World's Greatest Minds

[Jonathan Mead]

After reading Manu's post on 10 Golden Lesssons from Albert Einstein it started to get me thinking about what some other lessons are from the world's greatest minds/thinkers.

There are a lot of great thinkers that we can think of.. Jesus, Buddha, Einstein, Gandhi, Tagore, Leary, Jefferson, Seneca, Keller, the list goes on. I compiled my own list of 7 Lessons From the World's Greatest Minds and left my thoughts on each of them. If you have any comments or lessons to add, I'd love to hear them.

Also, what are some of the greatest teachings you've learned? They don't necessarily have to have come from a teacher or a great thinker. They could be from a friend, parent, sibling or even a chance stranger. =)

[Power]

"your inner world is the reflection of your outer world"

You never hear that in school,... I didn't understood what it meant then until my own personal education into self improvement.

Most of us here at this forum would find the above statement nothing new, but say it to people who's not into personal development, most likely they won't know what you're talking about.

"what's this inner world and outer world thing!?"

hehehehehe

[Joely]

Originally Posted by Power

"your inner world is the reflection of your outer world"

Shouldn't that be "your outer world is a reflection of your inner world"?

Jonathan,

I really like that post, it has some wonderful quotes in it.

I've heard one thing recently that has stuck in my mind but I don't know its true origins and it goes along the lines of "Change the way you see things and the things you see will change." Or something like that.

One that has most relevance to me, though, at the moment is this one:

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. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

from Marianne Williamson.

It amazes me that we spend so much time making ourselves small in the hope that we will be accepted by others. It's something that's tripped me up a great deal in my lifetime.

[Jonathan Mead]

Joely, I love that quote from Marianne Williamson as well. I've heard it before somewhere but I can't remember where, it's beautiful though.

I agree that sometimes the biggest thing holding us back is our fear of being great. We seem to have this fear that our greatness will make other people feel bad, and we don't want to make them feel bad or inadequate right? Well in reality, it's exactly the opposite, our greatness will inspire others.

[Marco Polo]

I personally think Albert Einstein is the most overestimated person in history. Excelling at physics doesn't make you an authority on everything.

As for the greatest teachings... hm, I can't think of anyone off the top of my head. However, as a general rule I think great people (in the field of PD at least) are practically inclined, in a constant search for down-to-earth, workable ideas. They realize the importance of "walking the talk", and spend less time at the theoretical stage.

(yay, post #100)

[Power]

Originally Posted by Marco Polo

I personally think Albert Einstein is the most overestimated person in history.

Let me fill in the missing gap briefly. Einstein was misunderstood. After being famous with his theory of relativity, physicists started discovering new findings in quantum mechanics. The science community wanted in a way, for Einstein to help them out and understand this new physics of the quantum world.

Einstein took notice of this new quantum world but didn't dedicate his time and wisdom with the rest of the world's Physicists. Einstein was busy pursuing his next discovery (Unification theory). Once a famous Einstein now slowly became a "one-hit-wonder" by his peers. Einstein slowly disappeared in the background, while all the Physicists was busy making new discoveries in the quantum world,... Einstein was nowhere to be found in their great discoveries. Einstein died pursuing his last work (unification theory) and didn't finished it.

50 years after Einstein's death, Physicists gathered enough information to take the quantum physics and the theory of relativity to a new level. They have found themselves starting to work on a new understanding of physics.... It is the "theory of everything" - aka: Unification theory. Physicists today found themselves working at sqaure 1 where Einsteins had died trying to solve. They are now continuing Einstein's work on Unification.

You see,... Einstein was 50 years ahead than everybody of his time. They didn't understand what he was working on. After 50 years they realized what Einstein was trying to solve, and now they are continuing his work where he left off.
Einstein is not over-rated in my books,... he was just a misunderstood genius

Originally Posted by Marco Polo

Excelling at physics doesn't make you an authority on everything.

Well,... Physics is the highest form of all Science. Every catergory of science falls/derived under the catergory of Physics.

[Marco Polo]

I'm not doubting his competence in physics (quite the opposite). My problem is when one man becomes synonymous with intelligence, and is given credibility on absolutely everything.

Originally Posted by Power

Well,... Physics is the highest form of all Science. Every catergory of science falls/derived under the catergory of Physics.

Even if that's true, knowledge about physics does not imply perfect mastery of the physical world. For all we know this man couldn't tie his own shoelaces.

[Jugga J]

I don't think other Physists misunderstood what Einstein was trying to do.

In my eyes, Einstein fails by thinking he can link all of Physics together in a unification theory when there was, and is still, a huge amount of Physics knowledge left to be unearthed. He only knew of Gravity and Electromagnitism as two funamental forces and today we know of two others, and yet, there could still be more, thus he was doomed to fail from the start. So I see Einstein as being quite naive in a sense. No doubting his ambition & genius though.