Helping Others

So, I was having a conversation with Eleanor on the hill perhaps 10 days ago, and we started talking about Byron Katie.  I was giving her a completely incomplete synopsis of what Katie argues in her book that I am reading now.  Basically, I find that Katie argues, like many of the other authors that I am reading, that a human being can be happy in absolutely any situation if one is totally aware of the truth.  By questioning whether we actually NEED things to change in order to be happy, we find it to be untrue, that we actually don't NEED a thing to be happy, we can just be happy.  Katie has found for her that if she just accepts the world and herself just as they are, without the need for change or comparing to some world that does not exist, she starts to love the world and herself exactly as they are.  If we are able to stop our war against reality, we can be happy regardless of the what reality holds.  Of course, I find a lot of her thoughts to be true and help me to put into an intellectual framework that which I already know non-intellectually.  

Eleanor's feeling is that Katie is another of those Western civilization, easy-lifers, and while all this stuff may be true for those of us who don't have to worry about getting shot or raped today, it's not the same for those living in, say, Somalia, where you are faced daily with starvation, dirty water, illness, violence, and a handful of other pretty serious things.  And here's my thought: maybe she's right.  I don't know.  But it's in my opinion that Eleanor is not perfectly happy.  She has plenty of stresses in her life right now without having to worry about being taken hostage by guerillas.  And there's something that I can't quite intellectualize there, but I'm going to try. 

Even in our Western civilization with our cars and medicine and law and water, most people at least sometimes are quite miserable.  Some are miserable a lot of the time, whether they admit it to themselves or not.  In any event, with all this, we still suffer.  And this brings up two points:  

First, we're not that much different from the Somalis.  In spite of all of the ease we have in our worlds, we still have the potential to suffer.  It seems to me that the problem is not with external circumstances because of the across the board suffering, even if one has everything one needs and is not in physical danger at any time.  And enlightened people seem to be from every environment too.  Siddhartha Buddha was a prince.  But he renounced his throne and spent several years starving and suffering in order to reach enlightenment.  His story actually actually argues the opposite of Eleanor's claim.  Jesus was persecuted and eventually hung on a cross, and yet was happy.  Jesus argued directly that it is easier to find heaven if you are poor.  Even Byron Katie has had her share of misfortune: the death of a child, cancer, blindness.  So, it just seems like the key to happiness has nothing to do with your surroundings.  And in fact, it may even be easier to find that key to happiness if you do suffer greatly.  

Second, I find so many people in the Western culture who seem to be just like Eleanor: Before finding an end to their own suffering, they have already turned to try to ease the suffering of others in "worse" situations.  I guess I question anyone who thinks that they can show someone a place that they themselves have never seen.  They want to bring people out of their suffering, perhaps to a world more similar to their own, where they haven't even been able to find an end to suffering.  It's as if those people are bringing a person from a world of suffering to just another world of suffering where, at least according to Jesus, it is actually more difficult to find the key to end one's suffering.  

Perhaps we all suffer in the Western world because we have too much guilt to even attempt to end our suffering.  Perhaps if we would take the time to end our own suffering, we would find at least one path to that end, and perhaps then we can judge whether or not it works for the Somalis.  In the meantime, I just don't find it possible to point to happiness and say "go over there".  I think the only way we can ease the suffering of others is to bring them in to where we already are, when and if we ever get there.  And if we haven't found a path that works, I would bet there are a lot of Somalis that might be able to show us their path.