IDEALISM
Numerous people become aware of the senselessness of the materialistic principle of life. They become aware of its insecurity and slavery resulting from its values. And finally, they become aware of this lack of any purpose when a realization of man's actual interests are in question. That is why they reject it and accept an idealistic principle of life. They escape from the ugly reality into the world of their own experiences, which, at least they hope so, no one will be able to spoil.
An idealistic principle of the solution to man's existential problems is a characteristic of the Eastern religions.
According to the Buddhist way of thinking, the problem lies in suffering. By means of different systems, one is to avoid binding oneself to the material world in order to avoid a possible feeling of suffering. Certain Buddhist orders go so far as to avoid any physical contact with the world, even the very shaking of hands.
We come across such principles even in some branches of Christianity. In Greece, there is a monastic order the followers of which never bathe. They consider bathing a temptation. What can we think about their victory over temptations?
Instead of denying their sins, many deny only the situations which would prove that they have not denied their sins. To respond to Christ's command to deny both ourselves and our sins does not mean to run away from temptation, but win a victory over it.
"If riches increase, set not your heart on them." (Psalm 62:10)
Let us point out that the Bible does not see any problems with wealth as such, but with a man's attitude towards it. It does not say "if the riches increase, throw them away", but "set not your heart on them". One can deny everything he has and be on the verge of existence, but still be greedy and selfish; sinful and guilty. Renouncing one's property, which is a part of the program of some religious movements, reveals nothing else but evasion of life responsibilities.
The essence of spiritual immaturity lies in man's attempt to remove the provocation for the manifestation of sinful motives from his conscience. We can remove the occasion (provocation), but the cause of sin - the very sinful motive, will still remain within our heart.
Many people do not avoid situations which could present temptation, but they try to avoid experiencing temptation by directing their attention to something abstract.
I had a chance to personally meet one esteemed member of charismatic movement whose face expressed unusual peace and tranquillity. I've been told that on that day, while working in the kitchen, he had been in "such close community with God", that he hadn't heard anything that his colleagues had been saying to him all working day. I had impression that he didn't notice me either, while we shook hands.
One Krishna follower didn't show apprehension to talk with me about the Bible's attitude toward reincarnation, but almost the whenever I quoted the Bible, she covered her ears with her hands and repeated mantra "Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna...". Only then I realized what that mantra served for, although this girl combined several systems at a time.
If that girl really put her trust into her god and if she was right, quoting from the Bible wouldn't endanger her spiritual state. Feelings of doubt would make her lean more upon God and have more confidence in Him. The feeling of anger toward "a misconception" would induce her to build an endurance and permanent peace. A lack of arguments would recommend her to divine omniprudence, etc. A stress induces us to react with that power we rely on (sin or love), and accordingly the stress will degrade or build up us.
We see that an idealistic concept in realization of one's essence represents a realization of a peak of a spiritual immaturity.
CONCLUSION
We should be willing to face the experiences relevant to reality surrounding us. The problem does not lie in pleasant or unpleasant experiences themselves, but in defective role they develop due to our primeval dissatisfaction. For as long as yearnings of our being are unsatisfied both pleasant and unpleasant experiences will represent temptation for us. Pleasant experiences represent temptation for us to become selfish, and through unpleasant experiences we may lose tranquillity, start worrying and become irate. The solution will not come in avoiding pleasant or unpleasant experiences, for they are constituent of our reality. The problem is not in what we feel but in what we are, because our nature finds the occasion for its expression only in the adequate feeling. Only when the longings of our heart are satisfied, when we are happy inside our being, real experiences will not represent temptation but the opportunity to express love.
THE ROLE OF UNPLEASANT EVENTS
For example, if someone is suffering we will sympathize with him. But, feeling sympathy for someone's misfortune does not mean that we are going to become unfortunate as well. Compassion will give us motivation to express what we are.
THE STATE OF SIN
If we are essentially unhappy, then our unpleasant feelings will be the motivation to express our inner unhappiness through anxiety and care for suffering person. Because we can offer somebody only what we really have.
THE STATE OF DIVINE RIGHTEOUSNESS
If we are essentially happy, then - of course - we will not enjoy the suffering of someone, but express our inner content through deeds of real divine love. We will help as much as possible. Even if we are witnesses of injustice that awakes feelings of sorrow and anger inside, we will retain peace and love. The feeling of anger will represent a temptation only if we already have anger in our nature. If desires of our heart are accomplished in God, meeting negative experiences will not represent temptation.
THE ROLE OF PLEASANT EVENTS
If we are in situation that awakes pleasant sensations, for example enjoying in the nature, we will find the motivation to express what we are through our reactions.
THE STATE OF SIN
If desires of our heart are not satisfied already, we won't be able to reply to the wonderful sights of nature. The things we can't offer, we'll try to find in it. We will try to "drug" our feelings with pleasant sights in order to (egoistically) satiate the thirst of our soul.
THE STATE OF DIVINE RIGHTEOUSNESS
The pleasant experience can't satisfy the thirst of soul, like the smell of food can't satisfy the need of a hungry person. The smell of food has the role to direct attention toward food. The same, in spiritual way, pleasant events have no other role than to reveal the One who wants to fill up the emptiness of our heart.
If our soul is satisfied in God, new horizons will open before us. Everything was created to glorify God; by its looks, by its deeds, and by its existence.
In most modest pleasant events we will find motivation to express what we are in God. Profoundly, from our soul, we will express admiration and gratitude to God for His revelations. Through them He speaks of Himself.
COMPARISONS
In first case (when we are discontent), in pleasant events we seek source of our happiness, and in second case (when we are content), in pleasant events we find reason to express (share) happiness we already have in God.
As an illustration we can show the atmosphere of Krishna temple. Provocative music, exotic food, unusual smells, colorful pictures and mystic revelations will welcome us there. Our feelings will be deeply moved. We will get the vision of "heaven" such as imagined by man's unconverted heart, which seeks the cause of its satisfaction in sensations.
To such a heart simple Christian songs and hymns sound like songs for children, because there is nothing in that heart to be moved by these songs. A simple preach directed to sound mind finds no response in vacant heart. The Bible's descriptions of love and goodness seem to such a person as empty phrases because love in his heart is also just a phrase. Sometimes he tries to justify his indifference for God's Word by saying that he does not believe in its truthfulness while, on the other hand, he reads novels and watches films which he knows to be imagined and unreal. Such a man would remain cold even at the sights of Heaven, because his sinful heart is right such one.
Reality and our experience of the reality should not have a function of a cause of our happiness, but only of a reason for expressing it.
Bible describes how one deforms the role of reality when he tries to find the cause of happiness in it, when he seeks God in it. The created should reveal God the Creator, and not to replace Him and become a god itself:
"For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles. ... because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen." (Romans 1:19-25)
"God's handwork in nature is not God Himself in nature. The things of nature are an expression of God's character; by them we may understand His love, His power, and His glory; but we are not to regard nature as God. The artistic skill of human beings produces very beautiful workmanship, things that delight the eye and these things give us something of the idea of the designer; but the thing made is not the man. It is not the work, but the workman, that is counted worthy of honor. So, while nature is an expression of God's thought, it is not nature but the God of nature that is to be exalted." (EGW 8T263)
When someone discovers something new in the science, e.g. new planet or a law of nature, he becomes famous like he made the planet or law of nature. Let us remember a Biblical event: Adam gave a name to every animal and every bird and to every beast in the field (Genesis 2:19). Adam didn't become a great and famous inventor although he was the first man on the Earth who "found" a nice garden full of different animal species. Where does this human necessity comes from, to make himself famous for the phenomena made by someone else, and just noticed by him?
People subconsciously feel that glory for all nice planets and their irreproachable physical functioning belongs to someone else. But people are scared to express a respect and thanks to someone who really deserves it, because it makes them spiritually and morally responsible. That's why they are prone to express a glory and thanks to a mortal man who is hardly capable to perceive the perfection of the world around him, let alone to create it himself.
Suppose that we gave to a person we like very much a birthday gift, which shows by its appearance our personal qualities and our sympathy for him. We put the gift in the garden of his house, and let the person himself concludes rationally that it was right we who had given the gift to him. Then the dear person takes the gift joyfully and says: "Oh, what a nice thing I found!" And then he becomes famous because of this discovery in front of his house door. Let's suppose that he explain further on that the gift is a natural miracle, that it has originated by a big bang, that is by a big bang in his garden. Our heart would be broken by such a disregard and blindness, wouldn't it?
The fact is that we are all naturally spiritually blind. We do are spiritually blind, but not psychologically too, for we react to pleasant events mainly with pleasant feelings. But because of our spiritual weakness, our feelings have not a healthy function.
A smell of a food can be pleasant, but it can not replace the food, but just points to it. So a gift speaks to a rational man about the gift-giver, same as the feeling of beautiful just speaks about the creator of the beauty, not being able to replace him.
Several years ago, when I was an atheist, a nice melody raised sublime feelings in me by its nobility and then a question imposed to me: "Is it possible that there a world of goodness and justice exists really somewhere, and that this melody is just a shadow of it? How is it possible that a shadow exists of something non-existing?! This innocent melody confirms that goodness exists somewhere and I want to find it and live for it!" But the feeling of joy was soon replaced by a feeling of confusion and pain. I did not want just to feel the goodness. I did not just to walk in its shade. I wanted to be a same with it. I asked myself where it is and whether I would find it ever.
Even my tomcat has that problem of confusion on its level. When I show to him: "Over there I put your food!", he is not looking in showed direction, but at my finger with confusion. Because of spiritual blindness we are also often confused. When pleasant events overshadow us we do not know where to look at.
Like every act of goodness, like a nice smell of flower or a wondering harmony of natural laws, so the mentioned melody revealed the sublime Creator, but I did not know where to look at, for I had closed, by my atheistic dogma, the door of my mind and heart to a further action of God's Holy Spirit.
Today, when I read an old Jewish book called "The Wisdom of Solomon", I can recognize in it the atheistic confusion that I once had:
"For all people who were ignorant of God were foolish by nature; and they were unable from the good things that are seen to know the one who exists, nor did they recognize the artisan while paying heed to his works; but they supposed that either fire or wind or swift air, or the circle of the stars, or turbulent water, or the luminaries of heaven were the gods that rule the world.
If trough delight in the beauty of these things people assumed them to be gods, let them know how much better than these is their Lord, for the author of beauty created them. And if people were amazed at their power and working, let them perceive from the how much more powerful is the one who formed them. For from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator.
Yet these people are little to be blamed, for perhaps they go astray while seeking God and desiring to find him. For while they live among his works, they keep searching, and they trust in what they see, because the things that are seen are beautiful.
Yet again, not even they are to be excused; for if they had the power to know so much that they could investigate the world, how did they fail to find sooner the Lord of these things?" (Wisdom of Solomon, 13,1-9.)