Excerpts from Tao of Pooh

I have talked often about what I don't believe in, but not so much about what I do believe. One of the most important things that I believe is about balance. I am most at peace in myself when I am balanced...in all the different aspects of my life. I came across this book, The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Huff when I very dear friend recommended it. I was in a place in my life where most of my illusions and beliefs of childhood had been washed away in a very painful and difficult time. I found myself left with nothing other than the question "Why?" Well as most people have learned, regardless of belief systems, "why" is one question that is very often left unanswered. After reading this book, which was a delight to read, one of the main concepts I was immediately left with was the understanding that the question really isn't "Why is this happening", but "How am I going to react to this". I cannot control many things that come into or bombard my life, but I can control how I react and how they affect me. I see so many people around me who are full of negativity and the bits of negativity feed on each other until their whole life is one large crisis. Often there are legitimate negative things happening in their lives, things they have no control over, but they loose sight of the fact that they control how they react and to what degree they allow these things to subsume their lives--the Eeyore complex in the world of the Hundred Acre Woods.

"Hallo, Eeyore," they called out cheerfully.
"Ah!" said Eeyore. "Lost your way?"
"We just came to see you," said Piglet. "And to see how your house was. Look. Pooh, it's still standing!"
"I know," said Eeyore. "Very odd. Somebody out to have come down and pushed it over."
"We wondered whether the wind would blow it down," said Pooh.
"Ah, that's why nobody's bothered, I suppose. I thought perhaps they'd forgotten."

My personal balance wrecker at the moment is the Bisy Backson trouble, like in Christopher Robin's note:

GON OUT
BACKSON
BISY
BACKSON.
C.R.

It's noted that if you want to be healthy, relaxed, and contented, do the opposite of the Bisy Backson people. Don't run around with your head cut off, don't schedule every moment of your day, don't stretch yourself thin, don't always be looking around the next corner for good things. So, its time for me to get out of the Bisy Backson club and back into the Pooh club.

Summation of
The Tao of Pooh
by Kelly Bowron 1996

Life is ever shifting,
changing,
turning
moving;
a mountain river tumbling,
smooth, than rapids churning.

People go along, struggling,
climbing,
scrambling,
falling;
anxious of their footing,
fear of loosing, failing.

The wise move along, floating,
changing,
turning,
moving,
following the changes, drifting,
ever learning-- living.

What is the worth of the soul? Is the worth of a soul high enough that you would forgo life here and now in order to assure it a good place in the hereafter? Or is the worth of a soul low enough that it is better to let the soul die inside of you then to step out of the ruts and live life how you feel it needs to be lived in order to survive. Maybe a better question would be, what is a soul. To qualify my remarks I would have to say that my definition of the soul is that it is the essence of who you are, the body merely being the shell and tool of the soul whereby it gathers information through the senses.

Based on this definition then, what is the worth of the soul? Well, anytime a merchant is determining the worth of something, I would suppose he or she would use some basic techniques to determine that worth. They would need to determine the value of the object to those who may be appreciating or purchasing it. So right off we can see that worth can be a very transient thing. Let us take, for an example, a baseball card. Now, if anyone were to come to me and hold up a baseball card and say to me, “This is a such and such card, its worth is $150.00, but I am willing to sell it to you for $100.00”. I would simply raise my eyebrows and probably start to laugh because to me, that little baseball card does not have even the $100.00 value. However, to a baseball card collector, the value, and hence the worth of the card would likely match the seller’s.

Based on this then, is the worth of the soul and its value dependent on other people? Not necessarily, the worth of the soul would be judged on whose shoulders you place the determining of its value. If, for example, you decide that the value of your soul is determined by people around you, then you will never decide what the worth of your soul is because to different people it will be valued differently. My conclusion being that you need to find the worth of your own soul and that its value is determined by yourself and whether others around you accept the value and hence the worth of your soul is not important. Perhaps once we find the value of our own souls, we can learn to value the incredible diversity of those around us and society could only grow stronger.