THE SCHOOL OF GODS - STEFANO D’ANNA

MY COMMENTS :

Written by Stefano D'Anna, the work is about the dialogue between the author's first-person narration as the main character and the supporting character named Dreamer, as well as the events and dialogues related to the person's efforts to discover himself.

As can be seen, the work has a very philosophical structure, and although it seems like a personal development book at first glance, it shows that it is much more than that. There is a continuous dialogue between the main character and the Dreamer, and the Dreamer puts the main character in the reader's shoes, first indicating the taboos that are accepted as true from his perspective in life, and then explaining how he can break them.

It should be stated that it has a structure that is likely to be considered radical by the reader in terms of many of the ideas it contains. For example, as can be understood from the sentences in my quotes section, the Dreamer, who states that humans are gods who have lost their memories, states that humans can only achieve the idea of becoming by realizing their own potential and finding themselves completely. He even claims that humans are prone to immortality with this understanding. In the work, which aims to give its readers memorable lessons with the striking messages it is intended to convey, such exaggerated narrative forms are frequently used.

He also states that, depending on our state of being and structure, we may experience certain events in our lives in different ways and at different times and not even be aware of them. However, he adds that if we are not aware of our being, the time intervals in the events that happen to us will continue to be a series of situations that we think we cannot control.

The author's argument that people should stay away from religion and ideological views and base their thoughts on their own thoughts is actually an ideology and should be evaluated as an argument that makes people believe in a thought. Therefore, the message given and the context of the message content contain a conflict.

In the section titled “My Quotes”, the author claims that a person cannot help anyone except himself, and in the continuation of the same quote, he claims that people who overcome lies have a chance to help others. This argument is felt as a contradiction with his argument that no one can do anything for anyone else in the first place.

It is necessary to mention the author's thoughts on the connection between acting strategically and lying, which are also expressed in the section of my quotes. Acting strategically, as the author puts it, cannot of course be interpreted as lying. However, if acting strategically includes false statements, the person's perception of himself as a strategist rather than a liar is also lying to himself, as the author mentioned in other sections.

The author, who approaches the religious and ideological understandings mentioned in the above paragraphs from a different perspective towards the end of the book, touches upon the lie-based lifestyle in the imitative lives of people who seem to be devoted to a thought they do not believe in.

As can be seen, the work should be considered as a book covered with important manifestos from beginning to end. It should be noted that, apart from the inconsistent and contradictory expressions in some ideas and thoughts, it contains important messages to guide people's lives in general.

In conclusion, the work is one of the books that contains important messages that especially university-age individuals should read and think about.

MY QUOTATIONS(*) :

Surrender to your world. Go and consciously accept what you have created: a fixed, ignorant world… a dead world. A person's power lies in possessing himself and at the same time surrendering to himself.
Being addicted is always a personal choice, even if it is unintentional. No one or nothing can force you to be addicted; only you can do that for yourself.
Being addicted is the result of an unhealthy mind that has fallen captive to its own fears and fantasies… The state of addiction is the visible result of abandoning the dream.
Being poor means giving up one's right to creativity in exchange for work one does not enjoy and does not choose to do.
Everything we see and touch, everything visible comes from something invisible.
The future, like the past, is laid out before your eyes, but you cannot see it yet.
A person cannot change the events in his life, only the way he views them.
The Dreamer once explained, when discussing the love/fear polarity, that the true meaning of the word love can be found in the etymology of its Latin equivalent, a-mors, meaning the absence of death or immortality. In fact, the name of the immortal city of Rome was the word “amor” spelled backwards, and this was no coincidence. Rome had its immortal destiny sealed within it by its founder.
The belief that death is invincible is harmful to humans. How long you live is determined by your state of mind and your will to live.
Father S. said, as if to conclude the subject, “ Lying, hiding, complaining and trying to escape from one’s own responsibilities are the scars carried by a person who has fallen into error and division and has forgotten the purpose of his life .” “ Once humanity has given up on its birthright and forgotten its integrity, it has invented death as a solution to end its suffering. Instead of trying to overcome itself and its own shortcomings, which is a difficult task, man chooses to die. But death is not a solution. Man always starts again where he left off.” Lupelius founded the School of Gods, a means of transportation, a school of responsibility, to show the way back to simplicity, integrity and the buried will of fragmented humanity.
The Dreamer “ Socrates used death to understand! In that extraordinary moment he realized that death was nothing more than a step on the path to healing, a long rung on the ladder of wholeness. This was his last and greatest teaching .”
Winning meant overcoming oneself, overcoming doubts, fears, and ignorance.
“ Lupelius used to say to his students ,” he said, and then fell silent for a brief, interminable moment. His lips trembled as he quoted his master’s words, “ You are Gods who have forgotten… Gods who have lost their memory .”
You always encounter the same events because nothing changes in you.
Those who experience heaven go to heaven, those who experience hell go to hell.
According to the philosophy of Lupelius, our states of Being attract appropriate events, and these events cause us to re-experience the same states we are in.
The unexpected always requires a long preparation period.
No external event, whether conscious or unconscious, happens to a person without his consent. Nothing can happen without passing through a person's thoughts. That is why thought is the greatest power.
Situations are events waiting for the right time to happen.
Our thoughts are our destiny. As the quality of our thoughts increases, the quality of our life also increases.
Life on Earth is a School for Gods. Confusion, doubt, turmoil, crisis, anger, despair, and pain are all excellent opportunities to be used for growth.
Life is made up of states of mind as much as it is made up of events, and even more so. For example, when we go to a lecture or to the theatre, we believe that we have chosen where we will sit, or we may swear that the dress we will wear this morning was our own choice. In fact, it is not we who have chosen our seat or our clothes, but our state of being.
Coincidences and unexpected events had no place in their unique and original lives, which were not subject to any divine judgment.
Whenever people come together, whether for years or just a few minutes, they form a pyramid. Just as the planets are arranged according to a calculation such as their brightness, mass, orbit and distance from the sun, so too do people arrange themselves on the rungs of an invisible ladder according to a mathematical calculation within themselves.
We may do this without realizing it, but on the other hand, our destiny, our quality of life and the events that happen to us also have to respect this hierarchy.
When something happens to us, we think that the psychological state we find ourselves in is the result of an event. Thus, we justify our state of being with events that occur outside of us, when in fact it is the opposite. However, in reality, throughout our lives, it is our state of being that determines and announces in advance the events that occur outside of us. Our negative emotions become the adversities that we complain about over time.
Eat less, dream more. Sleep less, breathe more. Die less, live forever.
A man's life is the shadow of his dream, the manifestation of his principles and all that he believes in. Everyone has seen that what he firmly believes in is realized, down to the last detail. Man always creates. The obstacles he encounters are the materialization of his own limitations, conflicting ideas, and weakness. Some believe in poverty, some worship disease, some believe in constant scarcity and restriction, and some have pinned all their hopes on crime... Man always creates, even when imprisoned in the dungeons of his own being.
When the time comes, we will all achieve the goals we have set for ourselves… In the end, we will all win… We will all become what we believe in.
“ Your most unshakable belief, your most harmful belief, is that you believe in a world outside yourself, in something or someone on whom you depend, in something or someone who gives you or takes from you, who chooses or blames you,” said the Dreamer .
The greatest revolution, the greatest of all undertakings, even the only meaningful one, is to change oneself.
Dreamer “ No one on earth can love you more than your enemy ”.
While the attacks and humiliations against you continue with all their cruelty, learn to smile inside. The Antagonist (the opposing, hostile person) whom you must fight outside must be forgiven inside immediately! Forgiveness can only happen inside.
Only the person who is determined to defeat himself encounters the antagonist. There is no hostility in the fall, it is a painless and free fall.
Believing belongs to the art of dreaming and is the deepest quality of the dreamer. At the root of believing (cre-do) is creativity (cre-ed, cre-ation). Dreaming is the most real thing that exists.
Everything is interconnected, nothing is separate.
You can only have as much as you are responsible for.
According to the Dreamer, the root cause of all our problems is our being caught up in past memories or fantasies about the future.
Give what you have to those who want to be in your place. Then you will realize that everything you have, the things you hold most dear to in your life, are nothing but misery traps compared to what awaits you.
The more dead a person is, the more work he fills his day with.
A sane person shows absolute respect for the traditions, customs, traditions or religious beliefs of those who accept him in the cultural environment he is in. His self-understanding and intelligence guide his choices.
There is no justice more just than injustice! Injustice is the highest model of justice; the most objective! The situation that the average person calls injustice is a source of life that enables him to reach a higher level of perfection and understanding. Injustice is the expression of mercy.
One day, science will discover that there are not so many diseases. Beyond the apparent multiplicity and complexity of their symptoms, there is only one disease: thought.
A person is as much as he understands. People have different levels of understanding. This is the real inequality between them!
Love (a-mors) means the absence of death. To love means to love oneself in one's essence, to eliminate any harm one can do to oneself.
Living strategically does not mean being opportunistic, and it does not mean lying. It is the warrior's ability to adapt his or her own image to what the world is ready to receive and what the circumstances require.
A person can only have as much money as he dreams, visualizes and imagines in his mind.
The food of existence is intention. The food of the mind is tranquility. The food of the body is fasting.

MY EVALUATIONS:

Subject : The work is about the events and dialogues between the author's first-person narration as the main character and the supporting character named Dreamer, and the person's efforts to discover himself.

Style: The work, which progresses in the form of a continuous dialogue between two characters and sometimes in the form of the narration of the main character, succeeds in conveying the messages it wants to give to the reader many times with simple and clear expressions.

Originality : Although the subject matter is not considered original, it should be noted that it contains extraordinary messages about what a person can do and their beliefs in life. In this respect, it can be said that the work has a more original style and content than expected for its type.

Character : The book progresses through two characters in the work, with the main character speaking to the supporting character named Dreamer in the first person, as if he were the author himself. Especially with the Dreamer character, the messages that are intended to be given in the work are constantly conveyed to the reader in a harsh and striking way.

Fluency : When the style and other elements mentioned are taken into consideration, it can be clearly understood from its genre that the work is not a gripping book. However, it can be stated that it has a generally fluent language. The only shortcoming in terms of fluency is that the book repeats some messages to the reader in different sections.

General : In the evaluation made out of 10 according to the criteria stated above:

Subject: 8.5

Style: 8

Originality: 8

Characters: 8

Fluency: 7

The overall average of the work, which received 8 points, is 7.9 points . The work, which has almost reached the 8 threshold and provides important life lessons with the messages it contains, is of great importance for university students in particular to read it and question their perspective on life, as stated in the comments.

(*) : All parts under the title My Quotations:

THE SCHOOL OF GODS

Author : Stefano D'Anna

Publisher : Sinedie Publishing

Edition : 18.03.2015

The photo used on the cover was used as a quote from the book.

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