Let's talk about efficiency. The efficient use of our resources to extract the maximum possible pleasure from them.

If I have a food but I am not hungry, I save it for when I am hungry. Then I will enjoy it much more.

If I have a big chocolate and start eating it, every bite is an experience of pleasure. But by paying attention to each bite, I can perceive that after the first few bites, the next ones are generating less pleasure. I'm not enjoying it as much anymore. I'm finishing it because I have it. If I put it away and eat it another time when I feel like it, I will get much more pleasure out of it.

Following this logic...

I've eaten half of the chocolate and a friend comes along who has a sweet tooth. I could finish eating the chocolate, but it is natural to feel that it would be a waste for me to eat it when he is going to enjoy it much more. In him, this chocolate can generate much more pleasure, it yields more.

We all have that feeling with some people, or in certain contexts. Some with a circle of a few very close people, others with a larger circle of people.

The fact of not being able to conceive in any way that their pleasure makes a sum of pleasure of which I am a part and whose growth is my growth is egotism, ignorance. In Sanskrit asmitá and avidyá.

To expand the consciousness is to widen that circle of persons and circumstances. It is to run that frontier with which we delimit if the pleasure is our own or someone else's.

The goal of Yôga is to eliminate that boundary completely.

It's not the same to read, study, or practice philosophy.

We can read philosophy like reading a story. In search of inspiration, perhaps learning something, incorporating some thought model to solve an issue that afflicts us.

We can go to university to study philosophy. Read many authors. Compare them. Listen to profound explanations of the context in which the texts were written, the stories and lives of their authors. Become expert connoisseurs of the proposals of each philosophical line.

But practicing philosophy is another thing.

Practicing philosophy is living it. It is having a compass and using it so as not to walk aimlessly. It is permanently applying the proposed thought models to the small and big moments of life. Especially to the small ones, because with a little luck that prepares us for the big ones.

Training meditation is, to a large extent, training concentration. A simple meditation exercise is to imagine a geometric figure and try to keep that image present without getting distracted.

In very brief moments we will inevitably get distracted. The distractions that arise will be of one of these three types: physical, emotional, or mental.

A physical distraction can be, for example, that the knees start to hurt, the back gets tired, or the neck bothers us. Physical sensations that take the focus of attention that we were trying to maintain on a certain thought and bring it towards the body.

An emotional distraction is a little more subtle. For example, we may feel anxiety or boredom. Perhaps a feeling of sadness surfaces. Or if we had a bad day and we are in a bad mood, it becomes difficult to direct attention towards the object of concentration.

Mental distractions are thoughts. We remember something, we start thinking about something else. We make associations. We direct attention to memories of the past or projections of the future.

To reduce these distractions and advance in meditation training, all these aspects (physical, emotional and mental) have to be worked on. Performing a comprehensive work of the individual is crucial if we want to obtain true results with this technique.

I do yôga means practically nothing. Saying that one practices yoga is analogous to declaring that one plays sports.

Two people meet and one declares I come from doing sports to which the other replies what a coincidence, I also come from doing sports. This brief conversation could leave the impression that both are engaged in the same activity. However, we know that this is not necessarily the case. One can play rugby and the other golf. If we broaden the idea of sport, it could even be that one goes running and the other plays chess, or plays some e-sport.

We realize then that saying I play sports does not define precisely what it is that they do. It is not that the statement is incorrect but it is clear that in most contexts we will need more precision.

Among sports we have soccer, tennis, golf, volleyball, ping-pong. All are played with a ball. They are all sports; but we would never say that they are the same, or even that they are similar.

Those two people conversing may both play sports, but it is quite possible that they do not enjoy each other's sports.

On the other hand, although we must agree that talking about sport is vague and not at all precise, the word still defines something. There are characteristics that make an activity a sport or not. If someone says they are doing sport we will never imagine that they are sleeping, watching a movie or eating.

So let's go back to yoga.

Yôga is not sport, it is philosophy, but like the word sport, the word yôga does not define an activity per se, but a type of activity. An activity with a very specific purpose.

Not just any activity is yôga, but no two types of yôga are the same. So diverse are the types of activities that can be classified as yôga (traditionally 108) that in effect what has happened in the last few decades is that the word has completely lost meaning. No one knows what it is and so anything can be it.

I love a phrase of Mircea Eliade: The first duty of the practitioner is to think, that is, not to let oneself think. At first reading it can be interpreted as the intention to free oneself from imposed opinions, to think for oneself. But the idea is more drastic than that.

Anyone who devotes himself to observing his own thoughts eventually develops the capacity to be an external observer, a witness to his own thoughts. The feeling that these are not one's own, that they are not chosen, becomes clearer and clearer. And this is what the phrase refers to.

Let's do a test. Let us try to observe the image below, without allowing other images to surface internally.

Blue lines on yellow, that's all we should have seen. There should have been no reason for a color to appear in our mind. Much less the image of an orange animal, who ever saw that?

Yet the image surely surfaced in consciousness, the thought arose spontaneously.

This innocent exercise shows how difficult it is for us to see something purely, without interpretation or association. It also shows us how thoughts arise without our choosing them or being conscious of them.

Another exercise, this one a bit more productive. Now let's try choosing what we want to think about. Direct the thought to something specific, for example a geometric image, a square. Let's try to keep the focus on the square. Think only about that. After a second or two we will perceive that there are other thoughts coexisting with the image. After a few more seconds the square will probably vanish completely.

We notice again that the thoughts emerge without choice. They sprout, grow and multiply. It does not seem to be one who thinks, we are thought by the mind. And this is a more interesting interpretation of Mircea Eliade's phrase, we should think, not be thought.

We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are.

Everything we perceive is internally reconstructed. And in that reconstruction, everything is tinged with interpretations.

Depending on our state of mind, we will take information in one way or another. Every time we observe something, we internally associate it with our memories, emotions, culture, previous experiences, thoughts and preconceptions.

Thus we give different meanings to what we perceive.

The same food can be appetizing or not depending on the state of our organism at a given moment. Even throughout life the perception of flavors will change, making things that we did not like at one time, become delicacies.

All information reaches our consciousness through internal filters. As if they were layers of cellophane of different colors that tint the light that reaches us. In the same way, our emotions, our culture and even the state of our body filter everything we perceive.

During meditation training we progressively develop the ability to observe these filters and to be able to differentiate the color that we attribute to something (which is not really the object itself) from the object itself.

Thus, with the training we notice that we do not see things as they are, we see them as we are. We then work on ourselves, seeking to emancipate ourselves from the context.

The path of self-knowledge is the pursuit of authenticity. And the pursuit of authenticity is a process of freeing ourselves from the tyranny of the common.

Discovering those things that at some point we imagined could be different, that could be better, but that we resigned ourselves to because they are common. Oh well, everyone does it that way.

Staying attentive to those things that we never imagined possible, that are totally outside our imagination, but that when we see them we recognize them as authentically our own.

Like all qualities, some people have them innately and others need to develop them. Some are endowed with authenticity and are indissoluble in the mass. Others find it more difficult, they mirror themselves in the nearest one and have difficulty differentiating their own thoughts from the echo of someone else's.

And it all starts with innocent observation. Observe what we feel in certain situations, but what we really feel and not the idea we have of what someone should feel in that circumstance. Observe the flow of our thoughts and perceive how sometimes brilliant ideas, warnings or questions spring up that we simply ignore. Observe what we dream, which in the language of symbols puts us face to face with everything that our subconscious is processing.

Through simple observation, all artificial additions fade away and we find that authentic core that knows no limits and is totally free from the moorings of the normal.

A good example of a DeROSE Method practitioner in the concept area is effective action to transform the world through civility (we can call it good deeds or even good manners).
Every day we will compute how many praiseworthy actions we take.

Three times three

Three is one of the revered numbers in our Hindu tradition, and we find it in the Trimurti, the trishúla, the trikuti, the tribandha, the trigranthi, etc. Let us then make our account from it.
If you perform less than three meritorious deeds today, consider that this was a lead day.
If you perform three good deeds, this was a bronze day.
With two times three good manner actions, your day will have been silver.
By accomplishing three times three actions of civility, celebrate a gold day.
But if you accomplished more than three times three actions, you are our hero and your day was a diamond!

What might those actions be?

• Make a donation to a serious social welfare institution.
• Participate as a volunteer in a philanthropic campaign.
• Get involved with the Civil Defense campaigns in your city.
• Give food to those who are hungry.
• Give a coat to those who are cold.
• Give a smile, an attention, a gesture of affection to those who need it, as much as to those who are hungry or cold.
• Save an abandoned dog.
• Water the flowers in your neighbor's garden, selflessly.
• Stop your car to make way for a pedestrian who is trying to cross the street, even if he or she is out of the pedestrian path.
• Help a stranger who has fallen on the sidewalk because of an epileptic seizure.
• Give flowers to a friend.
• Don't get upset when another driver is rude, cuts you off or even crashes into you.
• Apologize, even if you are sure you are right.
• Treat a beggar who asks you for money well.
• Telephone a friend, colleague or relative, just to ask how he or she is doing.
• Talk about general topics with a stranger in the supermarket or shopping mall.
• Shake a lady's hand to get out of the car.
• Offer to help carry the neighbor's groceries to the lot where you live or the stranger in the parking lot.
• Carry your friend's heavy bag.
• Listen to someone who needs to talk about a problem.
• Throw something in the trash can that someone has dropped out of it.
• Pet a dog.
• Praise someone's child.
• Congratulate a colleague or adversary on a conquest or a successful project.
• Give a tip that is more substantial than the usual minimum.
• Thank for service and praise the performance of the waiter or other professional.
• Say "you're right.
• Smile at people at the club, in stores, in your business.
• Treat your doorman, your janitorial assistant and all junior staff courteously.
• Recycle.
• Provide information, assistance, guidance (in the company, in traffic, in the faculty).
• Talk to the employees who serve you.
• Listen to your spouse's complaints. And address them.
• Say thank you and smile at someone on the street, in traffic, shopping.
• Respond gently to an irritated neighbor.
• Reassure a colleague, family member or friend when they are upset with you.
• Do not insult those who deserve it.
• When you don't need an object or clothing, don't keep it or throw it away: look for someone who needs it and give them a gift. What is of no use to one may be a blessing to another.
• Give useful information to someone.

Giraldi Method, of the São Paulo State Military Police

• Do not make emotional decisions.
• Family is the most important thing there is. Have time for your wife and children.
• The absence of a father and mother is the gateway to drugs.
• Serenity at all times.
• There are three forms of love: the word, the touch and the look. Therefore, embrace your child, your wife and your friends.
• Always smile.
• Praise your child and your subordinate whenever possible.
• Don't yell at your child or your subordinate. Exchange fear for respect.
• Work problems should not enter the home.
• Always visit your parents, so as not to visit them in the cemetery.

Translation of the chapter from the book Cosas que la vida me enseñño

Don't be under any illusions. Everything you say about a person will come to their knowledge. So, watch that tongue. After that, it's useless to feel upset about people's indiscretion. It's like this.

More than one person's secret is no longer a secret. The moment you tell your secret to someone you trust, that person also tells it to another person he or she trusts, and so on. In a short time, dozens of people will know your secret.

So why tell? Why this need to expose yourself? Whenever you need to comment on someone, only say good things. A good exercise is: when you start saying something bad or start spewing green exorcist criticism about someone, reverse the sentence and start praising them immediately. Doesn't this person have something good to be praised for? Take a good look. Everyone has something good.

Translation of the book Boas Manerias by Prof. DeRose

Many of the principles of good manners can be based on the theory of living space. This theory explains that every human being has a territorial space around him or her, which varies according to ethnicity, country and education of each person. As a general rule, the more sensitive and educated a person is, the more living space he or she appreciates being given; the less living space he or she occupies.

The living space theory was discovered when a group of scientists observed unseen several pairs of people standing inside an empty room with only two chairs to sit on. While waiting for the experiment to supposedly begin, the subjects would sit down and start talking. It was then discovered, for example, that the British sat at a good distance from each other and could carry on a pleasant conversation for hours. The Italians, however, placed the chairs so close together that their knees almost touched. They soon became excited and argued aggressively.

A person's territorial space is that which he reserves the right to enjoy and, within whose borders, any human being is a persona non-grata. Exceptions are eventually made for friends, relatives and loved ones, provided they know their limits and are restrained in this granted invasion.

Even a loved one, if they stay too long too close will generate discomfort. If this proximity is constant, quarrels arise, which can be triggered for very useless reasons.

Therefore, learn to respect and understand your spousal appendage's need to be alone. Institute conjugal vacations. Consider a Sartrean wedding, each at home. I guarantee you will love each other much more and respect each other much more.

The big problem is that when people are passionate they become attached to each other's lives. When the other is also going through a phase of momentary madness, they accept. Soon the problems start. It is the toothpaste that one likes to squeeze only at the end and the other squeezes carelessly in the middle; it is the bottle of water that one wants to close and the other sees nothing wrong in leaving it open; it is the volume of the music that one likes louder and the other likes it too low; it is the way of undressing and hanging the clothes neatly for one or dropping them inside out and throwing them any way the other can't help ...

None of these reasons would justify arguing with the delighted partner. But any one of them would be enough to motivate a divorce if it happened repeatedly inside your home, the place where you want things your way.

Keep in mind that much of what is called social etiquette is nothing more, nothing less than formal boundary setting. Cultural and ethnic clashes occur when one individual or group of individuals in some way encroaches on or jeopardizes the cultural identity of another.

If you want to preserve a friendship or an affectionate relationship, metabolize this golden rule: the only way to catch someone is to let them go; the best way to lose someone is to restrict their freedom or invade their privacy.

Have you ever heard the expression I want more? When you know the right time to leave, you let that feeling go and friends will tell you sincerely:

• But are you leaving already? It's early, stay a little longer.

Don't stay! Leave the taste of I want more. This way, you will always be welcome. Impose your presence and you will saturate the hosts who may not invite you again.