Dear reader,
As I felt that the previous text had been incomplete, I wanted to enrich it with a few additional ideas. I essentially wrote about the projection that each of us is making on the others, and in order to be able to recognise all people as worthy, we should all take responsibility for who we are, what we do and especially the parts that we don't like about ourselves and others. "I Like it or I don't like it" are social constructs linked to the concept of identity that I discussed earlier. Nature or God- whichever feels right for you- created day and night, (physical) life and death, health and illness without claiming that either of them is better than the other. Life happens with or without our consent, whether we like it or not. Nature breeds creatures in various combinations, forms and colours without evaluating its creations, neither rejecting nor ranting about them. These are demands and needs of man who wants to control, define and categorize everything around him so that he can organize, understand and evaluate his experiences. But the experience happens whether he likes it or not, whether he understands it or not, whether he's trying to control it or not and experiences are not always pleasant as obsessively the western world wants to believe. The first day of school, the first glance at the object of lust, the loss of a beloved person, the anticipation of a result, the separation from a relationship, the end of a job are only moments when agony, fear, agitation, anger, pain, etc. prevail over the 'happy' feelings. Life is full of such moments. Yet these are not less useful or 'good' experiences than the happy ones. It's the night, it's the other side of the coin, it's the yin, it's the shadow, it's the cloud, it's the destruction. It is what is not pleasant, but it is as important as anything that makes us smile. I understand how difficult it is to assimilate this from the viewpoint of the western man who has built his identity mainly on the demand for joy. As Buddhism teaches us (as another expression of the human spirit), all the senses, experiences, emotions come and go and a great part of the pain that man is experiencing comes from his attachment to a certain one of these. Either extol the joy, or lament the sadness both are temporary situations of man in a greater path, that of self-knowledge, wisdom, enlightenment-again here the name choice is yours-. Every experience is an experience. How we read it, evaluate and choose to respond to it depends on us and bears our personal responsibility and signature. In alchemy, through various processes (Nigredo, Albeido, Citrinas) manages the metal or man to ' clean ', to purify its qualities and to show the essence of its existence. But the process doesn't end there. The final stage (Rubeido) is the practical application of lessons learned and qualities in the world that could benefit it. Wisdom, knowledge, beauty are not made to be closed away from people's eyes in theories, books and museums. Knowledge of the world and spiritual truths are applicable to everyday life. It is what some teachers call embodied spirituality. Anything that exists, whether it suits our current worldview or not, is natural and divine, so it is also sacred. Anything we do not understand, makes us uncomfortable or does not correspond to our previous structured reality, does not mean that it is not worth or that It of values more or less than us. In the huge soup of ideas, stimuli, people, philosophies, opinions and choices in which we swim every day, we always have the freedom to choose who to open a dialogue with, what to make contact with and what not, even if we do not initially know the reasons. There are always conscious and unconscious reasons for whatever happens including our choices, Think perhaps how our lives would be and what choices we would make if we responded to everything with the sacredness from which it is made. With Love, Panos
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Panos GoumalatsosCounsellor/Psychotherapist, Archives
March 2023
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