Though I can’t seem to find the post now, I remember mentioning my dilemma with the means by which we struggle to achieve perfection in an earlier post. Essentially, there seems to be a conflict between the most efficient way to achieve perfection and the morally appealing way to go about it. In question form, this struggle can be phrased as:
Is it okay to undertake our journey to perfection alone? Or is the right thing to do to uplift those we meet along the journey?
I constantly struggle with this dilemma because it represents an apparent conflict in my philosophy — for some reason (a post on what these reasons might be can be found here) I hold sincere selflessness as my highest ideal, and for that reason, it seems that the latter choice is the one consistent with my philosophy.
But is it? Are the two really different choices? Or is it that by actually practicing true unselfishness, I’d automatically be able to be of some use to those around me… I truly hope that is the resolution of this conflict; that perhaps, as concluded in another post, I’ll be able to help others by helping mySelf.
So perhaps I’ve resolved that issue (for now) — but here is the other roadblock I recently discovered: in my quest for selflessness, I inadvertently end up using others as my guinea pigs. My friends, my family, my acquaintances — everyone becomes a person whom I can try to love selflessly, to whom I can try to give my time and care to unselfishly, trying as hard as I can to not expect anything in return. If I was the only one to get hurt when I don’t succeed, there wouldn’t be a problem; but when I fail to give someone the attention he/she deserve, when my ego gets in the way of legitimately caring about a person, when I aggressively try to give, give, and give without thinking about whether it is even helping the unfortunate person that I am mindlessly giving to…it is often someone else that gets hurt.
And that’s not okay.
But how can I change it? Is there a way to go about perfecting ourselves without harming anyone else in the process? Is there a way to set an ideal and achieve it in a self-contained manner, without needing to experiment on anyone else?
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The first roadblock — whether or not to uplift those you meet on the journey to perfection — is not a major issue. I agree with the resolution you present — helping others by helping yourSelf.
However, the second — avoiding experimentation on others — is a major issue, because it causes you to doubt the propriety of your own actions.
Let’s break this down. What does it mean to experiment on others? It means that you are performing some action on another whose outcome, both in yourself and in the other, is unclear. Furthermore, in this context of unselfishness, the intent of the action is to benefit the recipient.
Why is this bad? Because the aggressive pursuit of unselfishness compels you to consistently perform such actions, but potentially contradicts the positive intent. It’s like giving ten pills to a sick patient who needs only one — you might feel unselfish in having given the pills, but you’ve jeopardized the patient’s health.
Life in society is constant experimentation, so that’s not the part that concerns you. Instead, you want to know — is there a way around this, a way to pursue the quest of unselfishness without needing to risk hurting others? I believe there is. Just as a doctor vows to do no harm, the practitioner of unselfishness must subscribe to ahimsa — avoidance of the willful injury of other living beings. And on the few occasions where the doctor does harm the patient by accident, where the seeker of unselfishness does hurt someone by accident, instead of castigating yourself for having erred, learn from the mistake and recalibrate your actions. Exposure to the risk of hurting others is an occupational hazard of the spiritual seeker who chooses to live in society.
After World War II, when the Allied forces liberated a concentration camp, one soldier was moved to tears by the sight of the starved victims of the Holocaust. Remembering that he must serve his brothers and sisters of the world, he pulled some food out of his rucksack and distributed it to the skeletal figures. Walking away with his heart a little lighter, he met his commander, who witnessed the noble gesture.
“You realize you just killed them, right?” the commander asked.
“What?” responded the soldier.
“Their digestive systems are too weak to handle the food, and will rupture. They’ll die of internal bleeding.”
The commander was right. But was the soldier’s action unselfish? I believe so, especially since now, the soldier has learned a lesson about serving others which will translate to every other concentration camp he visits. Similarly, the seeker of true unselfishness who chooses to live in society may occasionally err, but the only issue would be to make the same mistake twice.
I believe that through compassionate action and learning from mistakes, one converges upon true unselfishness.
What do you think?
Your explanation resolves the conflict — as long as I learn from the mistakes I make, I’ll learn how to unselfishly give at the right time, in the right place, to the right person, in the right way…
Still, there is something unsettling about saying that the intention of doing good is all that ultimately matters…
It seems less unsettling when considering good intention as a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for unselfish action. That is, someone who is unselfish must have good intentions, but someone with good intentions may not be unselfish.
I say this because I feel that a large part of my personal quest for moral integrity is based on good intention. I don’t believe that one can haphazardly attain moral perfection.
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