August 10, 2025
In every culture there are embedded values, virtues, and meanings. Attempts have been to trace this aspect of cultures back to our basic drives, but there are fatal flaws in this approach. To begin with, countless human beings have intentionally chosen to give up the fulfillment of one or more basic drives to be true to a value they held dear, to uphold a strongly held virtue, or to fulfill a sense of meaning.
So where did these aspects of our cultures come from? They came from the wisdom traditions of the world. These foundational belief systems have been handed down from generation to generation for a long time, with each tracing its lineage back to revered teachers — Jesus, the Buddha, Socrates, Plato, Cicero, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Moses, Muhammed, Hindu sages whose names have been lost, and unknown wise men and women all over the world who guided the early tribal peoples.
In science we look to the experts for guidance about the workings of the material world. In the same way, the best approach for those of us who wish to develop our own understanding of the best way to live is to turn to experts for guidance. And the experts for these aspects of our lives are the wise men and women through history who made their life’s work an attempt to understand what is truly important for a fulfilling life.
These founders of the main wisdom traditions left their guidance in the form of stories and sacred writings, and these have been passed down through the ages and used successfully by millions of people to guide their lives. Fortunately, in this modern age we have access to much information about each of these individuals, what they taught, and how their messages developed over time within the traditions to which they gave rise.
Although there are differences in the specific messages they left, one common thread in all is that there is an “Unseen Order” in the universe, and that a few core values, virtues, and meanings are embedded in it — are a part of the very structure of existence itself.
And all insisted that if an individual wishes to have a truly fulfilling life, the only way is to make a sincere effort to live by these core values, to practice virtue, and to live toward that which is truly meaningful.
They also taught that the only way a group of people can live together in relative peace, harmony, and freedom from oppression by others is when most leaders and individuals in a society have a shared set of values, virtues that are to be encouraged and taught, and a common understanding of the paths that will provide meaningful and fulfilling lives.
Again, there are differences in their messages, but each of these wise ones left a jewel at the heart of their teachings. And that precious secret is similar in all — about the importance of love, compassion, kindness, justice, respect for others, and the need to seek wisdom, especially the wisdom to know yourself.
They taught that the only way for individuals as well as groups of people to have flourishing lives is to incorporate these virtues and values into the way they live, because they are part of the fundamental fabric of the universe itself.
When this guidance has been followed to a significant degree, human civilizations have flourished. In fact, all communities, nations, and cultures that have been successful over time in providing good lives for a large number of people have been based on the foundational teachings of the wisdom traditions.
The Core Messages of the Wisdom Traditions
Among all the conflicting interpretations of the wisdom traditions, which one is right? Who has the authority to determine the final truth of any of them? From everything I have been able to learn in studying the traditions, the answer is: No one.
None of the great wisdom teachers indicated that any person or institution or organization was being given the power to provide a definitive interpretation of what they had to say. That means each one of us is left to make for ourselves the final determination about what we will believe.
One of our choices is to accept the view of another person or a group to which we belong. But doing that is also a choice. Further, what others have to say is always a moving target, because both individuals and institutions change their views over time. So if we choose to follow the beliefs of others, we still have to decide exactly who we will believe, and then whether to change our views when they do.
As for myself, after years of reading and study, it seems to me that none of the wisdom teachers left messages that did not have to be interpreted. Instead, they spoke in parables, stories, sometimes even riddles. They gave examples of dealing with a specific problem and gave hints that pointed in a direction about how to deal with various issues when we faced them. But because no two situations are ever exactly the same, they left us to make our own decisions as to what they truly meant.
In my view, it is wise to study what others have to say about the messages of the wisdom teachers, but then each of us must decide which parables and stories apply to the specific issues we are facing. As Emily Dickinson put it, we must make our own effort to determine what the hints and clues they left suggest.
So I must baffle at the hint
And cipher at the sign,
And make much blunder, if at last
I take the clew divine.
One approach to deciphering the clues they left is to step back to the broadest possible perspective. From that view, the wisdom teachers left us guidance about how best to live that fall into three broad categories:
1) Relations with other people: We come into the world through, are raised by, and are often around other people when we are young. As we become adults, most of us remain social creatures. Is there a way to behave — to interact with other people — that will provide for us the most fulfilling lives possible?
2) Meaning, purpose, intention: Are there certain life intentions I can set, purposes or meanings that I can pursue that will provide greater fulfillment than others? If so, how do I know what they are? Which are worth following even if they require forgoing immediate gratifications or prove to be difficult?
3) Relation to the larger world: Is there a higher dimension, something larger than myself with which I must live in harmony if I am to have a good life? And is there something beyond this one life, and if so, how do I have the best outcome in relation to that?
I was raised to believe that I am an individual person, and I feel that I am able to make choices that will affect how well my life unfolds. I am also quite aware of my self-centered urges and desires. But are my personal urges and desires all that matter in finding fulfillment, or is there a higher standard than just trying to get my personal wishes gratified all the time?
Each of the great teachers provided guidance to help us answer these questions. And their answers are remarkably similar. Here is my understanding of the core messages that the wisdom traditions have carried forward through the centuries about how to have a good life, a life that will bring a sense of fulfillment and meaning.
Christianity
Jesus taught that “God is love,” and that returning love to the Divine was the first requirement for a fulfilled life, and the second was to love your neighbors as yourself.
Looking back to his first public proclamation of his mission, we are told in Luke that Jesus returned to his hometown of Nazareth and at the synagogue on the Sabbath used the words of the prophet Isaiah to make clear his purpose: to preach and give hope to the “poor,” to heal the “brokenhearted,” deliverance to the “captives,” recovery of sight for the “blind,” and to set at liberty those who are “oppressed.”
In the many translations of the New Testament, the words of this passage are translated somewhat differently, but most agree on the words that are in quotation marks above. So at the start of his ministry, Jesus made perfectly clear his purpose was to serve the poor, the brokenhearted, to set free those who are oppressed and those who are captive in any way (including captive to their own ideas and beliefs). In another sermon, he emphasized the importance of breaking free of your own ideas and opinions, saying: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”
To make sure there was no way to mistake his meaning, in The Sermon on the Mount, perhaps his best-known words, he named those who would be blessed: the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those who stand up for what is right, even when it is hard. And he said that we should beware of acting pious before others (acting as if our beliefs and practices are better than those of others). Also, we should never judge anyone, but love everyone, even our enemies. He sums his message up with the Golden Rule: “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them” or in another translation, “Always treat others as you would like them to treat you.”
The fact that so many of us say we wish to be like Jesus — yet continue to live without paying attention to his actual message — is proof of our human capacity to rationalize, twist words, and avoid acknowledging the real motives behind our actions.
But for those who truly wish to follow his teachings, his core message is: Love Abba and live in harmony with that Source of all life. Love other people. If you want others to respect you, respect them. If you want other people to be kind to you, be kind to them. If you want them to honor your right to have your beliefs, honor theirs. If you want them to be just with you, do the same with them. And help those who need help.
Growing out of the sermons of Jesus and the letters of Paul, Christianity developed moral guidelines to be emphasized — faith, hope, justice, gratitude, prudence, temperance, fortitude, and kindness.
Buddhism
The Buddha’s core message is that craving for worldly success and comfort leads only to dissatisfaction, and trying to avoid what seems disagreeable is not wise. This at first does not seem appealing to many, yet thousands during his lifetime thought he was the wisest person they had ever met, as did tens of thousands who heard about him from those who met him. Twenty-five hundred years later, about a billion people around the world today think his life and message offer valuable guidance for how best to live, and what he taught has become a key part of the foundation for numerous societies and civilizations since he first lived.
In order to have a fulfilling life, he emphasized the importance of compassion, of finding inner peace and equanimity, being mindful of yourself and your motives and actions, developing discipline, and living a moral life by refraining from killing, lying, stealing, sexual misconduct, and the abuse of intoxicants.
He taught that anyone who wanted to experience what he had experienced should have faith in what he had to say and follow his rules for living. He also taught, however, that those two things alone are never enough. They are just a preparation. The next step is to test what he taught for oneself through rigorous internal investigation and intense practice. Finally, the last step is something that can never be taught. Instead, each person has to directly experience the truth, to awaken to it fully themselves.
Of central importance, he taught compassion. He said those who followed his way 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 will automatically feel deep compassion for each and all. To illustrate this key point, there are hundreds of stories about the Buddha’s deep compassion, and thousands upon thousands about Buddhists ever since.
In our own age, the Buddhist poet and teacher Thich Nhat Hanh said it beautifully:
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 this way:
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.
The Dalai Lama, the best-known Buddhist of our time, put it very simply:
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion; if you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
Socrates and the Ancient Greeks and Romans
Socrates was a rational person, but he was also a mystic through and through. If you have any doubt, just read his Allegory of the Cave, one of the most studied and repeated stories in Western history. In this story, the main character leaves the everyday world in which everyone he knows take shadows on the wall for the true reality. Leaving the cave, he experiences the true light of wisdom. Coming back to the cave, he tries to teach others what is really true but finds it difficult to convince them. Most would rather believe in the false reality to which they are accustomed.
As for virtues, Socrates taught that they are not just a matter of behaving in a certain way, but also of understanding why that behavior is morally right. For him, virtue is not just about following rules but about understanding the basis for those rules and behaving in a way that is consistent with their underlying truth.
These words, written late in life, describes his life ambition:
“Beloved Pan, and all ye other gods who haunt this place, give me beauty in the inward soul; may the outward and inward man be at one. May I reckon the wise to be the wealthy, and may I have only such a quantity of gold as a person who is temperate can carry.”
Plato, the best-known student of Socrates and the person who brought his teachings alive in the centuries to follow, developed a fully transcendent view of the nature of the universe. He insisted that the only way to a fulfilled life is through aligning oneself with the values and meanings that arise in this transcendent realm, and said Truth, Wisdom, and Beauty are not arbitrary, but arise in that realm (an idea that has remained a central theme throughout Western culture).
Aristotle was the most famous student of Plato and the tutor of Alexander the Great. Although not thought of as a spiritual figure, Aristotle emphasized the existence of a single “Prime Mover” in the universe, as well as the necessity of living by a set of core values and virtues.
In his view, there are five ways people can come to the truth: art, science, wisdom, philosophy, and intuition. His five Constant Virtues are benevolence, wisdom, righteousness, propriety, and trustworthiness. Other virtues he often mentioned were being a good friend, compassion, moderation, justice, courage, and hope.
Of key significance, benevolence meant for him not being able to sit by and accept the suffering of others; rather, by having compassion for others and serving all living things through one’s own life. Emphasizing the importance of practice, Aristotle said: “We are what we repeatedly do.” His advice, therefore, is to practice the virtues until your practices bring you into a fulfilled life.
Ancient Greek thought greatly influenced the formation of the culture of Europe, as did that of the Romans. Europe, in turn, shaped the formational ideas of the United States. The ideas of Cicero were especially important in the foundation of this country, with his emphasis on wisdom, justice, courage, and moderation — all of which Cicero knew were central to Socrates, Plato, and the Roman Stoics. These values and virtues have had a major influence in shaping the culture of Europe and America for almost 2500 hundred years.
Confucianism
The Buddha, Socrates, and Confucius overlapped in time during the 5th century BCE. For his part, Confucius traveled around in ancient China with a small band of followers, teaching that the Tao, the Way of Heaven, consists of a few universal laws and truths that give rise to the core values that lead to a fulfilled life.
Coming into harmony with the Way of Heaven is the only path to a fulfilling life, and a central practice for doing so is by following his version of the Golden Rule, “Do not impose on others what you would not want imposed on yourself.”
No one is excluded from having a fulfilling life, but the only way it can be realized is by practicing the virtues that are embedded in the Tao, in the universal order within which we exist.
Those who practice these virtues will become a person of jen, and the traits they will manifest are humaneness, kindness, goodness, compassion, empathy, and an attitude of benevolence and care toward others. Jen has sometimes been translated as “human-heartedness,” and some scholars say it is simply developing in oneself a feeling of universal love (in the sense of the Greek agape).
Those who have come into harmony with the Way of Heaven will know themselves thoroughly, be able to determine what is right and wrong, be calm and peaceful, think for themselves, be able to fairly evaluate the motives of others, and side with what is right without concern for the consequences.
Confucius was one of the first wisdom teachers to give voice to a sentiment many have spoken about and shared, that in some mysterious way, we are all connected. The way he expressed it: “Within the four seas, all men are brothers.”
An old Chinese Proverb that captures Confucius’ sentiment on this, and that his teaching might have inspired:
“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.”
The message of Confucius took a number of years to reach a wide audience (as was true with Jesus and the Buddha). In all three cases, as their messages spread, what they taught began to serve as the bedrock for some of the world’s most successful cultures.
In the case of Confucius, his core teachings have been the basis for organizing the lives of billions of people over a period of 2400 years in China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, South-east Asia, Singapore, and parts of Malaysia and Indonesia — as well as for cultural descendants who have settled all over the world. Today, no matter the other beliefs present where they live, the core Confucian ideas serve as part of the foundational structure for the lives of perhaps as many as two billion people.
Islam
Muhammed taught that the key to a fulfilling life is to surrender your personal will and ego desires to the one Source of all things. The word Islam literally translates as both peace and surrender, so Islam means the peace that comes from surrendering your own will to the One Highest Reality.
Abraham is considered in the Islamic tradition to be the beginning of the lineage that gave birth to Muhammed. This is reinforced by the Hebrew Bible, which tells us in Genesis that Abraham’s son Ishmael was born in a union with Hagar. Later, God tells Abraham that he will have another son, Isaac, who will begin the lineage of the Jewish people. At that time, however, God says:
“And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation.” In another translation the words are: “I will also bless your son Ishmael and his children. They will become a great nation too.” Later God tells Abraham: “You and your children will become so many people that they will become nations. … your name shall be Abraham, which means, ‘the Father of Many Nations.’”
Both Jews and Muslims interpret these passages to mean that the Arab people are the children of Ismael, and so the Jewish people look to Abraham as the beginning of their tradition, as do Christians, and all who practice Islam.
In the 7th century AD, Muhammed began to dictate the sacred Koran, the central book of Islam. In it, the path to a fulfilled life is given, and the first step is to love God, and then to love one’s fellow human beings. One of the most famous sayings of the hadith (important teachings and sayings in Islam) is, “You will not enter Jannah until you believe, and you shall not believe until you love one another.”
The only way to follow the path to fulfillment as given by Muhammed is to live a disciplined and moral life, which includes practicing important virtues like being kind, patient, forgiving, merciful, honest, and giving to those in need. And you must learn to manage and control your negative feelings, such as anger.
The Sufis were the best-known branch of Islam in the modern West in the 20th century, and for them, love is the primary focus. Rumi, a 13th century Sufi teacher, scholar, mystic, and poet (and one of the best-selling poets in the U.S. today) speaks of love in many of his poems. One of his quotes:
“Love is the astrolabe that sights into the mysteries of God.” (An astrolabe is a medieval instrument that was used to study the stars.)
For most Sufi poets, love is emphasized over and over as being the key to life’s fulfillment. Rumi again:
Someone who does not run toward the allure of love
walks a road where nothing lives.
And:
There is no solution for the soul but to fall in love.
This was written in creation.
Only from the heart can you reach the sky.
All forms of love have value, but as with Plato, the goal is to move up through the levels of love until you are able to fully love that which is the highest reality of all, the Source of all things. That is why Rumi says:
The way you love
is the way God will be with you.
Another Sufi poet popular today is Hafiz, who also focused on love as central:
The subject tonight is Love
And, for tomorrow night as well.
As a matter of fact I know of no better topic
For us to discuss
Until we all
Die!
Hinduism
Hinduism is not primarily associated with one original teacher, has no central organization, and no group that decides what a Hindu should believe. Yet Hinduism, which originated with the Vedic scriptures perhaps 4000 years ago, has probably affected as many people as any other wisdom tradition. It has had a powerful impact, not only on billions of people who have been drawn to teachers in that tradition over thousands of years, but also by affecting the thought of many other traditions. The Buddha was steeped in Hindu thought, and his ideas reflect much of that original teaching.
In America, our second president, John Adams, studied Hinduism, and Transcendentalists such as Thoreau and Emerson were deeply affected by it — as was the poet Walt Whitman and the writers Aldous Huxley, Joseph Campbell, and J.D Salinger. Mahatma Gandhi was a Hindu who had worldwide influence in the 20th century, and the Beatles studied with a Hindu teacher for years. And Martin Luther King, Jr. incorporated some of its thought in his work.
One of the core principles of Hinduism is that everything in the universe is a part of God, and each person is intrinsically divine. The purpose of life is to seek and realize oneness with all that is. Realizing this truth leads to compassion, generosity, and service. Other virtues to cultivate are inner calm, peace, patience, non-violence (ahimsa), non-envy, and knowing oneself well enough to be able to practice these virtues honestly and truthfully.
Judaism
In Genesis, the first book of the Hebrew Bible, the mission that was given to Abraham (as translated by Rabbi Rami Shapiro) is:
“Go forth from your country, your clan, and your parent’s house,” and become a blessing “for all the families of the earth.”
So at the beginning, the stated purpose of this tradition is that all the families of the earth shall benefit from, be blessed by what they do. It does not say that every family must believe as they do, just that what they do should bless all.
This directive to bless all has led many Jewish people through the ages to speak up for the rights of downtrodden and oppressed people no matter their religion. This pattern began very early with the Hebrew prophets, who were also known as truthsayers. Their names are well-known in both the Jewish and Christian worlds — Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Nathan, Amos, and others. Their role, according to Isaiah, was to be a light and bring “justice according to truth.” Justice not only for the Jewish people, but for all peoples. They were to guide the people, speak up for those who were oppressed and downtrodden, demand justice, speak truth to those in power, and insist that those with power act in a moral way.
Many Jewish people through history have followed the example of the prophets, feeling that those who follow God have a responsibility to stand for justice for all, to change things for the better, and their duty is to work for what is good and right. It is of great significance that Jesus, in the first public speech of his ministry, read the passage in Isaiah that instructs those who follow God to help the poor, the oppressed, and the brokenhearted.
Thus this mission was carried into the Christian tradition, but it has been continued through the centuries within the Jewish world as well. A famous teaching story about Rabbi Hillel, who lived shortly before the time of Jesus, is that he was asked to teach the entire Torah while standing on one foot. Hillel’s response:
“That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary, go and learn.” This is, of course, a powerful version of the Golden Rule.
Rabbi Hillel also said:
If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If I am not for others, what am I?
If not now, when?
The moral foundations the Jewish tradition has passed down through the ages are: insisting on justice for all; standing up for truth, especially to those in power; placing great value on scholarship and wisdom; and taking personal responsibility for improving things in the world, especially for the oppressed and downtrodden. All these values have had a profound impact on the Western world for millennia, right down to modern times.
In Judaism there is no central authority with the power to declare what a Jew should believe, so there have been numerous interpretations of the sacred teachings through the years. And as with all the others, the Jewish tradition is sometimes interpreted and used as an excuse to attack those who have different beliefs and a different understanding of the Source than their own. But countering this tendency, many Jews through history have fought for justice for everyone, standing by the side of those who were trying to gain equal rights for people of other races and religions.
For example, many Jews actively joined Martin Luther King, Jr.’s civil rights movement in the United States, and the anti-apartheid movement led by Nelson Mandela in South Africa. And a current movement that carries this tradition forward today is called Tikkun Olam: Repairing the World. One of its leaders, Rabbi Michael Lerner, says a close reading of the Torah, the Talmud, and the remainder of the Hebrew Bible insists that Jews be involved in the fight against racism, national chauvinism, ecological destruction, women’s inequality, and all forms of oppression.
A very wise saying often attributed to Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish philosopher who lived in the same era as Jesus, captures for me the heart of this stream of the Jewish tradition: “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.”
Taoism
The heart of Taoism, especially for people in the modern West, is captured in the short book the Tao Te Ching. Probably a composite of several ancient Chinese sages over many years, it is considered the second most translated book in history, after the Bible. It has had a profound impact on countless millions of lives, for it speaks to the heart as well as the mind with a remarkable power.
The Tao Te Ching emphasizes knowing oneself as a primary virtue:
Knowing others is intelligence;
knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength;
mastering yourself is true power.
It emphasizes moderation and not focusing on worldly conditions:
If you look to others for fulfillment, you will never truly be fulfilled.
If your happiness depends on money, you will never be happy with yourself.
Be content with what you have;
rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you.
And it emphasizes helping others:
The Master is available to all people and doesn’t reject anyone.
He is ready to use all situations
and doesn’t waste anything.
This is called embodying the light.
What is a good man but a bad man’s teacher?
What is a bad man but a good man’s job?
If you don’t understand this, you will get lost,
however intelligent you are.
Toward the end it says:
I have just three things to teach:
simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
If you practice these virtues, you will be returning to the Source, and be at peace:
Returning to the source is serenity.
If you don’t realize the source,
you stumble in confusion and sorrow.
When you realize where you come from,
you naturally become tolerant,
disinterested, amused,
kindhearted as a grandmother,
dignified as a king.
Shamanism
For most of human history, all human beings lived within a system of beliefs and values that scholars now loosely group under the word Shamanism. This is an extremely wide category of beliefs, but what they have in common is an emphasis on our deep connection to the natural world. All insist that we humans are an intimate part of the larger living world, so a good life can only come through living in harmony with it. And all of Shamanism is based on the belief that there is “something” beyond the material realm, a complex web of spiritual forces within which we and everything else exist. This belief fostered to a very wholistic view that life and spiritual practice are always entwined.
In the world of the early peoples on our planet, everything was alive with spirit, and honoring this living spirit was essential, as was having gratitude toward and being in relationship with this Great Spirit in all things. Within each tribe or community there were shared values and virtues that were taught to the young and enforced within the group. These included everyone having responsibilities toward the shared life of the community, respecting the roles and rights of everyone else, some form of shared decision-making, taking care of those who needed help, and the wholistic view that meaning and purpose intrinsically exist in the universe of which we are a part.
The specific guidelines for living varied enormously from tribe to tribe and from culture to culture over the tens of thousands of years when Shamanism was the main wisdom tradition. But the philosopher and writer David Abrams says all held views including that all beings exist in a web of relations and all things — plants, animals, the earth itself — are dependent on each other. Further, all parts of this larger existence are filled with numinous forces that sustain, nourish, and sometimes can extinguish the living beings within it.
These early systems of belief were the foundation for all cultures and all individual lives for tens of thousands of years, so it is not the least bit surprising that they are still with us today. A few people still live in cultures that practice this tradition, but many of their ideas are embedded in the wisdom traditions and spiritual belief systems active in the world today.
All the traditions that came later in human history borrowed various aspects from these earlier approaches to finding harmony with the larger dimension within which we exist, as well as the ways we can best live together with one another. For instance, several researchers have shown that some of the founders of the United States were quite familiar with the structure and principles of the Iroquois Confederacy, a powerful native American organization. The Iroquois Great Law of Peace provided for a participatory democracy, distinct branches of government, and a system of checks and balances within the governing structure, and these ideas seem to have been borrowed in organizing the first U.S. government.
These ideas embedded in the Iroquois way of life seem obvious to us today but were revolutionary to people from Europe who settled America — because they had known only kings and feudal courts as their way of government for centuries. Other examples of borrowed ideas include New England town hall meetings, which seem to have been influenced by tribal meetings in which important issues were discussed among adult members of a tribe. And the symbol of the new U.S. government, the bald eagle, was first the symbol of the Iroquois Confederacy.
The Message of the Wisdom Traditions for Today
The world we live in has certainly changed in numerous ways since the wisdom traditions began. But the overall universe with its operational laws and forces within which we live out our lives have not changed in significant ways. Nor has the basic makeup of human beings changed much in tens of thousands of years — our bodies, minds, our temperamental structures. The various ways in which we are raised and enculturated change all the time, but not the raw material of the outer world nor our basic natures.
This means the messages of the wisdom traditions are applicable today concerning how an individual can have a fulfilling life, and how we might still live together in relative peace and harmony. In a speech accepting the Nobel Prize in 1950 (when the threat of nuclear armageddon was much on people’s minds), William Faulkner insisted that writers must continue to focus on “the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths — love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.” The reason was simple: without these things, anything they write will be “ephemeral and doomed.”
The best way to begin getting in touch with “the old verities and truths of the heart” is by examining the core messages that the great wisdom teachers had in common. Their guidance for how to have a fulfilling life has been used successfully by countless people over thousands of years.
The heart of their message is: Each of us is called to live by core principles that are part of the fabric of existence itself, and each of us is capable of knowing what these principles are — because they come from a Source to which we each have access. Through the ages, our ability to find deeper truths has been called: listening to our conscience or to a still small voice, deep intuition, divine inspiration, or the voice of our higher self.
Everyone was raised within the framework of one or more of the wisdom traditions, whether your family belonged to an organizational framework or not, because every culture was profoundly shaped by one or more of them. But for many of us, the messages came through as dogmatic or vague. Or they came jumbled-up with self-serving additions, or through the voices of those who did not practice what they preached.
For those who wish to find answers for themselves, participating in a religious group or finding a mentor is valuable, and there is much literature available about every tradition. These can provide inspiration that will awaken your own internal capacities and wisdom, highlight what has worked for others, and point out pitfalls to be avoided. Then comes the second crucial step, looking within to find answers that resonant deeply with your own inner wisdom in a way applies to your individual life.
We are not, of course, forced to do any of these things. Countless human beings have simply followed the rules they were taught. Many, many others have lived only for themselves, focusing their lives on fulfilling their basic urges and desires. Neither individuals nor societies are forced to follow the deeper wisdom that is available. For proof, just look at all the strife and turmoil present in the world today — and has been present at various places and times throughout history.
But anyone can choose to search for deeper truths and learn to live more wisely. Alfred North Whitehead, the great 20th century mathematician and philosopher, felt that the sacred dimension is like “an all-embracing chaotic Attractor, acting throughout the world by gentle persuasion toward love.”
Expanding on this view, we are not forced to live toward love, toward the good, toward wisdom, cooperation, and all the rest. We can choose to ignore these deeper values and meanings and live only to satisfy our own self-centered urges and desires. We can choose to have no concern for one another.
But the wisest teachers in history said in unison that the only way to have a whole, complete, and fulfilling life is to discover the underlying principles of the universal order within which we exist, and then make a sincere effort to bring one’s life into harmony with them.
And they told us that the only way a group of people can live together with a reasonable degree of peace, prosperity, and freedom is if they find a set of principles and values they can hold in common, and a significant percentage then make a sincere effort to live by them.
Which leaves each of us with the question: How might I live more in harmony with the underlying values, virtues, and meanings that lead to a fulfilling life, both for myself and for the society within which I live?