Eighteen Guiding Principles from Mostafa Malekian for a More Desirable Life

A spiritual and rational life is a wish that many human beings seek. In our time, Mostafa Malekian has made great efforts in delineating and articulating the theoretical dimensions of such a life and the method of attaining it, the result of which are lectures, articles, and books that have given meaning to many hours of his audience's lives. The present text consists of eighteen guiding principles for a more desirable life, written by Mostafa Malekian:

One must:

1) Love, that is, do good to others without reckoning and without limit (both in the sense of without calculation and in the sense of boundless), so that profound joy may be my portion.

2) Live a here-and-now life, so that I may benefit from both greater mental health and greater moral perfection.

3) Become completely indifferent to the value judgments of others, so that I may achieve full self-flourishing.

4) Be as faithful as I can to myself, that is, not turn my back on my personal dream, even if this turning away would bring me social desirables.

5) Never engage with a theoretical problem whose solution has no effect on my practice, that is, one that does not concern me. (The wisdom of "What is that to me?")

6) Not give up an authentic life, that is, a spontaneous and self-motivated one; in other words, be myself and live simply and naturally.

7) Know that, in the deepest sense of the word, I am alone.

8) Amid the clamor and tumult of life, listen only to the quiet, gentle voice of my own moral conscience.

9) Know myself more and more, and inquire into my own states more than the states of any other person.

10) Set my goal solely as reforming myself, and know that only as a result of this do I, more or less, reform others.

11) Know that only changing and reforming myself is both possible and desirable.

12) Prefer the goodness of life over the pleasantness of life.

13) Undertake the greatest work that I can, neither a work greater than that, nor a work smaller than that.

14) Know that everything is impermanent and transient, both pleasures and displeasures.

15) Never abandon honesty (= the correspondence of the five domains of beliefs, feelings, emotions and affects, desires, words, and deeds with one another), humility (= in pleasures, regarding oneself as another), and benevolence (= in displeasures, regarding another as oneself).

16) Live as though I am one step from death, that is, at every moment be engaged in a task such that if death were to arrive at that very moment, I would feel neither regret, nor sorrow, nor wistfulness.

17) Speak only when necessary and only as much as necessary.

18) Not be a person of peace at any price.

Mostafa Malekian

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Download the jpg file of Mostafa Malekian's handwriting (Eighteen Guiding Principles)

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Eighteen Guiding Principles from Mostafa Malekian for a More Desirable Life

First published: Mr. Mohammad Reza Jalaeipour's Facebook page

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