BOOK REVIEW: 'Meditations' by Marcus Aurelius
“If you want to gain control of pain, open up this blessed book and enter deep within it. Its wealth of philosophy will bring you to see with ease all the future, the present, and the past, and you will see that joy and distress have no more power than smoke.”
— Simokattes Theophylaktos (wrote poem dedicated to last meditation)
Of all books I have read, there is nothing quite as uplifting and as rich as this series of meditations. I will not pretend to be neutral and scholarly in reviewing this book – for it has genuinely garnered so much excitement from me, so much knowledge about life that I cannot stand on my own two feet, I cannot but leap for joy.
Before I even talk about this book, I will give you three powerful excerpts:
“And what is it you will resent? Human wickedness? Recall the conclusion that rational creatures are born for each other’s sake, that tolerance is a part of justice, that wrongdoing is not deliberate.”
“Yes, death and life, fame and ignominy, pain and pleasure, wealth and poverty – all these come to good and bad alike, but they are not in themselves either right or wrong: neither then are they inherent good or evil.”
“Remove the judgement, and you have removed the thought ‘I am hurt’: remove the thought ‘I am hurt’, and the hurt itself is removed.”
What I find most intrinsic to Aurelius’ thought, is the fact that the World, that is, everything, is all part of a unity, a Whole, and directed by a Oneness – and this can only mean God: there is this monotheistic undertone throughout the entire meditations. Here is an example:
“Constantly observe all that comes about through change, and habituate yourself to the thought that the nature of the Whole loves nothing so much as to change one form of existence into another, similar but new.”
And this is true indeed: God has divinised the human form and has made it new through Jesus Christ, making it new and purified from the Original sin of Adam. Now, this is obviously a deep stretch, because Aurelius’ knowledge of Christianity was very limited, hearing only of the distant martyrs who died for Christ’s sake while knowing nothing or little of who Christ was. However, Meditations serves as a truthful and authentic book for learning how to be Christian: to endure through our suffering (our Cross) with a strength of will, and firmness of mind, knowing that it is good.
Aurelius also teaches us not to put off by the great evil in the world, but with a patience that only the ignorant will discard as mere naivety, declares that no one is inherently evil. That we should all bear with patience towards those who are misguided and commit wrongs, recognising each and every one of us as a part of and intrinsic to the Oneness, the Whole, the body of Christ. For when we all die, we will all be judged not on whether our expectancy of the good has been fulfilled, but rather on the expectancy itself: if we truly believe some people will not change, we are of a small-minded, hateful expectancy, and this is a cardinal sin. Hear what Aurelius writes:
“When someone does you some wrong, you should consider immediately what judgement of good or evil led him to wrong you. When you see this, you will pity him, and not feel surprise or anger. You yourself either still share his view of good, or something like it, in which case you should understand and forgive: if, on the other hand, you no longer judge such things as either good or evil, it will be the easier for you to be patient with the unsighted.”
We should not focus on the evil! This is a great fallacy! Focus on the good and you will see that is all there is: everyone lies inside the good, for God is everywhere, and God is working everywhere – “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.” (John 5:17). This is in present tense. Aurelius also sees this when he writes:
“‘All’s right that happens in the world.’ Examine this saying carefully, and you will find it true.”
Read this book. I cannot stress how great it is, for Christians and perhaps even more so the non-Christians, atheists and religious alike.