Independence

INDEPENDENCE

The virtue of selflessness has a special name. From a purely linguistic point of view, it is a negative term. Yet it represents perhaps the rarest of positive qualities. The word “gain,” reported from the root of this expression, is positive, lawful, right, just. But if its negation is highly positive, apparently the word profit can sometimes have a negative flavor, or turn into something outwardly negative. Whenever profit is consistent with the requirement of justice, it is something positive. However, as soon as it becomes an end in itself – profit, for profit – its positivity is lost, and everything degenerates into egocentrism, narcissism, egoism, etc., depending on what aspect of the human aspect of the human being, and one becomes profiteering.

Selflessness is the “condition sine qua non” of the growth, existence, and authenticity of the human personality, more precisely of its moral character. Who consider from this point of view the saying of Jesus, “Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Mt 16:23), will discover with immense surprise that Jesus did not utter a paradox here, but that – if in this context we set aside the biblical-theological meaning in the narrower sense – he was expressing a condition of moral self-preservation or self-preservation. But this would mean at the same time that to lose or seek to lose one’s own life for God is a path to self-preservation or self-mastery on a level that is utterly unknown to others.

But what if one does it out of calculation, out of selfishness? In a relationship with God, this is not true, for God never comes out from behind the scenes. If he did, he would overwhelm man with His goodness, His beauty, His greatness… just as the endless sea captivates a drop of water on a cliff. But God is hidden, and man is left only with faith – faith in goodness, justice, love, faithfulness, etc. God is thus “in statu viae” (still on the way) to the human being. Appears as the best goods, or even as the greatest good, or – only for very penetrating intelligence – as the infinity of all good.

But even then it does not irresistibly attract a man – because of the heaviness of his carnality. That is why man retains his freedom, even towards God. If, therefore, man freely, and thus unselfishly, chooses God, after a time he will see that he has not given up his personality, but has preserved it, that he has not given up himself, but has established himself in his authenticity, that he has not lost Selflessness his freedom but has enhanced it, that he has not emptied himself inwardly but has attained a higher stage of existence. Certainly, he has not yet had an ecstatic experience of it – apart from a few happy moments – but it is nevertheless a reason for unquestioning hope. At the same time, with these experiences, he realizes that the more selflessly he devotes himself to God, the more he grows and strengthens as a free, autonomous personality (“Ama et fac quod vis” – Love and do what you want). Every advance in selflessness means a further degree of authentication of the self, and conversely, with every self-direction one moves in the direction of the desire to “want to save one’s life,” and thus impoverishes oneself.

Without selflessness, there is no progress in either moral or virtuous
life. Man is bound by something. It reminds me of the incident of the two bon vivants who spent a long evening in a noisy society and then hired a boat to return home. They rowed for hours until it started to growl. They saw with horror that they had not got away from the shore, nor …within twenty yards of the shore. They had forgotten to untie the boat from the shore. It’s a picture of people anchored in themselves. As long as they don’t detach themselves from the
…or cut the rope, they can’t get a step ahead on the road to moral perfection. The virtue of selflessness thus inspires, motivates, and directs man to seek neither material reward nor recognition nor gratitude in anything, much less that satisfaction, which is incomparably more difficult for a man to renounce than anything else: inner self-satisfaction.

It is all the more difficult because one does not know what and how to grasp, where to begin, and often realizes too soon a fact that devalues everything – the self-satisfied reflection on the positive deed he has done. If it fails to remove it, the fragile virtue of selflessness is shattered,  as if it were made of the finest crystal. This apt comparison gives us enables us to understand why the good done by a self-satisfied glance at it disintegrates as soon as it has been successfully performed. It means, perhaps, that one must not fix one’s inward gaze on the well-done deed. Certainly not. The destruction of the effects of a good deed, and or the virtue of selflessness, comes only by admiring oneself – instead of God. Thus – to stay with what has already been said of the image – not only does one shatter the fine crystal, but one also wounds one by the shards. Hence the double harm. But is a man capable of absolute selflessness? Yes, but only in single moments of action. In the long run and for a lifetime.