Essay #5: Moral Imperatives of the Cultural Enriched and Fully Lived Life

As far as we know, we have one chance for this earthly sojourn. We will not get this chance again. Whatever visions we have for the afterlife, on earth we get one chance to show the Divine and ourselves what we can do. We do not have an easy task, because the vision of life that is presented to us in everyday experience is so dim, so trivial, so corrupt.


In her transcendent poem, “On the Pulse of Morning,” Maya Angelou properly chastises us for the way that we have fallen short, writing


You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness
Have lain too long
Facedown in ignorance
Your mouths spilling words
Armed for slaughter.


Hopeful, Angelou tells us to


Lift up your hearts
Each new hour holds new chances
For a new beginning.
Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.


Similarly, in his remarkable “Allegory of the Cave” from his philosophical masterpiece, The Republic, Plato describes the condition of the general populace of people living their lives as if chained as prisoners deep down in a cave, where they have seen only shadows things; they have never witnessed things as they really are, out in the open, in the radiance of the sun.


Plato presents a scenario whereupon one person does escape from the cave to look at things under the bright sunlight, at first with adjusting eyes straining and longing for return to the cave--- but then with increasing satisfaction at seeing the world with clarity.   Plato says that for those who have seen such a world, the ultimate responsibility is to bring others to things in their full beauty, by returning to the cave and helping others out.


But before doing this, the person whose soul has been thus liberated must seize the responsibility to use this newfound opportunity to contemplate even better things, most especially the true, ultimate, Form of Goodness, so that life in the light can approach the Ideal:


In the world of knowledge, the last thing to be perceived and only with great difficulty is the essential Form of Goodness. Once it is perceived, the conclusion must follow that, for all things, this is the cause of all that is right and good; in the visible world it gives birth to the light and to the lord of light, while it is itself sovereign in the intelligible world and the parent of intelligence and truth. Without having had a vision of this Form, no one can act with wisdom, either in his own life or in matters of state.


This passage from Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” in The Republic has resonance with the words of St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:


For now we see through a mirror dimly; but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, Even as I have been fully understood.


Both the passages from Plato and from St. Paul impress upon us the dimness of the world of appearances and the greater reality that lies beyond that world. The person who lives life to the fullest seeks higher realms of thought and experience than can be found in the world of appearances, finding in thought, meditation, and prayer pathways to Goodness, Ultimate Reality (recall Brahman [“World Soul”] of the Hindus), God. In establishing a firm connection to the Divine, one loses fear of the judgment of mere human beings, acting with conviction and courage in ways that make of this world a better place.


Robert Kennedy thus spoke in poetic oratory from his “Moral Courage” as follows:


Few are willing to bear
the disapproval of their fellows,
the censure of their colleagues,
the wrath of their society.
Moral courage
Is a rarer commodity
than bravery in battle
or great intelligence.
Yet it is the essential,
vital quality
for those who seek
to change a world
that yields most painfully
to change.


Living without fear, acting with moral courage to make the world a better place, the truly happy person dwells on this earthly sojourn in the service of other people, perpetually manifesting in acts of profound altruism and empathy a concern for the well-being of humankind that arises from a wellspring of Divine Love.


Albert Schweitzer thus wrote:


I know not what
your future will be,
but one thing I know:
The only ones among you
who will be
TRULY HAPPY
Are those
who have sought---
and found---
HOW TO SERVE


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The possibilities for the person who lives life in the service of others are endless.


 And the person who has received a knowledge-intense education--- loaded with information concerning mathematics, natural science, history, economics, literature, and the fine arts---- sees those possibilities most clearly. Such a person walks confidently into any human arena, speaks with conviction on matters of true importance, and elevates the discussion among her or his companions toward those levels of human existence contemplated by Maya Angelou, Plato, Hindu philosophers, the Buddha, and St. Paul.


Such a person moving in a world of love and knowledge finds repugnant the sort of stimulation that so many seek in alcoholic beverages, tobacco products, or corrupting pharmaceuticals. The world beyond appearances that can be seen by one living life to the fullest is too good and too beautiful ever to allow retreat into that fog where joy is sought and despair is found. The morally elevated and culturally enriched person finds in life itself that natural elevation of the spirit that those caught in a web of confusion and pain seek in the artificial high.


For indeed the morally elevated and knowledge-rich person is in a constant state of stimulation. Such a person is never bored. Each day becomes a quest for more chances to do good and to acquire more knowledge:

Other people provide opportunities for acts of human kindness. Books and knowledge-intensive websites provide efficient sources of personally sought knowledge, beyond the trivia of television and those banal forms of electronic media offering merely instant gratification: 


Nature provides abiding chances to witness the wonder of Creation. Excellent music offers evidence of the Divine whispering to those people able to create the composition and to hear song. High quality painting, architecture, and sculpture command the attention of those able to understand the intimations of the Good moving the inspired hand, the open heart, the comprehending soul. Fine food commands attention and deepens appreciation for all the good things that God hath wrought.


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The moral imperatives of the culturally enriched and fully lived life are universal love and manifestation of that love in the service of humankind.


Endowed also with broad and deep knowledge and the abiding desire to increase knowledge through reading, observation, and experience, such a person is ever ascending toward that level of existence where the human and the Divine unite.


Such a person moves beyond the joy of the moment toward happiness in Eternity, living in full appreciation of this one earthly sojourn.