The Golden Rule

[This article first appeared in the July/August 2013 edition of Unity Magazine and is reproduced here with permission.]

“One going to take a pointed stick to poke a baby bird should first

try it on himself to feel how it hurts.” – Yoruba proverb, Nigeria

Everyone knows the golden rule – do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  A quick Google search gives you all the examples you need.  In one form or another the golden rule is found in all religions and ethical philosophies.  Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism and beyond – all the world’s sages sing the one song of our inherent interconnectedness and our sacred duty to treat others as ourselves.

The golden rule begins in empathy and ends in right action.  First we must understand our identity with others and the mutually binding interests we share.  With this fundamental understanding in place the foundation is set – we are now free to act in accord with our principles, knowing that our actions co-create our highest good.  Right action is not born from self-interest but from a broader, more universal awareness of the good, an impulse grounded in the insight that I cannot thrive while my brothers and sisters are not thriving.  When we serve others our own interests are served, automatically and indirectly.  This is what the Dalai Lama meant when he said, “Considering the interests of others is clearly the best form of self-interest.” 

The simplicity of the golden rule heightens its appeal.  Properly followed, it renders all other rules moot.  In Confucianism the virtue of shu or reciprocity calls us to be aware of the impact we have others.  “What is hateful to you,” Confucius said, “do not do to others.” Every transgression would be prevented by the proper application of this simple maxim. If we saw our selves through the eyes of others, our words and actions would naturally soften and grow more compassionate. 

In an uncanny parallelism from the Talmud, Rabbi Hillel says, “What is hateful to you, do not do to others.  This is the entire Law; all the rest is commentary.” It’s as if the golden rule contains in encapsulated form all of the learned complexity of the world’s voluminous ethical and religious codes.  Even St. Augustine, a staunch teacher if there ever was one, leaves us with a simple task, reducing Christian ethics to a seven word motto: “Love God and do what you will.”  By calling for all thought and action to be rooted in a condition of consciousness in which one is lovingly aligned with God, Augustine bypasses all of the intellectual hand-wringing and second guessing that commonly plagues ethical reasoning and gets right to the heart of the matter – a child-like state where right-action and kindness flow like water.  When you begin with love for what is right and true, your actions will fall into accord with what is right and true, and the people will prosper.

The golden rule is not information.  It’s a reminder.  It calls us back to our higher natures, our inherent kindness and our commitment to affirm the infinite value of all sentient beings.  It’s simple enough for a child to understand, yet deep enough to occupy the most skillful philosophers for millennia.  It stands like an ancient monument, yet it’s perennially fresh and invites us in anew moment by moment.  And its universality points to a possibility – that regardless of the wide variety of surface inflections and cultural diversity found in the world’s wisdom traditions, there is an underlying commonality in the human experience that transcends time and culture.  We are far more alike than different.  Our unity is affirmed by our universal values.

We all carry the golden rule within us.  Whether we attune to it or not is another matter.  We are free to ignore it any time we want, and follow instead the dictates and longings of our endless woundedness.  But when we come back to our sacred core we feel once again the inherent wellness of our hearts, and know that we are safe, and that there is always enough.  Only then do we dare to love and be loved, falling into the arms of a truth unbound by space and time – the law of our own infinite value.  And with new eyes we immediately see that all the blessed others around us share in this infinite stance, this infinite abundance.  It is from here that the golden rule makes perfect sense.  We wouldn’t have it any other way.  

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

[A version of this article was originally published in the July/August 2013 edition of Unity Magazine in the "A to Zen" column, and is reprinted here with permission.]

“Truth is One, the sages call it by many names.” – Rig Veda

Religion is the ugliest thing in the world.

Religion is the most beautiful thing in the world.

Now what?

Even a cursory glance at human history reveals a long parade of pain, often driven by the drumbeat of religious arrogance and ideological fanaticism. From prehistory to today’s headlines, drop the needle anywhere on the sad record of human affairs and a mournful noise threatens to drown out the fragile beauty of the world. Again and again the spiritual insights of brilliant teachers were pounded into oppressive ideologies by fearful overlords. The alloys of our compassionate wisdom were forged into swords by the fires of hatred. Crusades, conquests, tribal genocides and ethnic cleansings have always been with us. It’s easy to sympathize with John Lennon in his immortal classic Imagine as he wonders if the human race would be better off without religion. But even in the midst of the Holocaust, Anne Frank saw something bright and everlasting through the vale of tears. “In spite of everything,” she wrote, “I still believe that people are really good at heart.”

Incalculable human suffering is rooted in religious and ideological acrimony, but a contrary fact is also true: the cure for the disease of hatred and violence is found within the principles and practices of the world’s religions. People with deep religious and spiritual convictions do enormous good in the world. Because of their experiential knowing that something sacred and profoundly real is at work in the world (some call it God), religious and spiritual people are willing to emerge from their comfortable cocoons and join together with others in communities defined by purpose, sacred service and right action. They are willing, often at great risk to themselves, to help others. As an antidote is crafted from poison, religion is both the disease and the cure.

As both a blessing and curse, the paradoxical nature of religion has caused great confusion and, in some, debilitating apathy. No matter how you slice it, religion is a many-headed Hydra that defies simple classification. You’ll find whatever you’re looking for. Horrors and beauties abound. It all depends on what you’re looking for.

What we intend to search for in this column is evidence that religion and spirituality in all its many forms offers the best and brightest hope for spurring humankind toward an awakening – an awakening that draws us toward the manifestation of our highest good both as individuals and as a whole. We will comb the world’s wisdom traditions from the Vedas to the Qu’ran, from the Gita to the Torah, from Patanjali to Pythagoras, from the Tao te Ching to the Dhamapada, from the Gospels to the Simpsons – in short, everything from A to Zen. We know, as the Vedas proclaimed three thousand years ago, that “Truth is One – the sages call it by many names,” and no matter where we look, we will find gold.

Truth may be One, but religions are not all the same. They emphasize different facets of the human dilemma, they are founded on often wildly conflicting assertions about human nature and the nature of the universe, they are crafted from different levels of consciousness, they seek specific solutions to specific cultural, social and historical contexts that may no longer exist. But despite the differing surface inflections, there is an underlying unity beneath the waves. It is our goal to look below the surface and find that underlying unity. Despite the apparent cacophony, the great religions of the world are echoes of one ancient song, a song best sung in the here and now by all of us raising our beautiful, disparate voices together as one.

Intention vs. Attachment

It’s important to have goals. How can you build or create anything without first envisioning it, imagining it, wanting it?

Yet clinging too tightly to a specific outcome is destructive to the living, breathing evolutionary process that any real growth entails. How can we make peace with this paradox? How can we simultaneously hold fast while letting go?

An essential quality of wisdom is the ability to discern between intention and attachment.

Intention is a powerful condition of consciousness, a thought-action that reverberates out into the surrounding field re-ordering the elements of the field. Like radio waves, intention travels unseen at the speed of light, bending around corners and influencing the fabric of space and time. Our intentions draw things toward us the way magnets attract and align iron filings. In true intention there is no attachment to any particular outcome – that would be hubris and ultimately destructive to our aims. We simply set intentions, take the next indicated step and let go.

Attachment, on the other hand, is a pathological, egoic, fear-based need to control the people, situations and events in the world around us. Imposing our private preferences on the uncarved whole of the world robs life of its spontaneous, evolutionary energy. Our short-sighted craving places limits on the unlimited potential of the now moment – limits that ultimately restrict the flow of the universe’s infinite abundance into our lives. It’s a terrible irony – by craving we push everything away.

Intention is a state of deep receptivity. Attachment is an impenetrable shell.

Intention is a state of deep cooperation with what is. Attachment is a futile struggle against what is, characterized by resentment, fear and victim-consciousness.

Intention roots deep in the consciousness of gratitude and savors the journey. Attachment is a childish sense of entitlement fueled by grandiose fantasies and fixation on selfish and arbitrarily contrived expectations.

So how do we put this into practice?

Let’s start with a vision. If money were no object, and if the path was wide open, what would you be doing with your life? In other words, if the how were taken care of, what would you be? It’s vitally important to separate the how from the what because once you really commit in full intention to the what, the how takes care of itself. Intention is an aligning energy that orders the surrounding field. Fixating on the how – the logistical complexity and all the hurdles – draws precious energy and resources away from the womb of intention, the great Mother that gives birth to the what.

So you want to be a large animal veterinarian, or a professional musician, or publish a book, or create a non-profit service organization, or work to reverse environmental degradation, or write the next great app. How do you begin?

Let’s talk about farming.

A farmer intends to raise a crop of tomatoes. But she knows she doesn’t really control the process. She merely cuts the channel through which the power of life flows, fully aware that she is not the source of the power. Her stance is one of deep cooperation, not imposition.

It begins with the end in mind – a vision of a bountiful yield. Then comes all the hard work – learning everything you can about every aspect of your endeavor, preparing the soil, finding the right seeds, putting the right kind of team together, co-creating the best possible conditions in which your seeds can unfold from the core of their essential nature, willingly and reverently sacrificing your time, talent and treasure in the singular focus of your aim, all the while knowing that anything and everything could change, and at any given moment you might have to start dancing.

Then you wait.

Remember, you are as much witnessing this process as creating it. A state of deep humility is far more productive than arrogance. We don’t control the weather – the frost, the rain, the heat, the drought – nor do we control the caterpillars or the blackbirds that come and pluck the caterpillars away. We do everything we can to prepare for all likely situations, but in the end our only sane stance is complete and utter surrender. When our fists are clenched we feel only our own fingernails digging into our palms. When our hands are open we feel the sun and the moon and the wind and we are more readily able to receive what is given. And when the harvest is ready, a budding joy comes to fruition along with our tomatoes because there is nothing more satisfying than aligning our energies with the larger forces around us.

This is the great paradox – it is only through surrender that we grow strong, it is only through generosity that we receive everything we need, it is only by emptying out that we become full, it is only by letting go of our slavish attachment to a particular outcome that the highest possible good is able to manifest itself in our lives. Yet there must be intention and clarity of vision. Cooperating with what is already unfolding is different than sitting back and waiting for something to happen. The first requires a state of great alertness. The second looks a lot like napping.

When we fail to discern the difference between intention and attachment, two confusions emerge. The first confusion is the mistaken belief that intention and attachment are the same – that intention is just a fancy word for self-centered craving and hence is to be avoided. People who hold this mistaken view tend to hide from the world, hide their own light, shun success and see ambition as a dirty word. They distrust powerfully creative people while secretly envying them. They bad-mouth the trappings of success and cop an attitude of smug superiority to ward off the chill of their own poverty of spirit.

The second confusion is the mistaken belief that self-seeking and clawing your way to the top is the highest good. Here the line between healthy growth and selfish craving is blurred. The empty pursuit of fame, wealth and glory may result in an accumulation of the outward trappings of success, but the hole inside is never filled. In both of these mistaken approaches, our authentic joy is never realized.

That’s why discerning the difference between intention and attachment is so important. It may be the most important thing of all. Otherwise, all our work is muddled and confused, lost in the dark and far away from the light of the truth that our deepest joy is inexorably intertwined with the joy of others, and only when we work in the consciousness of service are we liberated from cage of our own ego.

Have a vision. Feel deeply where your heart wants to go, and cultivate the courage to follow. Be truthful, have clarity and be specific. But keep a loose hold on the reins and let the road show you where to go. The end is secured by the confidence of the intention. Attachment, on the other hand, constricts the flow and leads only to stagnation. Stay open and highly alert. Perception and awareness are more important than cleverness and guile. Answer the call of your soul – begin now to do the important work of discerning the difference between intention and attachment.

The Five Lies

There are five lies that stand between you and the life you deserve. They block your view, stall your progress and steal your resolve. Don’t bother looking for anyone else to blame. You are their author, their advocate, and their most loyal defender. You need them. They help you stay stuck in the familiar world of incompletion, frustration and unrealized dreams – the only world you’ve ever known. It’s hard to leave home. But it’s time.

Lie # 1: I’m not ready.

You’re not a kid anymore. You’ve been around the block. You have a dream and a clue. You’ve written lists, searched the web and talked to people – lots of people. You’ve even paid for a few workshops and have pages and pages of notes to show for it. Yet you’re stuck. It’s so difficult to know when the groundwork is laid and it’s time to fly.  It’s so easy to imagine that you’re not ready yet, that you can’t possibly begin until everything’s perfect – whatever that is. This is when a trusted friend or life coach can be invaluable. By bringing a fresh pair of eyes and an objective perspective a mentor can help free you from this paralyzing lie. The truth is you are ready, and you’ve been ready for a while.  What you need now is trust. You’ve mistaken fear for caution. As Emerson said, “Once you make a decision the universe conspires to make it happen.” In your bones you know this is true – you’ve felt it many times before. It’s imbedded in your own experience and verified by your own authority. Make a decision – say, I’m ready – and it will be true. Then watch everything fall into place.

Lie # 2: I’m just not good enough to compete at the highest levels.

Our heroes inspire us. They also scare the crap out of us. When you finally meet your hero at a conference or a book signing or backstage or in a crowded elevator you hardly know what to say even though you’ve rehearsed this moment for years. You babble incoherently, painfully aware that ten minutes from now, long after they’re gone, the perfect words will appear. We mistakenly believe that our heroes are higher order beings, mystically endowed with superpowers that will forever elude us. Not true. When they started out they felt exactly like you feel right now – full of doubt and scared to death. But they took one step, and then another, and soon, with the passage of time, they were well on their way. The trick is to stop comparing yourself to anyone else, especially your heroes. You’re right – you could never do what they do. And they could never do what you do either. And that’s that. Stop thinking about them. Take in the inspiration but leave behind the intimidation. The reason they became so great and powerful is because they were fierce and uncompromising in the pursuit of their own personal greatness. They stopped comparing themselves to anyone else. They didn’t say, Where’s the path so that I may follow. They said, The only path is the one behind me, formed by the footsteps of my own artful meandering.

Lie # 3: If I fail, it means I’m a worthless fraud.

The ego mind has a curious knack for exaggerating our weaknesses and overlooking our strengths. This is easily remedied. Come out of your ego mind and see with the unbiased eyes of pure awareness. In this light our so-called failures are simply missteps corrected long ago and eclipsed by all the right moves we’ve made since then. It’s really true that there are no mistakes – every turn in the road revealed new wonders and cultivated new strengths and connections that are now indispensable – we can’t imagine our lives without them. Why will your next so-called mistake be any different? Gifts come in many forms. Accept them all.

Perfectionism is ego attachment plain and simple. Learn to play the fool. When you’re laughing, you’re learning. Mistakes are what growth looks like. Don’t be defined by your mistakes – define them. 

Lie # 4: There’s no more room at the top.

The world is full of self-appointed prophets of doom with bulging briefcases and flashy websites full of evidence that your plan isn’t going to work. And you believe them. In fact, you’ve internalized and blended their voices into one – your very own inner prophet of doom – the master of excuses, the prince of procrastination and the minister of fear. But the truth is far simpler than all of that. The truth is that this thing called the future is unformed, fluid and highly malleable, forged by the mettle of intention and action, shaped by the vision of visionaries and dreamers who have the guts to love what they love and detractors be damned. Henry David Thoreau said it best. “If one advances confidently in the direction of their dreams, and endeavors to live the life they have imagined, they will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” Leave the common hours to the prophets of doom. Dare to speak a deeper truth. Of course there is room at the top. But it’s even crazier than that. There’s no such thing as “the top.” There are just excellent people doing masterful work all over the place, and being rewarded for it. Bring your gifts, without fear and without apology. Never doubt that they will be willingly received by a world hungry for what is brought forth in love.

Lie # 5: Success isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

This is perhaps the most insidious lie of all. We delight in the foibles of the rich and famous. We mock the successful and ascribe nefarious motives to the most gifted and generous of change-agents. We fear wealth because we crave it so pathologically and unconsciously. Our animosity toward the rich is little more than a childish projection of our own self-loathing. We misread and misunderstand success. Success has nothing to do with wealth and power. Success is mastery in our given craft and the well-being that arises when we learn to live authentically. When we follow our bliss, hone our skills and perfect our capacity to give the world what it needs, when we become a powerful agent of the healing of the world, the world will in turn fulfill our every need. Giving and receiving are two names for one circle. When you chase money from the consciousness of scarcity, wealth eludes you. When in your humility you learn how to serve, abundance rains down. This is an unimpeachable law. Stop thinking of success or wealth as a goal, a salve for your self-inflicted wounds. Instead, realize that abundance is the natural state of the universe, and by opening up the circuits you become a conduit for the circulation of love-energy. That’s how we keep what we give away. The fearful never understand this paradox. But you do.

The five lies stand between you and your fullest realization. The longing you feel is the longing of the universe to manifest itself in you, through you and as you. It’s not personal, it’s universal.  The universe is trying to do something amazing. Let it. Stop believing in these five lies. They have no power over you anymore. You’re free to be who you really are. That’s what your soul is asking for. Get out of your own way.

The Question of Happiness

[A version of this article originally appeared in the May/June 2013 edition of Unity Magazine and is reprinted here with permission.]

Self-Actualization, Spiritual Enlightenment and Maslow’s

Hierarchy of Needs 

Sixty years ago, Abraham Maslow broke ground in the field of psychology when his “Hierarchy of Needs” suggested that there was a stepwise approach to realizing well-being. But does it conflict with the spiritual perspective that the “kingdom of heaven” is already within us?

“Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news.  The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be!  How much you can love!  What you can accomplish!  And what your potential is! 

~ Anne Frank

“The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential – these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.”

 ~ Confucius

Psychologist Abraham Maslow wanted to know what happiness was.  Why do some people have it and others don’t? 

For Maslow, happiness is not a simple response to a favorable arrangement of external conditions.  Instead, it is innate and emerges as a by-product of a fully realized life.  Like Aristotle and Confucius before him, Maslow argued that our latent happiness occurs only when we cultivate and manifest our highest potential.  He wrapped his findings into a pyramid-shaped package known as Maslow’s hierarchy. 

            Maslow’s central claim is that human beings have five fundamental sets of needs stacked into a hierarchy.  We all begin at the bottom and work our way up – each tier of needs taking its turn in dominating our thoughts.  Many spiritual traditions teach that we become what we think about – that our thoughts construct our lives.  It’s only natural then that until each set of needs is satisfied, it’s difficult or impossible to think about anything else.  The needs of our current tier eclipse all other concerns.  Only when a set of needs is met does our attention turn to the next stage of development.   

At the base of the pyramid are the physiological needs required for survival – air, water, food, sex and sleep.  These needs form the foundation of the hierarchy. 

When these needs are met, the second stage of needs arise.  Here the focus shifts to security – keeping ourselves and our families safe. 

            With the first two sets of needs satisfied, a longing for deep and meaningful relationships emerges becoming the focus of our lives.  Our thoughts turn to love and intimacy as we cultivate authentic relationships with our friends, life partners and families. 

            The fourth need is healthy self-esteem.  Here we long to thrive in the world of achievement and accomplishment.  Our self confidence expands as our skills increase.  Proficiency blossoms into mastery.  We enjoy the honor and recognition of our peers taking our rightful place in a mutually supportive community. 

With the first four needs satisfied, the fifth and final need arises, the need for self-actualization.  Despite the high quality of our lives there is unfinished business.  Our deepest and most individually specific potentialities remain unrealized.  Here we heed the call to give expression to our innate excellence, performing the work that is uniquely ours to do.  We become self-authorizing, no longer beholden to the crowd for approval or praise.  We freely pursue the good and become autonomous moral agents, guided by deeply held principles, not group norms or the dictates of traditional authority.  We, in a word, become happy.  For Maslow, self-actualization is our highest purpose, the culmination of all the earlier stages of our development. 

Every human being carries within them this deep need for self-actualization.  Until this need is met, we will always feel vaguely restless, dissatisfied and incomplete.   As the Afghani saying goes, “What a shame, to die like a pomegranate with all of one’s seeds still locked up inside.” 

            By placing these needs in a hierarchy, Maslow makes physiological and social well-being a necessary precondition for self-actualization.  But is that true?  Might it be possible to achieve self-actualization while basic survival, security or love needs remain unsatisfied? 

             If, as many spiritual traditions claim, the kingdom of heaven is within us, what difference does it make if we’re rich or poor, loved or lonely, skillful or incompetent?  Are we not to seek first the kingdom and all else will be given to us?  Do we not find many examples of people in poverty or other hardships who nevertheless possess a remarkable measure of spiritual maturity?  If we put self-realization first, would that not re-order and re-cast all of our other so-called needs?

Two competing portraits emerge.  First, it seems reasonable to assert, with Maslow, that basic survival comes before the cultivation of our higher sensibilities.  If you have no air to breath or water to drink, it’s doubtful that spiritual growth would be your first order of business.  And until fundamental safety and security are assured, the pursuit of self-actualization seems a luxury we can ill afford.

Yet there are times when the indomitable human spirit shines brightest in times of crisis.  In the brutality of the Nazi concentration camps, Victor Frankl noted that the prisoners who chose to find meaning did.  Through sheer will power human beings can transcend the inhumanity of their conditions.

Still, it seems cavalier to claim from the safety and comfort of our middle class existence that anyone, anywhere, no matter the conditions of their lives, can realize self-actualization.  Sold into a brothel at the age of nine, becoming a heroin addict at the age of twelve and contracting AIDS at fourteen – it’s absurdly cruel to suggest that none of this impedes the fulfillment of a young girl’s potential.

In the abstract we may argue that material things don’t matter – a position especially easy to take when we already possess them.  But few would argue that the basic requirements of life are inconsequential to human happiness.  Seeds may be storehouses of great potential, but without fertile soil and other external conditions conducive to cultivation, can fruition occur?  And herein lays the confusion.  By self-actualization Maslow did not mean spiritual enlightenment or awakening – he meant the realization of one’s own specific potential.  One cannot become a masterful concert pianist without access to a piano.  One cannot become a writer of profoundly important world literature if one has not had the privilege of an education.  And neither of those things is possible in a war-torn ghetto where families are ripped apart and violent death dogs your every step.

So I guess it just depends on what you mean by happiness.  For Maslow happiness is a by-product of self-actualization and self-actualization is not possible without certain specific environmental and psychological preconditions.  For others happiness is defined as a spiritual condition unmoored from the external world. 

As in the following Zen story, our spiritual traditions tend to emphasize this second perspective.

  Master Ryokan lived alone in a tiny hut.  One night while he was away a thief snuck into the hut only to discover that there was nothing in it worth stealing.  Ryokan returned home and caught the thief warming his hands by the fire.

            “You have come such a long way to visit me,” said Ryokan, “and you should not return empty handed.  Here, please take my clothes as a gift.”

            The thief looked bewildered, took the clothes and slunk away.

            Ryokan sat naked, watching the moon. 

            “Poor fellow,” he mused, “I wish I could give him this beautiful moon.”

            In this Buddhist portrait of enlightened consciousness we certainly recognize a highly evolved being.  As in the teachings of Jesus, Ryokan’s residency in the kingdom of heaven is not dependent on the satiation of lower order needs.   Still, at its core, Buddhist spirituality seeks sublimation into oneness, not the actualization of one’s individual uniqueness.  We can imagine Ryokan enlightened, but we cannot imagine him fulfilled in the western sense.  Self-actualization requires a self.  With the eradication of the ego, there is no one left to fulfill.

            It turns out that self-actualization and spiritual enlightenment are two different goals with distinct pathways and methodologies.  Self-actualization requires the realization of our uniquely individual potentialities while spiritual enlightenment transcends individuality and draws us into a unitive state with the divine. 

            If by happiness we mean our own individual happiness, then Maslow offers a compelling path.  If by happiness we mean transcendence of the separate self and immersion into the One, then the world and its woes offer little resistance – in fact our hardships might even be a catalyst hastening our spiritual ascendency.   

Afterword: The Human Potential Movement

Maslow’s hierarchy is best understood in the context of the human potential movement, a label given to the work of a disparate group of twentieth century psychologists, writers and teachers like Aldous Huxley, Carl Rogers, Victor Frankl, Alan Watts, Michael Murphy, Werner Erhard, Jean Houston and Anthony Robbins, among others. 

In the seventies Erhard was best known as the founder of EST, (Erhard Seminars Training), an influential educational platform with ideological links to Scientology that now goes by the name Landmark Education. 

Murphy founded the Esalen Institute, a Big Sur bastion of the consciousness cognoscenti, hosting seminars by the likes of Joseph Campbell, Carlos Castaneda and Deepak Chopra.  Another frequent presence at Esalen was Abraham Maslow. 

Like other leaders of the human potential movement, Erhard and Murphy both worked hard to synthesize the insights of eastern spirituality and western psychology into a new understanding of humanity’s capacity to steer its own way out of ignorance and toward liberation.  Given the very different portraits of human nature in eastern and western philosophy, such a synthesis may not be possible.  In the west we are forever separate entities in relationship with a larger reality.  In the east we are that larger reality and our perceived individuality is one of the many illusions to be overcome. 

Still, what aligns Maslow with these other luminaries is their assertion that human beings, both collectively and individually, possess a largely untapped ability to lift themselves out of ignorance and claim their birthright as fully realized beings.  This portrait of conscious evolution – from the pursuit of basic needs to self-actualization – puts Maslow’s hierarchy front and center in the human potential movement.