Says it all
Have you ever wondered what it is we all share?
Anthropologists might call this class of things “cultural universals.” Whenever I looked, all I could think of were things like a smile, a wink, a yawn.
And then one day it hit me. I was approaching it from the wrong angle. I was looking at what it is we all do. When I looked at what it is we all want, I saw we all want to be happy. We all want to be joyful. We all want to be courageous.
And what, as a class, are these things that we all value? Why, they’re the divine qualities. Happiness, joy, love, bliss, courage, compassion , etc.
We all respond to them when we see them in others.
Everyone enjoys hearing about them and being inspired. We all tell stories in which we figure as the heroic deliverer … of whatever … and emerge feeling proud. Which is a country mile away from feeling love or bliss. Don’t stop there.
As satisfying as these what I used to call “howdido” conversations are, they don’t hold a candle to love, bliss, and joy. These divine states of consciousness are, or turn out to be, everything we ever wanted. Not in form, but in substance.
Love completely satisfies. Bliss is over the top. Who, once they’ve tasted either, would reject them?
The cultural universals were staring me in the face. Now to build a new vein of cultural research on that foundation – that the divine qualities or states of consciousness are what humans universally value. They form cultural universals, transcending ethnicity, religion, politics, etc., recognized and aspired to by all.