سبعة مفاتيح للتغلب على الأزمة وعدم الموت في محاولة ذلك 03

 

المفتاح 2: ما الذي يعتمد عليك؟

لديك قائمة طويلة من المهام التي عليك القيام بها: قضايا معلقة، مشاريع جارية، وحتى التزامات كبيرة لا يمكنك التخلي عنها، على الرغم من أن الاستمرار فيها يصبح أكثر صعوبة كل يوم. العبء ثقيل، بالنظر إلى ما قمت به من قبل، وما تعمل عليه حاليًا، وما ينتظرك في المستقبل.

في هذه الأوقات الصعبة - المشلولة، غير المطلعة على الرغم من توفر المعلومات، العالقة في المشاريع الحالية والمستقبلية - من الضروري أكثر من أي وقت مضى أن نفهم أننا، ككائنات متطورة، نجد أنفسنا أيضًا عالقين في كثير من الأحيان على طول مساراتنا.

عالقون عند الولادة، حتى نصل إلى سن يمكننا فيه الاعتماد على أنفسنا؛ عالقون في الدراسات الجامعية أو التدريب المهني الذي يؤهلنا؛ عالقون مع الآباء والأوصياء والموجهين والمعلمين... ومن ليس كذلك؟

وعندما نعتقد أننا وصلنا إلى مرحلة النضج الكافية وحرية معينة في التصرف، نجد أنفسنا مرة أخرى مقيدين بشخص آخر - رجل أو امرأة، شريكنا - الذي، على الرغم من أنه يفتح لنا مسارات جديدة، إلا أنه يحد أيضًا من حريتنا المطلقة. ثم يأتي الأطفال، والالتزام بتعليمهم، والبطالة، والرهن العقاري، والتقاعد، والشيخوخة، والمرض... والموت. هل هذه هي النهاية؟

كل شيء هو سلسلة لا نهائية من التبعيات التي قد لا تنتهي حتى مع الحياة نفسها، لأننا حتى نحن نعتمد على الله. كل واحد هو سجن صغير، حلقة تزيد من ثقل هذا التجسد: تخاف على وظيفتك، على عملك، على كل شيء يخرج عن سيطرتك؛ تخاف على عائلتك، على والديك وإخوتك، على أطفالك وشريكك؛ تخاف من الخسائر اللانهائية، الألم اللامتناهي؛ حتى أنك تخاف على العالم بأسره.

لكن المحارب له هدف واحد فقط. العقبات ليست أكثر من ذلك: خطوات صغيرة نحو الهدف.

”أنت تحزن على من لا يستحقون ذلك، وكلماتك ليست كلمات حكمة. الرجل الحكيم لا يشعر بالشفقة على الأحياء أو الأموات. الحياة والموت لا يختلفان. نحن موجودون منذ الأزل: أنا وأنت وأولئك الملوك. وسنبقى موجودين إلى الأبد.“

بهاغافاد غيتا

نحن مجرد عابرين. أنت لست من هنا: هذا مجرد حلم طويل. أحيانًا نحلم بألم من نحبهم؛ وأحيانًا، بألمنا نحن. نسمع صرخات أطفالنا ثم نستيقظ، وننظر حولنا، ونرى أحباءنا وأطفالنا ينامون بسلام في وطننا الحقيقي. ثم نفهم أن كل ذلك كان كابوسًا، وأننا في الواقع لم نتحرك من هناك أبدًا.

يحدث الشيء نفسه في هذه الحياة، فهي حلم، كما قال الشاعر. وهكذا، يمكننا سماع صوت سري من شخص تعرفه منذ الأزل، والذي سيقول لك دون كلمات عندما تستيقظ: ”استرح، لا داعي لتبرير نفسك. لا يوجد ذنب أو خطيئة. هذا اليوم الطويل قد انتهى: عد إلى بيتك الحقيقي.“

هذا مجرد فصل آخر في حياتك الأبدية، في الحياة الأولى. إذا نظرت حولك الآن، سترى أن كل شيء نسبي: هناك أشياء تعتمد عليك وأشياء لا تعتمد عليك. من جانبك أن تحب رغم كل شيء، أن تؤمن رغم الألم، أن تشفي، أن تهتم، أن تساعد، أن تثق، وأن تصبح قوياً، ليس لإنقاذ نفسك، بل لتعطي لمن يحتاجون. أن تحب بلا حدود. أن تحب بقوة المحارب الذي يقاتل أنانية روحه، ويقاتل جانبه المظلم، ليصبح شعلة في الليل. هذا يعتمد عليّ وعليك. الباقي ينتمي إلى عالم الوهم هذا.

Seven Keys to Overcoming the Crisis and Not Dying in the Attempt - 3

Key 2: What depends on you?

You have a huge list of things to do: pending issues, ongoing projects, and even major commitments that you cannot abandon, even though it becomes more difficult to continue each day. The burden is heavy, considering what you have done before, what you are currently working on, and what still awaits you in the future.

In these difficult times—paralyzed, uninformed despite the information available, stuck in current and future projects—it is more necessary than ever to understand that, as evolving beings, we also find ourselves seemingly stuck many times along our paths.

Stuck at birth, until we reach an age where we can fend for ourselves; stuck by university studies or professional training that qualifies us; stuck by parents, guardians, mentors, teachers... and who isn't?

And when we believe we have reached sufficient maturity and a certain freedom to act, we are  once again held back by another human being—man or woman, our partner—who, although opening new paths, also limits our absolute freedom. Then come children, the commitment to their education, unemployment, the mortgage, retirement, old age, illness... and death. Is that the end?

Everything is an infinite chain of dependencies that may not even end with life itself, for we are even dependent on God. Each one is a small prison, a link that adds to the weight of this incarnation: you fear for your job, for your business, for everything that escapes your control; you fear for your family, for your parents and siblings, for your children and your partner; you fear infinite losses, endless pain; you even fear for the whole world.

But a warrior has only one goal. Obstacles are nothing more than that: small steps toward the goal.

“You grieve for those who do not deserve it, and your words are not words of wisdom. A wise man does not feel pity for those who live or those who die. Life and death are no different. We have always existed: me, you, and those kings. And we will exist forever and ever.”

Bhagavad Gita

We are only passing through. You are not from here: this is just a long dream. Sometimes we dream of the pain of those we love; sometimes, of our own pain. We hear the cries of our children and then we wake up, look around, and see our loved one and our children sleeping peacefully in our true home. Then we understand that it was all a nightmare and that, in reality, we never moved from there.

The same thing happens in this life, for it is a dream, as the poet said. Thus, we can hear a secret voice from someone you have known eternally and who, without words, will tell you when you wake up: “Rest, you don't need to explain yourself. There is no guilt or sin. This long day is over: return to your true home.”

This is just one more act in your eternal life, in life one. If you look around now, you will see that everything is relative: there are things that depend on you and things that do not. On your side is to love despite everything, to believe despite the pain, to heal, to care, to help, to trust, and to become strong, not to save yourself, but to give to those who need it. To love infinitely. To love with the strength of a warrior who fights against the selfishness of his own soul, against his dark side, to become a torch in the night. That does depend on me and on you. The rest belongs to this world of illusion.

Seven Keys to Overcoming the Crisis and Not Dying in the Attempt 02

KEY 1: CHANGE YOUR PERSPECTIVE

Society is certainly in crisis, but human beings have both a timeless dimension and a temporal one. The crisis may affect the temporal, but not necessarily the timeless. This means we must give proper size and proportion to the problems that affect us: we need perspective.

First Lesson in Perspective

Human beings are timeless, even though they have temporal manifestations (childhood, maturity, old age, another life). Look in the mirror, look deeply into your eyes. When you look at yourself, don't you feel that deep down you are the same person you have always been, the same since childhood? Don't you have the feeling of being beyond time, of continuity? "Deep down, I haven't changed, I'm the same, I recognize myself."

But how is that possible? Please, look at yourself again, but now look at your exterior. What do you see? A man or woman weighed down by years, perhaps ill, or perhaps young and full of energy? Maybe a father or a mother? Remember your childhood, school, your parents, your first love. How much has your body, your face, your gaze, your voice changed?

So, there is something in you that changes, and something that remains. There is something superficial and something deep; things that others know, and things that only you know, because they are impossible to explain.

Please, I invite you to do an exercise: connect with that "stranger" inside and look at things from that angle. Look back and forward, trace the line of your life from above, with distance. With the same distance you sometimes use to judge what you say and what you think.

Question: Are you the one who thinks, the one who speaks, or that other one who observes and judges how you think and how you speak? There are two "selves" in you, and you didn't know it, though you sense it.

Second Kind of Perspective

Do a little experiment: walk with someone through the city streets and let the topics of conversation flow. If you pay attention, you will see that over 80% of the seemingly random ideas that arise have been triggered by something you saw along the way—a sign, a color, a noise that initiates a cascade of automatic associations. In other words, our thinking is conditioned; most of the time, it is not free. Try the experiment, I beg you, and then we'll talk.

And yet you still consider yourself independent and free...?

Third Kind of Perspective

You have relatively little interest in ants. You only talk about atoms in physics class, but they aren't important in your life; you could perfectly well live without knowing what an atom is. They are so small! They can be ignored, although ants are more interesting because they eat the things you don't keep. Yet every day you walk and crush them without being aware, and the truth is you don't care about them, except when they eat your sandwich.

Okay, I understand. But why don't you look "up" now? You are a small being; there are millions like you (7 billion). You are not special in any way; your opinion is therefore worth one seven-billionth of humanity. You are a tiny speck on a local map—a very local one, because you aren't even visible on a national one.

When you see a group of birds flying in one direction from a distance, or a school of fish moving in unison, you think they are reflex actions, that they move instinctively, following the majority. Of course, they have no consciousness of their own, they are not free!

However, you buy an iPhone and wait for hours at the door of a store to get the latest model, as if your life depended on it. When we say "iPhone," we mean anything else: political choices, trends, fashions, cars, etc., etc. Why this uniformity? Could it be that those in control know how to manage the herd, how to excite passions, how to make us buy what we don't need, how to make us hate who they want us to hate or love what interests them? You would be amazed to know the many forms of manipulation that exist.

And yet you still think you have your own opinion and independent judgment...

Fourth Class of Perspective

Consider your small size, which we already talked about, and also your remote-controlled or automatic reactions. Now look up and contemplate how the Earth is nothing more than a tiny planet in a solar system that is far from being the most important. Our sun is small, very small compared to other suns, and it is almost like a speck of dust next to our galaxy, which is a very ordinary galaxy among the billions up there, forming immense galactic fabrics.

When you look at the cells in your body, you say to yourself, "Well, this is my skin, made up of millions of cells. If I scratch because it itches, I remove millions of cells, but what does it matter? They are not important, nor are the millions of bacteria I remove when I wash my hands." In short, everything is relative; we understand that. The problem is that from other perspectives, we are also relative, small, and expendable.

Fifth Class of Perspective, the one we must not forget, the authentic reality

All the perspectives we have seen are those of our everyday self, let's say our lower self: simple, human, impressionable, lost.

If we were to represent that lower self in a graph, it would be nothing more than the confluence of all those constants that affect us from the external, phenomenal world. It is a fragile and unstable self. Leonardo da Vinci, about whom we are told so many things—some true, some false—represented this human self in a famous drawing, the so-called Vitruvian Man:

Here we see that dependent self; its perspectives are as discussed above. As you can see, it is a man framed in a square—that is, limited to the earthly, which is what the square symbolizes: body, life, feelings, and thoughts. It is dependent on those things; take any of them away and it will disappear; it is mortal. Think about it, do the mental exercise. His self is merely the geometric result of those elements: damage his body, for example, and you will see how the center of the self shifts; or damage his emotions and the center will shift again; remove one of the sides and there will be no center. It is an illusory self. That is why our self changes with illness, with good or bad luck, whether we have energy or are tired. It is very unstable.

Let's take it a step further. Now let's look at the whole picture. This other man, inscribed in the circle—the blue one—touches the limits of the circle with his hands and raised feet. He is a man in whom a fifth element appears, which is why he is also framed in a pentagon formed by his body. He raises his arms and legs and rises above it all. In other words, he no longer depends on those four things we mentioned before—body, life, feelings, and thoughts—but is another self, a higher, more elevated one.

Do you know who he is? Yes, you guessed it: he is the one who contemplates what you think, who judges and sees beyond time. And he is not an angel, but your other self. You know him.

The more often and the longer you can see things from that fifth perspective, the more you will have taken the first step toward being yourself—your real, timeless self.

سبعة مفاتيح للتغلب على الأزمة وعدم الموت في المحاولة - 01

 سبعة مفاتيح للتغلب على الأزمة وعدم الموت في المحاولة - 01

توقعات مخيبة للآمال: أزمة الإنسان والقيم

في اللاوعي الجماعي، هناك عدم يقين بشأن انهيار اجتماعي وشيك، يتفاقم بسبب انعدام الثقة والعجز في مواجهة الطبقات الحاكمة وغياب القادة الحقيقيين. من ناحية أخرى، ولدت تعليمنا الوضعي والمادي توقعات بنظام اجتماعي متقدم وازدهار مستمر وتقدمي. ومع ذلك، نرى أن هذه التوقعات لم تكن قائمة على الواقع، بل هناك دورات اقتصادية واجتماعية وبيئية لا نعرف قوانينها، وتظهر فجأة، وتفكك النظام الاجتماعي والاقتصادي في غضون أيام وتسبب أزمة إنسانية وقيمية ذات تداعيات عميقة وطويلة الأمد، خاصة بالنسبة لعلم النفس ”الغربي“، الذي أصبح الآن عالميًا.

لم يفقد الغرب اتجاه قادته فحسب، بل شكك أيضاً في هويته (غالباً على يد هؤلاء القادة السياسيين الزائفين أنفسهم). لقد زرع بذور الشقاق والتآكل في أساس أنظمته التعليمية، ومن خلال وسائل الإعلام، في الرأي العام نفسه. تم التشكيك في جميع القيم الاجتماعية والثقافية بموافقة الأقوياء والسياسيين من جميع الأنواع.

وإذا لم يكن هناك قادة حقيقيون، فلن يكون هناك أتباع أيضاً، بل كتلة غير متماسكة لا تعرف ماذا تتوقع. لا نعرف ما إذا كانت موسيقى الطبول الأفريقية أفضل من موزارت، أو ما إذا كان الزواج الأحادي، وهو تعبير عن التعايش الطويل بين الأديان الغربية، ونتيجة لآلاف السنين من الفقه والخبرة الاجتماعية، وما إلى ذلك، أفضل من السماح لثقافات أخرى بفرض عاداتها المتعددة الزوجات باسم التسامح المفترض، حتى لو كان ذلك ينطوي على فقدان حقوق المرأة. لم نعد نعرف ما إذا كانت الحرية الدينية تعني السماح لشخص ما بطهي صليب في برنامج تلفزيوني أو رسم كاريكاتير للنبي محمد (صلى الله عليه وسلم). لا نعرف ما إذا كان ينبغي تقييم لوحة ”بيتا“ لميكلانجيلو بنفس قيمة 124 ألف يورو التي تكلفها كل علبة من البراز الطازج للفنان بييرو مانزوني. لم نعد نعرف ما إذا كانت الحياة مقدسة أم لا، في حين يستمر استنساخ البشر سراً في الوقت الذي يتم فيه الترويج في جميع وسائل الإعلام للاعتقاد بأن الذكاء الاصطناعي سيفسح المجال للإنسانية (؟) في المستقبل.

الارتباك شامل. هذا هو سبب أزمة القيم، والنسبية، وعدم معرفة أي طريق نسلك، لأن كل شيء أصبح موضع تساؤل.

إلى هذا التدمير المنهجي للركائز الأساسية أضيفت، بوعي أو بغير وعي، رؤية علمية مادية للمستقبل: رؤية عالم جديد شجاع، منظم بالكامل بواسطة العلم، قادر على تلبية جميع احتياجاتنا المادية. ما الفائدة من معرفة ما هو جيد أو سيئ، أخلاقي أو غير أخلاقي، إذا كان كل شيء في متناول يدك على أي حال، وكنت تعيش في أمان، وجميع رغباتك ستُشبع؟ ومع ذلك، حدث العكس: فليس هناك فقط انعدام الأمن الأخلاقي، بل انعدام الأمن الاقتصادي أيضاً؛ ولم يتحقق ما وعد به.

بدأ الشك ينتشر، وأعلنت الأوبئة ذات الأبعاد شبه التوراتية أن هناك شيئاً ما غير صحيح. لم يعد أحد يثق بما يمكن أن تقدمه له المجتمع وقادته. يعكس اللاوعي الجماعي هذه الرؤية من خلال الإبداعات الأدبية والسينمائية التي تقدم لنا عالماً في حالة كارثية حيث البقاء هو القانون الوحيد.

تمت محاولة العديد من اليوتوبيا على مدى القرنين الماضيين. ولدت أنواع عديدة من ”الأيديولوجيات“ اليوتوبية، التي صنعتها في مكاتبها نخبة من المثقفين الذين لا يملكون خبرة حقيقية، بزعم أنها ستقدم حلولاً، لكنها لم تولد سوى قرون من الصراع وسفك الدماء أكثر من أي وقت مضى في القرنين العشرين والحادي والعشرين.

لم تنجح الثورة الاجتماعية، من بين أمور أخرى، لأنه لم يكن هناك قادة إنسانيون حقيقيون، بل على الأكثر قادة ثوريون فظون، أو قادة بلا ضمير، وأحيانًا قتلة، استولوا على السلطة، وأحيانًا أخرى مجموعات مصالح تمكنت من تطبيق صيغها الخاصة.

من أي مكتب مظلم سيبتكرون نموذج المنقذ الجديد؟ من سيقوم بتنفيذه؟ أشخاص مشبعون بالحكمة والبطولة، أم أشخاص متحمسون للانضمام إلى ”الطبقة“؟

كل ما تبقى لنا هو الثورة الإنسانية، أي الثورة الداخلية التي تركز على جوهر المشكلة، على البشر الذين يشكلون النسيج الاجتماعي. نحن بحاجة إلى إنسان جديد، ذي نظرة مختلفة، قادر على النظر إلى داخل نفسه وقادر على تحقيق المثل الإنسانية العالمية.

لا يمكن أن يكون لمبادئ الثورة الإنسانية سوى الأخوة والمعرفة وتنمية الإمكانات البشرية، على أساس الاحترام العميق لجميع الناس، من جميع الأعراق، بغض النظر عن البلد أو الجنس؛ يكفي أن تكون إنسانًا.

نقترح سبعة مفاتيح للتغلب على الأزمة، والتي سنطورها في مقالات متتالية.

المفتاح 1: غيّر منظورك

المفتاح 2: ما الذي يعتمد عليك؟

المفتاح 3: القدرة على البعث

المفتاح 4: لا تضيع الوقت أو الطاقة

المفتاح 5: ابحث عن الكمال

المفتاح 7: ابحث عن القيم الخالدة

المفتاح 8: ابحث عن مكانك في الزمن

”لا تسأل ماذا يمكن أن يفعل بلدك من أجلك، بل اسأل ماذا يمكنك أن تفعل من أجل بلدك“ (جون إف كينيدي)

وأضيف إلى ذلك ”ومن أجل نفسك، من أجل أعمق ما في نفسك“

 

Seven Keys to Overcoming the Crisis and Not Dying in the Attempt - 01

Disappointed Expectations: Human and Values Crisis

In the collective unconscious, there is uncertainty about an imminent social collapse, aggravated by mistrust and powerlessness in the face of the ruling classes and the lack of authentic leaders. On the other hand, our positivist and materialistic education generated expectations of an advanced social order and continuous and progressive prosperity. However, we see that these expectations were not based on reality, but rather that there are economic, social, and ecological cycles whose laws we do not know, and which suddenly appear, dismantling the social and economic system in a matter of days and causing a humanitarian and values crisis with profound and long-lasting repercussions, especially for “Western” psychology, which is now universal.

The West has not only lost the direction of its leaders, but has also called into question its own identity (often at the hands of those same pseudo-political leaders). It has sown the seeds of discord and erosion in the very foundations of its educational systems and, through the mass media, in public opinion itself. All social and cultural values have been called into question with the acquiescence of the powerful and politicians of all kinds.

And if there are no authentic leaders, there are no followers either, but rather an amorphous mass that does not know what to expect. We do not know whether African drum music is better than Mozart, or whether monogamous marriage, an expression of a long coexistence between Western religions, the result of millennia of jurisprudence and social experience, etc., is better, or whether we should let other cultures impose their polygamous customs in the name of supposed tolerance, even if this leads to the loss of women's rights. We no longer know whether religious freedom means allowing someone to cook a crucifix on a television program or to caricature of prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). We do not know whether Michelangelo's Pietà should be valued at the same level as the €124,000 cost of each can of fresh feces by the artist Piero Manzoni. We no longer know whether life is sacred or not, while the secret cloning of human beings continues at the same time as the belief that artificial intelligence will give way to the humanity (?) of the future is promoted by all means.

The confusion is total. This is the cause of the crisis of values, relativism, not knowing which way to turn, since everything has been called into question.

To this systematic destruction of the fundamental pillars has been added, consciously or unconsciously, a scientific-materialistic projection of the future: that of a brave new world, organized solely by science, which will be able to respond to all our material needs. What does it matter to know what is good or bad, moral or immoral, (thinks the materialist, selfish and hedonist man) if you will have everything at your fingertips anyway, live protected, and all your appetites will be satisfied? However, the opposite has happened: not only is there moral insecurity, but also economic insecurity; what was promised has not been fulfilled.

Suspicion begins to spread, and epidemic diseases of almost biblical proportions announce that something is not right. No one trusts what society and its leaders can offer them anymore. The collective unconscious reflects this vision through literary and cinematic creations that present us with a world in a catastrophic state where survival is the only law.

Many utopias have been attempted over the last two centuries. Many kinds of utopian “isms,” prefabricated in offices by intellectuals with no real experience, have been born with the pretension of bringing solutions, yet they have only generated centuries of conflict and more bloodshed than ever in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Social revolution has not worked, among other things because there were no authentic human leaders, at most crude revolutionary chiefs, or leaders without conscience, sometimes murderers, who took power, and other times interest groups that managed to apply their own formulas.

From which dark office will they devise the new savior model? Who will carry it out? People imbued with wisdom and heroism, or rather people eager to be part of “the caste”?

All we have left is the human revolution, that is, the internal revolution that focuses on the very basis of the problem, on the human beings who make up the social fabric. We need a New Man, with a different outlook, capable of seeing within himself and capable of realizing universal humanistic ideals.

That Human Revolution can only have as its principles Fraternity, Knowledge, and the Development of Human Potentials, based on a deep respect for all people, of all races, regardless of country or gender; it is enough to be human.

We propose Seven Keys to Overcoming the Crisis, which we will develop in successive articles.

Key 1: Change Your Perspective

Key 2: What Depends on You?

Key 3: Capacity for Resurrection

Key 4: Don't Waste Time or Energy

Key 5: Seek Perfection

Key 6: Seek Immortal Values

Key 7: Seek Your Place in Time

“Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” (John F. Kennedy)

To this I add “and for yourself, for your deepest Self”