Compete to Cooperate II

Happy the soul that shall forget his own good and, like the chosen ones of God, vie with his fellows in service to the good of all.

(‘Abdu’l-Baha, The Secret of Divine Civilization: 116)

I want to further explore this topic of competing to cooperate, for it can easily be dismissed as pie-in-the-sky idealism about human nature.  I wrote last post: “While it may be hard to believe that, given humanity’s bloodstained past, unity, reciprocity and cooperation, and spiritually vying for the good of others, are possible to achieve and maintain, the reason lies not in our nature, but in an education that has brought us down to a poverty of self-understanding.  That is, the reason lies not in something we are and, therefore, cannot change, but something we have learned to be and can, therefore, unlearn.”  There is always a connection between economic crisis and moral possibility—do we become more selfish or more selfless?  Inducing us to become more selfless is the power and purpose of spiritual education—one model of which I developed in Renewing the Sacred.

One way to look at the transition from competition to cooperation is to see it as a centripetal to centrifugal shift of moral direction from me-first to you-before-me, from self-service to self-sacrifice.  When we compete to cooperate, that is, when we compete to express spiritual virtues, we compete to be more loving, more kind, more just and so on.  But another change is the change of competitor.  If we compete with another to be more kind, for example, we are simply playing the same me-first competition game with the same end goal—its all about me!  This is a hidden form of self-centeredness, though it is mostly only hidden from oneself.

In spiritual competition the focus is on helping another, of course, but the competitor one is jousting with is oneself, to do better than one has in the past, to be in more of a humble posture of learning, to really prefer the other before oneself, striving to be of service with less thought or need of reward, and the like. All these are part of a daily bringing oneself to account, and only you can be the accountant.  Nevertheless rewards are there, and we can legitimately seek them if we truly understand human nature and are sincerely pursuing spiritual development.  The Master wrote: “Sincerity is the foundation-stone of faith. That is, a religious individual must disregard his personal desires and seek in whatever way he can wholeheartedly to serve the public interest; and it is impossible for a human being to turn aside from his own selfish advantages and sacrifice his own good for the good of the community except through true religious faith. For self-love is kneaded into the very clay of man, and it is not possible that, without any hope of a substantial reward, he should neglect his own present material good. That individual, however, who puts his faith in God and believes in the words of God -- because he is promised and certain of a plentiful reward in the next life, and because worldly benefits as compared to the abiding joy and glory of future planes of existence are nothing to him -- will for the sake of God abandon his own peace and profit and will freely consecrate his heart and soul to the common good." (The Secret of Divine Civilization: 96-97)

In another place, Abdu’l-Baha reminds us that when operating from our higher nature “acts of cooperation, mutual assistance and reciprocity are not confined to the body and to things that pertain to the material world, but for all conditions, whether physical or spiritual, such as those related to minds, thoughts, opinions, manners, customs, attitudes, understandings, feelings or other human susceptibilities. In all these thou shouldst find these binding relationships securely established. The more this interrelationship is strengthened and expanded, the more will human society advance in progress and prosperity.  Indeed without these vital ties it would be wholly impossible for the world of humanity to attain true felicity and success.” (Compilation on Huququ’llah #61)  In another place he writes: “because the members of the world of humanity are unable to exist without being banded together, cooperation and helpfulness is the basis of human society.  Without the realization of these two great principles no great movement is pressed forward.” (Principles of Bahá’í Administration:52)  

Another sort of reward we can seek in the proper way through true self-sacrifice is the reward of greater life.  For example, ‘Abdu’l-Baha said that “we must be the servants of the poor, helpers of the poor, remember the sorrows of the poor, associate with them; for thereby we may inherit the Kingdom of heaven.” (The Promulgation of Universal Peace: 33

I am presenting what I hope is a “spiritual” perspective on the economic crisis, because the real crisis stems from a terrible misapprehension of our true nature. The crisis in our material life resides not in what Marxists would call “the relations of production”; rather, it is in our human relations: it is not in our material economy but in our moral economy; not in our knowledge, but in our self-knowledge.  It is a view on achieving general prosperity that is strongly self-sacrificing rather than self-centered in focus, altruistic rather than avaricious in motivation.  This view, that the solution to our economic and social woes is fundamentally spiritual in character, can, it is hoped, shed some light into our current darkness and show a way out for all of us.  The darkness that we need to escape, though, is within us.  It is the dark distortion generated by false assumptions of the nature of the human being.  These assumptions have crystallized into an educational philosophy the  social system of which it both supports and draws legitimacy from deprives us of that which we inherently possess.

But, so far I have concentrated on the individual and his or her relations with other individuals.  But there are indispensable social relations mediated by social institutions  that are also part of the moral economy, the “Divine economy” as Shoghi Effendi titles it.  The Universal House of Justice wrote in regard to the local Bahá’í community: “A Bahá'í community which is consistent in its fundamental life-giving, life sustaining activities will at its heart be serene and confident; it will resonate with spiritual dynamism, will exert irresistible influence, will set a new course in social evolution, enabling it to win the respect and eventually the allegiance of admirers and critics alike.” (Letter from the Universal House of Justice, dated Ridvan, 1984, to a National Spiritual Assembly)  Next post will begin an examination of the phrase “set a new course in social evolution.”

A direct link to my book, Renewing the Sacred is http://tinyurl.com/cndew5a  It is now also in Kindle