UNHAPPY DISQUIET: SEEKING LIBERATION FROM
THE HUMAN CONDITION
Akhil Gupta, Founder UEF
Across the vast tapestry of religions, a common thread emerges: the recognition of a flawed human condition. All major religions grapple with this paradox — a humanity capable of immense love and creation, yet prone to destructive tendencies.
Christianity, for instance, views the origin of human flaw in the fall of Adam and Eve. Their disobedience introduced sin, a pervasive force that taints our nature and separates us from God’s grace. This inherent flaw necessitates redemption through faith in Jesus Christ, who offers a path to overcome sin and achieve salvation.
Similarly, Judaism emphasizes the concept of yetzer hara, the evil inclination. This internal struggle between good and bad resides within all humans, making us susceptible to temptation. However, Judaism offers the Torah, a guide for ethical living, and the concept of teshuvah, repentance, as a way to overcome our flaws and strive for a righteous life.
Eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism take a different approach. Hinduism posits the concept of karma, the law of cause and effect. Our actions, both good and bad, have consequences that shape our present and future lives. This inherent imperfection necessitates a cycle of rebirth, where we strive for moksha, liberation from the cycle, by overcoming our flaws through good karma and spiritual growth.
Buddhism views human suffering as a fundamental truth. This suffering arises from our desires and attachments. Through the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, Buddhism offers a way to recognize these flaws and achieve enlightenment, a state of liberation from suffering.
If we reflect more deeply, we will notice that we human beings are born with many physical limitations in the grand scheme of life. Our eyes cannot see everything in the physical universe; Our limited spectrum excludes infrared, ultraviolet, and much more that other organisms can access. We cannot hear sound with some frequencies that bats and animals can hear. Hence, our common-sense experiences can be very deceptive and do not accurately represent the true nature of reality. Science concurs: when you see a piece of wood, it appears solid, but science has proven that wood, and all matter, is 99.5% space.
Due to our limited cognitive ability to comprehend the complex reality we face in our lives, we continue to struggle as a species, and are prone to cognitive biases engaging in attitudes and behaviours that are damaging to individuals and society.
Some religions view this inherent flawed condition as a source of potential for growth. In Islam, for instance, the concept of fitrah, the pure and natural inclination towards good, exists within each person alongside the nafs, the lower self with its desires. This struggle between the two becomes a driving force for spiritual development.
Furthermore, many religions emphasize the potential for redemption and forgiveness. Christianity offers the possibility of grace through faith. Judaism highlights the power of repentance and striving towards righteousness. Even in Eastern traditions, the path to liberation or enlightenment is open to all who are willing to confront their flaws and undertake the necessary journey.
Hindus believe that we are all potentially divine and need to see through the veil of MAYA (illusion) to realise our true selves. Hindus and Buddhists both seek moksha and nirvana, the respective terms for liberation or enlightenment, which will put an end to the cycle of birth and death (samsara) that continues to bring us back to earth in our flawed material bodies. Until then, however, we are advised to honestly recognise our flaws and bring this awareness into our spiritual practices.
The Abrahamic traditions direct us to redeem ourselves by returning to our state of original goodness. The goal of Taoism is to achieve original simplicity, while Confucius believed deeply in human beings’ fundamentally good nature, which can be recovered by chipping away at our flaws through education and reform. Buddhism teaches that we all possess the Buddha Nature, which is achievable by wiping out ignorance.
Thus, all religions help us recognise that we have limits but can also touch universal limitlessness through various zetetic practices. We do not need to step away from our daily lives to experience that; rather, those practices are meant to be incorporated into our daily routine.
Insightful Quotes on Flawed Human Condition
Christianity
“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”
– The New Testament (John 1:8), Christian text
Judaism
“A righteous man falls down seven times and gets up.”
– The Hebrew Bible (Proverbs, 24:16), Jewish text
Islam
“Man was truly created anxious: he is fretful when misfortune touches him, but tight-fisted when good fortune comes his way.”
– Qur’an (70:19–20), Islamic text
Baha’i
“In man there are two natures; his spiritual or higher nature and his material or lower nature. In one he approaches God, in the other he lives for the world alone. Signs of both these natures are to be found in men. In his material aspect he expresses untruth, cruelty and injustice; all these are the outcome of his lower nature. The attributes of his Divine nature are shown forth in love, mercy, kindness, truth and justice, one and all being expressions of his higher nature.”
– ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Baha’i leader
Hinduism
“The human desire to transcend the limitations of the physical is a completely natural one. To journey from the boundary-based individual body to the boundless source of creation — this is the very basis of the spiritual process.”
– Sadhguru, Indian author and spiritual teacher
Buddhism
“Now this, monks, for the spiritually ennobled, is the painful (dukkha) true reality (ariya-sacca): birth is painful, ageing is painful, illness is painful, death is painful; sorrow, lamentation, (physical) pain, unhappiness and distress are painful; union with what is disliked is painful; separation from what is liked is painful; not to get what one wants is painful; in brief, the five bundles [form, feeling, perception, formations, consciousness] of grasping-fuel are painful.”
– Samyutta Nikaya, Buddhist text
Taoism
“Chuang Tzu launches into […] attacks on the way in which the people’s true innate nature has been lost and broken. He pictures a perfect world when all were equal and none had any sense of being greater or lesser. They just followed their innate nature. He then depicts the fall from this age of primal, innate, natural living.”
– The Book of Chuang Tzu, Taoist text
Confucianism
“The Master said, ‘It is these things that cause me concern: failure to cultivate virtue, failure to go more deeply into what I have learned, inability, when I am told what is right, to move to where it is, and inability to reform myself when I have defects.’”
– The Analects (7:3), Confucian text
Modern Psychology and Philosophy
“The human being is an open possibility, incomplete and incompletable. Hence he is always more and other than what he has brought to realization in himself.”
– Karl Jaspers, psychiatrist and philosopher
