This question of the human existence,
the human condition is puzzling…
In reading the ancients, the ancient schools of philosophy,
The Platonist, Aristotelian, Stoic, Epicurean and Skeptic…
one see’s that they each agree in that we are too attached
to things, either physical or emotional… we are too attached/addicted
to things like TV’s, Cars, the so called “finer things in life” and we are
too attached/addicted to such ephemeral things like fame, money, titles…
things that are short lived, transient… things that come and go like a fart in
the wind…
Read the Buddha and his message was exactly the same…
and by being attached to such transient things, we set ourselves
up for the suffering we see in the world…
Read Jesus and he says the same thing… He suggests (as does the Buddha)
that we must reject the material world in favor of something more substantial,
something that is of value not just today, but for all the days to come…
The two differ on the question of what is the thing of value, the Buddha
suggest that we focus on the present, right now and Jesus suggests
that we focus on the coming of the lord which will take us to heaven
if, if we believe in him… this belief that the answer lies in the future for
Jesus and the answer for the Buddha is today, right now… and that is the main
difference between them…
But both believe that the answer lies in improving ourselves…
one for the trip to heaven and one to improve man’s soul…
The answer for Jesus is a personal, individual matter…
and that is the failure of Christianity… its focus on the
one, the individual instead of the focus on what the one
can do to improve society which is by becoming a better person…
Jesus doesn’t say anything about how to improve society, the whole,
whereas the Buddha does and that makes the Buddha’s message far
greater and more important……….it is not enough to ensure our
own passage to heaven, we must be engage in all mankind, in fact,
all life…We engage in Jesus message of improving ourselves to go to heaven,
but the reality is we must engage in improving ourselves to aid society, to
improve society… to make the world a better place to live…
that is the reason for our engagement with improving ourselves…
not to selfishly go to heaven, but to help others… personally, I would refuse
to go to heaven if others can not go to heaven, it must be an all
or nothing for me… if all cannot get to heaven, I won’t go…although to be
honest, given my track record, my chances for heaven is a bit on the slim side…
but you get the point……… it is not enough to ensure ourselves personally, of
salvation, we must engage with others so they reach salvation…it is more
important that they reach salvation then if I reach salvation………
and one possible way of achieving salvation is by refusing to engage
in the modern fixation of materialism…our attachment to things, material
and immaterial…we already know the answer to how to improve ourselves,
we have heard this message all our lives… we have been indoctrinated with
the words of Jesus our whole live and yet, yet we continue to ignore that
fundamental message that not only Jesus gave us but the schools of
ancient philosophy and the Buddha gave us……….that we must free
ourselves of attachment to values that have no real meaning……
materialism as a value is worthless, addiction to such transitory things
as fame, money, goods, respect are values not worth having because
they don’t answer the fundamental needs of the human being……
they answer the empty needs of a hungry man who would eat anything
in some attempt to fill his empty stomach… the hungry man would eat
anything if hungry enough and we are like that hungry man…
we are starved and we will eat any values that seems to appease
that hunger…… but the values offered by modern society are empty
calories… may has well be eating the cardboard those values came in,
which is just as filling as the modern values we are given……
In rejecting those empty calories, we call modern values,
we then are faced with the choice of what values are not
empty calories…… cardboard values……….
among those empty values, the empty calories is any possibility
of future salvation and any possibility of replenishing our souls
with the empty calories of fame, money, materialism, respect,
the modern nihilism of the pursuit of profits,
those are empty values, empty calories……
it is the values we engage with, that make life worth living…
the positive values of love, peace, charity, hope, honesty,
it is these values given in the present that offer us any hope
of filling our souls, of enriching our souls with values that
feed our soul…….
we can no longer believe that the empty promise of
modern values, nihilistic values can feed our souls……… only
positive values can offer us any hope of not starving to death in
this nihilistic world………
we must escape the transient world of modern values
and begin to reach for the more lasting and edible values of
the positive values that we need…love, peace, charity…….
Kropotkin