The egoism/humility continuum

It strikes me that at least one way to make sense out of the different degrees of egoism versus humility amongst a variety of human beings would be based on the idea that there are always younger souls and older souls inhabiting any given society of humans. This would of course take us into the area of committing our thinking to there being ultimate meaning to human life. Thus, for agnostic and atheist readers, please understand that I'm speaking not about what is, but only about what might possibly be. Reincarnation has been an established belief among much of the Eastern Hemisphere peoples for literally thousands of years. It is a belief which has been growing in the Western Hemisphere peoples as well. The reason for this, of course, is that it is so much more reasonable than any other belief concerning what is going on if (and I stress the if) there actually is ultimate meaning to life. The movement forced upon every human being by living daily life is always a movement from egoism (a natural state) towards humility (a spiritual state). That which dies with the death of the body, then, would be the bovine scatology of egoism. That which survives would be the truth of humility. So how much of each of us survives? That's up to us, isn't it? If we willingly internalize all humbling truths which take from us our great sense of specialness and importance when we are asked to see the silliness of that falsehood, then that which replaces the falsehood and informs us that we are not better than, not worse than, but only one of what it means to be a human being is that which survives. It will be all that is attached to seeing and living that truth. The golden rule is not even a part of such a one's being. The life of such a one is the proof of the wisdom of the golden rule. Such an entity would only be living in order to help others feel better about alive. Such a one would be filled with a love for her/his fellow humans that he/she would be truly puzzled as to why such a rule needed to be stated. Such a one would see no difference between its own self and the self of others. That is what is called universal love. That is what is displayed by those who are, during this lifetime, edging towards the state of pure humility; the Albert Schweitzers who no-one recognizes. The Mother Teresas who no-one knows and has no life other than a life of service to others. These types of humans are not proud of how good they are, because every day of their lives they are doing what they most want to do within their circumstances. They simply are way further along the continuum from egoism towards humility than the rest of us.

So how, if we desire eternal life, do we become as they? We pay attention to our depth. We pay attention to how we are feeling inside every minute of every day. When our peace of mind, serenity of spirit and daily sense of being at home in the universe is replaced by negative emotion, we don't blame other people, places, situations nor things for this loss. We see that our egos are preventing us from feeling the way we want to feel at all times, and we laugh at the foolishness of taking that portion of ourselves which is not everlasting with a seriousness that is tantamount to foolishness. We then laugh at our egoism, and in so doing we return ourselves to our state of serenity, calmness, and peace. In the beginning, we do this perhaps thirty to fifty times a day. With the passage of months we find that we are only doing it a few times a day. With the passage of years, perhaps we will be able to go for weeks without needing to do it. The ego gets smaller as humility increases. It truly is a continuum, and happiness and possibly everlasting life is at its humility end. More to come - Love and Blessings - Chuck