September 24, 2023
The fourth Essay in the Two Worldviews series tackles the questions of why bad things happen, and if the world can really be a good place when there are so many problems.
Does the world seem like a good place to you?
In the United States especially, but other countries as well, polls show that the prevailing attitude about the nature of the world has fallen dramatically in the last few decades. This has led to a sharp rise in loneliness, alienation, drug use, and suicide — even among young people. Albert Einstein defined, in his view, the most important question facing humanity: “Is the universe a friendly place?” And Einstein concluded that he believed that it is, a similar conclusion to that of Martin Luther King, Jr. when he said, “The arc of the moral universe is long,” but it bends toward what is right and good.
Why Do Bad Things Happen?
Skeptico: If the world is a good place, why do bad things happen so often?
Wisdom Seeker: Because most of the time you identify “good” with what you want, with what suits you and your friends. But the world is not set up to fulfill your immediate desires; it is not organized to give you what your ego wants. Thus, before you can really know whether the world is a good place, whether it is friendly to us, you must understand what “good” actually is.
Skeptico: So what do you think it is; how do you understand it?
Wisdom Seeker: For me, the first issue is deciding whether there is a universal Good, beyond what any individual or group believes or wants.
I think ice cream is good, but that does not mean everyone should, and it doesn’t affect my view of the world if other people don’t like it. When I think a movie is good, someone else might think it is terrible, but that doesn’t lead me to conclude that the world is a bad place. Neither of those opinions involve larger issues, so it doesn’t matter whether other people feel the same way I do.
A few things, however, that involve universal issues, mostly concerning whether there are any shared values to live by, how we will treat each other, and if life has any meaning. All these go beyond individual taste or opinion, and beyond what any one group or person thinks or believes. And on these issues rests the question of whether there is a universal Good that provides a basis for deciding if there is a “moral arc” or if the world is a “friendly” place.
Skeptico: To be honest, I guess most of the time I do think that when I am getting what I want, the world is a good place, and that it is not a good place when things I don’t like happen, either to me or people I care about.
Wisdom Seeker: That is being very honest, and takes us directly to the heart of the matter. Like you, most people feel that what is good is whatever their egos want. Some extend that to family, tribe, community, or nation, depending on what our parents, culture, or religion have told us we should want, or believe.
The core question, however, is whether that is all there is, or if there is a Good that exists beyond what we personally want or were taught to believe, a Good originating in an underlying order that encompasses everyone.
Skeptico: How does that relate to why so many bad things happen?
Wisdom Seeker: Let’s back way up. Organic life is a truly marvelous thing. Highly complex organic life is even more incredible, and it seems to be very rare. Perhaps it exists in other places in this vast universe, but we haven’t found it yet, and we have done a lot of looking.
The problem of bad things happening begins precisely with the existence of this rare and precious gift; begins with the fact that organic life is subject to disease, sickness, injury, and death. Anything without organic life does not experience “bad” events; as far as we can tell, rocks do not get sick or worry. But all living things must deal with disease, sickness, injury, and death, and all have some level of awareness of these possibilities, because they take actions to avoid them.
Awareness, of course, does not always imply conscious awareness. There are many levels, and it is an amazing jump from cellular instinct to a conscious mind. Yet many higher animals have made the leap — are conscious of pain and hunger, can anticipate, plan, build, store for the future, and a significant number demonstrate some degree of awareness of what makes them feel good or bad.
Far beyond even that level of awareness, however, human beings (and perhaps a few other species) have taken another gigantic step — to forming a personal identity, developing the ability to reflect on ourselves, to evaluate what we are thinking, and even choose what we will think about. Perhaps most dramatic of all, we can stop and consider options before acting.
Most other living things, on the other hand, seem to act from instinct — either a bodily urge or an internalized response learned at a young age. Most individual creatures do not seem to pause and reflect before acting. (It is quite possible a few other species do, but it is hard for us to know because communication is limited.) But very few life forms seem to have this ability, at least to the extent we humans do.
Here, then, is the radical difference between human beings and most other living things — we do not always act on our first instinct, whether a primal urge or an enculturated response performed unconsciously. We sometimes do this, but because of our reflective minds we are aware that we have a separate self; we have “self” consciousness. Thus we can think about and weigh options and choose among them — can stop and decide on a course of action.
We also have an awareness of time and its passage that seems different from most other living things. We are able to reflect on the future and the past, make plans, and organize resources to carry out complex projects over time — which has made possible the development of science, medicine, cities, airplanes, complex communication systems, growing and storing food in complicated ways, and so much more.
Skeptico: But those seem like good things — what does it have to do with bad things happening?
Wisdom Seeker: There’s the rub. All these benefits of reflective thinking bring along problems. We humans have preferences, opinions, specific expectations. We make plans, have ambitions, and think about how other people see us — all of which greatly increase our tendency to worry about the future and to feel bad about things that happened in the past.
Because we have reflective consciousness, we worry about disease, accidents, failure, impoverishment, war, murder, and other “bad” things happening, both to ourselves and those we care about. We agonize over whether our plans and ambitions will succeed or fail. We fret about death, our own, as well as those we love.
Without the gift of reflective consciousness, we would not be aware of how events in the future might affect our lives in negative ways. We would not anticipate bad things happening and we would not be aware that this organic lifeform we inhabit will die before we get to do all the things we want to do. Perhaps this Biblical myth of dwelling in the “garden” without the kind of anxiety and depression we now have is one of the first attempts to articulate the blessing, as well as the curse, we acquired when we became “self” conscious. Perhaps “eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” and being “cast out of the garden” are symbolic for the price we paid for developing reflective consciousness.
Whether that is the case or not, as far as we can tell, most other living things do not worry about next week or next year, about getting sick, or about their own deaths. Instead, they act from instinct — sharks don’t usually pause and think before acting or seem to have much guilt about their actions, no matter how vicious such actions seem to us. Individual ants don’t seem to worry about dying.
Certainly some of the problems we humans face are shared with other living things, but the vital point is that many of them are inseparable from having the gift of reflective consciousness. Others, however, are not, for we bring them on ourselves, create them with our thinking minds. For instance, we tend to always want more — more pleasures, more wealth, more security, more status, more power. Then, when we don’t get everything we want, we are upset, anxious, sad, or angry.
In response to such feelings, we redouble our efforts to get more, become driven, hurt others, and cause even more problems. We start wars, steal, cheat, rape, kill, and torture each other physically and emotionally. In the drive for great wealth we pollute our planet. In seeking popularity we put others down — online media are filled with personal attacks, resentments, paranoia, disparagement of other groups, and conspiracy theories. Other living things have not been observed doing these things, at least not much.
And perhaps unique to human beings, we direct our dissatisfactions inward and cause ourselves inner suffering by spending time creating fearful scenarios in our minds. We hold on to anger, sometimes for years, ask ourselves “what if,” focus on what we don’t have, and do harm to ourselves by eating too much, drinking too much, abusing drugs, gambling unwisely, and sabotaging our own achievements.
Then we wonder why so many bad things happen.
We Are Social Creatures
Skeptico: How does this relate to the choice between the two worldviews?
Wisdom Seeker: Whichever worldview a person chooses between Materialism and that of the wisdom traditions, we humans are social creatures, so most of us will gather into groups. We do so to meet our social needs, for mutual safety, and for combined strength. All groups have rules of behavior — for how members are supposed to behave toward those in the group, as well as toward those outside the group.
Those rules will be radically different, however, depending on whether they are based on the underlying beliefs of Materialism or those of the wisdom traditions. Materialists believe all our actions are ultimately motivated by the primal forces of finding food to eat, avoiding being eaten, sexual fulfillment, and attaining power and status.
Skeptico: Animal communities have rules they follow.
Wisdom Seeker: Yes, all animal communities have patterns of behavior developed over long periods of time and passed along generation by generation — workable patterns of living each new member is enculturated to follow. As far as modern studies have been able to determine, though, this has happened without conscious awareness on any individual animal’s part. Experts don’t believe most individual animals stop and try to decide what is right or wrong; they simply respond through biological instinct and rules of enculturation that were unconsciously absorbed.
Materialists say that human beings are exactly like this, that we are controlled by the same factors and our belief that we have free will is an illusion. The wisdom traditions have a radically different view. They say that we humans have the capacity to understand fairness, justice, respect for others, love, compassion, kindness, and other virtues, and that we can consciously stop and decide to act in these ways. Even when these higher values run in the opposite direction to our basic instincts. The traditions assert that we have the ability to stop and think about how values should be applied in any given situation, that we can override immediate instincts and choose to do what is right and good. As psychologist William James said:
“We have lots of urges and instincts … isn’t it fortunate that we developed consciousness to be able to make decisions between them?”
Of course, we don’t always do this. In fact, we often do not. But the wisdom traditions say there are a few universal values that we have the capacity to understand and choose to follow — if we will. They tell us these core values are as much a part of the Universal Order as gravity, eternally present as the Tao, the Good, the Dharma, the Way of Heaven, the Divine Law.
In a similar way, our ability to know and choose deeper meanings for our lives — versus always pursuing self-interest and personal ego goals — reflects the universe’s intention of harmony. By choosing values and meanings we all share, each one of us has the opportunity to play our part in bringing the universal harmony into fruition.
In that sense, as Shakespeare put it: “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends.” But Shakespeare was profoundly aware that each person can choose self-interest instead of the greater Good, can serve disorder rather than harmony. Thus our capacity to consciously reflect and choose the meanings and values we will live gives us a unique role — to do our part in bringing human life into harmonious relationship with other people and with the natural world all around us. If we will.
The poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrestled throughout his life with whether he thought there was a larger Order in the universe, often conveying his frustration in ways that sound like many of us in the modern world. He asks our question: “What am I supposed to be doing here on the earth?” This is his answer:
“We are the bees of the invisible world. … We perpetually gather the honey of the visible world in order to store it in the great golden hive of the invisible one.”
Only if a few higher values exist in the “invisible” world can a meaningful concept of right versus wrong or good versus bad exist. If there is no underlying moral order, the only alternative is to live by the “law of the jungle.” If that is your view of the world, the only restraint to your actions, the only reason you would not do exactly what you wanted when you wanted, would be encountering another person or group that had the power to force you to do what they wanted. Or to punish you if you did something they did not like.
If there is no universal Good, then fairness, justice, and shared values would be impossible. If there is no universal Good, there is no underlying basis for any spiritual belief system. If there is no universal Good, then Jesus, the Buddha, Muhammed, Confucius, and every other teacher who felt they had connected with a universal Source of wisdom and truth were mistaken or deluded.
In a world with no shared values, people would still form groups with rules of behavior, but they would be organized to benefit those who hold the most power in the group, and within each group there would be a constant battle for internal power and control. And the rules of behavior would be enforced through fear, status symbols, and monetary rewards — which is the way gangs and crime families seem to be organized.
Individuals in groups organized in this way work with others, but the underlying motivation of each member is to get what they can for themselves, to fulfill their instinctual urges and ego desires however they can. This organizing framework does not teach individuals in the group a higher basis for deciding right versus wrong for themselves, or encourage them to believe there are higher values beyond the self-interest of the group.
Skeptico: Most communities and cultures through history have not been organized this way.
Wisdom Seeker: Definitely not. Almost all that have been successful over time have been organized around a moral framework taught by one or more of the wisdom traditions. Sometimes there have been several traditions present, but almost everyone within every society has functioned within the moral framework of one of the traditions. Even those individuals who did not consciously embrace a tradition had been brought up within a family that had passed along through the generations the moral structure and beliefs of one of the wisdom traditions. I have known several people who did not consider themselves religious at all who firmly held values that could easily be traced through their family history.
Of course, most communities have a few people who are completely self-centered and will break all the moral standards if they feel they can get away with it. They might try to look good to others and perform publicly according to the prevailing view of behavior (unless they have so much power they don’t feel a need to do so). Even if they appear to be good citizens, they will be doing whatever they can to get what they personally want. Public actions will be about trying to look like good, law-abiding, upstanding people, but in private they will be doing whatever they can get away with, even committing atrocities like rape, child abuse, and murder — if they feel their actions won’t become widely known.
A Powerful Force for Good
Throughout history, entire cultures have also been organized in ways that tolerated, even promoted, behaviors that defied any sense of a universal good. Those in power have mistreated and denied basic rights to those in other groups. Slavery, financial exploitation, and torture have been sanctioned. Strong countries have attacked other countries, even genocide has been undertaken.
In the face of these actions, voices have always arisen to challenge the morality of rulers and ruling groups. Spiritual voices have arisen, calling on the conscience of people inside and outside the offending societies — going back to ancient times and the prophets in the Bible, to Socrates’ defiance of the ruling class in Athens, and Cicero’s choosing death rather than service to an immoral Caesar.
In recent centuries we have seen anti-slavery movements all over the world; the emergence of leaders challenging the unfairness of British actions in the American colonies that led to the Revolutionary War; the rise of democratic movements in many countries in opposition to arbitrary and oppressive rulers; Lincoln’s call to the moral conscience of Americans that was decisive to victory in the Civil War; numerous leaders such as Emmeline Pankhurst, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucretia Mott who led the early fight for women’s rights; the growing opposition to the immoral actions of the Nazis and Fascists that was crucial for their defeat; the eventual success of the independence movement led by Gandhi in India (and his decision to appeal directly to the consciences of the British people to support what was “right”); Buddhists monks and nuns standing up to and sometimes sacrificing themselves in opposition to amoral leaders; and to the civil rights movement in the United States.
A key leader in that movement, Martin Luther King Jr., captured the essence of this higher morality, versus laws that are simply practical or customs that have grown up over time without being grounded in higher values. In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” he wrote that there are just and unjust laws, and although we have a legal responsibility to obey unjust laws, we have a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.
Ultimately, King said, we must ask of our consciences, “Is it right?” If the answer is “no” — then, even if it requires sacrifice, “There comes a time when we must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular.” Why? “Because it is right.”
The wisdom traditions have been trying to tell us this for thousands of years — that there is a shared basis for right versus wrong and good versus bad, and if our lives are going to feel meaningful and worthwhile we must recognize and honor it. Because we have reflective consciousness and the ability to make conscious decisions, our life together will not be successful — we will not be able to live together with any harmony — if the core motivations are only getting all we can for ourselves, are focused on power and success, or producing as many personal offspring as we can.
The central message of the wisdom traditions has always been that there is another dimension to existence, and to find fulfillment it is necessary to make a serious attempt to bring one’s own life into harmony with the Tao, the Dharma, the Great Spirit, the “Unseen Order.” In Christian language, it is to make an effort to take on the Mind of Christ and view the world through those eyes. Finding and trying to live by shared values and meanings is not only a good idea, but essential to a fulfilling life.
Each tradition also provides a path toward living a fulfilled life, starting with some version of the Golden Rule. And all insist on a combination of virtues such as compassion, love, kindness, and respect for others. The message they give is that there is a Good, and if we come into harmony with That, we will know the world is “friendly” to us — is friendly to our deepest selves, to who we truly are.
Our individual work, therefore, is to refrain from trying to force the world to comply with our ego wishes and desires. Instead, as the novelist Henry Miller put it:
“The world is not to be put in order; the world is in order. It is for us to put ourselves in unison with this order.”
Skeptico: How does this fit with trying to make the world a better place?
Wisdom Seeker: Most spiritual exemplars tried very hard to help others and to improve things if they could. To actually be able to do anything worthwhile, however, a person must first recognize that a Higher Good exists and make sure their efforts are in harmony with that.
The problem with so many efforts people make is that they are trying to “fix the world” by attempting to get it to conform to how they personally think it should be. To actually do good, though, the opposite approach is necessary. Only when we are no longer blinded by images of what we personally want, are not trying to force the world to conform to our ego images of how it should be, will we be able to accurately evaluate how to move toward a moral world. And only when we are actually serving the Higher Good will we be of any real help to others.
Abraham Lincoln understood this as well as anyone. Through many internal struggles and fighting through serious depression, he became more and more conscious of what he was choosing and why. As the battle over slavery intensified and he was making profound decisions that affected so many lives, he tried to understand what he should do in this way: “My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side.”
It is all too common in history for those seeking wealth and power to claim that God is on their side. But from Lincoln’s perspective, there is a Higher Order in the universe, and committing ourselves to serve That is the only way to be on God’s side. Lincoln came to the conclusion that it was his mission to commit whatever time and energy he had left on this Earth to serve the Higher Good by holding this young nation together and simultaneously ending the evils of slavery.
His moral convictions gave him the strength to make difficult decisions and overcome great personal trials on the way to winning the Civil War. Then, when the war ended, the moral strength and the compassion he had gained through his own difficult struggles led him to reach out in peace to the defeated side with a sincere effort to heal the wounds in the fabric of the country.
A hundred and fifty years later I can still sense Lincoln’s inner struggles, sometimes simply by looking at pictures of his face. I sense the great suffering he endured, but also see the inner strength that kept his mind and heart focused on his ideals and commitment to deep moral values. When the war ended, I think Lincoln had found peace within.
If our actions are anchored in the highest values, we can act and be at peace, knowing we have served the Good. A wonderful image of this comes in Tolkien’s great trilogy, The Lord of the Rings. At a time when Samwise Gamgee and Frodo Baggins have already been through extremely difficult trials, they realize they must undertake even greater danger — from which they are unlikely to return. In reflecting on their situation,
Samwise says:
“It’s like in the great stories Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. … But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.
“Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something.”
Frodo asks Sam:
“What are we holding on to, Sam?”
Samwise says:
“That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.”
Although few are called to risk their lives, most of us have a powerful intuitive sense that what Samwise says is true. In the Lord of the Rings, many lives are lost and many good people die. But Samwise is saying that, in spite of all the suffering and death, a good life is about choosing to serve the Good — even if it means great sacrifice. Samwise chooses to risk his life in service of an ultimate Good that is worth fighting for.
Materialists say this view is a fantasy, but all the great saints and sages of history have supported the heartfelt voice of the humble hobbit, and their lives have been living expressions of its truth.
How Did They Live?
Reading about the lives of respected wisdom figures, many were surrounded by war, hunger, disease, and all manner of suffering. From Jesus and the early Christians who were persecuted to modern-day saints such as Mother Teresa and Thérèse of Lisieux, countless Christians have had to deal with great difficulties.
The Buddha had a highly privileged material existence, yet he left it all and consciously chose intense discipline and privations, as have many other Buddhists for 2500 years. Well-known modern figures like Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama have dealt with incredible struggles in their homelands.
At the beginning of Islam, various attempts were made on Muhammed’s life, and wars were launched to wipe out his early community. In the Middle Ages, the poet Rumi recounts the pain of loss he endured in his spiritual journey, and some modern-day Sufis are being persecuted for their views today.
Surveying the lives of important historical figures demonstrates that struggles and difficulties characterize most of those who developed great character and wisdom. In the political arena Lincoln, Gandhi, and Mandela were inspiring political leaders who suffered much, and partly because of their own difficulties were able to understand the pain of others. Florence Nightingale willingly chose the challenges she faced, while Helen Keller endured years of suffering because of her physical condition — before rising above it and using what she had learned to positively influence the lives of many.
The list could go on and on, for the greatest lives were forged in the furnace of hardship and struggle. Extreme suffering at the hands of the Nazis and Fascists was central to the development of the positive visions of the great psychologists Victor Frankl and Roberto Assagioli. And recognition of the suffering of others has been the fuel for most all social and political reformers such as Dorothy Day, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
The pattern is so common it begins to appear that, in order to see and serve the Higher Good, some level of suffering is necessary, perhaps to burn away attachment to ego desires and the craving for physical satisfactions. Emily Dickinson gave us a vivid image of this path in a poem that compares the process to being purified by intense heat in a blacksmith’s forge. The poem begins with the line, “Dare you see a Soul at the White Heat?” and ends with these lines.
Least Village has its Blacksmith
Stands symbol for the finer Forge
That soundless tugs — within —
Refining these impatient Ores
With Hammer, and with Blaze
Until the Designated Light
Repudiate the Forge—
The great wisdom figures of history were molded upon this forge, and after the fire did its work, were able to dedicate their lives to causes that have helped an incalculable number. Refined by the heat and stress of struggle and challenge, they emerged and shone forth with a light that has illuminated billions of lives ever since.
It was this radiant light that drew others to the saints and sages, especially people who were suffering. It was the sick in heart and mind, as well as body, who were first drawn to Jesus and the Buddha. As Joseph Campbell summed up, the reason so many gathered around them was that they radiated the possibility of hope and healing. They could be in the presence of others who were suffering without turning away, even with, as Campbell put it, a “Joyful participation in the sorrows of the world.”
The same was true for many spiritual figures who spent considerable time and energy serving those in need. People flocked to them for help and support, and they ministered to those who were suffering from emotional loss, assisted with basic physical needs, and offered healing for physical bodies. Most importantly, they offered healing from spiritual confusion, for many came seeking a connection to the spiritual Source.
When a crippled man was brought to Jesus for the healing of his physical body, the first thing Jesus said was, ‘Your sins are forgiven.” When he sensed that the scribes were questioning why he said this, Jesus replied: “Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Arise, take up your mat and walk’?”
It was only after dealing with the important issue first, the man’s sins, that Jesus told the paralytic he was now physically healed so he could walk. The meaning I take from this passage is that the healing of the spiritual body was the most important thing Jesus offered, but he could also heal the physical body — if that would help that person or others open the door to the healing of their spiritual bodies.
This understanding of the passage is reinforced by considering the word “sins” as Jesus used it. Jesus likely spoke Aramaic, which is similar to Hebrew, so he probably used the word khoba. In the Hebrew Bible the word often used for sins is khata (or sometimes hata), and all three words could best be translated into English as “missing the goal” or “going astray.”
The first written texts we have of Jesus’ words, however, are in the early Greek of the New Testament. There, the word used for “sins” is hamartia — which means “missing the mark.” So anytime you see the word “sins” in the Bible, think of someone being off course, not headed in the right direction. In the story of the paralytic, then, according to Jesus the man’s life has been “missing the mark.”
The solution that Jesus offers to everyone whose life is not going in the right direction is given at the very beginning of the Gospel of Mark: “Metanoia, and believe the Good News!” You might not have seen the word metanoia as the word Jesus spoke, unless you have read the Gospels in Greek. The translation you are likely familiar with is, “Repent, and believe this Good News!” But metanoia, the word Jesus used from the earliest Greek texts, means to “change one’s consciousness,” “change one’s perspective,” “think differently after an experience or insight,” or “step into a larger frame of mind.”
Jesus is therefore saying, “If your life is missing the mark and you wish to be healed, you must open into a broader awareness of who you are and what life is about.” The only way to be truly healed is to change your perspective, to step into a larger frame of mind.
There is a well-known story about the Buddha healing a woman through helping her change her consciousness, awaken to a larger perspective. This young mother was going mad with grief because she could not bear the death of her one-year-old child. She was taking her dead baby from house to house, begging for someone to bring the child back to life.
Someone told her to go see the Buddha, and when she found him, she made her plea. He replied, “There is only one way to solve your problem. Go and find me four or five mustard seeds from any family in which there has never been a death.”
She visited many families but discovered that every single one had experienced death. She began to understand what the Buddha wanted her to find out for herself — that suffering is a part of life, and death comes to us all. It is the same message that Jesus delivered when he said that his Father sends the “sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” We all suffer the good and bad of being alive in an organic body.
As the grieving woman began to accept that the death of loved ones is certain, and that good and bad are an inevitably part of being human, she began to heal from her grieving. After a while, she returned to the Buddha and became one of his most devoted followers. Her healing, as with all true healing at the deepest level, required gaining the perspective that as long as she identified with her personal desires and ego wishes, she would have dukkha.
It is fascinating that the Buddha’s word for having difficulties is dukkha, which is often translated as “suffering.” To be more accurate, however, the meaning of dukkha is unsatisfactoriness; it is to be out of balance — like a wheel that is out of kilter and not rolling as it should. Both Jesus and the Buddha are saying that the core problem we face is that our lives are unsatisfactory, are missing the mark, because we do not have the right perspective. The solution is to gain a much clearer awareness of who we are and what our lives are about, so we can bring our lives into harmony with the underlying Order of the universe, the Dharma, the Higher Good.
The Dual Message of the Wisdom Traditions
Skeptico: Where does this leave us with the question: “If this is a moral world, why do so many bad things happen?”
Wisdom Seeker: The wisdom traditions give a two-part answer.
1) Human life, all organic life, is subject to suffering and death. It is part of the package of being born. Imagine the result if all living things that have ever been born did not die — organic life would have come to an end thousands of years ago. There would have been no room to crowd everything onto the planet; not enough places to live; not enough food for the exponentially multiplying number of living things; and not enough organic matter returned to the soil to nurture the next generation. The planet would have choked long ago.
Skeptico: That is a powerful point, but couldn’t it be different for human beings?
Wisdom Seeker: Take a second and you will see that is impossible too. If every human who was born in the past had not died, the world would have been filled to overflowing with hundreds of billions of people centuries ago.
Death is the necessary price to pay for having an individual organic lifeform on the Earth, and disease and accidents are the way it comes to us in a natural way. What is not necessary is all the harm we inflict on each other and ourselves.
Skeptico: What about pain; why do we have to have that?
Wisdom Seeker: Physical pain is a warning signal, a message to be careful, to look after our bodies and avoid certain actions. A few rare individuals have been born without the ability to feel physical pain, and they can’t function by themselves because they can’t avoid doing things that cause themselves harm. In a similar way, sickness reminds us to rest, take care of ourselves, and avoid what made us sick if we can.
The first message of the wisdom traditions is, therefore, that pain, sickness, accidents, and death are a natural part of life. It is fine to do what we can to alleviate these things in ourselves and others. But after doing that in a reasonable way, the wise path is to accept with equanimity and grace that which cannot be avoided. The healthy way forward in the face of difficulties is to respond to the natural unfolding of life with acceptance and tranquility.
There are role models in every culture for such a life; through the eons, countless individuals have followed just this path to a fulfilled life. By using their reflective consciousness in a positive way, they refused to become angry, anxious, disappointed, or unhappy in the face of the difficulties. They made determined efforts to turn away from worry and fear, while cultivating a commitment to serve a meaning greater than individual ego selves.
In the concentration camps of the Nazis, Viktor Frankl came to understand this part of the message at a very deep level, saying:
“When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will accept his suffering as his … single and unique task. … His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden. … Suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.”
The Freudian-trained psychiatrist Roberto Assagioli was arrested by the Fascists in Italy at the start of WWII, because he was Jewish. At first he felt it like “a blow,” with a “tightening in my solar plexus.” After a little time, however, he felt that he “woke up,” and then “a quiet but firm sense of inner dignity arose and pervaded my consciousness.”
He was put in solitary confinement, but through a series of inner practices of his own devising he began to have a series of profound realizations, culminating with this profound experience:
“The realization of independence from circumstances, the realization of inner freedom. We should of course realize the freedoms from fear, want, etc., but the right emphasis should be given to that inner freedom, without which all others are not sufficient. My dedication is to the task of helping men and women free themselves from inner prisons.”
2) The second part of the answer given by the wisdom traditions is that we humans cause additional, unnecessary suffering by the way we treat each other. Often this suffering is greater than that associated with our physical bodies.
It is here that the message of the wisdom traditions is one of hope and possibility. They prescribe ways we can live together in peace and harmony, and countless human beings have done just this in tribes, communities, and even some nations, a few over thousands of years.
Skeptico: How?
Wisdom Seeker: Through practicing what the wisdom traditions teach — making a sincere effort to live by a few common values such as respect for others, kindness, love, compassion, mutual care, and generosity, values that come from a Source higher than our personal ego wishes and wants.
Individuals in these successful societies knew death, disease, and loss, but they understood them as the price to be paid for having this precious thing called life. They lost loved ones, but they understood this as the inevitable consequence of having the beauty and wonder of love. They accepted the natural unfolding of life with grace, even gratitude. And they tried not to harm each other, instead helping others when they could.
In some of these communities, long and happy lives were common, a goodly number living beyond 100 years — especially in those places where the elderly were cherished and treated with respect. (See Youth in Old Age by Alexander Leaf and The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who’ve Lived the Longest by Dan Buettner.) Some communities still live like this today, but they are becoming more rare.
Crucially, these communities did not cause so many of the problems we face in the modern world for themselves. They understood that for everyone to have a good life there must be mutual acceptance of a few core values and an internal commitment by most in the community to try to live by them. There was a mutual commitment to be kind and help each other as much as possible and to treat others with respect and goodwill. These are the messages the wisdom traditions taught in the communities that have been successful over time.
Certainly some members of these communities acted in negative ways, but perfection is not required. All that is necessary is that a significant number of those in a community live in this way most of the time. If this begins to break down and more and more people revert to outward posturing about being a good person — without having an inner commitment to being good — the descent to dysfunction is underway.
This process can accelerate quickly, with the community breaking down into interest groups or identity groups, each fighting for power, wealth, and influence. If this process continues, interest groups will begin to act like gangs, resulting in increased lawlessness and violence, and even civil war.
Fortunately, no matter what is going on in the world, any individual can live in the ways taught by the wisdom traditions. Furthermore, in every place and time, no matter how bad conditions have gotten, some individuals have always done so. And many are doing just this today, in our modern societies. Crucially, any one of us can choose this path for ourselves. It might be difficult, but the saints and sages tell us that the rewards are great — that it is the only path to peace, love, joy, and true fulfillment.
If you doubt this truth, you need only look at all those who developed into the wise ones of every age — many of whom did so in the most difficult of circumstances. The names we are familiar with are the ones who created and carried forward the wisdom traditions that are present today, but there are millions whose names we do not know, people who lived in every culture all over the world. Ordinary people like you and me who made a sincere effort to organize around a meaning greater than their personal selves, and tried as best they could to live by a few core values.
How To Proceed
Skeptico: How can I do that in my world right now?
Wisdom Seeker: The first step is to embrace all of who you are, including the marvelous gift of your ego self. Without an ego, human life would not be possible, and the ego’s healthy development is a necessary prerequisite to any further growth and development. The graveyard of spiritual journeys is strewn with those who faltered and failed because their egos were not strong and healthy.
The great danger, however, is that a strong ego becomes inflated and decides it is the “be all and end all” of life. But it is not. There are levels of life and experience going far beyond anything the ego can know. Insofar as the ego tries too hard to avoid or prevent its inevitable suffering, it will thwart any growth beyond itself. Then the downward spiral will begin, and the ego will sink further and further into disillusion and despair.
The next step, and a great antidote to an inflated ego is to explore your shadow, the parts of yourself that you do not know and have not accepted. In fact, many of the things that you think are “bad” in the world are parts of your own shadow that you are projecting onto other people. (See my Essay “Ten Levels of Myself” at — https://ameaningfullife.org/uncategorized/6-ten-levels-of-myself-part-ii/
Besides dealing with the difficulties of an organic life, coming to terms with your own shadow is challenging, and sometimes painful. This is precisely why the wisdom teachers did not say our ego selves would not suffer. In fact, they said that human life is not always friendly to what our egos want or think they need, so when we are overly focused on what our small selves want or do not want, “bad” things will happen more and more frequently.
Carl Jung called the higher part of us, that which is beyond the ego, the Self, and said, “The encounter with the Self is felt as a defeat for the ego.” Any time the ego is faced with its own smallness and lack of importance, it will feel defeated. This can be painful for a time, but if faced and accepted, is a healthy step toward wholeness.
The path forward is not a mystery; there is no hidden text or esoteric formula. The reason it seems obscure to many of us is that it is not easy and we do not want to do the work that will be required — we want a magic pill or a mystical spell.
When, however, you begin to understand that it is your ego self that is suffering, and not your deeper self, at that very moment you start to loosen the ego’s grip on your growth into new realms. When you understand that it is your ego that has been defining what suffering is, and you do not have to accept that definition, you have opened into the possibility of finding what really matters and that which has true meaning for you. The immediate result will be that you worry less about the wants and desires of your ego and the cravings of your organic body, and you will feel a huge relief. Rumi said it this way:
In that moment you are drunk on yourself,
You lock yourself away in cloud after cloud of grief,
And in that moment you leap free of yourself,
The moon catches you and hugs you in its arms.
This has been the heart of the message of the wisdom traditions for millennia: That our ego selves are not who we truly are. In the Buddha’s words, who we are is the Deathless, and if we will be vigilant, if we will use our reflective consciousness to see who we really are, we will understand for ourselves these words of the Buddha: “Vigilance is the path to the Deathless. The vigilant do not die.”
In Christianity the message is that we each have an essence, a soul, and that is who we truly are. And that essence does not die, for it is a part of the divine breath first breathed into Adam. In the Jewish Kabballah, we are each a spark of the one divine light, the Ein Sof.
For Plato and Socrates it is the psyche (translated into English as soul) that is the essence of a person — the eternal, incorporeal part of a person’s being. And in the ancient Greek traditions from which these wise men emerged, “pneuma” meant the “breath of life.” The pneuma is the active element that animates each individual’s life, and it is the living breath of the cosmos itself.
In Hinduism, your essence is your Atman, and the path to fulfillment is to realize that your personal Atman is one with the eternal Brahman; that your individual soul is the same as the universal soul. And “prana” is the breath of life we all share.
In Confucianism, each person’s Qi (or Chi) is the vital force that mediates between the human world and the spiritual realm, it is the divine breath that circulates through each and all and connects us to the all-encompassing Tao.
In all the traditions, ancient and modern, the unifying thread is that we are all irrevocably connected. That is the reason Jesus, the Buddha, and so many saints and sages spent their time helping others, even after they were personally free from ego attachment. They knew that helping others was serving their own greater self. If one part of your body is not doing well, you try to improve its conditions so it can be a healthy part of the whole. You try to make the whole body better by taking care of the parts. In the worldview of the traditions, each of us is one part of the whole, just like a cell in your body is one part of the whole of your body.
The Buddha insisted that thinking anything can exist separate from everything else is an illusion. There can be no “individual self,” for everything is mutually arising; we cannot exist separate from others. This is the reason, after he awakened, he spent 45 years tirelessly teaching those who were still caught in the illusion of separateness.
Because we are all connected, Jesus declared that his life was about helping those in physical and spiritual need. In his first statement of his mission he said it was to heal the sick and help the poor, the outcast, the downtrodden.
Skeptico: How does this relate to whether this is a good world?
Wisdom Seeker: A short statement by the mystic John of the Cross provides the best answer I know:
Where there is no love, put love,
and there you will find love.
If you wish to experience love, then give it to others. When you are giving love, you are living in the field of love all the time, generating it from within and simultaneously becoming a conduit for the field of love that is all around us — if we will open to it.
The same is true of goodness — those who are living in harmony with the Higher Good will be in the presence of goodness at all times. People have always wanted to be in the presence of the great saints and sages — because they were radiating an energy of goodness, the Good was palpably present to those who were with them. We can each try to do that, and when we succeed, we will know that the world is a good place, and we will be helping others experience it as good as well.
Of crucial importance, this does not mean that we will not have difficulties. The most admirable people I know had mighty struggles. The quintessential American poet Walt Whitman suffered much and witnessed terrible suffering and many agonizing deaths as a volunteer in Civil War hospitals. But through profound experiences of the mystical dimension, he saw beyond the suffering to his deepest self, and into the goodness of the world:
There is that in me … I do not know what it is … but I know it is in me.
To it the creation is the friend whose embracing awakes me.
Perhaps I might tell more.
… Outlines!
I plead for my brothers and sisters.
Do you see, O my brothers and sisters?
It is not chaos or death … It is form and union and plan
… it is eternal life … it is happiness.
Thought Experiment — Living examples
Think of a spiritual figure you admire who helped those around them feel better about themselves and the world.
Then think of a person you have personally known who did that.
How might you be more like them, helping others feel better about themselves and the world?
May you have, and create, much good in your life,
David