Honour

“Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.” – Marcus Aurelius

One of the central themes of The Yoga of Strength is honour. The colour yellow, the shade of the cloak that the Yellow Knights wear on their backs – that is the hue of honour.

What is honour? Why does it matter? What does it mean to be a good person? These are questions that have been answered countless times over in a countless number of ways. This is because all of the answers to these questions come from within. Only you can define honour. And it is recognized by all. Honour speaks to our soul. When we see someone act honourably, we are happy, we encourage it, we get goosebumps.

It takes courage to live an honourable life. This courage resides deep in your soul. Courage itself is love in action – it is the decision to throw fear to the wayside and follow your heart, no matter the consequences. When you pierce the veil of reality, you see fear for what it is: a shadowy signpost that lights the way.

As part of proposal process for The Yoga of Strength, I entered a contest called Mind Body Science. This is a competition to get the most preorders and run the best campaign. There are two cash prizes of $500.00 US and they both can be won by the same campaign. The link can be found here:

https://publishizer.com/contests/2018/mind-body-science/

There is no question that I would love to win both the prizes.

Currently, I am competing with two other book proposals for top three in the competition. They are for Love You Vibe by Matt Omo and Effortless by Bas Snippert. You can find Matt’s proposal here:

https://publishizer.com/love-your-vibe/

You can find Bas’ proposal here:

https://publishizer.com/effortless/

I would ask that you go and have a look at their book proposals. If they speak to you, please preorder a copy and support them. I just preordered a copy of each of their books and wished them the best of luck.

We are early days in the month. The end of August might roll around and one of Matt or Bas beats me by a single preorder.

I have a fixed budget for advertising. The money I used could have been applied to Facebook ads or to flyers or to improving on my campaign in some way. It is well within the realm of possibility that those dollar mean that I hit the 750 preorder threshold and having done this may have hamstrung me to some extent.

You might be saying, “Andrew, that is completely counter-productive! Why would you support the ‘enemy’ at your own expense?”

This notion of separation, that there is any difference between me, you, Matt, or Bas – these are all illusions that rule the world. In yogic philosophy, the term for these illusions is ‘maya.’ All of the illusions of separateness: race, creed, nationality, sexuality, age, species, even – these are all tests that have been placed before us. We pass the tests by not giving in, by standing up and saying: “I don’t believe in you” – and acting accordingly.

They are in fact illusions. All maya. It takes great courage to dive off the cliff, to say to yourself: “This person is my sister or brother or sibling. They are me in another body. I see no separation, so I will give in to no illusion of separation.”

We should all love, respect, and support each other, no matter who we are. Live our truths and stand tall. Give when the giving “hurts.”

That, to me, is true honour.

Andrew