Postscript  

Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor from 161 to 180 AD, was a Stoic philosopher. Amid war and plague he composed private reflections intended for self-correction. These were later compiled as Meditations. Posterity remembers him as the philosopher-king, a ruler who sought to govern with reason, duty, and restraint whilst wielding absolute power.

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