Losing one’s balance is not the same as losing an object. This obvious fact has far-reaching consequences. It means, first of all, that one’s own balance – be it physical or emotional – is not something outside oneself, but it is kept from within. Exterior factors do, obviously, affect the balance of any individual, and things in the outside world can sometimes help us recover our balance; but this does not change in the least that physical and emotional balance is kept from within. The body and mind of any human being are constantly making small adjustments in order to keep the temperature stable and the temperament balanced.
This is not always enough to find the balance, but keeping one’s balance can be trained and improved so that even when falling to the floor or losing one’s temper, the balance can be recovered without ending up on the floor or with a bad temper. The human body and mind will – if they are not being obstructed – try to find resources from within to come back and recover from whatever blow they may have received, and knowing our body and mind will make us more aware of these resources coming from within.
If the key to keeping one´s balance is found within ourselves, then this means – although many may deny it – that there is no good reason to blame exterior factors for not keeping the balance. It is so common to blame everyone else for one’s own or society’s imbalances that it seems odd to take a step away from this way of thinking and start taking responsibility for bringing balance into one’s own life. If we, who presumably live in modern times, knew and felt what the ancient traditions of wisdom experienced as an undeniable part of life, that every human being carries within him- or herself extraordinary resources to keep and improve his or her physical and emotional balance, I believe we would try to “dig out” these resources. So far, even thousands of years after it was first written and spoken among men and women, there still seems to be no higher human knowledge than to “know thyself”.