Sound advice for developing Nobility in both common and gentle folk. I give thanks to the legendary filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky who is said to be the originator of these “commandments”. I also must recommend watching Jodorowsky’s films. The documentary about how he almost got to make a movie adaptation of Frank Herbert’s “Dune” is absolutely wonderful! micronation
I like to meditate on these statements. Maybe as gentle reminders of how to relate sanely and maturely when going through one’s daily life. I give to you Jodorowsky’s 82 “commandments”:
- Ground your attention on yourself. Be conscious at every moment of what you are thinking, sensing, feeling, desiring, and doing.
- Always finish what you have begun.
- Whatever you are doing, do it as well as possible.
- Do not become attached to anything that can destroy you in the course of time.
- Develop your generosity ‒ but secretly.
- Treat everyone as if he or she was a close relative.
- Organize what you have disorganized.
- Learn to receive and give thanks for every gift.
- Stop defining yourself.
- Do not lie or steal, for you lie to yourself and steal from yourself.
- Help your neighbor, but do not make him dependent.
- Do not encourage others to imitate you.
- Make work plans and accomplish them.
- Do not take up too much space.
- Make no useless movements or sounds.
- If you lack faith, pretend to have it.
- Do not allow yourself to be impressed by strong personalities.
- Do not regard anyone or anything as your possession.
- Share fairly.
- Do not seduce.
- Sleep and eat only as much as necessary.
- Do not speak of your personal problems.
- Do not express judgment or criticism when you are ignorant of most of the factors involved.
- Do not establish useless friendships.
- Do not follow fashions.
- Do not sell yourself.
- Respect contracts you have signed.
- Be on time.
- Never envy the luck or success of anyone.
- Say no more than necessary.
- Do not think of the profits your work will engender.
- Never threaten anyone.
- Keep your promises.
- In any discussion, put yourself in the other person’s place.
- Admit that someone else may be superior to you.
- Do not eliminate, but transmute.
- Conquer your fears, for each of them represents a camouflaged desire.
- Help others to help themselves.
- Conquer your aversions and come closer to those who inspire rejection in you.
- Do not react to what others say about you, whether praise or blame.
- Transform your pride into dignity.
- Transform your anger into creativity.
- Transform your greed into respect for beauty.
- Transform your envy into admiration for the values of the other.
- Transform your hate into charity.
- Neither praise nor insult yourself.
- Regard what does not belong to you as if it did belong to you.
- Do not complain.
- Develop your imagination.
- Never give orders to gain the satisfaction of being obeyed.
- Pay for services performed for you.
- Do not proselytize your work or ideas.
- Do not try to make others feel for you emotions such as pity, admiration, sympathy, or complicity.
- Do not try to distinguish yourself by your appearance.
- Never contradict; instead, be silent.
- Do not contract debts; acquire and pay immediately.
- If you offend someone, ask his or her pardon; if you have offended a person publicly, apologize publicly.
- When you realize you have said something that is mistaken, do not persist in error through pride; instead, immediately retract it.
- Never defend your old ideas simply because you are the one who expressed them.
- Do not keep useless objects.
- Do not adorn yourself with exotic ideas.
- Do not have your photograph taken with famous people.
- Justify yourself to no one, and keep your own counsel.
- Never define yourself by what you possess.
- Never speak of yourself without considering that you might change.
- Accept that nothing belongs to you.
- When someone asks your opinion about something or someone, speak only of his or her qualities.
- When you become ill, regard your illness as your teacher, not as something to be hated.
- Look directly, and do not hide yourself.
- Do not forget your dead, but accord them a limited place and do not allow them to invade your life.
- Wherever you live, always find a space that you devote to the sacred.
- When you perform a service, make your effort inconspicuous.
- If you decide to work to help others, do it with pleasure.
- If you are hesitating between doing and not doing, take the risk of doing.
- Do not try to be everything to your spouse; accept that there are things that you cannot give him or her but which others can.
- When someone is speaking to an interested audience, do not contradict that person and steal his or her audience.
- Live on money you have earned.
- Never brag about amorous adventures.
- Never glorify your weaknesses.
- Never visit someone only to pass the time.
- Obtain things in order to share them.
- If you are meditating and a devil appears, make the devil meditate too.
His Serene Highness and Gentle Glory Prince Freï of Lorenzburg