“Nice” sayings of wisdom

Today we meet everywhere nice sayings of wise people, especially on facebook. They are often set on a nice picture with a nice face of a wise man. These sayings are from all kinds of religions and spiritual traditions but also from famous people, rich guys, successful celebrities and so on.

Somehow it makes people happy to post such pictures with sayings and other people are happy to read them.

From my point of view all these nice sayings are a typical sign of the esoteric mainstream where people are satisfied with superficial nice stuff. It is like giving candy to children to make them happy. Obviously most people have this attitude where they look at such a saying and think for themselves “Oh, this is so nice, so true and yes I should do this.” Candy has indeed the same value.

Before the invention of the internet people really read books and studied the different ideas of religions and spiritual traditions. In this way they had the context of sayings and a deeper understanding. They knew why a wise man said something as a saying is often a matter of the corresponding situation. And quite often people were devoted to their spiritual school and so they were in a spiritual training to make experiences according to the sayings. Everything was more a matter of practice, of real experiences, real studies, real training.

Today you get a single sentence, a wise saying and that´s it.

The funny thing about this is that people are not aware of the hidden aspects of the sayings although these are the keys to realize the sayings.

For example when a Buddhist Lama speaks about compassion and living in the present moment, then this is nice as he can speak from his own experiences which are based on decades of spiritual training in a monastery. But the reader is not a monk. The reader is a normal employee, working at least 40 hours per week and further on facing all kinds of duties and problems of everyday life. This is the small difference.

Another example: A rich guy says “Think and feel in terms of abundance and you will experience abundance!” Sounds good and corresponds to the experiences the rich guy makes daily. But if you are a normal person or a poor guy then you can think and feel abundance as much as you like but the experience of being poor speaks against it.

A third example: “Just enjoy life and think positive!” is nice and is from someone who has no problems in life. But if you have to face a lot of problems then you can think positive as you like, – it won´t make your problems smaller or vanish.

In conclusion what is missing in all cases is the tool, the power, the knowledge to really change the present situation to the better and only then these sayings make sense. Behind each saying a long development and often hard work are hidden. Without it these nice ideas cannot be reached.

Quite often therapy, healing, coaching, spiritual training, special studies but also fortune, beneficial relationships, a supportive family background, etc. are necessary to improve life conditions, to make real progress and these factors are not included in the nice and wise sayings.

I think that it is not bad to question such sayings and the way they are presented today. I personally would prefer someone saying “People, consult a good therapist, a coach and those who can help you to improve your health, your well-being and business to enjoy life as much as possible!” This would make sense. The question is why does not a single “wise guy” tell people what to do to improve their life? They all are just throwing with candy. Why? Maybe for good reasons…