Blessing Five:
Having done good deeds in one’s past
Having done good deeds in one’s past
A. INTRODUCTION
With Blessing Five we are still exploring the virtues which comprise “turning towards wholesomeness” as exemplified by the second grouping. Last blessing we have already mentioned the “nature nurture” dichotomy of scientifically understood development. Last blessing already covered the “nurture” aspect of the environment — and so this Blessing we come to the factor of “nature” — the aspects of our character and personality which we bring with us into the world. In this Blessing we attempt to explain the variety of material and spiritual success between different people in the world — differences which are not accountable in terms of the Blessings we have already studied up to this point. How for example can we explain the differences in disposition and life success of identical twins (with the same genetic components), brought up by the same parents in the same environment?
How about newborn children, who far from being a clean slate have different personalities, different potentials and different speeds of learning? Science would attribute these things to genetic differences between their grandparents. This might work out for some things such as how people look or their physical strength, but I think you would agree that there are many other things that genetics cannot explain. No scientist has ever found a gene for intelligence for example. All that are found are the aberrations that make people handicapped — and these are in spite of the fact that neither their parents nor their grandparents were handicapped in such away. Thus it must be something about the child himself brings with him into the world.
This Blessing attempts to account for the disparity in terms of the residue of life experience picked up by individuals in their past — particularly the positive life experiences.
In order to understand the rather lengthy matter of having done good deeds in one’s past, it is necessary to study the subject of merit in general and to touch also upon the subjects of retribution and mind quality. Some people study the Manual of Peace from Blessing One (Not Associating with Fools) through Blessing Two (Associating with the Wise), Blessing Three (Paying Respect to those worthy of Respect). They are able to accept all the reasoning of these first three Blessings, and are able to follow them in their everyday life. They even find that Blessing Four (Living in an Amenable Location), makes sense in their everyday lives — because in any case they have to choose the location for their home and the place where they go to school, college and university. However, they may have difficulty with the claim that the sort of deeds we have done in the past can affect our quality of life and even the quality of society. It is obvious that with this Blessing we are starting to deal with more subtle phenomena than before.
A1. Success and Failure in Life
Success and failure might appear on many different levels — on the level of society, the level of lifestyle, the level of personality or the level of the mind itself — but basically it comes down to quality of mind on four levels A person blessed with success on the level of the mind will have a quality mind — that is a mind that
is stable and unwavering, hard to distract, pure and radiant, spacious and light, adaptable to any sort of task and implicitly happy and peaceful. Those who are less lucky might have a mind that is dull, inert and easily distracted.
A person blessed with success on the level of the personality might find that people believe every word of what they say. Those who are less lucky might find that even if they tell the truth solidly for a month, no-one will believe them.
A person blessed with success on the level of the lifestyle might seem to be born smart. Their discretion is reliable. Those who are less lucky might have such bad judgment that they become too afraid to make any decisions, always hesitating or prevaricating instead — and they miss life’s opportunities as a result. Even though they might do their best at work and take painstaking care never to make any error — they may be disliked and discriminated against by their boss.
A society blessed with success can muster all its human and natural resources to become a world leader. Less lucky countries, even those with educated citizens and abundant natural resources can be reduced to deserts by corruption and civil strife.
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