Category: Culture

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The Butterfly Circus

Transformation Of The Heart

Blow after blow, we rise from the ashes of our never-dying ego. At times, there is an impression that a collapse is imminent, and then it seems that everything is going to be okay. Only through such gradual, step-by-step development do we become aware that we must change.

The internal collapse we don’t wish to experience but are all subject to is necessary solely in order to pull us out of our own swamp, elevate us, and force us to start thinking. As a matter of fact, a consistent painful experience is but a persistent call to change.  All trials and tribulations gradually pull a person out of himself, meaning out of his or her ego.

With each new step “out of ourselves” that we take, we process another type of egoism, its greater part. Repeated blows to the ego still don’t let us feel the difference and realize that with each time, our egoism goes through greater transformation and teaches us about who we are. It is extremely diverse and adapts to any situation. It always seeks how to benefit…

There is nothing accidental; nothing happens just “because”. Egoism helps us to evolve, and therefore, we cannot skip the stages of our development until the ego reaches its height and alters, or rather, transforms in order to use its own energy to act altruistically – for the good of all. But before we are conscious and mature enough to realize our altruistic potential, we have to swallow every pill, which is the only way to learn. There is no other option.

Then, when we look back on our painful experiences, we are able to comprehend what was required for the transformation of the heart to occur. And it only be achieved through human connection, merging with the hearts of others.

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Together We Can Change the World

To change the world together – sound like a great idea! But the world changes through us, people who live in it; therefore, we must understand how the world is currently changing and what we wish it to be. By changing ourselves to become an integral part of the entire system called Universe, we change the world. Nature has always driven us forward. We thought that we were changing the world, but in reality, we were simply pushed toward trying to reach happiness and more happiness or run from misfortunes and suffering. And ultimately, we have come to such a condition where we improve the world only by improving ourselves with our awareness, a rational understanding of nature, and with our connection and balance with it.

 

 

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Of Unity

By Mark Berelekhis

I offer thanks to Jobs and Gates

for helping me erect

a thousand shiny screens

between me and the world,

a neighbor’s icy gaze,

another human heart.

Encased in an impregnable cocoon–

coasting on hashtags,

bouncing off Facebook walls–

I toil from dawn till dusk

to sow and harvest the illusion

of connection.

What do I know of unity?

A transient alliance

against a rival sports team,

against an ideology,

against the one percent.

Discordance makes a flimsy foundation–

values shift, teams relocate, fortunes are lost

or gained.

The lens inside my skull is on the fritz,

capturing stills of enmity and strife,

where there is only love.

But this, alas, is all I know of life.

 

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The Ego and Public Feedback

When we examine nature and human behavior, we discover that it is driven by ego, which cares about only two things: feeling pleasure and avoiding pain. If we examine ourselves closely, we will realize that apart for basic necessities, we inherit all desires from the society we live in: what we eat, how we dress, the jobs we choose, the goods we covet, and our attitudes toward the rest of the world. We acquire our preferences from those whom we are taught to respect and admire.

 

Moreover, once our basic needs are secured, some develop a desire to rule over others and take advantage of them. Once we determine what we want, we start looking for ways to get what we want. This is why we are so dependent on the society – it is a supplier of our desires and the means to satisfy them.

For this reason, if we build a society that values cooperation and compassion for others, we will avoid selfishness, over-consumption, and pursuit of fame, fortune, and power in order to gain others’ recognition and approval.

One way or the other, the ego demands connection with the society while envisioning itself as the ruler. But society can “implant” us with the opposite values, without shattering the ego: Do be great, be proud, be all you can be and more! But do it in a constructive way rather than destructive.

In other words, the ego, which is used to gaining personal benefit at the expense of others, can gradually be transformed – through the influence of the environment, the society we are in.

Picture a person running for office. What are his or her objectives? To be in power, to prove that they know best! They want to run the government, make new laws, and establish a new order. Yet, what do they say to the public? Something along the lines “I will serve everyone, work for the common good; I will treat you all as my own family.”

 

This is an example of how one’s connection with the society compels a person to show an altruistic attitude, even if it is mere words,  prompted by noting but egoistic intentions and strife for personal gain. Imagine what we could achieve if society could, in fact, induce altruistic attitudes within us, rather than empty words! 

 

 

When candidates running for office make promises—“I will create jobs,” “I will provide housing, financial security,” and so on—the society must hold them accountable. If candidates wish to be elected, they must know that they are expected to be accountable for the promises they made. In return, the people will value and recognize their leadership. They will gain respect, power, and social approbation according to their efforts to serve their constituencies.

Likewise, we need not complain, blame, or demand someone to change since it is pointless and unrealistic. Instead, we can influence a person (be it a leader or not) indirectly, through public feedback, into gladly accepting the assigned responsibilities and following through on them.

Such an approach would create an encouraging environment for a person to adapt behaviors in accord with the nature of society, just as a plant grows and acts in accord with the temperature, moisture, atmospheric pressure, and other conditions in its environment. Moreover, the process itself would be enjoyable and rewarding, just as a child enjoys playing with others and learning at the same time.

 

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Internal Enemy

We have always been egoistically pushed forward by nature; we have always followed it blindly; in other words, we were instinctively pushed forward by our desire to keep fulfilling ourselves, and as it kept manifesting in us, we strove towards wealth, fame, power, knowledge—anything at all.

As a result, we have reached certain satiety, and our egoism has come to a dead end; we cannot even say that it keeps growing. On one hand, there is a certain line of reevaluation of our values: “Is it right to continue to strive towards the attainment of fame, knowledge, wealth, and power? Is this the meaning of our development?”

On the other hand, we see that our dependence on each other forces us to introduce some other international economic formulas, which must take our interdependence into consideration, in other words, if I will suffer, you will also suffer, no matter how egoistic it now appears to be. Even today, I still try to build my happiness on the suppression of others, base my power on being stronger than others, and by collecting more.

We must take the integration of the world into consideration. And if we do not correspond to this integration, we will not be able to understand the way we are supposed to advance in accordance with the world and nature. Today we feel nature’s challenge, its pressure on us with the only purpose of making us gradually begin to change ourselves to become like it. This has never happened before.

If we were to look at it from an ontological perspective, we would see that nature has always pushed us towards egoistic development. And now, on the contrary, it is showing us that egoistic development has come to an end; in other words, we have completed our development of the still, vegetative, and animate levels, when we were instinctively pushed forward by nature; this is why this level of human development is called animate.

But now we must begin developing on the “human” level, when we understand and perceive the surrounding world to the point of changing ourselves to suit it. Neither the world nor nature are forcing us to change instinctively, evoking these desires in us, which forced us to build a society, economy, technology, etc.: This no longer exists today.