Morality from Within

A PRAGMATIC IDEA OF SAINTLINESS

“The collective name for the ripe fruits of religion in a character is Saintliness. The saintly character is the character for which spiritual emotions are the habitual centre of the personal energy; and there is a certain composite photograph of universal saintliness, the same in all religions, of which the feature can easily be traced.

1. A feeling of being in a wider life than that of this world’s selfish little interests; and a conviction, not merely intellectual, but as it were sensible, of the existence of an Ideal Power. . . .
2. A sense of the friendly continuity of the ideal power with our own life, and a willing self-surrender to this control.
3. An immense elation and freedom, as the outline of the confining selfhood melt down.
4. A shifting of the emotional centre toward loving and harmonious affections, towards ‘yes, yes,’ and away from ‘no,’ where the claims of the non-ego are concerns.”

William James. The Varieties of Religious Experience. 1902.


OBSERVATION

James goes on to note the practical indistinguishability of the lives of saints, whether they go under the banner of stoic, Christian, Buddhist or, presumably, Jewish, Sufi, Hindu, Jain, animist, etc. He lists certain characteristics that set saints apart: asceticism, strength of soul, purity, and charity. Obviously, James is pointing us toward some universal here--not a prescribed life for all to follow, but a universal in the sense that the most tuned-in among us appear to embrace strikingly similar ways of living. Though all but a few fall well short of the holy state James describes, a lesson is clear for the masses as well: it’s how you live your life, not the liturgy or incantations your mouth, and how you live your life is the truest manifestation of your character and spiritual development.

CS