Marcus Aurelius

What is the Absolute? Does God exist?

One rational living being and gods who help, or else atoms

Both personal and impersonalStated explicitly

In the Meditations, Marcus Aurelius thinks of the universe in Stoic fashion as a single living being with one substance and one soul, in which everything is interwoven by a common reason. This impersonal ground coexists with a personal dealing with the gods: in book I he thanks them for good parents, teachers and friends, and in book IX he recommends asking them not to be spared something but not to fear it. Most distinctive is the alternative he repeats again and again: either providence, order and unity, or a jumble and scattering of atoms. Marcus chooses the first, but holds that his conduct must not depend on the answer: even if all were chance, he must not act by chance.

Who am I? Is there a true self?

A rational ruling part born for cooperation

A self cultivated in relationshipStated explicitly

Marcus Aurelius describes himself in the Meditations as a little flesh, a little breath and a ruling part, and only the last is properly his own. He also calls that inner reason the daimon Zeus has given each person as guide, a fragment of himself. But he equally insists that this reason is social: we are born to cooperate, like feet, hands or rows of teeth; we are limbs of a single body of rational beings, and what does not benefit the hive does not benefit the bee. His first reflection of the morning already prepares him to deal with difficult people without ceasing to recognise them as kin. Marcus's self is always thought within a community.

Why do we suffer?

Only the present is lived; picturing all of life at once overwhelms

Thought and psychological timeStated explicitly

Marcus Aurelius returns again and again to two ideas. The first, Stoic, is that what harms us is not things but our opinion about them: remove the opinion and “I have been harmed” is removed. The second is more his own: each person lives only this instant, and the rest has either been lived or is uncertain. Hence he advises not to be troubled by the picture of one's whole life and to ask, before each present thing, what in it is unbearable; isolated, the present becomes small. The Meditations invite one to circumscribe it. Suffering grows when the mind adds to what happens the past it remembers and the future it fears.

What happens after death?

Dispersal or transformation: either way, an operation of nature

Silence or reserveStated explicitly

Death is one of the most frequent themes of the Meditations, and Marcus Aurelius approaches it without taking any doctrine for certain. Sometimes he reasons with the alternative between atoms and providence: if we are atoms, dispersal; if we are a unity, extinction or change of abode. At other times he adopts Stoic physics: souls, after a time, are reabsorbed into the seminal reason of the whole, as bodies decompose in the earth; we exist as parts and will vanish into what produced us. In every case the practical conclusion is the same: death is an operation of nature, like birth, and the urgent thing is to become good while one lives.

How is liberation or salvation attained?

Enough arguing about what a good man should be: be one

Through virtue and harmonyStated explicitly

The Meditations do not seek to leave the world but to live in it in agreement with common nature and one's own, which is rational and social. Marcus Aurelius often lists the virtues that suffice for him — justice, truth, temperance, courage — and urges himself to act with them in each deed, as if it were the last. The inner strength he seeks is a citadel: a mind free of passions where nothing external can enter. The tone is urgent: do not live as if you were going to live ten thousand years; while you live, become good. And he often reproaches himself for the tendency to theorise instead of practise: enough of arguing about what a good man should be.

Is a teacher necessary?

A whole book of gratitude to those who taught him how to live

Helpful but not indispensableStated explicitly

The first book of the Meditations is an inventory of debts. Marcus Aurelius lists what he learned from his grandfather, his mother, his tutor, Diognetus, Rusticus — who lent him Epictetus' notes —, Apollonius, Sextus, Alexander, Fronto, his brother Severus and his adoptive father Antoninus. Each left him a concrete trait: not being carried away by rhetoric, freedom of judgement, simplicity, gentleness. The teachers were decisive, but he does the work: the rest of the book consists of exercises written for himself, and he repeats that nobody can prevent him from being good. The teacher forms; each person's ruling part decides.

Is the world real?

The universe is change: everything flows and nature transforms all

Natural order in transformationStated explicitly

Marcus Aurelius contemplates the world as ceaseless flux within an order. The universe is change and life is opinion, he writes; the substance of human life is a flux, and time, a river of events. The nature of the whole loves nothing so much as transforming what exists and making new things like them; what decomposes serves as seed for what is born. But that flux is not chance: it is the work of a rational nature in which everything is interwoven and has its place. The resulting attitude is active acceptance: to love what happens, because what suits the world suits each part, and to keep step with the course of things.

What is love?

Love humankind, follow God; love even those who go astray

Love of God and neighbourStated explicitly

In book VII of the Meditations Marcus Aurelius gives himself a short watchword: love humankind, follow God. In another passage of the same book he states that it is proper to man to love even those who go astray, and that this is achieved by remembering that they are kin, that they err through ignorance and unwillingly, that soon we shall all be dead, and that they have not harmed us, since they have not made our ruling part worse. The foundation is common reason: all rational beings are limbs of a single body, born to help one another. This love is not a feeling dependent on how we are treated but a disposition of reason imitating the divine order.

Are we free, or is everything determined?

Welcome what fate weaves and act justly in what depends on oneself

Destiny and responsibilityStated explicitly

Marcus Aurelius accepts the Stoic order of fate: everything that happens was woven from the beginning into the fabric of the whole, and one must hand oneself willingly to Clotho to spin with us what she will. Love what befalls you, he tells himself, because it was destined for you and comes from the same source as you. But that consent is not passivity. What depends on him — his judgement, his intention, his just dealing with others — is his responsibility and his field of freedom, and nobody can prevent him from using it well. Even facing the alternative between providence and atoms, he concludes that, even if all were chance, he must not act by chance.

Why meditate or pray?

Do each act as if it were the last, and retreat into yourself

Being presentStated explicitly

The Meditations are themselves an exercise: notes Marcus Aurelius addresses to himself to recall what is essential. His most constant practice is attention to the present: to do each action as if it were the last of one's life, without haste or pretence; to remember that each person lives only this instant; to circumscribe the present so that it does not overwhelm him. To this is added inner retreat: there is no quieter place than one's own soul, and one can withdraw into it whenever one wishes to be renewed. On prayer, he proposes asking the gods not to be spared something but not to fear or desire it. To pray and meditate is to return to what is here and depends on oneself.

Can reason know the ultimate?

Defining each thing and knowing the nature of the whole, without thirst for books

Study and learningStated explicitly

Marcus Aurelius trusts that reason, which he shares with the gods, can comprehend the order of the universe: whoever does not know what the cosmos is does not know where he is, he writes. He recommends defining and describing each object that presents itself, breaking it down into its parts and seeing what it is in itself, so as to judge it without deceit. But his study is practical: he urges himself to give up the thirst for books and regrets not having been able to read more, though he decides that living by what he has learned is enough. He also acknowledges that things are wrapped in such a veil that many philosophers find them incomprehensible. Reason knows enough to live well, though not everything.

Withdraw from the world or transform it?

An emperor writing to himself on campaign: the retreat is within

Contemplation in actionStated explicitly

Marcus Aurelius wrote much of the Meditations during the Danube campaigns, amid the duties of government. His answer to the question is explicit: people seek retreats in the country, on the coast or in the mountains, but wishing for that is the mark of an ordinary man, because one can retreat into oneself at any hour one likes, and there is no quieter place than one's own soul. That inner retreat does not take him away from duty: he must rise each morning to do the work of a human being, act justly in the place that has fallen to him and take care not to become a Caesar. Contemplation and action coexist in a single day.