CHAPTER XVI
"Will a LIGHT exist in the end of the tunnel"?
Where will they locate the causes that took the man of today and, therefore, this current civilization to a total unbalance, not only in relation to misunderstandings and competitions, but to a true crisis in all aspects of the human existence -intellectual, moral, political, economical, social, ecological?
Certainly it was the loss of the perspective of the transcendent.
The people, through the times, in spite of possessing a primitive concept of the Divinity, they left signals of believing in an imponderable force that presided everything. The objective of the oldest traditions was always to look for the wisdom, the understanding of the natural order and the life in harmony with her.
The antique philosophers, who began the Western thought, they had a much more global vision of the Universe and, besides, they considered the relationship between the creation and the Creator.
Plato (428 348 B.C.), for instance, accepted the existence of a Demiurge that had perfect and immutable ideas and had the matter to print them.
Aristotle (384 322 B.C.) he proposed that the whole movement inside of the Universe should be explained by the union of the idea with the matter.
Tomas of Aquino (1.225 1.274) promoted a coalition between Aristotle's thought and the Christian theology. God is continually creating the world through the union among the universal ones, in other words, among the abstract ideas, and the matter, with the purpose of producing new objects.
Among others, three great figures of the philosophy and of the science had capital influence so that be installed a disconnection between the physical and the spiritual and they exercised rigid influence through the centuries that came in succession.
1. Francis Bacon (1.561 1.626) develops the empiric method for the scientific work. It is an inductive procedure with base in the experimentation, beginning with the most objective phenomena in search of a general law. For him, the man should dominate the Nature. These are their words: "The Nature is forced to serve the man. The objective should be, even under torture, to extract from the earth all their secrets."
Starting from Bacon, the objective of the science headed in the sense of acquiring knowledge to be used to dominate and to control the Nature without any concern with the ecological consequences.
Besides, the inductive method fragments the parts in search of the laws that govern the phenomenon, without concern with the united structure of the Universe.
2. With Discards (1.596 1.649) it enters for the philosophy the dichotomy between body and mind, between matter and spirit. He accepted that the knowledge has beginning by the intellectual apprehension of universal essences and of simple relationships, made by the intuition, elements those that would serve as foundations for a rational process.
That process he describes as having two phases - the one of the analysis and the one of the synthesis; the synthesis involves the complex of the deductions that develop through the methodical and systematic doubt. It is a method critical, deductive and mathematical.
He places the thought as essence of the spiritual soul. He despises the sensitive knowledge, the feelings and the emotions, once they are irrational states and that don't flow from God. As consequence, the relationship between matter and spirit, between body and soul, becomes metaphysically impossible in his rationalism.
God, for Discards, is a state of absolute perfection. It is conceived as Substance, the unique true Substance. This form of imagining God, supplies premises for the pantheism of Spinoza (1.632 - 1.677) that begins foreseeing the union between matter and spirit.
Considering the inert matter as having been impelled initially by God, through a force that generates the movement, Discards develop, trying to explain the world, so much organic as inorganic, a mechanic philosophy - the body is a machine, the animal is a machine, and the Universe is, also, a machine.
So ingrained was this idea at that time that Julien of La Mettrie (1.709 1.751) writes a book entitled "L'homme Machine" - "the Man Machine".
3. Isaac Newton (1.642 1.727) combines the inductive method of Bacon and the deductive of Discards. He gets, by that way, to formulate the laws that would govern the "machine" of the Universe proposed by Discards. He develops a mathematical theory of the world; he creates the differential calculation to describe the movement of the bodies inside of the solar system. The law of the gravity appears. The Universe for him was a machine that worked in agreement with precise laws.
In spite of deep studies in the esoteric field he didn't get to establish the connection between the matter and the transcendent.
He affirmed to be the matter constituted by equal particles in its essence, created by God for the purposes of the material world. What differentiated the several matter types was the form as those particles joined, some times in a more compact way, other times in a less compact way. Those particles would be moved as a consequence of the largest or smaller mutual attraction, provoked by the gravity force.
His Universe is, therefore, also, mechanistic; it had been created by an external God that would govern it through laws.
The scientific progress that he provided to the world of that time, with the new laws that he glimpsed, was undeniably extraordinary, but it facilitated excessively to move away still more the idea of a God integrative and it favored the great outbreak of materialism that appears in the centuries XVII, XVIII and XIX. Inside of that materialism extant, however, one cannot deny that there was a great scientific progress, sensitive in the several areas, so much that those centuries are considered as the period of the Enlightenment.
However, the conception of an Universe and of the organisms as machines constituted by isolated pieces took to the fragmentation of the knowledge, that lasts long until the days it today. We can verify that clearly inside of the own pedagogy that introduces the disciplines completely separated some of the other ones. The student, any that is his formation, leaves without the smallest notion of a systemic group.
As consequence of that reducibility, the science started to believe that all of the phenomena could be understood once they were reduced to their basic components and it is in that process that still the scientific method is based.
Nowadays, we stand out the importance of the intelligence, of the rational part, we delegate for a second plan the emotional balance and very little is cogitated on the spiritual dimension. As our progress has rational and intellectual predominance, it is not given prestige to the intuition and it is not cultivated.
That tendency of considering the phenomena as mechanical processes, without concern with the togetherness of the group, and the complete abandonment of the participation of a Creator and of the existent connection between Him and the Creature, they contributed for the structuring of a society replete of unbalances.
Some effective points:
1. The system capitalist extant promotes terrible distribution of income; crowds living in the more complete poverty, starving, avalanches of beggars, while astronomical budgets are spent in armaments. A scientific economy should be in charge of the production, of the distribution and of the consumption of that which is generated by the man's work, providing equal opportunities for all. The way the economy is conducted depends on the social situation of the people.
2. The education is not priority and, however, she is, positively, essential factor for the social leveling.
3. Inflation and unemployment, this enlarged by the technology application, without parallel preparation of specialized labor and to the opening of new professional fields.
4. We don't anymore take care of the supply of goods of first need, but the market is overfilled of superfluous products, all manipulated by the propaganda that, in most of the cases, it is dishonest.
5. Monopolies elevate the prices artificially.
6. Economical and political domain of the multinationals. They have powerful influence over the people and over the governments. They finance initiatives inside of the educational system and of the academic researches, a lot of times looking for own interests and not universal interests. They explore the labor of cheap work of the third world.
7. The man started using, for destruction ends, great discoveries of the science; nuclear energy, for atomic bomb; airplanes, to bomb; great factories, to pollute rivers and environment.
8. Devastation of the forests, with decrease of the production of oxygen.
9. Widespread and disorderly pollution, without the smallest control of the authorities, not being novelty how much the layer of ozone is harmed allowing the infiltration of harmful solar rays to the health.
10. Nuclear residues without a destination safe for the humanity.
11. Bloody and endless wars around of the world, with unimaginable atrocities.
12. Moral degradation. The corruption reigns among the high levels of the "white collar", including politicians that should care for the welfare of the nation, and it goes down until the lowest social levels, with kidnappings, murders, massacres, robberies, assaults, violence of every nature, etc.....
Will a LIGHT exist in the end of that shady tunnel?
In one of the oldest books, belonging to the Chinese philosophy, the "I Ching", also known as the Book of the Mutations, we read: "At the end of a decadent period it befalls the mutation point. The powerful light that had been banished revives".
In the century XX began being developed a more organic notion of the universe, particularly as a result of the discoveries in the field of the atomic and subatomic experiences. They prove, in a categorical form, that there exists an indissoluble cohesion between the parts and the Whole.
The theory of relativity formulated by Einstein and the quantum theory formulated by a group, among which - Max Planck, Einstein, Niels Bohr and others - they brought an inversion inside of the Western thought.
That change of concepts inside of the physics is taking the scientific thought to cross the mechanistic stage of Discards and Newton, generating a vision more global of the Universe.
At the same time, it begins to be a largest concern for the growth and the development of the man's internal values.
In the temple of Delphos, old city of Greece, when Socrates was in his acme, we used to read the following inscription: "Man, know yourself and you will know the Universe and God."
The man, as it was seen in precedent chapters, is not only a physical being with emotional and mental capacity as the current medicine still considers him, but he possesses a superior principle from which he comes and that stays intact in his inner. To reacquire his cosmic balance it is necessary that he meets again that particle of the Divinity that inhabits inside of him.
The philosophy of Saint Agostinho expresses well that thought. We can synthesize: The man comes from God and his life on the face of the earth is a pilgrimage towards God.
The key for that reunion is to penetrate in our interior.
Some lines of the modern Psychology are glimpsing this exit and they are extolling the Meditation as road for the introspection. Among others, that is one of the reasons why the Oriental philosophy begins to be given prestige by the great thinkers of the Occident, by those who noticed that she comes to complement that which the Western thought already reached in terms of knowledge of the Universe. It doesn't treat, therefore, as a turn to the past, but it treats, yes, of the sum total of the constructive experiences developed by the man through the times.
An effective method of Meditation is the one of Yoga of Patanjali, Hindu wise person, that formulated it more than six hundred years before Christ, and that we will start to analyze in a brief way. When we penetrated the depth of her context, we notice clearly that she is constituted in a practical and scientific method.
The word Yoga is of origin Sanskrit and it means, literally, UNION.
Her practice has for purpose to unite the personality, the conscious aspect, to the transcendent part.
To obtain that union, the method presents several organized exercises in a sequence known as "Eight Steps of the Yoga." When executing them, the individual starts to acquire a deep perception of their interior states.
The division that we will do has exclusive didactic purpose. All of the stages form an indissoluble complex that should be worked in a simultaneous way so that is reached a perfect balance, a perfect internal harmony. The practices of Yoga stand out for four main aspects:
1. Moral aspect:
The support is the moral aspect. Without the ethics we can try to travel the road, but we will never come across with the true objective of Yoga. The moral aspect has two approaches: Yamas and Niyamas.
The word Yama, inside of the Oriental mythology, is the name given to the Goddess that presides the world of the underworld, meaning that the candidate to the initiation should provoke the death of all their negative aspects, of whatever is contrary to the Law of the Evolution. The Yamas are in number of five:
a) Ahimsa - not to do the badly to any living being, nor to ourselves, harming, somehow, our physical health, as for instance, through the use of the tobacco, of the toxics, of the bad feeding etc. She also involves the "no violence." To have wisdom to claim rights without promoting aggressiveness. It was practicing Ahimsa that Gandhi freed India.
b) Satya - not to steal. Fully respect strictly the property of others.
c) Asteyam - not to lie. Take care not to overstep the limits of truth, under any circumstances.
d) Brahmacharya - to respect the sex. To conserve the purity of your purpose that is the one of the procreation and the one of the expression of the true and sincere love.
e) Aparigraha - not to attach to the perishable things of the world, considering them as purpose of the life, but just as instruments to work the internal evolution.
Niyamas are the aspects that should be cultivated by the disciple and they are, also, in number of five:
a) Sadhana - Means Purity that the candidate should look for in all of the levels:
- physical, maintaining an external care, for the cleanliness and, intern, for the healthy feeding, without ingestion of any thing that harms the health;
- emotional, maintaining pure feelings and avoiding the hate, the envy, the jealousy, the pride, the self esteem, the ambition etc.;
- mental, maintaining constructive thoughts.
b) Santosa - Means Happiness. Cultivation permanent of the positive thought, of the optimism, even in the difficult situations.
c) Saucham - Means Serenity. To maintain the calm and the self-control, without never irritate or discourage.
d) Svadhyaya - Permanent search of the Universal Wisdom.
e) Iswara Pranidhana - Integration in the Universal Life.
Observation: Naturally the spaciousness of these points is practically infinite. Each item is presented in thesis, as theme for meditation so that the person can detect their subtler tints.
2. Physical aspect:
It has two approaches: Pranayama and Asanas.
Pranayama - Absorption of the energies through breathing exercises, with the objective of dominate them. They are the ones that animate our body and that directly lead up to a good intercommunication among our components physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.
Asanas - They are corporal postures that promote the juxtaposition of the energy centers of the body, in way to address the circuit of the energies and they should only be practiced under the supervision of somebody that knows the technique and have capacity to accompany the movement of the energies. Those energies have just been recognized by the science, and the Acupuncture, matter that deals with this subject, is already implanted at Universities of Medicine.
3 Mental aspects:
It has two approaches: Pratyahara and Dharana.
Pratyahara - In such a way to calm the mental matter, that be possible a disconnection of the senses. It is not an easy phase; it demands training and patience but, little by little, the person goes acquiring the mental domain.
Dharana - Is the phase of the concentration. It is to acquire the capacity to fix the mind in just one object.
4. Spiritual aspect:
It has two approaches: Dhyana and Samadhi.
Dhyana - It is the state of deep Meditation and, through which, the apprentice sees to appear in his mind the whole wealth of data about the object or the meditation theme. It is the fullness of the intuition.
Samadhi - Is the integration in the object of the Meditation. It is to become that which is looked for, and to know the universality of the things. It is the encounter of the transcendent.
The great LIGHT that the man is looking for through the times, using artifices physical, emotional and mental, all external, is so close of us that we don't see her. While we go getting the balance of our moral and psychic life, more and more we will go approaching the end of the tunnel and, the great LIGHT that is inside of ourselves will go revealing itself progressively until shining out in all her Divine splendor.
When this happens, we will have started a new civilization, because this doesn't depend on the direction of a small group of people that occupy government positions and that should be fully conscious of the needs of the country, as well as to be perfectly responsible in the execution of the plans of action, but it depends on the sum of the individuals that are capable to govern, with autonomy, his own FREEDOM.