When the ancients offered us their best practical wisdom, what they meant was that it must be put into practice to be truly understood. Words are useful tools that can point us to a needed learning experience, but we only truly ‘know’ something (gnosis) by way of the experience that registers it as understanding. It is the greatest challenge of philosophy to help us see that it’s not just about ideas!
So, as a way to bring the meaning of these words home to your living experience, I offer three challenges for the reader to undertake while engaged in this book:
1. First, break a bad habit! Any habit will do, to begin with, because inner strength grows as we master our weaknesses, and as we grow stronger other habits will come to seem less formidable. We may think it doesn’t make that much difference in a life whether we give in to that craving or ignore that inner voice, but can we ever really know what might otherwise be, who we would have become or done with all that energy if we weren’t wasting it doing battle with those cigarettes, or alcohol, drugs, food, ego, or whatever it is that overpowers your will on a daily basis?
2. Secondly, make a conscious effort to start observing the golden rule, which is to say, treating others the way you would have them treat you, that is, fairly.
This principle of reciprocity shows up in every great wisdom tradition as the very first thing they teach their children, from which all other aspects of intelligent and moral behavior follow.
As Jesus said, “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.) 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 Aristotle learned from Socrates, who learned from all the others that a wise person will treat others, “not as means to his own ends, but as and end in themselves” - as “another self.”(Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics) Immanuel Kant added that a reasonable person will follow the categorical imperative to act always as we would have others act, and not make exceptions of our selves. Because as the ancient Mayans put it, In Lak’ Ech - which translates, "you are my other I.”
Many pay lip service to this principle, but failing to use it as a standard for behavior, we never really come to understand its true power. The golden rule is an inner criteria that guides our better self, establishes good character and enhances all the inner qualities necessary for true happiness, skills that tend to erode in the world such as it is, inclined to encourage self-interest in its narrowest form. But the ancients understood enlightened self-interest in the broadest possible sense, for our good is inextricably intertwined with the good of others.
Learn this, the ancients say, and you’ll discover you have the power to actualize your own happiness and highest potentials, and will probably be amazed how much it will improve the quality of your life. What’s more, teach it to your children first thing, and all other valuable lessons will follow naturally.
We are all born with the capacity for empathy, that is, the ability to put ourselves in others shoes - but like all our potentials, it needs exercise to develop well. This golden rule exercises empathy and humility into habits that can dramatically enhance the quality of our life and its effects on others – which is no small thing.
3. And finally, whatever you learn from all of this, pass it on, that is, pay it forward to others in whatever way you can. Use your creative imagination for ways to do this, watch for opportunities to help others improve themselves, and you will find them at every turn.
This can be accomplished in many ways, but I recommend that you begin by keeping a journal - at least when extraordinary and truly excellent thoughts arise, as they surely will if you undertake the first two challenges in earnest. As Socrates said, “you never really understand something until you hear your own voice say it.”
Our highest potentials are unique to us, so the process of actualizing them is a path we must find and follow - and one might wisely begin by looking inward. As the I Ching say, “It is important to review the past and summarize the journey from time to time. This is the only way to accumulate one’s wisdom and achieve success.”(I Ching, p.115)
This will prove an invaluable habit, if only because it gives us time to get to know our selves and develop our voices, which will ultimately make a huge difference to others. The skill of self-expression that allows us to develop our voice, and thus to be better understood by others, is an essential element of the process of self-actualization and conflict resolution. And again, empathy is exercised in this process too, as our inner voice grows more articulate and our listening skills become more acute. In this way, we hear the dialogue between inner and outer authority, and so learn to follow true ethics over false ethos.
Knowing what we think, and why, will make us effective teachers and students throughout our lives. Voice is power, and we must use our powers as well as possible, if we want it to work for us, rather than against us. So journaling is a great place to start, if you want to have a positive effect on the world.
And you may discover in the process that you have other kinds of voices as well – we all have one or more of those many creative talents that others live in awe of (e.g. singing and creating music, art and dance, acting and writing, to name only a very few). Or perhaps you will pass it on by way of those essential skills the rest of could not live as well without (e.g. doctors and farmers, engineers and designers, etc.). We must all use all we’ve got for all it’s worth.
I also recommend journaling because, while our grandchildren may not be ready to hear what we have to say when we’re ready to speak, the written word has the added benefit that it waits until others are ready understand it. (Mine are 6 and 12, as I write this, and there is little guarantee that I’ll be here to talk with them when they are 16 and 22, much less 36 and 42, when they are most likely to begin to care about any of this. But my words might linger…only because I wrote them down.
So it is for all these reasons that I urge you to take up these three challenges for yourself. As Socrates said to those listening in court on the fateful day as he was condemned to die for teaching people to live up to the good that is their higher potentials – “You be the judge!” Never mind what others say, in fact, don’t take anyone’s word for anything. [C436b] Words alone cannot teach us to love or to be happy – they can only help us understand our own experience of these. As Gandhi said, "Only he who has experienced such love can know what it is…"(Gandhi, p.14)
So take that leap of faith, run your own personal experiments, and see if it does not noticeably improve the quality of your life, uplift your mood and perceptions, and enhance the quality of your time. Ask yourself, am I any happier for it? See for yourself whether the good conscience of a win-win life doesn’t feel qualitatively different and better than that available to even the winners in any win-lose scenario.
The ancients predict you will find that you have in the process changed the very color and feel of your world in a way only good karma can. For we ourselves must do the work that makes us worthy of happiness. And in the process of making yourself feel better, you will have changed the very quality of the world itself by way of the butterfly effects of your actions on the lives of others.
So, as a way to bring the meaning of these words home to your living experience, I offer three challenges for the reader to undertake while engaged in this book:
1. First, break a bad habit! Any habit will do, to begin with, because inner strength grows as we master our weaknesses, and as we grow stronger other habits will come to seem less formidable. We may think it doesn’t make that much difference in a life whether we give in to that craving or ignore that inner voice, but can we ever really know what might otherwise be, who we would have become or done with all that energy if we weren’t wasting it doing battle with those cigarettes, or alcohol, drugs, food, ego, or whatever it is that overpowers your will on a daily basis?
2. Secondly, make a conscious effort to start observing the golden rule, which is to say, treating others the way you would have them treat you, that is, fairly.
This principle of reciprocity shows up in every great wisdom tradition as the very first thing they teach their children, from which all other aspects of intelligent and moral behavior follow.
As Jesus said, “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.) 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 Aristotle learned from Socrates, who learned from all the others that a wise person will treat others, “not as means to his own ends, but as and end in themselves” - as “another self.”(Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics) Immanuel Kant added that a reasonable person will follow the categorical imperative to act always as we would have others act, and not make exceptions of our selves. Because as the ancient Mayans put it, In Lak’ Ech - which translates, "you are my other I.”
Many pay lip service to this principle, but failing to use it as a standard for behavior, we never really come to understand its true power. The golden rule is an inner criteria that guides our better self, establishes good character and enhances all the inner qualities necessary for true happiness, skills that tend to erode in the world such as it is, inclined to encourage self-interest in its narrowest form. But the ancients understood enlightened self-interest in the broadest possible sense, for our good is inextricably intertwined with the good of others.
Learn this, the ancients say, and you’ll discover you have the power to actualize your own happiness and highest potentials, and will probably be amazed how much it will improve the quality of your life. What’s more, teach it to your children first thing, and all other valuable lessons will follow naturally.
We are all born with the capacity for empathy, that is, the ability to put ourselves in others shoes - but like all our potentials, it needs exercise to develop well. This golden rule exercises empathy and humility into habits that can dramatically enhance the quality of our life and its effects on others – which is no small thing.
3. And finally, whatever you learn from all of this, pass it on, that is, pay it forward to others in whatever way you can. Use your creative imagination for ways to do this, watch for opportunities to help others improve themselves, and you will find them at every turn.
This can be accomplished in many ways, but I recommend that you begin by keeping a journal - at least when extraordinary and truly excellent thoughts arise, as they surely will if you undertake the first two challenges in earnest. As Socrates said, “you never really understand something until you hear your own voice say it.”
Our highest potentials are unique to us, so the process of actualizing them is a path we must find and follow - and one might wisely begin by looking inward. As the I Ching say, “It is important to review the past and summarize the journey from time to time. This is the only way to accumulate one’s wisdom and achieve success.”(I Ching, p.115)
This will prove an invaluable habit, if only because it gives us time to get to know our selves and develop our voices, which will ultimately make a huge difference to others. The skill of self-expression that allows us to develop our voice, and thus to be better understood by others, is an essential element of the process of self-actualization and conflict resolution. And again, empathy is exercised in this process too, as our inner voice grows more articulate and our listening skills become more acute. In this way, we hear the dialogue between inner and outer authority, and so learn to follow true ethics over false ethos.
Knowing what we think, and why, will make us effective teachers and students throughout our lives. Voice is power, and we must use our powers as well as possible, if we want it to work for us, rather than against us. So journaling is a great place to start, if you want to have a positive effect on the world.
And you may discover in the process that you have other kinds of voices as well – we all have one or more of those many creative talents that others live in awe of (e.g. singing and creating music, art and dance, acting and writing, to name only a very few). Or perhaps you will pass it on by way of those essential skills the rest of could not live as well without (e.g. doctors and farmers, engineers and designers, etc.). We must all use all we’ve got for all it’s worth.
I also recommend journaling because, while our grandchildren may not be ready to hear what we have to say when we’re ready to speak, the written word has the added benefit that it waits until others are ready understand it. (Mine are 6 and 12, as I write this, and there is little guarantee that I’ll be here to talk with them when they are 16 and 22, much less 36 and 42, when they are most likely to begin to care about any of this. But my words might linger…only because I wrote them down.
So it is for all these reasons that I urge you to take up these three challenges for yourself. As Socrates said to those listening in court on the fateful day as he was condemned to die for teaching people to live up to the good that is their higher potentials – “You be the judge!” Never mind what others say, in fact, don’t take anyone’s word for anything. [C436b] Words alone cannot teach us to love or to be happy – they can only help us understand our own experience of these. As Gandhi said, "Only he who has experienced such love can know what it is…"(Gandhi, p.14)
So take that leap of faith, run your own personal experiments, and see if it does not noticeably improve the quality of your life, uplift your mood and perceptions, and enhance the quality of your time. Ask yourself, am I any happier for it? See for yourself whether the good conscience of a win-win life doesn’t feel qualitatively different and better than that available to even the winners in any win-lose scenario.
The ancients predict you will find that you have in the process changed the very color and feel of your world in a way only good karma can. For we ourselves must do the work that makes us worthy of happiness. And in the process of making yourself feel better, you will have changed the very quality of the world itself by way of the butterfly effects of your actions on the lives of others.