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Glimpses of Greatness 

There are times when things go just right.  We live at our best.  The fears or desires, the vanity or hostility, whatever has sometimes interfered--all that is left in the dust.  Our best motives emerge triumphant.  We play our role in the mysterious communion of spirit purpose and human action.  Looking back, there is nothing we would change.  As we grow, these times become more frequent and last longer.  The ultimate goal of continuous communion approaches.

Noble character results from living in accord with a fine philosophy of living.  We have previously talked of key virtues involved in specific regions of truth, beauty, and goodness.  Now it is time to consider the integration of these virtues.  In a word, living the truth, the beauty of genuine goodness shines forth.

You can taste the grandeur of genuine character achievement, both in the achievements of others and in your own experience.  The present chapter focuses on the greatness of famous others.  The next chapter focuses on you.

Glimpses of greatness

            I imagine Siddartha Gautama, the Buddha, the awakened one, having been utterly fulfilled in his enlightenment experience under the Bo tree, meeting his former associates in the Deer Park, and teaching them the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path.  He has no more ego needs, no need to be right, no need to be revered, no need to be recognized as one above his former associates who had been seeking liberation for years by practicing extreme asceticism.  It would have been easier to say nothing.  In compassion, however, his wisdom pours forth in its clarity and simplicity.

            I imagine Moses, struggling to discipline his band of runaway slaves and to form them into a nation that could endure, proclaiming a universal God of love as much as he could and a fearsome and jealous and partisan God of battles as much as he needed to.  It would have been easier to retain his position in the Egyptian court or to take only an enlightened elite with him, or to let go of one side of the tension between the ideal and the real.  Moses knows how to lead by adjusting and adapting, how to teach truth while resolutely facing the necessities of the situation at hand.

            I imagine Jesus, entering Jerusalem on a donkey, symbolizing a mission of peace and friendship, as he turns to confront his enemies.  It would have been easier to simply pick up and go somewhere else or even to fight force with force.  However, Jesus demonstrates the superiority of the way of his simple, spiritual gospel over every intellectual and physical attack.  As a good shepherd prepared to lay down his life for his sheep, in his final week in the flesh he makes his ultimate revelation of the fatherly love of God and his greatest brotherly outreach to all who suffer.

            I imagine Mohammad entering Mecca, victorious over its army after years of warfare.  Mecca was the town that had rejected its prophet, that had fought against Medina--the city that had invited Mohammad to be its religious, military, and civil leader.  One might expect the victorious army to execute vengeance, but they spared the city in mercy.  The prophet thus showed the quality of the God he had spent his life proclaiming.  Every chapter of the Qur'an begins with one phrase: "In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful."

            Is greatness only for the blessed and famous few, the pivotal leaders of world history?  The key to their greatness is goodness, which we also find in obscure men and women who may hardly be recognized by others at all.  Protesting the privilege of honor accorded to soldiers, Emily Dickinson celebrated courage of a different order.

                        To fight aloud is very brave,

                        But gallanter, I know,

                        Who charge, within the bosom,

                        The cavalry of woe,

                        Who win--and nations do not see,

                        Who fall--and none observe,

                        Whose dying--no great entity

                        Regards with patriot love.

                        We trust, in plumed procession,

                        For such the angels go,

                        Rank after rank, with even feet,

                        And uniforms of snow.

Men and women, whether renowned or unnoticed, achieve grandeur of character through facing challenges and prevailing.

Regard for heroes

            We profit greatly from knowing, personally and in biographies, individuals of great character.  Since we--especially as children--strive to become like our heroes, it's important to have worthy heroes.  They kindle our imagination about noble striving, about what is possible in a human life.  They teach us how to be. 

            Recent decades have seen attacks on heroes, attacks designed to remind us of the imperfections of heroes, and attacks on the very notion of heroes.

            Noble character makes the choices required to move forward.  Driving along winding mountain roads, each turn reveals a new vista.  In a similar way, life brings up challenges unexpectedly.  Perhaps you are able to perform well with some foible in the background; it is not a weakness that seriously interferes with your devotion to your principal task.  But all of a sudden you face a crisis: the bad habit becomes your front-burner issue, and you either face it and turn or smash against a rock wall.

            Some people are mistaken for heroes, but their gifts and accomplishments are not rooted in the integrity of a unified character.  A person can be intellectually impressive in teaching truth or artistically moving in conveying an emotional response to beauty or effective in contributing to a worthy project, while true character is lacking.

            Truth, beauty, and goodness extend their reality as they are embodied in human living.  What could be more satisfying than to find a divine embodiment of them, so these ideals can be observed in the dust and thirst and tears of life as it is lived on this earth?  Religions offer paradigms, models of character with whom followers may identify.  Traditions vary in the how they teach believers to orient to such outstanding individuals.  Some Hindus devote themselves to imitating a deity.  Some Buddhists venerate the Buddha as an outward symbol of the self, and their devotion focuses their determination to gain enlightenment like his.  Muslims are not to worship Mohammed, but rather to obey the revelations given to the prophet and to heed his example. Jews celebrate what God did with Moses, but God alone is the paradigm; while we are to "be holy as God is holy," the difference between the Creator and the creature remains so radical that it would betray God to believe otherwise.  Christians are invited to follow Jesus, and they report friendship with him as an unspeakably great resource for growth, since the fruits of the spirit are the character qualities that he manifested on earth and continues to manifest in the lives of those who abide in him.  He is, in the experience of believers, the divine embodiment of truth, beauty, goodness, and more.  In all traditions, empathy, imagination, and understanding conspire to lead the individual toward fulfillment by the technique of oneness with the paradigm.

Truth, beauty, and goodness in Jesus' life

Consider in more detail how Jesus of Nazareth exercised virtue in the realms of truth, beauty, and goodness.  Since the mark of strong character is trustworthiness, the ability to bear responsibility, in order to understand Jesus' character, we need to understand his main task.  Jesus consistently manifested the overwhelming conviction that the Father in heaven had sent him on a mission.  Jesus used many expressions to convey his life purpose, but we may summarize them by saying that he came to reveal God to humankind.

            When we accept an assignment, there is a risk, because of our weakness, that we may default on our mission or even betray those to whom we are bound in loyalty.  Paradoxically, it was Jesus' power that he had to limit in order to complete his mission; he had to gain spiritual self-mastery over his own strength.  In the wilderness he was challenged to utilize great material powers, to circumvent conventional means to satisfy his hunger, to prove his points by miracles, and to advance his mission by political and military means.  But it was the Father's purpose to manifest his divine character without, as a rule, exceptional displays of power.  It is puzzling why Jesus did not rely on miracles to reveal the omnipotent God, until we reflect that God desires fellowship with his children based upon faith and worship and love that are voluntary.  He does not intend to intimidate or overwhelm his mortal children.  As we set out to consider the character of Jesus of Nazareth, it is necessary to bear in mind his sublime purpose in living and the self-mastery with which he executed his mission.

Jesus' awareness of facts

            Jesus satisfied the ideals of all areas of life, not by artificially setting out to schedule exposure to nature, art, factual knowledge, and so on, but by living a robust human life in communion with the Father and in society with human beings.

            I do not want to overstate the spontaneity of Jesus' growth in knowledge.  His mastery of scripture, for example, was surely the result of careful study.  The education for Jewish children was based upon memorizing, by repeating aloud, key portions of the Hebrew Bible.  Undoubtedly Jesus was far keener at reading between the lines than his fellow students.  And much of this study must have been an intense, personal effort, inasmuch as he lacked the credentials which would have formally justified his followers' calling him "rabbi."

            One of my favorite qualities of Jesus is that, despite his remarkable learning, he did not lead with his knowledge.  He did not present himself as a scholar, his teachings as commentaries, or his authority as derived from scripture and tradition.  But he had gathered a harvest from his studies, and the results were ready to be used.  When the Sadducees, specialists in the books attributed to Moses, raised the controversial issue of life after death, Jesus could respond: "But that the dead are raised even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.  Now he is not the God of the dead, but of the living; for we all live in him."  In other words, the present tense of Moses' report about God--"I am the God of Abraham"--indicates the fact of resurrection.  Bringing forth implications that the professionals had missed, his scholarly subtlety was used to make a point about eternal life, to guide the caviling questions of his opponents into an opportunity to present another facet of the gospel of the kingdom.

            Jesus used the scriptures he had memorized to keep his mind steady during his last hours of human consciousness.  From the cross the words were audible, "Father, why have you forsaken me?"  This line opens Psalm 22, which ends on a resounding note of triumph.

            Jesus also possessed a wide knowledge of people and keen intuition into their problems and potentials.  He relates to the personal center of those he meets.  Thus the others' response is most likely to reveal their essential direction and to make possible the most fruitful further encounter.

            With the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus boldly interacted beyond conventions that would have prohibited their conversation.  He discerned her immoral lifestyle and offered her a spiritual alternative.  When she dodged, he brought her to confront the facts of her present condition.  She tried to evade the issue of her personal salvation with theological questions about the right place to worship (on this mountain or in Jerusalem?) and about the character of the Messiah.  But Jesus continued to present truth, and she soon became a gospel messenger herself.

            To a lame man, apparently hobbled by self-pity, waiting for someone to help him, Jesus said, "Rise, pick up your cot and walk."  And the man did so.

            Jesus saw Zaccheus, a corrupt tax collector, observing him from up in a tree, and said, "Zaccheus, make haste and come down; for I must stay at your house today."  And Zaccheus quickly repented of his cheating and set out upon the better way of life.

            This keen knowledge of human nature that enabled Jesus to interact boldly and accurately with people surely came from a great interest in and experience with and and love for people.  Jesus must have repeated countless times the cycle of love: getting to know someone, being of service, and gaining wisdom.

            Jesus was also masterful in facing the hard facts of life.  At a certain point, he realized the kind of opposition he was facing, the kind of death he would face, and he boldly strode forth in the Father's will as he went through it all.  Without a perception of the Father's will, the facts about the opposition of the Jewish leaders might have been confusing; the threats they posed to the normal outworking of his mission might have tempted a less lucid individual to compromise the essentials of his course.  Trusting the Father totally, Jesus could do his work untroubled by obstacles.  He was spiritually free to face the facts and to respond courageously.

Jesus' wisdom

As a child, it is recorded, Jesus grew in wisdom, but it would not be correct to call the mature Jesus a philosopher, because wisdom for him was not a quest but a possession.  His mission, moreover, primarily addressed the needs of the spirit, not of the intellect.  One may try to discern a philosophy underlying Jesus' words, but his teachings do not address issues in the philosophy of religion.  He brought his philosophy down to the level of everyday living.

            There was a strong contrast between the wisdom of Jesus and the academic philosophies of his time.  Jesus even remarked that the gospel had been "hid from the wise."  Characteristically, a purely spiritual appeal does not even appear on the radar screen of the restless, analytical intellect, scanning the horizon for new data for improved conceptual analyses.  Those whose primary interests were cosmology and ethics and metaphysics often failed to glimpse much illumination from Jesus.  And they were right, in a way, since he addressed not their disciplines but their souls.  His contribution along this line was not to philosophy but to philosophers.

            Jesus clearly made use of all the assumptions we treated as basic.  He operated with at least a normal awareness of physical relationships, of morality, and of the God we meet in worship.

            He could reason keenly, as those who tried to trap him discovered.  He could present dilemmas ("Was John's baptism from heaven or from men?") as well as answer dilemmas ("Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's").

            He had a broad perspective on life.  His continual reference to God as our Father testifies to his sense of origin.  His sense of history goes back over two thousand years, "before

Abraham was."  His prayer that the will of God be "done on earth as it is in heaven" expresses the essence of hope and his sense of planetary destiny.  And his cosmic perspective is further suggested in a reference to "sheep not of this fold."

            Jesus' wisdom enabled him to see through appearances to reality.  He foresaw for the pure in heart their future vision of God.  And he could judge character: he perceived in the religious piety of the young ruler a heart still devoted to money; he discerned in a leper a soul ready to burst forth with praise of God.

            It takes a philosophically flexible mind to recognize and synthesize the diverse teachings and facets of Jesus.  He was clearly a genius in presenting his deep concepts in language that helped common people get the point.  Jesus used key terms with different meanings and thus helped his hearers move past the dogmatism of one-dimensional doctrine.  For example, Jesus taught that we are the children of God, but this teaching is spiritual deep, not intellectually simplistic.  Jesus spoke of sonship with God with several layers of meaning.  Are we sons and daughters of God now or do we become such by faith?  We are mostly potentials, not actuals, like a sapling, which both is a tree and is becoming a tree.  Notice the meanings of sonship with God.  Each person is a son or daughter of God: God created each of us and loves each one infinitely.  The Father-child relationship is established from the outset by God's creative act.  In the twenty-third chapter of Matthew's gospel, Jesus is quoted: "Call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven."  Jesus here addresses a gathering that cannot have been composed exculsively of his followers.  God is clearly the Father of all.

            In another sense, sonship is a gift which must be actualized by faith.  In order for the indwelling spirit gift of God to enjoy increasing effectiveness and liberation, the individual must cooperate; and part of this cooperation is consciously saying YES to God.  Spiritual endowments will come to no effect if the child persistently rejects them.  It takes faith to make real and permanent one's attachment to reality.

            In a third sense, Jesus spoke of himself as the unique Son of God.  He is one with the Father in a way that transcends our highest experience of loving union.

            With the sagacity of Moses, Jesus accepted the term kingdom as the term used by his forerunner John the Baptist and the language needed to address the felt needs of his hearers.  But Jesus likewise used the term with striking flexibility to express a wide range of meanings.  First of all, there is the kingdom within, our personal experience of spiritual realities sponsored by the indwelling spirit of God.  Next there is the kingdom of heaven as our destiny after this life.  Then there is the group of the faithful, the invisible spiritual brotherhood.  And there is also the coming spiritual regeneration of our planet.  "Your kingdom come," he prayed.  In the preaching of Jesus the kingdom of God is the family of God.  Those who prefer to express spiritual relationships in family terms rather than in political terms need to stretch their talk of the family of God as broadly as Jesus stretched his talk of the kingdom.

            If Jesus' purpose in teaching was to present a rigid doctrine, he would have used his words with terminologic uniformity.  Each word would have had one and only one meaning, and a computer could show in which passages one could find any desired concept.  Parables would have been used only as near-trivial dramatizations of independently clear dogmas, and people would never have had occasion to disagree about his teachings.  But instead Jesus chose to present verbal images of the vital freedom of the spirit.

            What was Jesus' philosophy of living?  The Sermon on the Mount contains the most sustained collection of his ideas about prayer, trust in God, righteous morality, justice and mercy, and about what it means to be a spiritual teacher.  Among its many gems of wisdom, I will highlight the beatitudes, Jesus' assurances about happiness.  The "poor in spirit"--those who are spiritually "empty," those who are open, those who, aware of their need, seek communion--they are the ones who enjoy the present experience of the happiness of the family of God.  They are happy because they are in the kingdom right now!  This is the challenge: stop and ponder, discover and rejoice: you are already in the loving family of relationships!  The realization of this happiness is the gateway to all the others.  Those who mourn--those who experience sorrow, pain, sadness, loss-- are given assurance of comfort.  The subtlety of the philosophy here--and in the rest of the beatitudes--is that there is a happiness we can realize now by trusting to future outworking of our situation into the hands of the infinite Upholder.  The happiness of the meek cannot mean the happiness of the timid, for Jesus' teaching is invigorating: fear not; be of good courage.  It must refer to a non-aggressive attitude toward God and people.  The assurance of happiness for those who "hunger and thirst for righteousness" is a tremendous blessing to anyone struggling to overcome a bad habit.  The reward promised to those who practice the way of mercy is an assurance of ultimate fairness in the universe.  When we let go of prejudicial attitudes against others, we open ourselves for the most rousing experience of divine acceptance and forgiveness imaginable.  The promise given to the pure in heart--that they shall see God--stands in striking contrast to the social rewards available in the popular media and in academic and theological circles who promote "the hermeneutics of suspicion"--interpreting people, texts, and movements in terms of self-seeking motives.  The promise that peacemakers "shall be called sons of God" hints at a sense in which being a son or daughter of God is something sealed beyond this life.  In this sense, none of us is a son or daughter yet.  Let us also note that peacemakers do not stand on the sidelines when the issue concerns their responsibility: they get involved.  Someone who mourns in sensitivity to suffering, undertakes the practices of mercy, and gets involved in peacemaking is on the path of advanced activity in the family of God, activity that may well arouse opposition.  The final promise given to those who suffer persecution gives assurance to enable courageous deeds of self-forgetting service.  Naturally, every human being has self-interest, and religion must satisfy that self-interest at the deepest level.  Once that satisfaction has been fully received, we are free to go forth without anxiety, for we know that our long term good is secure.  I heard a man tell of going through twenty years in a concentration camp.  He enjoyed as great a spiritual realization as anyone I have ever heard, and he reported that these eight beatitudes kept him spiritually alive through unspeakable torture and loneliness.

Jesus and truth

            Jesus had great faith in spiritual truth and in our ability to grasp it: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."  There were those whose questions were insincere, as when Pilate skeptically asked, "What is truth?"  A person unwilling to enter into genuine dialogue cannot receive truth.  Said Jesus, "If I tell you, you will not believe; and if I ask you, you will not answer."  But generally we find Jesus wholeheartedly engaged in proclaiming spiritual truth.  He made that his public career; he organized a group to do that, and he instructed all believers to carry everywhere the good news of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.

            Jesus' self-forgetting devotion to God reaffirmed the truth of monotheism as clearly as possible.  When a woman approached him with praise, his stunning reply was, "Why do you call me good?  No one is good but God."  Was the woman superficially impressed with Jesus' human qualities?  It is clear that Jesus pointed not primarily to himself but to the Father.  He could say when his supreme loyalty was challenged, "You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve."  Jesus' practice shows us his appreciation of the unity of God as well as the personality of God.  He prayed to God; he insisted, "The Father is greater than I"; and he repeated that he was simply teaching what the Father had sent him to teach and doing what the Father wanted him to do.  Jewish and Islamic monotheists should find that Jesus' life personalizes, not replaces, our appreciation of the unity of God.  However advanced a person's trinitarian theology may be, in religious experience God is one.

            Jesus lived the truth he taught about the Father in heaven; he sustained total consecration to being in tune with the spirit.  His seasons of retreat for prayer and communion indicate the importance he attached to maintaining a clarified relationship with the Father.  Just think of it!  He begins his public ministry with his baptism in the Jordan river and then goes off for the next forty days in the hills to be with God, to confront challenges, and to formulate policy.

            The sincerity of Jesus' devotion to his heavenly Father dominated every other motive.  Here was a man truly in love with God.  When Jesus presents the gospel--makes his central statements of spiritual truth--he is expressing his own experience in relating with the Father.  He taught that our first duty is to love God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength; that emphasis surely represents not only his reading of Moses' teachings but also the wisdom of his own experience.  Love unlocks our most intimate experience of God.  God is love; as we come to know him and experience his love we are inspired to love him in return.

            Revealing the Father's nature by appealing to common sense, Jesus taught that God knows how to give good gifts: "Which of you, if your son asks for a fish would give him a snake?"  Human parents participate in the divine love as they nurture and love their offspring.  It is the greatest possible proclamation of human dignity to teach that we evolutionary mortals have a close relationship with the majestic Creator of the vast universe.

Beauty in Jesus' life

            Jesus' appreciation of natural beauty shows in his frequent use of natural images to illustrate spiritual truths.  He compares the gradual growth of faith to a seed that becomes a great tree, and he likens the spirit of God to the wind that cannot be seen but whose effects are visible and to the water that sustains life.  He remarks that the feathers of sparrows are more glorious than the fancy robes of Solomon.

            Jesus also understood the body and fully mastered the desires of the flesh; but he could demonstrate the priority of the spirit without embracing ascetic self-denial.  He was accused of being "a glutton and a winebibber."

            Jesus set his policy of subordinating his material needs to spiritual purposes and expressed his decision in the words of scripture: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every words that proceeds from the mouth of God."  His wealth?  Treasure in heaven.  His family?  The oldest of at least five children, he was likely an excellent son and brother.  However, he would disappoint his human family if the Father's will required it, and he extended the very concept of family: "Whoever does the will of the Father in heaven is my sister and brother and my mother."  Jesus achieved his sovereignty over every human craving by his devotion to the will of God.

            Jesus' art form was the parable, a story illustrating a spiritual truth with materials drawn from everyday life.  He told a series of three stories about God's relationship to those who were lost--and who has not been lost?  God goes forth in search of them like a good shepherd looking for a lost sheep; God searches thoroughly like a woman looking for a valuable coin that has been lost; and once the child returns home, the joyous welcome restores him to full status in the family.  Jesus' parables are permanent contributions to planetary literature.  Free of all stylistic affectation, they vividly and economically set forth the essentials of human dramas.

            Jesus carried the art of living to new heights.  He was not in a hurry to begin his great mission, although he was fully focused once he began.  He had the cleverness to make repeated appeals to his religious opponents without getting caught until his hour had come.  What vigor to gather himself to speak in a powerful voice before he expired on the cross: "Father it is finished.  Into your hands I comment my spirit!"

Goodness in Jesus' life

            Jesus was a morally active individual.  He was touched by suffering and reached out, again and again, to the sick.  His interest in the planet and the kingdom of heaven never led him to overlook the individual in need.  His mission was to open wider the way of divine worship, and he cleansed the commercial and sacrificial practices of the temple in an act that we have noted was both revolutionary and ethically elegant.  We have already spoken of his ways of mercy and approaches to conflict.

One feature of Jesus' character that is universally inspiring is his balance.  He did not want to have everyone become a traveling preacher, imitating his life in detail.  He rather models character achievement by living the will of God.  For example, nearly everyone grows up on one side or the other of perfect courage; we incline to be either too bold and presumptuous or too timid and fearful.  In either case we need spiritual redirection to gain true courage.  In Jesus, who is strong but never fanatical and gentle but never vacillating, we find the balance.  He was neither a retiring mystic nor a compulsive worker.  He balanced sharp rebuke with merciful patience, penetrating wit with spiritual simplicity, enlightening parables with actions that taught more than words.

            Jesus was tolerant of individual differences and at the same time unequivocal in defense of truth.  His tolerance was never passive and never condoned evil.  His love for people prevented his dynamic devotion to righteousness from degenerating into contempt for those who were victimized by human weaknesses.

            Jesus knew when to work and when to seek refreshment in solitude; time and again we see him go apart to be with the Father, but did not long for the life of a recluse.  He was utterly devoted to the Father in heaven, and wholeheartedly dedicated to serving others.  He bestowed his energies upon those in needs, on crowds, and upon the apostles.  He enjoyed extraordinary experiences without cultivating them.  He had a sense of timing about what he did, waiting until his hour had come.  He was free to respect custom or to live in bold independence of tradition.  He knew the goodness of God and expressed that everywhere he went.

Conclusion

            Knowing someone of excellent character boosts our ideas of what we can become.  Friendship with such a person, if we are fortunate enough to enjoy it, empowers us.  He or she is an expert in living.  They exercise a kind of leadership no matter what their station in life.  Every tradition and every race has had great leaders, men and women who illumine the way and encourage us in our progress.  Asking, "What would she do?  What would he do?" expands our horizon and also gives the spirit a chance for input.

            A closer look at the human character of Jesus of Nazareth discovers the very qualities of truth, beauty, and goodness of a philosophy of living.  In him, we see the grandeur of genuine character achievement.  The secret to greatness is goodness, and the secret of goodness is to live truth beautifully. 

Beyond Character Building

             Take a moment to recall the virtues sketched in previous chapters.  Scientific action takes virtues of inquiry needed in other realms, too: a spirit of questioning and a positive appetite for problem solving, courage, concentration and patience, a well-informed and organized mind, methodical procedure, humane sensitivity, openness, teamwork, confidence, and humility. Philosophy takes adventuresome thinking, critically affirming the meaningfulness of a quest for wisdom integrating truth on material, intellectual, and spiritual levels.  Growth in spiritual experience takes faith and love.  Sensitivity to natural beauty requires taking time to cultivate appreciation and allowing relevant insights from other areas to enhance the experience.  Artistic living involves vigorously affirmative and good-humored attitudes, participating in the arts receptively and actively, and using strategic planning for a course of action.  Morally active living ideally involves sympathy, a sense of the universal import of actions in which we treat others as akin to ourselves, and a commitment to live as a loving brother or sister to whose we meet.  Situations may call for judicious compromise, the patient application of the mercy process, and principles for handling conflict. 

            Now, at the conclusion, there is no new virtue to add, just the integration that results as love dominates the whole personality.  Having glimpsed the greatness of world-historical leaders in the previous chapter, we now turn to our own character growth.  We will ask how to live with high standards during an age of moral decline.  We look at stages in growth and a way to promote character growth that has begun to show its effectiveness in public education.

Striving for perfection

            The simplest one-celled organism is alive with responsiveness, seeking ever more perfect adaptation to its surroundings.  In the rhythms of hunting, eating, mating, nurturing, playing, and resting, animals seek to satisfy the ceaseless vital prod of desire.  That quest motivates motion and change and is inherent in life itself.

            In human beings there surges a quest for perfection, dissatisfaction with our own mediocrity, a hunger for maturity, and joy in the times of tasting living at its fullness.  This is why we don't have to chase people with a demand for perfection.  It's already within each one of us!  We must encourage that quest for perfection, however, and not confuse it with perfectionism--compulsive adherence to absurdly high standards in trivial matters.  There has been a revolt against our high destiny.  We must combat seeing perfection as clean hands and conforming lives.  Perfection is no static and rigid bondage to external norms but the ripeness of fully vital and mature living coordinating insight and power on levels beyond what we achieve on earth.

            For Job, the way to spiritual realization and wholeness passed through a moment when he said, "I abhor myself."  Growth begins in awareness of need.  When the worst of the self is evident, however, it would be unwise to despair.  To look down on one's own ugliness one must somehow already transcend that ugliness.  To realize one's imperfection is already a step in activating our powerful awareness of ideals. 

            Imperfection of course is a fact of life for everyone.  Having a noble character does not mean you are perfect.  Nor does a period of wandering off the path count against the possibility of achieving strong character later on.  My friend Nancy Smithe tells a story of going down from the cement walkway to the rocks along the shore of the San Francisco Bay one night, as the moonlight glittered in the water before her.  As she moved along the shore, she noticed that the sparkling path of moonlight on the water leads directly from wherever you stand on the shore toward the moon above, no matter where along the way you may find yourself as a result of wandering off on your way.  There is always a straight path of light leading directly forward from there.  In whatever situation we find ourselves, there is a right path to God, a perfect way from wherever we are to the perfection that is our goal.

            Imperfection of course is a fact of life for everyone; having a noble character does not mean you are perfect.  Nor does a period of wandering off the path count against the possibility of achieving strong character later on.  My friend Nancy Smithe tells a story of going down from the cement walkway to the rocks along the shore of the San Francisco Bay one night, as the moonlight glittered in the water before her.  As she moved along the shore, she noticed that the sparkling path of moonlight on the water leads directly from wherever you stand on the shore toward the moon above, no matter where along the way you may find yourself as a result of wandering off on your way.  There is always a straight path of light leading directly forward from there.  In whatever situation we find ourselves, there is a right path to God, a perfect way from wherever we are to the perfection that is our goal.

            An effective philosophy, combining spiritual idealism with scientific realism, links spiritual ambition to a lucid sense of the long path ahead.  The faith attitude for approaching ideals is like a climber who toils up the side of a mountain while already having a rope securely attached at the top.  In other words, for faith, there is no anxiety about achieving a great character, no morbid horror about one's faults.  The prayer of faith--not just for oneself--asks that God make us increasingly perfect.  Though the process is gradual, not finished in a lifetime, there is a certain quality that we can manifest even now.

            Once a person takes up the quest for perfection, ideals expand rapidly.  The ability to grow, however, cannot keep pace.  The result is a growing distance between the person you want to be and the person you are.  This is where philosophy can help: develop a secondary ambition.  If the supreme ambition is to become like God, the secondary ambition is to accomplish what is possible on a realistic schedule.  The reasonable goal is to expect of oneself just what is possible--God can ask no more.  "We never charge a soul with more than it can bear," says the Qur'an.  The actual will of God, in other words, is to do our best with our present understanding and capacity.  Every job that is well done gives strength for others yet to come.  Live true to the best you know, and tomorrow you'll know more.  The immediate goal is to keep up to the level that is really possible for you--see Diagram 15-1.

Ideals and how to live with them

Increasing distance between our ideals and our ability to live up to them

The rapid growth of ideals:

Not necessarily identical

with the will of God

The region below what we are capable of.  We should do better than this.

The gradual ascent of our ability

to live up to our ideals:

the will of God!

                                                                                                            Diagram 15-1 

            There is a puzzle about Jesus' command, "Be you perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect."  The command is in the present tense, while the mind is well aware that the fulfillment of that command can only lie in the remote future!  What are we to make of this puzzle?  The solution is that there is a sense in which perfection can be enjoyed in a limited way even now: the wholehearted commitment to righteous living brings a taste of perfection.  That foretaste ennobles the earthly child of God and gives a thrilling anticipation of what becomes more real year by year.  Enjoying the foretaste of perfection, we realize that the command is also an invitation, not pronounced with the furrowed brow of fanatical moralism, but with invigorating confidence in, and support for, our potentials.  The command makes no sense if we are condemned to eternal bumbling.  Because the Father indwells us he can ask perfection of us.  We have the perfect guide and friend.  Our part is to cooperate wholeheartedly and consistently.

            The wholehearted commitment to righteous living solves a paradox of growth.  Excellent character is the fruit of fine habits, and habits become established by consistent and wholehearted actions; but doing is rooted in being.  The quality of what a person does is based on the quality of who the person is.  Thus it may seem as though you are caught in a circle: you must already be good in order to do the works of goodness.  The solution to the circle rests on two things.  First, goodness is first and foremost a divine quality, and human righteousness participates in divinity.  Second, there is a righteousness you can gain by faith.  The inspired, wholehearted commitment to living in a God-like way is a sufficient basis for actions that can establish habits that lead to noble character.

How long, O Lord?

To achieve a noble character takes decades of devoted living.  Confucius knew it.

At fifteen, I set my heart upon learning.

            At thirty, I had planted my feet firmly upon the ground.

At forty, I no longer suffered from perplexities.

At fifty, I knew what were the biddings of Heaven.

At sixty, I heard them with an unresisting ear.

At seventy, I could follow the dictates of my own heart; for I no longer overstepped the boundaries of right.

As Peking University philosopher, Tang Yi Jie, pointed out, Confucius' stages of knowing, hearing, and following link to truth, beauty, and goodness.

            Why does growth take so long?  One reason is that we must all pass through a transition period of conflict.  There is a time when we are carefree, heedless of the requirements of virtue.  And there is a time when maturity reigns, when character is established.  At both ends of the spectrum spontaneity reigns.  Between the time of carefree negligence and the time of really having fine and trustworthy habits, there is a struggle to go through.  Sometimes we fight and lose, sometimes we fight and win--but a fight there is.  A conflict breaks out from time to time between our higher ideals and our lower nature.  Because spontaneity is so attractive, because it is not appealing to witness conflicted persons struggling, successfully or unsuccessfully, with competing desires, and because there are so few persons who manifest the spontaneity of genuine character achievement, it takes a lonely courage to persist in the path of goodness.  The more people there are who have really made it, crossed over to the other shore of good habits, the easier it will be for those who want to grow.  The examples will be there.  Young people, thus encouraged, will mobilize their energies more effectively and take less time to get through the transition period.

            Though character takes long years to ripen, a powerful momentum can be initiated early in life.  Mencius describes it neatly (IIA2).  If the will is consistent and decisive, neither stumbling nor hurrying, spirit (ch'i) is unblocked and flows like a flood.

Spirit, in its highest degree, is vast and unyielding.  Nourish it with integrity and place no obstacle in its path and it will fill the space between Heaven and Earth.  It is a spirit that unites rightness and the Way.  Deprive it of these, and it will collapse.  It is born of accumulated rightness and cannot be appropriated by anyone through a sporadic show of rightness.  Whenever one acts in a way that falls below the standard set in one's heart, it will collapse.

Though it is rare for young people to gain strong character, those who sincerely take up the path early in life and persist, stumbling in immaturity but not straying, can by their late teens already manifest a wonderful momentum.

Growth of whole and part

            A philosophy of living that unfolds part by part, chapter by chapter, must never forget a central truth.  We act as whole persons, not as parts, and we grow as whole persons.  It is possible to cultivate a part of oneself, but character reflects the growth of the personality as a whole.  We grow as integrated physical, intellectual, and spiritual systems unified in personality.

            If great character is dominated by a love that comes from God, then character is not something we can build.  The human will cannot produce love by self-cultivation.  Self-cultivation can only proceed by focusing on aspects of the self; and growth is not merely a matter of adding together pieces of a puzzle.  The point is not to discard self-cultivation, but to place it in a broader context.

            Is spiritual self-cultivation even possible?  The spiritual is so central, so nuclear within the personality, not at the beck and call of the will.  We might think to cultivate ourselves spiritually by relating more with God, but sincere relating forgets the goal of self-cultivation.  Self-forgetting worship and loving service eventuate in growth.  The paradox, then, is that growth comes by forgetting growth as a goal.

            The wholehearted action needed for growth has a component of mystery, a spiritual dimension that we can draw on and that has at the same time its own independence.  We cannot press spiritual resources into the service of an ignoble act.  When action is wholehearted, full of faith, there is an additional flavor, an extra presence, that is added as a gift (the Latin word for gift is gratia, grace).  Only gracious deeds enable growth in those qualities called the fruit of the spirit.

            A holistic orientation toward growth does not imply, for example, that one should stop a program of physical exercise.  Rather one remotivates that program with an ultimate purpose reflecting responsibility to the Creator, a sense of the function of the body, and the intention to serve with the body-mind system whose health and vigor are enhanced by exercise.  Moreover, during the course of the exercise, attention focuses more on the game or activity than on the body-self being cultivated.  Similar remarks could be made regarding intellectual self-cultivation.  Study best leads to growth as the person becomes involved in the facts, meanings, and values for their own sake.  Regarding musical training, Bach said, "An hour of practice with the mind is worth two hours merely with the fingers alone."  Sevogia said, "Don't practice the guitar; practice music."  In general, when we put our whole self into what we do, the experience and the result are very different.  Growth results from concentrating our full powers of mind, body, and soul on the work at hand.

Stages and beyond

            There is something appealing about a list of stages of growth, especially with its customary acknowledgments about how the uniqueness of persons and the variety of life stories make it impossible to generalize with precision.  We would like to be able to apply even approximately some criterion so that we could know where we are and where others are on the path.  Monastic traditions are particularly given to elaborate stage sequences, charted by the self-observation of some outstanding character, and imposed upon devotees who realize that the goal deserves great effort.

            Psychologist Erik Erikson holds that the various stages from early childhood to later childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, and later adulthood are times that bring characteristic challenges.  These challenges offer the personality the chance to choose between a progressive attitude or a defeatist or self-centered attitude.  The positive attitudes are virtues ("ego-strengths") that combine to form an excellent character in a gradual process that is not completed until the person faces death.  Thus, as he sets forth the sequence beginning with early childhood, trust should come to predominate over distrust, self-confidence over shame, initiative over guilt, the "I can do it" attitude over a sense of inferiority.  The late teen begins to develop a strong sense of identity and capacity to make commitments and participate in relationships and groups.  The young adult develops sustained intimacy and mutuality in love, a commitment to making a productive contribution.  Later in life a quality of wisdom emerges after triumphs and disappointments, a spiritual depth that refreshes courage, renews earlier visions of wholeness, and whose fearlessness toward death encourages children.

            In the concrete development of an individual human being, of course, stages are not prominent.  Imagine a person growing up to the fullness of human maturity through a series of experiences combining to form a strong and well-balanced character.  If the conditions here seem ideal in some respects, they are also normal and need not be rare.

            Blessed by fine parents, the healthy child begins socialization with mother and father, with siblings and relatives and neighborhood playmates.  Playtime is abundant and full of laughter and hours enjoyed with a favorite friend.  The introduction to plants and animals and to the seasons of nature takes place, if not on a farm or in the country, at least in a home where plants and animals are present, with time for excursions for hiking and camping and fishing.  Early childhood is enriched with a wide and balanced variety of educational activities: helping with tasks in the home, observing the parents at work, beginning to acquire the skills of various fine arts and sports and crafts, beginning academic subjects and learning languages.  Parents, other adults, and teachers answer a stream of questions, and, in a well-ordered home, family meetings and early and wise discipline including explanations of family policy help the child learn to be thoughtful and kind and to subordinate egocentric impulses to the welfare of the family.  Natural, open, and spontaneous personal relating with God develops in a home where the parents take primary responsibility for the basic religious education.  The study of scriptures and participation in group worship stimulate the questions of a young mind.  Wholehearted moral decisions are nurtured in an environment of respect and love.

            Later childhood continues the variety of activities so auspiciously begun.  The study of nature continues and is amplified by gardening.  The child has the opportunity to help with the care of younger siblings.  Academic work intensifies.  Social exposure broadens to encompass a wide variety of people.  The child begins to become familiar with different ways in which men and women earn a living.  During this period the child begins to show the patience and concentration needed to process significant conflicts and to resolve them by listening to different opinions, praying, reasoning, and coming to a decision.  The child acquires the stamina to balance duties in tension, and begins to define a specific moral position.  Religious training outside the home becomes important, and the individual achieves membership in the religious community.

            Entering adolescence, the teenager navigates those difficult years of transition from the comparatively carefree life of a child to the responsibilities of adult life.  The growing individual relates well with most people but has friction with some.  Emerging physical and emotional changes and the increasing importance of relationships with peers heighten clashes with authority.  Parents facilitate the teen's ability to solve personal problems by being interested in what their young person is doing while rarely offering advice that is not asked for.  In the happy case, independence grows without revolt.  The teen manages to accept legitimate authority, even at the expense of personal convictions, but perseveres in the effort to integrate personal convictions and social obligations through creative initiative.  The idealistic young person evaluates social practices and institutions by the standard of how they manifest genuine values.

            The teen's religious education is stimulated by listening to adults and visitors, gaining exposure to diverse ways of thinking and varied interpretations of religion.  The more enlightened the religious environment the less will be the disillusionment of discovering inconsistencies and absurdities and hypocrisy of the worst of religious tradition.  The individual processes shock and indignation by meditation and prayer and responds by neither attack or withdrawal but rather by fair-minded questioning, dialogue, and teaching positive alternatives.  Though bold challenges on intellectual and ethical grounds confront issues in ritual and theology, human blindness and ignorance elicit sympathy rather than contempt.  Participation in religion is sustained by focusing on the positive themes of tradition and the gems of the scriptures, as the individual shifts from the religion of authority to the religion of experience.

            Loyalty with duties that help the family keeps the teen productively busy.  The teen starts taking a responsible role in groups and participates in service activities.  Recreation continues to be directed into wholesome channels.  Working a variety of jobs, the teen continues to learn about different ways of making a living, and decisions related to career are worked on thoroughly and gradually.  Getting to know more people helps the teen make adjustments and develop the perspective and attitudes for dealing with life's challenges.

            The young adult enjoys international travel and still wider opportunities to get to know and love people, young and old, of all races, classes, and kinds.  The maturing person can turn down attractive opportunities in order to sustain focus on major goals.  The person coordinates diverse educational acquisitions for effectiveness at work.  Education is specialized enough to earn a living yet not narrow, and the person sustains active interests in social, economic, and political affairs, in culture and education.  Learning continues for a lifetime. 

            Our young adult is a good worker, innovative, skilled, punctual, fully engaged, seeing God's work in the task at hand.  Having to postpone pursuing some ideal goals to face immediate practical necessities, the person labors patiently for years to earn a living for self and family, with sturdy good cheer, courage, and hope that encourages others to look forward to better times ahead.  Learning to use spiritual energy to motivate material performance, the individual can respond to pressure not in panic but with enhanced stability.  The person can save without being miserly, can be generous without being irresponsible, takes responsibility for efficient management of family economic matters, and enjoys holidays.  When things take an unexpected turn, if some cataclysm forces the person to chart a new course, this is done with lucid reasoning about priorities and without loss of faith in self or in humanity or in God.

            Decisions about marriage and family are carried out with a sense that the number one earthly responsibility is to one's family.  As a parent, the growing person sets and achieves goals--to become understanding and patient, to gain the necessary wisdom and to become effective in helping others to grow.  This parent's discipline is consistent with good family organization and is at the same time flexible; it is positive, enjoining the good rather than forbidding the bad.  And no child receives preferential treatment.

            In later adult life, as the intense efforts with work and family subside, the person continues to grow in communion with the spirit of God and becomes artistic in expressing divine values.  The person selects some combination of spiritual and material channels of service, taking leadership responsibility as appropriate and not withdrawing from a post without making provision for a replacement.  Experiencing the full spectrum of life's joys and sorrows, the person comes to express spiritual truth in a personally authoritative way, without ever losing a sense of humor or becoming domineering.  A life of health, sanity, and happiness culminates in learning fully how to do the will of God.  Despite high clarity in relationship with the indwelling divine spirit, the person does not think of self as of high importance, but grows old gracefully and accepts life's natural course including death, rich in the assurance of continuing life beyond.

The unity of a character with many virtues

            It is tempting to deal with the manifold demands of modern living by overspecializing in one's character.  But any strength, if carried to excess, if applied in situations that call for different strengths, may become a weakness.  (So often a strength conceals a weakness, since we can exercise the strength to avoid facing an underlying problem.)  Extremes are satirized in stereotypes that often ring all too true--the narrowly focused scientist who suppresses feelings, the prudent philosopher who fails to act, the zealous preacher who neglects commonplace obligations, the eccentric artist who lacks emotional stability, the fanatical moralist who forgets to love.

            We are in now a better position to pose the question of the unity of character.  Is noble character merely a collection, a bag of virtues, or is there a unity pervading all true virtues?  It is easy to say that a person of fine character acts and responds excellently to life's varied situations.  Considering the diverse types of situations we encounter, virtues can be understood as reliable responses to specific types of challenges.  A mature person responds with courage to fearsome situations, self-mastery to situations promising pleasure, patience to inevitable delay, aggressiveness when bold action can win a victory for goodness.  It may seem as though there is nothing more to say about the virtues other than to describe them carefully, one by one.  However, if there is unity to the source of life, a philosophy of living does well to seek a unity to character that responds to that source.

            Part of the answer to the problem of one-sided character development is to remember that human goodness, righteousness, includes several qualities--self-mastery, courage, wisdom, loyalty, and trustworthiness--that are interconnected.  You can work on one of them up to a certain point, and then the next step of progress comes mysteriously, only when you shift to another one.  For example, in developing self-mastery you may get to a certain plateau that you can move beyond only by growing in courage.  Courage, for example, requires wisdom, since one needs wisdom to know when to exercise it.  Just as a physician needs wisdom to know when to use medical skills aggressively and when to relax treatment, so a courageous person needs wisdom to know when to do the deeds of courage and when a tactical retreat is advisable.  Wisdom reaches a limit that only faith can surpass.

            The network of virtues flourishes in a balanced character.  Joy and enthusiasm do not usurp good judgment.  Courage abounds, but does not descend to recklessness and aggression.  Kindness moderates frankness.  Balance does not imply a tepid and bland mode of expression and action.  It implies a well-rounded set of abilities to act differently as called for by contrasting types of situation, together with an ability to discern situation types.

            More than a network of virtues and balance we seek a center.  Philosophers have often understood the need for a kind of inner order such that one's actions are governed by one's best thinking (reason) rather than by emotions or appetites.  However, they have often failed to distinguish between spirit and intellect.  As a result, they missed the crucial first half of the motto: Spirit over mind; mind over matter.  Failing to recognize the fullest expression of virtue as a fruit of the spirit, they overlooked the spontaneity of a noble character that has drawn so much attention in Confucian and Taoist thought.

            Character is ultimately unified by a love that God infuses into the soul.  Thus the exercise of every virtue in the fullest sense has the spiritual fragrance of love, and loving service becomes the first of the virtues.  Courage and self-mastery, for example, are threshold virtues--virtues that override potential obstacles to right action.  They are in that sense negative, and are fulfilled in a character dominated by effective dedication to positive goals.

            Consider the transformation of courage as this virtue takes its place in a character system dominated by love.  A deed is called courageous when the doer follows a right course of action enduring things that are fearsome or painful.  But the point of a noble character is to act rightly, not to focus in a certain way on life's in-spite-of-whiches.  Rather there is such a calm and stable concentration on what is to be done that awareness of the fearsome is marginalized or eliminated.  Though philosophic discipline, concentrating on the higher understanding of a situation, can prepare one for this "courageous" consciousness, the quality that invades the mind is not the product of thinking.  It is a spiritual gift, experienced as coming from beyond what the mind can produce.  Courage is more properly expressed by an adverb than by a noun; it is a way of being loyal.  And the highest loyalty comes from the commitment to do good to others, from love.  It says, "I will love every man as a brother, every woman as a sister."  Love, then, is the spiritual origin of courage.  Love imparts its interpretation of the situation and motivates the performance of the deed.

            Love, then, unifies the thoughts, words, and deeds of a great character.  Love motivates the pursuit of truth, appreciation of beauty, and devotion to goodness.  Take love away and these activities tend toward insensitive research, escapist hedonism, and spiritless performance of duty.

Solving the problem of character education

            The family unquestionably nurtures character most.  We get our first impressions of the universe, our initial religious orientation, our first discipline, skills, and language, and our crucial socialization during the formative years of childhood.  Schools cannot fix the character flaws of a generation of broken families.  Nevertheless, public education can give opportunities for remarkable transformation.

My favorite quick definition of character is love of service.  That love is kindled through practice.  Service begins in the home, but a teacher can prime the pump with an assignment in service-learning.  Education can be centered on projects rather than on books.  Books can be used as resources rather than as masters.  Teamwork and community-building can begin in the classroom.

Here's how I am developing these ideas in my courses in ethics and religion.  During a unit of the few weeks during which we study a particular ethical theory or religion, I first highlight teachings with broad appeal.  For example, with utilitarianism, I focus on the thought of acting for the good of the whole.  With Hinduism, I focus on a line from the Bhagavad-Gita: Established in union [with the eternal spirit self], perform action." In union with what?  With the atman, your eternal spirit self.  If you are a member of the class, then, during the three weeks of the Hinduism project, you are especially to focus on living in harmony with your true self.

The next thing I do is to ask students to engage in dialogical living during the unit and to write on their experiences at the end.  The typical paper begins with a report of the student's experience, continues with a commentary on that experience that the student constructs on the basis of our study of the tradition, and ends with the student's commentary on the tradition.  (Beginners of course are not expected to understand a tradition well in three weeks.)  A student can always request an alternative assignment. 

            Dialogical living means to practice what you agree with and living in imaginative dialogue with the rest.  If there are aspects of the leading thought (and its connotations that you find in study) that you agree with, then practice them with special focus for a few weeks.  If there are aspects that you disagree with, or that do not feel right for any reason, do not force yourself to practice them.  Instead, imagine yourself living in dialogue with a friend whose thoughts, words, and deeds truly express that tradition.  In some cases, it is reasonable to assign students to have an actual conversation with a representative of that tradition.  The greatest learning comes in personal interaction.

The student is free to interpret and adapt the leading thought.  For example, the eternal spirit self (atman) of Hinduism can be interpreted as a psychological source of peace, energy, creativity, wisdom, and purpose; as an impersonal spirit presence; as a gift of a loving God.  At the very least, for three weeks the student is asked to live in harmony with his or her true self, while perform the actions of his or her station in life.  Are you a son or daughter?  A spouse or parent?  A student?  An employee?  A citizen?  Then perform excellently the duties of your station.  Those who believe in God can also identify with bhakti yoga: perform your action not from compulsive desire for the rewards of doing well or from fear of doing poorly, but out of love for God.  (Students are not asked to become devotees of Krishna, though studying Hinduism may well expand their concept of God.)

            I could fill a chapter with wonderful stories of people who have done these projects in ethics and religion.  Here are some results--shared by permission--from just one class with just one project.  Note in what follows that the translation of the Gita that we use (by Barbara Stoler Miller) translates yoga--union--by the word discipline.  In hopes of attracting teachers to try the assignment, I begin with a few excerpts focusing on study.

1.  Katie Davidson quoted a passage from the Gita: "'Knowledge means humility, sincerity, nonviolence, patience, honesty, reverence for one's teacher, purity, stability, self-restraint' (13.7).  While taking the path of karma yoga I looked at my education from this point of view, different from the ways I have in the past.  Previously I never took my education seriously.  I used to try to fake my way through it; I would get frustrated with teachers and assignments, and I could never make myself stay home to study.  Looking at my education through the context of this passage makes me feel much more positive and productive about it now."

2.  Russ Gantzer wrote: "I had been becoming idle towards my schoolwork, and I decided to change my attitude.  This paper was an excellent chance to improve my study habits and become closer to God by trying my hardest for the sole purpose of pleasing Him. . .  I studied what I had previously learned in earlier classes and also read ahead.  I enjoyed studying while keeping in mind that I was doing it for God.  Also in class I was paying more attention to my professor and took more in depth notes.  Feelings of accomplishment ran through me.  I felt like I was really getting something done.  I also read the required chapters of the Bhagavad-Gita.  Having reread sections that I didn't understand, I gained a greater appreciation of what I read.  I really thought about what I agreed with and what I disagreed with.  It was actually exciting to be critically thinking and not just accepting everything as it is written.  Even stronger than before were the feelings of accomplishment of having already completed two of the assignments and doing them better than I thought I could.  Finally, the most gratifying of all my assignments would be going to the art studio to work on my painting.   There is always a kind of fear that artists usually experience before they start a piece or even if it is already started.  Mine was reduced when I thought of why I was working so intently: God.  Painting is dissimilar to studying or reading in that there is a lot more unconscious decision-making.  During my time of painting for God I experienced making a lot more conscious choices than I usually have before.  Overall it was a very fulfilling experience, and I plan to continue acting in union for the good of myself and others, and to please God."

3.  Brad Eckert wrote: "'No wise man disturbs the ignorant men attached to action; he should inspire them, performing all actions with discipline' (Gita 3.26). . . .  One of my best friends and I were going to go out to eat and grab a movie.  As a good student I felt compelled to do the right thing and involve myself with the much-needed studying.  My friend was upset and wanted to get the movie and forget his responsibilities.  While I ignored his plea for the movie I began to study for my classes.  As he watched me studying he was inspired to do the same.  Before I knew it, I was leading him into a practice that was good for his union with the divine one.  It was his dharma, or sacred duty, to perform his best as a student. . . .  As a college student I have to study on my own and come to class regularly and on time.  During class I paid attention and took good notes.  This is all part of performing your duties to hold up the society in which you live.  When I take the test and see my results, I will not worry about the grade.  Instead I will take the grade as it comes, and I know I gave it my best shot. . . .  As I slowly learned not to grow attachments to material things I found myself less stressed.  It gave me more time to concentrate on my spiritual life."

4.  Amanda Chassidy Hudnall wrote: "For the past two weeks, since beginning the Gita, I am finding myself much more aware of my central station in life than ever before.  It seems to me that I am much more of a person, with many more responsibilities to take care of that I must have just been slipping away from, without actually realizing what was happening.  The Gita opened my eyes in more than one way.  Writing this now I feel almost embarrassed at the way I have been.  The first thing in the Gita to strike me was the way it made me realize what I do every day does not affect only me.  For example, my parents telephone every single day just to see about school and all parents' concerns.  Now I see that by taking my responsibilities seriously it is not only good for me, but also relieves an amazing amount of strain on my family also.  Maybe I should explain that my father had open-heart surgery two years ago, with problems ever since.  The 'internal spirit self' mentioned in the Gita finally was understandable to me, simply knowing that my father was under no stress from me at all.  Therefore his heart stays that much further from the terrible spells it takes, and that makes me feel good.  I am not claiming to understand Hinduism by any wild 'enlightenment.'  Rather, I'm just trying to relay my own understanding and respect for Hinduism through my particular relation to my life at this particular point."

5.  Kimberly McBride wrote: "I am at a very complex station in life.  I play the role of an accountant, student, and wife.  I often find my roles exhausting.  This past week I tried to do each the best I could. . . .  Although I cannot say that I have been totally successful, I have been able to improve in each area of my life. . . .

            "Trying to life my life in dialogue with the Hindu perspective was very difficult.  However, after being able to put aside my mental mindset about my own religion, it became somewhat clearer.  The reason I chose karma yoga was that I often find myself wanting to slack in areas when no one is watching me.  Being in dialogue with Hinduism challenged me to be the best in all duties, whether or not I get rewarded from man.  This also reminded me that my rewards don't come from man, but from God.  And as a result of this fresh revelation, I was able to find joy once again in performing my duties.  I also recognized the sacrifice and discipline that was involved with performing actions excellently.  On many occasions it took more time and felt somewhat tedious.  I also found it difficult to detach myself from the fruits of my actions. . . .  Finally, even though I don't believe in all aspects of the Hindu religion, it has helped to clarify and bring deeper meaning to my own religion."

6.  A student who wishes to remain anonymous (can you see why from his story?) wrote:   "'Always perform with detachment any action you must do; performing action with detachment one achieves supreme good' (3.19). . . .  This deeply strikes me, and my mouth hangs open a moment or two, and I reread and reread again.  How can one be expected to act at all if one is to get no reward?  If I am never going to become a famous writer, if I am never going to get that thrill, that reward, then why am I writing now?  I think about my rewards all the time!  How can I even pretend to 'dedicate myself to action' (12.10) if I can reap no reward?

            "I break from the text a moment, I pause, and I think to myself, 'What if I never become a "great" writer, is it still worth it?  What if there is no reward waiting for me?  Is all of this work and frustration worth it then?'  This is the turning point, when I start to really apply Hindu beliefs to my working life and start to see changes.  'Well,' I reason, 'I have suffered much from my desperate pursuit of "greatness," but I have done my duty as one who wishes to be "great," so I have done what I was supposed to.  Krishna tells me that I am the only one who could have done this, and that my work--successful or not--is necessary for the universe and that, therefore I should continue to write and not want or expect a reward!'

            "As I apply this concept to my daily work habit I notice many things change in my mind.  I have found the love of work, as work.  I have found that 'the man of discipline has joy' (5.24).  Joy is not, as I once thought, in the future; it is not what will be, what could be, or what should be--but what is!  Joy exists in every moment of life, and does not come from a publication, from recognition, but from the realization of my growing powers within, and in my continuous effort--that's the shift!  Joy comes from effort and action, not from success or failure."

7.  Daniel Hopes wrote: "Sometimes it is in our own best interest to take a look at life from a different angle, one that is new and unique to us.  For me, an American college student raised in a Protestant household, looking at life from a Hindu perspective was difficult to comprehend and very challenging.

            "I decided that, while at work, I would try to be the best worker possible.  Since I am a cook in a large cafeteria, I went in thinking that I would receive no true fruits of my labor because I am paid hourly and am rarely under the scrutiny of boss or customer so have very little contact with the people who would want to reward me.

"For almost a week while at work I worked harder to make sure that I was extra pleasant to my coworkers, harder working, and constantly aware of the quality of food I was cooking.  I refrained from constant complaining that is common in the workplace and stopped looking at the time clock counting minutes until I was able to punch out and go home.  When I had the chance to come in contact with people dining in the cafeteria I was extra helpful and pleasant.

"I realized that by trying harder to concentrate on doing my job and only my job and doing it to the best of my ability I was able to do my job far better.  I was much more pleasant to work with, more efficient, and at the end of the day I felt uplifted and happy with the job I had done and was in a good mood when I left the workplace.  The most amazing thing is that I did not have a painful feeling the next time I had to go to work.  I would not go as far as saying that I was happy to go to work, but I was far from being upset over the fact that I had to spend the next eight hours in a hot kitchen. . . . .

"Although I applied only two small segments of the teachings to my everyday life I feel I am a better man for it.  I was more at peace with myself and my surroundings.  Although I could not possibly live up to many of the teachings of Hinduism, the knowledge gained by this experience helped me to be a better, happier worker, and I will probably try to keep that perspective in my everyday life.

"At times I found myself at odds with one of the principal teachings that I was trying to live up to.  Being raised in a capitalist society, it was very difficult for me to work harder and better for the sake of doing a better job and not for the possibility of reward.  The amazing thing I discovered is when I stopped worrying about the pay rate and hours I was working I felt a huge weight and pressure being lifted off of me and started, for the first time, to truly enjoy my job and the feeling I got from completing a job well done."

            Most semesters, on most projects, most students have a good experience with the projects.  I had one experience of a project, however, on which only a minority of students turned in positive reports.  My rough, subjective impression is that over the years about 25% of students have strongly positive experiences, fewer than 10% report frustration or dissatisfaction, and the rest have moderately positive experiences.  The full harvest of educational effort, of course, cannot be known immediately.  Nevertheless, negative results prompt continuous course evolution, fine-tuning project designs and integrating readings and time in class better with the projects.

            In my Kent State classes in religion and in honors classes, I estimate that 90% of students are spiritually affirmative and want to grow spiritually--perhaps 60% in other classes.  It is always important to offer alternative assignments and to support students, no matter what life path they may choose.

            In conclusion, growth occurs as students choose to respond sincerely to the discipline of assigned projects, the experience of interpreting their own experience through the lens of great texts, and having to turn in an account reflecting on the result after a definite period of time.  Experience gained with the project makes learning real.  Project-centered education can promote character growth.  Dialogical living helps us understand diverse others.  We learn to affirm our common humanity more richly, comprehend our differences more keenly, and appreciate the unique individuality of each personality more joyously.

Character and soul

            Having looked at examples of great human character and ways of growth, let us turn to the soul.  Every time we handle a situation well, we add another fine layer to our soul.  Each layer contributes to what we have to bring to the next situation.  The character we acquire is the basis for the soul, our true self now and in the beyond (to be distinguished from the divine indweller or atman or kingdom of God within).  I had cherished a concept of the soul for years, but got a new glimpse when my father died.

            Trying to empathize with my dying father scared me.  How could I stay close to him in my thoughts--walk through the valley of the shadow of death with him--while he was suffering?  Would my sympathy make me vulnerable to disabling pain?  As soon as I recognized the fear, the solution came quickly.  A prayer transformed everything in my mind.  I prayed for the success of the ministry of the spirit indwelling my father's mind.  Immediately I could identify with that spirit nucleus of his personality.  It is hard to convey, but imagine an orange.  The rind is the rough and tough outer shell.  Beyond that is the wonderful interior.  In that prayer it was as though I was inside the fringe of emotion.  I did not have anything to fear, because I was on a different level than that of my imperfect, emotional self interacting with his imperfect, emotional self.  I was free to roam in the space of love.

            The day after my father died, I was blessed to be able to attend the first of three sessions given at work dealing with the grieving process.  I learned how important it is to be able to tell to sympathetic listeners one's stories about the one who has died, stories about one's relationship to the person, and stories about how the world has now changed.  I learned about the wide range of emotions and behaviors dealing with all kinds of loss.  Upon losing someone close, a person may be in shock for perhaps a month.  Then a period of six to nine months may follow during which time the person experiences the pain with more or less disorientation and perhaps a fear of losing control.  Then comes a period of adaptation, readjusting to the loss, struggling with new roles and responsibilities.  Then comes a sense of healing, reinvesting emotional energy, developing new environments, relationships, and activities.  Finally, reconciling the loss, new directions emerge, and one remembers with less pain.  The process is more cyclical than linear.  It is not uncommon for the process to take three to five years.  Knowing what to expect psychologically facilitates the spiritual work needed for growth.

            Putting the first lesson into practice, I went driving after dinner in the lovely Ohio spring countryside with my wife Hagiko so we would have a chance to tell our stories to each other.  Hagiko shared how much it meant to her to have in my dad a father whom she could truly respect.  In that moment, though my memories are both positive and negative, I thought I should just select positive stories.  By the end of our drive, I had told a handful of wonderful memories.  Then I sensed something remarkable.  It seemed as though those moments aligned, united, and got fused by and with a marvelous ray of light.  It was as though the true soul of my father--the best characteristics, the qualities of enduring value, with all the less noble features recycled--was fusing eternally with that indwelling divine spirit.  It gave me such hope for my own growth and anyone's growth; it is such a natural and wonderful process toward divine perfection.

Conclusion

            How needed today are those strong personalities who are devoted to doing good and whose presence and activity make fear and anxiety vanish!  They are prepared to defend righteousness and truth.  They have received the peace that looks on dangers and goes through trials unmoved.  They know they are not alone.  No matter how great the cataclysm that upsets their hopes and plans, they can turn to new and greater accomplishments ahead.  Discarding fear, they let idealism restrain their impulses.  Their inquiry is fearless, their teaching free.  Having been liberated by truth, in the faith that in heaven there will no longer be anything to fear, they proclaim a friendly universe by their cheerful service.  Their leadership prevents disasters, slows cultural decline, and catalyzes progress.  They devote themselves with self-forgetfulness to their mission for humankind and for God.  In agony, they find refreshment in prayer.

            Integrated character results from love that motivates us to take up anew the disciplines of truth, beauty, and goodness, even as these disciplines lead us to a new quality and maturity in love.  We harvest strong character by going through experience as well as possible. 

Living Goodness

            The philosophy of living as presented here has traced a journey from truth, through beauty, to goodness.  The path into truth begins with facing facts, establishing facts with scientific care, exploring causes, and considering an evolutionary perspective.  That path continues with a philosophic inquiry by means of clarified intuitions, logical reasoning, and an ever-expanding, coordinated synthesis of wisdom.  The path culminates in the discovery of living truth, leading to prayer, worship, and service in the universal family of God.  A life sensitive to beauty enjoys the beauties of nature, from the wilderness to the pleasures of family life and the arts in a broad sense, encompassing gardening, humor, the fine arts, and the artistic aspects of living.  Goodness is expressed in a wholehearted commitment to righteous living, the practice of the golden rule.  As imperfect beings, we have great use for the mercy process and the ways of preserving spiritual unity amid conflict.

            Goodness is a living reality, a divine reality; and it is a value that we can live.  It is a living reality because of its dynamism in an evolving universe.  Yesterday's issue might not be tomorrow's issue.  What was good enough yesterday might not be good enough tomorrow.  The goodness revealed by the indwelling spirit lights the way, providing individual guidance in every circumstance and situation, and aligning the unique personality with universal law. 

            The rewards of living in truth, beauty, and goodness are health, sanity, and happiness.  Health is promoted by sound heredity and scientific living, by a balance of recreation and work, by respect for morality, and by the joy of spiritual experience.  Sanity results from good health, from religious experience that avoids fanaticism by integrating with material and intellectual activities, by habits of moral living, and by having a philosophic technique for responding to the craziness of the modern world.  Happiness is promoted by success in one's family life, in work, by a reasonable enjoyment of pleasure, by living in accord with one's principles, and especially by the spiritual fellowship available through spiritual experience.

            The quality of character that results from unifying truth, beauty, and goodness in daily life is dominated by love.  This mature love integrates material emotion with the feelings of the soul. 

            Truth is, ultimately, the truth of love.  In the realm of beauty, the first lesson regarding feeling is to receive and return the love of God.  And human goodness is an expression of divine goodness, love in action.  Religion conceives of God most of all in terms of goodness and love, since we could not worship God, with the implied desire to become like God, without thinking of God as good, and since love represents our highest experience of spirit personality. 

The eternal God transcends all values that we could ever comprehend, but there are aspects of the divine character that we somewhat comprehend.  In the highest sense, these truth, beauty, and goodness are qualities of God, but the good news is that even imperfect beings can live divinely.  The goodness of God makes it possible for us to live these qualities ourselves.

            Character is the basis of the soul, which is not only our truest self in this life; it is that which continues forward in our adventure into the universe after the mind-body system that we have used on earth is spent.  No other "product" of our activity is as important as the soul.  We co-create our soul by decisions and actions in cooperation with divine spirit.  Yes, we have the freedom to arrest the adventure, to reject the will of God, the way of life, to commit cosmic suicide.  We can turn away from the model of heroism and yield to exhaustion, discouragement, and despair.  If we choose, however, we can participate in the very evolution of truth, beauty, and goodness.  We can paint a brushstroke on the face of the God who evolves by being anchored in eternity and engaged in time.

            Love sees values with an eye to their source and destiny.  Love completes the cycle of creation, originating in the Creator, who is love.  Above all, love is the experience of the family of God.