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August 16, 2005
Eternal Happiness
Lu Gim's persistence paid off when I attended my first Alpha meeting yesterday evening. It's an 8-week program that provides an informal setting for anyone to explore the Christian faith.
The meeting was held at Lu Hong's Book Cafe at Mohd Sultan. Ben gave sort of like an opening speech as an atheist who attended the last run of the Alpha Course. We then watched a video of the charismatic founder of the Alpha Course addressing a congregation. Lotsa charisma but few new insights.
After the video, we got into small group discussions. Marilyn was the facilitator for my group. One of the questions she asked was "If God could answer one question for you, what would you ask?"
I'll ask God if He can introduce me to Buddha. Marilyn said she's a very impatient person and the notion of eternity may drive her crazy. How does it feel to live eternally?
It rang a bell because some time back, I was also pretty much asking the same question about nirvana. How does it feel to have attained nirvana? (No, I like to think that it's different from smoking pot).
The question popped up in my head as I was reading a 1961 article by Carl Rogers entitled "A Therapist's View of the Good Life: The Fully Functioning Person".
In it, he wrote:
A Negative Observation
As I have tried to live understandingly in the experiences of my clients, I have gradually come to one negative conclusion about the good life. It seems to me that the good life is not any fixed state. It is not, in my estimation, a state of virtue, or contentment, or nirvana, or happiness. It is not a condition in which the individual is adjusted, or fulfilled, or actualized. To use psychological terms, it is not a state of drive reduction, or tension reduction, or homeostatis.
I believe that all of these terms have been used in ways which imply that if one or several of these states is achieved, then the goal of life has been achieved. Certainly, for many people happiness, or adjustment, are seen as states of being which are synonymous with the good life. And social scientists have frequently spoken of the reduction of tension, or the achievement of homeostatis or equilibrium, as if these states constituted the goal of the process of living.
So it is with a certain amount of surprise and concern that I realize that my experience supports none of these definitions. If I focus on the experience of those individuals who seem to have evidenced the greatest degree of movement during the relationship, appear to have made and to be making real progress toward the good life, then it seems to me that they are not fixed states of being. I believe they would consider themselves insulted if they were described as "adjusted", and they would regard it as false if they were described as "happy" or "contented", or even "actualized". As I have known them I would regard it as most inaccurate to say that all their drive tensions have been reduced, or that they are in a state of homeostatis. So I am forced to ask myself whether there is any way in which I can generalize about their situation, any definition which I can give of the good life which would seem to fit the facts as I have observed them. I find this not at all easy, and what follows is stated very tentatively.
A Positive Observation
If I attempt to capture in a few words what seems to me to be true of these people, I believe it will come out somthing like this:
The good life is a process, not a state of being.
It is a direction, not a destination.
The direction which constitutes the good life is that which is selected by the total organism, when there is psychological freedom to move in any direction.
This organismically selected direction seems to have certain discernible general qualities which appear to be the same in a wide variety of unique individuals.
So I can integrate these statements into a definition which can at least serve as a basis for consideration and discussion. The good life, from the point of view of my experience, is the process of movement in a direction which the human organism selects when it is inwardly free to move in any direction, and the general qualities of this selected direction appear to have a certain universality.
Honestly it's hard for me as a mortal to understand the concept of eternal happiness. What Rogers said makes a lot of sense. At least, as somone who's striving to be a "fully functioning person", I can relate to what he wrote.
If you're keen to read the full article, you'll be able to find it in The Carl Rogers Reader by Howard Kirschenbaum and Valerie Land Henderson. It's available at Borders and Books Kinokuniya.
It's an awesome book. If you're a huge fan of Carl Rogers, this book is a must-have. Some of my favorite articles include The Characteristics of a Helping Relationship, A Client-centered/Person-centered Approach, What I Learned From Two Research Studies, The Necessary and Sufficient Conditions of Therapeutic Personality Change and A Note on "The Nature of Man".
Posted by loganw at August 16, 2005 12:20 AM
