For Socrates, taking care of our most precious possession, our soul, was the fundamental goal in life and the only way to achieve eudaimonia or happiness. He dedicated his own life to this end and to serving as a midwife for the souls of others, focusing primarily on the knowledge and acquisition of the virtues. This emphasis on the virtues and ethical conduct based on an inner connection to a deeper essence was something that characterised the other great sages of the Axial Age like Confucius and Buddha, and in fact all the axial wisdom traditions.
Today, we can approach this goal by taking advantage of developments within modern philosophy, science and psychotherapy. In the philosophy of metareality, for example, developed at the turn of the 21st century by Roy Bhaskar through philosophical deduction, there is the notion of the ground state, which is our true nature and essence – a secular equivalent of the soul. This ground state, argues Bhaskar, has a number of qualities including energy, consciousness, love, creativity and spontaneous right action. And its intentionality is our dharma, our unique gift or vocation. These qualities, argues Bhaskar, sustain and underpin all our actions, although they are filtered through elements within our embodied personalities that have been acquired during our lives that distort their expression. Our task, therefore, is to shed such elements so that our ground state, or deep self, can express itself more fully.
In modern psychotherapy we can draw on a relatively recent therapy called internal family systems (IFS), developed by Richard Schwartz through empirical observation of the psyche in a clinical context. In a similar fashion to metarealism it points to a deep self that it calls simply Self, which is our true essence and nature. Like the ground state, this Self resonates closely with the True Self that the contemplative core of all the axial wisdom traditions speak of; and it possess a number of qualities that include compassion, courage, curiosity and clarity. It is unaffected, argues Schwartz (as do the wisdom traditions), by any of the traumas, wounds and neuroses, which can range from major to minor, that all of us as developing human beings bear to a greater or lesser extent. This Self is obscured by multiple sub-personalities or parts, each with their own specific role, nature and interrelationships. Some are healthy, mature and moderate, others less healthy, less mature and sometimes extreme with deep wounds – yet all of them have a positive intention. The goal for IFS is to create the conditions that enable the Self of each person to heal the hurt parts and gain ever-greater leadership within the individual system, with the Self acting like the conductor of a harmonious orchestra where each part plays its unique role and contributes its singular qualities.
With Socrates and the axial wisdom traditions as a model of inspiration, metaRealism as a philosophical guiding system and IFS as a therapeutic method of deep healing, we can begin to take care of our souls (Self, ground-state, True Self) and facilitate its expression and manifestation through our embodied personalities and in the world in 21st century fashion. And in so doing, we can become more effective agents of social transformation geared towards the gradual construction of a eudaimonistic society in which each individual is provided the conditions that facilitate the unfolding and expression of their unique qualities, gifts and dharma.
