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If you want to feel alive, that life is worth living, you may need to have something to believe in, something to give your life meaning, to foster feelings of belonging and the belief that you have something unique and valuable to contribute. You need some kind of religion or something effective to take its place. People with nothing to believe in are at great risk of indifference to life and, worse, of despair. To avoid this predicament, in our popular, secular, consumerist society, people tend to go for one of four types of "religion," or maybe mix-and-match them, prioritizing science and technology, material gain, family, or faith and wisdom.
Some years ago, when I was teaching third-year medical students, I sent them out to discover from their patients what motivated them, what made them tick. Also, what set off their alarm bells? What were they afraid of? Because that is what religions are for: to give life a sense of worth and purpose, and to help us find strength and courage, to give us hope, whenever our alarm bells start jangling in the face of threats, real or imagined. So, my medical students went to ask one or two patients each (medical, surgical, psychiatric patients, whatever) if they considered themselves religious or spiritual in any way, and to follow that up by asking where they found help if things got difficult, when their lives became particularly challenging, whether through ill-health or anything else.
Some patients were not religious and could not identify anything or anybody to support them — either emotionally or in practical ways. Others had only meager resources to fall back on and provide meaning: something simple, like a pet. "Sometimes I think I just live to feed that dog and take him for his walk twice a day." Many relied heavily on their families, but when time, distance, and discord had weakened or fragmented family bonds, there was little left except to live life vicariously through other people, mainly through television and social media.
Earlier in life, some of these people had put their faith in the prevailing imperatives: follow convention, complete education, get a good job, earn money, find a partner, have a family, set up home, obey the law. Not so many, even among those who were successful at this, found a way to feel unique and special. Some tried by amassing more and more wealth, by striving for status and power over others, or by achieving positions of fame and celebrity, only to discover that none of this was ever enough.
Others dispensed with the mystery and uncertainty of a spiritual outlook, convincing themselves somehow that science — and its product, technology — would reliably provide and protect. But this promise too has been broken. Chemical insecticides and fertilizers, for example, help increase agricultural yields enormously, but kill wildlife, like bees and wasps (both necessary for crop pollination), and pollute the environment. Remote weapons, delivered by drones, kill innocents as well as enemies, and can ultimately harm those who — safe and distant — are called on to pull those triggers. As one threat is relieved, another grows. Alarm bells continue to ring; and, a few Nobel Laureates aside, science seldom makes anyone feel special.
Worldly success and material gain, scientific knowledge and progress, family life: all three fail to deliver a confident sense of worth and a fully meaningful life. Except in a false and transitory way, they cannot provide any convincing feeling that life is worth living. It requires faith and wisdom for that.
One student returned from a long conversation with a patient about the woman's fears and the important aspects of her life that helped shield her from them, saying with pleasure, and a little surprised, "I've been studying medicine for three years, and that's the first time I have felt that I've actually helped somebody." Another student found herself captivated, listening to an elderly woman speaking with passion for over an hour about love.
Faith and wisdom depend on something simple: on getting out of your own way and seeing the bigger picture; on a sense of greater wholeness; on the intuitive knowledge and understanding that everything is connected to everything else.
Once you experience this aspect of sacred unity about the universe and feel its energy at the deepest possible level, everything changes. Recognition that you are seamlessly and indivisibly connected to this unity — to the cosmos, the planet, to nature and all living things, especially to the entirety of humanity, to everybody else, living, dead, and to come — will bring wisdom and faith alive within you, blessing you with courage, hope, and compassion. This is a valid promise.
To experience oneself as a full member of humankind in such a wholehearted and heart-warming fashion gives you an undeniable feeling of worth and meaning, a sense of purpose born of universal kinship. Such experience forms the origin and basis of a duty, responsibility, and joy we all share: to look out for each other and to keep the show on the road best we can.
We each have a unique contribution to offer. We get advice and encouragement from wisdom literature and wise teachers. In the end, though, guided by faith and wisdom, we are bound necessarily to figure out the personal details for ourselves. Taking responsibility for our thoughts, words, and actions — and, importantly, for what we do not say and avoid doing — takes maturity and determination. Kindness, generosity, and compassion are the necessary watchwords of wisdom. It is not always easy, but there really is no other genuine way to live life.
Wisdom is the knowledge of how to be and behave for the best for all concerned in any given situation. It does no good to crave material gain and all its distracting, ego-boosting trappings. It is foolish to rely on the false, at best incomplete, claims given out from the altar of science. It is not wise either, because people go away, get sick, grow old and die, to rely solely on family for comfort, support, meaning, and purpose. What remains, forever reliable, are both wisdom and faith.
Copyright Larry Culliford
Watch me on YouTube in three short videos on psychology and spirituality. My new book is Seeking Wisdom: A Spiritual Manifesto.
