Last week I raised the following question: How can I know there is an objective meaning? That is, how do I know I am being called upon to act in one particular way or another?
One person responded to my post and said that it doesn’t really matter what you do. Everything turns out in the end to be what was “supposed to happen.”
Viktor Frankl would disagree. He would say that the conditions you are given in life are not accidental. At every point in time a unique situation, unique individual and unique opportunity converge. If you have correctly grasped the situation and have been listening to your inner voice you will discern the one most suitable and therefore “right” response. What do you think?
The question about whether or not there is one right thing to do leads to a further question: How can I trust myself to know what is the right thing for me to do in a given situation?
From a religious standpoint we would phrase the question this way: How can I trust myself to know what God wants from me? Many religious people would answer: “You cannot trust yourself. You have to simply do as you’re told.”
There is a different answer given by one religious figure. Rav Avraham Yitzchak Hacohen Kook draws a parallel between character identification and moral awareness.
How can I identify someone? I can ask you to locate a particular person in one of two ways. I can tell you that this person is wearing a blue shirt and walks with a limp or I can tell you that I want you to find Sam for me because I know that you know who Sam is.
The advantage to finding Sam based on my description of him is that you don’t have to know who he is. But the disadvantage is that you might end up bringing me someone else who is wearing a blue shirt and walks with a limp. If you know Sam, that’s the best guarantee that you’ll find the right person. Then there’s no doubt about it whatsoever.
We can draw a parallel, says Rav Kook, between character identification and moral awareness. Just as the sense perception of knowing who Sam is, is far superior to using identifying characteristics similarly the ability to intuit what is ethical, reasonable and true is far superior to logic. First of all there is a possibility of logical error. Worse, you can be misled by psychological urges that prevent you from seeing the truth so that what appears to be a rational argument is in fact coming from your distorted perceptions and false beliefs.
Every person has an intuitive, deep-seated knowledge of what is right or wrong that is far superior logic. (As Frankl says, “Logos is deeper than logic.”) You can count on your intuitive sense to steer you in the right direction just as you can count on your sense perceptions to tell you that this is Sam and not Bill.
However, you have to preserve your intuitive sense by developing yourself emotionally and spiritually so that your perceptions will come from a healthy place. (My translation: Get therapy so that you will be emotionally healthy and from a place of emotional health you will know what God wants from you.)
Furthermore, like all of the human inclinations the intuitive sense of right and wrong is God-given. You have this ability for a good purpose. – Use it! And we sense when we are ignoring our intuition. Rav Kooks statement, “The soul will not find complete rest until one combines one’s intellectual understanding with one’s deep-seated emotional awareness” echoes Viktor Frankl’s statement “Man’s heart is restless until it has found and realized meaning.”
Rav Kook continues by describing what happens when we lose sight of our intuitive knowledge. “As the soul becomes weakened and loses its natural inner emotional vitality it is left limping along on the power of logic alone. True, logic can bring understandings to light, but these understandings will be missing all the warmth and inner certainty that a healthy internal intuitive sense and emotional perceptiveness brings. (Rav Kook, Ein Aya Shabbat, Ch 2 par 106)
How can you know what is right? If you are honest with yourself, you know. What is life like when you trust and believe in yourself? You tell me…