Seeking Salvation: RH'L4 in Practice

Up-Side

The happiness that flows from the focusing your life on salvation-RH'L4 is the feeling or knowledge that someone who was in dire need or at serious risk is now safe and even flourishing.

ClosedIs altruism self-interest in disguise?

However impersonal, any Primal Quest is personal in the sense that a person is its agent. So it can be called self-interested. But this label adds nothing to our understanding. The self-interest associated with helping a series of needy individuals within a Salvation Quest is of an entirely different ethical order from:

► a single episode of genuine kindness,
which is a vast ethical distance from:
► buying something cheaply or enjoying a mountain walk.

Anonymity is often desired or recommended in charity work in order to avoid or reduce self-interest drives. However, this may not be feasible in many salvation activities.

Rambam affirmed that the highest form of charity is true service to others—not just giving money. The aim for a saviour should be to personally strengthen a person so they can become self-reliant: possibly by finding a job or entering into a partnership. Saving their soul doesn't come into the equation.

The intrinsic challenge for those on the Salvation Quest is to be found in human imperfection. The goal of re-establishing someone in society or enabling them to enter a new, more constructive mode of living is an aspiration. However, the recipient's inner strength and capability to benefit from assistance is often not known in advance. Part of the imperfection is also «man's inhumanity to fellow man».
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In their social context, the saviour attracts respect and support, which often translates into financial donations and public honours. The scale of activities that someone on this Quest attempts will depend on their other personal qualities. Each does what they can, and there is a marked contrast with care that is bureaucratically or ideologically provided.

The typical means involves applying relevant knowledge and expertise which enables, for example: employing, working, healing, caring, curing, educating, and preventing or protecting from a specific obvious danger.

Down-Side

In determining what if anything to do, there is a necessity to develop «rescue fantasies»—images of what might be the result if helping measures are taken. The temptation is to take these fantasies too seriously and either become grandiose and self-important or exploitative.

This touches on the inherent problem in the Salvation Quest, which is how to appraise dangers and determine the state of need, in the context of your available strengths and resources. Attempt too much and the recipient gains little or is further disadvantaged, while you are weakened and possibly ridiculed. Attempt too little and the recipient cannot benefit, resources are wasted, and you feel dissatisfied and distressed.

Like any Quest, Salvation can lead to negative states. Here they take the form of painful feelings of helplessness, even guilt, in the face of suffering. You may experience futility due to the persistent inhumane handling of people by powerful agents. Recovery requires inwardly reaffirming the value of every single human being. Then you can return to doing what is personally possible for those near at hand.

  • Next: practical aspects of the Primal Quest for Creation.

Originally posted: 29-Jun-2012