Everything unpleasant that happens to us in life - for example, when we appear ridiculous in the eyes of others, behave badly or lapse from virtue - should be considered merely external events without the power to touch the depths of our soul. We should think of them as the toothache or the corns of life, things that give us some discomfort but which, although ours, are outside us, as things that it is up to our organic existence to deal with, things that only our biology need concern itself with. Once we fully adopt this attitude which is, in a way, that of the mystics, we are defended not
...more
