The Synchronicity of Truth Across Ancient Wisdom Traditions
"Truth is one: sages call it by different names." Upanishads
Perhaps we can best see the synchronicity between these ancient wisdom traditions by way of the ubiquitous golden rule.
The ancients taught that the way of the upward path was to always treat others as we would have them treat us, i.e. justly, fairly. This first teaching or original instruction has been passed on for the practical benefit of their young, and ours, by every worthy wisdom tradition the world has known.
As Jesus said, we should, “Do onto others as you would that they should do onto you.”(Matthew 7:12, Luke 6:31)
In the Jewish tradition, into which Jesus was born, it was said: "What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man. This is the law: all the rest is commentary." (Talmud, Shabbat 31a.)
Ancient Hindu sages declared, This is the sum of duty: do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you. (Mahabharata 5:1517)
Buddhists say, Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful." (Udana-Varga 5:18)
Confucius said, Do not do to others what you would not like yourself. (Analects 12:2)
Taoists put it this way: Regard your neighbor’s gain as your gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.(Tai Shang Kan Yin P’ien)
In Islam, it is written: "None of you [truly] believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself." (Number 13 of Imam "Al-Nawawi's Forty Hadiths.)
Native Americans taught their young that, "All things are our relatives; what we do to everything, we do to ourselves. All is really One." (Black Elk)
And in the western tradition, Aristotle learned from Socrates, who learned from all the others and from nature itself, that a wise person will treat others, “not as means to his own ends, but as and end in themselves” - as “another self.” (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics Book 8: Section 3 1156b10)
Immanuel Kant says a reasonable person will act always they way they would have others act, and not make an exception of themselves. This is, he says, a categorical imperative – which means there are no exceptions.
John Stuart Mill puts it this way: “Our freedom ends where another person’s begins.”
Epicurus attributes this moral law to nature: “The justice which arises from nature is a pledge of mutual advantage to restrain men from harming one another and save them from being harmed.”
By contrast, Confucius thinks that, whether natural or not, this capacity must be habituated by traditions. What he calls jen (which translates as goodness, benevolence, human-heartedness, and love) he considers to be the ideal of healthy relationships.
By way of this habit of jen, we learn that “the self is a center of relationships,” and “becoming fully human involves transcending…egoism," “expanding one’s empathy indefinitely. This expansion proceeds in concentric circles… that begin with oneself and spread from there,” outward, including one’s family, friends, community, and ultimately, all of humanity.
Confucius admits, jen is probably never fully realized, but one transcends selfishness by “shifting the center of one’s concern from oneself,” outward, and in the process, “it induces courtesy, unselfishness, and empathy – the capacity to ‘measure the feelings of others by one’s own.’” In the Confucian view, “the inner world deepens and grows more refined as empathy expands.” And as Huston Smith put it, “Only of such large-hearted people, Confucius thought, can civilization be built.”
Perhaps Indigenous wisdom traditions understand this best, and take it to an even higher level. “When you are born and raised in a circle contained by other circles, in an extended family, in a clan, a compound, a village, you come to know well the other human beings there… There are no strangers, no institutions…”(IO, p.21) Such communities incorporate the natural wisdom that “All existence is relationship. Nothing is separate in existence. No one is alone.”(p.18)
“There is a very powerful Maya mantra that summarizes the best of human ethics: In Lak’ Ech, which translates as…you are my other I.”(OI, Alarcon, 268) And by this view, “any notion of ‘self’ must include the ‘others,’”(OI, Alarcon, 274) but also embrace “the ‘oneness’ of all life in which the ‘self’ is not alienated from the surrounding nature.”(OI, Alarcon, 275)
“This idea of being related to all life forms as family is not a fantasy to us. There is one pervading consciousness that unites and connects us all… In truth, we really are related to all life forms as family.”(OI, Parhuli, 316) “We grew up loving the land. We grew up loving each other on the land and loving each plant and each species the way we love our brothers and sisters.”(OI, Armstrong, 67) “That doesn’t just happen as an intellectual process,” but rather, “as a process of needing to gather food and needing to sustain our bodies for health. It happens as a result of how we interact with each other in our families…in our extended family’s…in our communities…outward to other people who surround us on the land.”(OI, Armstrong, 67) And living in this way, we find that “the land is us. In our language, the word for our bodies contains the word for land.”(OI, Armstrong, 67) Therefore, as “Chief Seattle states, ‘What happens to the earth, happens to the children of the earth. Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves’.”(OI, Adamson, 34)
“When we include the perspective of the land and we include the perspective of human relationships, one of the things that happens is that community changes. People in the community change. Something happens inside where…material wealth and the security of it or being fearful and being frightened about not having ‘things’ to sustain you disappears. They start to lose their power. They start to lose their impact.”(OI, Armstrong, 72) When we awaken to the intrinsic goods of life, “those things that are material loose their power over us.”(OI, Armstrong, 73) And “The realization that people and community are there to sustain you creates the most secure feeling in the world…fear starts to leave…you’re imbued with hope.”(OI, Armstrong, 72)
So we must remember the old ways, especially “for the young people who are having such a difficult time (all young people are having a difficult time) it heals them.”(OI, Armstrong, 74) (connect value*)
“The Original Instructions of living in a circle provide that there will always be a caring person at hand for the child who will listen with compassion and assure the child she only needs to express what she feels and the hurt will pass…and that despite the pain of that moment life will go on being good and manageable. When the children spontaneously express their feelings, and are heard and understood and encouraged, they are quickly forgotten, and the children move on.”
Whereas “children who don’t have this resource, who have no one to run to, will not finish with the hurt.”(Manitonquat, OI, p.23) “Without such resource and support, when they feel alone and abandoned, they retreat and store the confusing feelings. They will forget them, but they stay in unconsciousness memory and will return, making them once more alone and confused. Children who are neglected or abused will pile up these old hurts inside them,” where “they will turn toxic and poison from within with negative emotions and destructive patterns of behavior.”(OI, p. 23)
This is how “human beings have forgotten their Original Instructions,”(OI, xvi) Manitonquat says. And it is also the reason it is imperative that we revive and pass on the ancient teachings now, because it is just such “human beings that have put [the earth] in jeopardy and only human beings that can save it.”(OI, xv)
Hence the value of dialogue between mutually respecting equals for growing healthy human beings - and likewise, the importance of this for preserving the environment that is our home. By contrast to our modern habits, Native American spirituality “not only embraces ‘others’ as equal and unique human beings but also calls for a new global awareness of the ‘oneness’ of all living creatures and of nature as a whole.”(OI, Alarcon, 275)
“The Indigenous understanding has its basis of spirituality and recognition of the interconnectedness and interdependence of all living things – a holistic and balanced view of the world,” in which, “All things are bound together, all things connect.”(OI, Adamson, 34) And for this reason, “human understanding is only realized in perfect humility before the sacred whole,”(OI, Adamson, 34) “because we’re all coexisting together.”(OI, Gilbert, 38) So “let’s put our minds together to see what kind of life we’ll give our children.” (OI, Mohawk, 131)
Again, as Native Americans put it, “we have the responsibility to use our intelligence.”(OI, Trudell, 321) Unfortunately, “We’ve not been encouraged to think. We’ve been programmed to believe.”(OI, Trudell, 322) Not necessarily maliciously, but because conditioned minds don’t know better, don’t have the full critical capacities they were born with to judge right from wrong, clear from erroneous thinking.
It was for this reason, he says, that “You [Europeans] did to us what they [your own ancestors] had done to” you.(OI, Trudell, 322) Just as we continue to treat young minds today, unaware of what is lost in the process. Native Americans experienced this when Europeans arrived and made a full force attempt “to change and alter the spiritual perception of reality and turn it into a religious perception of reality, because there’s a difference between spiritual and religious. Religion is about submission and obedience and authoritarianism. Spiritual is about taking responsibility.”(OI, Trudell, 322)
“Tribal people worship the sacredness of creation as a way of life, not as a religion. In fact, none of the Native languages have words…synonymous with religion. The closest expression of belief literally translates to the way you live.”(OI, Adamson, 35) “The fundamental thing about being Iroquois,” for instance, as John Mohawk says, “is that people will not argue about beliefs or religions. Inside our traditional [spirituality] are all kinds of different beliefs, and not everyone shares all those beliefs.”(OI, Mohawk, 48) But “Whatever our beliefs are we are encouraged to maintain the tradition of clear thinking. Clear thinking is the foundation of the Great Law.”(OI, Mohawk, 48)
So as living Indigenous peoples still implore, let us take responsibility for the way we live and the mind’s innate, if somewhat diminished, powers of clear thinking, that is, our ability to understand and resolve problems by way of the Great Law or golden rule we can all access and understand.
All of which “requires a willingness to see through another’s eyes to overcome limited perspective of what is possible; to hear through another ears to develop joint strategies of action.” (OI, Cook, 156-157)
What we need now is to learn from all ways come from all places! Because “the earth itself is everywhere and in all parts sacred.”(OI, Gray, 86) “This traditional knowledge is no different from either the Aborigines of Austrailia or the Indigenous Peoples from Africa, or the Sami from the Artic regions” of Scandanivia.(OI, Goldtooth, 222) “We are people of the land, we are people of the waters and the lakes, we are the river people, we are the desert people, we are the plateau people, we are the mountain people, and we are the people from the forests“ and the islands.(OI, Goldtooth, 222) And so what is required is mutual respect for diverse ways of being, which revives and strengthens our natural humility, an essential quality of character that, like empathy, is refreshed and reinvigorated by observance of the golden rule.
“It is when people think there is only ‘one place’ that is holy or only ‘one way’ that is right that hegemony rears it’s ugly head and societies get into trouble with conflict and war.”(OI, Nelson, 11) And “When people are at war, they are not thinking clearly…”(OI, Mohawk, 55)
And importantly, “Unless there is something I don’t know,” Adamson emphasizes, “we are all Indigenous Peoples on this planet…” and as such, “we have to reorganize to get along.”(OI, Adamson, 35) So “This effort to protect Mother Earth is all Humanity's responsibility,” Devaney says, “not just Aboriginal People. Every human being has had Ancestors in their lineage that understood their umbilical cord to the Earth, understanding the need to always protect and thank her. Therefore, all Humanity has to re-connect to their own Indigenous Roots of their lineage -- to heal their connection and responsibility with Mother Earth and become a united voice... All Nations, All Faiths, One Prayer.”(2012 Jacob Devaney, Idle No More: Hints of a Global Super-Movement, Huffington Post, January 3, 2013)
“This helps us to remember who we are,” Ausubel says, and “that we were all Indigenous to a place not so many generations ago.”(OI, Ausubel, 2007, ooii) So “there needs to be a convergence of all kinds of people working on these issues” together. (OI, Thomas-Muller, 244) “Let us learn to work together as people of many colors, many cultures, all genders,” as Goldtooth says, for “we don’t have much time.” (OI, Goldtooth, 227)
So “They invite us to re-indigenize ourselves to our common home, Mother Earth.”(OI, Ausubel, 2007, xxii) “The process of re-indigenization means we have to decolonize our minds, hearts, bodies, and spirits and revitalize healthy cultural traditions.” (OI, Mohawk, 14)
“Re-indigenization” is, in a sense, “a return to the past,” not meant to suggest that we should get rid of all good changes since – and there have been many – but simply that we should remember our original and arguably, better selves – those who were born knowing the fundamental logic of treating others as they would have others treat them.
Taken together in dialogue, these traditions could take us a long way toward a better understanding of human potential, including what good education ought to entail – that is, education that aims to bring out the good in our young. For those who practice this first principle learn, by personal empiricism, the secrets of achieving intelligent happiness. For we discover in this way that to be other-interested is not opposed to being self-interested, after all - it is, in fact, the ultimate self-interest – enlightened self-interest!
This is no different, in fact, than simply being fair and just. And those who learn to make this a habit, never have to fret thereafter about the right thing to do - for once we’ve stopped doing things we wouldn’t want done to us, everything else we might do in this life is all good and right.
(Put Socratic relationships…*)
It is said that there are no two characters in history more alike than Jesus and Socrates. Perhaps the most significant difference being that Socrates did not claim to be the son of God. Though some would argue (and recently discovered texts would suggest) that neither did Jesus. Unless perhaps, as Gandhi once put it, we all are the children of God!
This has been the deeply held view of all the great souls of the past – that we are, potentially, godlike, but also, that we are born with both potentials - divine and diabolical. And every choice moves us closer to either our better or our lessor selves. For everything living is always changing, as Aristotle put it, always either getting better or getting worse.
Hence, the reason we must help our young understand the ideals of good character – because it’s very difficult to hit a target we don’t aim at. To be excellent, or as the ancients called it, to be virtuous, is to actualize our highest potentials, and in the process contribute to the higher function of the whole of humanity. It is developing this potential on which our personal happiness depends. “To be good is to be happy,” as Aristotle said Plato was the first to say.
But there are many paths to the same summit, as the Vedic Hindu put it, and so many ways to reach the personal excellence that is our unique, but universal, potential. What’s more, there is struggle and suffering to be endured in every journey. Which is why we must be helped when we are young to learn the tools of practical wisdom we will need along the way.
And to the extent that we can learn from each of these cultures, we do so best if we put them into dialogue. Together, they offer practical wisdom for the sake of mastering life’s inevitable struggles and intelligent solutions for resolving the problems and conflicts inherent in every life. For a person to develop their potential for good character, they will need all these skills – temperance to face situations of temptation, courage in situations of danger, wisdom in situations of ignorance, fairness in situations of injustice, and humility to face arrogance. And so our toolbox must be filled with all the wisdom of the ages from early on.
Unfortunately, this dialogue does not happen in our modern culture, and whatever the reason past generations dropped the ball, failing in their responsibility to teach their young the art of dialogue needed in the search for truth (and this too is a dialogue worth having), it is not too late to remember. And it’s for this reason, again, that this book is a dialogue in itself – inclusive of as many of these inspired voices as a thoughtful child might comprehend – for this is dedicated first and foremost to my grandchildren, and yours, who more than likely won’t get this education any other way.
And much as I’d like to be there to talk with them myself, they may in fact get more out of a book in their lap than the sound of my voice, for books can be rediscovered, again and again. They may not have the time for as much research as it would take…still, they might be motivated by mine to go further, dig deeper, and learn more of what the ancients had to offer.
My wish for them is that they may climb out of the dark cave of ignorance, into the bright light of a life lived in constant and ongoing learning for the love of it! For it is with this purpose at heart that we can discover the higher good in ourselves, and all others. We may have learned many bad habits along the way, and suffered much painful karma because of it. But the truth of human goodness stays true, and the path awaits for us to begin our own hero’s journey.
This chart may help illuminate an overview of the evolution of these traditions from one to another through time. Since we have only vaguely identifiable points of origin for most of them, and most of them are still alive and well in the world, it’s not easy to show beginnings, endings, or direct relationships. We can though identify the flow of ideas from each into the others.
"Truth is one: sages call it by different names." Upanishads
Perhaps we can best see the synchronicity between these ancient wisdom traditions by way of the ubiquitous golden rule.
The ancients taught that the way of the upward path was to always treat others as we would have them treat us, i.e. justly, fairly. This first teaching or original instruction has been passed on for the practical benefit of their young, and ours, by every worthy wisdom tradition the world has known.
As Jesus said, we should, “Do onto others as you would that they should do onto you.”(Matthew 7:12, Luke 6:31)
In the Jewish tradition, into which Jesus was born, it was said: "What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man. This is the law: all the rest is commentary." (Talmud, Shabbat 31a.)
Ancient Hindu sages declared, This is the sum of duty: do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you. (Mahabharata 5:1517)
Buddhists say, Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful." (Udana-Varga 5:18)
Confucius said, Do not do to others what you would not like yourself. (Analects 12:2)
Taoists put it this way: Regard your neighbor’s gain as your gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.(Tai Shang Kan Yin P’ien)
In Islam, it is written: "None of you [truly] believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself." (Number 13 of Imam "Al-Nawawi's Forty Hadiths.)
Native Americans taught their young that, "All things are our relatives; what we do to everything, we do to ourselves. All is really One." (Black Elk)
And in the western tradition, Aristotle learned from Socrates, who learned from all the others and from nature itself, that a wise person will treat others, “not as means to his own ends, but as and end in themselves” - as “another self.” (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics Book 8: Section 3 1156b10)
Immanuel Kant says a reasonable person will act always they way they would have others act, and not make an exception of themselves. This is, he says, a categorical imperative – which means there are no exceptions.
John Stuart Mill puts it this way: “Our freedom ends where another person’s begins.”
Epicurus attributes this moral law to nature: “The justice which arises from nature is a pledge of mutual advantage to restrain men from harming one another and save them from being harmed.”
By contrast, Confucius thinks that, whether natural or not, this capacity must be habituated by traditions. What he calls jen (which translates as goodness, benevolence, human-heartedness, and love) he considers to be the ideal of healthy relationships.
By way of this habit of jen, we learn that “the self is a center of relationships,” and “becoming fully human involves transcending…egoism," “expanding one’s empathy indefinitely. This expansion proceeds in concentric circles… that begin with oneself and spread from there,” outward, including one’s family, friends, community, and ultimately, all of humanity.
Confucius admits, jen is probably never fully realized, but one transcends selfishness by “shifting the center of one’s concern from oneself,” outward, and in the process, “it induces courtesy, unselfishness, and empathy – the capacity to ‘measure the feelings of others by one’s own.’” In the Confucian view, “the inner world deepens and grows more refined as empathy expands.” And as Huston Smith put it, “Only of such large-hearted people, Confucius thought, can civilization be built.”
Perhaps Indigenous wisdom traditions understand this best, and take it to an even higher level. “When you are born and raised in a circle contained by other circles, in an extended family, in a clan, a compound, a village, you come to know well the other human beings there… There are no strangers, no institutions…”(IO, p.21) Such communities incorporate the natural wisdom that “All existence is relationship. Nothing is separate in existence. No one is alone.”(p.18)
“There is a very powerful Maya mantra that summarizes the best of human ethics: In Lak’ Ech, which translates as…you are my other I.”(OI, Alarcon, 268) And by this view, “any notion of ‘self’ must include the ‘others,’”(OI, Alarcon, 274) but also embrace “the ‘oneness’ of all life in which the ‘self’ is not alienated from the surrounding nature.”(OI, Alarcon, 275)
“This idea of being related to all life forms as family is not a fantasy to us. There is one pervading consciousness that unites and connects us all… In truth, we really are related to all life forms as family.”(OI, Parhuli, 316) “We grew up loving the land. We grew up loving each other on the land and loving each plant and each species the way we love our brothers and sisters.”(OI, Armstrong, 67) “That doesn’t just happen as an intellectual process,” but rather, “as a process of needing to gather food and needing to sustain our bodies for health. It happens as a result of how we interact with each other in our families…in our extended family’s…in our communities…outward to other people who surround us on the land.”(OI, Armstrong, 67) And living in this way, we find that “the land is us. In our language, the word for our bodies contains the word for land.”(OI, Armstrong, 67) Therefore, as “Chief Seattle states, ‘What happens to the earth, happens to the children of the earth. Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves’.”(OI, Adamson, 34)
“When we include the perspective of the land and we include the perspective of human relationships, one of the things that happens is that community changes. People in the community change. Something happens inside where…material wealth and the security of it or being fearful and being frightened about not having ‘things’ to sustain you disappears. They start to lose their power. They start to lose their impact.”(OI, Armstrong, 72) When we awaken to the intrinsic goods of life, “those things that are material loose their power over us.”(OI, Armstrong, 73) And “The realization that people and community are there to sustain you creates the most secure feeling in the world…fear starts to leave…you’re imbued with hope.”(OI, Armstrong, 72)
So we must remember the old ways, especially “for the young people who are having such a difficult time (all young people are having a difficult time) it heals them.”(OI, Armstrong, 74) (connect value*)
“The Original Instructions of living in a circle provide that there will always be a caring person at hand for the child who will listen with compassion and assure the child she only needs to express what she feels and the hurt will pass…and that despite the pain of that moment life will go on being good and manageable. When the children spontaneously express their feelings, and are heard and understood and encouraged, they are quickly forgotten, and the children move on.”
Whereas “children who don’t have this resource, who have no one to run to, will not finish with the hurt.”(Manitonquat, OI, p.23) “Without such resource and support, when they feel alone and abandoned, they retreat and store the confusing feelings. They will forget them, but they stay in unconsciousness memory and will return, making them once more alone and confused. Children who are neglected or abused will pile up these old hurts inside them,” where “they will turn toxic and poison from within with negative emotions and destructive patterns of behavior.”(OI, p. 23)
This is how “human beings have forgotten their Original Instructions,”(OI, xvi) Manitonquat says. And it is also the reason it is imperative that we revive and pass on the ancient teachings now, because it is just such “human beings that have put [the earth] in jeopardy and only human beings that can save it.”(OI, xv)
Hence the value of dialogue between mutually respecting equals for growing healthy human beings - and likewise, the importance of this for preserving the environment that is our home. By contrast to our modern habits, Native American spirituality “not only embraces ‘others’ as equal and unique human beings but also calls for a new global awareness of the ‘oneness’ of all living creatures and of nature as a whole.”(OI, Alarcon, 275)
“The Indigenous understanding has its basis of spirituality and recognition of the interconnectedness and interdependence of all living things – a holistic and balanced view of the world,” in which, “All things are bound together, all things connect.”(OI, Adamson, 34) And for this reason, “human understanding is only realized in perfect humility before the sacred whole,”(OI, Adamson, 34) “because we’re all coexisting together.”(OI, Gilbert, 38) So “let’s put our minds together to see what kind of life we’ll give our children.” (OI, Mohawk, 131)
Again, as Native Americans put it, “we have the responsibility to use our intelligence.”(OI, Trudell, 321) Unfortunately, “We’ve not been encouraged to think. We’ve been programmed to believe.”(OI, Trudell, 322) Not necessarily maliciously, but because conditioned minds don’t know better, don’t have the full critical capacities they were born with to judge right from wrong, clear from erroneous thinking.
It was for this reason, he says, that “You [Europeans] did to us what they [your own ancestors] had done to” you.(OI, Trudell, 322) Just as we continue to treat young minds today, unaware of what is lost in the process. Native Americans experienced this when Europeans arrived and made a full force attempt “to change and alter the spiritual perception of reality and turn it into a religious perception of reality, because there’s a difference between spiritual and religious. Religion is about submission and obedience and authoritarianism. Spiritual is about taking responsibility.”(OI, Trudell, 322)
“Tribal people worship the sacredness of creation as a way of life, not as a religion. In fact, none of the Native languages have words…synonymous with religion. The closest expression of belief literally translates to the way you live.”(OI, Adamson, 35) “The fundamental thing about being Iroquois,” for instance, as John Mohawk says, “is that people will not argue about beliefs or religions. Inside our traditional [spirituality] are all kinds of different beliefs, and not everyone shares all those beliefs.”(OI, Mohawk, 48) But “Whatever our beliefs are we are encouraged to maintain the tradition of clear thinking. Clear thinking is the foundation of the Great Law.”(OI, Mohawk, 48)
So as living Indigenous peoples still implore, let us take responsibility for the way we live and the mind’s innate, if somewhat diminished, powers of clear thinking, that is, our ability to understand and resolve problems by way of the Great Law or golden rule we can all access and understand.
All of which “requires a willingness to see through another’s eyes to overcome limited perspective of what is possible; to hear through another ears to develop joint strategies of action.” (OI, Cook, 156-157)
What we need now is to learn from all ways come from all places! Because “the earth itself is everywhere and in all parts sacred.”(OI, Gray, 86) “This traditional knowledge is no different from either the Aborigines of Austrailia or the Indigenous Peoples from Africa, or the Sami from the Artic regions” of Scandanivia.(OI, Goldtooth, 222) “We are people of the land, we are people of the waters and the lakes, we are the river people, we are the desert people, we are the plateau people, we are the mountain people, and we are the people from the forests“ and the islands.(OI, Goldtooth, 222) And so what is required is mutual respect for diverse ways of being, which revives and strengthens our natural humility, an essential quality of character that, like empathy, is refreshed and reinvigorated by observance of the golden rule.
“It is when people think there is only ‘one place’ that is holy or only ‘one way’ that is right that hegemony rears it’s ugly head and societies get into trouble with conflict and war.”(OI, Nelson, 11) And “When people are at war, they are not thinking clearly…”(OI, Mohawk, 55)
And importantly, “Unless there is something I don’t know,” Adamson emphasizes, “we are all Indigenous Peoples on this planet…” and as such, “we have to reorganize to get along.”(OI, Adamson, 35) So “This effort to protect Mother Earth is all Humanity's responsibility,” Devaney says, “not just Aboriginal People. Every human being has had Ancestors in their lineage that understood their umbilical cord to the Earth, understanding the need to always protect and thank her. Therefore, all Humanity has to re-connect to their own Indigenous Roots of their lineage -- to heal their connection and responsibility with Mother Earth and become a united voice... All Nations, All Faiths, One Prayer.”(2012 Jacob Devaney, Idle No More: Hints of a Global Super-Movement, Huffington Post, January 3, 2013)
“This helps us to remember who we are,” Ausubel says, and “that we were all Indigenous to a place not so many generations ago.”(OI, Ausubel, 2007, ooii) So “there needs to be a convergence of all kinds of people working on these issues” together. (OI, Thomas-Muller, 244) “Let us learn to work together as people of many colors, many cultures, all genders,” as Goldtooth says, for “we don’t have much time.” (OI, Goldtooth, 227)
So “They invite us to re-indigenize ourselves to our common home, Mother Earth.”(OI, Ausubel, 2007, xxii) “The process of re-indigenization means we have to decolonize our minds, hearts, bodies, and spirits and revitalize healthy cultural traditions.” (OI, Mohawk, 14)
“Re-indigenization” is, in a sense, “a return to the past,” not meant to suggest that we should get rid of all good changes since – and there have been many – but simply that we should remember our original and arguably, better selves – those who were born knowing the fundamental logic of treating others as they would have others treat them.
Taken together in dialogue, these traditions could take us a long way toward a better understanding of human potential, including what good education ought to entail – that is, education that aims to bring out the good in our young. For those who practice this first principle learn, by personal empiricism, the secrets of achieving intelligent happiness. For we discover in this way that to be other-interested is not opposed to being self-interested, after all - it is, in fact, the ultimate self-interest – enlightened self-interest!
This is no different, in fact, than simply being fair and just. And those who learn to make this a habit, never have to fret thereafter about the right thing to do - for once we’ve stopped doing things we wouldn’t want done to us, everything else we might do in this life is all good and right.
(Put Socratic relationships…*)
It is said that there are no two characters in history more alike than Jesus and Socrates. Perhaps the most significant difference being that Socrates did not claim to be the son of God. Though some would argue (and recently discovered texts would suggest) that neither did Jesus. Unless perhaps, as Gandhi once put it, we all are the children of God!
This has been the deeply held view of all the great souls of the past – that we are, potentially, godlike, but also, that we are born with both potentials - divine and diabolical. And every choice moves us closer to either our better or our lessor selves. For everything living is always changing, as Aristotle put it, always either getting better or getting worse.
Hence, the reason we must help our young understand the ideals of good character – because it’s very difficult to hit a target we don’t aim at. To be excellent, or as the ancients called it, to be virtuous, is to actualize our highest potentials, and in the process contribute to the higher function of the whole of humanity. It is developing this potential on which our personal happiness depends. “To be good is to be happy,” as Aristotle said Plato was the first to say.
But there are many paths to the same summit, as the Vedic Hindu put it, and so many ways to reach the personal excellence that is our unique, but universal, potential. What’s more, there is struggle and suffering to be endured in every journey. Which is why we must be helped when we are young to learn the tools of practical wisdom we will need along the way.
And to the extent that we can learn from each of these cultures, we do so best if we put them into dialogue. Together, they offer practical wisdom for the sake of mastering life’s inevitable struggles and intelligent solutions for resolving the problems and conflicts inherent in every life. For a person to develop their potential for good character, they will need all these skills – temperance to face situations of temptation, courage in situations of danger, wisdom in situations of ignorance, fairness in situations of injustice, and humility to face arrogance. And so our toolbox must be filled with all the wisdom of the ages from early on.
Unfortunately, this dialogue does not happen in our modern culture, and whatever the reason past generations dropped the ball, failing in their responsibility to teach their young the art of dialogue needed in the search for truth (and this too is a dialogue worth having), it is not too late to remember. And it’s for this reason, again, that this book is a dialogue in itself – inclusive of as many of these inspired voices as a thoughtful child might comprehend – for this is dedicated first and foremost to my grandchildren, and yours, who more than likely won’t get this education any other way.
And much as I’d like to be there to talk with them myself, they may in fact get more out of a book in their lap than the sound of my voice, for books can be rediscovered, again and again. They may not have the time for as much research as it would take…still, they might be motivated by mine to go further, dig deeper, and learn more of what the ancients had to offer.
My wish for them is that they may climb out of the dark cave of ignorance, into the bright light of a life lived in constant and ongoing learning for the love of it! For it is with this purpose at heart that we can discover the higher good in ourselves, and all others. We may have learned many bad habits along the way, and suffered much painful karma because of it. But the truth of human goodness stays true, and the path awaits for us to begin our own hero’s journey.
This chart may help illuminate an overview of the evolution of these traditions from one to another through time. Since we have only vaguely identifiable points of origin for most of them, and most of them are still alive and well in the world, it’s not easy to show beginnings, endings, or direct relationships. We can though identify the flow of ideas from each into the others.