Notes to Humanize the Earth

Notes to Humanize the Earth

The Inner Look
The Inner Look is divided into twenty chapters, which are subdivided into numbered passages. The principal themes can be grouped as follows:
• The first two chapters are introductory, presenting the author’s intentions, the reader’s attitude, and how this relationship can best be carried forward.
• Chapters III through XII develop the more general topics, presenting them in ten “days” of reflection.
• Chapter XIII marks a turning point, moving from more general topics to consider questions of conduct and attitudes in facing life.
• The remaining chapters contain explanations about internal work.The topics appear in the following order:
I. Meditation—The objective of the book: to convert non-meaning into meaning.
II. Disposition to Comprehend—The mental posture needed in order to understand these themes.
III. Non-Meaning—Death and the meaning of life.
IV. Dependence—The influence of the environment on the human being.
V. Intimation of Meaning—Some non-habitual mental phenomena.
VI. Sleep and Awakening—Distinguishes between various levels of consciousness—sleep, semi-sleep, vigil with reverie, and full vigil—and their relationship to the perception of reality. External and internal senses as well as memory.
VII. Presence of the Force—The growth of comprehension in vigil. The energy or Force that is rooted in and moves through the body.
VIII. Control of the Force—Relates the depth or superficiality of the energy to the levels of consciousness.
IX. Manifestations of the Energy—Control and loss of control of the energy.
X. Evidence of Meaning—Continuity and internal unity or contradiction.
XI. The Luminous Center—Relates the energy to the inner allegory of the “luminous center.” Phenomena of internal integration as “ascent toward the light.” Phenomena of internal dissolution registered as “withdrawal from the light.”
XII. The Discoveries—Circulation of the energy. Levels. The nature of the Force represented as “light.” Examples from diverse peoples.
XIII. The Principles—The Principles as references for internal unity.
XIV. Guide to the Inner Road—Representations of the phenomena that accompany the directions of “descent” and “ascent.”
XV. The Experience of Peace and the Passage of the Force—Procedures.
XVI. Projection of the Force—Projection and meaning.
XVII. Loss and Repression of the Force—Discharges of the energy. Sex as the center that produces energy.
XVIII. Action and Reaction of the Force—Associating representations with emotional charges. Evoking an image that has previously been linked to emotional states, which then elicits or returns the associated states. “Being thankful” as a technique useful in daily life to associate images with positive emotional states.
XIX. The Internal States—The various mental situations in which those interested in internal work may find themselves.
XX. Internal Reality—The link between mental processes and allegorical representations of the external world.

The Internal Landscape
The Internal Landscape is divided into eighteen chapters, which are subdivided into numbered passages. The principal themes can be grouped as follows:
• Chapters I and II are introductory and direct questions to the reader about his or her happiness, suffering, and interests in life.
• Chapters III through VI examine the different types of landscapes—external, human, and internal—and their interaction.
• Chapter VII touches on the themes of pain, suffering, and meaning in life. These points, and others related to valid action in the world, are further developed through Chapter XIII.
• In Chapters XIV through XVIII the central themes are the motives and direction of human actions, along with proposals for change in the meaning of life.
The topics appear in the following order:
I. The Question—Queries the reader about happiness and suffering. Proposes a direction toward overcoming suffering.
II. Reality—Discusses the nature of the “real,” relating what one perceives to the conformation of the human being.
III. The External Landscape—Points out that every external landscape varies according to what is happening within the one who is perceiving it.
IV. The Human Landscape—Shows how the human landscape involves the interior of the person. Denies the right of factions or special interests to demand that others must adopt their answers to the problems that individuals and societies currently face. Affirms the need to define action toward the human world.
V. The Internal Landscape—Explains that at the base of all human activity lie beliefs. Emphasizes, however, that the internal landscape is not only a field of beliefs but of memories, perceptions, and images as well. Observes that the relation internal-external landscape is a structure in which both terms are correlates and can alternately be taken as acts or objects.
VI. Center and Reflection—Indicates the possibility of placing oneself in the center of the internal landscape, from which any direction chosen is a reflection of this center. Shows that the path to learning lies through action and not solely through contemplation.
VII. Pain, Suffering, and Meaning in Life—Distinguishes between physical pain and mental suffering. Introduces the phrase “Humanize the Earth” as the key to meaning in life, emphasizing the primacy of the future over the present or the past.
VIII. The Rider and His Shadow—Breaks the monotony of previous chapters with a shift in style. Nevertheless, again considers the problems of the different times in human life (past, present, and future), seeking in them the root of memory, perception, and imagination. These three pathways are later considered “the three pathways of suffering” to the extent that contradiction inverts the times of consciousness.
IX. Contradiction and Unity—Continues to explore the interplay of the various times in human life. Emphasizes the differences between everyday problems or difficulties on the one hand, and contradiction on the other, presenting the defining characteristics of contradiction. Proposes changes in the organization of the internal landscape.
X. Valid Action—Explains that not only contradiction but all inversion in the growing current of life generates suffering. Emphasizes the importance of valid actions as unifying acts that are capable of overcoming contradiction. Presents an implicit critique of the foundations of morality when not developed based on the need to give unity to the human being, to provide references for surpassing contradiction and suffering.
XI. Projection of the Internal Landscape—Emphasizes that both contradictory and unifying acts commit the future of those who produce them, as well as the future of all who are in contact with them. In this sense, individual contradiction “contaminates” others, while individual unity also affects others.
XII. Compensation, Reflection, and the Future—The background of this chapter is the age-old debate between determinism and freedom. Concisely reviews the mechanics of human actions as the interplay of compensatory actions as well as the reflection of the external landscape, without overlooking accidents as another phenomenon capable of undoing all human projects. Finally, emphasizes the search for the growth of life without limit as a leap over determining conditions.
XIII. Provisional Meanings—Outlines the dialectic between “provisional meanings” and “meaning in life.” Places affirmation of life as the highest value, suggesting that it is the rebellion against death that drives all progress.
XIV. Faith—Notes the feeling of suspicion experienced upon hearing the word “faith.” Distinguishes between naive faith, fanatical faith, and faith applied in the service of life. Gives faith maximum importance as the energy that mobilizes all enthusiasm in life.
XV. To Give and To Receive—Establishes that the act of giving opens the future, and that all valid actions go in this direction. Receiving, in contrast, is centripetal, and dies in the individual. It is through giving that one can change the direction of a contradictory life.
XVI. Models—Explains “models” as the internal images that motivate human activities toward the external world, while noting that such images are modified with changes in the internal landscape.
XVII. The Internal Guide—Refers to the existence of models in the internal landscape that are examples of how to act. Such models can be called “internal guides.”
XVIII. The Change—Studies the possibility of voluntary change in human conduct.

The Human Landscape
The Human Landscape is divided into thirteen chapters, which are subdivided into numbered passages. The principal themes can be grouped as follows:
• The first five chapters are dedicated to clarifying the meaning of the human landscape and the look that is related to that landscape.
• The following seven chapters address central questions that arise in the human landscape.
• Chapter thirteen concludes the themes developed, inviting the reader to continue the study of important issues that have been treated only in passing in this work.
The topics appear in the following order:
I. Looks and Landscapes—Establishes the difference between internal, external, and human landscapes. Introduces distinctions between looks of different types.
II. The External Look and That Which Is Human—Reviews what has been said about the human being from an “external look.”
III. The Human Body as the Object of Intention—Intentionality and the governing of one’s own body without intermediation. The objectification of others’ bodies and the “emptying” of their subjectivity.
IV. Memory and the Human Landscape—The lack of correspondence between the human landscape perceived in the present and the human landscape deriving from the period of formation of the one perceiving.
V. The Distance Imposed by the Human Landscape—The distance between the perceived human landscape and the represented human landscape arises not only from the difference in times but also from ways of being-in-the-world that depend on the emotions and the presence of one’s own body.
VI. Education—Recommends that an integral education embody coherent thinking as contact with one’s own registers of thinking; that it should consider awareness and emotional development as contact with oneself and others; and that it should not overlook practices that bring into play the full range of each person’s corporal resources. Distinguishes between education as formation, information as the integration of data through study, and practice as a form of study.
VII. History—Until now history has been looked at from the “outside,” without taking human intentionality into account.
VIII. Ideologies—In times when ideologies are in crisis there arise “ideologemas” that claim to represent reality itself. Such is the case with so-called “pragmatism.”
IX. Violence—Nonviolence as a methodology of social and political struggle does not require justification. It is a system in which violence predominates that needs justification in order to impose itself. Distinguishes between pacifism and nonviolence.
X. Law—Considers both the origin of law and the theme of power as a precondition for any law.
XI. The State—The State as an apparatus of intermediation between the real power held by a part of society and the social whole.
XII. Religion—Religions as “externality” inasmuch as they attempt to speak about God and not about the inner register of God in the human being.
XIII. Open Roads—Concludes by inviting the reader to study and further develop important themes of the human landscape that have not been addressed in this work.

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