At once individual and universal

THIS is something we have to understand very well. Right now, very many people do not know this basic truth about themselves, or if they do, they would not know how to live it. And that is where many of our problems arise.

Each one of us is at once an individual and universal being. Each one is a single person intrinsically embedded in a social, universal and transcendent order. A person is not an individual at one time and a social, universal and transcendent being at another time. He is both, at the same time and all the time.

This is how we are designed and outfitted. We are body and soul together, not body at one time and spiritual soul at another time. As body, we become individuals, because matter is the principle of individuation.

It is our materiality that confines us to a certain space at a certain time, distinguishing us from everybody else in appearance, temperament, etc.

But as spirit, we become universal, because the spirit is the principle of sociability, universality and transcendence. It is what enables us to know and love, and to enter in the lives of others and of things, and into God ultimately, with the help of his grace. That’s why we are meant for praying, caring and loving, and for communion.

Since we indivisibly are body and soul here on earth, a condition that would be temporarily separated at death but restored at the end of time with the resurrection of the dead, then we cannot but be both individuals and social, universal and transcendent beings at the same time, not one or the other from time to time.

That may sound philosophical and abstruse, but that is just how the cookie crumbles when we analyze the dimensions of our life. And the earlier we understand these distinctions, the better for us, so that with that knowledge we can start developing the proper attitude and skills.

At the moment, many people are still separating these indivisibles. They talk about balancing the two, as if the two cannot be together. Others think even in terms of percentages, as in 80 percent individual and 20 percent social, for example.

Some have even justified this thinking by saying that we are always born alone and we also die alone, and so we are first of all individuals and then social beings later on, as if to be social is an optional thing.

Lost to them is the realization that no is actually born alone, because he needs to be born of his mother at least. And no one dies alone, because one way or another he is always accompanied by someone, or if not by a world of relatives, and ultimately by God.

Of course, with that either/or understanding of how we are, we tend to make a choice of whether we want to be an individual or a social and universal being at a given moment. Aggravating this predicament would be the confusion that unavoidably will come to us when we start deciding which one we want to be at that moment.

It’s a confusion that threatens our integrity and opens us to deception and hypocrisy.

We are both individuals and social, universal and transcendent beings. We have to remember this basic truth all the time, so that whenever we are alone, that is, physically alone, we should never be lonely, because in our mind and heart we will always be, or we should always be, with God and with others.

Our spiritual soul comes directly from God who does not leave it for as long as we exist, for God gives it existence and sustains it in existence. It’s not something we simply by ourselves can sustain. God is always there, and it is for us to acknowledge that reality. Otherwise, we would have a radically distorted view of our life.

That’s our problem. We tend to ignore God, perhaps out of ignorance and lack of education and formation. But there are those who, not believing in God, consider themselves their own being, their own God. This is the bigger problem.

These are those who tend to confine themselves, turning into isolated, eccentric individuals, whose relations with others and the world follow their own exclusive terms. They make up their own world, not conforming it to what objectively it is according to God the Creator.

Because we tend to be individualists and even eccentrics, we have to sustain the effort to train ourselves to think in terms of God’s will and the welfare of others.