Home middleswart.com

1)The Teachings

If we were effectively using our intelligence one would think we would be striving to liberate our world from the many man-made problems that cause so much misery for all life forms. Particularly when the problems appear to be worsening. We might also wonder why we believe in absurdities that violate our reasoning to the extent we kill each other over "beliefs"? Or why we so willingly march off to wars that make little sense? Or accumulate goods at levels far exceeding our needs? Or breed irresponsibly when it is obvious that doing so increases the misery for many? Maybe the answers lie in our ignoring the true teachings of the wise men of our past.

The essence of the wisdom passed on to us embraces a common theme: Know thyself, develop Principles in accordance with your self-knowledge, and be True to those principles. The teachers we revere, whether the Buddha, Jesus, or Abraham, admonished us to follow them along their similar paths in accordance with this wisdom. They knew if we did so in earnest, our minds would be free to rise above our inherent visceral programming including the myths and superstitions that have so compromised our reasoning throughout history.

Their hopes were that once free of our primordial biases, we would be able to live in better harmonic balance with each other and the rest of life on earth. Instead we have allowed those with vested interests to subvert the wisdom. They have manipulated us by appealing to vulnerabilities deeply embedded in our Nature to create and support privileged classes of priests, ministers, rabbis, monks, mullahs, and others of the ilk. Our abnegation of the wisdom from the teachers we claim to revere is at the root of much of the pain and suffering that has plagued us for eons.

So instead of addressing the behavior patterns that worsen our lot, we continue to muddle on. It seems only reasonable to wonder why we do not do better. What is it that keeps us from using our brains -- our uniquely human survival tool -- to control our impulses and live more sensibly in balance with the other forms of life and resources that sustain us?

To better understand why we do the things we do, we need to consider the forces at the essence of our nature. For if we seek self-knowledge we must start with an understanding of the urges that tell us to do things that are blatantly inconsistent with our best intelligence.