Seneca, Moral Letters 76.9

A good man, you will admit, must have the highest sense of duty toward the gods. Hence, he will endure with an unruffled spirit whatever happens to him; for he will know that it has happened as a result of the divine law, by which the whole creation moves. 
 
This being so, there will be for him one good, and only one, namely, that which is honorable; for one of its dictates is that we shall obey the gods and not blaze forth in anger at sudden misfortunes or deplore our lot, but rather patiently accept fate and obey its commands.
 
If anything except the honorable is good, we shall be hounded by greed for life, and by greed for the things which provide life with its furnishings—an intolerable state, subject to no limits, unstable. The only good, therefore, is that which is honorable, that which is subject to bounds. 
 
I have declared that man’s life would be more blessed than that of the gods, if those things which the gods do not enjoy are goods—such as money and offices of dignity. 
 
There is this further consideration: if only it is true that our souls, when released from the body, still abide, a happier condition is in store for them than is theirs while they dwell in the body. 

 
And yet, if those things are goods which we make use of for our bodies’ sake, our souls will be worse off when set free; and that is contrary to our belief, to say that the soul is happier when it is cabined and confined than when it is free and has betaken itself to the Universe. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 76 
 

Even a few years ago, I would have gladly gone on a rant about the tragic absence of piety in the modern world, though I am now more inclined to sit silently, reflecting on how often I have neglected that tiny spark of the divine within me throughout the day. I hope this is a sort of progress, because I can hardly expect others to show reverence, when I can’t manage to practice respect myself. 

 

I no longer assume that people were any more devout in the past, though I do suspect they were more adept at putting on a holy show. In any case, sanity must always precede sanctity, for without the wisdom to understand one’s place within the whole, there can be no humility to serve Providence. The man who rages against God is still too full of his own self-pity, which is really a form of self-loathing, to offer anyone else an unconditional love. 

 

I have been there, and I have done that. It doesn’t end well. It was compassion that helped me out of the hole, not censure, so I try to return what I was once given. To embrace how absolutely everything, big or small, gratifying or offensive, serves a purpose for the good is the first step toward discovering the harmony between the law that rules me and the law that rules the Universe. The one in the many, not the one or the many. 

A part of the grueling process involves chiseling away at the things I claim to want, until I am at last left with only the things I need. As much as I may resist, it invariably turns out that the virtues are what I need, and all the other qualities or circumstances are negotiable. When I can manage to be honorable, the pains become far more bearable, and the pleasures become far less bewitching; with self-awareness and self-mastery, I am no longer bound by the extremes, forever demanding either less or more. 

 

I am delighted by Seneca’s arguments about how we compare to the divine: if externals were required to be happy, then the gods would have to be downright miserable, and if worldly comforts were vital to our bliss, then any afterlife would have to be a deprivation, never a liberation. Of course, I know a fair number of “enlightened” folks who would wholeheartedly agree with both points, and yet I can’t help but wonder why they are always so bitter and resentful in the life they insist is best. 

 

We get so terribly disoriented when we assert that something is more perfect when it leans on something else, and less perfect when it stands for itself. How did Orwell put it? 

 

War is peace. 

 

Freedom is slavery. 

Ignorance is strength.

 

But who could be so foolish as to fall for such a ruse? 

—Reflection written in 10/2013