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"Love is difficult. For one humanbeing to love a another
humanbeing, that is the most difficult task that's been trused to us,
the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely
preparation."
from Letters to a Young Poet, by Rainer Maria Rilke
We human beings are what we have been for millions of years -
colossally greedy, envious, aggressive, jealous, anxious and
despairing, with occasional flashes of joy and affection. We are a
strange mixture of hate, fear and gentleness; we are both violence and
peace. There has been ourward progress from the bullock cart to the jet
plane but psychologically the individual has not changed at all, and
the structure of society throughout the world has been created by
individuals. The ourward social structure is the result of the inward
phychological structure of our human relationships, for the individual
is the result of the total experience, knowledge and conduct of man.
Each one of us is the storehouse of all the past. The individual is the
human who is all mankind. The whole history of man is written in
ourselves.
Do observe what is actually taking place within yourself and ourside yourself in the competitive culture in which you live with its desire for power, position, prestige, name, success and all the rest of it - observe the achievements of which you are so proud, this whole field you call living in which there is conflict in every form of relationship, breeding hatred, antagonism, brutality and endless wars. This field, this life, is all we know, and being unable to understand the enormous battle of existence we are naturally afraid of it and find escape from it in all sorts of subtle ways. And we are frightened of what lies beyond tomorrow. So we are afraid of the known and afraid of the unknown. That is our daily life and in that there is no hope, and therefore every form of philosophy, every form of theological concept, is merely an escape from the actual reality of what is.
Tag // freedom from the known
The question of whether or not there is a God or truth or reality, or
whatever you like to call it, can never be answered by books, by
priests, philosophers or saviours. Nobody and nothing can answer the
question but you yourself and that is why you must know yourself.
Immaturity lies only in total ingnorance of self. To understand yourself is the beginning of wisdom.
And what is yourself, the indivisual you? I think there is a difference between the human being and the individual. The individual is a local entity, living in a particular country, belonging to a particular culture, particular society, particular religion. The human being is not a local entity. He is everywhere. If the individual merely acts in a particular corner of the vast field of life, then his action is totally unrelated to the whole. So one has to bear in mind that we are talking of the whole not the part, because in the greater the lesser is, but in the lesser the greater is not. The individual is the little conditioned, miserable, frustrated entity, satisfied with his little gods and his little traditions, whereas a human being is concerned with the total welfare, the total misery and total confusion of the world.
Tag // freedom from the known
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