Among the many dictionary definitions of philosophy only one of the following is true in the context of Simple Reality.
- Love and pursuit of wisdom by intellectual means and moral self-discipline.
- The investigation of causes and laws underlying reality.
- Inquiry into the nature of things based on logical reasoning rather than empirical methods.
- The synthesis of all learning.
And philosophers say things like:
It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.
Thoreau
Are philosophers wise? A truly wise person would say something like this:
I don’t mind what’s happening.
J. Krishnamurti
To many of us this statement indicates that J. Krishnamurti, although not generally listed among “Philosophers of the Western World,” is both a philosopher and a wise man; a person who is calm and rational under any circumstances. This happens to be another dictionary definition of a philosopher.
In Simple Reality, we define a person who is “awake” the same way that Krishnamurti does. A wise person is one who does not react. A person who is reacting is not capable of rational thinking and certainly not capable of wisdom. People who live in the context of P-B are in a continuous state of doing Thoreau’s “desperate things.” Since most of our philosophers, no matter how intelligent, have been as unconscious as the rest of us, very few have been wise. Philosophers such as Thoreau and Nietzsche have nevertheless had brilliant insights
A person’s worldview (attitudes, beliefs and values) is very similar to their philosophy. If a person’s worldview is inconsistent with reality, then of course, that person’s endeavors will end in failure. When 7 billion people are in a state of reaction, they could destroy a planet. We all hope that doesn’t happen.
Hope is the evil of evils because it prolongs man’s torment.
Nietzsche
Whoops! Perhaps hope is not the place to turn; we certainly don’t want more suffering. But is the origin of our torment “out there” or within? “On Feb. 26, 1972, 132 million gallons of black coal sludge broke through a dam above the Appalachian hollow of Buffalo Creek, W.Va., and spewed onto the 5,000 people who lived in the scattered villages below.” The homes of 4,000 people were destroyed and 125 people were killed. The idea that this disaster was created in part by humans can lead to a belief along with the hope that in the future such disasters can be averted by different zoning, or new and stricter regulations.
Listen to the voices of the survivors and pay particularly close attention to how their worldview was altered by their experience. In his 1976 book Everything in Its Path, Kai T. Erickson interviewed the mountain dwellers who experienced the disaster. “Well, it seems like everything just don’t go right no more. There’s a part of you gone and you can’t find it. You don’t know what part it is. It’s just a part that’s gone.”
The origin of human anxiety is the fear of chaos which means the origin of security is order. Natural or man-made chaos upsets our belief in an orderly universe and can leave us in a traumatized “state.” Something that used to be there is gone, something is missing but we don’t know what. “Mr. Erickson saw that the sense of community in the small villages of Buffalo Creek wasn’t a quantifiable thing, but a “state of mind.” The security of a community’s state of mind had been shattered. The state of mind in the global village is also in a “shattered state” albeit less dramatically obvious than for the people in Buffalo Creek.
A P-B worldview leaves humanity very vulnerable to changes in “form” that for a person in a P-A context would not be a problem. “‘Everybody was close,’ a survivor recalled. ‘Everybody knowed everybody. But now everybody is alone.’”
Beliefs, attitudes and values trump what is actually happening. It is the perception of our senses coupled with the story we tell ourselves in our mind that determines our self-created experience. Psychologists tell us that anxiety on our planet is increasing even though the experience of chaos is happening to fewer people. “In fact, we’ve never been safer. In The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker shows convincingly that violent deaths per capita have declined over time. ‘Today,’ he writes, ‘we may be living in the most peaceable era in our species’ existence.’”
We know by now that the story we tell ourselves determines our identity. Let’s continue examining how the story surrounding such chaotic events as global warming is creating an identity with an increasing sense of insecurity.
In The New York Times (May 3, 2014) Alan Lightman’s opinion piece entitled “Our Lonely Home in Nature” on the Op-Ed page, revealed a portion of his worldview concerning the destruction of the environment. Lightman was unconcerned with nature’s fate: “Nature can survive far more than we can do to it.” What stories did those who reacted to Lightman’s opinions a week later on the Op-Ed page tell themselves? What philosophies did they reveal that might indicate that there are wise people among us who can point the way to equanimity?
Earl P. Bell identified some key aspects of our P-B identity. “Anthropomorphism is so deeply embedded in the mythology and laws of human cultures that the prospects for actionable enlightenment [italics mine] seem remote.” Bell then falls into a common “wishful thinking” desperate hope “that after a human-triggered, colossal environmental disaster, we harbor enough intelligence, unity, commitment and energy to avoid the end.” It seems that Mr. Bell was unfamiliar with Nietzche’s insight concerning the futility of hope.
Mr. Bell’s delusion is often expressed in the belief that once humanity “hits bottom” or becomes sufficiently alarmed we will experience “actionable enlightenment.” Since fear provides the energy we use to avoid acknowledging the reality of our suffering, the last thing we will do when our fight or flight reactions reach a fever pitch is become calm and finally address our self-destructive behavior.
Allan MacKenzie explains humanity’s failure to develop a sustainable community by the harshest indictment imaginable. “Though it sounds dark, I truly believe that the human species is an aberration of nature, throwing most everything else out of balance.” Having this as a worldview belief leaves one with nowhere to go except into despair. Unlike Mr. Bell who still has hope, MacKenzie’s belief is that the human animal is an accident of nature or worse yet a cancer in the body of creation.
Martin Hertzberg takes a position similar to MacKenzie’s in that he has no change in behavior to recommend, no solution to the impending demise of the homo-sapiens-sapiens. “Our common experience with hurricanes, tornadoes, thunderstorms, blizzards, floods, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions should lead to the common-sense conclusion that weather and climate are controlled by natural laws on an enormous scale that dwarfs human activity and are beyond our control.” Hertzberg lays bare the common human belief in an unfriendly universe and the resultant destructive illusion that we need to be aggressive and vigilant to escape a natural world that is “out to get us.” He would do well to consider changing his narrative to embrace Einstein’s profound mystical insight that we live in a non-threatening, friendly universe.
Ethan Prall sees the fallacy in Hertzberg’s belief system. “Railing against Mother Nature will make us only less likely to care for the natural world that sustains us.” Prall, however, reveals himself to be a fan of the illusion that technology has improved the lot of humanity embracing the world of form as the ultimate reality. Warning against a vindictive Mother Nature, he sees humanity’s hope in getting control of “human emissions” presumably with technology-based solutions. In truth, technology did not cause our problems and will not provide the solutions for a sustainable human community.
Z’ev Rosenberg has the fundamental worldview advocated by Einstein believing that “many of us who are spiritual or religious believe that we have a universe with heart, that cares and is conscious. We believe that there is a Creator who cares for his creation. Not only is it highly unlikely that our universe and planet are an accident, but it is also unlikely that we are moored here in infinity alone, without care or comfort.”
Mr. Rosenberg’s worldview does not depend solely on the logic most philosophers rely on but transcends the limits of P-B to embrace the inner empirical evidence discovered by such “mystical philosophers” as Siddhartha Gautama.
Richard R. Rowe and Frances Moore Lappe (authors of Diet for a Small Planet) follow in the footsteps of Mr. Rosenberg advocating a profound change in humanity’s worldview and behavior. “Nature is not something ‘out there.’ We are insiders. Our problem is that we are failing to understand, respect and align our own behavior with nature’s overarching nature.”
“Viewing nature as a separate, inherently unfriendly force to be manipulated, we place humanity’s very existence in peril. We must replace this fatal mental frame by realigning our thinking and our behaviors with nature’s own impulse to realize more life.” Rowe and Lappe’s insight that we must shift our focus from outside to inside as the foundation for a worldview that can distinguish illusion from Simple Reality fulfills the only realistic criterion of a true philosopher.
John Thomas Ellis seems to understand the importance of Oneness as the foundation of a human story that doesn’t create paralyzing human reactions. “It’s time for us to relate to one another, communicate and act as a species—one that needs to act in its own best interests.” Well said but exactly what are our “own best interests?”
The majority of the seven respondents identified with the world of form and failed to consider that they might themselves be an expression of a larger consciousness beyond the small and very limited creation detected by their senses and made “real” by their limited intellect. Perhaps we could observe, sense and have the heartfelt experience that we have emerged from a single source of energy with each physical aspect of Creation (including our planet and ourselves). Then we would realize that we are a single interconnected, interrelated and interdependent manifestation of an ineffable yet compassionate intelligence. If we could grasp that worldview, we would finally be able to transcend the fear that is the source of all of our reactions in our self-created unfriendly universe. Then we could all stop frantically running around like Chicken Little each time something in the vast and impermanent world of form disappears.
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References and notes are available for this essay.
Find a much more in-depth discussion in the Simple Reality Trilogy
by Roy Charles Henry:
Where Am I? Story – The First Great Question
Who Am I? Identity – The Second Great Question
Why Am I Here? Behavior – The Third Great Question
