Evil and the Addiction to Pain (Part 2)

In the generation before Shakespeare, the French essayist Montaigne remarked that cruelty and vengeance are so inherent in human nature that we wouldn't be ourselves without them. In so many words, Shakespeare said the same thing in his tragedies and histories. Would Hamlet be as interesting if he weren't bent on revenge, or Lady Macbeth without her blood lust? This is a serious question for anyone who wants human nature to transcend its base impulses. I think that what makes Buddha and Jesus so radical is that they gave up on hand-wringing, moralizing, and wishful thinking. Instead of healing human nature, they proposed radical surgery to completely alter it. Aiming at a spiritual revolution that far exceeds spiritual reform, they had to connect pain with a more profound problem: evil.

If pain isn't a sufficient deterrent to the evils of human behavior, what is? An obvious answer is morality and religion. Officially, the entire network of moral teaching that envelops every culture is meant to extract our better impulses from our worse ones. The theory is that you sort out your angels from your demons and follow the angels. To back up morality, the law punishes anyone who seriously transgresses the boundary between right and wrong. But one could easily argue that the very people who obey the law and follow the dictates of morality are cut out to be that way already. They don't feel overly tempted by violence, vengeance, sexual hunger, and misanthropy to begin with. (Just as naturally thin people wonder why dieting is hard. For them, it isn't.)

Religion has always had divine punishment lurking behind the altar or in the cellars of the Inquisition. As a preventive to war and sin, the results have been dubious, to be kind about it. The moment one faith challenges another, a brutal infliction of pain seems to be the inevitable outcome. One is hard pressed to think of any war settled by a church on behalf of a higher wisdom, and this includes the war within human nature.

Jesus and Buddha were astute enough to see this problem; therefore they didn't offer sermons and palliatives. They observed human nature at war between pleasure and pain, a war that is eternal as long as one remains on the field of combat. In essence Montaigne was right: human nature as we experience it must be divided if we are to consider it human. However, spirituality says that human beings have both a psychology and a meta-psychology. It is in our nature to transcend our nature. What makes us unique as a species isn't a capacity for good and evil, or being conscious of good and evil, not even a willingness to conquer evil in the name of good. None of those qualities has solved the dilemma of being at war inside ourselves.

The only answer is to give up being a person, as that condition is normally defined. One Indian guru said, "As long as you have a personal stake in the world, you will never be free." What does this mean? Ultimately what drives us, at the very deepest level, is not a fantasy of everlasting happiness but the actuality of freedom. The peace that passes understanding says to Christians what Satori says to Buddhists: this is the real you. Evil's fatal flaw is that it feels false; it strangles and suffocates who we really are. The seductiveness of evil is undeniable. Why else would we be locked into suffering? Freedom doesn't need to seduce, any more than love does. It's the very seed of existence. Insofar as any person pursues freedom, he or she pursues the truth of existence.

If that is the core message of Buddhism and Christianity (not to exclude any other faith that brings the same message), then good is sovereign over evil in the grand design. A lofty sentiment? Yes, but by setting foot on the spiritual path, the sentiment turns into reality. Hamlet was wrong when he asked, To be or not to be? There's no alternative to being; we only have to decide the quality of being, whether to be trapped or free. The most interesting life anyone can lead is a life of self-exploration, not in the interest of pleasing God or gaining knowledge, but to discover once and for all if absolute freedom is attainable. The practical result is an end once and for all to our everlasting addiction to pain.

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www.deepakchopra.com

Comments

[hudsonriver1]

I found some of the phrasing here vague, unclear and perhaps misleading, but the point Deepak is making I believe to be valid. However, he seems to be promoting a self-centered concept of individual freedom and detachment without any responsibility to others. Since I know that's not what he really believes (given his life to date) I think this needs further clarification. I believe that one needs to feel connected to others, to love them as yourself, and try your best to improve their lives and living conditions, without getting so immersed in their pain and suffering that you lose the joy of life and your personal freedom and clarity. Not an easy task----

[Obamlatina]

Dr. Chopra

Interesting perspective although I wonder how much pain you're in after donating around 12,000 (wife and daughter included) to Hillary's campaign. We are all entitled to donate to any candidate we choose in a free country like America. However, it "pains" me to think that you would support a woman who has lied repeatedly to Americans. The same Americans she claims to one day represent.

She says the gas tax holiday will provide relief to Americans yet in 2000 her own husband refuted this and said basically what Obama is saying today that oil companies would benefit from this holiday gimmick. (see jedreport.com for Pres. Clinton's quote.)

Regardless, I am not one to speak against you and what you stand for. I am merely voicing my humble opinon.

With Respect and Shanti----

[burnt]

"As a preventive to war and sin, the results have been dubious, to be kind about it. "

... not only extraordinarily kind, but may also qualify as one of the biggest understatements of all time. In fact, I might go as far to suggest that organized religion is a root cause of most war and sin... and I don't think I would be far off the mark.