5 Timeless Qualities

The 5 Qualities Timeless for Humans

Intention

Attention

Will

Resolve

Release

In my estimation, these are the five qualities timeless to any human being, be they born in 50,000 BC or 10,000 AD, be there born in the East, or the West, a man, or a woman, etc. They are the qualities you always possess, no matter what the circumstances of your life are.

Intention is what you intend to do, what you set out to do, what you want to do.

Attention is your sustaining focus on your Intention. Paying attention to your intention.

Will is you doing your Intention. It is your drive, your determination met with action.

Resolve is your Will sustained to see your Intention completed. Seeing something through.

Release is your letting go, dissolution, relaxation, freedom.

Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras 2:30-31 say that yama consisting of nonviolence, truthfulness, non-stealing, brahmacharya, and non-greed are all universal vows, not limited by class, place, time, or circumstance. But is that so? Are there not circumstances foreseeable where breaking one of these might result in a net-positive?

Suppose you are hiking in the forest, and you see a woman with bruises and cuts running to you, and she says, “help me, he’s chasing me!” so you point her to hide in the bushes a bit to the east. Then a minute later you see a man with a rifle running up, asking you if you’ve seen a woman. Would not the right choice be to say, “yeah, she ran to the west over there”. A lie, isn’t it a good one? The man may say, “she’s schizophrenic, and off her meds, and the rifle is because bears are in the area” — while certainly possible, the more likely explanation is that he had her chained up somewhere, and she escaped. Wouldn’t it be safer to call the police and inform them of the situation and what the man said, and let them handle it? If the man is telling the truth, the police would be able to find out, and the situation would be resolved. If he is lying and the woman was endangered, you would be saving her life. While an extreme example to be sure, would not lying be the correct approach? For, with his gun, as long as he is just a few feet from you, you could not hope, if you are unarmed, to defend her, and would lose your own life thereby.

Aren’t there circumstances where lying would be the overall best net-positive thing to do? So, can it be truly said that truthfulness is always a non-violable universal vow?

Non-greed might be easy to say that it is an eternal vow, but who defines greed? To a yogi in a loincloth, perhaps a pair of pants is seen as greed. To a billionaire with only two yachts, perhaps a man with ten yachts is seen as greed.

The qualities I gave are not vows, but the are qualities underlying everything that you do, and I feel that they are truly eternal, not subject to time, circumstance, and the rest.

With these, you serve your life in all that you do. Depending on the application and earnestness with which you apply them, met alongside luck, random chance, and the cooperation or hinderance of others, as well as the possibilities that your aim is realistically likely to have, you may measure your chance of success.