In his Meditations, Marcus Aurelius puts a strong emphasis on the tranquility of the soul by connecting mind and body in a spiritual sense, a somewhat unprecedented interpretation of Stoic ideals during the Antiquity period. Some of Aurelius’ quotations in Meditations display ideas that are comparable with those of modern religion. It can be argued that many modern day religions have their roots in the philosophy developed during the Antiquity, however, Meditations offers substantial evidence that Marcus Aurelius’ interpretation of Stoicism has had the biggest impact on modern day religion alone. Though Aurelius’ ideas agree with those of different religions on different spectrums of the spiritual plane (thus breaking any sort of collective agreement on the meaning of religion or life), Aurelius’ Meditations can be viewed as the Bible of the Antiquity due to his capacity “to write down what was in his heart just as it was, not being obscured by any consciousness of the presence of listeners or any striving after effect.”
Though it may seem as though Aurelius is encouraging self-separation from both “good” and “bad”, he is really encouraging a sort of transcendence from these things in order to find the real “good” and the real “bad”. Rationality and clear-mindedness allow one to rise above the faulty perceptions of “good” and “bad”, which is what many of the ideas in Meditations revolve around. As far as this idea being relative to those of modern day religion, it is not. Most modern day religions have a black and white perspective on what is “good” and what is “bad”, whereas Aurelius conveys strongly the Stoic belief of denial of emotion in order to free oneself from the pains and pleasures of the material world, while putting his own spin on it. This is where Meditations can be viewed as the guidelines for a new type of religion, however, many other ideas conveyed by Aurelius can be linked to Christianity, Islam, Judaism, even Zen Buddhism and Atheism.
“…do...