February 3, 2024
Our country, and our world, are in a time of great turmoil — including wars, intense political conflict within many countries, and mounting climate problems all over the globe. These in turn are causing vast migrations of people seeking safety and a better life — but there is nowhere for all these people to go without causing disruption, division, and sometimes outright hostility.
Added to this array of problems is the impact of living in an age of instant communication, which is too often used to spread fear, anger, resentment, and blame. One result is an increasing level of polarization, causing communities to break apart and increasing numbers of individuals to feel alone, adrift on a turbulent sea. Loneliness, frustration, and despair are rising rapidly, and it is hard to envision what the future will bring.
The Perennial Message of the Wise
We humans have both good and bad tendencies within us. Throughout history, those seeking wealth and power have exploited our dark sides for their own gain, feeding our fears, stoking our anger and greed, urging us to blame others and look out for ourselves only.
On the opposite side, brave men and women have arisen in every age who have encouraged us to act from the “better angels of our nature.” They have taught the message of compassion, love, kindness, and concern for others. They have counseled that the only way we will have fulfilling lives ourselves, and the only way our communities will be peaceful and nurturing for all members is if we make an effort to live by shared values.
Just acting as if we have values and are living by them, however, is not enough. The wise ones have all said that it is essential that we truly make an effort to live by these moral values from deep within, that we know ourselves and are honest with ourselves about what we are doing and why. We do not have to be perfect in this to have rewarding and meaningful lives, but we must make a sincere effort.
This message of compassion, kindness, and concern for all others is certainly not very prominent or popular right now. Nor is the desire to gain self-awareness and true wisdom. We live in a time of considerable turmoil, an age that thrives on controversy, outrage, and fear. There is much money to be made and great political power to be won or lost by exploiting base emotions, and those who are willing to do this are clever and numerous.
Yet, as evidenced by the examples of wise men and women throughout history, each of us can find a place of inner peace, and of care and concern for others to organize around, no matter the state of the world. The greatest souls have been forged on the anvil of difficulties, and the great exemplars of humanity have been shaped and molded by the fires of trial and tribulation.
In fact, most of the men and women throughout history who taught the perennial message lived and shared their truths in times of great turmoil and strife. They also faced powerful adversaries, along with hostility, rejection, and sometimes even death for what they had to say. Yet it is from the soil of their insights and courage that the great wisdom traditions of the world were born and flourished.
And it has been in times when their wisdom has been practiced sufficiently that peace and prosperity have been possible in specific locales, sometimes even large regions of the world, and sometimes lasting for hundreds or even a thousand years.
Following are the five best-known examples in history. Each has had a tremendous impact, partly because of the message they taught, but also because each had such a powerful impact on those they encountered. They inspired others to record their words, to share what they heard, and to live their own lives differently. Many who met these five felt that they had reached the wisdom and understanding, the sense of meaning and fulfilment, and the inner peace that we humans so desire for ourselves.
Socrates
Socrates lived at a time when his native city, Athens, was in the midst of a years-long conflict with the neighboring city of Sparta, the Peloponnesian War, in which each city was vying for supremacy in the ancient Greek world. Within Athens, political rivalries were also intense, with various factions often calling each other traitors or enemies of the state.
In this climate, Socrates spent many years teaching anyone who would listen about the importance of gaining wisdom, giving rise to a legacy that stands at the headwaters of the stream of western thought to this day. He taught philosophy (which means the love of wisdom), but his was a living philosophy concerning how we understand ourselves and the world and the values we choose to live by.
One key aspect of his teaching is that Socrates insisted that true wisdom always starts with a person discovering at the deepest level who they really are. Each of us must come to know ourselves — our own motivations, why we do what we do, and what our deep values are. Thus the beginning of wisdom is to “Know Thyself.”
The method Socrates used to teach self-knowledge was to engage in conversation and dialogue, to encourage others to thoughtfully and peacefully consider all sides of an issue instead of parroting superficial answers they had been taught. By understanding themselves as well as the issues being debated, the Good, the True, and the Beautiful would gradually be revealed. Then, those who made the moral choices necessary to bring their lives into harmony with this highest good would move steadily toward true fulfillment.
The other vivid lesson of his life was service to others, the importance of helping other people gain self-knowledge and self-understanding. To accomplish this purpose, he spent the last half of his life freely sharing what he had learned with others, never asking for anything in return. And because he was doing this during a time of great strife, those in power often felt challenged, preferring that everyone simply accept whatever they said as the truth. So, in order to silence him, they sentenced him to death — and he chose to drink the hemlock rather than betray his message of the importance of self-knowledge and coming into harmony with the Good.
Condemning him to death did not have the result they intended, however. Instead, his response set the stage for Socrates’ incredible influence through history. His best-known pupil, Plato, carried his ideas forward and made his teaching so vivid that millions of men and women since that time have studied them, undertaken their own journeys of self-discovery, and have been inspired to share the knowledge they have gained in similar ways. For his part, Plato founded an Academy in an olive grove to teach his students, and that was a key step in the process of transmitting higher knowledge in an organized way across many generations.
Jesus
Four hundred years later, during the time Jesus was growing up, Judaea was collapsing into chaos. The Romans were harsh overlords, and the local people were rebelling, but not as one united front. Instead, several groups competed for attention and followers. The tensions reached a peak on Passover in 33 AD. Because the chance of violent insurrection seemed great, the Roman governor had brought extra troops to Jerusalem to try to keep the peace.
That, of course, was the time when Jesus decided to make his most public stand for the importance of love, forgiveness, turning the other cheek, taking care of those most in need of care and support, and metanoia (changing our own hearts and minds and the way we are living). He clearly knew he was risking death by taking such a public stand, but did so anyway. And because the ruling authorities at that time, both Roman and Jewish, feared he might rally political support that would lead to further challenges to their power, he was crucified.
The result, however, was quite different from what the Romans or the religious leaders in Jerusalem expected. Instead of ending his influence, it marked the beginning of the spread of Jesus’ message all over the world.
Without question, Jesus and the Christian faith that grew up after his crucifixion have been misused and abused by many who gained power by professing allegiance to his words. But this does not dim the many successes, the countless lives that have been transformed and the many cultures that have thrived by following his message of love, forgiveness, and caring for the sick and downtrodden. Even when his teachings have been followed imperfectly, much good has been done.
One of the results is that millions upon millions of men and woman have given great time and energy to helping others, right down to this day. Mother Teresa is perhaps the best know modern example, living for half her life in the slums of Calcutta and working tirelessly on behalf of the poorest of the poor. She described succinctly why she did this, saying: “I see Jesus in every human being. I say to myself, this is hungry Jesus, I must feed him. This is sick Jesus. This one has leprosy or gangrene; I must wash him and tend to him.”
If only more of our leaders could recognize the profound truth of some of her teachings: “A life not lived for others is not a life,” and, “We do not need guns and bombs to bring peace, we need love and compassion.”
Then there is Albert Schweitzer, a person of seemingly unlimited ability — achieving worldwide fame as a musician, he was also a writer, theologian, and scholar of note. He was a medical doctor, an ordained Lutheran minister, and a renowned scholar of Bach who helped lead the effort to restore the notable pipe organs in Europe. Most of this was achieved before he reached the age of 40, at which point his most memorable lifework began.
At mid-life, Schweitzer experienced a profound call to care for the poorest of the poor in Africa and spent the rest of his long life doing just that. His words capture the heart of the reason a person might choose to serve others:
“I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.”
Returning to Jesus and Socrates, Jesus insisted on the importance of taking care of our neighbors and those who are struggling, including the stranger we too often pass by. He taught love, forgiveness, humility, and the importance of changing ourselves and refocusing what we are living for. Socrates taught the importance of self-knowledge, of thoughtful consideration of one’s own beliefs and actions, and the necessity of gaining wisdom about and then aligning with the highest dimension of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.
It is worth emphasizing again that Socrates and Jesus both lived in times of great political and social turmoil, and both died for upholding the beliefs and values they taught. As for their influence, millions of individual lives have been profoundly changed for the better by their messages. And it is probably not overstating the case to say that during the last 1500 years, the times when a region or a country within western civilization has had a period of peace and prosperity have been those in which a sufficient number of people have followed some combination of the teachings of these two seminal figures.
The Buddha
The Buddha did not die for upholding his views, but he did live in a time of tumultuous social and political change. During his lifetime, northern India was divided into 16 different states that were frequently in conflict. Some were monarchies, others more republican, but they often vied for power and control with neighboring states.
During this time of conflict and strife, the Buddha began to teach that trying to gain worldly power, wealth, and status would never bring fulfillment or peace. Instead, each person had to become quiet inside and become mindful of who they really were, at the deepest level. Those who did so would get in touch with what was truly important and discover the values one must live by that lead to true fulfillment and peace.
He further taught that those who did this would discover that they were not separate from others; instead, everyone and everything is intimately connected. With this realization, this awakening to who we really are, we would feel deep compassion for each and all. In our own age, the Buddhist poet and teacher Thich Nhat Hanh said it this way:
You are me, and I am you.
Isn’t it obvious that we “inter-are”?
You cultivate the flower in yourself,
so that I will be beautiful.
I transform the garbage in myself,
so that you will not have to suffer.
I support you;
you support me.
I am in this world to offer you peace;
you are in this world to bring me joy.
Centuries earlier, the great Buddhist mystic Shantideva summarized the same point perfectly:
All the joy the world contains
Has come through wishing happiness for others.
All the misery the world contains
Has come through wanting pleasure for oneself.
And the best-known Buddhist of our time, the Dalai Lama, put it very simply:
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion; if you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
Confucius
Living around the same time as the Buddha and Socrates, Confucius also faced a difficult political climate. During his life, China was divided into various feudal states that were competing for power and control. Each state had an army that threatened to conquer its neighbors, and the larger states often had various factions vying for power within. Competing groups even had secretive bands of spies that used assassination as a tool within their own states and against neighboring states.
In this tumultuous climate, Confucius traveled around with a small band of followers. His most central teaching was that a person must cultivate rén (which he considered the most important virtue).
What is rén? Its characteristics have been described as kindness, goodness, compassion, deep empathy, humaneness, and an attitude of benevolence and care toward others. Sometimes it is simply thought of as love, in the sense of the Greek word agape. He also insisted that a fulfilling life would only come from upholding the virtues that had been passed down from the wise ones of the past — respecting our elders and coming into harmony with the Tao, the Way of Heaven.
Confucius was one of the first to give voice to a sentiment so many of the wisdom figures have shared, that in some mysterious way we are all connected, saying: “Within the four seas, all men are brothers.” An old Chinese Proverb that Confucius might have known, or which his teaching might have inspired, says:
“If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody.”
Both the Buddha and Confucius lived long lives, and although it took a number of years for their messages to reach large numbers of people, their teachings have served as the bedrock for billions of successful lives and for many cultures that have prospered.
Muhammed
Living a thousand years after Buddha and Confucius, and in a very different part of the world, Muhammed was similarly faced with great societal turmoil. After he began to teach, he was attacked by the leaders of Mecca and had to flee in the dead of night to escape assassination. Having been invited to Medina, he arrived there and was asked to try to bring order to a city racked by internal conflicts.
Although Medina had many different religious groups, Muhammed was able, through great skill as an administrator, to quickly bring peace and prosperity to the city. He instituted a Charter, one of the first such documents in history, that accepted the coexistence of different religions (there were Jews, Christians, Muslims, and pagans in Medina). The Charter gave equality to all citizens (women did not have full rights with men, but rights for women were recognized and protected more fully than in almost any city or country until his time, or for many centuries thereafter). He also, as did Jesus, welcomed women as key supporters and followers, and relied on them for advice, encouragement, and support.
Incredibly for the age in which he lived, the Charter set up a peaceful process for resolving disputes that relied on respect and tolerance rather than the authority and power of rulers, which can so easily be corrupted. And he taught that only through surrender of our ego’s will to a higher, transcendent power would we ever find peace, happiness, or fulfillment.
Muhammed, like all the wisdom figures before him, taught that kindness toward others was central, saying, “We must treat one another with full honor, respect, and loving-kindness.” Following in his steps, the important Islamic scholar Al-Bukhari said:
“A charity is due for every joint in each person on every day the sun comes up: to act justly between two people is a charity; to help a man with his mount, lifting him onto it or hoisting up his belongings onto it, is a charity; a good word is a charity; and removing a harmful thing from the road is a charity.”
Al-Bukhari also said: “Do not show lethargy or negligence in giving alms and charity till your last breath.”
As with Jesus, since Muhammed’s death his teachings have often been distorted and misused by those who seek power and control over others, but this does not change what he actually taught.
The Message They Share
These five individuals have probably affected human history more than any others who have ever lived. Although they arose in different ages and came from very different cultures, their messages are strikingly similar: respect other people; cultivate love, compassion, and kindness; strive to gain wisdom; know yourself as fully as possible; and serve other people instead of your own small self’s concerns. Further, each insisted that these core values had their origin in a source that was beyond the material realm.
They each emphasized different aspects of this message, but all shared these core beliefs. All felt a call to impart what they had come to know, and all felt their understanding had come from a transcendent source — the Tao, the Dharma, the Good itself, or God. Some felt the call came from within, others from outside themselves. Perhaps these are simply two ways to speak of the same thing, for both involve getting out of one’s self-centered cocoon and getting in touch with an ever-larger circle of compassion. Albert Einstein captured the idea they shared this way:
“A human being is a part of the whole that we call the universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical illusion of his consciousness. This illusion is a prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for only the few people nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living beings and all of nature.”
Following their call to dramatically increase the “circle of compassion,” each of the five spent the greater part of their lives being of service to others, through teaching and helping those in need. None asked for payment for what they gave, and only one became well-known during his lifetime.
It is also fascinating that none wrote any books. Muhammed is given credit for writing the Qur’an, but it is very likely he did not read or write. He spoke the Qur’an, first by dictating visions that he said were being given to him by God, and then by reciting and preaching the message in public, with others writing down his words. The different pieces and versions of what he said were recorded by those who heard him, and the Qur’an was only compiled into a book after his death.
The books attributed to Confucius probably were put together in the same way, and there is little doubt Jesus, the Buddha, and Socrates simply taught verbally, and others through the years wrote different versions of what they had to say.
These five form the heart of the Axial Age, a period when new formulations for how to live were given to humanity. Various changes were taking place in how societies functioned that seemed to call for new ways to understand how we could live in harmony with each other and with the larger dimension within which we exist. Of course, these seminal figures were not the first, or the last, wise ones to give voice to a vision for how best to live.
Before the Axial Age, Hindu sages in India had developed their version of a similar message, starting with the Vedas as much as 4000 years ago. From that time forward until today, the tradition they jointly developed has been the basis for a successful way of life for billions of people, and it also strongly influenced the message of the Buddha.
In what we think of as the Middle East, long before the time of Jesus, Jewish prophets, sages, rabbis, and poets developed a powerful version of the message given by the wise ones of history, one that has greatly influenced the world we live in today. And in the Mediterranean region, hundreds of years before the time of Socrates, Greek storytellers, poets, and playwrights began their own version of the perennial message, and it is still influencing the modern world.
Even before the Hindu, Greek, and Jewish traditions began, countless men and women served as teachers, healers, and religious leaders in their tribal and hunter/gatherer societies all over the world. They emphasized the importance of our connections to each other and to the natural world, as well as the importance of finding a connection to the dimension of existence beyond the individual ego self. As David Abram put it in The Spell of the Sensuous, they taught that:
“There is a large community of other beings on whom we depend for nourishment and sustenance … all the plants and the animals … all the landforms, forest, river, cave, mountain, even all the weather patterns … that create our world.
“We exist in a world made of these intelligences, every form we perceive is an experiencing form, with its own sensations, though very different from ours.”
This most ancient of traditions goes back tens of thousands of years, perhaps for as long as we humans have been around, for the wisest among us have always seemed to understand that we had to find ways to live in harmony with other people, with the world around us, and with the mystery lying behind our existence.
Herman Melville, focusing on our connectedness with other humans — although I don’t think he would be reluctant to expand his thought to include the natural world as well as the mystery itself — had this to say:
“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men: and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.”
It is worth reflecting on Melville’s words here: What if, either in the sense of karma or in the modern psychological language of projection, our thoughts and expectations play a large part in the world we experience? What if we frequently think that the attitudes and feelings other people are having are like the ones we have organized our own thinking around? The idea of projection is that we experience in other people what is true within us, often things that we are not owning up to thinking or feeling. So we project onto others what is going on inside us — not because it is true, not because that is what they are actually thinking and feeling — but because our own thoughts and feelings are the lens through which we look at others.
If so, when we are suspicious, angry, or mostly interested in getting something for ourselves — that is how other people will appear to us. Insofar as this is true, the best way to change what we experience, the best way to encounter a kinder, more compassionate world, is to change our own thoughts, feelings, and actions.
There are countless examples of great men and women in every age who followed the call to change themselves and learn to live from compassion, love, and kindness, and then to be of service to others. In modern times there are the examples already mentioned — Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, Albert Schweitzer, and Albert Einstein. (Although Einstein spent much of his life as a physicist, in his later years he devoted considerable time and energy to spreading the message of compassion, care, and concern for others.) Other famous examples in our own age include Mahatmas Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Florence Nightingale, Dorothy Day, and Harriet Tubman.
Gandhi gave a very succinct reason for his lifelong service:
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
And although Winston Churchill is not usually thought of in the same way as those mentioned above, a quote often attributed to him puts their common message powerfully and succinctly:
“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.”
The Importance of the Small
Of course, the examples I have been giving are of famous people, and most of us do not feel up to the challenge of following their examples. It is too easy to feel overwhelmed with all the problems we face, both personally and in the world around us. But that only makes it more crucial to remember that moving toward kindness, compassion, and love does not require grand efforts or radical change. In fact, every change begins with the first small step — so each of us can begin by just doing the little things that arise in our pathway as we interact with others each day. Mother Teresa had it right when she said: “Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you.”
If we simply help those we encounter as we go about out lives — even with a kind word or a smile — we will be doing the good we can. How our actions play out on the larger stage is not up to us. Thus Mother Teresa said: “We cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.”
Mother Teresa is certainly in harmony with the teachings of Jesus in this message. In one of his parables he describes how the King of Heaven will determine who belongs in his company. It shall be those who “when he was hungry, they gave him meat, and when he was thirsty, they gave to drink, when he was a stranger they took him in” … “when he was naked, they clothed him, when he was sick or in prison, they visited him.”
The people listening were confused, asking: “When did we do these things for you?” When did they do such things for the King of Heaven?
The profound answer: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”
Those who were listening clearly were focused on needing to do something for an important person or one who had an important title. Yet Jesus understood that most “big” actions are about the ego, and the ambitions of the doer, rather than the needs of those being served. So his instruction was to simply help the poor and the downtrodden, and we would thereby become the chosen ones ourselves.
William James also saw clearly that most great and grand projects motivated by ego ambitions often do more harm than good, saying in his later years:
“I am done with great things and big plans, great institutions and big success. I am for those tiny, invisible, loving human forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, which, if given time, will rend the hardest monuments of pride.”
If each of us would simply take the little opportunities that come up, moment by moment, to offer a hand when it is needed, the world would be a radically better place. Right now, wherever you are in your life, you can offer kindness and compassion to those you meet, even if it is but a word or a smile.
Often, the greatest service we can give is simply to become conscious of our own failures and to acknowledge our mistakes. A small book, Random Acts of Kindness, has many wonderful examples. Here’s one:
“I was driving home from work one day, and the traffic was terrible. We were crawling along, and out of nowhere, this guy just pulls out onto the shoulder, passes a whole line of cars, and cuts me off so quickly I have to slam on the brakes to keep from crashing into him.
“I was really rattled. About fifteen minutes later, I’m stopped at a light and I look over and there is the same guy next to me, waving for me to roll down my window.
I could feel my adrenaline starting to flow, and all my defenses coming up, but for some reason, I rolled down the window, and he says, ‘I am terribly sorry. Sometimes when I get into my car I become such a jerk. I know this must seem stupid, but I am glad I could find you, to apologize.
“Suddenly, my whole body just relaxed, and all the tension and frustration of the day, the traffic, life just dissipated in this wonderfully warm, unexpected embrace.”
Imagine a world in which all the people who hurt your feelings, offend you, cause you pain and suffering stop and apologize, like that driver did. Unfortunately, none of us has the power to bring this about. We cannot make other people own up to their mistakes, and trying to do so usually makes things worse.
But there is one thing each one of us can do — we can have the courage to recognize and admit to the times we have offended another, have hurt someone’s feelings, have caused pain ourselves. Then we can do what that driver did: Apologize. This will instantly change the world we ourselves are experiencing. And it might even inspire others to act in the same way. I think Socrates would have loved this story, for it makes vivid the importance of coming to know ourselves, and then acting on that knowledge.
The Ever-present Call
I believe the call to be more compassionate, loving, and kind comes to all of us all the time. In fact, it is probably always present, but most of us usually ignore it, only letting it break through into our consciousness occasionally. Even when it does get through, many of us pay little attention because we are so caught up in the details of our daily lives. And even if we do hear its whisper, we turn away because we sense it will not be easy.
It isn’t easy. Often it is only after we have experienced losses and felt vulnerable that we develop deep compassion. Some lines from the poem “Kindness” by Naomi Shihab Nye, capture this powerfully:
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread.
Sometimes we also turn away because we are afraid we will be taken advantage of, or be hurt. This story about Roberto De Vicenzo (a highly successful pro golfer in the 1950s and 60s) has always moved and inspired me to pay less attention to being concerned about being taken advantage of and to focus on good outcomes, however they come about:
“De Vicenzo was playing in a tournament that he won. As he was leaving, a woman came up to him in the parking lot, telling him about how she had lost her job and her baby was sick, and she had no money to pay for medicine.
“He immediately took out his check, endorsed it and handed it over to her. The next week, he was back at the club, and one of the managers said, ‘I hate to tell you this, but you know that lady who you gave the check to, well she’s a fraud; there was no lost job, and no sick baby.’
“You mean there is not a baby dying for lack of medicine? That’s the best news I’ve heard all day!”
I don’t know if the story is true, or has been significantly embellished through the years. But I do know that in our cynical age, it seems unbelievable. Who would take it seriously, for it is just too hard for us to put aside our fear of being taken advantage of and spontaneously do what we can for others. When I first heard this story, I wanted to believe that it was only a small check, or that there would be a punch line saying that the woman saw the light and used the check for others.
But then I realized the real point: We have to take the risk and do what we can without knowing for sure whether the recipients are truly deserving, or if they will use what we give wisely and well. If we always wait to answer those questions, we will seldom do anything to help — and slowly harden our hearts and always pass by when we might have made a difference in someone’s life.
For myself, I now make it a practice to try to remember that lots of people are sincere, honest, and in need because of circumstances beyond their control. And I try to remember a well-known phrase often attributed to St. Francis concerning all those who are suffering misfortune, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”
Of course, sometimes people are faking their needs, are exaggerating, are trying to take advantage. In any situation, this could be happening, so it important to try to be discerning. If we cultivate a strong wish to be generous and giving as often as we can, and simultaneously hone our instincts about people, we will learn to hold back only when the situation seems to truly warrant it — while giving others the benefit of the doubt whenever we can.
Trying to be generous and kind, though, does not mean that we cannot be forceful when our deep instincts tell us the other person needs to be challenged. Sometimes what a person needs most is to take action to help themselves. And most certainly being kind does not mean refraining from being forceful with those in power when they are abusing it. The great exemplars were often gentle and kind toward those who were down and out, while being extremely forceful with those who had power and were misusing it.
Socrates confronted those in power during his lifetime, challenging them to change their ways. Jesus helped the poor and downtrodden, but fiercely berated the powerful pharisees. The Buddha did not hold back from telling the rich and powerful a message that many did not want to hear. Muhammed defied the ruling powers of Mecca and was forced to flee. Confucius called upon everyone to follow the Tao, the Way of Heaven, and did not excuse anyone, even rulers, from the moral law.
In all these cases, the great exemplars were forceful in speaking their truth to those in power, while giving the benefit of the doubt and helping those in need. Trying to avoid being cynical, while always trying to do what we can to help those suffering hardship — even if we err on the side of good heartedness — is a small price to pay to be able to live in a world where we recognize and increase the goodness there is.
A Reciprocal Universe
Many of the wisdom traditions tell us we live in a reciprocal universe, as conveyed in the Biblical verse, “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he reap.” Many eastern traditions emphasize the idea of karma. Ralph Waldo Emerson famously captured both traditions this way:
“The intuition of the moral sentiment is an insight of the perfection of the laws of the soul. These laws execute themselves. They are out of time, out of space, and not subject to circumstance. Thus, in the soul of man there is a justice whose retributions are instant and entire. He who does a good deed is instantly ennobled. He who does a mean deed is by that action itself contracted. … if a man dissemble, deceive, he deceives himself, and goes out of acquaintance with his own being.”
Flora Edwards said it this way: “In helping others, we shall help ourselves, for whatever good we give out completes the circle and comes back to us.” This does not mean that we will instantly be rewarded in the outer world when we do a good deed. Instead, the reward will come within ourselves — in the kind of person we are moving toward becoming.
Further, although all five of the great teachers I have focused on described what happens after this life differently, each one said that by trying to live a moral life now (and a moral life was very similar in all cases), we would be moving toward the best outcome when we die.
In this movement toward becoming a good person, one of the most valuable things we can do is recognize that those we are helping are also helping us — by accepting our gift. Sometimes they do much more, helping us learn lessons we urgently need to learn. This is especially true if we will remember Mother Teresa’s insight: “Charity isn’t about pity; it is about love.” If we pity those we help, we diminish ourselves, as well as the other. If, however, we see service as an opportunity to learn to love more fully, we will be receiving each time we give.
Actually, many of us would rather give than receive, especially with people we know. Yet it is of great value to both parties when we can receive in the right spirit, for receiving with gratitude and humility is itself a service. When giving and receiving flow back and forth in a spirit of mutuality, it becomes an honored exchange, and all are blessed.
This story from Random Acts of Kindness has always touched and inspired me:
“Several years ago, when I was living in Chicago, I read in the newspaper about a little boy who had leukemia. Every time he was feeling discouraged or particularly sick, a package would arrive for him containing some toy or book to cheer him up, with a note saying the present was from the Magic Dragon.
“No one knew who it was. Eventually the boy died, and his parents thought the Magic Dragon finally would come forth and reveal him or herself. But that never happened. After hearing the story, I resolved to become a Magic Dragon myself whenever I could, and have found many occasions to do so.”
If only each of us would take the occasions that arise in our lives to do this, just imagine the difference it would make.
Another story from Random Acts:
“We had just searched a small village that had been suspected of harboring Viet Cong. We really tore the place up — it wasn’t hard to do — but had found nothing. Just up the trail from the village we were ambushed. I got hit and don’t remember anything more until I woke up with a very old Vietnamese woman leaning over me. Before I passed out again, I remembered seeing her in the village we had just destroyed, and I knew I was going to die.
“When I woke again, the hole in my left side had been cleaned and bandaged, and the woman was leaning over me again, offering me a cup of warm tea. As I was drinking the tea and wondering why I was still alive, a helicopter landed nearby to take me back. The woman quietly got up and disappeared down the trail.”
Why on earth would someone whose friends and family had been brutally attacked and killed, help one of the attackers — a total stranger? This is one of the great mysteries of existence. The answer all the great saints and sages have given is that we are all connected, and only by getting out of our narrow, self-centered selves and recognizing that connection will we ever find true happiness or fulfillment.
William Cowper said it this way:
“Existence is a strange bargain. Life owes us little; we owe it everything. The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.”
And Mohammed Ali, who spent many years in the second half of his life being of service, put it powerfully: “Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.”
How To Proceed
Stepping back and looking at the difficulties of our time through the prism of all I have learned during a long life, a few conclusions seem inescapable:
A. If there is any chance to create a better world, the path will be through compassion, love, and kindness. If there is a way through to a better place in our relations with one another, it will be through helping each other, and not through placing blame — or joining any of the contending hostile groups.
B. As long as we seek only to make our own lives better, we will fail. We are inextricably connected with others and with the larger web within which we exist.
C. The greatest offering anyone can make toward creating a better world is by cultivating understanding, respect, and consideration for others. No matter the condition of the world around us, each of us has the capacity to increase the level of compassion, kindness, and love within ourselves and to share those energies with the people we meet as we travel along on our life journey.
D. Without a connection to something greater than our personal ego concerns, life’s trajectory always points downward toward meaninglessness and death.
To achieve any of these noble aims, however, requires that a person go beyond knowledge to wisdom: to come to know themselves and the world around them deeply enough that they can discern what is true from the misleading, the self-interested, and the self-deluding; to gain the wisdom to know the genuine and real from the fake and intentionally false; to use an ages-old metaphor, to separate the wheat from the chaff.
It is, of course, hard to know how to proceed toward positive goals when mired in the struggles we face in our daily lives. But Pauline R. Kezer gives us a solution:
“When you do nothing, you feel overwhelmed and powerless. But when you get involved, you feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes from knowing you are working to make things better.”
The best ways I know to move forward on this path are:
1) Begin, right now, this minute, to practice kindness as best you can.
William Penn, the Quaker who had a profound influence on early America, captured the essence of this message:
“If there is any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not deter or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.”
And the Dalai Lama provided a simple path forward:
“My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.”
2) Make a determined effort to understand and respect everyone you meet (even those with whom you disagree).
Jesus famously said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” In one of his most radical teachings, he gave a message that is almost impossibly challenging: “if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.”
The Buddha gave the same message with great force:
“Hatreds never cease through hatred; through love alone they cease. This is an eternal law.”
He also said:
“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”
3) Simply help someone who needs help.
The importance of service, of simply helping others toward a better life, is made vivid by the fact that the most influential people in history — Jesus, the Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, and Muhammed — all spent their lives in trying to help other people. Socrates seemed totally unconcerned about money or status, spending his time teaching anyone who wished to learn. And he did it without charge.
When Jesus began his mission, he stated clearly what he was called to do:
Preach the gospel to the poor;
Heal the brokenhearted,
Proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed.
Much closer to our own time, Charles Dickens wrote many books about life’s journey, portraying vividly the struggles we face, and the range of responses people make — some good, some bad — and all the nuances that fall in-between. During his life and times there were certainly as many problems as there are today, and he gave us memorable images of cruelty, corruption, and greed. He saw the challenges we face and the compromises we make as clearly as any author I know.
In one of the best-selling books of all time, A Christmas Carol, Dickens gives the message of service very powerfully. In the story, Scrooge says to the ghost of his dead business partner, Jacob Marley:
“But you were always a good man of business, Jacob.”
Marley, who had been a greedy miser during his life, replies:
“Business! Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
Summing up this message in another place, Dickens said:
“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.”
4) Seek a connection to something larger than yourself, and try to come into harmony with That.
As William James made clear, the central message of all the wisdom traditions is that there is an Unseen Order, “and our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto.” It is directly out of this connection to something greater than our small ego selves that the common message of compassion, love, kindness, and service grows.
Within each of the traditions, various methods are offered for establishing and maintaining this connection, as well as for overcoming the resistance of the ego to bringing oneself into harmony with that which is larger than ourselves. Different methods are emphasized, such as being in nature, listening to music, meditation, prayer, and many more. But one of the most important is being of service to others.
Viktor Frankl’s life is a dramatic example of this path. After surviving the Nazi concentration camps, he went on to teach that a meaningful life is possible no matter the difficulty of one’s circumstances. His own life in the death camps is a powerful example (certainly one of the most difficult of places one can imagine for trying to rise above one’s personal concerns).
In his book The Search for Meaning, about his experiences in the camps, he movingly describes those who went around helping others, giving them their own food, risking their own safety to help those most in need. Their number was small, but their effect was immense, by giving many hope and inspiring others to follow their examples. Also of significance, those who gave of themselves were the ones who were most at peace, fared best, and even were the most likely to survive.
Booker T. Washington captures the reason:
“Those who are happiest are those who do the most for others.”
Martin Seligman, a psychologist deeply influenced by Frankl, sums up the message:
“In a meaningful life you use your highest strengths and talents to belong to and serve something you believe is larger than the self.”
Fortunately, most of us do not have to endure trials as great as those of Frankl, but we are all called to do the little things that present themselves to us in our own lives. Albert Camus caught a clear glimpse of the reason:
“When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him.”
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This essay is focused on a handful of traits that the wisest teachers have insisted were important for a fulfilling life: love, compassion, kindness, wisdom, self-knowledge, and service to others. Earlier essays explored Love, Service, and Kindness in greater depth. You can find them on my web site:
Love: https://ameaningfullife.org/uncategorized/the-love-that-moves-the-universe/
Service: https://ameaningfullife.org/uncategorized/the-call-to-service/
Kindness: https://ameaningfullife.org/uncategorized/just-be-kind/