SELF-FULFILMENT THROUGH THE UNIVERSAL

Figure emerges from the cosmos

The idea that individual self-fulfilment can only be realised through a transcendence of the ego and an embracing of universal reality is a very old and culturally wide-spread one, deeply embedded in most oriental philosophies and prevalent in western cultures through the thinking of Pythagoras and Plato and disseminated through Christian cultures via the concept of prayer. Nevertheless, it has also been made deeply unpopular (or unfashionable) in our contemporary societies, which are driven by consumerism and the egoistic imperatives of want and take. The connection between self-consciousness and the universal (be it the Universe, God, or what Hegel termed as the Mind or Spirit with a capital M or S) or between the I and the We that we all are as human beings, is usually shrugged off today as mystical thinking rooted in superstition rather than any sane philosophy or science. Unfortunately, though, as a consequence of this, our contemporary downgrading of our relationship to the universal has placed us in the deep existential crisis that we are currently facing. We have overfed the individual ego and overlooked the importance of equilibrium to such an extent that the structural collapse of the planetary ecosystem that keeps us alive has now become the most likely scenario, and a complete extinction of the homo sapiens is an ever-growing likelihood.

This idea of self-fulfilment coming through an embracing of the universal, has traditionally but wrongly been associated with religion, and yet the materialism of Marx is just as deeply embedded in this spirit of universal self-realisation as any evangelist or religious fanatic. In fact a Marxist activist campaigning against the ills of capitalist consumerism may be considered more deeply spiritual in the sense of his or her connection with the universal reality than most of the faithful members of religious congregations.

Likewise, it is equally erroneous to imagine self-fulfilment to be achieved through a loyalty to the State or any other social unit that operates as a dividing, ideological, identity-forming force against the authentic universality of humanity. In order for the individual to achieve self-fulfilment through the universal there has to be an embracing of the universal form of our authentic selves, which is humanity. Only once that is done can we begin to see the purposiveness of our I and We in the rest of the cosmos, a reason for being which has to begin by overcoming our own collective suicidal tendencies and what seems to be an ever-growing desire to disappear.