Truly wise teachers will present to their students a single principle, one salient choice. That teacher would have had a remarkably simple insight and would typically want to share it because it was for them life-transforming. Jesus called his insight “The Gospel.” Hindu sages would say when asked who they were: “I am That.” Buddha arose from his transformational meditation with an unusual countenance which prompted his friends to ask what had happened. He replied: “I am awake.”
Were any of these human beings fundamentally different from you and me? They would be the first to say, “No!” Why then aren’t most of us walking around with a peaceful countenance?
Who are the insightful teachers of today? The highly respected “digital elite” of Silicon Valley? Unfortunately, they are not optimistic. “The digital elite adore Yuval Noah Harari, who sees Silicon Valley as an engine of ruin.” (1) Harari’s book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, concludes that the process of human evolution may be over. Harari said it made him “sad to see people build things that destroy their own societies.” (1) Is Harari saying that our technology is a threat and we have no choice but to succumb to it?
Or perhaps technology can be an excuse to avoid even making a choice. “Gaming’s cultural reputation is born partly from the sense that playing is a way of avoiding responsibility, of escaping into virtual worlds where nothing matters. But Red Dead Redemption 2 is a game about both making choices and living with them, about taking responsibility for how you’ve lived.” (2) Taking the responsibility for our choices and living with those choices. How would that work?
If insightful teachers are nowhere to be found or our technology won’t save us, and if we seem to be unable to learn from our history, then where can we turn?
Click on the link below to learn about a little known third choice.
Insight # 66: The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe. – Albert Einstein
Links:
- Choice and The Great Choice in this blog and also in the print version of The ABC’s of Simple Reality, The Encyclopedia of Self-Transformation, Vol I (2018), by Roy Charles Henry, pages 72-73.
References:
- Bowles Nellie. “Tech Embraces Its Doomsayer.” The New York Times Sunday. November 11, 2018, page 7.
- Suderman, Peter. “Much More Than a Silly Game.” The New York Times Sunday. November 25, 2018, page 8.
