‘One cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters are ever flowing onto you.’
Born in the Greek city of Ephesus to a wealthy family in the sixth century B.C. Heraclitus was a contemporary of Confucius, Lao Tsu, and the Buddha. He is considered the most important pre-Socratic Greek philosopher but little is known of his life. He was also known as the ‘weeping philosopher’. Legend has it that he so despaired of egocentric humanity that he left behind the trappings of wealth to take to the fields and eat grass like cows, all the while weeping bitterly. Unfortunately this brilliant philosophers mind didn’t extend to the area of medicine and self care. By foolishly treating an eye infection cow manure he hastened his untimely death. Despite this error of judgement, Heraclitus remains one of the truly great philosophers, an original thinker on connectivity and the arts of cosmic contemplation.
Whereas other philosophers looked for evidence of constancy, harmony and stability, Heraclitus saw constant change and ceaseless flux everywhere. ‘Cold things become hot; hot things cold. Wet things dry, dry things wet.’
His seminal work was ‘On Nature’ and for him everything was part of an interconnected whole, the effortless flow of nature. ‘Everything flows. Nothing stands still.’
‘All things come into being through strife.’ Astronomy suggests that Heraclitus is right in terms of the constant flux of creation and destruction with black holes swallowing up Galaxies and then recycling them as new stars.
Behind this cosmic flux, Heraclitus saw a deeper harmony – the harmony of opposites. He believed that the universe is guided by a unifying cosmic intelligence that he called the Logos. This Logos is ‘day, night, summer winter, war, peace, enough, too little but disguised in each and known in each by a separate flavor.’ Heraclitus deified this Universal Law of Nature in that to discover ones true self is to become aware of the ‘thought by which all things are steered through all things.’ In other words how your rational mind is connected to God, the Bigger Picture and the very nature of the Universe itself.
‘The Logos is eternal
but men have not heard of it
and men have heard it and not understood.
Through the Logos all things come into being,
yet men do not understand…..’
This level of self awareness and cosmic consciousness requires you to let go of two things
Firstly your ego self, that part of you consumed by greed, fear of scarcity and needless negativity.
Secondly a mindset that buys into the duality of things. (Of black and white, good and bad etc)
Instead to understand that everything is connected that all is One.
To embrace a higher self governed by self control, temperance and strong willpower.
Heraclitus’ idea of shared consciousness is found in the thinking of many other schools of philosophy including the Stoics who believed that the Logos of divine intelligence vibrates in all matter and at a particularly high frequency in humans.
Key Lessons;
Change is Constant
Change is constant, nothing is permanent. Your identity is always changing so it is futile to become fixated on the present moment in terms of believing that you will stay that way.
You live in a world that is constantly changing with the ebb and flow of life, just like the flowing waters. He encourages you to let go of the past, what is gone and to explore the rich possibilities that each new day presents. To go with the flow!
Everything is connected
There is a greater consciousness of which we are all part.
‘The sun is new each day.’
‘The sun is new each day.’
Are you ready and willing to step out into the sunlight and simply embrace the potential that each bright new day brings to you and what your light can bring to the day?
Perhaps the best thing you can do today is to wake up to the reality that today IS the opportunity to really participate in your life by taking action. To stop planning or procrastinating as a prisoner of your thoughts and instead to simply do it and start.
‘ No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.’
Heraclitus
Because the truth is the world is changing anyway, with or without your approval. Each day is a new opportunity. You can choose to embrace this empowering reality for the opportunity it presents or stay stuck in the past. That’s your choice.
‘Day by day, what you choose, what you think and what you do is who you become.’
As Heraclitus wisely said, you will never walk in the same river twice. As you live more in this way with freedom and fearless determination, your experiences encourage you to look forward to an even brighter future, filled with purpose, meaning and vitality.
Wise Words – Quotations from Heraclitus:
‘Day by day, what you choose, what you think and what you do is who you become.’
‘Everything flows and nothing abides, everything gives way and nothing stays fixed.’
‘Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.’
