"Three things have always inspired me: the ideal of Space Travel, the belief that our evolution, as human beings, has only just begun - that we can and indeed should evolve still further, in terms of our abilities and our consciousness - and a feeling concerning our being part of Nature. The first two are really part of one vision - the ideal of a Galactic Empire."
 

Suffering and the Cessation of Suffering

For decades I have been on a quest for knowledge, for understanding, for the meaning, the purpose of our lives. One mistake I seem to have made has been to quest after forms, ideas, ideals, goals: to forget, or see as irrelevant, my humanity, to ignore or eventually turn away from love, to not fully understand what was good.

Of course, many times I had spoken about, written about, "love", but it was always an abstract love, for instance, the love of one's own folk, one's own land. It was an abstract love because it was divorced from the simple humanity of letting-be: of striving to only do good, of submitting to only what is good.
 

But I have finally discovered, re-discovered, the meaning, the importance, of not doing any harm: that is, of always considering the consequences of ideas, words, deeds, ideals. Always it was a goal, an ideal, which inspired me and in the pursuit of this goal I was prepared to sacrifice my own happiness, my own life, my own health, as I expected others to do the same. I was also cavalier and at times emotionally ruthless, placing my own abstract ideals - my own perceived, selfish, Destiny - before the interests of others, especially before the interests of those individuals who, over thirty or more years, cared for and loved me, as an individual. So it was that I sometimes caused these caring, loving, individuals to be unhappy. Through them, in them, I added to the misery in the world, the suffering in the world, as perchance did some of my writings, some of my words, some of my deeds.

It was as if I regarded the goals I followed, the ideals I upheld, as, in the end, more important than people. The ideal world - which I wrote, talked about, strove to ccreate through revolutionary activities - always involved me and others sacrificing our present, as it almost always involved strife, violence, hatred, suffering and even death. People were often regarded as a means to create some kind of "ideal world", and "ideal society", in the future where everything would be fine and wonderful, whereas, in truth, once implemented, such an "ideal society" did not last because it always, always, involved some kind of human misery or unhappiness, or suppression, coercion, manipulation, by those in power, in authority, against those who did not for whatever reason or reasons agree with such an "ideal society".

Quite simply, all this is wrong - dishonourable - for it destroys the very essence of life, placing as it does an abstract form - an idea, a goal, an ideal - above life, and especially human life.
 

The problems of the past few thousands of years are mostly the problems of people like me striving after something - some personal goal, some idea, some ideal - and in the process causing more suffering. Many, many people - myself included - quested after things because they sincerely believed they were doing what was right, good, noble and just even if their striving caused human suffering, human misery, and even human deaths. But even such good intentions are no excuse.

After thirty or more years of questing, of searching, I know now in my very being that no ideal, no cause, no idea, no goal, no quest, is worth even the intentional suffering of one human being: that nothing justifies us in intentionally causing more suffering. A good cause, a good goal, a good quest, a good ideal does not - repeat, not - justify doing harm in the present by appealing to some future "perfect society", some future "perfect life", some future "peace" which can only be created through harming others now, through killing others now, through some war now, through some act or actions which involve harming others, or taking away their liberty or manipulating them.

To do good we simply have to strive to do no harm: to seek to cause no suffering. Good is simply the alleviation of suffering by means which do not cause more suffering; by means which do not cause harm to life and which certainly does not take life, human or otherwise. This is the simple, profound, message of Sages, religious teachers, prophets, over thousands of years. But it gets forgotten, lost, overlaid with excuses for our own human failings. I discovered it, many times in my life, just as forgot it many times, and just as I made excuses for doing, saying, writing, what I did when my sayings, my writings, my deeds - political and personal - caused or could cause suffering.

Now after over thirty years of questing, I remember what I have forgotten many times, distracted as I have been by sights, by sounds, by spectacles, by visions, by dreams, by egotism. I have awoken, as if from a sound sleep, to remember where and what I am.

What I have remembered, what I have learnt, is that every idea, every cause, every goal, every means, every ideal, must be judged by whether it causes, or can cause, suffering: to human beings, and to the other life with which we share this planet which is presently our home. It must also be judged by whether it helps in some way to alleviate suffering. What is suffering? Suffering is that which causes injury, unhappiness, sickness, misery, loss of freedom, death.....

Any idea, cause, goal, means, ideal or teaching which causes or contributes to suffering is wrong - dishonourable - in greater or lesser degree to the amount of suffering it causes. However, it needs to be understood that to act with honour is to alleviate suffering; for honourable acts,  honourable deeds, even if they involve some harm to dishonourable people or individuals, are evolutionary.

Years, decades, ago I had discovered these fundamental, essential, truths, and for a while lived them, as a Taoist, a Buddhist, a Christian monk, a Gentleman of the Road, a Gnostic, a Muslim convert submitting to the will of Allah. But my own ego - my own belief that I understood better, knew better - often contrived to move me away from the essence, the simplicity, the Oneness of being, the dwelling in the desert of mankind. This simplicity, this dwelling, is simply using our life to try to end in some way, however small, the suffering that besets us and this world. If we can do this, we will have been human: we will have been good, and done good, and therefore contributed to life, to the return to the source from which all life, all being, issues forth.
 

The Answers:

The essence of all true religion is the effort to grasp, to represent, through rituals and supplication and even "theology" the insight that there is suffering and the understanding of how this suffering can be alleviated. All the answers revolve around us restraining ourselves, learning to consider ourselves in a larger perspective: the perspective of God, or re-birth, or Paradise, or Nirvana, or the Tao, or The One, or Nature, or the Cosmos, or the Cosmic Being or The Essence.....
 

For decades, I have believed in the idea, the concept, the ideal, of race, of national identity, and struggled to aid my own race, my own people, my own nation. Is race - ethnic identity - important? I once believed it was, but not any more, for what is of fundamental importance is not causing more suffering, since anything which causes more suffering is simply unethical, wrong.

We seem to have struggled painfully slowly over thousands of millennia to transcend our savage animal past - and yet we are still half-savage; still prey to our savage instincts which can overwhelm our reason, our judgement, our fairness, our honour.

Have can we do good? How can others be guided to do good, guided to seek to alleviate suffering? How can suffering be ended? My own limited understanding is that we can and should judge all answers by the criteria above: do or could the answers of others cause or lead to more suffering? Or do they, or can they, alleviate suffering without doing more harm?
 

Conclusion

If I have understood anything in the thirty or more years of my quest it is about what is good, what is wrong, and how we can judge what is good, and what is wrong. What is wrong is what is dishonourable; what is good is what is honourable.

The answer I have discovered is that The Way is to simply strive to do good, to cease to cause harm: to change oneself for the better and so be an example for others, with such a personal change being the real basis for creating a better world, founded as this change is and must be on the principle of personal honour. For I firmly believe that this principle of personal honour is the only one which can create a truly noble, truly human and truly free society, with such a society thus being based upon what I have called the law of personal honour.

One other thing which I in my ignorance also know is that we can live as we human beings should live: in a civilized, rational way, acting with honour and fairness toward other human beings, and accepting and respecting all the other life-forms with which we share this planet which is presently our home. But whether we will do this - at least on a scale sufficient to significantly change ourselves, and the world - is another question to which I personally have no definite answer. I would like to believe we can and will change for the better, but the world today seems intent on trying to make me believe otherwise.
 
 

DW Myatt