💀 Dying Every Day
Dying Every Day (Stoicism in a Year) is a podcast by the Perennial Leader Project. Each episode turns a selected passage from Stoic philosophy into a guided meditation designed to help you (and me) learn how to live.
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Seneca on the God Within Us
Welcome to Dying Every Day (Stoicism in a Year). This is Day 65, and we’re returning to Seneca to explore the God within us.
In a letter to his friend Lucilius, Seneca wrote,
We do not need to uplift our hands towards heaven, or to beg the keeper of a temple to let us approach his idol’s ear, as if in this way our prayers were more likely to be heard. God is near you, he is with you, he is within you.
This is what I mean, Lucilius: a holy spirit indwells within us, one who marks our good and bad deeds, and is our guardian. As we treat this spirit, so are we treated by it. Indeed, no man can be good without the help of God. Can one rise superior to fortune unless God helps him to rise?
+Adpated from On the God Within Us
We can naturally assume variation in Stoic philosophers’ conceptions of God. But it’s important to recognize the consistent theme and emphasis on God (synonyms include terms like providence, fate, logos, or nature).
Seneca is not the only Stoic who wrote about the divine. In his Discourses, the Stoic philosopher and teacher Epictetus said,
The person who is getting an education ought to approach this process with the following aim: How can I follow the gods in everything, how can I be content with the divine administration, and how can I become free?
Likewise, the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote to himself,
You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think. If the gods exist, then to abandon human beings is not frightening; the gods would never subject you to harm. And if they don’t exist, or don’t care what happens to us, what would be the point of living in a world without gods or Providence? But they do exist, they do care what happens to us. …
These are only a few of probably more than a hundred passages that mention God or the divine. However, we should not assume with certainty what each Stoic writer thought about God. The takeaway is that their conception of the divine played a role in their philosophy.
Reflection Prompt
Consider reflecting (or journaling) on what it means to believe that God is within us. You might ask yourself, “What role does the divine (e.g., God, providence, logos, or nature) play in your philosophy of life?”
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Thank you for reading/listening; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well,
J.W.
P.S. I greatly appreciate your time, attention, and support!