It's A Mystery

V

iktor Frankl understood mysterium iniquitatis to mean "that a crime in the final analysis remains inexplicable inasmuch as it cannot be fully traced back to biological, psychological, and/or sociological factors. Totally explaining one's crime would be tantamount to explaining away his or her guilt and to seeing in him or her not a free and responsible human being but a machine to be repaired."¹

In other words, man is a phenomenal creature because at the core of his being some mysterious potential for free will remains despite his environment and his genetic inheritance. "A human being is not one thing among others; things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining."²

But it also appears to be true that although the potential for freedom exists in all human beings, few actualize it.

Why?

In the movie Scent of a Woman, Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade both accepts personal responsibility for his life and acknowledges the reason he turned his back on the challenge of living up to his highest potential:

"Now I have come to the crossroads in my life. I always knew what the right path was; without exception, I knew. But I never took it. You know why? It was too...damn... hard."

Is it possible that all our vileness and degenerate behavior comes down to the fact that we are a slothful species? How can we encourage ourselves to take the moral high road and not slide by and settle for an indolent lifestyle?

Mysterium Iniquitatis can be defined as "born into sin and shaped by iniquity." Viktor Frankl's realization during his time in Auschwitz that the salvation of man is through love and in love means that our ultimate destiny is a transcendent gift. But in order to be aware of the gift it is necessary to understand how we are heavily conditioned to turn away from such a realization--how we are shaped by iniquity.

When Antisthenes was asked what the best apprenticeship was, he answered, "To unlearn evil."³

That is indeed hard work. Theodore Roosevelt expressed it best when he observed "Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing."

There is still work to be done. Let's take on the challenge of living up to our highest potential in the light of Truth.

"From exertion come wisdom and purity; from sloth ignorance and sensuality."—Henry David Thoreau

1. Viktor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning
2. Ibid

3. Quoted by Michel de Montaigne in his essay On Cruelty

A Twisted Intent

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

I used to think that this old proverb meant that the road to hell was paved with broken promises. But now I understand that the proverb may mean something else.

That the road to hell is paved with good intentions refers to the good intentions of men and women that act on them and find that their actions do not spring from pure motives and, consequently, the results of such actions are often hellish.

In truth, it is not uncommon that such actions spring from a lust for power and a desire for glory rather than from virtue and a genuine humility.

You Can Bet On It

S

ometimes we say that to extend your practice into everyday life is to be completely involved in your activity, or to be one with things, but that is not so clear. Then you may say that being caught up with baseball mania or infatuated with gambling is the same as practice, but that is not practice, because you are enslaved by it. You are not the boss of gambling—gambling is the boss of you.” —Shunryu Suzuki

It is important to understand what is right practice. If we do not understand what true meditation is, we will be putting everything at risk. Krishnamurti is correct when he unequivocally states that "to know what is right meditation is much more important than earning a livelihood, getting married, having money, property, because without understanding, these things are all destroyed."

In short, if we do not understand how to meditate, we lose our very lives.

If you knew with certainty that your life was on the line, would you not risk everything to save it? For as Eric Hoffer wrote, "surely one's life is the most real of all things real, and without it there can be no having of things worth having."¹

Mastering the art of meditation will put the odds in your favor that you will appreciate the phenomenon of life—your life. That is something you can safely bet on.

1. The True Believer