gat

presume, cynically.
Young men and women during their brightest, most energetic years are kept from working or
from being a part of the general society. This is done to keep them from aggravating this delicate
work situation, either by working too eagerly, as kids are prone to do, or by inventing their own
work, which could cause shocks throughout the economy. This violation of the injunction to
work, which Western spirituality imposed, has backed us into a corner from which no authority
has any idea how to extricate us. We cannot afford to let too many children really learn to work,
as Amish children do, for fear they will discover its great secret: work isn’t a curse, but a
salvation.
About the second penalty, pain, Western spirituality has regarded pain as a friend because it forces
attention off things of this world and puts it squarely back on the center of the universe, yourself.
Pain and distress in all forms are ways we learn self-control (among other valuable lessons), but
the siren call of sensuality lures us to court physical satisfactions and to despise pain as a spoiler
of pleasure. Western spirituality teaches that pain is a road to self-knowledge, self-knowledge a
road to trusting yourself. Without trust, you can’t like yourself; without liking yourself, how can
you feel capable of giving love?
About the third penalty, good and evil, Western spirituality demands you write your own script
through the world. In a spiritual being, everything is morally charged, nothing neutral. Choosing is
a daily burden, but one which makes literally everything a big deal.
I heard second hand, recently, about a woman who said to her mother about an affair she was
conducting openly, despite the protest of her husband and in full knowledge of her six-year-old
daughter, "It’s no big deal." That’s what she said to her mother. But if infidelity, divorce, and the
shattering of innocence in a child isn’t a big deal, then what could ever be? By intensifying our
moral sense, we constantly feel the exhilaration of being alive in a universe where everything is a
big deal.
To have much of a life, you must bring as many choices as you can out of preprogrammed mode
and under the conscious command of your will. The bigger the life you seek, the less anything can
be made automatic, as if you were only a piece of machinery. And because every choice has moral
dimension, it will incline toward one or the other pole of that classic dichotomy: good and evil.
Despite extenuating circumstances—and they are legion—the accumulating record of our choices
marks us as worthy or unworthy people. Even if nobody else is aware how accounts stand, deep
inside yourself the running balance will vitally affect your ability to trust, to love, to gain peace
and wisdom from relationships and community.
And finally, aging and death. In the Western spiritual tradition, which grew out of a belief in
original sin, the focus was primarily on the lesson that nothing in this world is more than illusion.
This is only a stage on some longer journey we do not fully understand. To fall in love with your
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