By Osa Amadi, Arts Editor

The Power of Positive Thinking, The Holy Bible and Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations

There is a huge difference between living and being alive. Some people live life while some others are merely alive. God designed human beings like automobile engines with six spark plugs. While some are running on two out of the six plugs, some very few people are running on the whole six. It is like the difference between being subjected and being connected. “The Mind of the universe (what religion calls God) is social,” writes Marcus in his Meditations.   “At all events, it has created the lower forms to serve the higher, and then linked together the higher in a mutual dependence on each other. Observe how some are subjected, others are connected, each and all are given their just due, and the more eminent among them are combined in mutual accord.”

Now, come, let us reason together. Just for a moment, leave your transient toys and vexations of the spirit which you call business and pursuit of wealth. May be we should begin by asking whether you are happy in life. Since the answer to this question is unto yourself and not to anyone else, it is expected that you will be sincere to yourself, that is, if you are not in the category of those who habitually lie to themselves, either out of conscious design or ignorance.

If you are not happy, don’t worry. You are not alone among over 12 billion people on earth today. In fact you are among the majority. Unhappiness is the blight, the scourge of humanity, and especially of the modern world. If your answer to the question about happiness is “Yes, I am happy,” congratulations. But please, do ensure that yours is not the happiness of a mad man who is not aware he is mad!

Why do we speak of happiness? Because happiness is considered the ultimate good. And there is agreement that the purpose of our existence is to seek happiness. Western thinkers from Aristotle to William James, the great American psychologist, have all agreed with this purpose of existence. Simple as it may sound, achievement of happiness in this world has been viewed as something elusive. For instance, Sigmund Fraud, the evolution theorist, said he “feels inclined to say that the intention that man should be “happy” is not included in the plan of “Creation”. But never mind Freud. He was such a fraud, in the sense that he was a scientist filled with pessimism and negativity; a scientist who saw the hand of God in creation but denied His existence.

If the purpose of existence is to seek happiness, one may ask, is a life based on seeking personal happiness not by nature self-centered and self-indulgent? No. “In fact,” says Dalai Lama & Howard Cutler, in their book, The Art of Happiness, “survey after survey has shown that it is unhappy people who tend to be most self-focused and are often socially withdrawn, brooding, and even antagonistic. Happy people, in contrast, are generally found to be more sociable, flexible, and creative and are able to tolerate life’s daily frustrations more easily than unhappy people. And most important, happy people are found to be more loving and forgiving than unhappy people.”

What is happiness?

“Happiness, by derivation,” writes Marcus Aurelius, “means ‘a good god within’, that is, a good master-reason”.   This is the meaning of eudaimonia, the Greek word for happiness. Given that this is so, “what then, vain Fancy (materialism, vain pursuits, vain glories) are you doing here (in my mind)?”says Marcus. “Be off, in heaven’s name, as you came; I want none of you. I know it is long habit that brings you here, and I bear no ill-will (against you); but get you gone.”

There is nothing complex about this definition of happiness. It is simply saying that happiness is attunement with the god within (ye are gods, said Jesus to his disciples). It says that happiness is determined more by one’s state of mind than by external events such as one’s bank account balance, material acquisitions and countries or cities of residence.

Even as happiness depends on our thought processes, “Nothing is more melancholic,” writes Marcus, “than to compass the whole creation, ‘probing into the deeps of earth’, as the poet says, and peering curiously into the secrets of others’ souls, without once understanding that to hold fast to the divine spirit within, and serve it loyally, is all that is needful. Such service involves keeping it (the inner man) pure from passion, and from aimlessness, and from discontent with works of gods or men; for the former of these (works of gods) deserve our reverence, for their excellence; the later (works of men) our goodwill, for fraternity’s sake, and at times perhaps our pity too, because of men’s ignorance of good and evil – an infirmity as crippling as the inability to distinguish black from white.”

Our moment-to-moment happiness, says Dalai Lama & Cutler, is largely determined by our outlook. In fact, whether we are feeling happy or unhappy at any given moment often has very little to do with our absolute conditions, but rather, it is a function of how we perceive our situation, how satisfied we are with what we have.

Many people who don’t “have” enough money, or any money at all, believe that if they have some money or more money they will be happy. But there are a lot of people who have a lot of money but still they are among the unhappiest people in the world, why? And many people who believed that having money or more money will bring them happiness have succeeded in having the money only to discover that happiness did not come with it; as a matter of fact, in many cases, they became more miserable than they were before they got the money.

Marcus Aurelius, who was a Roman Emperor during the era of Pax Romania, a period when the wealth, territories and power of the Great Roman Empire extended to the utmost parts of the world, like King Solomon, realized that happiness solely founded upon the foundations of wealth and power is as unreliable as a house built on sand as Christ taught in Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7:27).

Pleasure versus Happiness

Many confuse happiness with pleasure but the two have clear-cut distinctions. We have defined happiness. We do not need Greek philosophers, 19th Century psychoanalysts, or 20th Century scientists to help us define pleasure, says Cutler – in a luxury of a hot bath on a cold rainy afternoon, in the beauty of a sunset…for some , in the frenetic rhapsody of a cocaine rush, the ecstasy of a heroin (or marijuana) high, the revelry of an alcohol buzz, the bliss of unrestrained sexual excess, the exhilaration of a winning streak in Las Vegas (or Baba Ijebu or Naija Bet) – these are all pleasures that many in our society must come to terms with. But what we are discussing here is “a state of happiness that remains, despite life’s ups and downs and normal fluctuations of mood, as part of the very matrix of our being”.

Life satisfaction

The Dalai Lama believes that happiness can be achieved through training the mind. Happiness is determined more by one’s state of mind than by external events. To be satisfied is to be contented. In turn, our feelings of contentment are strongly influenced by our tendency to compare ourselves with others: does he or she earn more money than me? He owns a house; I live in a rented apartment. He has two cars, I have only one, or I have none. He has children, I don’t have. He is learned, I am not. He is tall, she is tall; I am short, or not as tall. She is beautiful, I am not. And so long as we keep comparing ourselves with more people we will continue to find people who have things which we lack and desire, and that brings sadness.

But we can also use this comparing mechanism to create for ourselves feelings of satisfaction, and thereafter happiness. As we compare ourselves with people who have what we do not have, we can also compare ourselves with those who don’t have what we have, for life is never complete for anyone, says an Igbo proverb and name – Uwaezuoke. This is part of what the hymn, “Count your blessings” means.

It all depends on our perspective. “We can increase or decrease our sense of life satisfaction by changing our perspective,” says Cutler. This clearly points to the supremacy of one’s mental outlook in living a happy life.” We feel sad or happy depending on the interpretations we give to things that happen to us.

The Bible, Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking and Stoicism, the philosophical basis of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, have exhaustive teachings on how to overcome these problems and live a happy and successful life.

Among other relevant verses, the Bible teaches that the love of money (and material possessions) is the root of all evils. “No man can serve two masters at the same time,” Jesus taught. “…you cannot serve God and mammon (money). Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor yet for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?” (Mathew 7:22-25).

The Power of Positive Thinking is also based on Biblical principles: Faith works wonders. “If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.” Change your thought patterns to change your circumstances. Positive thinking achieves positive result. As a man thinks, so he is. That is the power of positive thinking.

The author, Norman Vincent Peale did never stop talking about Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. In fact, one of his professors in school had recommended the book to him when the professor found that the young Norman was suffering from inferiority complex. What does Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations contain?

Based on stoic philosophy, Marcus’s Meditations teaches that the only way to find happiness and live a successful life in this world is to relinquish all desires for material possessions, fame, and the worldly definition of greatness. If man can learn to accept whatever may befall him (including death) without grudge, then he will be happy. What Marcus calls “The wise man’s readiness” is to “accept without resentment whatever may befall.” (page 17).

Meditations, like the Bible, draws attention to the futility of material pursuits and identifies it as the source of all the travails of man. “All things fade into the storied past, and in a little while we are shrouded in oblivion. Even to men whose lives were a blaze of glory this comes to pass; as for the rest, the breath is hardly out of them before, in Homer’s words, they are “lost to sight alike and hearsay’.

“What, after all, is immortal fame? An empty, hallow thing. To what, then, must we aspire? This, and this alone: the just thought, the unselfish act, the tongue that utters no falsehood, the temper that greets each passing event as something predestined, expected, and emanating from the One source and origin.”

Thus, the core teaching of Marcus Aurelius is for one to accept without complain whatever life brings to him after he had done his best and duty. It sees the doing of good and love for fellow beings as one of the greatest virtues in the world. For Aurelius, life is good. Sometimes it appears that Marcus is teaching that men should learn to be contemptuous of all things mortal, but a careful reader will understand that he is warning against relying on the volatile existence:

“Soon earth will cover us all. Then in time earth, too, will change; later, what issues from this change will itself in turn incessantly change, and so again will all that then takes its place, even unto the world’s end. To let the mind dwell on these swiftly rolling billows of change and transformation is to know contempt for all things mortal.

Interestingly, scholars have noticed the connectivity between these three books. Stoicism on which Marcus Aurelius’ Meditation is based has a historical link with Christianity whose Holy Book is the Bible. Throughout his career, the author of The Power of Positive Thinking, Norman Vincent Peale, did never cease to tell his readers that the principles he enunciated in the book are from the Bible and the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For those who desire to run on all the six spark plugs God has built into their lives and achieve happiness, The Holy Bible, The Power of Positive Thinking, and Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations are must reads.