People

We have the honor of living at the culmination of one of the most astonishing experiments life on Earth has ever come up with: humanity’s drive to fill the world. After billions of years of evolution churning away by its own laws of survival, suddenly there’s an animal able to break away consciously from the daily scramble for food, water and shelter. Able to create and speak a language of ideas. Able to forge wildly diverse tools for a million uses. Able to willingly join together in tightly knit groups, and at the same time:

Able to consciously choose an individual life!

If we pause a moment and consider the outrageous freedom so many of us have been gifted with in this lifetime, how can we be anything but in awe of the splendor of this world’s process of evolution. And also in awe of our forebears who worked so hard to weave this freedom into a workable fabric of life we call human culture.

But now it’s all at risk. That’s because the software we used to get to this point has become badly outdated. Some of the mental circuitry we humans seem to value most is turning against us.

The dangers of this ancient coding are rooted in our strong individual and collective drive to survive, which we have in common with other animals and all life but which is enhanced in us by our powerful self-consciousness and an awareness this gives us of our own death.

We can feel the origins of this by considering a word in the click language of the San people of the Kalihari desert, the ancient tribe approximating our collective ancestors through its wide genetic diversity. When during the day’s activities an unknown group of persons appears on the horizon, the tribe may use a word of alarm that means:

“the bad people!”

The unknown group, whether of another tribe in ages past or modern humans of uncertain intent, is assumed to be a danger to our own group’s lifeways and survival, and may well be. This fear of any different group is no doubt wired deep into our genetics and our collective psyche from vast experience of tribal fights over land, food, water and resources.

The problem is, this tribal survival reflex, often unconscious but very much alive in us, has now morphed into a storm of seemingly reasonable self-interests and rights coming from too many directions, such that without a radical change in humanity’s orientation, toward the global good first, we may not survive the drive itself in all its manifestations.

By now our drive to survive longer and better has yielded marvels in medicine, sanitation and food production fueling a massive population boom on a small planet. The drive to survive helps to power mindless consumption and overconsumption of life needs as well, bringing about vast degradation of nature. The drive to survive a less habitable world of climatic change caused by all this is beginning to force massive migration and resettlement. Then the drive to survive powers cultures to defend themselves against these changes through more intense nationalism. At any point, a nation’s drive to survive could stumble into use of nuclear weapons.

Humans and their chosen groupings continue to posture and fight each other on a planet of increasing scarcity and weaponry. It’s all based on defending how we each choose to identify, meaning primarily an interest in our own self and the groups we’re part of. Our ability to realize the extent to which we’re all connected now in the realm of survival is dangerously undeveloped. We sometimes see that fights don’t really make sense in any kind of rational or compassionate perspective even as we see no alternative but to keep on fighting for our side. Sometimes a voice cries out in realization of all we risk by still operating like this, but the fights go on and on and on.

Is there any way to begin ameliorating this primal human compulsion of my life over yours, my beliefs over yours, my people and my nation over yours which still lights so many fires around the world?

I believe the best and maybe only answer we have may be found in the radical realm of true spirituality. This is because the great spiritual teachers are experienced in this. Throughout the ages they have been masters in dealing with the drive to survive of the individual human ego. They are the ones who have always seen most clearly through the fiction of the individual self to how ultimately interconnected we all are.

It is they who remind us that each of us is guaranteed to sooner or later lose this game of physical survival but that’s not the point; the real game of life is on the other side of the board. It involves how much we have each grown and evolved and served in our time here.

My own sequence of life experiences has opened up to me a perspective that I believe can help dissolve the tremendous hold that our inborn and chosen tribes have on our thoughts and feelings and actions. This doesn’t involve changing these outer identities; it involves learning to go deeply into our own sense of self to find new and powerful dimensions of identity there as well.

When we go deeper into our essential self, we become able to perceive down below what we so strongly and so normally think of as “myself” and discover hidden elements. These more refined, often quite beautiful and inspiring elements are held in common by all of us to a great extent. Ultimately, getting to know this multilevel self can amount to a whole new understanding and appreciation of the human being, both ourself and others, based on inner as well as outer characteristics.

We are such complex creatures that of course, there are many different ways to see and define ourselves. What I would like to introduce is a simple three-element concentric sphere of human experience. This easy to visualize 3-D representation of a life is also a distillation of much of human history and striving in a certain sense; it embodies elements of who we have always aspired to be. In that way I believe it has extraordinary potential to help us overcome the hard-wired circuits in our brain and psyche which tend to pit us against each other.

In this system a person can be seen as living in three realms every moment of their waking conscious life. An outer circle or sphere contains everything most of us think about and encounter every day: work, relationships, survival issues such as money, food and shelter, fun, learning, politics, everything… including how we identify ourselves.

Another element, the center point of a person’s lived experience, comes into focus through meditation and mindfulness practices: the sense of being. This is present for every individual in the background all the time (it’s why we can state that we exist) but usually requires much practice to deepen consciously and maintain in ongoing awareness.

What is it in you that understands this knowledge ‘I am’ without a name, title or word? Sink in that innermost center and witness the knowledge ‘I am’.

Nisargadatta Maharaj c.1970

The third domain of human life, in this schematic, connects the central point of beingness with its worldly story in all directions. This is the realm of character. Humans every day, actually every moment of every day, make decisions which flow from their essence out through their character structure into actions in the world. This has results from very small through very consequential and is much of what defines our path through life.

The beauty of this three element view of ourselves is that no matter who we are in this world, no matter how we identify ourself and our roles and our beliefs, these inner worlds of being and of character are common ground for all of us. To the extent that we can begin to perceive, understand and connect in terms of these subtler realms, the outer differences in tribal group which divide us can begin to fade in importance.

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Both the realm of being and the realm of character have become better understood in recent years through those who have searched for, found and advocated for a universal perspective on these elements of human experience.

The realm of being is the realm of the mystic. Mystics are persons whose beingness goes so deep that they have experienced life at some level beyond the usual five senses. Mystics may be members or even founders of religions but as such their teachings are not based upon belief. Mystics’ teachings are based on personal experience of realms beyond, and underlying, the physical.

This yearning for realizing an inner truth for oneself, for experiencing a deeper reality, occurs throughout the tribes of humanity. As with so much else, the outer manifestations of formalized religion provide reasons for quarreling with other faiths but as we get closer to the core of each, which is direct mystic experience, the differences tend to dissolve. Thus was a beautiful film made in 2009, “With One Voice“, in which mystics of all major religions agree that their personal experience of inner truth, of the realms of being, is of a universal human nature.

To the extent to which we can say we’ve all experienced the same thing if we see a sunrise, or a waterfall, we can say we (mystics) all experience the same reality… as ultimate reality. 

Brother David Steindl-Rast c. 2010

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The realm of human character strengths as a universal domain which every person inhabits in their own way has also been recognized in our time.

Character is something that many of us know and feel inspired by when we see it but has been somewhat murky in definition. In the first decade of this century the Positive Psychology profession tackled this situation, looking for a more definitive understanding of what are considered to be the most admirable elements in human beings. Embarking on a major research project into 2500 years of historical evidence encompassing the philosophies, religions, cultures and tribes of humankind, which took three years of rigorous research by more than 50 scientists, they came up with a clear and universally applicable system of human character strengths.

This discovery and promotion of characteristics in people that are considered by all cultures and religions around the world to be the best within us amounts to a major gift to all humanity. We need to expand the understanding and the use of this precious gift.

These 24 universal character strengths are powerful in their simplicity. A five-year-old can understand them, yet an individual of any age working on any one of the strengths can, over time, change their life for the better. They include action strengths such as bravery and perseverance; mental strengths like curiosity and reasoning; relational strengths including love, fairness and teamwork; attitudinal strengths such as gratitude and humor.

All 24 strengths are described and can be worked with through the dedicated website, viacharacter.org. The free questionnaire on this site ranks the strengths for an individual, providing a view of their unique character spectrum. Everyone has all the strengths to some extent, with a set of top “signature strengths” defining their nature in a real and positive way and providing clear direction toward a fulfilling life.

Those who have read this far I would ask to consider how the world might look if people everywhere were encouraged to begin serious inquiry into their deeper self and their own character; and also became interested in the inner essence and character of others as much as in the surface ways they might show up.

So many problems and conflicts are caused by how strongly we defend our own everyday identity and judge others based on their identity. If it’s true that focusing on what we have in common can bring some balm to our discord, what better elements to bring to the conversation than the deep and good strengths of humanity that are built into every one of us.