Commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still.
Interpretation
Reflect deeply and find inner peace through solitude.
This quote encourages individuals to take time for introspection and self-reflection, suggesting that true understanding and tranquility come from stillness and connection with one's inner self. Maimonides implies that quiet contemplation can provide clarity and insight, allowing people to become more attuned to their feelings and thoughts.
In practice
In a meditation session focused on personal growth.
If men possessed wisdom, which stands in the same relation to the form of man as the sight to the eye, they would not cause any injury to themselves or to others; for the knowledge of truth removes hatred and quarrels, and prevents mutual injuries.
There are eight rungs in charity. The highest is when you help a man to help himself.
God who preceded all existence is a refuge.
When man possesses a good, sound body that does not overpower him nor disturb the equilibrium in him, he possesses a divine gift. In short, a good constitution facilitates the rule of the soul over the body, but it is not impossible to conquer a bad constitution by training.
If the whole earth is infinitely small in comparison with the sphere of the stars, what is man compared with all these created beings!
One should see the world, and see himself as a scale with an equal balance of good and evil. When he does one good deed the scale is tipped to the good - he and the world is saved. When he does one evil deed the scale is tipped to the bad - he and the world is destroyed.
National pride is to countries what self-respect is to individuals: a necessary condition for self-improvement.
Capitalism has forced everyone to overoptimize in order to compete.
God has not bowed to our nervous haste nor embraced the methods of our machine age. The man who would know God must give time to Him.
Now therefore, that my mind is free from all cares, and that I have obtained for myself assured leisure in peaceful solitude, I shall apply myself seriously and freely to the general destruction of all my former opinions.
Hinduism insists on the brotherhood of not only all mankind but of all that lives.
I did used to have nightmares about the idea that when I die, there is a spark of consciousness which basically creates the world. 'Is the world going to disappear if this spark of consciousness disappears? And how do I know it won't? How do I know there's anything there except what I'm conscious of?'
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