altruism

• selflessness inherent in parental love

2:6.4The con­cept of God as a king-judge, al­though it fos­tered a high moral stan­dard and cre­ated a law-re­spect­ing peo­ple as a group, left the in­di­vid­ual be­liever in a sad po­si­tion of in­se­cu­rity re­spect­ing his sta­tus in time and in eter­nity. The later He­brew proph­ets pro­claimed God to be a Fa­ther to Is­rael; Je­sus re­vealed God as the Fa­ther of each hu­man be­ing. The en­tire mor­tal con­cept of God is tran­scen­dently il­lu­mi­nated by the life of Je­sus. Self­less­ness is in­her­ent in pa­ren­tal love. God loves not like a fa­ther, but as a fa­ther. He is the Par­a­dise Fa­ther of ev­ery uni­verse per­son­al­ity.

• spirit of self-forgetfulness; service of one’s fellows

3:5.72. Is al­tru­ism—ser­vice of one’s fel­lows—de­sir­able? Then must life ex­pe­ri­ence pro­vide for en­coun­ter­ing sit­u­a­tions of so­cial in­equal­ity.

• spirit of self-forgetfulness; service of one’s fellows

3:5.138. Is un­selfish­ness—the spirit of self-for­get­ful­ness—de­sir­able? Then must mor­tal man live face to face with the in­ces­sant clam­or­ing of an in­escapable self for recog­ni­tion and honor. Man could not dy­nam­i­cally choose the di­vine life if there were no self-life to for­sake. Man could never lay sav­ing hold on right­eous­ness if there were no po­ten­tial evil to ex­alt and dif­fer­en­ti­ate the good by con­trast.

• unselfishness › by conquest of a belligerent self

3:5.17The crea­tures of Ha­vona are nat­u­rally brave, but they are not coura­geous in the hu­man sense. They are in­nately kind and con­sid­er­ate, but hardly al­tru­is­tic in the hu­man way. They are ex­pec­tant of a pleas­ant fu­ture, but not hope­ful in the ex­qui­site man­ner of the trust­ing mor­tal of the un­cer­tain evo­lu­tion­ary spheres. They have faith in the sta­bil­ity of the uni­verse, but they are ut­ter strangers to that sav­ing faith whereby mor­tal man climbs from the sta­tus of an an­i­mal up to the por­tals of Par­a­dise. They love the truth, but they know noth­ing of its soul-sav­ing qual­i­ties. They are ide­al­ists, but they were born that way; they are wholly ig­no­rant of the ec­stasy of be­com­ing such by ex­hil­a­rat­ing choice. They are loyal, but they have never ex­pe­ri­enced the thrill of whole­hearted and in­tel­li­gent de­vo­tion to duty in the face of temp­ta­tion to de­fault. They are un­selfish, but they never gained such lev­els of ex­pe­ri­ence by the mag­nif­i­cent con­quest of a bel­liger­ent self. They en­joy plea­sure, but they do not com­pre­hend the sweet­ness of the plea­sure es­cape from the pain po­ten­tial.

• reason, morality, and religion necessary for
• unselfishness › unnatural, aside from parental instinct

16:9.7Un­selfish­ness, aside from pa­ren­tal in­stinct, is not al­to­gether nat­u­ral; other per­sons are not nat­u­rally loved or so­cially served. It re­quires the en­light­en­ment of rea­son, moral­ity, and the urge of re­li­gion, God-know­ing­ness, to gen­er­ate an un­selfish and al­tru­is­tic so­cial or­der. Man’s own per­son­al­ity aware­ness, self-con­scious­ness, is also di­rectly de­pen­dent on this very fact of in­nate other-aware­ness, this in­nate abil­ity to rec­og­nize and grasp the re­al­ity of other per­son­al­ity, rang­ing from the hu­man to the di­vine.

16:9.8Un­selfish so­cial con­scious­ness must be, at bot­tom, a re­li­gious con­scious­ness; that is, if it is ob­jec­tive; oth­er­wise it is a purely sub­jec­tive philo­sophic ab­strac­tion and there­fore de­void of love. Only a God-know­ing in­di­vid­ual can love an­other per­son as he loves him­self.

• more blessed to give than to receive

28:6.18The uni­ver­sal econ­omy is based on in­take and out­put; through­out the eter­nal ca­reer you will never en­counter mo­not­ony of in­ac­tion or stag­na­tion of per­son­al­ity. Prog­ress is made pos­si­ble by in­her­ent mo­tion, ad­vance­ment grows out of the di­vine ca­pac­ity for ac­tion, and achieve­ment is the child of imag­i­na­tive ad­ven­ture. But in­her­ent in this ca­pac­ity for achieve­ment is the re­spon­si­bil­ity of ethics, the ne­ces­sity for rec­og­niz­ing that the world and the uni­verse are filled with a mul­ti­tude of dif­fer­ing types of be­ings. All of this mag­nif­i­cent cre­ation, in­clud­ing your­self, was not made just for you. This is not an ego­cen­tric uni­verse. The Gods have de­creed, “It is more blessed to give than to re­ceive,” and said your Mas­ter Son, “He who would be great­est among you let him be server of all.”

• unwise to bestow sympathy upon unsalvable inferiors

52:2.12It is nei­ther ten­der­ness nor al­tru­ism to be­stow fu­tile sym­pa­thy upon de­gen­er­ated hu­man be­ings, un­salv­able ab­nor­mal and in­fe­rior mor­tals. There ex­ist on even the most nor­mal of the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds suf­fi­cient dif­fer­ences be­tween in­di­vid­u­als and be­tween nu­mer­ous so­cial groups to pro­vide for the full ex­er­cise of all those no­ble traits of al­tru­is­tic sen­ti­ment and un­selfish mor­tal min­istry with­out per­pet­u­at­ing the so­cially un­fit and the morally de­gen­er­ate strains of evolv­ing hu­man­ity. There is abun­dant op­por­tu­nity for the ex­er­cise of tol­er­ance and the func­tion of al­tru­ism in be­half of those un­for­tu­nate and needy in­di­vid­u­als who have not ir­re­triev­ably lost their moral her­itage and for­ever de­stroyed their spir­i­tual birthright.

• differences in status essential to development of

64:6.344. Dif­fer­ences in sta­tus of the races and of groups within each race are es­sen­tial to the de­vel­op­ment of hu­man tol­er­ance and al­tru­ism.

• fire provided man with first means of a. without loss

69:6.3Fire was a great civ­i­lizer, pro­vid­ing man with his first means of be­ing al­tru­is­tic with­out loss by en­abling him to give live coals to a neigh­bor with­out de­priv­ing him­self. The house­hold fire, which was at­tended by the mother or el­dest daugh­ter, was the first ed­u­ca­tor, re­quir­ing watch­ful­ness and de­pend­abil­ity. The early home was not a build­ing but the fam­ily gath­ered about the fire, the fam­ily hearth. When a son founded a new home, he car­ried a fire­brand from the fam­ily hearth.

• learned in one’s family

84:7.28Mar­riage, with chil­dren and con­se­quent fam­ily life, is stim­u­la­tive of the high­est po­ten­tials in hu­man na­ture and si­mul­ta­ne­ously pro­vides the ideal av­enue for the ex­pres­sion of these quick­ened at­tri­butes of mor­tal per­son­al­ity. The fam­ily pro­vides for the bi­o­logic per­pet­u­a­tion of the hu­man species. The home is the nat­u­ral so­cial arena wherein the ethics of blood broth­er­hood may be grasped by the grow­ing chil­dren. The fam­ily is the fun­da­men­tal unit of fra­ter­nity in which par­ents and chil­dren learn those lessons of pa­tience, al­tru­ism, tol­er­ance, and for­bear­ance which are so es­sen­tial to the re­al­iza­tion of broth­er­hood among all men.

• only religion lastingly increases

99:1.5A god­less hu­man­i­tar­i­an­ism is, hu­manly speak­ing, a no­ble ges­ture, but true re­li­gion is the only power which can last­ingly in­crease the re­spon­sive­ness of one so­cial group to the needs and suf­fer­ings of other groups. In the past, in­sti­tu­tional re­li­gion could re­main pas­sive while the up­per strata of so­ci­ety turned a deaf ear to the suf­fer­ings and op­pres­sion of the help­less lower strata, but in mod­ern times these lower so­cial or­ders are no longer so ab­jectly ig­no­rant nor so po­lit­i­cally help­less.

• more blessed to give than to receive

100:7.10The Mas­ter was al­ways gen­er­ous. He never grew weary of say­ing, “It is more blessed to give than to re­ceive.” Said he, “Freely you have re­ceived, freely give.” And yet, with all of his un­bounded gen­eros­ity, he was never waste­ful or ex­trav­a­gant. He taught that you must be­lieve to re­ceive sal­va­tion. “For ev­ery one who seeks shall re­ceive.”

• Adjuster gives origin to unselfish interest in welfare of others; leads to happiness

103:1.1The unity of re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence among a so­cial or racial group de­rives from the iden­ti­cal na­ture of the God frag­ment in­dwelling the in­di­vid­ual. It is this di­vine in man that gives ori­gin to his un­selfish in­ter­est in the wel­fare of other men. But since per­son­al­ity is unique—no two mor­tals be­ing alike—it in­evitably fol­lows that no two hu­man be­ings can sim­i­larly in­ter­pret the lead­ings and urges of the spirit of di­vin­ity which lives within their minds. A group of mor­tals can ex­pe­ri­ence spir­i­tual unity, but they can never at­tain philo­sophic uni­for­mity. And this di­ver­sity of the in­ter­pre­ta­tion of re­li­gious thought and ex­pe­ri­ence is shown by the fact that twen­ti­eth-cen­tury the­olo­gians and philoso­phers have for­mu­lated up­ward of five hun­dred dif­fer­ent def­i­ni­tions of re­li­gion. In re­al­ity, ev­ery hu­man be­ing de­fines re­li­gion in the terms of his own ex­pe­ri­en­tial in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the di­vine im­pulses em­a­nat­ing from the God spirit that in­dwells him, and there­fore must such an in­ter­pre­ta­tion be unique and wholly dif­fer­ent from the re­li­gious phi­los­o­phy of all other hu­man be­ings.

• early conflict with self-seeking ego

103:2.4Ev­ery hu­man be­ing very early ex­pe­ri­ences some­thing of a con­flict be­tween his self-seek­ing and his al­tru­is­tic im­pulses, and many times the first ex­pe­ri­ence of God-con­scious­ness may be at­tained as the re­sult of seek­ing for super­hu­man help in the task of re­solv­ing such moral con­flicts.

• Adjuster gives origin to unselfish interest in welfare of others; leads to happiness
• early conflict with self-seeking ego

103:2.7Moral choos­ing is usu­ally ac­com­pa­nied by more or less moral con­flict. And this very first con­flict in the child mind is be­tween the urges of ego­ism and the im­pulses of al­tru­ism. The Thought Ad­juster does not dis­re­gard the per­son­al­ity val­ues of the ego­is­tic mo­tive but does op­er­ate to place a slight pref­er­ence upon the al­tru­is­tic im­pulse as lead­ing to the goal of hu­man hap­pi­ness and to the joys of the king­dom of heaven.

103:2.8When a moral be­ing chooses to be un­selfish when con­fronted by the urge to be self­ish, that is prim­i­tive re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence. No an­i­mal can make such a choice; such a de­ci­sion is both hu­man and re­li­gious. It em­braces the fact of God-con­scious­ness and ex­hibits the im­pulse of so­cial ser­vice, the ba­sis of the broth­er­hood of man. When mind chooses a right moral judg­ment by an act of the free will, such a de­ci­sion con­sti­tutes a re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence.

• more blessed to give than to receive

103:2.9But be­fore a child has de­vel­oped suf­fi­ciently to ac­quire moral ca­pac­ity and there­fore to be able to choose al­tru­is­tic ser­vice, he has al­ready de­vel­oped a strong and well-uni­fied ego­is­tic na­ture. And it is this fac­tual sit­u­a­tion that gives rise to the the­ory of the strug­gle be­tween the “higher” and the “lower” na­tures, be­tween the “old man of sin” and the “new na­ture” of grace. Very early in life the nor­mal child be­gins to learn that it is “more blessed to give than to re­ceive.”

• overdeveloped a. may seriously injure the self

103:2.10Man tends to iden­tify the urge to be self-serv­ing with his ego—him­self. In con­trast he is in­clined to iden­tify the will to be al­tru­is­tic with some in­flu­ence out­side him­self—God. And in­deed is such a judg­ment right, for all such non­self de­sires do ac­tu­ally have their ori­gin in the lead­ings of the in­dwelling Thought Ad­juster, and this Ad­juster is a frag­ment of God. The im­pulse of the spirit Mon­i­tor is re­al­ized in hu­man con­scious­ness as the urge to be al­tru­is­tic, fel­low-crea­ture minded. At least this is the early and fun­da­men­tal ex­pe­ri­ence of the child mind. When the grow­ing child fails of per­son­al­ity uni­fi­ca­tion, the al­tru­is­tic drive may be­come so overde­vel­oped as to work se­ri­ous in­jury to the wel­fare of the self. A mis­guided con­science can be­come re­spon­si­ble for much con­flict, worry, sor­row, and no end of hu­man un­hap­pi­ness.

• Adjuster gives origin to unselfish interest in welfare of others; leads to happiness

103:5.1The early evo­lu­tion­ary mind gives ori­gin to a feel­ing of so­cial duty and moral obli­ga­tion de­rived chiefly from emo­tional fear. The more pos­i­tive urge of so­cial ser­vice and the ide­al­ism of al­tru­ism are de­rived from the di­rect im­pulse of the di­vine spirit in­dwelling the hu­man mind.

• Adjuster gives origin to unselfish interest in welfare of others; leads to happiness

103:5.3All men rec­og­nize the moral­ity of this uni­ver­sal hu­man urge to be un­selfish and al­tru­is­tic. The hu­man­ist as­cribes the ori­gin of this urge to the nat­u­ral work­ing of the ma­te­rial mind; the re­li­gion­ist more cor­rectly rec­og­nizes that the truly un­selfish drive of mor­tal mind is in re­sponse to the in­ner spirit lead­ings of the Thought Ad­juster.

• only a well-unified personality can arbitrate multiform contentions regarding

103:5.4But man’s in­ter­pre­ta­tion of these early con­flicts be­tween the ego-will and the other-than-self-will is not al­ways de­pend­able. Only a fairly well uni­fied per­son­al­ity can ar­bi­trate the mul­ti­form con­tentions of the ego crav­ings and the bud­ding so­cial con­scious­ness. The self has rights as well as one’s neigh­bors. Nei­ther has ex­clu­sive claims upon the at­ten­tion and ser­vice of the in­di­vid­ual. Fail­ure to re­solve this prob­lem gives ori­gin to the ear­li­est type of hu­man guilt feel­ings.

• noble soul is generous among the grasping

131:3.6“The fool has said in his heart, ‘Evil shall not over­take me’; but safety is found only when the soul craves re­proof and the mind seeks wis­dom. The wise man is a no­ble soul who is friendly in the midst of his en­e­mies, tran­quil among the tur­bu­lent, and gen­er­ous among the grasp­ing. Love of self is like weeds in a goodly field. Self­ish­ness leads to grief; per­pet­ual care kills. The tamed mind yields hap­pi­ness. He is the great­est of war­riors who over­comes and sub­dues him­self. Re­straint in all things is good. He alone is a su­pe­rior per­son who es­teems virtue and is ob­ser­vant of his duty. Let not anger and hate mas­ter you. Speak harshly of no one. Con­tent­ment is the great­est wealth. What is given wisely is well saved. Do not to oth­ers those things you would not wish done to you. Pay good for evil; over­come evil with the good.

• unselfishness › badge of greatness

140:4.6Strong char­ac­ters are not de­rived from not do­ing wrong but rather from ac­tu­ally do­ing right. Un­selfish­ness is the badge of hu­man great­ness. The high­est lev­els of self-re­al­iza­tion are at­tained by wor­ship and ser­vice. The happy and ef­fec­tive per­son is mo­ti­vated, not by fear of wrong­do­ing, but by love of right do­ing.

• more blessed to give than to receive

140:8.18Je­sus would make all men God­like and then stand by sym­pa­thet­i­cally while these sons of God solve their own po­lit­i­cal, so­cial, and eco­nomic prob­lems. It was not wealth that he de­nounced, but what wealth does to the ma­jor­ity of its devo­tees. On this Thurs­day af­ter­noon Je­sus first told his as­so­ciates that “it is more blessed to give than to re­ceive.”

• unselfishness › no Latin word for

195:3.3Chris­tian­ity came into fa­vor in Rome at a time when there was great con­tention be­tween the vig­or­ous teach­ings of the Sto­ics and the sal­va­tion promises of the mys­tery cults. Chris­tian­ity came with re­fresh­ing com­fort and lib­er­at­ing power to a spir­i­tu­ally hun­gry peo­ple whose lan­guage had no word for “un­selfish­ness.”