Agapé and 3 Aspects of Reality

There are 3 aspects of reality that must be accepted in order for life to flourish. And yet, sadly for our survival, most people in modern civilization try to do the opposite — they desperately try to deny that acceptance. Of course, that only causes more suffering.

These same people have been misled by the modern world to think that civilization will protect them from those 3 aspects of reality. Such desperate effort to avoid acceptance is what causes a great deal of mental suffering and anguish. All that effort only leads to the illusion that they won’t have to concern their little selves about accepting them.

But at least there have been English words for the first 2 aspects. And in the 14th Century, as England changed from using Latin as the main language for religion, Christian leaders tried to invent a new word for the 3rd aspect. But so strong was the effort to keep from accepting the 3rd aspect that the English word’s meaning became corrupted until now it doesn’t mean anything like what it was meant to convey spiritually.

Those original English words for 3 aspects of reality were death, pain, and charity.

Most people have been indoctrinated to think that civilization was developed in order to keep them from having to accept the reality of death, pain, and charity.

ASPECT #1 = DEATH. Even though modern civilization has been franticly extending life expectancy, the most that has been accomplished is to get a few people to live passed 100. But it has become very dangerous for people to long to live forever. Eventually, every single person must face the reality that death comes to all beings. So we might as well accept it.

ASPECT #2 = PAIN. Even though modern civilization has been indoctrinating people to think that the purpose of the vast medical industry is to eliminate pain, that also is impossible. So much mental suffering has been caused by not accepting the reality that all people will experience pain in life. More suffering has been caused by trying to avoid pain than actually comes from pain.

ASPECT #3 = AGAPé. I use the Greek word in its ancient meaning because there no longer is any English word that conveys the original, spiritual meaning. When European scholars first translated the Latin version of the Bible, they discovered a problem: there was no word in French, German, or English to translate the Latin word pronounced ‘chár-itis.’ They should have gone to the original Greek version to try understanding why that Latin word was a very rough translation of the Greek ‘agapé.’ The English scholars took a cue from French scholars and invented the English word ‘charity.’ The main point is that the Latin did not use their word for ‘love,’ just as the Greek version did not use any of the normally used Greek words for ‘love.’ But the efforts had grown so strong in the 19th Century to avoid the spiritual meaning of the word, that all English translations changed ‘charity’ to ‘love.’ At least by going back to the Greek word, ‘agapé,’ the chances might be better to try getting modern people’s attention to see the spiritual meaning. Such effort is the purpose of this blog.