Tat Twam Asi - in Sanskrit meaning 'Thou art That’

The explanation given is that like gold found in jewelry or in electronic circuits; the essence in you, i.e., ‘consciousness’ is the same as in others.

If this is accepted then (my understanding is …) you are already complete and you don’t need more of ‘That’

In other words, if there are choices you (gf) have made then I must learn to respect your choices

From Tat, it easily follows that one live in the present and not in memories

--xx

Aesop says it better; 'Grapes are sour .., move on'

Philosophy can be a great source of strength in life. It reminds me of the Sufi story about a ruler who consulted a wise man. The ruler asked him for something that would calm him when overjoyed and raise his spirits when sorrowful. After some thought, the wise man presented the ruler with a ring inscribed with the phrase "This too shall pass".

A Gem!

Stillness is the key to a better life. The bad news is that there is only one way to get it. The good news is that it’s easy. You just have to stop. Stop caring what they think or say or do. Start caring deeply about what you do

You as a person are the sum total of your choices. We may exist in the present but our memories allow use to make better choices and shape the future.

I have one.
Its simple but many make it complicated.

My contentment does not hinge on your acceptance.

The key to this philosophy is to understand the life one lives is unique.
It is entirely first person experience.
If you take away everyone else in your life, you remain.

The problem rises if you allow others to dictate how you feel about yourself.
When you try to live to others expectations you are cheating yourself from living your own life.

If you try to make others live to your expectations, you are cheating them from living their own lives.

Embrace who you are and be who you want to be.
After all,
It is YOUR life.

Here's another I like:



I'm not crying because of you;
You're Not Worth It!
I'm crying because my delusion of who you Were
Was shattered by the truth of who you Are.

I accept your rejection.
I made a poor choice.
I gain wisdom from your rejection.
Wisdom I will use to make better choices.

Choose wisely.

Hi Guys,
Thanks for the very great views.
The way this thread flowed - made it easier to consider Tom's quotes because Tom's bouquets have thorns in them. Okay, it's to drive home the points!?!

I think we all carry some script. Over here, at my age, not many singles in circulation. (Different for younger generation - IT / call center culture and all that.) So it's been 'No woman, no cry' kind of script.

Briefly we (girl & I) met over a few seminars
Not that she's beautiful (as usual, the fault-lines first)
So quiet, like nobody, but she gently shimmers when she talks
As if I had known her from long ago

So what do I do? Rush things ..,
she grows anxious, leading to the inevitable break.

Rushing stems from anxiety or dominance, a need to get her to conform to your views
- in other words - as presented in a YT video, two sides of the same Narcissism

So was it love or narcissism that I was feeling



I could have found out if I had cared enough to go still.

I don't know whether this narrative makes sense but over here it's a different standard of living and still a traditional society
TY

Perhaps try being her friend till you are friends enough to actually tell her how you feel about her.
If each of you can accept each other at face value without expectations getting in the way you're off to a great start.

If she tells you she is going someplace after work and it sounds like you might enjoy it to, ask her about it and see if she will meet you there. Don't call it a date. Don't do the 'date' things.
Just go, have fun being in good company.
Let it build on its own rhythm.

Over the years, these wise things in bits and pieces, everything that has been said here, came to me either at 03:00, or while I was sitting on the toilet, when I could comprehend what I read.

It certainly doesn't say much for my thought process or timing... or the fact that my "sometimers" creeps in and makes me forget all I have learned anyway... an IQ of 2 can be a source of bliss and allows me to act like a 3 year old with..... wait.... there's some playdoh!

Hi Tom,
What you say is Plan D
I've to figure out Plan C - get her to talk to me.
Meantime Plan B - focus on work - bills to pay
No rush - no goals.

To be rejected by someone doesn’t mean you should also reject yourself or that you should think of yourself as a lesser person. It doesn’t mean that nobody will ever love you anymore. Remember that only one person has rejected you at the moment, and it only hurt so much because to you, that person’s opinion symbolized the opinion of the whole world,

I agree completely and what you say remains the central idea of this thread. But you know it is easy to advise a person who is ‘fallen’ – and he feels it’s more insult to injury; and so the reliance on philosophies. I think sharing my personal experiences got us sidelined a bit – but ok.
You see, this Country is drenched with ancient Sanskrit verses - a language few people read and even those who do - they end up with skewed meanings or not any meaningful abstraction
As far as ‘Thou art That’ is concerned in Sanskrit it implies an ‘all pervading consciousness’ – call it God if one so desires.
Normally, ‘rejection’ sort of appears as damning but we don’t feel so intensely when it is computer generated. Why not when it is human script generated – and to respond to this why not as you initially suggested return to baseline – a state of ‘stillness’.
From this point I begin to realize that even before she rejected I was playing out an inner script that was driving me towards rejection. In her shoes - I would have rejected me!

So now I’m ready to identify what script is that – and I find it is showing off ‘how great I am'

The impact on her can be either – she will feel my ‘mental muscles’ and get delighted or – she may feel 'diminished' or even threatened – depending on the context.

So it’s no use pretending it is a script. After the comments I began to dig further. It’s an ego driven by some monkey in me as Dark Owl pointed out in a different manner. Whatever I do, at the critical moment, my monkey jumps in and takes charge – which was fine when we were all teens.

So if now I identify with nature, consciousness or something larger in life the monkey allows me to listen to what actually people are saying. Had I been aware of this earlier, 'I would have actively listened to her' (my monkey would have made friends with her monkey - I don't know)

In other words, this identification with a larger maybe philosophical identity allows me to drop out those scripts of dominance or submission – which are quite useless in love.

Thanks Spartan. But for your recent opinion, I may not have reflected and brought these shared thoughts to conclusion.

Some people have God, I needed a philosophy and it was more by accident that I was reminded of 'Thou are That'. I didn't expect much either. Turned out the great minds in Mingle think alike. ha, ha

Rejected eh? Since I moved to the USA in the mid 80s from Canada with my new degree in Chemical Engineering I have been ripped off ($47,000), abused, harassed, assaulted, rejected, hated, gossiped about, cursed and yelled at, character assassinated on the Internet, born false witness against me in court, changed my record for a misdemeanor into a felony by mistake then tried to extort me to correct it in court, attempted extortion by State Farm who blamed me for burning my own house down $270,000 which I never did - they lied on the fire marshals report, and denied my claim by PG&E for $5,000 loss of business by fire caused by their downed power line. To top it off, even though I am retired, own my own business, represent 3 companies on commission and all my bills are paid for by SSD - to this day I cannot afford groceries for 20 years now. I have to eat from Salvation Army stale bread and cans of olives and cranberry. How is THAT for rejection? What the hell did I do to deserve all of that?

Laurence,
I think around 20 members have viewed this thread after your post, a few days ago.
And we are all speechless.
I think in some manner it has impinged us; and we do not want to worsen matters.

Your profile is consistent with your post.

You have concluded with


With due respect to who you are, a highly qualified professional engineer
I think the way you have propositioned the question,
it carries a mix of painful memories & emotions - & still a painful laugh
but it slams the door on any possibility for let's say for want of a better word, 'suggestions'. (I was thinking of 'redemption' from Karma)

What I learnt from this thread is although the past cannot be changed,
not to allow it to hang on me.

And after reading your very difficult post; now determined
not to let a shred of it hang on me.

(Sorry about the long hand English)

Double post again!

I don't know how this helps - and although B does not say it; seems to imply that an idea of oneself in greater probability manifest that kind of reality.

Unfortunately, psychology is not my field.

Rejection is one of the most difficult emotions to deal with.
Reasons for that is that it triggers the same part of the brain that is triggered when we are in physical pain. No other emotion does that.
Another reason is that long time ago we depended for our sheer survival on social acceptance by our community. This is still part of our make-up.

Then there's the fact that we experience rejection in all forms and shapes on a very regular basis. Someone dissing you whether online or in real life, someone not liking your photos (back) online, someone not listening when you talk (work, friends, family), of course also a potential date not wanting you or a lover, and so on.
And let's not forget being bullied.

Dr Guy Winch has a very interesting TED talk on this, in the top 5 most watched. It's an hour, and so worth it!
Apparently we even feel rejected when there's a simple (virtual) ballgame and people we don't like, detest even, skip us. We even feel rejected if the ball is a bomb and the one who has it will get killed by it.
It is a very intense deep emotions that affects us greatly.
Thinking good sounding quotes along the lines of "I don't care what others think, all that matters is what I think" are not going to cut it when you get rejected. Unless the rejection hardly ever happens or is something silly and reasonably low impact as that virtual ball-game.
Unfortunately most rejections are deeper.
Nice quotes don't do much, UNLESS you already feel great. If you feel hurt, negative, crap, they only highlight that more.
.
.
. (typo edited)

I struggled to learn history and philosophy for years, partly to try to understand things like rejection.

I seem to have always had an innate disposition to be annoyed by platitudes and sayings of various kinds. Probably because I could always sense that most of the time, when someone quoted some grand philosopher or even just a meme they got from the internet at me, all they were really saying was "hey, I really want to do something other than listen to you moan right now; take this, and run along, and tell me I'm wonderful for understanding."

So I ended up with just logical reasoning alone.

When I do get rejected (again), I look at why and how, and decide basically one overall thing: was I rejected for who and what I am, or only for who the other person erroneously thought I was? If it was for who I really am, then it's overall the logical thing for them to do, no matter how sad it makes me.

So I guess my philosophy of rejection is just that when it happens, it's just real life, finding it's own logical way along.

I look within myself, and I see that I want my life to consist of certain things. Many of those things are small, and most of them are unimportant to others at all, and just go together in a sort of pile to make up what I want my life to be about. So when I am rejected, it's best for me, since if I were still struggling to get along with someone who doesn't think I am worthwhile part of their life, I wont be able to do and be, any of what I actually am.

It doesn't make me feel wonderful, by any means. It just makes sense to me, so I don't feel the panic to rush off and try to "prove myself" to whomever, or to try to change myself to become other than who I am, to sort of "bribe" someone into hanging around with me.

Sorry if that's a bit on the rambling side. I've found that most really good "wise sayings," have a tremendously complex and subtle backstory to them, which is why so many of us have to go through hell, just to understand them.

Que sera, sera.