The Logos Within and Without
The Teaching
Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them. Think constantly on the changes of the elements into one another, for such thoughts wash away the dust of earthly life.
You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.
Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight. That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees.
The Logos — the rational principle of the universe — is within you and without you simultaneously. To live according to nature is to live according to the Logos. The Logos is what all things share.
Commentary
Marcus Aurelius uses 'Logos' as Heraclitus and the Stoics before him did: the rational principle that pervades all things, makes them intelligible, and provides the standard for virtuous living. This Logos is John's Word, is the Tao, is the Dharma of Buddhist cosmology.
'That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees', the Stoic cosmic perspective: the individual is always embedded in larger wholes, and authentic wellbeing requires alignment with those wholes. The Zoroastrian Asha and the Taoist Tao describe the same cosmic order.
Marcus, the most powerful man on Earth, writing these meditations for himself alone, never intending them to be published. The inner life is where it all happens. Same teaching as the Kingdom of God within.