A philosophy of living needs a philosophy of vital thinking, since thinking is a pivotal part of living. We have already sketched the scientific, philosophic, and religious basis for our venture into cosmic truth. Now the task of integration looms ahead. As we conceive of ourselves, as we look at human history, as we look beyond this life on earth, can we integrate science, philosophy, and religion? To do so gives direction and vigor to daily life, but it takes some careful thinking to do so responsibly. We begin with the self of many dimensions, the personality.
What can be more beautiful than to see a genuine expression of personality! When someone expresses himself or herself in all sincerity--whether in a pensive moment or in word or deed--the personality is breathtakingly revealed. No masterpiece in an art gallery can compare with it. The body may be mediocre, the mind average, the soul undeveloped, and the spirit may have little chance to function in a mental environment devoid of faith. But personality shines when genuinely expressed.
From the standpoint of science, it is truly a marvel of evolution that such a thing as a human organism has evolved. It is so improbable, so complex, so capable as to inspire wonder. Love discovers something special and beautiful in the other. Many writers have noticed what they call the unique "style" of the individual as something to appreciate aesthetically. From a religious perspective, that unique and mysterious wonderfulness is the personality bestowed by God.
An expanded concept of personality reminds you of the beauty and complexity of the people you meet. It leads you to look for the wonderfulness, to be patient for it to shine. It encourages you to believe that when their personality shines it tells you more about who they truly are than the times when they are not at their best. In short, the faith implied in an expanded concept of personality sustains your relationships with others.
Our culture needs a reawakened sense of personality. If some past thinkers conceived human nature with a European, rationalist, and male bias, some thinkers today emphasize diversity in ways that are sometimes equally one-sided, as though our most important features are gender, race, or social class. The solution puts three factors in balance.
1.
Affirm our common humanity.
2.
Seek to understand our differences.
3.
Appreciate each person's unique personality.
Science studies people as gathered into various groups; philosophy conceptualizes human universals; and religion loves individuals for their wonderfully unique personalities. The three approaches combine in a concept of personality as uniting body, mind, soul, and spirit. Holding an expanded concept of personality helps you love well.
The mysterious personality
Once people really get to know one another, when they meet again they recognize each other. Even if a long time has passed, even if they have gone through many changes, they recognize each other's personality. The personality mysteriously remains the same throughout every change. No matter what changes you have undergone, it is still you that has come through them all. You are the same person that has grown so much since your early childhood. Your personality imparts a unique, recognizable, personal touch to expression on any level, from the way you move to the way you think and speak and worship. The mysterious personality continues, unique, indefinable, wonderful. An ugly body, a crude mind, and a wicked will do not erase the beauty of the personality. One may talk of personality types, but no two personalities are identical.
Each personality is unique. The function someone performs at work may be filled by someone else, but the person is irreplaceable. According to Jewish tradition, personalities cannot be counted. There can be a body count but not a personality count. A personality can be described to some extent, but not defined, known but not comprehended. Nor is personality is totally predictable in its decisions. In human relationships that last for years, partners may become familiar with each other's habits, may seem to know each other all too well, may become dull to each other. But this shows a failure of imagination. Full comprehension of personality eludes the human mind, and even into eternity the personality will remain interesting, creative, surprising.
An adequate concept of personality is a major step toward a satisfying answer to the question, "Who am I?" When the concept of personality dims, however, the sense of self totters. Masses consume entertainment featuring sex and violence that undermine human dignity. Movie stars talk of reinventing themselves, and some people say they get tattoos in order to acquire something permanent in an ever-changing self. "She has no personality," said one girl to another. It would have been better to say, "She is so shy that she rarely manifests her personality in social situations."
The mystery of the personality calls for respect. Mystery implies that there is always more truth, beauty, and goodness to be revealed than we presently see. The needs of the other personality call for love; and beholding the beauty of the truth of the other personality inspires love. Thus we can propose a leading principle for relating:
Encounter each personality you meet
in respect and love.
Respect and love deepen over time, but there is a sense in which each graces the beginning of a relationship. Respect honors the mystery and awesome dignity of the other. Love seeks to be of service.
The term personality has a special sense here. Customarily we think of a person as simple and as a unity. We can also think of persons as a complex system of body, mind, soul, and spirit. My proposal is to regard personality as something beyond all these aspects. When we say, "She has a wonderful personality," we are beginning to differentiate her personality from her other aspects. When I speak of the personality as the Creator's artwork, I do not intend at that moment to refer to the evolutionary mind-body system whose mix of excellence and mediocrity derives not only from the creation but also from the acts, misdeeds, and accidents of countless years of evolutionary history. Our personality, in the restricted sense, comes directly from God, while our body and mind come indirectly from creation through a process of evolution.
Wisdom seeks to give balanced recognition to the importance of the individual and also to personality's essential involvement in one-to-one relationships and social systems of three or more persons. This balance is implied in the concept that each person is a son or daughter of God, that each other human being is a brother or sister, that each is a member in the family of God. Social science has found that influences of culture and language are very pervasive in our lives. That fact makes it all the more wondrous that we can experience authentic, one-to-one relationships with other personalities, relationships that partly detach themselves from the background of social conditioning. And the dynamics of human relationships are so engaging that it that it would be very easy to lose a sturdy sense of individuality if it were not for the relationship with God. Personality exists only in relation to other personality--human and divine.
The supportive body
Imagine physically excellent living. You and your family are healthy, enjoying hearty nutrition, refreshing rest, invigorating exercise. Free of physical poisons, genetic defects, and addictions, you have the strength and energy you need all day long. In an attractive environment with clean air and water and a reasonable level of population and prosperity, children grow up with games and sports and activities in nature. Disease has been largely conquered, and scientific medicine cooperates with alternative methods of healing. Sooner or later--following inspired intelligence or reacting to misery--we will achieve the changes necessary to live that way. Looking forward to that better day makes you want to start right now.
A philosophy of living puts the body in its place in a larger whole.
Care for the body as part of the total personality system.
In other words, the body is not the main focus, not the personality center of gravity, not merely a basis for everything else (which is relegated to a derivative and secondary status). Neither is the body some trivial appendage, some filthy and distracting horror. The body is the result of a marvelous weave of creation and evolution; and it plays an essential role in this good life, our material life on this planet. As an evolutionary product, the body has its genetic pluses and minuses and its heritage from our animal ancestors.
The body has various levels that enable it to fit into a harmonious total personality system. We store energies from sunlight and air and water and nutrients in the blood and the tissues of our organs. Muscles "tell" the bones where to rest or move. A regulatory system of complex molecules "tell" our muscles to relax or contract. And the neurons of the brain respond to direction from the mind. The cells of the body span a wide spectrum from the hard bone cells to the neurons (nerve cells) of the brain that affect--and respond--to mind. In the personality as a whole, the body's primary function is, through the central nervous system, to support the mind. (Indeed, body and mind affect each other so intimately that it is easy to think of them as a single mind-body system.)
The body obviously is part of nature, interfacing with the surrounding environment, receiving stimuli and sustaining interaction. The body's mechanism includes electrical and chemical aspects. Nevertheless, the body, even the simplest living cell, is more than a mechanism on account of the mysterious spark of life. The body is also the organ of the will in expression and action. The body supports our ways of being in the world. The body is our window on the world, our access to our physical environment. The body establishes our spatial orientation: upright versus prostrate, here versus there, left and right, in front and in back, above and below. The sculptor Rodin portrayed the entire human body as equally expressive in all of its parts. The stretch of a leg stepping forward, the lines of suffering in a back, the agony or ecstasy in a posture--all express human experience, a heritage from the past responding to the potentials of a present situation.
Health of course requires these various physical systems to be in good working order. Good health habits give you the balance and stabilized energies you need. Of the three disciplines of health--exercise, rest, and nutrition--rest seems easiest, though rest comes best for one who can say, "It is well with my soul." The great effects of proper nutrition on health are just beginning to be discovered by mainstream medicine. When deficiencies are severe, it can be transformative to supply what had been missing. Emotions in children, adolescents, and adults depend much on whether they take energy from more from junk food (not to mention alcohol and other drugs) than whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and balanced proteins. Physical poisons affect the mind as well. Exercise may be even more important.
It is no surprise that knowing about the brain helps you live more intelligently. Evolutionary biology portrays the brain as having three parts: (1) the brainstem controlling heartbeat and breathing and intuitive arousal, the earliest-evolved, "reptilian" brain; (2) the mammalian brain, with the limbic system supporting emotions including play and sympathy; and (3) the human neocortex, most recently evolved, supporting thinking. These biological observations suggest some practical ideas.
· Remembering that our emotional life intimately weaves with the neurons of the mammalian limbic system helps us retain our poise.
· Learning that there are many neurons connecting the limbic system with the neo-cortex reminds us that our emotions depend greatly on the way we understand the world.
· Despite the various emotional and intellectual types of people, the brain support for mature religion, encompassing thinking, feeling, and doing, cannot be confined to the limbic system.
The coordinating mind
The mind amazingly spans the spectrum between making contact with neurons of the brain and making contact with spirit. Accordingly, we may formulate a philosophy of living principle:
Cultivate the mind to play well its role of intermediary between body and spirit.
As an intermediary, mind receives inputs from the physical surroundings and inputs about the supreme values we can celebrate and pursue. The mind interprets the meanings of facts and the meanings of values so as to be able to coordinate them, to bring them together in making a decision. Our lives are guided by the decisions we make, and these decisions are best made in the light of a scientifically sharpened awareness of fact, a spiritually quickened realization of values, and a philosophically deepened interpretation of meanings. Our education on all these levels should never cease.
Though the conscious mind is most celebrated, part of the mind is unconscious. Freud's influential study of the unconscious focused on repressed desires and on pleasure-seeking or violent impulses that have no acceptable outlet in society. The unconscious manifests in our dreams, for example, and in slips of the tongue. But the unconscious includes more. It includes the mind's interface with the body. It includes our forgotten past. The unconscious works on problems that concern us. Accordingly, wisdom counsels us to
· Have a friendly and accepting attitude toward all dimensions of the self, patiently reflecting on "lower" impulses in the light of higher thought.
· Realize that in prayer or mediation, an "answer" that comes to mind may be from the subconscious, and should be evaluated responsibly.
In the interest of sanity and mental efficiency, you want a mind that is activated yet poised. Common sense tells you to avoid what is bad for the mind:
· Substances that poison the body.
· Harmful material emotions such as anger, fear, jealousy, hostility, and greed.
· Needless quantities of hedonistic entertainment and shocking news.
At the same time you will fill your mind with what is good for it.
· Give enough time for the happiness of spiritual communion, good reading, and uplifting conversation to keep the mind positive.
Remember that the mind is evolutionary. Because we come onto the stage of planetary life in the middle of human history, our ways of perceiving, thinking, feeling, and conducting ourselves are part of the evolutionary process leading from primitive culture to advanced civilization. The more we know of primitive life, the more we understand aspects of our own society, from outbursts of wildness to rules prescribing detailed conformity to social norms and the tendency to rely on shamans or other intermediaries with the spirit world rather than developing their own spiritual adventure. The more farsightedly we envision human destiny, the more we appreciate the positive initiatives growing in our world today.
The guiding spirit
All over the world men and women of every race report marvelous experiences of inner peace, power, love, strength, inspiration, energy, and wisdom. What is the source of these wonderful experiences?
Some of the energy and "inspiration" we find in peak experiences comes from the subconscious, whose creations emerge into consciousness in powerful images and ideas. Maybe the pleasure of peak experiences results partly from the brain's production of tells of enkephalins, the pleasure-stimulating molecules a hundred times more powerful than morphine. I picture the situation as follows: the mind-body system is so designed that when faith opens the mind to the influence of the spirit, mind transmits the impulse of spiritual joy and stimulates enkephalin production. However, if this idea were taken seriously as speculation about how the spirit works, it would give the misleading impression of an intellectual hypothesis probing depths beyond itself. Spirit, as I understand it, so transcends mind that spirit's ability to indwell a mind so involved with matter is unfathomable.
Discernment regarding what we might call spiritual experience is of course difficult. Sometimes, however, biological and psychological accounts seem to tell the whole story of some of the experiences that get labeled as spiritual. Sometimes these accounts hardly seem relevant to the experience at all. And sometimes they seem to tell part of the story, but not the heart of the story. In the last case, it rouses our wonder that the dimensions of the human personality can blend so smoothly. It may be difficult or impossible to tell whether a given wonderfulness coming into consciousness originated in the superconscious spirit or the subconscious mind, but we can be grateful for whatever is true, beautiful, and good, through whatever channel it may seem to arrive.
Religion tells of the indwelling spirit of God as the prime source of spiritual experience. Hindu seers spoke of the atman, the eternal spirit self, and Buddhists of the Buddha-nature within. The Hebrew book of Proverbs teaches that "the spirit in man is the candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts." Jesus proclaimed, "The kingdom of heaven is within you." God is said in the Qur'an to be "closer to you than the vein of your neck." Chu Hsi spoke of being centered in the tranquillity and activity of the Supreme Ultimate. Mencius wrote about stages of experience: "A noble man steeps himself in the Way (tao) because he wishes to find it in himself. When he finds it in himself, he will be at east in it; when he is at ease in it, he can draw deeply upon it; when he can draw deeply upon it, he finds its source wherever he turns." Despite the cultural variety of these phrases and their meanings in context, a spiritually-centered perspective finds a common thread in them all.
Many religious teachers speak of an indwelling spirit to underscore that we can relate intimately to God, that the Creator, however high and remote he may be, is also close. For the most part, the experience grows gradually, though there are moments of a sudden advance, a quantum leap forward. Normally you hardly suspect the presence and activity of the spirit. Seek it, and it does not appear, but your experience of seeking and finding will change with decades of devoted living. Every day of living rightly brings you one step closer. No matter how uncertain the future may be, the assurance of abiding spiritual companionship comes to those who develop the relationship.
Because it usually takes years on the path before the clearer experiences of spirit occur and because of the blending of all levels of the personality, the term spirit is ambiguous and overused. It is employed in commerce to evoke religious sentiment for secular purposes. Dodge named a car Spirit and sold it for a season with the line, "Let the Spirit move you," a slogan treacherously designed to establish an association in the mind of the listener: whenever you would hear that phrase in a religious context, you would think of an automobile. Even in religious contexts the word is overused. A friend of mine who is active in the interreligious dialogue movement has come to be repulsed by talk of spirit and spiritual since religionists so often use it to make grand claims implying that their projects and motives are wonderful. A student said in class, "I'm not religious but I'm very spiritual." It sounded as though she was announcing that she was very much like God.
The term spirit, as used in this book, does make a grand claim. It claims that the nucleus of the human personality is a reality that transcends mind. Spirit refers not to a person's noble attitudes and higher strivings (the "human spirit"), but to their divine stimulus. The spirit, strictly speaking, is not a part of man but a part of God. Our greatest adventure is to attune ever more closely to our spirit guide. The spirit gift is our greatest gift from God, the gift that assures us that we are the daughters and sons of God. What an occasion for rejoicing! Just to progress day by day in realizing the divine presence is enough of a main goal for an entire life, and pursuing such a goal would enhance, not distract from, your social life. Let us compress these ideas in a simple phrase:
Above all, seek to realize the presence of your indwelling divine spirit and to follow its guidance.
I once clearly and distinctly heard the voice of the spirit from the very center of my being. Since that time, I am hardly tempted to regard thoughts that arise in the mind's ordinary inner dialogue as the voice of God, even when they respond directly to my prayer in second person discourse. Very helpful words may form in the mind, but I assume that such deliverances are the best my mind can transmit at the time from its diverse sources (past and present, subconscious, conscious, and superconscious), not the voice of God. Sometimes I hear someone say something like, "I was driving to the store and Jesus said to me . . . . " Since all manner of surprising and wonderful things really do happen, I never say never; but I silently hope for the person to become less presumptuous and to avoid fanaticism. A trusting and friendly relationship with God goes best when we retain a sense of the difference between our mind and God. Conversations with God are more reliably sought beyond words on the level of the soul.
The
decisive will
What kind of life shall we live? Day by day, hour by hour, we choose. Will we live in a more materialistic and selfish way or in a more spiritual and generous way? Will we have our best thinking in the driver's seat, or will we let material emotions run our lives? In business, for example, will we serve in order to make a profit, or will we make a profit in order to serve? Will we subordinate our higher energies to lower goals, or will we use the energies of mind and body to promote higher goals? Around which center of gravity--material or spiritual--will we balance our lives?
I do not want to give the wrong impression. I am not saying that material concerns are bad or that the care of the self is wrong. We each have legitimate material interests and enjoyments, and we each do well to respect the self as having a legitimate place in the larger whole along with others. Although an opportunity for high-leverage, sacrificial service may arise, self-sacrifice is not a way of life. Nevertheless, service, doing good to others, brings the greatest satisfactions to the self. The care of the self goes best when the self is envisioned as a member of a universal whole.
Part of the brain gives specialized support for the will. Setting goals, establishing priorities, making choices and decisions, exercising determination--all these functions are supported by the human forebrain, the frontal lobes. The frontal will, so to speak, goes beyond the limbic emotions and the neo-cortical intellect.
Our best thinking is spiritually illuminated thinking, but the spirit cannot make our decisions for us. Your spirit guide does not take over your personality. Whether you cooperate is up to you. How sad, however, to see the will weakened in conflicts where the mind tries, without spiritual leverage, to enforce its determination to conquer some addiction!
It is by our decisions that we integrate our personality, coordinate mind and body with spirit. The drama of decisions hinges on whether or not we will establish the quality of order that makes for balanced and harmonious living:
Mind
over matter.
Spirit over mind.
It is easier to go through life without making many decisions, simply to follow the herd or the rut of personal habit. Therefore, decisive living is rare. People rarely go through the full decision process indicated in the previous discussion of prayer--mobilizing their energies for whatever choice may be best, doing their utmost to solve the problem, then opening up to higher wisdom in faith, and finally deciding resolutely and following though to complete the course of action. An active, awakened will acquires strength by focusing on the choice points in daily life and making decisions about them. The personality comes alive in making decisions.
The ideal, of course, is not to be continually deliberating about decisions. Indeed a liberated spontaneity results when a person has achieved the great decisions that structure religious and family commitments, decisions that govern how a person will conduct himself or herself in a career or long-term service project. A great decision operates as a sustaining and effective guide in responding to situations. My number one principle regarding willing would be this:
Prepare your great decisions by
many small decisions.
You may have to make and remake a decision many times before you are ready to make it forever and finally. But great decisions put your life on a higher plane and establish a powerful momentum. Mencius knew a "flood-like" spiritual power, "vast and unyielding." He testifies that if you "nourish it with integrity and place no obstacle in its path it will fill the space between Heaven and Earth." Jesus, at the beginning of his public career, went into the wilderness to formulate the great decisions that would structure his ministry--he would not use his special power for personal material advantage, for political or military goals, or to win people over by amazing them with overwhelming displays. He determined to worship only God and to live by the word of God.
Good decisions, small or great, result in strong character, the basis of the soul.
The growing soul
The soul is who you most truly are. When you have the satisfaction of doing your best, you feel it in your soul. When you betray your values and commitments, you feel let down in your soul. A friend, struggling in an oppressive work environment, said, "They can make me miserable, but they can't have my soul!" She had a strong sense of her core self, her soul, and of the values of her core self that she would not compromise. She was not religious at that time, but she had a clear sense of her soul.
Religion teaches that the soul has the potential to survive death. "You can't take it with you," runs the warning to mortals who heap up material possessions. The soul, however, is the real harvest of your experience that you can take with you--it is you! The more wholeheartedly and consistently you say "Yes" to the spiritual adventure, the more you reinforce your most important decision.
The soul feels supreme values and it grows by living in accord with them. A key principle for the soul might be put like this:
Nourish your soul on truth, beauty, and goodness.
When mind, illumined by spirit, chooses the will of God, the soul grows, as portrayed in Figure 10-1. The true self, then, is what grows by cooperation with God. When we rebel against the divine leading, the soul is torn and stands in need of healing.
A
factual situation
calls
for a decision
The spirit presents
the highest relevant
truth, beauty, and
goodness
The mind interprets meanings:
how to actualize
those values in
this situation
The will decides
The whole personality acts
The soul grows
Conclusion
The mystery of personality makes it delightfully impossible for philosophers to achieve total comprehension. However much we progress in our understanding of truth, beauty, and goodness, all three involve personality, and personality is beyond our intellectual grasp. There are of course options in confronting a mystery. For science-centered thought, a mystery is just a problem that has not yet been resolved. Humanism may acknowledge mystery but say no more. Religion, however, may affirm every mortal personality as a masterpiece of the Creator's art.
If you choose to integrate scientific understandings of human evolution and the brain with humanistic perspectives on culture and religious faith in God, you can regard each person you meet as a divinely created, infinitely loved, spiritually indwelt, evolutionary, free-will son or daughter of God.
Our philosophy of living has brought forth several principles in recognition of the many dimensions of personality.
· Encounter each personality you meet in respect and love.
· Care for the body as part of the total personality system.
· Cultivate the mind to play well its role of intermediary between body and spirit.
· Above all, seek to realize the presence of your indwelling divine spirit and to follow its guidance.
· Prepare your great decisions by many small decisions.
· Nourish your soul on truth, beauty, and goodness.
Living with this concept of personality refreshes relationships. It helps you love. It empowers you to see others' weaknesses without contempt. It lets you think constructively about the other's complexity--after all, you are trying to help that person function better on every level. And it gives assurance that you, too--even if you cannot see it--are one of these beautiful, beloved creatures.