![Atmamun: The Path To Achieving The Bliss Of The Himalayan Swamis. And The Freedom Of A Living God. by [Kapil Gupta]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!RviN!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Faaeb7716-650e-42ce-9fb6-3b082ca405bf_328x500.jpeg "Atmamun: The Path To Achieving The Bliss Of The Himalayan Swamis. And The Freedom Of A Living God. by [Kapil Gupta]")
Atmamun: The Path to Achieving the Bliss of the Himalayan Swamis, by Kapil Gupta is one of the most thought-provoking books we’ve read in recent memory.
It’s a short book — just 140 pages.
We didn’t agree with all of it, but it expanded our perspective in a way that we’re grateful we read it.
We’ve published excerpts from the book in two previous Still Learning posts: here and here.
Below is one more excerpt that resonated with us…
“Your existence is such that you live your entire day within a cocoon of ceaseless thought.
Your mind rambles endlessly. It produces thoughts. Thoughts produce feelings. And you react to those feelings.”
“this entire escapade occurs within You. There is no reality to speak of. It is only the semblance of reality.”
“Your Mind Will Never Spare You.
For it has not spared any man.
It will chatter incessantly. It will rob you of your equanimity. It will entice you into petty squabbles. It will burden you with guilt. It will show you grand imaginings. And fill you with the fear of not achieving them.”
“The greatest thing to understand is that our reactions are completely the result of us living wholly within the mind.
The mind takes sides. The mind enjoys conflict. And the mind enjoys resolution.
The mind simply enjoys the game and the drama.
The mind enjoys pain, perhaps because it enjoys setting up the guilt and the reconciliation that follows.
But if we see the drama as a drama that is independent of ourselves, then we begin to break away from the drama. We begin to quite easily surrender our ego at the door.”
“Wisdom is the understanding that we have bought into a game. That none of it is real. And that we have become pawns on a stage. Pawns of the mind.”
“We find ourselves constantly putting out fires.
When we are not putting out fires, we are thinking about the ones that may come. And we are lamenting the ones we have lived through.”
“We have a problem with the way our kids treat us.
The way the waitress speaks to us.
The way our spouse scolds us.
The way our job makes us feel.
The way our boss makes us work.
The way the cold makes us tremble.
The way the heat makes us sweat.
The way the car delays to start.
The way our hair fails to part.
This is the way it goes for us.
And the most tragic part of this is that we fail to realize it.
We are given ridiculous adages such as ‘That’s life.’”
“The question is NOT ‘How do I solve my problems?’
The question is ‘Why do I have problems in the first place?’
But who asks such a question?
The only person who would ask such a question is the person who rejects the stories that he has been told.”
Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoy the rest of your day.