The Thinker 101
the monk who feeds the poor, the teacher of love who turns the other
cheek, not out of cowardice but out of compassion: these people live
a life of fullness, outside of time. Or at least so Jesus and the Buddha
tell us.
Perhaps no life that one cannot wish for as a child off ers a gen-
uine sense of joy. Virtually no child dreams of being an accountant,
an insurance salesman, or even a CEO. Children dream of courage
and goodness— and so, in some regions of their spirits, do many
adults. The poet Schiller compresses matters: “Hold fast to the
dreams of your youth.”
How is it possi ble to talk about both the saint and the warrior as
inhabiting States of Soul when the two ideals seem so diff erent? The
warrior is a man of vio lence who lives for victory; the saint lives to
heal. On some level, the hero loves war; the saint seeks the bless-
ings of peace. But in this world, there will always be the need for
both heroes and saints. Nations and peoples, no matter how just they
may aspire to be, will always have enemies, and will always need
someone to defend them. Plato, humane thinker that he was, could
not imagine a time when there would be no wars. He hoped that a
day would come when Greeks no longer fought with Greeks. But
between Greeks and non- Greeks, the people he thought of as bar-
barians, there would inevitably be strife. And of course the world
will never outgrow its need for compassion. The poor you have al-
ways with you, Jesus said. He might have added that the sick, the
old, the grieving, and the mentally distressed will always be part of
the world too, and they will forever need the ministrations of
loving- kindness.
Perhaps some are made to be warriors, some to be saints— and
perhaps there are those who should stay away from all ideals, not
having the gifts to pursue them. But no culture can go on long pre-
tending that ideals do not exist and that the world is made for Self
and only Self. Without great goals for at least some men and women