The Golden Rule Plus 20%: Multiplying by subtraction

I was talking with a friend over the weekend. He is not a religious man although he told me he had given up certain food items for Lent. Now his primary motivation was to lose weight. Like most folk, including myself, he has gained quite a bit of weight this last year, this seems to be especially so during the second “lockdown”. It has been tough going staying physically healthy, food is often such a comfort. I have stepped back into good eating myself this last week. Not so much as a Lenten practice but for general well-being.

As I said at the beginning of Lent, I think we have probably given up enough this year and that perhaps instead of focusing on this at this time, that what we ought to be doing is focusing on what we can give instead.

Earlier that day I had come across a rather wonder “Meme” posted by Bill Darlison on Social media. It comes from the Marginal Mennonite group, a progressive religious organisation. The “Meme” read:

“I have something that I call my Golden Rule. It goes something like this. Do unto others 20% better than you would expect them to do unto you, to correct the subjective error”

I liked this quote by Linus Pauling, who twice won the Nobel prize for Chemistry, one of the greatest scientists of all time and who was a committed Unitarian Universalist. The quotation suggests that the golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do to you, no longer cuts the mustard, because subjective error is involved. And what is subjective error? Well, it is an error caused by bias or prejudice. No one can be truly objective and the problem with treating others as we would like to be treated is that it doesn’t fully take into account the perspective of the other. We do not put ourselves in their shoes, we cannot fully. So instead of treating them as well as we would like to be treated, what we ought to be doing instead is actually treating them better than we would want to be. By doing so we begin to raise one another up. Maybe by doing so we might all begin to treat one another better. And if we keep on adding to one another, we may just raise up our shared humanity and create a better more loving world. Yes, the golden rule is a great starting point and certainly an improvement on an eye for an eye, which itself was actually an improvement on unlimited revenge. All are steps in progression, but perhaps we could go further and I suspect that the twice Nobel prize winner for Chemistry Linus Pauley, may have the answer to raising up our shared humanity.

It is an idea that Viktor Frankl proposed in my favourite video clip which you can find on YouTube. In it he states “We have to be idealists, in a way, because then we wind up as the true, the real realists. And so you know who has said this? If we take man as he is, we make him worse, but if we take man as he should be, we make him capable of becoming what he can be. This was Goethe. He said this verbally. Now you will understand: this is the most apt maxim and motto for any psychotherapeutic activity. 

So if you don't recognize a young man's will to meaning, man's search for meaning, you make him worse: you make him dull, you make him frustrated. While if you presuppose in this man, there must a spark for meaning. Let's presuppose it and then you will elicit it from him, you will make him capable of becoming what he in principal is capable of becoming.” 

Here is the video clip

As many folk know Viktor Frankl is my favourite. I love the twinkle in his eye that is so evident in this clip, as well as his obvious humour. He takes what he does seriously without taking himself too seriously. In this wonderful little clip he makes an argument for the idealist in all of us, as he points to what we are all capable of being, if we could just tap into our God given human potential. 

As he says by definition the idealist always overestimates what is possible. Where as a realist will only estimate exactly what is possible and no more. In fact perhaps a realist will ever so slightly underestimate what is possible, just to be on the safe side. Just to ensure that they don’t over estimate things and aim too high. Just to avoid disappointment. 

Is this truly realistic though? 

Frankl suggests by aiming at a realistic level we always fall short of the mark. By taking a realistic view of people we are setting them up to fall way short of what they are capable of achieving. Where as if we aim high and become idealists about human nature we can lift people up to where they are capable of reaching and thus if they fall short of this mark, they fall to a "true" realistic level. For Frankl a true realist, must be an idealist. To achieve what we are capable of we must overestimate what is possible. To become our true selves we must be optimistic. To achieve what we are capable of achieving we must believe that we are capable of more than we actually think we are. And by giving out more than we think we are receiving we will receive back far more than we thought was possible. In so doing we will encourage others to do the same. 

I see clear parallels here with Linus Pauling’s Golden Rule plus. I will repeat his quotation:

“I have something that I call my Golden Rule. It goes something like this. Do unto others 20% better than you would expect them to do unto you, to correct the subjective error”

I love Linus Pauling’s uncommonsense, especially when I combine his wisdom with that of Frankl. In expecting more from people in giving more than we expect we take the risk of love, that is at the core of living faithfully and in so doing we pour out more love than we believe is available and thus love grows. This is the strange mathematics of giving, classic uncommon sense. By giving out more than we receive; by overestimating what is possible, we encourage others to do the same and thus they will give out more and thus we will receive even more that we give. Love will somehow become multiplied by subtraction. All we have to do is take the risk. 

If we want to know love, we need to give out love into this our world, we need to risk our hearts to that love. We need to be true realists by being idealists about ourselves and humanity and life itself. This is not to ignore the darker side of life, far from it. We need to acknowledge what is wrong with the world, without becoming weighed down by it. 

The Kin-dom of Love is truly within us and amongst us. It is our task to bring it alive through our lives. It is up to us to raise one another up, to aim as high as we can and become the people we never knew we were capable of becoming.

The great medieval heretical mystic Meister Eckhart said:

“God is not found in the soul by adding anything, but by a process of subtraction.”

Another example of this uncommonsense, that defies the perceived laws of nature as we understand it and yet it is true. How by giving away a particular commodity not only does the person receiving gain, but so does the giver and all who are caught up in this activity. You see if you give 20% more than you would like to be given to you, you will know more love than you ever thought was possible. In fact if you want to fill the cup of love, that you hold in your heart, the first thing you must do is empty it and pour it out all who you share this world with you. In so doing you will encourage others to give as much as their heart desires and 20% more and in so doing more is poured out for all to share and in so doing, we will begin to create that “kin-dom of Love” that we have all be seeking.

Over the next few months, we are going to be returning to some level of normality. I’m sure that we cannot wait to get to live the lives we used to, but is that enough? The world was not exactly perfect before. There was much wrong. Surely, we ought to be striving for more, for a better world. A world that begins to fulfill is potential.

Yes, the golden rule is a good starting point, but it is not enough, for as Frankl so wisely pointed out if we only aim at what we believe is possible we will fall short of this, whereas if we aim 20% higher, if we see one another as better than we actually think we are we might just reach what is possible, what is achievable. If we do, we will encourage one another to give more of ourselves and thus add more to the lives of everyone and everything. We will begin to multiply by subtraction. Maybe, just maybe this is what the “kin-dom of love” looks like.

So, let’s begin with the Golden Rule plus 20%; let’s begin to give more of our love and let us do so abundantly; let us take the risk of love; let us aim high and then it won’t matter if we fall short, because in so doing we will reach a realistic level. We will also encourage others to do the same and thus love will begin to grow. We will somehow multiply the love in the world by the miracle of subtraction. Now isn’t that amazing! In so doing we may just begin to create the “kin-dom of love” right here right now.

Let us begin to create what they tell us impossible. Let us build the land right here, right now.

Please find a recording based on this blog in the video below

Rabindranath Tagore and "The Age of the Sound Bite"

This morning we were celebrating the first anniversary of a youth theatre group that are using the large schoolroom here at Dunham Road. I was invited along to have my picture taken with them and was then interviewed for the local press. I was asked to give a couple of “sound bites” about why we were supporting them using our building and what we hoped this might achieve.

We are told that the best way to communicate with people in this day and age is through “sound bites”; that if you’ve got something to say, you must be able to communicate it in no more than 140 characters.

Is this true? Well I personally do not think so, although I do accept that the “sound bite” is a useful method of communication and ought not to be dismissed.

A lot of the publicity material produced by Unitarians has the tag line “Many Beliefs, One Faith” a sound bite that I actually like. I believe that it portrays accurately, our faith tradition. I reckon that it could well open the door to people and lead to further inquiry. Could it lead to them asking Ciff Reed’s question “Unitarian, what’s that?” 
http://www.derbyunitarians.org.uk/unitarian_whats_that.html

Of course “Sound bites” have their limits. They are not created to offer answers merely stimulate questions. Isn’t this what the spiritual life is all about? Asking the questions? Well actually in my experience this is only part of it. If it is only about asking the questions, then the spiritual life is limited. This is why I am one of those folk who believe that spiritually, without religious community, will always be limited. As I have said before I believe that spirituality needs religion, just as religion needs spirituality. One without the other doesn’t really work. True religion is about free spiritual seeking, but in constructive activity with others, in the world that we actually inhabit. Spirituality, at least in many of its modern incarnations, seems to miss so much due to it’s over emphasis on the individual.  A free religious faith, where a diversity of beliefs is encouraged, is about the asking the questions in community with others and then living those questions in life itself. Or to put it another way, it’s about “Unity in Diversity”. Or as our current publicity reads “Many Beliefs, One Faith”.

The “Wayside Pulpit” is one method of displaying our message to outsiders. It is something that I have not fully got the hang of as of yet. Michael Jackson (not the recently deceased singer) a Buddhist/Christian solicitor is an avid reader of our “Wayside pulpit”, at Altrincham. He tells me the ones that he likes and the ones that he considers to be too wordy. Some of our recent one’s have been too wordy, he tells me. Yet another case of progress not perfection, I am working on this.

The current “Wayside Pulpit” at Dunham Road reads “I feel called to be faithful in two ways, inwardly to God and outwardly to man” by George Fox the 17^th century Quaker, who definitely followed both of his callings. He was a spiritually enlightened man, who lived out his religious convictions.

Fox’s “sound bite” is echoed in the teachings of Rabindranath Tagore who taught that God is found through personal discovery and human service.

2011 is the 150^th anniversary of Tagore’s birth, which is being celebrated by diverse groups of people in many parts of the world. We Unitarians are celebrating his life and teachings too. This is because we have been influenced by him and his work and we ourselves influenced his own personal spiritual development.

Rabindranath Tragore was born into privilege in Calcutta, to a family who combined Indian culture with western ideas. He was a child protégé who began writing poems at the age of eight. By the age of 17 he was a published author. He enjoyed a fine education, including a spell studying law at University College London.

Following his marriage in 1883 he moved to East Bengal now Bangladesh and began to collect folk stories. He wrote prolifically in the local language and had several books published during the latter years of the 19^th century. He wrote a variety of poems, prose, short stories and novels. In 1901 he founded a school near Calcutta, which taught a combination of both eastern and western philosophy.

In 1913 Tagore won the Nobel Prize for literature, he was the first non-westerner to do so. How this came about is cloaked in mystery. In 1912 he sailed for England with 100 translations of his poems, which would become the anthology “Gitanjali” (“song offerings”). He carelessly left them on the tube and thought they were lost. While in London he met WB Yeates who became a passionate supporter and helped him to get his work published in England. He quickly became a global phenomenon, due in no small part to him being awarded the Nobel Prize.  He was the embodiment of the synthesis between east and west. He was the first Guru, more than half a century before the Beatles went on their pilgrimage to India.

He is portrayed by many Unitarians as a beacon of religious inclusivity. He was a member of the Liberal Hindu movement Brahmo Samaj, which was heavily influenced by western thinking. Not only did he want to share his culture with the west; he also wanted to learn about the west. He wanted to combine the best of both of these worlds. As he said his dream was to unite “the introspective vision of the universal soul (eastern spirituality) with the spirit of its outward expression in service (western religion).

This brings to my mind the parable of Mary and Martha (Luke Ch 10 vv 38-42). Many Biblical scholars have seen Mary as the representative of contemplation, prayer the inner life; whereas Martha is seen as the representative of social action, of good works for others. Together they represent the “Golden Rule of Compassion”, the love of God and the love of neighbour. Mary represents the east and Martha the west; Mary represents spirituality and Martha religion. They are the perfect embodiment of our current Wayside pulpit, spoken in the 17^th century, by George Fox “I feel called to be faithful in two ways, inwardly to God and outwardly to man”. Sound bites are not a modern phenomena, Jesus used them...”Let he who is without sin cast the first stone”, “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven” and many, many more.

Tagore played a leading role in the Indian reform movements of the inter-war period. He and Gandhi were friends and allies for quite some time, although they did fall out over what Tagore saw as Gandhi’s idealisation of cottage cotton spinning. Tagore did not want to live in the past and criticised Gandhi for idealising it. Tagore wanted the best of both east and west and not the total rejection of either. Gandhi saw Tagore as being too complex and positive about life and Tagore viewed Gandhi as being too simplistic and negative with regard to India and her problems. That said, although they disagreed, they continued to show respect for one another and their different religious views.

Tagore was a strong believer in the dignity of the individual, he upheld the value of freedom. He believed in the divine purpose and of the diversity of language, religion and culture that was at the heart of Indian life. He championed “Unity in Diversity” and believed that every language, religion and culture had its place in India. Multi-culturalism is not a modern invention; many of the ancient civilisations were multi-cultural. He saw India as the great exemplar of this and believed that its contribution to world civilisation lay in its example of unity in diversity to the whole world. Sadly this was damaged due to partition and the nationalism that accompanied it.

I believe that my Unitarian tradition owes a debt to Tagore for this concept of “Unity in Diversity”, exemplified in our current “sound bite” “Many Beliefs One Faith”. Paradoxically it is both a simple and yet complex message. Many beliefs suggests a broad questioning spirituality; where as one faith is speaking of a community coming together and impacting on the society in which it lives and breathes. Yes it is diverse, while also bringing individuals into oneness with each other, their world and with God however each understands this word.

I believe that we all have that Divine spark within us. We are all capable of so much more than we sometime allow ourselves to be. We are capable of moving beyond self centred accumulation to a life of service with and for one another. We can dedicate ourselves to the cause of truth and beauty, to unrewarded service for others. We can dedicate ourselves to love for self and neighbour, the love of nature and we can grow in harmony with all existence.

All are capable of heeding George Fox’s call:

“I feel called to be faithful in two ways, inwardly to God and outwardly to man”

I will end this piece with some words of Tagore. I will not call them a “sound bite” and they are too long for a future “Wayside Pulpit”, nevertheless are believe they are worth reflecting on

 “All my work and all my dealings with people feel very easy. Actually, everything is simple. There is one straight road - if you open your eyes you can go along it. I don’t see the need to search for all sorts of clever short cuts. Happiness and sadness are both on the road - there is no road that avoids them - but peace is found only on this road, nowhere else.”

By the way it’s a very Broad Highway, not a narrow path.

Does that sound like an ok “sound bite”? I'd better ask Michael Jackson.