"When there is no enemy within,
the enemies outside cannot hurt you."
-- African Proverb
The main reason I love quotes so much is that some of them speak volumes in one sentence. Abraham Lincoln was a master of brevity, and his quotes speak the same way, and this one is even more brief, yet so vast in scope to me.
I think I could actually write a whole book around this one quote, and I won't do that here, of course, but I will share a few thoughts that come to me as I read this quote.
The first thing that came to my mind was that phrase from Abe Lincoln's speech, "A house divided against itself cannot stand," which is a paraphrase of a very similar piece in the Bible. It came to me because sometimes we just seem to be our own worst enemy and many times our only enemy.
The next thing that came to mind is how inner conflict disrupts the flow of our important magical powers, such as focus, contentment, joy, and other such positive thoughts. I very much believe that we become like we think and so allowing those negative thoughts, or the enemy to be within, we at the very same time allow the enemy to be with us without, or outside of our minds. By the same token, and the entire benefit of being human, we can choose pleasing thoughts, have a friend inside rather than an enemy and thereby not attract any on the outside.
What in the world could anything on the outside do if you were perfectly at peace inside? The struggle, if there is one, always starts with us on the inside.
A very profound thought:
"When there is no enemy within,
the enemies outside cannot hurt you."
I Am My Own Friend First.
Spread Some Joy Today--Conflict at work? It starts inside us. The choice is ours alone in how we think and deal with it.
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