The Gaelic Manuscripts
by Betty White
with Stewart Edward White

Chapter 13
Self-Sacrifice

1. The question

Gaelic had thus shown us the necessity and dignity of holding our own within the circle of our own responsibility. He had also reminded us that without the bold outward fling of the experiment that braves the face of danger we cannot progress. He had pointed out that sometimes this must involve conflict; but that conflict is not discrepant with justice.

But is rigid justice the highest aim? How about that ultimate of unselfishness we name self-sacrifice? Sacrifice of ourselves for others? Such selflessness has seemed to be the counsel of perfection in many teachings.

And yet in most normal minds is an instinctive reaction of mild contempt for the meek, kick-me type that is always giving way – and congratulating himself in so doing!

2. Duty

"Self sacrifice, in one popular aspect of giving up your own to another almost indiscriminately and without reference to conditions of the especial problem, is often bad. It is merely an indication either of laziness or of a vain self-righteousness. Self-sacrifice, so called, is true and constructive only when it has its inception in the field of complete self-awareness or self knowledge; and is merely a recognition, conscious or intuitive, of the fact that the harmonious need of the moment is for relinquishment in accordance with the principle of rhythmic compression and expansion which we have discussed. And since this is a natural process, it is in final analysis a joyous process as is any harmonious functioning.

"A man gives up something which is ordinarily and naturally an object of desire, not because of some rigid intellectual idea of duty, nor because of some weak sentiment or emotion, nor because of some mistaken conception of stripping himself to present to others as a meritorious thing in itself; but because the extension of this inner nucleus of complete knowledge has made him aware – whether intellectually or intuitively – that the occasion demands, for the harmony of which he is a part, a foregoing rather than an insistence.

"In this complete understanding what the world calls self sacrifice is in his case no sacrifice at all, in the sense that it involved much pain or regret. Indeed, it is likely if pain or regret exist, the sacrifice is not justified. Even if a man has to struggle with himself to arrive at the point of relinquishment having arrived there the test is whether through his intellectual decision he experiences a completely unregretful satisfaction and a sense of having done the totally harmonious thing. If there still lingers a strong sense of mere duty, that in itself is an indication that he has not functioned entirely within his field of complete self-knowledge.

"It may sometimes be that from an abstract point of view his decision may be intrinsically correct and that he ‘should’ make the sacrifice but from his personal point of view the struggle to be made is in the direction, not of this especial relinquishment, but within himself to extend the boundaries of his complete self-awareness, so that they will become coextensive, with the intellectual understanding of general principles whose logic has forced him to a decision of mere duty.

"Or, again, it may be that his duty-decision is intrinsically wrong, though he may not know it. To give up what he should defend may throw confusion into the harmonious systole and diastole of which we have spoken. Knowingly to abandon to others that which is not their right, and that which they should earn, not only may deprive yourself of that which is necessary and which has long been prepared for you, but may also fill unhealthily a gap whose completion by effort should have developed certain qualities in the other.

"Here once more, as in our short talk of yesterday, you must not forget that in such decisions it is required that all the powers – intellectual, emotional and intuitional must be accorded full play of action. A man who comes to such a decision without calling upon himself fully, may permit surface desirabilities too great an importance. He may penetrate so little beyond his liking as never to allow other influences access to him. Perhaps when he goes deeper into himself, he may discover that in these particular circumstances he may not like these things at all however desirable they may be in other and perhaps more extraordinary circumstances. Then his feet are on the ground. But he must not be led astray by self-righteousness into the virtuous attitude of no further than trying not to like things. That is negative; that is putting the cart before the horse."

3. How to determine

"The progress of solid personal growth consists then, in the last analysis, of an ever-widening, ever-sharpening definition of this complete self-awareness. For only when that Self-awareness is so sharpened and defined can one be completely certain, both in intellect and in emotion, of the proper direction and scope of his action. Only thus can he defend with complete certainty whether he should resist or sacrifice, whether he should defend with all vigor at his command, or subdue his first desire into cooperation.

"Outside of that sharp definition he must reach by the boldness of his spirit, by the questing of his aspiration, by the grasping of his instinct for the unknown; uncertain, whatever the justness of his intuition, whether in that field on which he treads his unaccustomed foot he will win new spoil of victory for that which is divinely his own, or meet with the defeat and thrusting back which is inevitable at times to one who would explore. In the one case is the great happiness of acting surely and with knowledge, in harmony; and in the other is the happiness of following a great adventure.

"We have now, I conceive, covered with a fair generality the meaning and the universal mechanism of conflict; we have at least sketched the broad principles of the thing, whether the struggle is within the elements of a man’s constitution or between himself and what he calls the impersonal forces with which his environment surrounds him; or between himself and other human beings."

4. The criterion

"As an interesting bit of philosophical speculation these principles exhibit no doubt certain questions of interest, but in order to make them of any value in the living of life it is necessary by example and consideration of individual case to exhibit these same principles as working rules of conduct. What does your busy man of affairs in his counting house know or care what we may say of ‘Circumferences of complete self-awareness’, if it conveys to him no jot of information as to his conduct of the business way he is carrying on with his rival down the street? Or what does your average citizen anywhere feel interest in abstractions that fail to give him a guide to the conduct which will leave him cosmic satisfaction, or, as he would say, ‘allow him to live with himself’, in his attempt to put down a rival in politics, or love, or war? Such men cannot avoid a certain effort at philosophical understanding. They must have a framework to surround their bit of truth. But the framework must look out upon the landscape of their own intimate personal lives. Only thus does the greater concept obtain the body of substance which will prevent it from an evaporation into a thing acknowledged but too tenuous for use. No general truth of any sort remains close to the earth of any man’s own personal possession, unless it is pegged thereto by a clout of his own personal experience. Deprived of that it is visible in his heaven as a beautiful cloud, from which he does not even fear the rain.

"Conflict or struggle must always involve the taking away from one and the adding unto the other. This is always true whether it involves a closely material thing, such as one can occupy or grasp or put down in a book, to the exclusion of another; or the mere maintaining and strengthening of an attitude of mind to the weakening of the self-confidence of another in his own ideas or conclusions.

"This being the case, and leaving out of consideration any thought of a consciously evil or unwarranted aggression, we can conceive even an ordinary conscientious man resting much in doubt as to whether he is justified or warranted, or even desirous, of adding to himself at the evident expense of what another honestly believes is, should be, or might become his own. It is of course both undesirable and unwise, and indeed unwarranted to supply any man with a ready mechanical measure into which he can feed his problems and from which he can draw a ready-made decision. Decision is the vital principle of individual progress, and cannot be taken out of the individual’s hands without a far-reaching harm.

"It is, however, possible to give a simple and shortly stated rule by which the general direction of decision may be pointed.

"To begin with the general and work down to the particular; contest, outside the circle of complete knowledge – where its righteousness and necessity cannot be in doubt – should be, first of all, devoid of the principle of intimate personal selfishness. It should be devoid of personal animus. It should be devoid of personal judgments as to the motive or animus of the opposing party. The latter, as an element in the game, does not matter, because as far as the decision of the individual is concerned, his own motive is all that counts. All else is or should be considered to be impersonal.

"The only mechanism by which one can determine whether or not these elements are present is to reverse deliberately the roles of the parties. Place yourself with all your own personality, in the exact circumstances of your opponent. Consider that by some clairvoyance you are fully aware in all particulars of what is being done or contemplated by yourself in your own role against him. Would you – the second you of this double personality you have assumed – consider that as a fair minded man you could object to your own tactics being applied to yourself in the situation of your opponent? If truthfully and honestly you cannot object, if so situated those plans were to succeed you could not yourself candidly oppose an afterthought of bitterness or unfairness, then in all probability you can return to your own center from this mystic excursion into the center of your opponent, and with clear conscience enter upon your undertaking. You can then be certain that the great balance of interplay will bring you success or failure according to the need and balance of something – much greater than yourself.

Failure or success cannot avoid bringing you an ultimate and deeper satisfaction than the greatest temporal acquisition could be, had you not gained your own approval. And remember once more, that you do not in this mystic excursion take upon yourself what you might imagine or consider to be your opponent’s point of view, nor what you conceive or imagine to be his intent, whether unfair or unjustified in your suspicion. It is how you would feel – you would feel – in his circumstances were somebody to act against you exactly as you now purpose acting against him. That little hand rule can be applied in everything that has to do with taking from one and adding unto another.

"It applies in the simplest business struggle or trade or custom of financial manipulation; and on through the games of your peace and the tragic realities of your war; up to the highest and most tragic moral oppositions, where men, for the sake of what they conceive to be the truth, lock their souls in contests that too often drag them down into the mud of intolerance and bigotry. In all human relation I can offer no more specific a rule, no more wide-reaching admonition, and no more profound principle than this. It has been very simply stated before; I have but put a new conception of my cosmos behind it, to throw it once more into sharp relief."

5. Seek to know

"All great truths are simple. All great truths can be stated in few words. All great truths must have poured within them all of man’s knowledge and achievement before they can be understood.

"In simple days it was not necessary to understand truth. It was enough to feel it. But as self-awareness expands its circle, a necessity is born for understanding. And the more a man or a race demands to understand that which has heretofore been accepted on what you call faith, the wider, the more embracing, you may conclude has become the circle of self-knowledge of complete self-awareness which is his measure. Do not be deceived by the cry that human being should go back to a mere reliance on faith – when that statement implies that the faith is a narrow and specific faith in certain thing. Men must always live by faith, but it is a faith in what is outside; a faith that knows that has been in small shall forever continue to be in ever-larger.

There are many faiths that man does not yet seek intellectually to understand – many. But what he feels, as in older and simpler days he did not understand but only felt; the things which now he is said to question, he does not really question – he seeks to comprehend. Because the penumbra of his self-awareness is gradually illuminating as it extends outward that which has lain in the shadow.

"Seek to know. And when in that conflict, that struggle, you unwittingly seek to grasp that which is not your, the inevitable defeat will also strengthen in its repression for the outfling which must in due time take place. Seek to know."