February 25, 2023
Are we humans somehow connected to others in a deep way, or is life an individual journey, perhaps even a fight for survival?
Looking back over my life, most significant memories involve other people: romantic relationships, intense conversations, experiencing other cultures, doing something for another person, working with a team or tight-knit group, being recognized by others for an accomplishment, winning a competition planned by some organization, reading a book and feeling a connection with the author, and writing with an awareness of readers who might find something I say worthwhile.
These are the positive memories. But there are many on the other side of the ledger; negative memories of being criticized by a friend or rejected by someone with whom I was infatuated, being embarrassed when my mistakes or errors were discovered by others, feeling disappointed by the actions of friends or family, hearing negative gossip about myself among other people, and when others pointed out the failure of projects I had undertaken.
In addition to memories, most of my longings and fears have been tied to other people: the desire for acknowledgement and to be recognized; the search for emotional closeness and connection; sexual longings; worldly ambitions; wishing to be of service; hoping to make the world a better place. All these involve other people.
Surveying the vast range of feelings and emotions I have experienced — love, success, victory, anger, compassion, envy, fear, shame, guilt, and so many others — all are a part of the web of connections woven into the fabric of my life.
I have certainly had a few special and even magical moments that did not involve other people, but they are rare. Most important moments included others, or thoughts and images about others. And this seems to be true of most people.
Are You an Isolated Monad?
Looking back to earliest recorded history, we humans have always been social creatures. We are embedded with others from birth — helpless and dependent in our early years, we must receive care and nurturance from others or we will die. Trying to understand a single human in isolation is like trying to understand a honey bee — its nature, behavior, and actions — in isolation from the hive.
Unlike bees, though, as time goes on we humans begin to think, learn, and do some things more on our own. But almost all of us do this within a culture we share with others. We learn a language, and that language shapes our understanding of who we are and what the world is like. The sounds in any language do not have a meaning in themselves; rather, cultures define the meanings of sounds. (What does the sound made by saying the word “angry” mean, separate from the definition it has been given by our culture?)
The world we perceive is not a fixed thing waiting out there to be discovered by each of us. Rather, what we perceive is created through the concepts we absorb from our culture and the specific language we were given. Only after a long learning process do we form the images and ideas we hold. That is one of the reasons that different cultures see things so differently: If you had been taught from birth that you were connected to all the living things around you, you would think and perceive that way.
This is, in fact, the role of culture: to give each of us a framework within which to understand ourselves and the world. Further, many of the things we consider central to being human are cultural. The great edifices of human civilization have been built through the centuries, layer upon layer, using the accumulated contributions of many cultures. Art, music, cities, farming, manufacturing, science, history, tools and toolmaking, education, religions, highways (automotive and cyber), and so much more — all have grown out of a web of knowledge and meaning given by various earlier cultures. Our ability to understand and function in any field of human interest depends upon the accumulated cultural wisdom in that field. As Ralph Waldo Emerson put it:
“The whole creation is made of hooks and eyes, of bitumen, of sticking, plaster, and whether your community is made in Jerusalem or in California, of saints or of wreckers, it coheres in a perfect ball. Men as naturally make a state, or a church, as caterpillars a web.”
Even becoming a conscious being is inseparable from being in a culture, and in a specific community within it: The few children who have been found that were raised by animals in the wild did not seem to have consciousness as we know it. We become conscious through the sharing of thoughts and feelings with others. As we learn and grow, consciousness is stimulated through exchange with others within a communal field of shared awareness. Poet T.S. Eliot states the necessity of community in the strongest of terms: “What life have you if you have not life together? There is no life that is not in community.”
Thought Experiment — A human in isolation?
Imagine a person in complete isolation from all other humans from birth. What would such a person be like? Imagine no language, no human cultural training of any kind, no process for picking up cues of communication, and no enculturation as to how to understand events. How would such a person learn ways of acting in life situations? What kind of consciousness would such a person have?
We are, as the influential 18th century philosopher and writer Jean Jacques Rousseau said, social beings. We develop the sense that we exist through interaction with others, and each individual awareness develops through continuous interaction with a human community and culture. Rousseau also encouraged each of us to find our individual natures, but this is not possible until we have first developed consciousness and been enculturated through interaction with others.
A good example of this comes from the life of the Buddha, who is known for finding his own way, for coming to a new understanding while sitting alone under the Bodhi tree. But before he could do that: (1) he was molded by a community and a culture, (2) he adopted a goal that was prevalent in his culture, that of finding an escape from suffering through attaining liberation from rebirth, and (3) he followed the guidance of teachers in his culture for several years. Only after many years of immersion in his culture, continuous interaction with others, and then learning from teachers who were on a spiritual quest themselves did he finally take the step of trying to find his own way.
Another example is the life of Ralph Waldo Emerson. One of his best-known essays is “Self-Reliance,” and he is often cited for his encouragement for everyone to find their own way. But when he was writing that famous essay, he was deeply embedded in a community of people with whom he was constantly interacting — was discussing the ideas he was developing with other people regularly. Furthermore, Emerson was deeply embedded in community the rest of his life — his emphasis on “self-reliance” notwithstanding.
Community and a Spiritual Life
This natural movement toward deep embeddedness with others is the reason for human communities, and it goes back as far as we can trace humankind. And it is still very much present today, for communities remain essential for human life as we know it to flourish. They are essential for pursuing any dream or vision, for each of us needs others who will encourage, value, support, and give feedback on what we are attempting to bring into fruition. If, at a few crucial moments, at least one, and usually more, of the people around you do not support your emerging sense of what you are trying to do, it is highly unlikely you will be able to maintain your vision or effort. As William James put it: “Visions die away without the sympathy of the community.”
This support does not have to come from a whole community, but at a minimum you must have a few others who support and value what you are up to. In fact, one of the most powerful ways we choose the direction of our lives is by choosing our friends and communities. By choosing those who will be significant to us, we choose the values and beliefs that will be reinforced in us. By choosing those with whom we hang out, we choose the values and beliefs that we will then be encouraged to give meaning and importance. We partly mold the person we will become by the friends we choose and the communities we elect to be a part of.
Many people have spoken about this through the centuries. Shakespeare says, in Henry IV: “It is certain that either wise bearing or ignorant carriage is caught, as men take diseases, one of another: therefore, let us take heed of our company.” Or consider this proverb: “Keep not ill men company, lest you increase the number.” Even more boldly, Cervantes said in Don Quixote, “Tell me what company thou keepest, and I’ll tell thee what thou art.”
The importance of community is equally significant for those pursuing a spiritual life, at least in the early and middle stages — which is the reason so many teachers have emphasized community in the journey to fulfillment. Plato, for instance, said: “Only after a long partnership in a common life devoted to this search does truth flash upon the soul, like a flame kindled by a leaping spark.”
Or consider the Buddha’s response when Ananda asked him if the sangha (the community of seekers) was an important part of a holy life. The Buddha’s reply: “No, Ananda, it is not a part. Good spiritual friends are the whole of the holy life.”
This theme runs through all the traditions. In Judaism it has been held for millennia that ten must be gathered together for a religious service. Influenced by this tradition, Jesus gathered twelve disciples to begin his ministry. Perhaps, as Georges Duhamel says in The Heart’s Desire, the act of gathering with others, with the right intention, is the doorway to the sacred:
“Always seek communion. It is the most precious thing men possess. Where there is communion there is something that is more than human, there is surely something divine.”
There is a paradox, however, which artist Henry Miller captures well: “Spiritual growth is an individual affair, that is best pursued in groups.” Although community is essential for spiritual work, much of the work is done in private, even in silence. But the community is still there — in the background. Every spiritual seeker operates within the framework of a tradition that gave rise to the sought-after goals, and every seeker uses practices developed by those who travelled the path before.
There does, however, always come a time when the maps no longer serve the spiritual journey. At some point we reach a stage where the map we are following ends and there is uncharted territory ahead. When we reach this place, the saints and sages tell us we must find our own way.
But before anyone reaches this advanced point, at which we must take off on our own, it is crucial to keep in mind that we reached this place only because we were nurtured by a community in which we absorbed the teachings and practices of one or more traditions. No one I have read about through history reached a sense of fulfillment, deep meaning, or spiritual awakening without some guidance — and without being given some ways of proceeding by others. Only with these as background has anyone been able to go on to the final stage of fulfilment, which is always a direct personal experience.
Skeptico: What about all those images of people going off to the mountains or the desert alone?
Wisdom Seeker: In all the instances I know, there was an earlier stage in which the one making the journey was inspired by the example of another person or the teachings of a tradition. Even those traditions that emphasize the necessity of personal effort recognize that a great deal of spiritual growth occurs in relation to others. A modern Zen teacher, Shozan Jack Haubner, captures the feel of this:
“I used to imagine that spiritual work was undertaken alone in a cave somewhere with prayer beads and a leather-bound religious tome, the holy one enwrapped in a mist of grace, mystique, and body odor. Nowadays, that sounds to me more like a vacation from spiritual work. Group monastic living has taught me that the people in your life don’t get in the way of your spiritual practice; these people are your spiritual practice.
“Through each other we discover that if we have the heart, the willingness, the strength, the courage — we have the capacity to plant the seeds of kindness, compassion, forgiveness, seeds of a laid-back humor, a sense of letting go. … The real fight is taking place inside you, within the “dharma organ,” the heart, where the challenge is to unify and to understand, where the seeds of love and compassion are struggling to lay roots, to gain ground.”
Here is another favorite image of the interplay between the individual and others on a spiritual journey:
“I cannot believe that any human traveler can become so strong that they do not need an inn. I know I need the inn. I still get blisters. So I look for the inn with joyful people in it, people traveling to become whole and, becoming more whole, they have more to share with others.
“In the inn we sit around the fire together sharing stories of our experiences along the way. Some have been on the journey a long time and have so much to share that I am often tempted to give up my traveling and work at the inn so I can hear the stories often, and never be alone.
“But the fires finally die out, and firelight is replaced by the rising sun, which always bids me to return to the road. Somehow the evening’s inspiration and a good night’s rest prepare me for another day’s journey on the road — the road that goes I know not where. I can go on alone knowing that there will be more inns along the way.
“I need the inn where there are many. I need the inn where there are travelers of every age and strength. I love to hear the stories of them all. Although I sometimes use my feet as an excuse to stop, it is really my heart that bids me pause, even before my strength and daylight hours are gone, for journeys are for hearts, as well as heads.”
This highlights the paradox: Although we humans are communal creatures, every successful journey ultimately includes leaving the confines of the communal fire in search of one’s own unique way. Each of us on the journey must, at some point, step into the unknown for ourselves. Furthermore, in addition to the crucial role this plays in each individual’s journey, it is also the way communities are renewed. If everyone followed the old ways endlessly, generation after generation, change would never occur.
In this ebb and flow of engagement and separation, each of us must find our own rhythm. We engage and learn, but eventually we must step into the abyss, over the rim of the known world. When we do this, most of us will feel afraid, lonely, sometimes completely alone. But this will not remain the case. What we will discover at the end of our journey will be very different from what we feared. Joseph Campbell conveys this well:
“Where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; and where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.”
This wisdom has been known from time out of mind. One of the earliest stories in recorded history or myth (from a period as much as 4500 years ago) concerns the semi-mythic King of Uruk in Mesopotamia named Gilgamesh. In the story, repeated countless times through the ages, Gilgamesh went on a journey to the edge of the world to discover the secret of immortality.
In his early years he was ruler of Uruk, and he was ruthless and cruel. He took whatever he wanted for himself — even claimed a night of sexual intimacy with each woman in the kingdom before a planned marriage.
Gilgamesh symbolizes the longing of many narcissistic egos: to be strong, good-looking, powerful, someone to whom everyone must submit — even to the most childish of whims. But Gilgamesh eventually feels compelled to make his own journey, and when he returns, he has changed. He has come to see that his life is irrevocably embedded with others, and his actions are now tempered by this understanding, so he sets about improving the kingdom for the good of others, as well as himself.
Skeptico: You said that successful journeys include leaving the communal group either outwardly or inwardly. I understand going outward on a journey, but what does leaving the community inwardly look like?
Wisdom Seeker: It is to develop a strong sense of separation within oneself from beliefs and attitudes into which you have been enculturated, without having to go on an outward journey. A good example is Emily Dickinson. She was born into a prominent family in Amherst, Massachusetts, almost never left that town, and in her last fifteen years did not leave her parents’ home.
But inwardly her spirit soared, and her poems depict someone who is gloriously free of the conventions and teachings of her early enculturation. She left home — inwardly. Her poems are therefore filled with a sense of freedom, confidence, and an intimate knowledge of many truths far beyond what she was taught. Through her radical inward freedom she delivered a profound message to millions of readers, and through her freedom a new style of poetry was born. For instance:
I’m ceded — I’ve stopped being Theirs —
The name They dropped upon my face
With water, in the country church
Is finished using, now,
And They can put it with my Dolls,
My childhood, and the string of spools,
I’ve finished threading —too —
Baptized, before, without the choice,
But this time, consciously, of Grace —
Unto supremest name — Called to my full —
Existence’s whole Arc, filled up.
Community, Values, and Morality
Because community is so central to our lives, it is natural that many values and morals have to do with how we should relate to the people around us. The world’s wisdom traditions place a special emphasis on how we should relate to others because those interactions are the source of much of the good, and the bad, in human life. An example: Every society has to have moral guidelines for dealing with sexual relations, with the actions considered acceptable and unacceptable in romance, in an effort to protect the innocent and minimize conflict and confusion.
In the same way, every culture has had guidelines and rules specifying what is acceptable in trade and commerce, others for resolving conflicts, methods for deciding how laws will be made and enforced, and guidelines for managing wars. All these are governed by laws, habits, and embedded moral principles in each society. Some of these have been healthy and effective, and others unhealthy, but some set of rules and guidelines has been present in every culture.
Skeptico: I don’t usually think of wars as being governed by morality.
Wisdom Seeker: Throughout history, acceptable and unacceptable actions have been understood regarding war, and those who have exceeded acceptable limits have created more enemies and increased resistance to their cause. In modern times, however, with the advent of weapons that kill large numbers indiscriminately, much of the restraint that has always surrounded war has broken down. (The International Humanitarian Law, also known as the laws of war, is a set of international laws that establish what can and can’t be done in an armed conflict. This was codified by the Geneva Conventions after WWII and ratified by most every country on earth. But today it is frequently ignored.)
Beyond war and beyond written rules, and even though different societies have had great variation in their moral guidelines, there has always been much commonality in the core guidance given by the great wisdom traditions as to how we should treat other people. For example, almost every one has some form of the Golden Rule (the Golden Rule Project has hundreds of examples — https://www.goldenruleproject.org/
This is the core, basic teaching of all the traditions. But many of the great wisdom teachers set a higher standard. For instance, Jesus said we should make a great effort to be “pure in heart.” And the Buddha said it was crucial to devote ourselves to developing a mind that was pure. (These two thoughts convey much the same thing, for I cannot find a way within myself to separate thoughts from feelings when I make a choice. Both are always present, intertwined and interacting with each other. I therefore find Buddhist language helpful here, which speaks of the heart-mind. There is no separation between that which symbolizes thinking, the mind, and feeling, the heart. Instead, in our internal experience, when we make a choice, there is just one combined process.)
Thought Experiment — Separating thoughts from feelings
Remember a time you were making an important decision. You might have analyzed the factors rationally, but as you made the final decision, can you remember separating your thoughts from your feelings?
Out of this commitment to purity of heart-mind, Jesus went on give this quite radical teaching, “If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.” And the Buddha said we should “Be constantly active for the sake of others.” Those are very, very high standards. But many of the traditions called on us to live in relation to others in demanding ways:
Islamic: “He is not a believer who eats his fill when his neighbor beside him is hungry.”
Jewish: “Be of service to those in need, those less fortunate than yourself.” “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself.”
Sufism “The basis of Sufism is consideration of the hearts and feelings of others. If you haven’t the will to gladden someone’s heart, then at least beware lest you hurt someone’s heart, for on our path, no sin exists but this.”
Taoist: “To affirm the good, do not tread on your neighbor, but live together in quiet wonder.”
In ancient Greece there was a strong belief that a stranger who did not act with immediate hostility was to be treated with the same respect due to a god. They were to be given whatever they needed for their comfort, no questions asked. If, after a stranger was made welcome, it emerged that they were from a hostile community, they were nonetheless to be protected from harm.
In the Hindu tradition, one ultimate insight is that your inherent real self is the “atman,” and it is not separate from Brahman, the singular Divine. Further, since this is true for every person, no one is ultimately separate from any other. The radical implication of this realization is that we must treat every other person as part and parcel of ourselves. Other traditions say the same:
Shintoism “The heart of the person before you is a mirror. See there your own form.”
Jainism “One who you think should be hit is none else but you. One who you think should be governed is none else but you. One who you think should be tortured is none else but you. One who you think should be enslaved is none else but you. One who you think should be killed is none else but you.”
The Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh says this beautifully in this poem:
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.
If we take this message to heart, then just as our own hands and feet are part of ourselves and so we try to take care of and not harm them, in the same way, if we realize how we are all connected, we will take care of all others as ourselves.
In sum, all the great wisdom traditions proclaim that a fulfilled life involves placing a radiant net of compassion over all other beings in your “heart-mind.” Thus it is that the great spiritual figures through history spent much of their time and energy helping and teaching others — such as Jesus, the Buddha, Socrates, Confucius, and Mohammad. The stories about these great teachers insist they were among the few who had achieved freedom from all personal needs and desires and had nothing left to gain for themselves — yet they were all actively engaged in helping others until the end of their lives.
In the last century great spiritual figures such as Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Billy Graham, Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Florence Nightingale, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Martin Luther King Jr. spent most of their time in service to others. It seems that the more freedom one has from personal motivations, the more time and energy one spends in teaching and helping others.
Thought Experiment — If one has reached fulfillment, why help others?
If the great teachers had no remaining personal motivations or desires, why did they spend so much time teaching and helping others?
Albert Einstein, goes to the heart of the motivation for such actions, saying:
“A human being is part of the whole called by us “the universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest — a kind of optical illusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
What if Einstein and the wisdom traditions are right, and all and everything is connected in some mysterious way?