ESSAY
PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE AND WISDOM
Right: Fragment of
Indian saint
Guru Nana
Many oriental philosophies of life are based on mysticism.
Wrong choices and unwise
options can damage our lives. Life is an art, and the
anticipation of future evils, foolish thoughts, and the chasing
after material wealth are causes of unhappiness. Only through
wisdom – given by philosophy - can we enrich the meaning of our
lives, and get happiness.
In short, that’s the position of an important
group of ancient philosophers, the most outstanding of which is,
perhaps, Epicurus (341-270 a.C.).
Epicurus was a believer in a secluded life, a
life in small communities whose members should cultivate
friendship, wisdom, and, ultimately, pleasure. «Pleasure is the
beginning and the end of living happily», Epicurus argued. «It’s
the first and innate good, and it is based upon this that we
should make our choices and establish our aversions».
But Epicurus was not exactly a hedonist.
Epicurus emphasized pleasure, but not indiscriminate pleasures.
Epicurus was also an adept of moderation. «It is not an unbroken
succession of parties and revelry, not women and child, not the
enjoyment of the fish and other delicacies of a luxurious table,
which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning, searching
out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and banishing
those beliefs through which the greatest tumults take possession
of the soul», he said.
We don’t really know what life was like for
the many Epicurist communities (very popular and numerous in the
ancient Greek and Roman empires). But the first Christians,
namely Saint Augustine, fought them violently, charging them
with hedonism, and even of orgies and debauchery.
This could have happened in some of the
thousands of Epicurist communities, but probably it’s
exaggerated, something spotted by the fundamentalism of the
first Christians. Epicurus’ writings show a moderate and
sensible man, advocating contention, a position common to
philosophers such as Socrates or the stoics, who overemphasised
it.
There is, anyway, a profound difference
between Epicurus’ philosophy of life and the ones born from
Christianity. To Saint Augustine, the father of the
medieval-Christian philosophy of life, happiness was in the
faith in God, in the certainty brought by that faith, in the joy
which it allows. «I will look for You in order that my soul
lives, because my body lives from my soul, and my soul lives
from You» (Saint Augustine)
Happiness is, therefore, something that
should be searched for outside the secular world. It doesn’t
pass by physical or even intellectual pleasures. «Far from me,
far from the heart of your serf, my God, confessing to You, the
idea of finding happiness in whatever the joy!»
Happiness, to Saint Augustine, was also not
in the oblivion of our future evils, or in emotional
unattachment (as claimed by Buddhist, Hindu and Taoist
schools);
and it was even less in eating our «bread with joy, and drinking
your wine with a merry heart, for God has already accepted your
works», as advocated in the Ecclesiastes.
«Happiness is a joy that is not granted to
the impious, but only to those who serve you through pure love:
because you are that joy! To rejoice from you, in you and by
you, that is happiness. And there is no other», argued Saint Augustine. Happiness passed to depend wholly in the creed and in
attachment to God. With Christianity, the philosophies of life
spreading upon the western world changed dramatically.
Only with secularization introduced by the
Renaissance and deepened in the following centuries, did the
major principles of classic Greek philosophy, as pleaded by
Epicurus, – valuing pleasure, friendship and profane love –
regain importance.
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See also:
Philosophies of life
