Peter Ralston's Principles

[AtmanIsBrahman]

I've recently learned about Ralston's principles, which seem promising. I want to try implementing them and see how effective they are. 

Does anyone have experience with Ralston's principles? Which ones have you found effective?

This is the video where Ralston explains his principles. I think they might also be in his books, but I don't have all of them at the moment.

 

 

 

 

 

[Natasha Tori Maru]

Is this your first deep dive affair with Ralston?

THE BOOKS MY MAN

[AtmanIsBrahman]

2 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Is this your first deep dive affair with Ralston?

No, I read Whereof One Cannot Speak and I have The Book of Not Knowing. But I’m interested in the practical principles he suggests too from a personal development perspective.

Such as honor, honesty, integrity, jointing, etc.

I will get to all the books eventually, but I’m curious in the meantime if anyone has lived according to these principles or has a deep understanding of them.

[CARDOZZO]

@UnbornTao

[Leo Gura]

Principles #0: Be awesome. Make no mistakes.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@AtmanIsBrahman sweet! I love his practice 'inside / outside'. You engage with your day with a knowing that everything you think internally, can be heard by everyone around you. Full transparency.

I practiced this so often it seems natural to me now. It personally increased my integrity, honor and honesty. It lowered my judgement of others and tempered my frustrations. I feel much more discerning in my thoughts. 

I haven't listened to the lecture you linked on his principles. I will give it a watch and throw some thoughts out 💎

[Harikrishnan]

In ending unnecessary suffering he talks about principle. Also I think in art of mastery. Main principle are Responsibility, Integrity, honesty, excellence and mastery  

Edited Wednesday at 04:14 AM by Harikrishnan

[BuddhistLover]

Has a lot to do with reading books about Metaphysics. Essentialism, Atheism, Agnostic, Theists, and the list goes on the more you read the Metaphysics. Contemplating whether spacetime takes place inside or outside of the human mind. 

[bazera]

I like how he frames the definition of a principle, that the principle is not about you, it's about itself. So for example, honesty, if you take honesty as a principle and trying living it, you'll notice that you'll have to be honest even if it goes against you in some sense. 

That's why it's not that easy to adopt principles willy-nilly, it comes with development and consciousness.

[Rigel]

He explains a lot of them in his book Mastery

[Zenterus]

Havent heard of him but based on what otbers have written here, I'm very curious to start! What are your top recommendations??

(Please add a brief description of each so I can decipher which ones are the most relevant to me.)

[bazera]

17 minutes ago, Zenterus said:

Havent heard of him but based on what otbers have written here, I'm very curious to start! What are your top recommendations??

(Please add a brief description of each so I can decipher which ones are the most relevant to me.)

Get the book "The Book Of Not Knowing", that should get you started.

It's a deep philosophical book about questioning everything you normally assume is true, including your identity, thoughts, beliefs, and perception of reality. It’s less about giving answers and more about teaching you how to directly investigate your own experience and think beyond automatic assumptions.

[Rigel]

His body being book is so underrated, it ties in very well with the art of mastery.

[UnbornTao]

Unfortunately, his principles are not in the public domain, so using them would be copyright infringement.

They are principles - they don't objectively exist, and yet they make up the rules or parameters of reality, so to speak - much like the law of gravity. You can point to objects falling, yet the principle itself is not found in any particular instance of falling.

The main thing is to study them and notice that merely thinking about them is just that - thinking - and makes little to no difference in your life. Their effectiveness lies in actually adopting them.

Also, guard against the tendency to turn them into simplistic "techniques" to be adopted, like taking on a posture or something of the sort.

I would start by picking up one or two principles (honor, integrity, responsibility, honesty, excellence, and so on) and contemplating what they are really about. What do they demand of you? How can you (your thinking, behavior, and "being") better align with them? For example, what is it to actually tell the truth to yourself?

Edited 20 hours ago by UnbornTao

[AtmanIsBrahman]

5 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

I would start by picking up one or two principles (honor, integrity, responsibility, honesty, excellence, and so on) and contemplating what they are really about. What do they demand of you? How can you (your thinking, behavior, and "being") better align with them? For example, what is it to actually tell the truth to yourself?

Honesty is a very deep principle. It connects to treating truth as the highest value. I've been seeing interesting results just adopting the honesty principle-- it really does improve your life, counterintuitively.

Obviously, consciousness can't be reduced down to principles or rules, but Ralston's principles seem like the new, actually effective version of the 10 commandments.

[Lyubov]

….So what are his principles?

There isn’t a list?

Edited 21 hours ago by Lyubov

[levani]

I'm slowly adapting honesty and seeing that the relationship from adapting this principle to others and to myself is very powerful. The roots of this principle are absolutely nothing to do with me yet they have everything to do with me. They don't have anything to do with me because the principal is a principal and in a way it's also absolute but the relative side of it is that I can apply it into every domain of my life into every second into every minute into every hour into every situation into every CONCEPT action intellectualisation and the list goes on.

 It's such a fucking powerful principle because even when I used to overheat I never realised that I was lying to myself that I am not hungry anymore. I was just trying to fill avoid and food was never really the answer. The principal of honesty really gets balls deep into everything. It goes some balls deep that It's at the forefront of every interaction I have and every interpretation I make and this is fucking huge. I'm not just talking about perception. I'm talking about every interpretation of everything I perceive and cognize, not just thoughts but all kinds of other shit i do with my mind too.

Ralston is a bad ass mf. I'm on his 3rd book now, if you do end up reading him, try not to read the books but to contemplate them and applied them to every situation as much as you can because that's where real mastery comes in (oh look another principle)