The True North group

"Science is what you know. Philosophy is what you don’t know."

Philosophy is examining our understanding of reality and knowledge. Philosophy consists of three major branches:

1. Metaphysics - What is true about existence.
2. Epistemology - How we can know that it is true. Epistemology has given us science, logic/reason, economics, psychology, and other theories of knowledge.
3. Ethics - What actions we should take as a result of this knowledge. Ethics contains concepts such as democracy, human rights, the treatment of animals, and the environment.

When you order your thoughts into a coherent belief system, you are engaging in philosophy. To criticize philosophy, you must rely on philosophy.

• Modern society has been described as the Age of Noise, and an Organized Lovelessness.
• Advertising is revealed to be an organized effort to extend and intensify craving.
• People in the modern age worship progress, technology, and their nation-state, all of which can be described as a 'religion'.
• The dogma of such religions was profoundly criticized in the classic books, while paving the way towards newer ways to find God, like meditation.

The Author and Philosopher's fresh take on religion, shaping it as an 'empirical spirituality' was a huge influence in the 1960s and which has since then led to more people (now 27% in the US) being 'Spiritual but not Religious'

Aldous Huxley was heavily criticized after his death by newer philosophers who didn't subscribe to the Perennial Philosophy.

While the author insisted that the ultimate mystical experience is the moment of pure oneness with God where the concepts of 'I', language, image and culture are dissolved, his critics argued that all religions are true and some of them are truer than the others.

One of the critics states that human beings construct reality using their bodies, rituals, words, actions and cultures.

Existentialism originates from Soren Kierkegaard and Nietzche. It focuses on the problems produced by existential nihilism. For instance:

• What is the point of living if life has no inherent purpose? 
• How do we face the knowledge of our inevitable demise?

Existentialism emphasizes individual existence, freedom and choice.

Stoicism was popular in ancient Greece and Rome and is practiced by many in high-stress environments.

Stoicism focuses on how to live in a world where things don't go as planned. The idea is to accept all the things beyond your control and to focus on what you can control.

Self-hatred gives us negative thoughts, telling us we are unattractive, lack confidence, and are generally unworthy. If we listen to it, we give it power. We then create a negative shield around us and will have trouble accepting love and compassion.

The internal negative breeding will attract further negativity in our lives and relationships.

• Pay attention to your triggers by reflecting on your thoughts and actions, identifying your inner negative talk.
• Question and challenge your negative thoughts, and detach from them.
• Start saying positive affirmations to yourself to counter the negativity.
• Reframe your negative thoughts by changing your point of view.
• Spend time with positive people who fill you with joy.
• Seek professional help as this may be a mental health issue.

By learning to fight, he was able to better understand who he was — he could force himself out of his comfort zone, test his limits, and confront his fears. 

Bruce Lee saw life as being in constant change.

Unless we learn to adapt to it, we’re bound to experience tremendous resistance that will entrap us in a constant state of suffering.

Make choices leading to the life you want to create for yourself. Don't let your past hold you back.

Your life might not seem to be the best fit for someone else, but it should a life you are happy with. Create a life you love.

Start where you are right now.

• Align your life with your own core values - those things that are most important to you personally.
• Find time to do the activities you loved doing as a child. - join an activity group or take a class.

Listen to yourself and take action on what you discover.

Leadership has to do with who we are as human beings and the forces that shaped us. Style is the outward manifestation of one’s authentic leadership. 

Authentic leaders must adapt their styles to fit the situation and capabilities of their teammates.

You can’t pretend to be an authentic leader for long because people will eventually sense the lack of authenticity, and ultimately you will not gain the trust of your teammates.

If you are real and genuine people will see you as trustworthy and willing to learn, they will respond positively to requests for help in getting through difficult times.

If we look at our dreams and the brain’s capacity to hallucinate, we can see that nothing outside our existence may be real.

Everything could be an illusion, a long dream, and we could be the only person that existed in a world of ‘Maya’. This is what solipsism is all about.

The philosophy of idealism states that reality is something that exists on a mental level, and many or most of our outer experiences could just be imagination.