Aphorisms on Providence

Nemesis, by Alfred Rethel (1837)

Based on common ideas in Plotinus' and Seneca's respective essays, "On Providence". ("Karma-Nemesis is the synonym of PROVIDENCE", Blavatsky, SD I, 643) This is more Stoic, hence the focus on practical ethics; it does not integrate reincarnation - we will do another in the future, based on Proclus' writings, where reincarnation and metaphysics will be factored in.

1. The logos governs the all.
2. Beauty and order in the natural world are signs of providence.
3. Things occur in a chain of causation.
4. There are phases of order and disorder; destruction is a necessary part of nature.
5. The earth is very small and unimportant compared to the vastness of the universe.
6. One can see the order of nature by observing that each part of the body is designed for a useful function.
7. It is normal for things to happen according to physical laws, such as the stronger defeating the weaker.
8. Troublesome situations play a role in the coordination of the whole.
9. Providence heals like a doctor healing a wound or sickness.
10. Adversity has benefits that are either evident are otherwise hidden.
11. Troubles serve to awaken us and help us understand the nature of virtue and vice.
12. Providence explains why good people are sometimes disfavored and bad people sometimes favored.
13. Situations like poverty and sickness are not bad things for good people.
14. The good life consists in being good; a bad life consists in being bad.
15. The wrongdoer is punished by becoming wicked.
16. Nothing that happens is bad for the good man; nothing that happens is good for the bad man.
17. Good conduct consists in acting in accordance with providence.
18. One should be self-reliant and not blame providence.
19. Mishaps should be seen as a children’s game.
20. Play your role in life as an actor in a play
21. Death is like an actor exiting a play.

This is a short version of a longer post: 

Plotinus and the Stoics on Providence 

varia: Blavatsky congress in Portugal:
http://heso.ulusofona.pt/esoteric-buddhism-the-buddhist-influence-in-the-work-of-helena-blavatsky/