A Bit of History
Let’s turn our gaze back; let’s go back about thirty-two centuries. In a part of Asia Minor, present-day Turkey, there was a great city that we will later recognize as Troy. In this great city lived brave people who were attacked by others, equally brave people. There was a battle, conflict, and there were looting and burning. Some say that the battle was won by the Trojans outwitting the attackers with a wooden horse, according to Odysseus’ plan, so thanks to that the attackers were able to enter the city and destroy the walls.
There are also more modern theories that talk about an earthquake that brought down the city walls; thus the horse simply becomes one of the symbols of Poseidon, the protector of the Greeks.
We have looked back to see how this event, the fall of a city, sparked the imagination of people, not only of the victors but also of the defeated. Many centuries later, the Romans will take pride in the idea that Prince Aeneas played a role in the founding of their city. In fact, imagination is present in both the victors and the defeated. The people involved, played an important role. Those days were lived intensely, and regardless of whether the wooden horse existed or not, these people were remembered for their actions. They were talked about, depicted in pictures, sculptures… And many centuries later, a great compilation was created that we know as the Iliad and Odyssey, written by Homer.
These people were undoubtedly open-minded and intensely felt what they experienced.
Now let’s return to the present. Let’s remember the events from about ten years ago. Man landed on the Moon. That is truly something important. For centuries, writers, poets, and scientists dreamed of the day when man would go to the Moon.
Finally, one man succeeded in doing so. Where are the poems, the sculptures, where is something that would truly remind us of this unique event in history, of what has been awaited and dreamed of since ancient times when people painted mammoths on cave walls? Where can we find something that would show us that we live in an age where this was achieved? Did man set foot on the Moon? Practically nowhere. The breakthrough news has passed, the moment when we saw the first photos with footprints on the Moon’s dust on the front pages of newspapers, and it all ended up practically meaning nothing.
Shortly after that, at the Museum of Science in San Francisco in the United States, I remember how I admired a piece of Moon rock for a long time. I was surrounded by a crowd of children. I was the only adult there. Surely, in the eyes of other people, I looked ridiculous, and maybe they thought: “Poor guy, you can tell he’s a foreigner, he must have a child’s soul if he enjoys looking at a piece of the Moon so much.” But I was looking at a piece of the Moon! It’s what we dreamt of so many times as children. It’s what our parents, our grandparents dreamt of while reading Jules Verne.
What’s happening? Where does this insensitivity come from? Where does this trend of no longer noticing what is alive, of no one feeling what is happening, this robotization that the world is imprinting on us?
When we interact… In Paris, for the hundredth time, I watched Nike of Samothrace with half-open eyes. That magnificent, colossal statue made me feel like I could hear rowers and the voices of adventurers setting off to sea, not knowing which port they were heading to, guided only by a sense of adventure and travel… I noticed people looking at me strangely. No, I need to quickly rush with my camera, take a picture, and move on; I need to run a lot. I saw the same in America, in Teotihuacán, how tourists practically torment themselves by visiting the Pyramid of the Sun because no one really sees it; they just go around, climb it, and quickly descend. Afterwards, they say, “I’ve been to the Pyramid of the Sun!”
What is this habit of going around things? What does this lack of imagination mean? What is this lack of sensitivity? What is this shame? Today, we are ashamed of both laughter and tears. Only drunks or very special people are not ashamed of their tears. Today, it is almost incomprehensible that someone would cry touched by some artwork or something spiritual.
Today, man is submerged in despair, in a state of hopelessness where they cannot find meaning. It’s not just that some things are missing for him, but even the ones he has are of no use to him.
A few days ago, in Brussels, a group of young people wanted to talk to me about a certain topic. The day before, one of their colleagues from college, a 23-year-old dear girl, from wealthy parents and in good health, took a bottle of barbiturates and committed suicide. They asked me: “Professor, why did she kill herself?” On my part, I tried to find out details about this girl, since I didn’t know her: whether she had been arguing with her fiancé, whether she had problems at college, financial issues, whether they noticed she was using drugs… questions that arise in these situations.
But no, none of that. In the end, I came to a horrifying conclusion: this girl killed herself out of boredom. She had everything: a car, a house, fans, everything. She simply killed herself out of boredom and the ignorance that we, the people of the 20th century, suffer from.
We know the distance between the Earth and the Moon. We can see microscopic creatures that swarm on our skin but are invisible to the naked eye. However, we do not know the basic things that we have needed since time immemorial. And when we say that we don’t need them, we are lying to ourselves. It is very easy to say, “Well, let everything go to hell! I will still live and work…” But that is a lie. Deep down in our souls are questions, a form of essential thirst and hunger that constantly torment us and provoke despair within us.
There are things that we don’t know, that we don’t feel, and they reflect in the great crisis that our culture and civilization are enduring. For example, most people lack the knowledge that would enable them to connect things in the universe. Because we do not accept that interconnectedness, stars, atoms, sculptures, and rocks appear contradictory to us. We do not know why things exist. Who helps us? Who tells us where we come from and where we are going? Who explains this to us? Practically no one. Even churches today are largely dedicated to speaking about social and economic goals. I know that one must confront. In times of social and economic crises, we need a place where we can pray to the unknown God, where we can talk to someone about what is happening in our souls. We have a great need to find out where we come from, what we truly are, and where we are going, if we are going anywhere at all. This changes our whole perspective on the world. Because if we think we’re not going anywhere, if there is no good, if there is no evil, if there is no reward, if there is no punishment, if there is nothing, then it doesn’t matter how we live. And if I don’t come from anywhere, what importance do I have and what importance do my parents, my family, and any human relationship have?
In order to cut the roots of this tree of despair, it is obvious that we must know ourselves: we must know who we are, where we come from, and where we are going. We also need to know the universal laws of nature; for example, the law of cause and effect, which is called karma in the East; we need to know that everything is a cause of what will follow, and a consequence of what preceded it. Hello. Nothing in this world is accidental, but rather everything is interconnected and exists for a reason.
No coincidences
If we could understand and deeply experience that everything is truly interconnected, we would know something about ourselves. We would understand why certain things sometimes happen to us.
< p>Studying history would enable us to track the development of nations, the cycle of civilizations with their specific moments of peak and decline. This law of cause and effect is fundamental. Logically, if we don’t know that we existed before, what law of cause and effect can we talk about? Moreover, if we could momentarily imagine that we have existed from the beginning of time – because our minds cannot comprehend more – and that it will continue to be so, we would understand that what is happening to us today is the result of what could have happened to us before, and that we are now sowing the seeds of what will happen to us in the future.
Some time ago, when talking about reincarnation, I mentioned the contemporary experiments conducted by some psychiatrists on patients. with a range of unknown origin psychological difficulties, which could only be understood if the patient enters possible past lives through their traumas in a hypnotized state. Is this reliable? Isn’t it just psychodrama? Facts have been determined regarding dates, places, and words, but most importantly, it has been revealed that we all carry one important world within us, a world that is undoubtedly connected to the external world.
If someone loves to write, hasn’t it ever happened to them that at four or five in the morning, an idea, a verse, or a lecture topic comes to mind that will be lost if not immediately captured? If that theme or poem that “comes” were ours, if it were nothing more than a spark of our biological being, we could repeat it.
Those verses, that music, those strange voices that command us to do things we don’t yet know, where do they come from? Perhaps from some dimension or world where a particular part of our being has the ability to understand the truth that we, confined in this flesh shell, cannot grasp. we are unable to grasp. Losing touch with this wonderful world, the higher magical world, creates a state of inner despair within us. It is the feeling that we have not accomplished what we wanted to do in the world, a feeling of emptiness in the heart. Such a person may seem like a winner, but if they don’t feel complete, they will be desperate and will struggle to find motivation in their own life, something that will be far from everyday monotony.
Inner Revolution
Every day we live by some kind of inertia. We eat, sleep, move, come and go… but that is not enough to fulfill our inner needs. For that, an inner revolution, a spiritual revolution, a re-evolution, a return to the starting point is needed. We all have some kind of instinctual knowledge of the starting point that transcends our own physical life, an instinct that sometimes warns us that something will happen. We have the ability to connect with this invisible world that surrounds us, but we must develop inner powers of trust, the fruits of our spiritual life. That is a world that cannot be bent with hands, a world that cannot be bought with money, a world that does not respond to threats; a world that is far from all life circumstances. Although we have forgotten it, we all need this world.
Hope is more necessary than money. We humans can live with little money, but we cannot live without hope. We all not only have the need, but also the right to a small piece of glory, a small piece of history, something permanent by which we are recognized, whether in public or private life. And that is destroyed. Once families displayed pictures of their grandparents and grandchildren admired the grandfather who did this or that; traveled somewhere or arrived from somewhere; grandchildren dreamed of their grandfather.
Today, if there is any photograph left after the grandfather’s death, it is thrown away or torn. What do we need it for when the grandfather is already dead?
This lack of a little glory, a spiritual connection, will impoverish us, turn us into tough and cruel people because we feel lonely. Although we are in the midst of a crowd, although we read the newspaper every morning. When we seek information about what is happening in China or India, we feel alone because we don’t know what is happening within us. And we fail to establish a connection with people close to us to receive a small act of kindness, something that is non-materialistic.
If you love your children, friends, and those who are with you, do not be afraid to show them. The fear of expressing love deprives us of hope. Hope has flown away from us because we have somehow become stiff, rigid, and unable to express our feelings. It is a disability of the soul. Our soul is crippled in its ability for hope and spirituality to the point that we automatically do things. We need inner renewal to be able to connect with the world and with ourselves. We need to slow down a bit on this path of artificiality and “trends.”
What is trendy is what is worn. If a certain attitude is trendy, we will lean towards it and allow ourselves to be carried away like a piece of iron or stone, disregarding our inner being. .
Clearly, this causes a state of despair. It is necessary to regain a sense of hope.
That is why, when we talk about the philosophy of the Acropolis (Acro-polis: City in height), it is because many of us are tired of being the rolling stone in vain. We demand our right to love, the right to peace. We demand, loudly and on behalf of everyone, our right to life as human beings. In an increasingly polluted world, we want to live unpolluted, naturally; we want hope to lead us like a lighthouse, illuminating our path. We want to connect with ourselves, with our predecessors, with the people who will come. In some way, we want to be participants in this historic moment, forging the history of the future. Men and women, if they are true men and women, do not settle for reading history; they want to create it, even if on a small scale. They want to live it. We must oppose this world where spiritual matters are degraded by materialism, and where we, who still want and need spirituality, prayer, and inner peace, Peace, we belong to a multitude of people who have risen against this thorny wall of hatred that characterizes today’s human relationships.
Happy are those who cry because of poetry. Happy are those whose expression changes when they hear uplifting music. Happy are those who can wave their hands and embrace a friend in the middle of the street. Happy are those who still truly live and from whose seed an entire world of hope will sprout. A world that needs to be not only new but also better.
Lecture by Prof. Jorge Angel Livrage
held in Madrid in May 1978.