Review

Common Wisdom

Many have recognized that the best contribution you can make to humanity is to know yourself and work on yourself. These teachers of wisdom are not referring to getting fit or learning more, but rather to being the change you want to see in the world. This Framework for making generation of goodness a quality of your life specifies the features of such a project. Its heart is found, not surprisingly, in building your character.

Blaise Pascal, Pensées, 1670: "The strength of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts."

The Framework is a tool for your use of goodness as a guiding principle for living. It is not an instrument for making judgements about the goodness of others.

Bringing goodness to life requires a belief in goodness, but not in God, as many great thinkers have concluded. Buddhism, for example, is atheistic. While the framework is not derived from or tied to any religious doctrine, it resonates with the deepest spirit of them all.

The Framework

The diagram below shows the build up of Centres and Channels starting with the hierarchy revealed by the components of goodness framework.

Better viewing: narrow or close left navigation column; use browser zoom if needed.

It helps to know these Frameworks The Framework depends on awareness and application of the various components of goodness implicit in the Centres.

The various features in this Tree framework appear to correlate with repeated foci of philosophical debate and psychological discussions about living a good life, especially in regard to the significance of character. Whole books have been (and still are) written to affirm and illustrate the significance of just one Channel.

Bringing goodness to life targets every deliberate individual choice in terms of the intrinsic duality: serving the self (i.e. egotism) v serving the other (i.e. altruism). Unlike much that is written and exhorted about being good and denying your ego (self), this Framework is unequivocal that you must serve yourself, because it is your ego-self that is necessary to serve others.

It is nonsense to say that we are «really» selfish. It makes far more sense to affirm that I must be realistic about who I am and what I do, while watching for and inhibiting inappropriate and unnecessary egocentric intrusions.

Goodness will come into our life, with its many attendant benefits, if we only perceive that our self can be an instrument for others, and that it therefore needs due care and attention. If I am to love others as I love myself, then the only limit to how much I should love myself is my level of spiritual energy.

The final full picture is shown again below.

Reflections

Review the foundation of goodness: Ultimate values.
The existence of the various frameworks in the Root Complex of the Taxonomy has been as exciting to discover as it was unexpected. With this tree framework, the exploration of our better Self is ended for now. See some further reflections.

Originally posted: 10-Aug-2013

All posted material is part of a scientific project and should be regarded as provisional. Visitors are encouraged to think through the topics and propositions for themselves. Copyright © Warren Kinston 2009-2016.
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