Something to share

Guilt is a topic that has always caught my attention. Probably because it has been part of my life since my childhood. Born in a Catholic society and educated in a Catholic school, I had no choice but to learn to feel guilty starting in “tender infancy,” as they used to say…

It's good to have a direct experience of this phenomenon. I wouldn't wish it on anyone, not even on myself, but at least I'm talking about something that I have experienced and have "suffered" for a long time. This has made me think a lot about it - about where it came from, how it developed, and how it's managed to permeate societies for millennia. I use the word “suffered” intentionally and not as a figure of speech, because guilt is something we experience as mental suffering.

Since this is a serious topic, I think it is best to approach it without any seriousness. That way I can see it better, and can begin by saying that my childhood had little to do with my guilt. In other words, I've met people who never went to a Catholic school and never heard anyone talk about “guilt,” who still feel as guilty as I do... I've met people from other places, other cultures, who speak different languages, and we all feel guilty.

We feel guilty about what we do and what we don't do. About what we think and feel, and about what we don't think and what we don't feel. In other words, when it comes to guilt, we are all stuck in an internal labyrinth without much way out.

The most curious thing about all this is that no one wants to admit it. And if anybody does naively admit their guilt, they'll have at least six people around them trying to convince them that they're not at all guilty of anything. Which is quite comforting but not remotely helpful. It doesn't help because in spite of everyone's good intentions, it's fake. Guilt does not disappear because someone reasons with you, tells you're wrong, tries to convince you, scolds you, etc. I think we have to go deeper, to the root of the problem of guilt. And that root is like the roots of an oak tree, deep and long…

According to the stories we're told, we were expelled from paradise because of Eve's fault after she ate an apple from the tree of good and evil, seduced by a snake. Who knows where Adam stood in all this, but the story already starts off pretty badly. One of the first historical “judgments” begins with someone being found guilty, and goes on with their punishment. Both Eve and Adam are kicked out of paradise for eating those forbidden apples and for wanting to be like the gods - that is, for having more interesting aspirations than just to exist. Not to mention that the guilty party was a woman, and “God” was always “the father.”

From that point on it's a series of gruesome hardships and tragedies for all human beings, who generally come into the world innocently, without knowing anything about its history, who arrive without choosing, and end up in this strange predicament... guilty even before being born. On top of all this, which is already plenty strange, an intermediary appears part way through the whole story. He shows up at a key moment in history, intending to redeem all human beings, since they arrived already carrying the burden of “original sin." This redeemer brings a message of love and compassion but doesn't even make it to age 40 and ends up being crucified by the empire on duty in cahoots with the reigning religion in the chosen spot.

Which brings us back to guilt. Now the human being is not only expelled from paradise, but also guilty of crucifying the redeemer. Of course, it's explained that he died for our “sins,” but that doesn't help in the least, but only adds one more link to the long chain of guilt that is the basic substrate of an entire belief system, of a faith and a way of life. 

I want to clarify that I'm not at all trying to ridicule the Catholic religion or, in fact, any religion. On the contrary, I am trying to explain to myself how we've been indoctrinated. Even though I'm obviously giving very few details and am speaking in a way that might seem sarcastic (but is not), I'm talking about something I see first of all in myself. I will try to explain below.

This story of guilt is complicated and has endured in this form for thousands of years. It is important, at least from this perspective, to understand that guilt in general is rooted in our civilization, and that its presence is completely independent of its perceived religious origins considering that the code of Hammurabi existed long before Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Guilt broke away from its origins a long time ago, but remains embedded in our social rules, in our legal concepts, in our ideas of “right” and “wrong,” and in the most common and practical applications of the laws that rule humanity.

The so-called “law” is all about administering “justice,” and there is no justice without finding someone “guilty.” Those accused by the law are tried and convicted (or acquitted) by the judge, who is sometimes a magistrate and sometimes a jury made up of a number of people, and who decides whether the accused is guilty or innocent. In all societies the objective of all of this is to administer justice according to the laws of the land. The laws change but the justice system does not change. No matter how much the laws change, the guilty continue to be convicted. In other words, there is no system of justice without guilt. 

This is what I am saying, and it doesn't matter if we agree or don't agree. Without guilt, without punishment, without trials and without confessions, the entire judicial and civic system immediately collapses. This is really food for thought considering all the ramifications and consequences of all these entanglements. But without getting into all that, which would entail quite a lengthy detour, it is clear that all justice systems in general are based on innocence or guilt according to what is considered good and evil in the historical moment in which one lives.

I don't think it's possible to change this system, and it doesn't seem to be in need of change, but I think it's interesting to see how it operates in us. How my guilt, which I don't even know where it comes from, begins to dictate my behavior, and now I feel guilty, and not satisfied with feeling my own guilt, I begin to find others guilty as well. We share the guilt, but that changes nothing important in us.

I believe the only antidote for all this guilt is responsibility. That's another long and complicated topic because of all the interpretations of what it means to "be responsible.” To keep things simple, I am referring only to the responsibility we have to ourselves regarding guilt. In Sri Lanka in 1981, Silo said the following: “For the first time in history, let us stop looking for people to blame. Everyone is responsible for what they have done, but no one is to blame for what has happened. If only with this universal judgment we could declare: 'No one is to blame,' and with this establish a moral obligation that every human reconciles with his or her own past."

This proposal is a profound and simple one that can actually be carried out if the suggested line of action is followed.

If I look inside me for what makes me feel guilty and try to reconcile with myself, with what has happened and with whoever was present in that conflict, that is a step forward, a step that opens my future. Such reconciliation is a responsible and internally integrative response that is aimed toward overcoming revenge, resentment, retribution and self-degradation. In true reconciliation there is no forgiving or forgetting. In this kind of reconciliation it is important to get to the root of revenge, fear, guilt and violence. This root is not personal but cultural, and as we have already said, has its origins in the remote past. In fact, the code of Hammurabi, which predates Judaism, Christianity and Islam, is the beginning of this whole story. That is why the root we are considering here is so long, and why it is a good idea to study it carefully, based on the universal principle that says: "You will make your conflicts disappear not when you want to resolve them, but when you understand them in their ultimate root.”

EDITED & TRANSLATED BY TRUDI RICHARDS

ILLUSTRATION BY RAFAEL EDWARDS

I am interested in art. Yes. I'm interested in art, but from a perspective or point of view that can be summarized as follows:

"Art as a means of human expression and social development." 

I'm not interested in defining "Art."

I am certainly not interested in anything remotely connected with "artistic creativity" or with the "creative process" in art.

The fact that I'm not interested in those aspects doesn't make them any less important or worthwhile. They have their value and their meaning, but it would not be honest for me to say that I can embrace them.

Insomuch as art contributes to human expression, it is worthwhile and meaningful for me.

Insomuch as art contributes to social development, it is worthwhile and meaningful for me.

Why am I interested in human expression and why am I interested in social development?

Because I am a human being immersed in a world of other human beings. Our temporal and spatial existence is known to me as "experience." I am alive (apparently) and what I do with my life is important. My existence, as well as the existence of others, is strongly conditioned by a multiplicity of factors that I will not analyze in this writing but about which it will probably be enough to say the following:

We all come into this world without the ability to choose. We do not choose where we are born, or under what conditions. We do not choose our city, town, or region; we do not choose the social and cultural context we grow up in. We do not choose our parents, and we do not choose the name our parents give us. In short, we are born conditioned to the max by unchosen temporal and material circumstances, and by the particular historical/cultural moment in which those circumstances exist. 

Every human being is said to be unique. But my existence is not unique - it is an experience shared with others. Nor am I, personally, particularly unique, except for slight differences in physical features as compared with other human beings. Outside of that, outside of my enormous illusion of being unique, I'm just like everyone else.

No longer perceiving myself as unique, I've lost my belief in “uniqueness,” especially in the context of Art.

Before the Renaissance, artistic production was an anonymous endeavor, a social rather than individual undertaking. Neither signatures nor names were associated with artistic production. Art was a collective activity that had a different expression and intention than it has today.

I don't have enough understanding or data to explain why, but I perceive that since then, our architecture, painting, music, etc. have gone from being an expression of society as a whole to being a personal expression that highlights the individual and individualism kept growing stronger and stronger over the centuries, anonymity was degraded and all social effort was rechanneled toward the individual. Now we have arrived at the 21st century and much of what I perceive in art is clearly produced within the context of individual self-expression.

I understand that individualism is as strong as it is because we are all born into an individualistic system that subjects us to individualistic conditioning on all levels - social, cultural, regional, and planetary. All contemporary societies are characterized by individualism and a belief in individuals. Bathed in this individualism from the time we are born, every one of us absorbs a thoroughly individualistic approach to living.

In my personal process I value joint efforts. They leave me with a very special register of a soft joy, a register of complementation. Of course I can conceive of artistic productions that are not within the realm of the collective; but I am interested everything collective because of that direction. Perhaps in the not too distant future, work in the arts will be increasingly developed through joint activities.

In certain artistic productions we can see the best human intentions reflected. Often these intentions coincide with supra-personal searches, with intuitions of other spaces and other times, with conceptions that sometimes move dramatically away from what is imposed by the historical moment, with elaborations that have resonance with the collective rather than the individual. This is more or less what I am attempting to convey when I speak of the co-operative social direction that can be taken by the arts.

Several years ago, at the beginning of this century, I was part of a group of friends who created a cultural and artistic collective we called “Antoja.” Over the span of a few years we organized numerous presentations, retreats, conversations, joint productions, etc., until the image of the collective complicated things, and we decided to dissolve it. I have always had the impression that despite that dissolution in 2005, much of what we did collectively in Antoja, and many of our more interesting attempts to take the "artistic" to a level beyond the personal without "depersonalizing" it, were unique and important efforts that were much loved.

What we were striving for, in a nutshell, was to produce art as individuals within a group context, all of us moving in a similar direction that included a global perspective and a deep humanist sentiment. I believe our attempts were not in vain, but constituted an important step toward liberating the arts from the individualistic framework within which they had been confined for centuries - a step toward incorporating them within a communal, collective way of being in which the spiritual and the social clearly complement each other.

Here I am speaking of the spiritual in a very broad sense, one that is not necessarily religious. When one looks at the arts in this way, it is almost impossible not to experience moments of great inspiration, and it is also almost impossible to deny that a great deal of art down through history has been born out of states of inspiration. Such inspiration takes the artist out of the conventional world, into a different space and time where profound inner revelations can appear, connected as they are with the intuitive, and with that which goes beyond what we perceive with our sensory apparatus. Such inspiration is expressed in what we know as poetry, painting, music, theater, essay, sculpture, etc.

I would almost say that the sacred can be expressed through art that is conceived beyond the individual, and that such art in turn paradoxically transforms the individual.

Maybe the most important thing in all this talk about art can be synthesized in one simple question and answer:

Question: "And why all this?"

Answer: "It's just one more attempt to establish communication..."

EDITED & TRANSLATED BY TRUDI RICHARDS

PHOTOS BY RAFAEL EDWARDS

When approached intellectually, the theme of unity - of /what is unitive - is vast, and it's much easier to just experience it. But how can I experience an internal unity that sometimes seems so elusive?

I can try to define certain aspects of unity that allow us to experience it. 

What we perceive as unity has characteristics that give us a feeling of tranquility, order, peace, oneness, harmony, a whole, originality (sometimes), etc. At  the same time, unity has another aspect that has to do with our relationship with our social environment. Those feelings can’t exist separated  from our interaction with the world. 

In simpler words, it is when we act that we either feel or don't feel inner unity. It is in acting, in doing, that we become aware of what we feel. It is in interacting with other human beings and the world that we can really register internal unity or lack thereof. We consider an action "valid" if it manages to produce a register of unity whose validity has nothing to do with obeying any kind of moral, religious, ethical, or social rule. The unity we are speaking of here has little to do with the conventions of the times we live in, despite the enormous influence of the historic moment on each of us.

What we experience as unitive is the register of valid action. How do we know if an action is valid? A valid action gives us a feeling that we are growing internally, and we want to repeat it because it has the flavor of continuity over time. Viewed from another angle, valid action is neither circumstantial nor temporal. It works through repetition, through enjoyment, and is projected into the future. And this, besides producing internal unity, allows me to accumulate  valid actions within me.

On the flip side, we have what is not unitive. When we do something that is not unitive, it feels very much like we are dividing ourselves, going against ourselves internally. This division between internal poles of tension produces the experience of contradiction, an experience that can make us feel confused, out of balance, irritable, disappointed, stressed out, and so on. Note that all these registers are much easier to experience than registers of unity.

We could also say that contradiction often makes us feel like we are "missing something." This feeling is expressed in phrases or silent thoughts like "I don't have enough..."; "If I had…"; “I don't like being treated this way…”; “It's not my fault…”; etc. Lack, or what "is not," is almost always part of contradiction. In other words, the point of view from which we perceive ourselves, others and the world is negative or lacks something. Worse still, when I finally "get" what I've always dreamed of having, that long-sought happiness turns out to be ephemeral, and very soon I start chasing a new desire. Contradiction feeds on desire and on what I imagine I do not have.

A life of unity, full of a "growing happiness" (static happiness does not seem to exist) where I feel like I'm in agreement with myself, becomes possible when I have less desire, less suffering, and above all when my actions in the world end in others and not in myself.

I think it is important to point out that while desire produces contradiction and suffering, this does not mean that we do not have desires but we can diminish, elevate and purify our desires. Many of our impulses can move in a unitive direction if we nudge them in that direction, if we convert and refine them. After all, we'd better start with what we have, otherwise we'll get trapped between seeking success and failing to achieve it.

Even though these reflections keep going back to the idea of taking a positive attitude towards what the world offers me (or just throws at me), the ability to say "yes" is an essential key in producing internal unity. Saying "yes" automatically (or semi-automatically) puts me in the unique situation of looking for the best in whatever has been thrown at me. Whereas if I say "no," I'm allowing my personal tendencies, fears, and habits to decide for me. Then, almost without realizing it, I put myself in a situation that I register as contradictory. 

There's a kind of saying that pretty much sums up what happens when we decide to take a positive approach. It goes like this: “Do not harm others. Otherwise, do what you want..." This saying begins with a "no," but obviously, by simply asking myself whether what I'm doing "will harm anyone," I put myself in the situation of evaluating my actions, and in that evaluation a "positive" behavior almost always emerges as a unitive or valid response.

And if we want to look at all this from a positive point of view, we can complement this saying with the principle of solidarity, which says: "When you treat others as you want to be treated, you liberate yourself." This is the best combination for registering internal unity.

EDITED & TRANSLATED BY TRUDI RICHARDS

PHOTO BY RAFAEL EDWARDS

In 1998 I wrote a fairly autobiographical novel that was undoubtedly boring for almost the entire public, since my greatest interest at that time was not in writing, but in trying to better understand what had happened to me in my life. I think I managed that in a way, because I did obtain a different perspective on the events of my life, and that is always good. 

One of the chapters in that book was titled "Money is Everything" and when I re-read that chapter, I really did not see why I gave it that name, since I only suggested the concept of money and did not make it explicit. And we know how suggestions work… mostly pretty poorly.

Anyway, a few weeks ago that title came back to haunt me, but in a different way from 25 years ago. Now the idea was not so vague, but began to explicitly appear every day in conversations, in what I read, in exchanges, and especially when I contemplated the deplorable spectacle of our global system in crisis. A system that has almost completely abandoned the human being and whose indisputable and perversely accepted central value is money.

They say "money is everything and money destroys everything."  Now, instead of being  just a kind of half-leftist political slogan that is "liberal" to the more "conservative," this phrase has become a suffocating, disastrous reality for everyone. This reality brings with it the deterioration of the social fabric, a phenomenon we are only now discovering and of which we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg. 

The most significant thing is that this has nothing to do with anything political or apolitical, but is strictly an ethical issue. We may not recognize it as such because we have been taught to think of ethics as almost religious, and therefore we never see the roots of problems. We stay on the surface, which only allows  labels, dubious descriptions, or shallow but correctly accepted phrases.

There is no valid ethics that does not take the human being into account. It is only  the human being who can create, aspire, and build an ethics at the service of the human, not the other way around. Despite every effort to impose an ethics down through history, those efforts have all been in vain. Because the ethical cannot be imposed. It can come neither from above nor from below, but only from human beings in reciprocal relationship with each other. 

What I am trying to say is that an ethics only works when it grows out of the simple understanding that the human being is what is most important. I  registered this truly when I treat others the way I want to be treated. This valuing of the other as if they were myself is the foundation of an ethics at the service of humanity.

That the ethical has given birth to "human rights" with all their complications and virtues is meaningful only if those "rights" begin and end with individuals. Unfortunately this is not the case. Our socio-economic system considers people's “rights” much less important than the rights of corporations or businesses. Our whole "free market," based on the concept of "competition" and giving free reign to those with capital and resources who wish to exploit others, is clearly deteriorating,  especially for the new generations. 

Now this whole economic system  is about to disintegrate because it does not respond to today's social problems. If it once offered some benefits, today those benefits do not exist. I cannot go on for pages and pages explaining how this economic building is collapsing, but I think it's obvious to everyone in our supposedly "advanced" societies that the growing unemployment, physical violence, drug addiction, homelessness and lack of healthcare, the constant sense of instability and danger, the impossibility of caring for the environment, and the chasm of inequality between rich and poor all show that this system has resoundingly failed.

Failures are positive when they are recognized as such - then they open up the possibility of beginning a new stage. When they are not recognized, then they are destructive and generate all kinds of violence. 

It remains to be seen how we will face this crisis, but without a doubt, and following the mechanics of history so brilliantly presented by the philosopher Ortega y Gasset, it will be the generations who are currently without access to power who will decide these issues. 

It is possible that then a new paradigm will appear, and a new ethics will emerge to replace competition with collaboration. It is possible that my rights begin and end with the rights of the other. It is possible that community has a deeper value than the individual. It is possible that corporations will disappear and give way to cooperatives. It is possible that we will begin to treat others the way we want to be treated.

In fact, everything is absolutely possible if individuals go through an internal transformation and if our society is rebuilt out of that which makes us truly human. 

But none of this can be imposed. This kind of transformation  needs to be born, to grow and develop out of the internal center of gravity with which every human being is endowed. And the core value - or ethics - of this center of gravity is to  treat others as one wants to be treated. 

It is only in truly registering this ethics and in acting accordingly that we understand the divine, the sacred, the ethical and everything we tend to seek outside ourselves before we realize that it is actually inside us and inside every individual born on this planet. When we are able to recognize all this, that is when an historical rupture can take place and a new world can be built based on everything that makes us truly human.

 This recognition is available to everyone, without distinction of any kind, and if we can enjoy a little internal silence, we can express it in the world we live in.

Money is just an instrument and as such can be used in many ways. The way it has been used and abused, especially in this century and the last, has led us into crisis. Although many neither see nor wish to see this crisis, it is obviously manifesting itself and will continue to manifest itself until we come to the historical rupture we mentioned - that rupture in which all power held by one or more human beings over other human beings is abolished: "When the possibility for one man to have power over another is socially eliminated, then the generations will cease their millennial struggles in order to exercise power only over nature. That will be the moment we break our historical enchainment.”

And that will be the moment we see a new “form” of relationship that will become the center of gravity for a new civilization.

It seems important to me to clarify that this “power over nature” will be the power of protection and not of extraction. Since the environment -- or nature -- is an intrinsic part of us, it needs the same care our bodies need. If up to now we have contemplated an incomprehensible suicide with anguish, that anguish is not much different than what we feel when we look at the environment. And this is so because the humanity-environment structure is one and indivisible. As are the humanity-planet structure, the sun-planetary system structure, and so on. 

Nothing exists in a vacuum, nothing exists by itself. Every existence is in dynamic relationship with other existences of different constitution and magnitude. Achieving harmony among existences produces the best conditions for any development, but this is a topic for another digression. For now, "money is everything" - but any effort toward a different situation, starting with ourselves and the way we treat others, has the potential of ultimately changing the disproportionate equation in which we find ourselves. This simple concept, which we call true Solidarity, is the counterbalance to selfishness, isolation, competition, exploitation, mistrust, discrimination and abuse.

We will see…

EDITED & TRANSLATED BY TRUDI RICHARDS

ILLUSTRATION BY RAFAEL EDWARDS

Looking out over the garden one spring morning a few days ago, I suddenly had the impression that everything I was seeing was perfectly organized. Despite the enormous diversity of plants, flowers, shrubs, trees, etc., everything was growing and multiplying in a beautiful, harmonious, inspiring order.

So I had to ask myself whether what I was seeing was in itself perfectly organized, as it appeared to me, or whether it was my consciousness that was organizing everything that way. In other words, was all that harmonious and inspiring order part of the garden’s very nature, or was I simply perceiving it that way?

I did not give myself an immediate answer because at that moment it seemed more appropriate to continue asking. Roses, and almost all the flowers I’ve observed, grow from their center outward; but both "the center" and "the outside" are concepts that exist in my consciousness. Perhaps in another world none of those concepts even exist - neither center, nor inside, outside, space, night, day, or any of the other thousands of concepts that give me a vision of what is "inside" me and "outside" me. Worse - or better - still, how can I know for sure that there really is an outside and an inside, if everything perceived by my senses is always configured by what I have learned and what I remember?

I kept wondering about this, and realized that just asking myself about such things is something we don't normally do. We are so conditioned to respond that I was surprised at this way of being in the world (so to speak) and at noticing, albeit fleetingly, that I was actually having a very simple experience of "apperception," as this phenomenon of realizing that we are perceiving is called. Keep in mind that everything we perceive can sometimes include the perception of the perceiver. So one listens to music, or sees a flower, or detects a fragrance, and at the same time one realizes that one is perceiving all of that. To intentionally  “apperceive” - to perceive through the senses at the same time that one "perceives oneself" perceiving - is interesting because it gives one a sensation of being present that goes beyond what we usually know as "being present."

So, momentarily immersed in this feeling of really being present, I also had an insight. In addition to all this understanding about concepts and the world that surrounds me, I had the intuition that there truly is an order in everything that exists. One has intuitions, or whatever these experiences are called, of all kinds and in general they do not go beyond an expectation or a guess about some future event, etc. This time, however, an intuition presented itself to me in a different way. As I understood my relationship with the world in this way, this intuition occurred that was not something exact but was instead a diffuse but certain feeling that everything has an order, a direction and a meaning... including myself.

This structurality (this is how my friend Isabel refers to this other phenomenon) does not explain the inclusion of oneself in the act of perceiving, but it does explain the inclusion of the opposites that exist in what is perceived. In other words, the inside and the outside are part of an indivisible structure in its true essence. These opposites exist as separate concepts, because we need to understand and name what we are perceiving. But while these opposites do manifest separately, they do not truly exist as such. This structural existence of what is perceived is sometimes revealed, and this tends to happen when I have that deeper understanding that something exists beyond what I perceive, because otherwise I would not be able to explain my intuition that it exists. This phenomenon of "intentionality," *  which was part of the scholastic teachings of the Middle Ages and was revived in the 19th century by the Swiss philosopher Brentano,** explains that in every act of consciousness there is an intentionality that refers to the object one is thinking of. We not only think, we always think about something, and that “something” is an "object" for our consciousness. In this way, the act of thinking and the object we are thinking of become a structure called “act-object”. For the consciousness, this matter of acts and objects is important, because it explains the operations of the consciousness, including its mechanisms and its possibilities for transcending those mechanisms. It is in this possibility of transcending the mechanisms of consciousness that a new way of seeing the world and being in the world appears. 

All this that I am clumsily trying to explain from simple observation, was masterfully expressed in a series of three conferences given by Silo in 1972 in Argentina and Chile. These conferences, titled "Transcendental Meditation,"*** have been one of the most important milestones in my life because they opened a door to topics that I never imagined could be so spiritually profound.

In fact, the concept of "structure" is a simple one whose spiritual scope is hardly apparent when it is only a concept; but in its practical application in the world of human beings, it reveals a much broader dimension where opposites are reconciled and everything is organized in a system that includes all that exists.

This is not of minor importance. Consider one of its most important derivatives, the principle of solidarity, which invites us to liberate ourselves by treating others as we want to be treated. Or the principle of conformity, which explains that if winter and summer, day and night, are okay with us, then we have overcome the contradictions. And finally (to keep this writing short) the principle of denial of opposites: It doesn't matter which side events have put you on; what matters is to understand that you have not chosen any side.

Going back to the garden and the simple observation of nature, and to the intuition that there is an order that underlies everything… I have the strong feeling that I need to follow these intuitions, because they have the power to bring me closer to an understanding of the world that is inspiring and that can be, in a certain sense, an irreplaceable source of reflection.

Finally, despite there being no end to everything I say, I realize that this intuition that I’ve been able to access is something that does not belong to me at all. Instead, it belongs to all of us: when our compulsions quiet down, when our internal noise is silenced, when we clearly feel ourselves present in the world, this intuition belongs to the whole human race.

It is there, in the internal silence that belongs to all of us, that such intuitions manifest themselves. It is also in that silence that the possibility of acquiring new perspectives opens up for all humankind.

*    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentionality

**    Franz Clemens Honoratus Hermann Josef Brentano (/brɛnˈtɑːnoʊ/; German: [bʁɛnˈtaːno]; 16 January 1838 – 17 March 1917) was a German philosopher and psychologist. His 1874 Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, considered his magnum opus, is credited with having reintroduced the medieval scholastic concept of intentionality into contemporary philosophy.

Originally a Catholic priest, Brentano withdrew from the priesthood in 1873 due to the dogmatic definition of papal infallibility in Pastor aeternus. During his subsequent career as a non-denominational professor, his teaching triggered research in a wide array of fields such as linguistics, logic, mathematics, and experimental psychology through the young generation of philosophers who gathered as the School of Brentano.

***   Fifth step

 “See in the memory the tendency.”

The mental form is intentional and works by bringing what is remembered into the present. Discovery of the intentionality that links acts to mental objects and of the action of memory over the entire act-object structure.

See in the memory the tendency. I experienced that every representation and, in general, every object of consciousness, is related to an act. And that what is retained in memory is continually brought up to date in the face of any new act that is proposed to the consciousness. Every act of consciousness works with retention, updating, or projection.

That is, the consciousness works by remembering, updating, and futurizing. There are innumerable combinations of times in the consciousness. There may be "past-future" times of consciousness that I also update at the same time. For example: right now, in this moment, I remember when I was a child, and what I thought I would be when I grew up: an engineer. Do you see? Combinations of this type are very frequent in the consciousness. Every act of consciousness that moves in the present moment always involves projections and retentions. Every act of consciousness, even when it futurizes, always does so by bringing the memory into the present. The data that I have to futurize are also data recorded in memory, and the image of the future that I may have and the projects I am working on are based on data in my memory.

However you imagine the world in the year five thousand, you imagine it using data that you have recorded and that you will put together in a particular way. This will produce syntheses that, of course, do not occur in everyday life in our twentieth century world, but it will work with data recorded in your memory. This tendency of the memory to arise, to complete acts, is unavoidable. And it doesn't depend on the memory itself. Here I discovered the mechanism of intentionality, which also manifests, above all, in the memory. (p. 75-78 book of T.M. Silo).

EDITED & TRANSLATED BY TRUDI RICHARDS

There are people who think, or actually don't think but believe, that wars are inevitable. In fact, if those dear people did think, they would come to the inevitable conclusion that wars are not only avoidable, they are also harmful and unnecessary for the progress of humanity. I say that they believe because it is actually a belief without a logical basis, despite all the efforts that are made to justify it with apparently logical arguments. And these arguments have gone so far as to propose that the best way to resolve conflicts between young people is to give each of them boxing gloves and have them fight until one of them survives all the blows. In other words, the unfortunate natural law of domination by force or also called “Law of survival of the fittest” - more on this, in the future…

This has been done without the expected results, and instead of being resolved, the conflict worsens. The "winner" has to keep his win, and the naturally humiliated "loser" will seek revenge in one way or another until he becomes a "winner" and the cycle repeats itself with the roles reversed but with the same consequences for both.

In 1929 Erich Maria Remarque, a young German, wrote an extraordinary novel about his experience in the so-called "Great War" in Europe. The novel was made into a film in 1930 that was later banned by Hitler because of its anti-war tone that did not fit with his plan to conquer all of Europe. The novel, entitled All Quiet on the Front, is a faithful account of what happened on the front between Germany and France. In 2022 another film was made based on the original, with the same name and the same theme. I am not a film critic nor am I interested in that aspect. The most significant thing for me is that in the place where one battle after another was fought in the effort to conquer the terrain separating the two countries, more than three million German, Prussian and French soldiers died in an incredible carnage that never gained or lost more than a few meters.

The absurdity of this fact is so remarkable that despite all that has been publicized about it, it is difficult to imagine it. More than three million human beings is already too much and we are not even counting those who survived with all kinds of mental and physical traumas. Numbers always have this amazing power to leave us speechless, but then we forget about it and move on to something else.

Tragedies accumulate but they are not inevitable...

Around the year 2169 something quite unusual happened on this planet. In the middle of the street, in a South American city, one character pushed another character and the observers of this anecdote, including young people and children, all had the same response. A greenish, acidic and fetid liquid poured out of all their mouths. Uncontrollable vomiting seized the youngsters who observed the mishap and there was no stopping that kind of response provoked by a simple but significant and obviously violent incident.

Someone sarcastically commented that luckily it was just a push...

In that decade of the 50s (but already in the 22nd century), when many changes took place in a humanity that had managed to overcome the idiocies and difficulties of past centuries, one of the great achievements was the conquest of violence. It wasn't easy, nor was it delicate, let alone decent, but that's how things are in our species. For many reasons that are irrelevant due to the brevity of this writing, the generations born in that decade "came into the world," as they say, with a biological mechanism that had never existed before, a genetically modified visceral reaction to any act of physical violence. In anyone confronted with any situation of physical violence, an uncontrollable vomiting like that described above was produced, and the sarcastic comment actually had its reason for being.

Perhaps most importantly, the matter did not end there. This physical rejection of violence created the best conditions for a repudiation of all forms of violence that had existed and were still in existence in those years. A true and complete understanding that all violence (economic, sexual, religious, etc.) was rooted in the mechanism of desire was also part of the internal circuitry with which the new generations were born and grew up.

For the naive or those who immediately protest when hearing things of this nature, it is good to clarify that the discovery of the roots of violence did not mean that such violence magically disappeared and that we suddenly found ourselves in a social paradise. Those were very hard times and the human being advanced painfully, step by step, meter by meter until they achieved a change that was not only psychological but physical. Those few steps and meters were as difficult as those in the great war, but were approached with a totally different intention. The typical nausea that occurs in response to being confronted with some element dangerous to the body was rejected in this way. As nausea. Curiously, in previous centuries, especially before the 20th, nausea was considered a weakness and in certain places "feminine" weakness. That's how bad things were on our planet.

However, as we said before, it was only with difficulty that we came to an understanding of many things, and to the transformation of the human being into a "truly Human" being, where the most important characteristic was the absolute recognition of being a single species. Again, to appease the protests of this dehumanized present, it is necessary to understand that this process took time and energy, and did not move forward linearly but with many ups and downs, with many "falls" and "rises,” and with a lot of effort, especially in the realm of truly understanding who we are and the place we occupy in this universe.

That uncontrollable vomiting was the product of many years of accumulation of certain forms of behavior that we might call "unitive." This unitive behavior transformed the internal energy of those who devoted themselves to such tasks, and as a consequence of physical laws and other less well-known laws, there was an energetic change and redistribution of that energy in a body more suitable for handling such energy, with an internal lucidity that was a novelty for our species.

Only then did the great projects that had seemed unattainable a century before really make sense. It was only then that we were able to explore the universe not only because we had achieved the appropriate technology and had inexhaustible sources of energy within reach, but also because we had managed to transform ourselves as a species, as a group, and as individuals.

When we stopped believing in death, life manifested itself in all its splendor, and we realized that it was impossible to "kill" and to live at the same time. Then we had to choose, and we chose "to live." That conscious choice, motivated by understanding and not by fear, created the conditions for change in our species. 

But it all started when we stopped justifying every act of violence and put great effort into eradicating violence from within. Then laws, controls, repression, and everything we had known as mechanisms for keeping violence "at bay" became unnecessary. This was a human effort, one of great caring and of recognition that "all individual existence is possible because of the existence of others." That was when our upward path began, with the rejection of all forms of violence - a rejection that later became a biological protective mechanism for that new body with that new consciousness that began to emerge on our planet.

To be continued…

EDITED & TRANSLATED BY TRUDI RICHARDS

PHOTO BY RAFAEL EDWARDS

At my age, it is rare to make new friends. Most of my friendships are ones that have been established over time, growing out of innumerable shared experiences, similar situations, interests that more or less converge, etc.

None of that was true with Peco. I met her through a group that Rafael Edwards formed in response to the pandemic in 2020, a group he regularly participated in because of the studies we were doing and the affinity that existed among all the participants. Peco joined shortly after the group formed and for inexplicable reasons, I felt an immediate affinity with her. I already knew her by name from decades before, since at the beginning of the seventies, her brother Tomas and I were close friends and cronies.

Peco and I never met in person until last year, April 2022, when I visited Chile. Rafa and I had lunch with her at their mutually preferred Chinese restaurant, and it was a very simple meeting, with depth in what we talked about, and I knew immediately that we would be friends forever.

"Why do they call you 'Peco'?" I asked her a couple of months ago in our Zoom meeting.

Because of "Pecos Bill," ** she answered immediately with a huge smile.

Quickly realizing that I hadn't understood, she explained to me that when she was a child, she liked to play like the boys, so her parents bought her "Pecos Bills," the Chilean nickname for little boys' jeans back then, probably in imitation of North American blue jeans.

So, without any fuss, Peco explained her nickname to me, and I couldn't resist asking her more questions. After all, she was a person I had just met, and I could see her in her descriptions and in everything we said about her after the Pecos Bill thing had been clarified. What I most admire about her is her ability to be simple without trying to be. If she did not understand something, she would say so. If something seemed right to her, she would say so. If something seemed wrong to her, she also said so with no problem. Peco is and was transparent.

I say “is and was” because yesterday they gave me the sad news that Peco has left us for another time and another space due to a car accident. I didn't know how to react to the news. It made want very much to weep, something that I have not done for anyone who has departed up to now. I told myself many times that this was not possible. I wasn't ready to say goodbye to Peco. I was just getting to know her. It can't be, I told myself over and over again.

Little by little I calmed down, but I couldn't keep from recognizing how much it surprised me that Peco had become such a strong part of my life. I'm not surprised often and it's been good. I have discovered something important inside of me that I still don't understand very well but that I am not trying to understand either. I have the intuition that it goes in the direction where events and feelings meet and logic and intellectual comprehension are left aside, where we can't explain facts that seem so common and absolutely certain for all human beings who have ever lived, are living and will live on this planet. Death is a sure thing, at least the death of our physical body. But knowing that did not give me any comfort. I felt great sadness over Peco's departure and I stayed in that state for a long time until Fern, our dog, came to lick my face to tell me to please take her for a walk.

I went for a walk with Fern, basically because I needed it more than she did, but it was cold and dark. Suddenly, the clouds dissolved and a beautiful, bright full moon lit up the whole sky. I looked at the moon and saw Peco grinning from ear to ear. That made me laugh too, and then and there I was able to say goodbye to her, as her face told me that all was well. Over and over again I looked up at the moon, and I had the feeling that from now on, every new moon I see will have Peco's face and Peco's smile.

I am sure that for many, Peco has been an incredible, deeply appreciated and beloved friend, mother, and grandmother. For me, she is the last friend I have made, and I will remember her forever with her full moon smile and her children's Pecos Bills - a child who undoubtedly remained in the past that was transformed into a woman who, in addition to being a mother, daughter, friend and grandmother, has been an exceptional and inspiring messenger.

PHOTO BY RAFAEL EDWARDS

TRANSLATION BY TRUDI LEE RICHARDS

** Pecos Bill, one of the most representative mythical figures from the American cowboys, was invented by writer Edward J. O'Reilly in 1923.

They say that Pecos Bill lived near the Mexican border. From the the time of his creation, he has been romanticized as the greatest cowboy of the American West. Legend has it that, as a child, he fell from the diligence in which he was traveling and was found by a family of coyotes near the so-called Pecos River (southwest Texas). There he grew up, and while riding his horse managed to chase away a tornado. He is also credited with bringing rain from California to Texas during a dry spell, thereby forming the Gulf of Mexico.

In 1948, in the Disney movie Melody Time, an animated short was made in which Roy Rogers sings the famous song recounting the life of this cowboy. This musical theme was also arranged in Spanish by Luis Aguilé as a children's song. (Translated from the Spanish wikipedia entry: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecos_Bill)

The night I read my friend Karen's essay titled “The Rupture,” or “The Breach,” I couldn’t sleep from the impact it made on me. Her words plunged me into a moment of total recognition and inspiration, and I had a deep desire to project this comprehension into my present and my future.

Since then I have felt it very important to understand this experience. At that moment I could only write a very heartfelt poem, but I also realized that what the experience gave me was much more than that. Over time, comprehensions and searches shared with others regarding the theme began to take shape - at least in me - giving me a suspicion that this profound rupture is inciting a response that will become the binding element of an identity that will make us truly part of a whole, of a human race, going beyond the classical definitions. I intuit that a "we" is not only an explanation that is in accordance with the times, but something that could really develop into a new form of relationship among human beings who truly comprehend that we are a single species and that we exist because others exist.

Very synthetically, and in my own words, I will summarize part of what Karen wrote about the rupture and how that has affected me up to now:

At one point in human history, thousands of years ago, a break took place in our concept of the human race, a division appeared that had not existed before. Patriarchy arose, and with it a gap between the feminine and the masculine. This led all of humanity down a path of great violence, of men imposing their power over others, especially over women. It was a period in which the goddesses were displaced by male gods and the most spiritual and essential attributes were also displaced by an obsession with conquest, territorial expansion and “man’s” dominance over other species.

But putting all this aside, those original attributes, the inner mental and psychosocial sensibilities that existed during the time of the matriarchies, were blocked, and are now absent, though not completely lost. It is imperative that we rescue them and give them universal validity, because this yawning gap between the masculine and the feminine in our human species is preventing us from continuing an ascending spiritual process and, in particular, is not allowing us to progress in overcoming revenge.

And for this very reason, it is essential that we reflect on the enormity of the concept that we are a single human race. The feminine and the masculine are aspects of a single essence. I would almost go so far as to say that if we were more attentive to our internal world, we would see that we carry the masculine and the feminine “within us” in unequal proportions. If we could come to a balance between these two forces, which constitute us as a human race, we would advance in leaps and bounds, and I feel that it is in this direction that our future as one humanity must go.

*Nosotres - a term in Spanish for “we” that includes both the feminine (nosotras) and the masculine (nosotros)

ILLUSTRATION BY RAFAEL EDWARDS

Translation and editing by Trudi Lee Richards

When we say that in general we do not choose, it is quite a bold statement and not accepted by society. We have been taught that choosing is what we do. Society tells us that we have options and it is true. We "choose" according to our compulsions or, in other words, our compulsions choose for us. Sometimes, after repeated failures, we can intuitively grasp these compulsions at work within us and have the realization that there really are no options but to follow them, or not to follow them... This is where our first choice might be made: not to follow my compulsions. And it's a very good option despite the difficulties that arise because if I don't follow my compulsions, how do I do it then? . What can I do differently that is not the opposite? (by compulsion too).

It is a complicated topic due to the enormous number of assumptions that are at stake when I decide to "do something". These assumptions have a moral charge in many cases and one will say, for example: "It's the right thing to do and that's why I'm doing it" but later, what was the right thing ceases to be the right thing to do or is no longer interesting to me and I look for a justification to abandon that line of action and a new compulsion appears almost by magic and there I follow it and continue repeating actions and justifications for actions.

After giving this matter a lot of thought, I have come to a simple conclusion. Usually simplicity indicates the optimal, so I've followed it. I can observe my compulsions, which is difficult despite the elegant conclusion. I can observe carefully and with more effort, I can separate without justifications or condemnations.

This observation over time becomes more and more interesting because it takes the force out of my compulsions and I begin to see and treat myself differently. It is a separation that makes me understand myself from another perspective and I begin to generate responses that are less and less compulsive, that need less and less justification and in simple words, I feel that I am more coherent, or at least I am on that path.

ILLUSTRATION BY RAFAEL EDWARDS

Translation and editing by Trudi Lee Richards

It can be argued ad infinitum that everything is true or that nothing is true, and that to “predict” essentially means just what its Latin roots - prae (before) and dicere (to say) - suggest: to say something will happen before it happens, but without any guarantee that it will happen. Even so, it is almost impossible to stop predicting based almost entirely on the fact that something has happened before and is continuing to happen. This is how prediction models keep being built, and how we keep adjusting our predictions about the climate and everything else we know to be cyclical, which curiously ends up being EVERYTHING. I say "everything" because it is easy to observe that we are immersed in a planetary structure that moves according to cycles and rhythms. And if we move beyond the planetary context and just look at what happens on the earth and with ourselves, we still end up seeing everything in terms of cycles and rhythms.

Implicit in the concept of cycle is the idea of ​​repetition, and everything that is repeated can be projected into the future without much problem or doubt. Thus we tell ourselves that tomorrow exists and also the day after tomorrow, and in a few hours night will fall and then day will come. This tendency to project keeps us feeling secure because it turns out to be relatively accurate; nevertheless we do encounter surprises from time to time, and then our certainties falter and uncertainty appears. 

Uncertainty usually causes us problems because it doesn't fit into our predictable world. This year, 2020, is full of uncertainty, and of course there will be many predictions of all kinds explaining the reason for these anomalies. 

The opinion makers and those who do not believe in them will be divided equally trying to explain, and to explain to themselves, everything that does not fit and produces uncertainty. The result of all this will probably be to produce even more uncertainty. After all, no one really wants to admit that it’s impossible to coherently explain all these rampant transformations. Unless you deeply study how changes (of all kinds) operate in the individual, in society and on the planet... just to begin with.

Personally, I am inclined to think that it is neither important nor correct to keep trying to explain what happens based on what has happened. Because if I examine things closely, these predictions are only correct if they are framed in terms of the general and not the particular. Earthquakes in a specific place can be explained by geological and geographical studies, etc., but that kind of understanding does not make it possible to predict them. Viruses cannot be predicted either, and viruses are sometimes not well understood. Not to mention social uprisings, or even less, economic collapse. 

Those who dedicate themselves to prediction are still in the dark about the rhythms of processes. Anyway, I have my serious doubts about how so many experts in everything can be constantly adjusting their predictions and forgetting the previous ones.

Uncertainty is not resolved through predictions or explanations. In fact, I don’t think it can be resolved at that level at all. I do think that the "uncertain" can be extraordinarily positive, in that it can push us down untraveled paths, helping us gain in understanding and in true certainty, which I locate internally. If I only always walk the same path, I never have the opportunity to learn and to see what I have not seen yet, to experience new sensations and new ideas. I limit myself and I limit others. 

On the other hand, if I see uncertainty as something that opens up new possibilities, I have the opportunity to see everything that does not fit within the predictable in a new way. Then without a doubt I lose my security and gain in internal experience. This is a good arrangement in a world that is increasingly in crisis, where the old explanations no longer ring true to the tired ears of a world that yearns for total renewal.

ILLUSTRATION BY RAFAEL EDWARDS

Translation and editing by Trudi Lee Richards