“The human being is born with an inclination toward virtue.” Marcus Aurelius
Although we have been told for centuries to be weighed down by the notion of our original sin, our human species would not have survived any of its evolutionary steps, had we not helped and been good to each other along the way.
Rufus said something along the lines of:
“All of us have been made by nature, so that we can live free from error and nobly — not that on can and another can’t, but all.”
Because we were made from nature, we were born with an attraction to virtue and self-mastery — all things in nature have, when we defy our pre-conceptions and look at a bigger picture.
A child is not born corrupt. I have this picture of recently seing my baby boy open his eyes for the first time, after his first few minutes on earth. I could feel his consciousness being expressed, and his love and purity. I cannot father the thought that it is different with any other baby.
Corruption and evil happens over time, by nurturing the wrong things and the wrong ideas. Depending on his environment and education, a child will become good, or evil.
Philosophy, as Seneca rightly pointed out, is a tool to strip away these bad things and bad ideas, so that we can return to our true nature.
PS: Meditation, and thus mindfulness and self-awareness is also a tool to bring us back to our true nature, past the ego and into our pure intelligence.
