To Live is to Overcome Selfishness and to Grow in Love

We live in societies which place a premium on achieving success, developing one’s potentials to the full, and gaining honors and awards. We, in fact, feel compelled to achieve, to work hard to become successful in our studies and careers, and to make a name for ourselves. The need for self-actualization was thought to be the highest human need. There is nothing wrong with the desire to succeed and become fulfilled in life. What will be wrong is to think that life is all about these things – gaining awards, developing one’s potentials, achieving success, and reaching the top of the ladder of achievement and success.

Before Abraham Maslow died, he added the last and topmost human need in his hierarchy of human needs after self-actualization: it is the need for self-transcendence. Dada Maheshvarananda in his book,  After Capitalism: Economic Democracy in Action, explained that Maslow termed the state above self-actualization the transpersonal level where activity is purely spiritual, “characterized by meditative introspection, contentment, unselfishness, feelings of harmony and oneness with the universe, and the experience of subtler states of consciousness”.

There are some people who say that humans are innately selfish beings. I think that the appropriate thing to say is that within every human being there is a struggle between the inclination to be selfish and the capacity to love, give, and serve unselfishly. And every day of our lives is meant for us to grow in character, overcome selfishness, and practice unconditional love towards achieving “feelings of harmony and oneness with the universe”. We are placed in different environments where we are meant to grow in character for even the persons who seem to get into our nerves may be there to check our own tendencies to be selfish and help us grow in patience and practice unconditional love.

Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar, an Indian thinker and spiritual master, coined the term “neo-humanism” to refer to “the process of expanding one’s sentiment or allegiance outward from mere self-interest to one of empathy and identification with an ever-larger share of humanity and the universe”. Education should be able to expand our sense of identity to include all humanity such that “we will inevitably feel pain at the suffering of others, wherever they may be”. This inspires us to commit ourselves to social justice and service.

The philosophical foundation for neo- humanism is the idea that we are part of the creation of the Supreme Consciousness, who is called Brahma in Hinduism, God the Father in Christianity and Allah in Islam. According to P. R. Sarkar, the universe is the thought projection of Brahma, so the ownership of the universe lies with the Supreme Entity and not with any of His imagined beings. But all living beings can enjoy their rightful share of this property because we are members of a joint family; we are all part of the dynamic web of life.

The Supreme Consciousness, the Great Creator of all, creates continuously, sustains His creation unconditionally. The potentials that God has given us are meant to be used and developed not for our own glory but for the glory of God and the good of humanity. According to Dada Maheshvarananda, a follower of P.R. Sarkar, what we need is a spiritual perspective which includes “respect and gratitude for all beings, and gradually ever-expanding feelings of compassion, altruism and unconditional love for all… which involves self-transcendence, wisdom and connecting with the sacred, the infinite, to reach states of peace and transcendent happiness.”

All our achievements make us feel fulfilled but longing for more. The writer of Ecclesiastes wrote: “All is vanity under the sun. What matters (in my paraphrase) is to love God, honor Him and fulfill His commandments”. What is it that we are really looking for and longing for? We are longing to be lost in love, to be full of love, to be one with the Ocean of love. God is Love and He sustains the universe in love. The world whirls in love; the universe whirls in love, and we join the whirling universe in an endless ecstasy of love. From henceforth, our creations and productions are meant to glorify the Great Creator and breathe love and goodness towards all His creatures.

About the author: Belinda F. Espiritu is a faculty member of the University of the Philippines Cebu. She holds a Master’s degree in Comparative Literature and a PhD degree in Communication. She would like to hear from the readers about their feedback or comments on her articles through her email address: belinda.espiritu@gmail.com to set a conversation going even after her articles have been published.