The Simple Little Rule: The Golden Rule Rediscovered

By Mike Ellerkamp

All over the world and within all cultures and religions, a profound tenet exists that supports a common connection among all peoples. In one phrasing or another, the spiritual principle known as the Golden Rule has been taught for centuries: Do unto others as you would have them do to you.
In The Simple Little Rule: The Golden Rule Rediscovered, author Mike Ellerkamp shares his spiritual, philosophical, and historical journey as he brings to life once again this simple yet profound rule. Not only showing how the Golden rule became the centerpiece of philosophical teaching throughout the world in a specific historical moment in time, Ellerkamp expands on the Golden Rule with five supporting principles that enhance and enrich our lives as professed through the agesprinciples of Wisdom, Justice, Moderation, Courage, and Discipline.
In todays world climate, it is more important now than ever for us to rediscover this simple little rule. And because embracing the Golden Rule can change our present perceptions and motivate us to work to change our own futures, it makes the Golden Rule a simple little rule so powerful it could even change the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Jun 29, 2017
• ISBN: 9781504381505

Mike Ellerkamp

Mike Ellerkamp is a husband, father, grandfather, and cancer survivor, and in the 1970s he served both in the US Air Force and in the US Army as an Airborne Ranger with the First Battalion, Seventy-Fifth Infantry. His greatest hope with The Simple Little Rule is to reintroduce the power and passion of the wisdom of ancient philosophers and teachers expressing God’s mission statement—to love thy neighbor as thyself! Mike and his wife, Mollie, live today in Houston, Texas, with their two dogs, Corky and Coco Man, and they enjoy traveling and skiing.

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Copyright © 2017 Mike Ellerkamp.

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Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible, Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 byThe Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

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ISBN: 978-1-5043-8149-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-8151-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-8150-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017908637

Balboa Press rev. date: 07/20/2017

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 —     About My Journey

Chapter 2 —     Rediscovering the Golden Rule

Chapter 3 —     The Path

Chapter 4 —     The Supporting Principles of the Golden Rule

Chapter 5 —     Wisdom

Chapter 6 —     Justice

Chapter 7 —     Moderation

Chapter 8 —     Courage

Chapter 9 —     Discipline

Chapter 10 —   Living the Golden Rule in Contemporary Times

Chapter 11 —   Finding Our Greater Purpose

Chapter 12 —   Regaining Confidence in the Golden Rule

Resources and Additional Reading

Introduction

History shows us that the Golden Rule is a very simple, one-sentence statement about compassion, but generation after generation, we manage to distort its execution; hence, there are tens of thousands of words written in every language and culture trying to explain and persuade us to live our lives grounded in this principle. That realization led me on a hunt to create a logical way so I might fulfill this principle in my life and find the harmony promised in scriptures across all religions and cultures. This is the story you are about to read.

Many years ago, I came to a place in my life where my interests for discovering philosophical, spiritual, and religious truths led me to a defining moment. I began to grasp that historically, all over the world and within all cultures and religions, a profound tenet exists that supports a common connection among all peoples. In one phrasing or another, the spiritual principle known as the Golden Rule has been taught for centuries. It is a simple one-sentence phrase that bears repeating.

Do unto others as you would have them do to you.

This awareness percolated inside me for years, yet I put off writing this book due to the rigors of everyday life. I always found something else more important to do or a place I just had to be. In today’s world, where mass murders have become part of the daily news, the insanity and violence of living war can be viewed on the nightly news, and racial and religious tensions appear to be on the rise, it is more important than ever for us to remember and revisit this simple, little rule.

After many years of research and study, I have found a behavioral pattern that repeats itself throughout history and cultures. When we all practice the Golden Rule, we move toward harmony and peacefulness—the light—and when we do not, we move into the darkness of chaos and strife. My goal for all who read this book is that they will find the peaceful motivation that comes out of the daily practice of this simple, little rule. My hope is that you will experience happiness, fulfillment, and prosperity; and be able to create a healthier environment for yourself and a better future for your children.

When I was growing up, my family was never into church or religiously oriented; but from an early age, I burned with a thirst for internal peace and harmony, for a deep understanding of the world around me. I hunted on my own and in my own way to fill a perceived void. This is how I began the journey that led me to write this book. In hindsight, the key steps along the way all make sense. As a young man, around 1976, I was introduced to a Bible study group, in which the Bible was taught from the original Greek and Hebrew texts. This method of presenting the texts was appealing and fulfilling for me, and I was truly in love with the Word.

About 1983, after I left the military, the pastor of the church I was attending at the time made a comment after one of our classes that went something like this: Apartheid was the proper way to handle the matter. I confess that I didn’t really comprehend what he meant at the time, but my spirit knew instantly that there was something fundamentally wrong with that statement, and it troubled me subconsciously. We didn’t have Google then, so weeks passed before I understood that apartheid (an Afrikaans word meaning the state of being apart or literally apart-hood) was a system of legal segregation in South Africa. Although the pastor’s statement reflected his personal point of view, my whole life exploded. A system of existence that was abhorrent to my inner peace in every way confronted me. How could a person of spirit, the pastor of a church who was supposedly steeped in scripture and spirit, say such a thing? Believe such a thing?

I was born and raised in the South. I had experienced segregation and racism firsthand, including from my father, and couldn’t comprehend why one set of people would or could believe they were somehow inherently better than another set of people. This philosophy of superiority has never made sense to me. I had just left the military, where death came to every person, no matter his or her race or religion, just as horribly, just as swiftly, and just the same, no matter what his or her differences were.

The longer I lived with this experience, the more betrayed I felt. Something deep inside me had been injured, or perhaps I was losing my youthful sense of possibility. I left the church, feeling such dissatisfaction that my earlier feelings of being in love with the Word moved like the swing of a pendulum directly into hatred toward any form of religion or Bible teachings. I had spent years seeking answers in this Bible study environment and felt betrayed and lied to. I wanted revenge. Needless to say, I was in a very dark place. What happens when your life sours yet you still have that hunger for what is missing, that perceived hole right through the middle of your life?

I began hunting to find answers in my own way, and for nearly thirty-five years now, I have done just that. At first, I admit my goal was to prove the foolishness of religion once and for all. But as I pursued that goal, little truths began to rise and bring me back around. My research has been extensive, if all over the board. Being ex-military, I love military history, but I also found that I have a keen interest in science of all kinds, the study of social development, the rise of common-law systems, and of course philosophy of all kinds. Mythology became important to me.

After that, I went on to the Eastern religions and then to history in general, where I encountered the philosophers of Greece and Rome. From my studies, I began to see that as a species, we are learning how to manage cooperative behavior with larger and larger groups of people. I have come to understand that, all things considered, we live in relative peace and prosperity today. And the sense of a shared truth woven through the ages brought some hope into my life again as I realized there were concepts—and first among them, the Golden Rule—connecting us to the ancients.

As easy as the Golden Rule seems on the surface, humans have found every way in the world to make a mess of it. But for me, that spiritually hungry young boy still lives, and all my studies awakened me to the understanding that he needed a way to practice living and fulfilling this basic principle as part of daily life. Out of this pursuit arose a five-step support system, a set of fundamental principles that surprisingly has its origin in the era of philosophers teaching around the Eastern Hemisphere around 500 BCE. But it is still a simple, practical tool to support contemporary seekers who want to revisit the Golden Rule and invest their time, hearts, and spirits into trying to live into it during formidable times.

My journey of searching for simple truths to fill that perceived void of my youth included rising in the joy of the Word and then falling into a desperate, dark place and coming back again to a place in the middle that has provided much harmony for me. I’ve organized my book to follow that arc. In the first three chapters, I lay out my journey and provide a brief history of the Golden Rule, including the cultural and historical threads that run through it. I offer my understanding of a determinable future that can provide more harmony and peace as well as ways in which we can accelerate arriving at that place. Chapter 4 lays out the discovery of supporting principles, and the following five chapters describe each one—Wisdom, Justice, Moderation, Courage, and Discipline—and how and why they work and why they are so relevant to us today. Each of these chapters contains a practice I hope will enrich and personalize your experience of these supporting tools. The remaining three chapters wrap up ways in which these fundamental principles can (and do) affect our lives and encourage us to join a life of greater harmony and cooperation.

My hope is that you will come to understand, as I have, this simple, little rule and its enduring relevance; and that you will find the five-step process as helpful as I have in my daily efforts to maintain a healthy, productive life. History shows us that our distortion of the Golden Rule brings chaos and desperate times, while adhering to its standard fosters eras of enlightenment and prosperity. I invite you to journey with me as I tell my tale of rediscovering the Golden Rule and show the effect this unearthing has had on my life. I invite you to embrace—or re-embrace—this simple, little rule. It may change your perception of your present and motivate you to work to change your future—which is, after all, the future of the planet.

Chapter 1

About My Journey

The truths contained in religious doctrines are after all so distorted and systematically disguised that the mass of humanity cannot recognize them as truth.

—Sigmund Freud

For most of my life, an inner voice has called me to unearth a bigger picture beneath the spiritual teachings I learned at an early age. Strangely, the harder I tried to silence this little whisper, the more it teased me. The harder I searched, the more random and prolific my selection of reading and research became. In my youth and early adult life, I didn’t understand the connection of this inner voice to the life I was living, but I have since come to regard this voice as of utmost importance to my personal spiritual quest. This voice is with me in my research and writing today. Its subtle clues prompted me to solve a sort of puzzle that at first, I confess, I didn’t even understand. This voice or feeling, has led me to pay attention to my own personal spiritual inquiry as well as more cultural and global concerns. I noticed severe inequities early in my life and asked questions such as the following: Why is it that we are so advanced in the United States when just across the border to the south is abject poverty and brutal violence? Is the difference because of politics, education, religion, economics, or all the above? What is the key? What is the truth?

I have always believed that we are all fundamentally alike both physically and mentally. I believe we all have infinite opportunity. Based on our mental attitudes and willpower, some of us go quite far in accepting this opportunity, and some won’t move on it at all. At first, I believed this was our choice. But after a while, I began to question whether I was really seeing this at work in the world. But why? What was wrong with my belief system? Could there be a greater truth surrounding these issues? These kinds of questions led me further into my search and pushed me harder to find answers. For more than thirty years, I have asked the questions and chased the clues, and with every answer, more questions have appeared, but I’ve always loved the puzzle. Let’s journey back to the beginning of this tale.

Early Childhood

My story begins at an early age. As a family, we weren’t big churchgoers. Because I was the kid on the block who didn’t attend church, I sometimes felt odd or left out. Sometimes my dad and I talked about religion and church because, as I mentioned, as far back as I can remember, I have always been curious about religion and spiritual matters. When I was about fourteen, my father and I were on our way up to Estes Park, Colorado, for an electrical job my father was doing for the US Park Service. I was supposed to be his helper, but I’m not sure how much help I was. We spent the entire summer living in our family’s camper in the national forest