Beliefs and Faith

 To believe is very different than to have faith. To have a system of beliefs is comfortable as long as those beliefs are not ever questioned. The moment the beliefs are confronted or questioned, we abandon all logic and in some instances we may feel personally attacked.

Probably this explain why in terms of politics and religion, the more we question others, the more they defend and justify their position. It becomes a silly contest on how to defend the indefensible. There is no effective way to modify someone else's beliefs through confrontation. Why anyone would defend a belief or attack someone else's belief? It doesn't make sense but we found ourselves doing both all the time.

I observed in me a strong tendency to self affirm myself in something as fragile as a belief, and in doing so, I obviously end up in the defense when being confronted. I imagine it is the same for others.

Silo's Message doesn't care about beliefs. It doesn't work with beliefs. It welcomes all beliefs because it's essence is based on experience and faith. Not on beliefs.

Beliefs are plural. They can be attached to multiple objects. We can have many beliefs in many things. Faith is singular. It is only one faith.  It is always the same faith,

Silo's Message works the best with Faith.

I have noticed that faith is experienced when there is a need, because  needs move in a very strong direction; it is almost like a laser beam. It just moves you forward towards your goal. It doesn't stop for calculation. It just knows. It impels you with a great and joyful force. From another perspective, that goal begins to pull you into its sphere of influence, almost like a gravitational force. All doors are open when faith moves me.

It think I understand better now the meaning of the aphorism: "Thoughts with faith are the ones that produce and attract stronger actions and the thoughts repeated with faith are the ones who produce and attract the maximum of strength in my actions"

Forever

There is no such a thing as "forever", but it is one of the most common illusions that make us suffer. There is no pain or joy that is forever. Understanding this, life acquire a new meaning. Everything will eventually pass. To work internally is to acquire permanence in the capacity to change. Permanence viewed in this way is a lot more interesting than "forever". Constant change when embraced, give us reality and liberation from the tyranny of the illusory "forever".

Objects

 

If happiness has not arrived despite the efforts made to convince us that it depends largely on the possession of material objects, I'm sure no one feels that way. In other words, we all get offended if someone tells us we are "materialists." But if material things are destroyed by accident or intentionally, we become depressed, violent, we complain ,we get angry, etc. And it's no wonder. When our entire lives are oriented toward and dependent on material progress, it's quite tragic to experience that "loss," and at the same time, it's a source of reflection on why it affects us so much.

The truth is, we don't need to be offended or defend ourselves because we are essentially matter and spirit. But if that balance is disrupted, especially if we are disproportionately oriented in one direction, then we suffer. That suffering isn't because the objects are broken, but because of the relationship we have established with them.

Curiously, when a "natural disaster" occurs, we suffer much less because that "relationship" is a little different. We know that we don't control nature, despite the intentions of some, and we know that with "collective" effort, we can rebuild and improve what has been destroyed. That is our history as a species, after all. It's good to reflect on our relationship with objects if we truly want to understand what is happening around us.

Self Censorship

 

When I first heard the concept of self-censorship, I was deeply struck by the fact that I had never heard it from anyone before. The first time was through Silo in 2006, and the context was a conversation about how the Message expands in an attack against censorship and self-censorship, and that attack against self-censorship is the development of a willingness to abandon this system and create a different vision of how things are and how one should act toward them. At that time, it was just a word, and some years later, it's much more than that and has a deeper and more expansive meaning. I imagine the word has been used before, and Silo himself probably used it before, but the important point is that my recognition began that day. I'm talking about an internal recognition of my self-censorship, and as he rightly said, censorship has weakened enormously over time, but self-censorship hasn't. This whole context is interesting, even though it's a bit redundant. Sometimes a word or phrase can change an entire behavior, or at least produce an internal shift and an observation that's initially superficial and then more internal. That's more or less how my study of self-censorship began. The hardest part has been the effort not to judge, criticize, or degrade self-censorship. Yes, it's clearly useless at this moment, but it's more important to understand it than to judge it. And in that effort, I've been able to see and experience that this is actually the best way to open up that "disposition" to change. By sometimes only momentarily suspending the tendency toward judgment, an opening is produced within me, and I was able to see that what was most repressed in self-censorship was the potential for intuition and the potential for unbiased and free observation of external and internal phenomena. Let's see if I can explain this a little more poetically. 

“Cafet completely abandoned himself to the experience he was having. Thousands of miles from where he had started, in a strange, wonderfully real, and incomprehensible dream. On a journey to the highest desires that had not been at all what he had imagined. Cafet followed Graciela, connecting with the intuition that she would take him where he needed to go. There are times when the absurd and the extraordinary blend in an impossible-to-predict way, and all that remains is to follow that tenuous thread without too many questions, without too much caution, and with enough confidence that one will arrive where one must go.”

This paragraph is from a story I wrote based on a dream. Dreams are absurd and special precisely because there is no censorship, because there is no guardian of the contents; they just flow, and one participates in the most extravagant, extraordinary, immoral, inspired, etc. situations, and self-censorship disappears…

This is only an approximation of the subject, and I have used the dream only as an example. It's neither possible nor advisable to transfer it to waking life, but it is important to understand how this mechanism operates and how, little by little, without being extravagant or extraordinary, or immoral and/or inspired, one can gradually release one's own censorship, especially regarding one's own content, especially regarding one's own conceptions, especially because intuitions are more interesting than schemes. And by letting go of all this, insights emerge about how systems are set up. If one notices the tendency and observes it without compulsions, it tends to not occupy the central space of our actions in the world, and by not occupying that space, something different begins to manifest. In the best of cases, a void is created, and that void gives meaning because it comes from the deepest part of the human being.

The attacks against self-censorship are not warlike in nature but rather efforts to silence great compulsions that distance us from that sacred thing within and around us. Undoubtedly, the efforts in this direction are worthwhile.

Working internally

The idea of "working internally" is not a new one. In different forms and in different times it's been somehow constantly present in our world.

The starting point is to work with what we have and this is probably a new proposal. It is commonly accepted in societies that we work trying to "obtain" something within ourselves. We want to "become" someone better or smarter or more spiritual, etc.

The simple idea of "obtaining" goes contrary to this process. 

We can at best transform what we already have. 

To work to "become" is a waste of energy. 

To "liberate" ourselves is a lot more interesting.

To liberate ourselves from fears

To liberate ourselves from prejudices

To liberate ourselves from internal violence and judgements

To liberate ourselves from ignorance and internal suffering

From that perspective, to let go is a good approach to start this internal work.

Learning to let go is the first step of many more to follow.

PHOTO BY RAFAEL EDWARDS

Talking about experiences

 

Who really wants to listen to someone else experience? Practically no one.
In general we can't wait to talk about our own experience and hardly listen to what the other is saying.
And we finished talking and the other person is not even listening, in the same way we don't listen.
It is a peculiar exercise on monologues.
Not often it happens that we can actually exchange experiences.
Not often and it only happens if we are very open to really listen.
I would like to really minimize my talking about myself.
I found it not very interesting and it doesn't help my internal process.
I rather listen and ask a lot of questions.
It makes the other person happier and I feel more connected.
It is a backward way to treat others as I would like to be treated.

PHOTO BY RAFAEL EDWARDS

Reconciliation

 

The theme of violence and vengeance is a fairly heavy one, but at the same time it creates the space for me to ask myself, “How do I get out of this mess?” No matter how much I’d like to offer the other cheek, I am not completely convinced of the effectiveness or enduring validity of that approach. And after ending up without cheeks from offering them so often, how can I really overcome those forces that keep being generated within me?

Going deeper, I have to recognize that sometimes my worst enemy is inside me. If I am my worst enemy, offering my cheeks won’t help me much.

Then I see more clearly the need to reconcile with myself, and with everyone who has harmed me. The path of reconciliation is arduous, but demands sincerity; and it is the only path that offers a way out of the vicious cycle of internal violence and resentment - the same cycle that makes others mistreat me and makes me mistreat myself.

So, considering all this, there arises within me the natural impulse of forgiveness. But forgiveness, while still important, is not enough. It is not enough because it obliges me to put myself in those totally unexpected situations where I pardon my aggressor and they don’t realize I’ve done so, and just go on being aggressive. Now, humiliated on top of being hurt, I decide that forgiveness isn’t very effective, since I find myself again resentful, but now doubly so because my forgiveness has not been gracefully welcomed. And even if, as in the best of cases, my forgiveness is accepted, I feel morally superior, and that’s the end of all my efforts toward a more interesting transformation. Besides, there remains an unanswered question: how do I forgive myself?

I need to go a little deeper inside… and unfortunately I can’t do that just by forgetting what happened. Forgetting doesn’t work very well, because the painful memory is still there, and no matter how hard I try to push it down, it surfaces and keeps bringing that situation back into my present awareness, even though I’ve tried to forget it. Sometimes just a scent or a color brings back all those memories I thought I’d forgotten, and again I find myself in a situation of resentment.

Little by little, and almost without any other options, I begin to reflect that the only way to overcome all this is through a deep and sincere reconciliation that begins specifically with myself. As has been said, this process begins when I accept that I have a problem, when I can admit that I don’t like myself as much as I believed, and sometimes don’t really like myself at all. This lack of affection for myself is complicated and makes me suffer, and its causes and origins are hardly important. What is important is that it exists, and is continually begging to be recognized and resolved. There I am with this burden that gets lighter only when I begin to treat myself differently, when I begin to see myself in a different way, when there appears within me a desire for a kind of transformation not linked to any feeling of guilt or desire to “improve” myself, or any requirements of that sort. A transformation where I simply see myself as someone with a lot of positive and negative attributes, with longings and hopes, failures and successes - a truly human being with all kinds of needs, and also someone who’s interested in others and in coexisting with them and loving them - and also in loving myself. When I can see myself that way, my future opens and I feel I can escape the trap of resentment.

Then I recognize the validity of not judging myself or anyone else. I recognize the need to transform my life and the lives of those around me, but not compulsively, or for any other reason than to overcome myself. Because I understand, although not always very deeply and not always completely, that this is an effort that is made without concern for retribution or reciprocity. In other words, it’s neither necessary nor important for others to respond in kind. It’s a kind of “unilateral disarmament” that I experience as internal liberation, as a sensation of lightness and coherence, something that fits internally.

Finally I can perceive that when, as I strive to reconcile with myself, I begin to achieve this unilateral disarmament, it reinforces in me the feeling of reconciliation with others. Now I can sometimes see how all those individuals who have wounded me are exactly the same as me. I can perceive them in their humanity, and this is possible because I am humanizing myself. So after going around and around on this issue, I realize that everything begins to transform when I make the decision to reconcile with myself.

It is that effort, and no other, that allows me to escape from the closed circle of violence and vengeance. The best thing about this whole process is the silent joy that begins to accumulate within me, and I feel a profound gratitude for all these teachings that we have received.

Portland, Oregon February 18, 2021


EDITED & TRANSLATED BY TRUDI RICHARDS

ILLUSTRATION BY RAFAEL EDWARDS