Vivekachudamani 35-40

THE APPEAL TO THE HIGHER SELF

"I submit myself to you, Master, friend of the bowed-down world and river of selfless kindness. 

"Raise me by your guiding light that pours forth the nectar of truth and mercy, for I am sunk in the ocean of the world. 

"I am burned by the hot flame of relentless life and torn by the winds of misery: save me from death, for I take refuge in you, finding no other rest."  

The great good ones dwell in peace, bringing joy to the world like the return of spring. Having crossed the ocean of the world, they ever help others to cross over. For this is the very nature of the great-souled ones, the Mahâtmas—their swiftness to take away the weariness of others. So the soft-rayed moon of itself soothes the earth, burned by the fierce sun's heat. 

"Sprinkle me with your nectar voice that brings the joy of eternal bliss, pure and cooling, falling on me as from a cup, like the joy of inspiration; for I am burnt by the hot, scorching flames of the world's fire. 

"Happy are they on whom your light rests, even for a moment, and who reach harmony with you. 

"How shall I cross the ocean of the world? Where is the path? What way must I follow? I know not, Master. Save me from the wound of the world's pain." 

Seneca, Moral Letters 81.12

But just as we take on faith such estimates of values, so let us take on the faith of the people this truth, that nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart. 
 
This phrase will be echoed by all cities, and by all races, even those from savage countries. Upon this point good and bad will agree. Some praise pleasure, some prefer toil; some say that pain is the greatest of evils, some say it is no evil at all; some will include riches in the Supreme Good, others will say that their discovery meant harm to the human race, and that none is richer than he to whom Fortune has found nothing to give. 
 
Amid all this diversity of opinion all men will yet with one voice, as the saying is, vote “aye” to the proposition that thanks should be returned to those who have deserved well of us. 
 
On this question the common herd, rebellious as they are, will all agree, but at present we keep paying back injuries instead of benefits, and the primary reason why a man is ungrateful is that he has found it impossible to be grateful enough.
 
Our madness has gone to such lengths that it is a very dangerous thing to confer great benefits upon a person; for just because he thinks it shameful not to repay, so he would have none left alive whom he should repay. 
 
“Keep for yourself what you have received; I do not ask it back; I do not demand it. Let it be safe to have conferred a favor.” There is no worse hatred than that which springs from shame at the desecration of a benefit. Farewell. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 81 
 
I was a bit confused upon first reading the conclusion to this letter, since I couldn’t make sense of the claim that everyone in the whole wide world reveres gratitude. If I begin to list all the completely self-absorbed people I have known over the years, I run the grave risk of triggering my cynicism, which in turn feeds my melancholy, so I will only say that I am deeply suspicious. 
 
Looking more carefully, however, I consider the vast disconnect between our theory and our practice, and the clever way we try to twist the rules into something more advantageous. The ideal of being thankful does indeed sound noble, especially when it’s the other guy who is indebted to us. But once the roles are reversed, as soon as we sense an obligation to that other guy, we feel extremely uncomfortable, squirming to find a way out. 
 
Even the most selfish folks will concede that it is right to be grateful for a benefit; at some level, we all know to return a favor, however far our habits have led us astray. We are in awe when we see such a purity of purpose, much as the biggest scoundrel gets teary-eyed when they play the national anthem. On the inside, there is often shame for not living up to the proper standards. 
 
Yet we run into a problem when the rubber meets the road, for the giving of benefits provides us with the illusion of importance, while the receiving of benefits leaves us with an appearance of weakness. You should not be surprised when the bigwig likes to lord it over you, and he will also do his best to erase any evidence that he is dependent on you. 
 
Would he even kill you to cover the tracks? If it doesn’t tarnish his image or land him behind bars, I wouldn’t put it past him. I’m afraid I know all too well how vicious people can be, but I also know how virtuous people can be, so I turn to the inspiration of the latter when I am faced with any evidence of the former. I choose to find comfort in the man who isn’t afraid to reach out his hand, to bow down, to feel small, because he understands why his humility and charity are what actually make him big. 
 
I think of a wonderful painting by Norman Rockwell, Saying Grace, where the customers at a diner are taken aback by the mealtime prayers of a woman and a boy. They all recognize how fitting it is to give thanks to God, though they struggle to do the same themselves. Like most any work by Rockwell, it offers a fine lesson for every setting. 

—Reflection written in 12/2013 

IMAGE: Norman Rockwell, Saying Grace (1951) 

Wisdom from the Early Cynics, Diogenes 38

On coming to Myndus and finding the gates large, though the city itself was very small, Diogenes cried, "Men of Myndus, bar your gates, lest the city should run away!" 

Seeing a man who had been caught stealing purple, he said:

Fast gripped by purple death and forceful fate. 

When Craterus wanted him to come and visit him, "No," he replied, "I would rather live on a few grains of salt at Athens than enjoy sumptuous fare at Craterus's table." 

He went up to Anaximenes the rhetorician, who was fat, and said, "Let us beggars have something of your paunch; it will be a relief to you, and we shall get advantage." 

And when the same man was discoursing, Diogenes distracted his audience by producing some salt fish. This annoyed the lecturer, and Diogenes said, "An obol's worth of salt fish has broken up Anaximenes' lecture-class." 

—Diogenes Laërtius, 6.57 

Wisdom from the Early Stoics, Zeno of Citium 78

The Stoics hold that the virtues involve one another, and that the possessor of one is the possessor of all, inasmuch as they have common principles, as Chrysippus says in the first book of his work On Virtues, Apollodorus in his Physics according to the Early School, and Hecato in the third book of his treatise On Virtues. 

For if a man be possessed of virtue, he is at once able to discover and to put into practice what he ought to do. 

Now such rules of conduct comprise rules for choosing, enduring, staying, and distributing; so that if a man does some things by intelligent choice, some things with fortitude, some things by way of just distribution, and some steadily, he is at once wise, courageous, just, and temperate. 

And each of the virtues has a particular subject with which it deals, as, for instance, courage is concerned with things that must be endured, practical wisdom with acts to be done, acts from which one must abstain, and those which fall under neither head. 

Similarly each of the other virtues is concerned with its own proper sphere. To wisdom are subordinate good counsel and understanding; to temperance, good discipline and orderliness; to justice, equality and fair-mindedness; to courage, constancy and vigor. 

—Diogenes Laërtius, 7.125-126 

Delphic Maxims 87

Αἰτιῶ παρόντα 

Accuse one who is present 

IMAGE: Peter Philippi, Neighborhood Gossip (1899) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 81.11

But no man can be grateful unless he has learned to scorn the things which drive the common herd to distraction; if you wish to make return for a favor, you must be willing to go into exile, or to pour forth your blood, or to undergo poverty, or—and this will frequently happen—even to let your very innocence be stained and exposed to shameful slanders. 
 
It is no slight price that a man must pay for being grateful. We hold nothing dearer than a benefit, so long as we are seeking one; we hold nothing cheaper after we have received it. 
 
Do you ask what it is that makes us forget benefits received? It is our extreme greed for receiving others. We consider not what we have obtained, but what we are to seek. We are deflected from the right course by riches, titles, power, and everything which is valuable in our opinion but worthless when rated at its real value.
 
We do not know how to weigh matters; we should take counsel regarding them, not with their reputation but with their nature; those things possess no grandeur wherewith to enthrall our minds, except the fact that we have become accustomed to marvel at them. 
 
For they are not praised because they ought to be desired, but they are desired because they have been praised; and when the error of individuals has once created error on the part of the public, then the public error goes on creating error on the part of individuals. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 81 
 
Gratitude, like any form of love, demands an unqualified commitment, one that is about honoring the person, not merely about appreciating a convenience. 
 
The mercenary, who seeks profit before principle, does not understand such an attitude, because he does not choose to reflect upon his nature, only to be led by his impulses. This can sadly become the default position, the lowest common denominator, because it is easier to follow the crowd than to stand alone. 
 
If a man has actually suffered on account of showing his thanks, you have a clue that he might truly be worth something on the inside. 
 
Consider how many people will be quite generous with their fine words of recognition, sometimes embarrassingly so, and how few people will lift a finger for you when the going gets tough. By misplacing the source of the benefit, we are often grateful for the satisfaction, but we are rarely satisfied to be grateful. 
 
I was once called into a dean’s office, and I had already resigned myself to one of the usual scoldings. This time, however, I was praised to the high heavens for having openly said something that no one else was willing to say, and which had saved the administration from an awkward situation. It all sounded too good to be true, and indeed it was. 
 
“You’ll have to forgive us, of course, for not expressing our indebtedness in public, because . . . well, it just wouldn’t be good optics.” 
 
Yes, I understood quite well. I also knew how quickly they would forget the score, as soon as my doggedness was no longer so useful to them. I was also happy to forgive them, but not for the reasons they held so dear. 
 
Though I like to complain when the paycheck disappears and my reputation is shot, I now usually catch myself before I have done too much damage. I need to remember why bearing a hardship can be a proof of character, not a penalty for refusing to play the game. I am free to find meaning in the giving over the receiving, and I can be at peace with following my conscience when no one pats me on the back. 
 
As much as our crooked institutions discourage us from acting with integrity, do not forget how the power of the whole is nothing without the cooperation of the parts. Getting tossed about is a worthwhile price to pay for going against the current. 

—Reflection written in 12/2013 

The Philosopher

Owls 9

Concentration

The Loved Ones

"The Loved Ones"  

Wendell Berry 

The loved ones we call the dead 

depart from us and for a while 

are absent. And then as if 

called back by our love, they come 

near us again. They enter our dreams. 

We feel they have been near us 

when we have not thought of them. 

They are simply here, simply waiting 

while we are distracted among 

our obligations. At last 

it comes to us: They live now 

in the permanent world. 

We are the absent ones. 

Choose Wisely . . .

Hans Burgkmair, The Career Choice (c. 1510) 

Sayings of Ramakrishna 275

Is it good to create sects? 

The sect cannot grow in a current of water: it grows only in the stagnant waters of petty pools. 

He whose heart earnestly longs after the Deity has no time for anything else. He who looks for fame and honor, forms sects. 

Seneca, Moral Letters 81.10

Evil men have but one pleasure in benefits, and a very short-lived pleasure at that; it lasts only while they are receiving them. 
 
But the wise man derives therefrom an abiding and eternal joy. For he takes delight not so much in receiving the gift as in having received it; and this joy never perishes; it abides with him always. 
 
He despises the wrongs done him; he forgets them, not accidentally, but voluntarily. He does not put a wrong construction upon everything, or seek for someone whom he may hold responsible for each happening; he rather ascribes even the sins of men to chance. 
 
He will not misinterpret a word or a look; he makes light of all mishaps by interpreting them in a generous way. He does not remember an injury rather than a service. 
 
As far as possible, he lets his memory rest upon the earlier and the better deed, never changing his attitude towards those who havedeserved well of him, except in cases where the bad deeds far outdistance the good, and the space between them is obvious even to one who closes his eyes to it; even then only to this extent, that he strives, after receiving the preponderant injury, to resume the attitude which he held before he received the benefit. 
 
For when the injury merely equals the benefit, a certain amount of kindly feeling is left over. Just as a defendant is acquitted when the votes are equal, and just as the spirit of kindliness always tries to bend every doubtful case toward the better interpretation, so the mind of the wise man, when another’s merits merely equal his bad deeds, will, to be sure, cease to feel an obligation, but does not cease to desire to feel it, and acts precisely like the man who pays his debts even after they have been legally cancelled. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 81 
 
As I read Seneca’s description of how the wise man receives a gift, and then also how he is willing to forgive most any offense, I think of the word “gracious”, though I fear this may be more often associated with mere formalities than with a profound depth of character.
 
It also brings to mind the ideal of a “gentleman” or a “lady”, and even if this is currently considered to be an obsolete standard, you can always find such fine people, however rare, in any time or place. 
 
Simply put, the grasping folks are only interested in the things you can provide for them, after which you are unlikely to hear from them again, unless, of course, they perceive some way they might take advantage of you in the future. 
 
In contrast, the decent folks look beyond the utility of the gift to a respect for the giver, finding a pure satisfaction in seeing their fellows live according to Nature. The greed is conditional, while the love is unconditional. 
 
Long ago, when I was six or seven, I noticed how one of the girls in my class appeared sad, playing alone because the harpies at the top of the social food chain had excluded her. On an impulse, I picked some buttercups, and I gave them to her. The other boys mocked me for being in love with her, and the teacher scolded me for handling a poisonous plant. What I remember most, however, was her genuine and simple “thank you”. 
 
From that day forward, for the next four years, she always showed me an incredible kindness, even when, and perhaps especially when, I was behaving like a horrible beast. Absolutely nothing could stop her from offering a gentle word or an encouraging smile. She clearly left a mark on me, because this passage instantly brought back those pleasant memories. 
 
Almost forty years later, I feel the urge to thank her for overlooking my many sins, but I have somehow forgotten her last name. 
 
While the bitter and cynical will insist that it is impossible to forgive, it is only our own stubbornness that presents an obstacle. For all the times I have been vindictive, it always remains within my power to choose charity, right here and now, since my actions proceed from the freedom of my judgments. I can focus on the good within others, instead of brooding over the flaws. 
 
All of us are branded by our mistakes, so without a pardon none of us can ever be redeemed. 

—Reflection written in 12/2013 

Stoic Snippets 274

Does the light of the lamp shine without losing its splendor until it is extinguished? 

And shall the truth which is in you and justice and temperance be extinguished before your death? 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.15 

IMAGE: Gerrit Dou, A Hermit (c. 1661) 

Songs of Innocence 8

The Little Boy Lost (1789) 

William Blake (1757-1827) 

Father, father, where are you going
O do not walk so fast.
Speak father, speak to your little boy
Or else I shall be lost. 

The night was dark no father was there
The child was wet with dew.
The mire was deep & the child did weep
And away the vapour flew. 

Cosmos 21

Seneca, Moral Letters 81.9

Let us therefore avoid being ungrateful, not for the sake of others but for our own sakes. When we do wrong, only the least and lightest portion of it flows back upon our neighbor; the worst and, if I may use the term, the densest portion of it stays at home and troubles the owner. 
 
My master Attalus used to say: “Evil herself drinks the largest portion of her own poison.” 
 
The poison which serpents carry for the destruction of others, and secrete without harm to themselves, is not like this poison; for this sort is ruinous to the possessor.
 
The ungrateful man tortures and torments himself; he hates the gifts which he has accepted, because he must make a return for them, and he tries to belittle their value, but he really enlarges and exaggerates the injuries which he has received. And what is more wretched than a man who forgets his benefits and clings to his injuries? 
 
Wisdom, on the other hand, lends grace to every benefit, and of her own free will commends it to her own favor, and delights her soul by continued recollection thereof. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 81 
 
If people are only familiar with my public persona, for whatever it’s worth, they might take me to be a sectarian Stoic, always ready to toe the party line. Besides the fact that I don’t believe there can really be such a thing, since no healthy philosophy has any place for dogmatism, my private thoughts are filled with a frightening amount of skepticism. If I can find my way to recommend it, rest assured that I have first rejected it at least a hundred times. 
 
I remain totally committed to unraveling the theory, but for me the final test has always been whether it works in practice; I came to philosophy so I could fix the crippling defects in my daily living, not so I could pontificate from my ivory tower. And while I have now read through this letter a dozen times, A little warning bell goes off in my head at this point: 
 
Do I run the danger of treating virtue as a selfish enterprise, when I say that I am doing it for my own sake? 
 
Am I kidding myself in the belief that the suffering within the soul is far greater than the suffering from the circumstances? Doesn’t this diminish the pain I have inflicted upon others? 
 
As is so often the case, my worry is based on false dichotomies, from my passions rushing ahead of my judgments. I create the problem for myself by being too hasty in my assumptions. 
 
In the true order of Nature, there is no “us” versus “them”. What is good for the whole is good for the part, and what is good for the part is good for the whole. When I have served my neighbor, I cannot help but serve myself, and when I have served myself, I cannot help but serve my neighbor. It only becomes selfish when the one is divorced from the other. 
 
To affirm the primacy of our inner merits is not to deny the significance of our outer conditions, as long as the latter are measured by the former. My mission is to increase in the virtues, and I should seek out the circumstances most conducive to my end. My neighbor’s calling is essentially the same, and I should assist him in seeking out the circumstances most conducive to his end. Even as there is no doubt that the flesh will suffer, sometimes with alarming intensity, its role always hinges upon the dignity of the spirit. 
 
I am fatally poisoning myself whenever I deny someone charity or I refuse to express my gratitude. To face a misfortune could well be a hindrance, yet it could just as easily be turned into an opportunity, because the good or evil of any situation is ultimately in what we choose to make of it. The one toxin might bring us grief, though the other will surely kill us. 
 
If a fellow refuses to be grateful, my feelings have been hurt; I can find a way to cope. Now imagine what is going on in his own head, a noxious stew of vanity, resentment, delusion, and self-pity, all of which he has inflicted upon himself; he will have to rebuild himself completely before he destroys himself. It is far easier to bear the insult than to escape from the cycle of self-ruin. 
 
Wisdom allows us to find the good in everything, both in what is given and in what is received. That turns out to be a remarkably practical lesson. 

—Reflection written in 12/2013 

IMAGE: William Blake, Eve Tempted by the Serpent (1800) 

Branches

Michael Leunig 80

Dhammapada 409

Him I call indeed a Brahmana who takes nothing in the world that is not given him, be it long or short, small or large, good or bad.