Key points about Marcus Aurelius:
- Lived during the 2nd century, when the Roman empire was vast - from Scotland to Iraq. One language, one coinage, one law.
- Wanted to become a philosopher, a true “lover of wisdom,” a searcher for wisdom needed to live one’s life.
- Aurelius wrote Meditations, or Thoughts to Myself, in the evenings in his tent while he campaigned to protect the borders of the Roman empire
On god and fate:
- Aurelius believed in the god of the Greek Stoics, a god who is all-good, all-beneficent, all-knowing. Everything that happens is good because god would not let anything bad happen. [Note the monotheistic idea]
- One should not be annoyed by an irritating person because every person has a part of the divine (a soul), and is a vehicle for doing good.
- God decreed a fate for each individual, and each individual must work out his own destiny. The latter is true whether one or not one believes in fate. In fact, part of the meaning of life is to perform one’s duty to the best of one’s ability.
- People have no control over their property, other people, or even their reputations. God controls events. Therefore, there is no need to grieve over the death of a loved one: that person never belonged to another.
Meditations offers advice on how to live one’s life. First, the only things that one can control are the mind, the thoughts of one’s mind, and the actions based on those thoughts.
- The mind must be trained through meditation and contemplation (not books) to lead to understanding. [Note similarity to the meditation of yoga and the prayer of Christianity.]
- Actions by other people do not harm a person. A person is harmed only if he believes that he has been harmed.
- Question for me (I know, not a unique one): If god controls everything, can we really control our minds or our thoughts?
Second, one should study great books only because they present the values needed to live life to find freedom. These “central” values include the following:
- Truth: an absolute value
- Justice: the Golden Rule
- Courage: to stand up for justice
- Moderation
- Wisdom: to know what justice is, to know when courage is required, and to stand up for something that is right
Power, honor, and ambition are false ideals that lead people astray. The desire to have and maintain power is a false goal because power vanishes after death. For example, whom do we remember more: people like Socrates who stood up for the central values, or the people cited by Machiavelli?
Education is freedom, freedom from worry about this world and from the fear of death. Fear of death implies a wisdom about something that people know nothing about. The goal of education is to enable people to understand their duty, to find their assigned tasks, and to perform them to the best of their ability. [Note the similarity to the Bhagavad Gita]
Aurelius believed that the world is beautiful and full of god’s glory. Therefore, his philosophy can be summarized as follows, “Get out of bed, get on with your duty, and appreciate what is around you. That is the meaning of life.”
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Based on Aurelius’ philosophy, I can see how one can life an ethical life without a personal vision of god (or fate) because his philosophy rests on two assumptions: (1) everything that happens is good; and (2) one has a duty to perform.
Aurelius offers practical advice on how to live not only an ethical life, but also a happy one. Regardless of whether one believes in fate, there is comfort in the fact that one has a duty to perform. Shirking one’s duty leads to unhappiness. The challenges lie figuring out that duty (as I have tried to do at times of my life: after grad school, after giving birth to my first child), and how to perform it to the best of one’s ability. Contemplating on the central values and the ultimate good of life would help deal with those challenges.
I particularly like Aurelius’ take on irritating people: these people only harm me because I believe it to be so. So, why bother?
Aurelius’ Meditations is another book I’ll have to look up (along with Bonhoeffer, Fadimann’s Lifetime Reading Plan, and Adler’s Great Ideas - wait, I think I actually might have the last one!). I wish Fears had recommended translations. Will have to look up his courses or email him at the University of Oklahoma.
