The Human Condition

From the instant of birth, man is a thinking being. And from the very first moment that we begin experiencing the external world, we begin differentiating and categorizing all the various stimuli systematically into an ordered body of knowledge. And we differentiate the people we experience from one another and categorize them accordingly; and subsequently, we differentiate ourselves from all others, creating for ourselves our very own category, our own sense of individuality - our ego. It is therefore neither a flaw nor a deviancy of humanity that we be divided and separated spiritually from one another. And we all experience this separation to varying degrees due to the different numbers of categories that each of us has created for the rest of humanity, and because of the relative, though illusory, permanence of those categories that each of us created while differentiating men from men and ourselves from man. It is thus the human condition that every individual by his very nature to some extent perceives that he is distinct and thus alone.

And the ego is not exclusively what many of us have come to believe it to be as when exhibited by the typical “egotistical” individual with an exaggerated sense of self-worth. The ego of some individuals, albeit less common, can have the effect of making them feel inferior to others. In truth, the ego is the manifestation of the illusory differences that we erected between ourselves and others.

Identifying the reason for our loneliness is also acknowledgement that we are all in fact far more similar to one another by our universal sufferance of the same malady. For a greater spiritual connection to man, one may choose to lessen the sense of alienation; but, we may never eliminate it entirely, and we will obviously never know personally the thoughts and feelings of others because the spirits of men are separated by the insurmountable walls of flesh.

Just as the Enlightenment liberated Western Civilization with reason and with natural rights and the equality of man, individuals may choose to pursue their very own enlightenment along the path to an ego-less experiencing of life for an ever- increasing connection to one another.

The endeavor to minimize one’s ego does not demand the sacrifice of one’s individuality. It seeks but to minimize those illusions of difference to which our natural learning process gave form.