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Adopting Ancient Wisdom to enhancing our Modern Day Life & Business

Written by: Christiane Pohl

Article Overview: Enhancing our life and business environment by exploring and adopting the art of non attachment, non judgment and not knowing

Adopting Ancient Wisdom to enhancing our Modern Day Life & Business

For thousands of years, wise men have been communicating the same messages in different ways and words. On the surface those messages often sound quite simple and yet to really grasp their meaning seems oooh so difficult. With the holiday season approaching and another year to reflect back on, the time might be ripe to take a closer look at some of the ancient wisdom and at how it can help us to enhance our daily life and work.

What would you say is the biggest handicap to developing a more open mind, to being more flexible, to embracing change more readily, to seeing the bigger picture and to having the courage to follow your intuition, your heart?

What would you say is the main reason for ongoing war, personal conflicts, environmental destruction, violence, poverty, suffering and stress?

While on one hand we have made huge progress in developing technology, medical treatments and science, on the other hand our development seems to have been minute when it comes to grasping the essence of our humanness, our unique potential for compassion, love, intelligence and growth.

Marianne Williamson in ‘Return to Love’ writes 'Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us…… and I believe that it is this 'psychological Fear’, which has kept us in 'our' darkness for so long.

• How often is the fear of the unknown bigger than the misery of feeling stuck?


• How often is the fear of admitting that we don’t know bigger then showing our vulnerability? ….is the fear of loosing control keeping us from surrendering to the moment …and is it the fear of letting go of the old more powerful then the curiosity of embracing something new?

An important element of our evolution is our instinct for survival. This instinct is vital. It is at the root of our minds tendency to seek security. The mind associates knowing with feeling safe. It is designed to be alert, analyze, memorize, process information and help us survive in an ever-changing environment.

The mind is a brilliant tool, but like most tools it also has it’s limitations.

It is our quest for security, for structure that makes change so difficult. We get attached to believe systems, concepts, thoughts and status symbols. Based on those attachments we then judge everything in terms of right and wrong, good and bad and we identify with knowledge as if knowledge is truth.

It is however this attachment to knowledge, believes and concepts that becomes a handicap to happiness, creativity and growth – both in life and in business.

Three great teachers, Buddha, Jesus and Socrates each understood this and expressed their understanding in their own special way.

Buddha’s enlightened living calls for non-attachment, Jesus road to heaven includes practicing non-judgment and Socrates understanding of wisdom is ‘knowing that I know nothing’.

They all realized that Knowledge is just the tool and not the essence and that our essence lies beyond the form of body-mind.

In the beautiful novel the 'Little Prince‘ says ' Here is my secret. It is very simple: one sees well only with the heart. The essential is invisible to the eyes.' The heart here is symbolic for our intuitive mind, our inner wisdom, while the eyes serve as symbols for our rational mind.

For thousands of years Traditional Chinese Medicine has considered the heart to be the root of human consciousness (Shen). In our own societies the heart is associated with love, compassion, empathy, courage and the soul element. And Modern science has long confirmed that our heart energy (the strength of the electro-magnetic field created by our heart) influences the way we feel and think.

The heart we may say is the anchor of what we call consciousness.

• By becoming aware that consciousness is our essence we are able us to let go of attachment and judgment more easily. Realising we are more then our body, mind and emotions we open the door to living with more peace, harmony and joy. This in turn will help us to cultivating an environment that encourages a more holistic development, education and growth.


• By freeing ourselves form clinging to the known we become ready to open our minds, to unleash our inner intelligence, to embrace change and to adopt new ways and solutions.


• At the end how we live our life and conduct our businesses depends to a great deal on how we deal with insecurity...and the opposite of insecurity is not security but a sense of FREEDOM.

Increased awareness of what we are is the first step to facilitate a new understanding of life and business and our role in it.

Increased awareness also increases our choices and leaves us with the passionate challenge to achieve both success and significance by adopting attitudes and behaviors that lead to creating more clarity of purpose, improve people’s lives and relationships and in this way enhance productivity and joy.

with my best wishes for your success,

Christiane Pohl

Life & Leadership Coach

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Article Tags: Enhancing business environments, Leadership development



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