Lesson 6:

The Human Person as

an Embodied Spirit
 “How globalization and
technology dictate the life in our
contemporary world?”
Transcendence in the Global Age
▪ According to Thomas Merton (1948), “there is no
other way for us to find who we are than by
finding in ourselves the divine image.”
▪ Transcendence means “climbing or going
beyond,” from simple phenomenal things to
abstract; we have a soul capable of coming to life
and experiencing profound and hidden values,
which the flesh and its senses can never discover
alone.
The Human Person as an Embodied Spirit
▪ Here are the three major religions that focus not
only on the mental, emotional, and physical
aspects of humans, but also on man’s spirit ans
soul. Spirit and soul represent the deepest
essence of humanity.
The Human Person as an Embodied Spirit

Hinduism Buddhism

Christianity
HINDUISM: Brahman is Selfhood
▪ At the heart of Hinduism lies the idea of human
being’s quest for absolute truth, so that one’s soul
and the Brahman or Atman (Absolute Soul) might
become one.
▪ Brahman or Atman is what Indians consider as the
god from which all reality and all souls ultimately
came from and will return.
HINDUISM: Brahman is Selfhood
▪ In Indians, God first created sound and the
universe arose from it. As the most sacred sound,
the Aum (Om) is the root of the universe and
everything together. This implies that for Indians,
sound, not sight, is the basis of reality and
existence.
HINDUISM: Brahman is Selfhood
▪ According to Hinduism, human beings have a
dual nature: one is the spiritual and immortal
essence (soul); the other is the empirical life and
its traits. Between the two natures, however, it is
maintained that it is the soul that is ultimately real.
▪ The existence of the body, in fact, is considered as
nothing more than an illusion and even an
obstacle to an individual's realization of one's real
self.
HINDUISM: Brahman is Selfhood
▪ Hindus generally believe that the soul is eternal
but is bound by the law of karma (action) to the
world of matter, which it can escape only after a
spiritual progress through an endless series of
births. God allots rewards and punishments to all
beings according to their karma (Puligandla,
2007).
HINDUISM: Brahman is Selfhood
▪ Similar to a prisoner enclosed within the wall of
his prison, a human being's soul can be said to be
temporarily encased in his body. For this reason,
humanity's basic goal in life is the liberation
(moksha) of spirit (jiva).
▪ Hinduism holds that humanity's life is a continuous
cycle (samsara). While the spirit is neither born nor
dies, the body, on the other hand, goes through a
transmigratory series of births and deaths.
HINDUISM: Brahman is Selfhood
▪ Transmigration or metempsychosis is a doctrine
that adheres to the belief that a person's soul
passes into other creatures, human or animal.
Transmigration of soul means a person's soul
moves from animal to human or human to animal
after dying and getting born again depending on
the person's good karma or bad karma.
HINDUISM: Brahman is Selfhood
▪ Transmigration or metempsychosis is a doctrine
that adheres to the belief that a person's soul
passes into other creatures, human or animal.
Transmigration of soul means a person's soul
moves from animal to human or human to animal
after dying and getting born again depending on
the person's good karma or bad karma.
HINDUISM: Brahman is Selfhood
▪ A man will die and will be born again changing
from body to body until his soul achieves purity
and escapes this cycle. If a person has led a good
life, the soul goes upward the scale. The soul of an
evil person, on the other hand, may pass into the
body of an animal.
HINDUISM: Brahman is Selfhood
▪ There will be no end to the cycle unless the
individual exerts efforts to break away or liberate
one's spirit from the monotonous cycle through
good deeds to one's family, friends, and to society
in general. Different Hindu schools and sects have
different views about the method of release
(moksha) from this transmigration.
HINDUISM: Brahman is Selfhood
▪ Ultimate liberation, that is, freedom from rebirth, is
achieved the moment the individual attains that
stage of life emancipation, from which inevitably
arises a total realization by the individual of
spiritual nature as well as the transient character of
the body.
▪ In other words, only after a series of good acts
done over a long period of time, perhaps decades
or even centuries, can a person achieve escape
from the cycle of deaths and rebirths.
HINDUISM: Brahman is Selfhood
▪ The problem is that a person does not know when
this will be achieved. He must keep on doing
good acts until it happens. Moksha, thus, is an
enlightened state wherein one attains one's true
selfhood and finds oneself one with the One, the
Ultimate Reality, the All-Comprehensive Reality:
Brahman.
HINDUISM: Brahman is Selfhood
▪ Ultimate moksha leads the spirit out of the
monotonous cycle of life and death (samsara) to a
state of "nothingness" (i.e., in the context of
physical being) where the bliss of being one with
Brahman compensates for all the sufferings the
individual underwent in his erstwhile existence in
the physical world (Andres, 1994).
HINDUISM: Brahman is Selfhood
▪ True knowledge (vidya) consists of an
understanding and realization of the individual's
real self (atman) as opposed to lower knowledge
that is limited to an interpretation of reality based
solely on the data offered by sense experience.
This implies that spiritual knowledge is more
important than knowledge brought by our sight,
hearing, taste, and touch.
HINDUISM: Brahman is Selfhood
▪ Sensory knowledge is an illusion and a cause of
wrongdoings in life. An individual, by seriously
understanding oneself, comes to realize the
dictates of karma that point the way toward moral
progress and perfection.
▪ Thus, for Hinduism, one's whole duty is to achieve
self-knowledge to achieve self-annihilation and
absorption into the Great Self. To reiterate, self-
knowledge is understood in the sense of morality
and not in the sense of reason, beliefs, and values.
HINDUISM: Brahman is Selfhood
▪ A concept common to all expressions of Hinduism
is oneness of reality; this is found in Bhagavad
Gita. This means all physical realities we see and
the souls we feel in our hearts are all connected
and ultimately will return to one place or reality.
HINDUISM: Brahman is Selfhood
▪ This oneness is the absolute or Brahman which the
mind can never fully grasp or express in words.
Only Brahman is real; everything else is an illusory
manifestation of it.
▪ The concept of atman or no self is a correlative
belief. This means that the "I" or the self is an
illusion, for each true self is one with Brahman.
When we realize this unity with the absolute, we
realize our true destiny.
HINDUISM: Brahman is Selfhood
▪ This means in Hinduism, a person's individuality
and uniqueness have no value. In fact, it is an
illusion. The point of Hinduism is to help an
individual give up his individuality and embrace
the all-encompassing reality of the One.
▪ Also common to all Hindu thoughts are the four
primary values. In order of increasing importance,
they may be roughly translated as wealth,
pleasure, duty, and enlightenment.
HINDUISM: Brahman is Selfhood
▪ Wealth and pleasure are worldly values, but when
kept in perspective, they are good and desirable.
▪ The spiritual value of duty or righteousness refers
to patience, sincerity, fairness, love, honesty, and
similar virtues. The spiritual value, though, is
enlightenment, by which one is illuminated and
liberated and most importantly, finds release from
the wheel of existence. Repeated existence is the
destiny of those who do not achieve
enlightenment.
HINDUISM: Brahman is Selfhood
▪ Finally, to understand enlightenment, one must
understand the law of karma, the law of sowing
and reaping. All of us, through what we do or not
do, supposedly determine our destiny. The wheel
of existence turns until we achieve enlightenment,
after which we are released from this series of
rebirths.
BUDDHISM: F rom Tears to Enlightenment
▪ Another major Eastern tradition is Buddhism,
contained in the teachings of its founder,
Siddhartha Gautama or the Buddha. Out of the life
experience and teaching of highborn Prince
Gautama of the Sakya sprang clan in the kingdom
of Magadha, who lived from 560 to 477 BC, the
religious philosophy we know as Buddhism.
BUDDHISM: F rom Tears to Enlightenment
▪ Turning away from Hindu polytheism and palace
pleasures, Gautama began searching for answers
to the riddle of life's sufferings, disease, old age,
and death. He explored Brahminic philosophies,
then tried the rigors of asceticism, but all to no
avail. Finally, while resting and meditating in a
grove of trees, he came to a clear realization that
the solution lay in his own mind (Puligandla,
1997).
BUDDHISM: F rom Tears to Enlightenment
▪ From here on, Gautama's life was devoted to
sharing his dharma or way to salvation-a simple
presentation of the inner cultivation of right
spiritual attitudes, coupled with a self-imposed
discipline whereby bodily art desires would be
channeled in the right directions.
BUDDHISM: F rom Tears to Enlightenment
▪ The transcendence of the Buddha omitted any
appeal to the gods as currently conceived;
rejecting philosophical speculations; and spurned
all recourse to ancient scriptures, outmoded
rituals, or priestly incantations.
BUDDHISM: F rom Tears to Enlightenment
▪ Convinced that the way of escape from pain and
misery lay in the transformation of one's mind and
that liberation could come only with a sloughing
off of all vain clinging to the things of this life,
which means having no earthly desire for money,
ambition, wealth, or sexual feelings.
BUDDHISM: F rom Tears to Enlightenment
▪ Reduced to its simplest form, the teaching of
Buddha has been set forth traditionally in the
"Four Noble Truths" leading to the "Eightfold
Path" to perfect character or Arhatship, which in
turn gave assurance of entrance into nirvana at
death.
BUDDHISM: F rom Tears to Enlightenment
▪ In the "Four Noble Truths," Gautama taught:
1. Life is full of suffering;
2. Suffering is caused by passionate desires, lusts,
and cravings caused by the bodies and
emotions of people;
3. Only as these emotions, desires, and wants are
obliterated will suffering cease; and
4. Such eradication of desire may be
accomplished only by following the Eightfold
Path of earnest endeavor.
BUDDHISM: F rom Tears to Enlightenment
▪ The Eightfold Path:
1. Right belief in and acceptance of the Fourfold
Truth
2. Right aspiration for one's self and for others
3. Right speech that harms no one
4. Right conduct, motivated by goodwill toward
all human beings
5. Right means of livelihood or earning one's
living by honorable
BUDDHISM: F rom Tears to Enlightenment
6. Right endeavor or effort to direct one's
energies toward wise ends
7. Right mindfulness in choosing topics for
thought
8. Right meditation or concentration to the point
of complete absorption in mystic ecstasy
BUDDHISM: F rom Tears to Enlightenment
▪ The way to salvation, in other words, lies through
self-abnegation, which means the denial of self or
fighting against one's emotions and desires, rigid
discipline of mind and body, a consuming love for
all living creatures, and the final achievement of
that state of consciousness which marks an
individual's full preparation for entering nirvana
(enlightened wisdom) of complete selflessness.
BUDDHISM: F rom Tears to Enlightenment
▪ In this state, the effects of the law of cause and
effect (karma) are overcome; the cycle of rebirths
is broken; and one may rest in the calm assurance
of having attained a heavenly bliss that will stretch
into all eternity.
BUDDHISM: F rom Tears to Enlightenment
▪ Buddhism gained a lot of popularity even among
rich. They committed themselves to a life of
poverty whose sole aims was the “evangelization”
of India through their dissemination of the
doctrine of the Middle Way between extreme
asceticism and self-indulgence.
BUDDHISM: F rom Tears to Enlightenment
▪ At first, the order lived under the Buddhist
precepts. As time went on, many more rules
embodied in the Buddhist book of monastic
discipline. However, it is important not to view
these precepts as a set of rules for Buddhism
stresses the cultivation of wisdom and
discernment. These precepts include:
1. Refrain from destroying life;
2. Refrain from taking what is not given;
BUDDHISM: F rom Tears to Enlightenment
1. Refrain from a misuse of the senses;
2. Refrain from wrong speech (do not lie or
deceive); and
3. Refrain from taking drugs or drinks that tend
to cloud the mind.
▪ Blind obedience to the precepts is not
encouraged. A person must willingly choose this
way of life and accept it is the truth of life so that
even if there is pain and struggle, he will not give
up.
BUDDHISM: F rom Tears to Enlightenment
▪ Buddhist practice the four states of sublime; love,
sorrow of others, joy in joy of others, and
equanimity as regards one’s own joy and sorrow.
Like other religions, it is a matter of repeated
practice over a long period of time.
BUDDHISM: F rom Tears to Enlightenment
▪ Buddha insisted that no one must accept his
teaching merely out of reverence for him, but that
each human being must be subjected to rigorous
reflection and analysis and accept it only after all
doubts and perplexities are overcome.
CHRISTIANITY: The Biblical God and Humanity

▪ Religious people definitely do not treat God's

existence as a hypothesis because for them, God
is a constant presence, rather than a Being whose
existence is accepted as the best explanation of
available evidence.
▪ Neither in the Jewish nor in the Christian Bible is
there any argument for God's existence. For the
biblical writers, proving God's existence would be
as pointless as trying to prove the existence of the
air we breathe.
CHRISTIANITY: The Biblical God and Humanity

▪ In its earliest missionary endeavors, Christians

directed their preaching to Jews who accepted
the reality of God. It was only later when Christian
missionaries confronted a variety of naturalistic
philosophies that they felt the need to argue
philosophically for the existence of God.
CHRISTIANITY: The Biblical God and Humanity

▪ God ordered Paul to share the gospel of salvation

of Jesus Christ to non-Jews, the early Christians
found it necessary to explain the truths of God
from the views of people with different religious
and philosophical backgrounds. However, even
then, the task was not considered too formidable
for the basic structure of the arguments.
CHRISTIANITY: The Biblical God and Humanity

▪ For Augustine (354-430 CE), philosophy is amor

sapiential, the love of wisdom; its aim is to
produce happiness. Happiness means fullness of
living, a feeling and state of goodness
experienced not only in the body and mind but
also in one's finances and relationships.
CHRISTIANITY: The Biblical God and Humanity

▪ However, for Augustine, wisdom is not only an

abstract construction but is also substantially
existent as the divine Logos or the very
knowledge of god manifested on earth among
human beings. Hence, philosophy is the love of
God: it is then, religious.
CHRISTIANITY: The Biblical God and Humanity

▪ Teachings of Christianity are based on the love of

God, from which Augustine, Aquinas, and St.
Anselm of Canterbury's arguments are basically
rooted. Love means faith in His existence,
goodness, and commands and in His plans to
bring salvation and good among human beings.
CHRISTIANITY: The Biblical God and Humanity

▪ For Augustine, Christianity, as presenting the full

revelation of the true God, is the only full and true
philosophy. However, we can love only that which
we know. Where does the knowledge of God
come from? It begins with faith and is made
perfect by understanding.
CHRISTIANITY: The Biblical God and Humanity

▪ All knowledge leads to God so that faith

supplements and enlightens reason that it may
proceed to an even richer and fuller
understanding. This means that the more we know
about the physical world and the history of
people, the more we can know God's
characteristics and nature.
CHRISTIANITY: The Biblical God and Humanity

▪ Faith is the motivation and guide that points

reason to the right places to gain knowledge
about the world and people. Indeed, without this
enlightenment of faith, reason, invariably sooner
or later, goes astray.
▪ It is like a French poetry laments:
CHRISTIANITY: The Biblical God and Humanity

I have everything.
I have seen all.
I knew all.
I have heard all.
I had it all.
I had lost… I am bit lost.
CHRISTIANITY: The Biblical God and Humanity

▪ It should be taken as a humble acceptance of the

fact that human beings alone, without God, are
bound to fail. This means that people, despite
their best efforts to be smart, rich, wise, and
healthy, ultimately will make mistakes, lie, hurt
others, and eventually die and lose all their
achievements.
CHRISTIANITY: The Biblical God and Humanity

▪ As stated in John 15:5, "I am the vine; you are the

branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will
bear much fruit; apart from me, you can do
nothing." Further, to quote from Psalms 92: 5-6:
"Thy thoughts are very deep! The dull man cannot
know. The stupid cannot understand this..."
Through prayers and contemplation, God is
experienced in the depths of the soul as well as in
the realm of experience.
CHRISTIANITY: The Biblical God and Humanity

▪ Aside from Augustine and Aquinas, Saint Bernard

of Clairvaux, Saint Pedro Calungsod, and Saint
Gertrude served as Christian models in their
ecstatic union with God.
CHRISTIANITY: The Biblical God and Humanity

▪ We must first of all prove that truth is attainable by

reason. Does not all knowledge come from
sensation, and does not the sense constantly
deceive us?
▪ For Augustine, even if we grant that the senses
yield no certainty in themselves doubt, so that we
can always doubt their reports, one thing we
cannot doubt, and that is the fact that we doubt.
Here, then, is absolute certainty.
CHRISTIANITY: The Biblical God and Humanity

▪ Now, if we are and as doubting we must be living

and rational beings. We have then established
with certainty three grades or levels of existence:
mere being, living being, and rational being. This
certainty has been established, not by turning
outward through sensation to the external world,
but by turning inward to the soul itself through
rational thinking and deep reflection of thoughts.
CHRISTIANITY: The Biblical God and Humanity

▪ The most basic form of knowledge is that of

sensation, yet as we ascend higher to knowledge
of rational principles, it is the will which directs the
mind's eye to truth, first influencing the mind itself,
then upward to the eternal truth.
CHRISTIANITY: The Biblical God and Humanity

▪ In his earlier writings, Augustine spoke in Platonic

phrase of humanity as a rational soul using a
mortal body. He believed that "Man is a rational
substance constituted of soul and body." This
means that for Augustine, the human soul in its
purest essence is a rational entity. This implies that
man's true nature is to be rational because he is
rational. In both cases, the soul retains its proper
entity, and the soul apart from the body may be
considered as a substance.
CHRISTIANITY: The Biblical God and Humanity

▪ Only the pure in heart shall see God; the progress

in knowledge and wisdom is not only speculative,
it is more fundamentally practical and moral. In
other words, when a man has full understanding
of God, humanity, and self, both in the spiritual
and rational levels, then man finally achieves
complete knowledge of the soul.
CHRISTIANITY: The Biblical God and Humanity

▪ Augustine's theory of knowledge is one with the

procedures of speculative mysticism. From this
mystic love and intuition of God follow all the
principles to direct humanity in all their
undertakings.
CHRISTIANITY: The Biblical God and Humanity

▪ For Thomas Aquinas, another medieval

philosopher, of all creatures, human beings have
the unique power to change themselves and
things for the better. His philosophy is best
grasped in his treatises Summa Contra Gentiles
and Summa Theologica. Aquinas considered the
human being as a moral agent.
CHRISTIANITY: The Biblical God and Humanity

▪ We are both spiritual and body elements; the

spiritual and material. The unity between both
elements indeed helps us understand our
complexity as human beings. Our spirituality
separates us from animals; it differentiates the
moral dimension of our fulfillment in action.
Through our spirituality, we have a conscience.
Thus, whether we choose to be "good" or "evil"
becomes our responsibility. The concept of
Aquinas will be elucidated in the next lessons.
Evaluating One's Own Limitations and the
Possibilities for Their Transcendence
FORGIVENESS
▪ Based on the preceding section, how we are able
to transcend our limitations can be based on
many experiences that emerge from deep within
and from a sense of being in tune with the mystery
of our own being, and with the mystery of life that
transcends us. Consider these examples (Edwards,
1983).
Evaluating One's Own Limitations and the
Possibilities for Their Transcendence
FORGIVENESS
▪ When we forgive, we are freed from our anger
and bitterness because of the actions and/or
words of another. On the other hand, the
hardness of our heart is reinforced by a whole
series of rational arguments.
Evaluating One's Own Limitations and the
Possibilities for Their Transcendence

▪ For Sebatu (2009), negative minds, feelings, and

attitudes are signs of masochism. They are our
own enemies. Hatred is a form of anger that is
directed inward. It is a suicidal act. It goes against
our physical, psychological, and spiritual welfare,
causing us more harm than our opponent.
Evaluating One's Own Limitations and the
Possibilities for Their Transcendence

▪ Negative feelings are hated but we do not let

them go. We claim that the negative feelings have
gone, but they keep coming back and cause our
physical and emotional problems. Relaxation and
imagery can help in healing our body. Sebatu
(2009) recommended different methods of
forgiveness and healing:
Evaluating One's Own Limitations and the
Possibilities for Their Transcendence

1. Counseling requires active listening. Allowing the

counselee to talk will help him in letting go of all
his hurts and negative feelings. Nonverbal or
physical reactions are good clues that they are
dealing to offer praise.
Evaluating One's Own Limitations and the
Possibilities for Their Transcendence

2. Talking to God includes short inhale and long

exhale breathing. Reliving the event or situation
that caused hurt or regression takes place.
3. Emmaus method. In the Gospel, Jesus opened
the eyes of the apostles on the way of Emmaus.
The road to this is about establishing self-identity.
This method highlights the social dimension of
healing and reconciliation.
Evaluating One's Own Limitations and the
Possibilities for Their Transcendence

4. Forgiveness method forgiveness starts by

teaching the counselee to relax trough breathing
method followed by emptying the mind for
realization. Then, confession is administered.
Through imagery, we ask forgiveness about
people who have caused us hurt.
Evaluating One's Own Limitations and the
Possibilities for Their Transcendence
BEAUTY OF NATURE
▪ There is perfection in every single flower; this is
what the philosophies of Aquinas, Anselm, and
Taoists believed.
▪ For Aquinas, the existence of God or the
Unmoved Mover originates change, and the fact
that there are degrees of excellence to infer the
existence of a perfect being.
Evaluating One's Own Limitations and the
Possibilities for Their Transcendence
▪ Unmoved Mover means that the universe did not
begin in motion. Everything that exists must have
had a source. Aquinas argued that since nothing
cannot become something on its own, he then
stated that there must be a Being who caused the
big bang and humanity's creation, the Unmoved
Mover, the One who caused everything to exist.
Evaluating One's Own Limitations and the
Possibilities for Their Transcendence
VULNERABILITY
▪ To be invulnerable is somehow inhuman. To be
vulnerable is to be human. Superheroes are
hiding from their true humanity. The experience
that we are contingent, that we are dependent for
our existence on another is frightening.
Evaluating One's Own Limitations and the
Possibilities for Their Transcendence
▪ We need to acknowledge the help of other
people in our lives. As in the case of Augustine's
mother, St. Monica never stopped praying for her
son's miraculous transformation out of sin to the
service of God's creatures. Such moments of
poverty and dependence on others are not a bar
sign of weakness but of being true to ourselves.
Evaluating One's Own Limitations and the
Possibilities for Their Transcendence
▪ Of all of God's creatures, human beings have the
unique power to change themselves and the
things around them for the better. Aquinas
considered the human being as a moral agent. We
are both the spiritual and body elements; the
spiritual and material.
Evaluating One's Own Limitations and the
Possibilities for Their Transcendence
▪ The unity between both elements indeed helps us
understand our complexity as human beings. Our
spirituality separates us from animals; it delineates
the moral dimension of our fulfillment in an action.
Through our spirituality, we have a conscience.
Whether we choose to be "good" or "evil"
becomes our responsibility.
Evaluating One's Own Limitations and the
Possibilities for Their Transcendence
▪ A human being, therefore, has a supernatural,
transcendental destiny. This means that he can
rise above his ordinary being or self to a highest
being or self. This is in line with the idea of
Aquinas that in the plan of God, a human being
has to develop and perfect himself by doing his
daily tasks. Hence, if a human being perseveringly
lives a righteous and virtuous life, he transcends
his mortal state of life and soars to an immortal
state of life.
Evaluating One's Own Limitations and the
Possibilities for Their Transcendence
▪ The power of change, however, cannot be done
by human beings alone, but is achieved in
cooperation with God. Between humanity and
God, there is an infinite gap, which God alone can
bridge through His power. Perfection by
participation here means that it is a union of
humanity with God. Change should promote not
only any purely private advantage, but also the
good of the community.
Evaluating One's Own Limitations and the
Possibilities for Their Transcendence
FAILURE
▪ Our failures force us to confront our weaknesses
and limitations. we are confronted with the
possibility of our plans to fail and yet, we are
forced to surrender to a mystery or look upon a
bigger world. Such acceptance of our failures
makes us hope and trust that all can be brought
into good. Even if we have sinned, as Augustine
had, there is hope and forgiveness.
Evaluating One's Own Limitations and the
Possibilities for Their Transcendence
▪ On the other hand, following the Four Noble
Truths of Buddhism, Schopenhauer contended
that all of life is suffering. Suffering is caused by
desire, and we can alleviate suffering, as the
Buddhists taught, by "putting an end to desire."
For Schopenhauer, our egoism produces the
illusion that other people are separate and
opposed beings in competition for the
satisfactions we crave.
Evaluating One's Own Limitations and the
Possibilities for Their Transcendence
LONELINESS
▪ Our loneliness can be rooted from our sense of
vulnerability and fear of death. This experience is
so common. However, it is our choice to live in an
impossible world where we can always be
"happy" or we can accept a life where solitude
and companionship have a part. With our
loneliness, we can realize that our dependence on
other people or gadgets is a possessiveness that
we can be free from.
Evaluating One's Own Limitations and the
Possibilities for Their Transcendence
▪ The mind should not acquire adepersonalized
attitude, regarding people as merely sentient. As
persons, we should not rely on cold statistics to
determine our beliefs. Instead, our minds' power
should be tools of compassion, impart care, and
instill optimism and hope.
Evaluating One's Own Limitations and the
Possibilities for Their Transcendence
LOVE
▪ Our self-preoccupation must be regulated by
temperance. As we undergo the process of
knowing ourselves, we acknowledge the
fundamental goodness of our nature and share it
to others.