Global Eudaimonia: Rendering the World in the Human Heart

Rendering the World in the Human Heart

Excerpts from the graduate thesis of the same name completed December 2001, University of ColoradoDenver, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Master of Humanities Program

R. Kiffin Hope

R. Kiffin Hope Excerpted from thesis:

“Global-Eudaimonia: Rendering the World in the Human Heart” December 2001

4.4 The Devolution of Eco-logical Life

One of the earliest known recorded examples of the human mistreatment of the planet appears in

the dialogue Critias by the Greek philosopher Plato (b. 428/427, d. 348/347 BCE). In it, he

details an account of severe soil erosion induced by the over-harvesting of timber (Hughes 1):

By comparison with the original territory, what is left now is, so to say, the skeleton of a body wasted by disease; the rich, soft soil has been carried off and only the bare framework of the district left . . . Our present mountains were high crests, what we now call the plains of Pheleus were covered with rich soil, and there was abundant timber on the mountains, of which traces may still be seen. For some of our mountains at present will only support trees, but not so very long ago trees fit for the roofs of vast buildings were felled there and the rafters are still in existence. There were also many other lofty cultivated trees {that} provided unlimited fodder for beasts. Besides, the soil got the benefit of the yearly ‘water from Zeus,’ which was not lost, as it is today, by {it} running off a barren ground to the sea; a plentiful supply of it was received into the soil and stored up in the layers of nonporous potter’s clay (Hamilton 111 b-d).

When considered in a religious context, this passage suggests that if existence is not

rooted in equilibrium, punishment through divine (or more likely earthly) providence will follow.

That is, Zeus, in this example, tantalizingly sends much needed rains, yet the nourishing moisture

slips away, never fully penetrating the soil and revitalizing the land. Since the land was abused

and balance disrupted, a sentence (erosion) has been handed down. Further, scholar J. Donald

Hughes writes:

Once the land was bare of trees, the torrential rains of the Mediterranean fall, winter, and spring washed away the unprotected earth. Unimpeded erosion destroyed the uplands that might have grown trees again, and the silt, sand, and gravel which reddened the rivers was deposited at their mouths along the shores of the virtually tideless Mediterranean Sea. The new swamplands extended for miles and served as breeding grounds for mosquitoes (Hughes 69).

Whether conscious of it or not, in the Critias, Plato had observed the crucial role that

forests play in water conservation and the subsequent serious effects of deforestation and soil

erosion (Hughes 71). While Plato does not outright point to these situations as problems

(environmental or societal), his observations are important for modern day eco-researchers

because of the insights offered into the long history leading up to our present-day environmental

crisis. His observations let us know that as far back as twenty-three hundred years ago there was



a dawning recognition that the impact of human activities could change the conditions of a

landscape for the worse. The soil erosion that Plato mentions has, of course, been compounded

through the centuries by the exponential increase in human population and the subsequent

resource demands placed on the planet.

Deforestation is, indeed, one of the most evident of the deleterious human activities that

occurred during the Classical and Hellenistic periods (roughly between the years 600 BCE to 200

BCE). Trees supported all aspects of lifestyle at that time. The wood from trees was used as fuel

for fires in heating and cooking. Some wood, once reduced to charcoal, was used in firing

pottery and in the reduction of ore. Wood, as in Plato’s own example, was used in construction,

acting as rafters and support beams in homes and other buildings. Also fashioned from wood

were furniture, horse drawn carts and chariots, artwork, and the handles of weapons. Pitch, tar,

and resins, all used in waterproofing, were removed from trees by fire (Hughes 68-69). Further:

Greek wine was usually flavored and preserved by adding pine resin, collected from live, scarified trees, which eventually died. As the Greek cities began building navies in earnest, the demand for fine lumber and tall trees for ships’ masts greatly increased, and it became necessary to import these products from forested areas at greater distances (Hughes 69).

Beyond the effects of deforestation imposed by humans, however, was a widespread and

consistent human-oriented activity that would come to have an even worse effect upon the land:

the grazing and browsing of domesticated animals. According the Hughes, a full four-fifths of

the land surrounding Athens that was found unsuitable for agricultural practices was used as

pastureland. Additionally, the herding nomads of the time, who were unimpeded by mountain

ranges or arbitrary political barriers, further stressed the land and hillsides by subjecting virtually

inaccessible areas to severe overgrazing and thus the loss of vegetation important in maintaining

soil integrity (Hughes 75). And it was the loss of vegetative life that would come to threaten

wildlife:

[A]nimals and birds suffered, not just from hunting, but also by the modification of their habitats by the spread of agriculture, grazing, and deforestation . . . [T]he total effect of ancient pressure upon wildlife was the extinction of some species, the introduction of others, and the general alteration of the ecosystem (Hughes 72-73).

It is not evident in the limited historical literature regarding the ecology of this age that

the conclusion was ever made by the thinkers of that time that human activity, even while



obviously degrading the landscape, was necessarily a bad or evil thing. Surely there had to have

been a recognition that the inherent natural beauty was escaping from the hillsides as trees were

felled and were replaced by whatever indigenous herbs happened to take over, but this does not

seem to have been remarked upon by the writers of Plato’s time or before. There was, however,

the recognition that the world then did not seem to be as beautiful as that world of the Golden

Age described by Hesiod. During the Golden Age, the Earth brought forth grains and fruits of

itself without the need of any human cultivation efforts. The birds and other animals assisted the

human race in its endeavors of their own free will. But as the years went by, this idyllic condition

began to fade and humans found themselves, as in the biblical account of Adam and Eve, having

to encounter on a daily basis the grossness of toiling for food and the many other discomforts

and diseases now associated with life (Hughes 61).

As Greek culture was integrated into that of the Roman Empire, the conquering ways of

Rome were not limited to the villages, cities, and ‘barbaric’ civilizations that it overran. The

Romans treated the natural environment as it would have any of the myriad provinces it had

taken over. Hughes notes, that if the Romans:

needed any justification of this beyond their own pragmatism and cupidity, they could find it in Greek philosophy, which had reached them in a late, skeptical form that had removed the sacred from nature and made nature an object of manipulation in thought and, by extension, in action. Our {present-day} Western attitudes can be traced most directly to the secular, businesslike Romans (Hughes 149).

It is as if the Romans took the words of Protagoras literally: “man is the measure of all things”

(Hughes 149), and so can do with the world as he pleases.

More than at anytime before its arrival, the mentality exhibited by the Roman Empire

toward nature was that since it was a lesser aspect of divine creation, it would have to “justify its

existence by its purposeful relationship to mankind” (Hughes 149). This seemingly irrepressible

mentality synthesized itself into the overall Roman worldview, as did the late, skeptical form of

Greek philosophy, as just mentioned. Not only were the angels to bow to God’s greatest creation

--- mankind --- but, according to the account in the book of Genesis (1:28), God further gave the

human species rule over earthly nature and its creatures: “‘[F]ill the earth and subdue it, have

dominion over the fish in the sea, the birds of the air, and every living thing that moves on the

earth’” (Suggs 12). As with Protagoras’ statement, it seems as though the Romans took this



biblical command literally, as well. In cases, it followed that all of non-human nature should

somehow serve and have usefulness for human purposes (Hughes 149). Since, in the Old

Testament sense, God was outside of nature, the creator of nature, but not Himself in nature, the

natural environment came to be seen by the Romans, and much later to Western civilization, as a

mere soulless, inanimate resource. The old organismic and animistic views shared by most

religions and cultures outside of the Judeo-Christian influenced Roman Empire began to fall

away with the encroachment of Roman expansion. For the Romans, the biblical command from

God to have dominion over all of nature came to be understood as “blanket permission to do

what they wished to the environment” (Hughes 148). Joseph Campbell claimed that this

domineering attitude came about because it was believed that nature, since the expulsion of

Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, was of a fallen character. Referring to this Judeo-

Christian mode of thought, Campbell once remarked: “{What} a horrible tradition: the

degradation and denial of nature, and the serpent cursed and woman along with it” (Sukhavati,

video).

* * * * *

The apathetic behavior exhibited toward nature in the Near Eastern and Western

civilizations since the dawn of the Christian era may actually been rooted in the sense of

catastrophobia inherent in Christian doctrine. The end-time tidings prophesized in The

Revelation of John in the New Testament suggested to the early followers of Christianity --- as

well as suggesting to the more Fundamentalist sects of Christianity today --- that this world we

live in is but a temporary world, thus not worthy of great attention and caring. Philosopher

Richard Tarnas writes:

[D]evout Christians {focus} their attention more exclusively on the future and the unworldly, in the form either of the promised Second Coming or of a Church-mediated redeemed afterlife. In either case, there result{s} a pronounced tendency to negate the intrinsic value of the present life {and} the natural world . . . (133).

A duality was firmly established between the spirit of humankind and the very Earth

humans came out of and lived upon. The Earth was but a place for the temporary spiritual

development of humankind; the Earth itself, when compared to the importance of the human

spirit had no other value beyond that of utility. The Christian world had now mostly divorced



itself from the natural realm. It is important to remember, however, that, as with our leaving a

hunter-gatherer existence for the bounty of an agriculture existence, and our dismissal of myth

since we humans could control the coming and going of seasons, the changes in attitude toward

nature were the result of psychological shifts in human thinking. These psychological shifts

were, of course, not representative of an actual change in the absolute human embeddedness in

and indebtedness to the natural world. No god came down from the heavens and changed the

rules of life in favor of humans over the rest of earthly nature. The fact of our dependency on

nature has never changed, only our psychological orientation to Her.

The history of human actions illustrates many things that we as a species have done

wrong. For nearly twelve thousand years our race has mutilated nature, and so ourselves. But is

the study of historical ecology and anthropology vital to our future? J. Donald Hughes believes

that it is:

History {provides} us with many examples of ancient peoples who failed to adapt themselves to live in harmony with the ecosystems within which they found themselves, who depleted their environment, exhausted their resources and exist today only as ruins within eroded and desiccated landscapes. That fate might also await our own civilization, but this time on a global scale. Ancient history is a warning and a challenge to our attitudes, our ability to understand, our technological competence, and our willingness to make far-reaching decisions. The challenge will not go away, and the response we will make is not yet clear (156).

What is frightening is that Hughes published these words in 1975, and over a quarter of a

century later it is still not clear what the human response to the ecocrisis will be.

All material creation issues forth from the same ground or source of being; thus, what we

categorize as objects or organisms are each and all ontologically akin and are a product/creature

of and process/evolving creation within the ‘living animal’ known as the universe. But this is

only one part of the story, because not only do all things seem to spring from the same

immaterial source of being, but all things materially/manifestly interpenetrate or, as stated

earlier, inter-reflect as well. In his landmark PBS television lectures entitled Body, Mind & Soul:

The Mystery and the Magic, Dr. Deepak Chopra, M.D. discusses the scientific evidence

supporting this. He states that based on mathematical calculations stemming from radioisotope

studies, the following astounding postulations have been formulated:



1. At any one moment there are on order of one million atoms in an individual’s body that

have in the past been in the bodies of all other humans past and present; for example,

Jesus, Buddha, Mozart, van Gogh, Debussy, Gandhi, Genghis Khan, your neighbor, your

enemy.

2. Within any given three-week period, a quadrillion (1015) atoms have circulated through

an individual’s body that have circulated through every other living animal and plant

species on the planet. Consider a tree in Africa, a squirrel in Siberia, a peasant in China,

or a whale in the North Atlantic, and one has in his or her own body matter/raw material

that passed through all those other bodies/forms within the last twenty-one days (Body,

Mind & Soul: The Mystery and the Magic 1).

Ultimately, what does the knowledge concerning the invisibility of reality mean? It demonstrates

that the human species is not distinct or separate from the natural realm. Indeed, we are in and of

nature; a part of rather than apart from Her. And, lastly, that each element, aspect, and

character within nature has, in one form or another, value. For if there is, as there appears to be, a

solidarity of being across all species and conceptual boundaries within creation, then how can

one thing not be of value to the functioning of the whole? If value seems too strong a term and

concept to accept as inherent in natural forces and earthly creatures, then perhaps one can at least

acknowledge somehow, even if feebly, that the maintenance, flourishing, equilibrium, and

continuation of nature is the single most highest necessity for the maintenance, flourishing,

equilibrium, and continuation of plant, animal, and human societies. Such flies in the face of

reductionistic rationalism, Cartesian delineations, and analytical philosophical inquiry. At

bottom, there is nothing to analyze: the world must live in order for its inhabitants to live.

True human progress should not be measured exclusively by technological prowess but

by our capacity to ease or eliminate suffering across the face of the planet and so increase peace

for all beings. Our own individual pains arise, perhaps, from the utter loneliness we experience

by denying the world.

Nevertheless, it is the business and burden of the individual to reform society.



5.3 World-loyalty

In his short yet remarkable text of lectures entitled Religion in the Making, Whitehead offers that

at the instant one becomes aware of the indivisibility of reality and the solidarity of being shared

with all other creatures and forms across the spectrum of existence, he or she becomes world-

loyal. This moment may come during quiet contemplation at home or, in drug induced states, or,

more commonly for most of us, in a natural setting. Regardless of the condition conjuring this

state, for Whitehead it comes about when one grasps that "the elements of the universe {are} the

unity of one fact" (RM 150, my italics). This cognition is expressed to an individual through a

quickly passing (for lack of a better term) “superior mentality” that, once achieved, proffers only

a brief glimpse into the realm of complete and total universal comprehension. This state is

commonly referred to as a feeling of “being at one with the universe.” It is a moment when we

seem to "essentially arise out of our bodies" (PR 129). It is a plane of mentality that in Religion

in the Making is described of as a 'higher experience', a 'vivid experience', or a 'religious

experience' (RM 95, 27, 86). As philosopher John F. Haught puts it in his text Science and

Religion, it is an awareness that "creation is going on within us, beneath us, behind us, and ahead

of us" (117).

For Whitehead, such instances represent a religious coming into being. It should be

pointed out that Whitehead did not mean ‘religious’ in a biblical or theological sense, but rather

religion in its original sense: to bind with or link back to the originating power of the universe.

Experiences of this type are an "apprehension of {the} character permanently inherent in the

nature of things" (RM 61, my italics). It is the realization that, to borrow a phrase from

Nietzsche, "All things are enlinked, enlaced, and enamored" (Nietzsche 336). This apprehension,

on Whitehead's view, is the beginning of binding or linking oneself consciously not only to the

originating power of the universe but the outflow of creation from it. Life then becomes to be

seen as a platform of and for becoming. This act of connecting to creation is world-loyalty. This

type of experience is a fleeting moment of penetrating and measureless universal insight --- a

seeming poetic moment of instantaneous communication and unity with one's surroundings; a

mercurial flash of oneness, divinity, clarity, and experiential climax; "an irrepressible sense of

awe at the sheer facticity or 'thatness' of the universe" (Haught 116). Naess would see this as



someone gaining an ‘ecospheric perspective’ (Naess 80), where he or she realizes there is no

such thing as isolation, for all things live “in deep connection to all that surrounds” (Naess 80,

my italics).

For Naess, this realization of the individual self as inextricably in the whole/gestalt Self of

nature is a moment of one “connecting the individual’s unfolding to that of the whole planet”

(Naess 163). Realization of the individual self in the greater Self of creation induces and demands

world-loyalty. One finds herself living wholly as a part of creation, not living partly within the

whole; living joyfully, yet simply and matter of factly; living meaningfully within the graces and

the abundances of creation. One comes to know and live by the knowledge that all things are

literally in this ongoing act of creation together. As Whitehead noted, “This universalization of

what is discerned in a particular instance is the appeal to a general character inherent in the

nature of things” (RM 67).

When the experience is over one is usually completely silent, for the depth of what has

just occurred is "beyond the vulgarities of praise or of power" (RM 154). Philosopher David

Abram in his The Spell of the Sensuous suggests that, at least in the outdoor setting, one may

become so intensely integrated with his immediate environment that his surroundings actually

respond to his emotions and elicit feelings from him. Abram further states that this reciprocal

interchange "is a sort of silent conversation that {one may} carry on with things, a continuous

dialogue that unfolds far below . . . verbal awareness" (52).

Such experiences seem to be instances when one becomes ‘plugged in’, so to speak, to

the incorrupt, unfiltered essence of creation; or when there is at once an apprehension,

comprehension, sympathy, love, and empathy for the wondrousness of all being and beings. This

fleeting state of universal awareness is moving, oceanic, and all-consuming; it speaks of a love

so deep that one, if even ever so briefly, experiences solidarity of being and becomingness with

the multi-various entities pervading his immediate environment and by extension the entire

cosmos. David Rothenberg, Arne Naess’ translator of Ecology, community and lifestyle, states in

the Introduction to that work that when the individual recognizes his ontological connection with

creation it is “a kind of a-ha! experience” (Naess 8), a “moment of insight” (8), an “instantaneous

shift” (8) from one’s old worldview to a new worldview where when one remembers that:

parts of nature are parts of ourselves. We cannot exist separate from them. If we try our Self-realising {sic} is blocked. Thus we cannot destroy them if we are to exist fully . . . We must see the vital needs of ecosystems and other species as our



own needs: there is thus no conflict of interests. It is a tool for furthering one’s own realisation {sic} and fullness of life . . . Identification in this sense is the widest interpretation of love (Naess 10-11).

In her book The Resurgence of the Real, Charlene Spretnak similarly describes this

moment when one comes to the awareness of his or her solidarity of being with all of creation:

“When our larger identity is realized, the result is spontaneous loyalty {to the world}. . . and

even love” (78, my italics). Where one may have been divorced from nature through living the

unenlightened life indicative of Western social conditioning, such experiences in a sense marry

one to life and nature.

Usually, religious experiences occur when one psychologically, if just for an instant,

becomes unfettered, unencumbered from ordinary concerns. At the moment of this release, one is

rapturously caught in the flow of becoming, where struggle is absent and the seamlessness of

reality is brought to absolute and inarguable completeness in one’s awareness. The religious

experience invites the individual to reside in a domain where character can be forged, the inward

parts cleansed, sincerity set free, and one's intimate convictions of love for the world and others

can earnestly be practiced (RM 15). This becoming of the self through the experience is a

becoming with the universe; it is a conscious orientation toward preparing the way for a right and

realistic life. On Haught's view, "The authentic religious attitude . . . is a steadfast conviction that

the future is open and that an incalculable {positive} fulfillment awaits the entire cosmos"

(Haught 19).

The religious experience seems to be a psychological springboard from which to launch

and orient oneself into a religious and world-loyal existence. In other words, such an experience

is necessary at the level of the individual if one is to begin to live a genuinely religious, “world-

embracing” (UDS 72-73) existence. The experience comes to act as the glue, so to speak, which

keeps a person adhered to the world --- this is world-loyalty. It is the practice or private ritual of

reminding oneself that all aspects of one's environment and the entire universe interpenetrate, for

all temporal actualities include "the universe, by reason of its determinate attitude towards every

{other} element in the universe" (PR 45). In Religion in the Making, Whitehead states:

The peculiar character of religious truth is that it explicitly deals with values. It brings into our consciousness that permanent side of the universe which we can care for. It thereby provides a meaning, in terms of value, for our own existence, a meaning which flows from the nature of things (RM 123-24, my italics).



At once we see that the religious experience (though perhaps occurring accidentally and

without warning) is representative of when our senses recognize that the world’s

interconnections correspond to the fundamental value embodied in the motion of creation; that

the identification or empathy with the "permanent side of the universe which we can care for" is

one's loyalty to the unfolding, evolving, and advancing of life and intelligence; and, that the

character of human existence is (or can be) in harmonious coexistence with the overall character

of nature. As mentioned, for Whitehead, religion and thus world-loyalty must begin --- without

exception --- at the level of the individual; for it is only to the individual that the religious

experience can occur. As Jung points out, the individual is “that infinitesimal unit on whom a

world depends . . .” (UDS 125).

The realization of our ontological solidarity of being with nature is much deeper than the

casual thinker may believe. The experience is more than one merely rejoicing for the superficial

beauty perceived in a flower or a landscape or a stream. Rather, the realization of our solidarity

of being causes one to rejoice in the fact that the flower or tree, for example, simply exists, and is

extending towards its own goal within the set of conditions it finds itself in; and that as an

element of those conditions it is adding to and participating in the goal and positive, novel travel

of the collectivity of the society.

The sublimity of the fact that all things interpenetrate in such a manner may touch the

human individual on an emotional level never visited outside of dreams or upon becoming a

parent. And it is, indeed, when the emotions residing at this depth are stirred and reawakened

that one becomes world-loyal. One finds him- or herself wholly involved in creation as a part

and participator. At this point, one’s thinking and deeds become chiefly aimed at affirming life

and creating dialogues with those persons who negate life so as to communicate the fullness and

beauty of existence to others and, to the extent personally achievable, prevent further tragedy and

life-negation in the world. Once one experiences the solidarity of being inherent in creation ---

once one is infused with a world-loyal sentiment for life --- there occurs what Ken Wilber calls

an ‘irreversible shift’ in one’s psyche and worldview (BHE 171). He writes:

And thus Spirit has . . . looked through your eyes and seen a global world, a world that is decentered from the me and the mine, a world that demands care and concern and compassion and conviction --- a Spirit that is unfolding its own intrinsic value and worth, but a Spirit that announces itself only through the voice of those who have the courage to stand in the worldcentric space and defend it against lesser and shallower engagements (BHE 171, my italics).



And, again, it does not matter whether someone projects value onto/into nature, has a caring yet

mechanistic worldview, recognizes value as inherent in nature, or is miraculously, instantly, and

forever transformed into a world-loyal existence via religious experience. As long as one at least

lives as if he or she is not the extent of or center of the world, then conditions here on Earth will

begin to improve as a result.

*****

In Religion in the Making, Whitehead defines evil as a power or behavior that is:

positive and destructive; what is good is positive and creative . . . [E]vil in itself leads to the world losing forms of attainment in which that evil manifests itself . . . Thus evil promotes its own elimination by destruction . . . The evil of the final degradation lies in the comparison of what is with what might have been . . . [T]he evil lies in the loss to the social environment. There is evil when things are at cross purposes (96-97, my italics).

For Whitehead, evil arises as a result of non-identification with one’s society, which in

my argument means non-identification with one’s surroundings, i.e. nature. In other words, an

individual must “merge” (RM 60), come into, or commune with the societies of nature. Only by

becoming an interactive and supporting character within nature can our species hope to be

positive and creative instead of positive and destructive. As Whitehead points out, to the degree

that behavior falls outside of that mode of living that is positive and creative, to the degree that

this “character is incomplete, there is evil in the world” (RM 62); conversely, to the degree that

participators in life stay within this character, there is “harmony in the actual world” (RM 61).

When human-induced phenomena such as deforestation, air and water pollution, and accelerated

global warming are limiting the forms of attainment at an estimated rate of 27,000 species each

year (Gibbs 43), we certainly can recognize humanity’s sinister role.

However, it is not so much the preservation of species or the conservation of resources

that should concern us. Rather, in the spirit or character of being positive and creative, the

human role or responsibility is not so much that of protecting the natural environment as

allowing it to project, push forward, or evolve into the future. We deny it and so ourselves that

life-affirming prerogative by destroying it. Our world is dying because of human activity:

ecosystems are failing or have died and extinction rates are multiplying exponentially. But not

only is the wasteland of our own human interiors creating a wasteland here on Earth, but the



disconnection that we have with nature is just as significant as the disconnection that we often

have with our fellow human beings. Thus, as aspects of the Earth, the loss of human life also

represents our world losing forms of attainment. And so the evil that the human species inflicts

upon the world in general does not bypass us. Whitehead writes:

[E]vil is exhibited in physical suffering, mental suffering, and loss of the higher experience in favour of the lower experience . . . Evil, triumphant in its enjoyment, is so far good in itself; but beyond itself it is evil in its character of a destructive agent among things greater than itself. In the summation of the more complete fact it has secured a descent towards nothingness, in contrast to the creativeness of what can without qualification be termed good . . . [A] species whose members are always in pain will either cease to exist, or lose the delicacy of perception which results in that pain . . . (RM 95-96, my italics).

With all the opposition that humans hurl at the Earth and other human societies, how do

we stop our own and thus our world’s descent towards nothingness? How do we turn our

thoughts and deeds to an ascent toward creativeness? Through conscious and willing

psychological integration and identification of self with other, whether the other is human,

forest, bird, wolf, mountain, stream, and on and on.



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7.1 Global-Eudaimonia: A Proposed Way of Living

And of Thinking about the World

In ancient Greece, the great philosophers often pondered on the notion of eudaimonia. The

original meaning of eudaimonia referred specifically to human ‘happiness,’ ‘flourishing,’ and

personal well-being as the greatest goals for the individual. While certainly there was regard for

other human individuals, one’s family and society --- this is what Arne Naess referred to as

‘interhuman loyalty’ --- by and large the concept of eudaimonia was anthropomorphic at best,

and egocentric at worst. I would, however, like to re-explore and enhance the term to make it

fitting for the present day.

By prefixing eudaimonia with the word ‘global,’ I believe that is possible to shift the

importance from the exclusivity of human-bound happiness and flourishing to that of ‘world-

happiness,’ and ‘world-flourishing’. However, like Arne Naess’ philosophy of deep ecology, a

global-eudaimonian philosophy does would not purport to necessarily be a logic-based system of

thought and action, but rather a collection of ideas that seek to remind humans of our true and

sacred connection to nature as nature and to ask ourselves to wisely act upon that knowledge in

life’s endeavors. Global-eudaimonia is beyond mere human-flourishing, it is world-flourishing—

for only when the world flourishes can humans truly be said to flourish.

At the core of global-eudaimonia is the intention to bring about a rapprochement of inter-

human loyalty (Naess, Ecology, Community, Lifestyle) and world-loyalty (Alfred North

Whitehead, Religion in the Making): where the consideration of oneself and race is not neglected

or negated but rather incorporated into the overall, what I would like to call, “flourishing-

equilibrium” of nature.

Flourishing-equilibrium is a non-selfish, non-anthropocentric attitude toward creation; it

promotes the fact of the complete existential co-dependency between individual, community, and

environment; and of the value of all manifestations within the one visible animal (Plato,

Timaeus). Flourishing-equilibrium is a condition where it is possible to imagine and realize

growth, novelty, creativity, and evolution in the world; and posing the least possible opposition

with other environments, societies, or organisms. Now, while Plato may have historically been

among those humanistic-type of philosophers who would have contemplated eudaimonia in a



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strictly human-centered way, it should be noted that ultimately Plato’s concept of it would have

been, perhaps, radically different. Since Plato believed that the cosmos is one vast organism, he

certainly would have recognized that eudaimonia would not be completely successful if only

applied to the realm of humans: for each organism, society, or animal within the cosmic animal

could not exist without what ecophilosopher and Plato interpreter Timothy A. Mahoney

recognizes as the “maximal harmony among all of the parts and the whole” (Westra, ed., Ancient

Greeks and the Environment, 48). How does a global-eudaimonist go about his or her life?

A global-eudaimonist moves through life sensitive and responsive not only to his or her

own needs and aspirations, but recognizes as an elemental feature of existence the need to

empathize and resonate with the life-perpetuating character of nature. From here, though,

intellectually and philosophically, global-eudaimonia crosses a conceptual border and finds itself

in the realm of something akin to the Tibetan school of Buddhist philosophy. For the ideal

sought in here is the alleviation of suffering experienced by sentient beings and in maintaining a

selfless and interrelational association with creation. Tibetan Buddhism embraces as an

unmitigated fact that the entire universe is sentient by virtue of all physical manifestations being

a correlate expression of the original uncreated and immaterial energy animating all things; and,

that there are levels of sentience based on the complexity of an organism; but that ultimately and

necessarily all delineations between this and that are conventions of the human mind used in

studying, contemplating, or communicating with the infinite, mutually arising inflections of the

original energy.

Buddhism in its purest form fosters what religious scholar Robert A.F. Thurman terms a

realistic view of life (see his Inner Revolution): i.e., all actions and thoughts have consequences

and relativities that are experienced by other beings; and that a bad or life-negating action or

thought has a potentially likewise bad or life-negating ramification in the world; and that

conversely, a good or life-affirming action or thought has a potentially good or life-affirming

consequence in the world. Here the highest proposition of Buddhism is brought to bear: that all

creatures, in their own capacity, should have as a foundational predisposition of being the goal to

promote the happiness, peace, flourishing, and evolution of all other creatures. In simple

Buddhist terms, compassion is the key to salvation and enlightenment in the world. Thurman

understands this not merely as an idealistic individual pursuit, but as an evolutionary goal—



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philosophically and biologically—for all societies of sentient beings in the unfolding

development of the universe toward what he calls Buddhaverse. He writes:

Faith in such a possibility is a good place to begin this journey to liberation; it encourages us to set forth. But we all can move beyond faith to direct experience and full knowledge of our true state…If it is possible for us to attain such perfect enlightenment ourselves, our whole sense of meaning and our place in the universe immediately changes…Enlightenment is not meant to be an object of religious faith. It is an evolutionary goal, something we want to become . . . Once we recognize the biological possibility of our evolving into beings of full understanding, we can begin to imagine ourselves as buddhas, awakened or enlightened beings… By definition, being enlightened is a fully evolved way of living. It is perfect freedom—a freedom so total it cannot be lost even in relationships. It is perfect security, certain of its reality, perfection, and eternal bliss—it is the goal in the quest for happiness. (Thurman, Inner Revolution, 86-87, my italics).

Regardless of the anguish and misery exhibited in the world, there thus exists the hope of

liberating ourselves and those creatures that suffer, and of creating real peace and joy on a global

and even universal level. Here it must be understood that in a truly Buddhist sense, hope is more

than mere optimism: Hope is a declaration that one not only wishes for a brighter, positive and

creative, life-affirming future but that he or she will also meaningfully and completely participate

in its unfolding. According to Thurman, when the entire universe resonates this joy as an

organismic whole, it will then become a Buddhaverse, where all creatures have begun to live

according to the fact that fulfillment as an individual rests in lessening the suffering and in

promoting the happiness, wholeness, and peace of other beings. Global-eudaimonia embraces

this evolutionary goal.

Ultimately, as intimated above, global-eudaimonia is religious in that it is the individual

pursuit to join with and help the whole. It is the constant motion of and habitation within the

goodness and lovingkindness inherent in the character of the universe. It is the creative and

procreative movement of the cosmos. It is the telos of all entities: the harmonious unification of

creature with creation. Global-eudaimonia is the psychological and spiritual attunement with the

truth of universal organicism and the pursuit of ever deepening one’s existence into the fullness

of this fact. The result of living in such a manner comes to be witnessed in a beautiful planet



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Earth because it is filled with beautiful human beings. The Earth becomes what it had been

intended to be: a blossoming cosmic organism.



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7.2 Epilogue: Mysterium tremendum et fascinans

How did the West and the westernized world ever come to create such a mess on planet Earth?

The psychologist Carl Jung learned the answer in the early 1900’s during a trip to the Pueblo

Indian reservation in Taos, New Mexico and retells the story in Memories, Dreams, Reflections.

He sat down with the chief of the reservation, Ochwiay Biano, and began to listen. Ochwiay

remarked that whites appear cruel, with faces always scrunched up, and with eyes oftentimes

frozen in a distant stare. He said:

“[T]hey are always seeking something. What are they seeking? The whites always want something; they are always uneasy and restless. We do not know what they want. We do not understand them. We think that they are mad.”

I (Jung) asked him why he thought the whites were all mad.

“They say that they think with their heads,” he replied.

“Why of course. What do you think with?” I asked him in surprise.

“We think here,” he said, indicating his heart.

I fell into a long meditation. For the first time in my life, so it seemed to me, someone had drawn for me a picture of the real white man . . . This Indian had struck our vulnerable spot, unveiled a truth to which we are blind . . . It was enough. What we from our point of view call colonization, missions to the heathen, spread of civilization, etc., has another face—the face of a bird of prey seeking with cruel intentness for distant quarry… [P]redatory creatures that adorn our coats of arms seem to me apt psychological representatives of our true nature (247-49).

Jung goes on to further contemplate the Pueblo chief’s remarks and comes to find them

as indicative of the true and significant difference between people of Western heritage and

influence (whites) and primitive cultures: that is, namely, the Western world has on the levels of

both the individual and society disengaged from the world: our hearts are no longer connected to

the larger whole that we belong to. For example, old growth forests are viewed for their potential

of wood, rivers for potential electricity production, and even persons at their places of work have

been reduced to being mere ‘human resources.’ Surely, then, from the perspective of primitive



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societies, we are in our heartlessness mad in our disconnection from the world; and our lack of

deep identification with other humans and the realm of nature must be bewildering to them.

For our remote ancestors of ages past, and the remaining primitives living today, the fact

of our tenancy within and unity with nature was so embedded in their minds that it was perhaps

not ever considered on the conscious level. Perhaps as the Western mind developed rationally

and technologically, it devolved instinctively and thus our pioneering and aggressive styles of

survival have allowed us to engage in hitherto unimaginable acts against nature and humanity

itself —acts rooted in the desire for material wealth, rather than that of sustaining existence in a

wise and equitable fashion. On a fundamental level, it is disheartening that the penetrating and

intuitive insights had by our progenitors are being reborn in the Western consciousness only in

the midst of the diverse crises humans have imposed upon the world and themselves. Yet on the

same fundamental level this reawakening instills hope for both nature and its human residents;

for perhaps now the collective human consciousness is moving beyond the fixations and

vexations of materiality and embracing the truth that at the core of all existence—regardless if

the embodiment is that of a plant, an animal, or a star—there is a shared, essential, vital, yet

perhaps un-derived source of all Being. This core ontological truth is certainly the great equalizer

across the spectrum of beings, species, and races. Whether called psyche, God, the gods, spirit,

or mind, this overarching commonality suggests that the web of creation is a sublime Idea

expressed in space and time (see the works of Hegel); that there is a marvelous purpose and

purposiveness in all of creation; and that this Idea is unfolding at each moment in complex and

novel ways, ever moving toward a mysterious destination that in itself may represent the

beginning of a new adventure for creation.

Upon realizing and then resonating with the pure fact of our individual immanence within

the overarching Immanence of creation, one’s obligation at that instant becomes to affirm,

embrace and encourage the fruition, goodness and wholeness of the Idea, and recognize that his

cousin the tree, or sister the flower, or brother the wolf, or mother the Earth are within

themselves manifestations of the self-same preternatural Idea; and that to the greatest extent

humanly possible, they deserve and require respect and love of the sort that one extends himself,

his progeny, and his species. Such evocations are necessary in projecting life into the future: for

it is only among the diversity and multiplicity of forms that any manifest individual can thrive;



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and the multiplicity can only come about by virtue of the well-balanced creative and procreative

participation and interconnection between sundry individual beings and societies. As Arne Naess

has written: “No single being can completely {realize} the goal {of life}. The plural of potentials

is crucial: it introduces plurality into unity” (Naess 200). Likewise, my friend, author John Major

Jenkins has written that our “willing participation” is imperative in this global and cosmological

process of bringing the individual into accord with creation. “[R]ecognizing our place in the

great chain of creation,” he writes,

is what ennobles our souls and elevates our spirits to a plane infused with unity and relationship. The opening doorway . . . offers us conscious relationship with each other and a creative participation with the Earth-process that gives birth to our higher selves (Maya Cosomogenesis 2012, 332).

Should we as individuals and a species choose to step through this “opening doorway,”

our world and ourselves will not only be redeemed, but we will have worked through the

darkness of the past centuries and of our own time and awakened, perhaps, to the light and

greatness of the next stage of human and consciousness evolution.

The human heart is that opening doorway, and it is imperative that we let the world in

before it is too late.

Global Eudaimonia: Rendering the World in the Human Heart

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