Silo at Bomarzo, September 3, 2005

Silo’s Chat with the Messengers at Bomarzo
September 3, 2005

We are progressing… and we are doing it in a vaporous manner: it’s like a kind of fog. And we aren’t doing it in any defined, clear way. It’s more like a mental atmosphere, a climate, than a collection of structured ideas, forms. It's not like that. And if we add to that that there's room for everyone to interpret things as they like, the way it seems right to them, then this form is what permits that accumulation of experiences and ideas that come from each person. Otherwise you don't find room to contribute your own points of view, your procedures, your own things. Of course this is very disorganized, it's homogeneous with the world we live in. This world looks very organized. No, it isn't so organized, and we are fine.
As for the few elements we depend on in the Message, one can interpret these, too, any way one wishes. So no one can say that someone else is wrong, that they interpreted it badly; they do it, and they do it with their own system of interpretation. And so how do the people who want to participate in this bunch of things organize themselves? Also as they wish. That way the references aren’t clear - there are no references. There are no books that are references – those are hints, simple hints, and very incomplete. That’s the situation we’re in. In this fog we keep progressing. And if people like it, or if they don’t - everything is fine.

When we objectify things, when we put forth objects, things, we need to know who is in charge of those objects. We set up places, complexes, halls, meeting places, places for interchange. Who takes charge? It’s a real problem for us. When those things happen we need a kind of commission, then those people, that commission, is what regulates schedules so that people don't overlap... such and such a day is free, another day there will be a certain number of people there. And finally this commission can relate to others who are far away, so information can circulate, it can come and go. So a kind of commission to take care of how things function - things, not ideas, not writings… things. To take care of that and to make the connections, the relationships, go smoothly. That’s enough. We don’t need anything more than that.

And what do the people do? Many things: sometimes they meet with other people and begin to grow small communities that have their meetings, and when they grow a lot it seems appropriate to split in two, and so it keeps progressing. That is what is happening today in several places where these communities are forming, and if they don't have a place to meet they rent a place or someone lends them a place, and they start what we call a small hall – and then when the people want to have something more structured, bigger, broader, then they push to set up a hall. And the hall comes down from the stratosphere and appears, becomes concrete (laughter). Then the people who helped to bring down the hall from the stratosphere go and meet inside. And all is well. And not much more than that, nothing more mysterious than that. It’s pretty poor, this idea – but… there we go (laughter).
It’s curious that something like this can keep advancing. You explain it to someone in the street and he says: yes, yes, we'll talk again later.
With all the competition that exists today, with the competition of things, ideas, books, we cannot compete, we are in poor condition for that. They have movies, videos, TV. Yes, they have everything, and we have nothing. Even if we are going to bring down a hall, we aren’t going to decorate it inside. And what will there be inside? Nothing. It will be an empty hall. An empty hall - and what would anyone need an empty hall for? It might be needed so that things, which are so many, don’t enter! (laughter). It’s a defense against things. The only thing inside is people. We don't need many suggestions. There are people who meet, if they want, if they like, if not, they go alone, and then we've created an ambit and the important thing is how to fill it with people. But we don’t fill it with things.
The Buddhist stupas, for example, which are big constructions with a dome, a cupola, have doors and you arrive there and you can't enter because they are full!! You can’t enter. In this sense, what happens here is the opposite. You find yourself with everything empty. We don’t bother anyone, don’t do anyone harm. We are at peace in the nothingness, in the void. At that moment we don’t need anyone on TV to tell us what to think, what to do, no. We don’t need the boss at the office to send us from one place to another. We are at peace, to do nothing. That can become quite enjoyable! We don’t go much beyond that.

When people in different places begin to exert pressure, to pressure us in certain ways, with certain happenings, we produce some material that may or may not serve as inspiration. But those materials that are produced in certain moments always require some kind of pressure. You don’t come out with a material so that the people become aware of that wonderful idea. It's not like that. It is the people who pressure for clarification of certain aspects.
So, in the measure that the pressure builds, there will be more materials, and while we are few, there's not enough pressure, and there we are in the void. Those are the mechanics. So we have spoken of materials, the material that is in the Message, the Book, a few phrases that constitute the Path, and some experiences. That is what we set in motion, and little more, some small materials in response to pressures, and this moves forward. And as the pressure builds, there will be more responses.

So in this time we are living in, people are asking their questions. They are asking – they don’t know exactly where or to whom. But people are asking their questions. To us it seems like our initial impulse was in response to what the people are asking. People don’t know exactly what they are asking. Neither do we know very clearly what we are answering. It’s homogeneous (laughter). People are on a search, they don’t know what they are searching for – but it’s obvious they are on a search, an intense search, more and more intense, and they aren't finding what they’re looking for in things, they aren’t finding it in books, they aren’t finding it on TV. So they are looking – but they aren’t looking among things. What are they looking for? They aren’t looking for things. So we are moving in that direction. Everything homogeneous, everything fine. So they aren’t asking us for things because they aren’t seeking things. They are looking for meanings, they are looking for directions, they are looking for something that allows you to keep your life launched toward something that is not, something that doesn’t exist. This is the situation that seems to be growing in the world, growing in societies. We become aware of this situation when we converse – not like a big public event, the fact that we are going to have a dialog, no, no! – but like when we converse with someone very close. There we become aware that we are not at all crazy, because the other person, whoever it is, also talks to us about their search and about what they cannot find. We feel very good when they tell us: well, at last I have found you! But it isn't exactly that which the other is seeking. It's something that goes beyond and that happens to us too. That is the situation. But we verify that, we confirm that, when we talk with someone very close. Well, that's all.

So I don’t know in what situation we will be, those of us who are present here. But I know that there are many experiments, many different forms of work, and many of them are growing very successfully. We give special importance to experience. And the experience we have through ceremonies is totally open, in the sense that we don’t respect the basic texts. We launch this initial thing, different experiences with someone who is doing this dialogue, the person who officiates, the one who assists, and soon the people organize it in the way that turns out best for them and in their own language. So what is said changes, what is asked for changes, the way of evoking changes. That is not something that causes problems. That is what we must encourage, so that the people do it from their own situation. And people have a lot of meaning, a lot of creativity, they set in motion things that one can't even imagine, and they communicate with the people much better than we could do ourselves. If we had a fixed text, screwed down tight, if we did specific operations, ceremonies that were set in stone, we would be setting ourselves many limitations, closing many doors. But the people who take this in their hands change it and multiply it in many different ways that are beginning to appear.

So we are talking from the central point of this matter, which is the experience. The more that experience is modified and diversified, the better it will be. What bad can happen? That someone sets this experience in motion and it doesn't work. Well, that’s not so bad. Nobody died, no one was injured. People tried it, it didn’t come out well, they do it some other way – and in this kind of trial and error we keep progressing. What is always very good in any case is that there is an interchange among people close together, or people far apart - but an interchange. So that is where the references are: in the interchange. There I see what the other person did, what the other person contributed - and that can help me, what I take from the other and modify. That too is a dialogue, a great dialogue among people who are present and people who are not present. That dialogue is absolutely creative. So even in the experiences, we do our own production and we communicate, we communicate. This seems to be the most suitable form.

Well, we don’t have much more in our hands. In our hands we don't have anything. Good. (laughter)
There may be some comments that would interest everyone about activities that people are doing, that people are planning, about halls, small halls, huge halls (laughter), and so there must be people here who can comment, so we can be informed. In Europe it's been considered that we could set in motion one of these complexes - Halls, and those objects around it. And well, it must be working, I believe. In practice, or as an idea, somewhere (laughter). It must be working, so if they will tell us, we will be happy. What are we doing, Loredana?

Loredana: Well, there are several themes. We have already looked at many things; the main thing obviously is the search for suitable land; parallel to this is the question of the construction of the hall: the form, the materials, the costs and elements like the monolith, the fountain, the other elements that will be on the land. Naturally the first thing is the land, because with out it we can't set up the elements.

As for the search for land, we've concentrated on sites that aren't very far from Rome, or from another city with easy access, because since it’s a European hall we have to facilitate arrival from other European countries, airports, etc., places that allow relatively easy access. We’ve found many interesting places; the only difficulties we’ve had are difficulties of a bureaucratic administrative kind.

At this moment we have two possibilities that are becoming more concrete: a plot of land, approximately one hectare, which is small for doing investments like hotels and agro tourism, and so is somewhat small; we will know within a few days whether the owner will accept our definitive proposal, both in terms of money and time. We also have another plot about 70 kilometers from Rome, a little farther away, but close to a freeway exit; it's also a beautiful site, near a town with access by train; we are also waiting for a reply during the next week. In both cases there's the possibility of building the hall, sufficient space, sufficient cubic meters, which is another thing, because besides the land there are also limits on what you can build; because if you have 10 hectares but you can build only 10 cubic meters, that’s not enough to build a hall; somewhere else you may have two hectares but you can build 1000 cubic meters - in other words, it's a combination; so these two plots that we have now both have characteristics that would allow us to build in the volume that we need to build the hall as well as the multiuse room, the support hall.

Silo: In that sense, Loredana, we are doing well, because we had said that this year in 2005 we would initiate work or incursions at five points: one in South America, one in North America, another in Europe, another in Asia, and another in the Middle East, in Alexandria. In South America it's finished, and almost simultaneously other points have appeared that aren't working in the whole region [regional halls], but instead appear as halls in various countries. For example in Chile they are very advanced in that work, the multiuse room is functioning, and the empty hall is almost finished, only the floors, some details, the sides, the doors, the painting if it is going to be painted. Probably they will paint it inside, and there are some objects there like monuments that are totally useless (laughter). A monolith, a fountain, a gateway where you enter, of course you always enter somewhere. A portal contrived so that you can pass into another space, feel yourself in another situation. When all is said and done, there are some kinds of useless monuments that turn out to be very inspiring, and we are fine with that. Now this one in Chile is practically finished, it’s a national hall. In Brazil they have the same idea, any moment they will begin to do the construction, to find their land. And similar things are happening for example in India, where they were about to finalize the purchase of a very nice plot, and they had a problem with the papers, and our people who are prudent and know about these things there in India, who had the resources to find it, said: mmmm…. Better look for another place because here the papers are strange… the owner isn’t really an owner… and that way we’re going to get into something that can’t go anywhere. That’s the situation we’re in. Little halls are appearing in the north of India. They put up little halls very quickly with their bamboo cane, they make a monolith, fantastic, of wood, very colorful, and they do their meetings there. In the north of India something very special is happening; as for the hall, they are thinking they should look somewhere near Bombay, where they are in condition to begin, when they have a very secure plot. So the thing is advanced, what is missing is the land. So in any moment it can become concrete and we are still in the year 2005, the year in which we wanted to start things at those five points.

New points and new small halls and country halls are appearing, for example. A hall in Argentina in a place called Chaco has been revitalized – it was built more than 30 years ago and in that kind of little hall many experiments were done. They built it one way, they worked on it in other ways over time, they added walls, they took the walls down, but for 30 years it was just going around and around and never made concrete as a hall. Now, yes, it's time has come, it came down from the stratosphere. Well, we have to see what experiments took place there. It was a kind of cupola with a square, with solid walls, and they made the gates that were separate from the walls, inside was that hemisphere, but also the floor was a hemisphere, and there was a kind of grill for a floor, and then the people had the cupola above and also below. But for sure when they walked on this grate many… (he makes a frightened face) (laughter). So they took out the grate and they filled it in, they left it flat, and filled it with cement. Outside they thought they would take advantage of those walls that were separated to make some small constructions broadening it to the sides. It was terrible, a disaster! So they tore down those constructions - they ended up working a lot there, experimenting. The interesting thing is that now finally it's fine. It's within a common style that is now understood will be different in each country, but it’s understood where it’s going, where there’s an empty thing where you can sit without anyone bothering you, where there are some references of useless monuments and not much else, but that is now in motion.

Now they are looking in Alexandria, between Cairo and Alexandria, they are looking for a place where they can do this. There’s a lot of movement of people toward that place. None of this has yet become concrete – but if the intention is there, something will come of it, that's the way it is...At first there was nothing... (laughter) but there was an intention which was converted into an image and into a construction. That's the way things work. In North America they haven't even resolved the place, but it will certainly happen. But we will see if within this year of 2005 places become concrete. In Europe a place, the monolith, a stick there (laughter) and in India there it is, it is also going to become concrete. So we aren't doing badly, everything is vaporous, within the style. That’s what we’re doing.

Meanwhile the people are meeting in the small neighborhood halls with their friends, but the moment of constructing buildings, heavy things, takes its time. That’s where we’re going. And if it doesn’t work out… nothing happens either. Nothing bad can happen, so we move with a lot of freedom so that things work out or don’t work out. And there’s no tragedy.

Very well, we have the information about what we have here, so if you would like, let’s take a break and then talk about what we have to talk about.

(Coffee break)

Q: Our ceremonies of marriage and protection are ceremonies of a change of state. I'm asking myself: if there's a wedding, a union, there's also a change of state when a couple splits up and each goes on alone...

A: … and so?...

Q: So why don’t we have a ceremony of separation? (laughter)

A: It’s a very good question… Sometimes it’s ok – maybe the people don’t kill each other - but they remain with a nostalgia, something that if it could be reconciled, everything would be fine, the people would be freer, without making either the other or themselves feel guilty.

I think it’s a very good idea, the issue is how to resolve things in this Ceremony… that separation, so that it's also, at the same time, a reconciliation. Because there were many good things that these people had together, how to rescue these positive, interesting aspects, now that we are separated. In what condition are we left?

I think it's a very good idea, I don't know how to resolve it but... (laughter). Of course, it's more than a guided experience. In a guided experience, great, you do a work, you change your images and all that – but a Ceremony is an experience where you are very involved, it’s not like a guided experience, it’s more than a guided experience. Experiences, if they are felt, impact you very strongly, they change a lot of things in your life. Well, this is a case that it would be good to take very seriously because it could be a Ceremony of reconciliation in that sense. Why did that person’s situation change? So how is it now? Like something that was cut off, like an internal division? Or like a moment on a long road where things happen, where there have been things that can be rescued to keep moving forward...?

Very good, as a question it’s very good, as an answer it’s not so good… (laughter). It’s worth some work, we’ll take note of this issue. (laughter)

Is there anything else that happened?

Q: The material on the Inner Religion is one that it's hard for me to give to new people. In fact I don't do it (laughter) because there are things like the double that comes back to itself, makes itself conscious, and if someone asks me what that is, I just leave (laughter) – and so I’ve never given out this material. What should I do?

A: Don’t give it out. (laughter) Of course, if you do something for yourself, for others, with the materials, you have to feel it, you have to believe it. If not, why would you give it to them? Don't transmit what you don't feel - only transmit what you feel, what rings true with you internally, but not from the point of view of truth, but from the point of view of internal experience. That is what is important.

Q: So in answer to what that point in particular means, you’re telling me that I have to experience it. Is that what you’re saying?

A: Yes, without doubt, don’t do what you don’t feel, that’s the worst thing that can happen with these things. Having a big internal contradiction shuts doors for you, so don’t do what you don’t feel in these matters. In other matters, I don’t know, what you tell the boss in the office, you tell him lots of things that you don’t feel, in daily life you say a lot of things that you don’t feel. But in these matters don’t do what you don’t feel. That would be a sin. It’s not a sin not to feel certain things, the sin is in counterfeiting what you don’t feel.

Q: Mario, we are working with some of my people, not as the Message but in a parallel form, on an issue that we've called Self-healing. The image was to be able to do a Ceremony in which people can become aware of their illness or the potential illness inside their body.

A: Inside the body, not the physical illness and all that?

Q: Yes, but taking off from the assumption that many things are mental, that energy is blocked or isn't going to the points where there is or could be an illness. I think this is the image of someone who is passive towards their illness. So it would be a Ceremony to do also, since perhaps we all have problems with our body, a Ceremony could help us to be aware that you can intervene with your illness. That is, you become active and not passive and you can see what you can do to reconcile with your illness. I'm asking myself if that could be a Ceremony done with the Community of the Message or not.

A: If it could be done as something of the Message? If you keep putting pressure, certainly this Ceremony can materialize. Yes, because one could have a very good experience, and afterward the people would understand that many illnesses are not somatic, that there are physical dysfunctions, there are microbes, bacteria, that have nothing to do with mental things. But the mental position toward the illness, that's what we can deal with. So if we are talking about healing, the healing of suffering, of reconciliation with all the problems, I think it’s possible to get there, in a sort of experience, of ceremony.

Comment: I work with my illness and intervene alone - on the other hand, doing it at the level of a Ceremony you would have to invent very well how to bring out this issue of reconciliation, of acceptance and gratitude.

A: Yes, that is very good. Another thing we will make note of. I think it can be done.

Comment: Yes, with self-healing we’ve had very interesting results.

A: Tell us, tell us…

Comment: We’ve worked with a girl who is part of my group, she had a formation in her brain and they didn't know whether it was a tumor or not. The doctors were ready to do surgery because they didn't know, they couldn't define what this mass was. We've worked from the time this mass appeared, approximately one month. She did most of the work obviously because the mechanism was like this: To imagine entering one's own body, very comfortable, even with diving gear, with a backpack full of tools. To get very small, to enter, arrive at the point of where the illness is, and intervene according to what you see. For example, you see a lump with threads, you take the scissors and you cut the threads. You take the lump, you put it in a bag and you take it with you, or you burn it with a flamethrower, or you cut it up. If you see a red area, you take a cream and massage it in. She did this work several times a day for 20 days more or less. The day of the brain surgery, they did a scan to see where the little ball was so they could cut it out, and this little ball was gone. The doctors didn't understand why, and still don't.

A: Neither do we. (laughter)

Comment: What is interesting isn’t that the little ball isn’t there any more, but that it’s no longer swollen or red. It is tiny. I don't believe there's any magic involved, but an ensemble of elements. Your will, how long the body took – that is, there was a result. In smaller things, other results, but I believe it is interesting to become an active participant, so you don't leave your body in someone else's hands. So you don't delegate to someone else the act of healing you.

A: If a ceremony were done it would have to take into account how it is that images can act on ones own body. Because we know very well that images are different. Each image corresponds to a sense. There are external senses like the five that we know. If you try to act on your intrabody with visual images, it's not going to work very well, and if it does work it's because you have mobilized other images as you try to introduce the visual image. So you might have produced indirect phenomena. But it might happen that you understand the functioning of the internal senses and of the internal images that correspond to the intrabody. So it’s not a matter of imagining visually like in an anatomy and physiology book, visually imagining the point, but rather what you can do to feel, to have cenesthetic registers, internal registers of the internal point in the body that you are interested in. It might be that you mobilize internal activities of the intrabody, putting suitable images in motion that aren't simply visual images. So if you did such a Ceremony, then with the things said in the Ceremony you should create conditions so that the other person can go, in their internal registers, to what is happening with this person. And it's in putting together this Ceremony, in what is said, that the person can be helped to go to his image. Because in the example you've given me, such a thing seems possible, but it wasn’t just through a visual image, but because other images accompanied it. When you take this tumor, this illness, this thing, in your hands, when you burn it, you make it disappear in an indirect way, you are doing internal representations. That’s fine, empirically shamanism works on that basis. And it works! Some do it better, others worse, but it works.

The issue is to do things the best one can. What words do we use to induce these registers through other channels, other vias, that are not the images proper to the external senses, because we have been speaking of the intrabody, so you are not going to move something inside your body with images from the external senses. It has that psychological logic, they have to be images that correspond to the position of this disease. Is it outside? Is it inside? How does it feel inside? If we even have problems representing the external senses! To re-present, to remember for example, we have problems with the external senses. For example, it isn’t easy to imagine or remember odors. Some are easier than others. It isn't so easy to remember textures. Maybe for some who have facility with certain perceptions, like a painter, certainly he will remember visual images, scenes. But there are many people who do not have visual images. Yes, that’s that way it is: at least 10% of people do not work with visual images, yet they know where they are, and where their body is. They know where they are. They know very well.

In the guided experiences, for example, when you suggest to someone that they see a certain landscape or a certain place, people often tell you: I can’t imagine that landscape but I can feel it and I can know the position of my body, if I’m climbing a mountain it’s not that I imagine some little Walt Disney deer, but I do feel myself going up, I feel my body, I feel the position of my body. They work with other images that aren’t visual. Many people do that. They even have dreams without visual images. And they experience their dreams like anyone else.

So with the external sensations, there’s a whole thing that one doesn’t manage very well with the external senses, imagine, much less with the internal sensations!

Can you feel your sex at this moment? How do you feel it? As a warmth, as a tickling, or as a lack of all that, a kind of absence? When we speak of the internal senses – I mention this because it is very colorful - how do we have the register of these internal senses, of these things that happen in the body? The mechanics of reconciling with that illness, well, it’s fine, we understand that, but before anything else: how do I feel this? How can I describe it to myself, if I had to talk about it, what would I say? I feel that I am not well, that I am affected, but how do I describe it to myself? What is it? Is it like a lack of arterial pressure? Like hunger, because I haven't eaten for a long time? My description is very basic, it's not very precise. So if we were doing this Ceremony, with the words and the explanations we must make it easier for the people to do this work. Well, we don’t have this Ceremony, so I can’t tell you how it is. But it should do that, arrive to the intrabody. It’s another mental work, isn’t it?

Q: Could you say something about love and compassion? In the Message it talks a lot about love and compassion. What would be the attitude we need to arrive at that state of love and compassion, and to be able to transfer it to others?

A: I think many people feel compassion. That compassion one feels always begins with a kind of empathy with the other, to put oneself in the place of the other. If I don’t put myself in the other’s place, I can’t feel the other. I can’t have any compassion if I don’t feel the other. If I don’t feel the other, it’s verbal, but it is not profound. Because compassion is internal, I have to feel the other inside me. I can be compassionate if I experience what the other is experiencing, as the Buddha explains, when he transmits compassion for certain animals. We aren’t talking about people, we are talking about something farther away. Seeing his descriptions, how he goes about feeling these animals from inside, is something spectacular, it’s fantastic how he achieves that empathy with things as far from oneself as a dog, a cat, a tiger. Well, we don’t try to do anything like he describes, but we do try to come closer to the other. If we feel like the other, we feel a warmth with him, a closeness with him that makes us want to solve his problems. Compassion necessarily brings with it the search for a way for the other to get out of his problems, exactly as if they were my own problems. That’s why if I don’t feel the other it’s hard for me to practice my compassion. Of course I can practice good wishes, but I won't be able to feel from within.

Now let us talk of love. How can I feel love if it’s something that has to be set in motion from within? Where do you feel love from? From the heart, some say. OK, the Egyptians felt it in their liver (laughter), that was the place where they located the soul. Well, according to different cultures, the soul is located in different viscera (laughter), for example there are some cultures where the soul resides in the purse (laughter). That's a very special viscera.

Well, joking aside, there’s effectively an internal register. Saying something heretical, we have to concede that love is experienced a bit hallucinatorily. My darling, your rosy lips, your ivory teeth...! Well, the descriptions made by those in love are monstrous!! (laughter) What? Your teeth of ivory and your lips of rose? (laughter) Of course we all know what people are trying to transmit when they say those things. They are things that move toward poetic expression and that transmit registers through words. “This is what I feel, love, I feel that you are a rose, a flower.” Of course if someone who is very rigorous says: “a flower? and where are the roots?”… (laughter) But the transmission of registers can be perfect. With these words that are metaphors, people don't know very well what they should say, but it's enough that they coincide with what they are experiencing.

That’s why I say that love has hallucinatory elements, because you take away the representation, the immediate, the visual, the auditory, and you replace it with representations that make allusions. We are talking logically of love between persons, but love for all people, as it broadens, loses its concentration. To feel love for one person, sometimes, comes and goes, maybe once in one’s life, or twice, or ten times, but not every day, all the time at every moment. To feel love for ten people at the same time is a little more complicated, but it is possible. To feel love for humanity… well, maybe I experienced a very all-embracing sentiment, very broad, very interesting, but I don’t know if you can call that love, that experience of feeling humanity. When you feel love, you feel the other. When you feel love for humanity in reality there’s a broad register, but above all it is an inspiring register. That feeling leads to different things that are not strictly love. So you experience love for what is close to you, but it’s hard to experience it for something as far off as humanity. More than anything you experience it for your own tribe, for your family, father, mother, maybe for the people in the place you live because there are experiences in common. But people of other countries, of other places, it’s harder for me to feel them, and hopefully those who say so, feel it because if they don’t… and they talk of those things… sin! (laughter)

So that love for humanity that would be so important in this moment, that love for humanity, it doesn’t appear to me that it is so widespread and that it can really be experienced. But I do think an effort can be made in that direction. To feel in that direction seems to me to be a great advance. To try to achieve that communication with what we call humanity seems to me to be a great advance, but if we assume that we feel love for humanity, it seems to me that we should review that. Because these things that are so important and that end finally in an image of the world, we have to treat them with a certain delicacy, not as slogans: I love humanity! Well, happy is the one who can achieve that, but – where do you feel it? In your foot? In your heart? What does it give you, a deep breath? Are you changing reality, are you hallucinating in some way? Do you feel poetry when you speak of humanity?

Well, it would be good to do a little work with the other, to feel the other and others. This leap from the other to others is not in our culture, it is in a phrase, it is in a slogan, it’s not here as a register. I can feel love for the other. But how can I experience love for others? I wouldn’t assume that this business is finished and done: “Of course, we feel love for humanity.” (laughter) That way we don’t move forward. I am clear that I feel love for another and I deeply want to feel love for others, I work internally to expand my love and to know how to do it, and as my work progresses I have experiences, I have different registers, I see how I advance, and I aspire one day to register this love for humanity. But I don’t register it, and I don’t lie about it to others or to myself, and I aspire to have this love for humanity. And if I’m going in this direction, then I will have to recognize that I am loving the humanity that is in the past and also in the future. It’s a humanity that I don’t see, it’s a humanity that will come, that will come. I will be able to do this if I begin to expand my feelings toward the others who are here because I see that they are present. Imagine arriving at human history, I’m not talking about historic facts, I’m talking about humanity that is present today and that is a continuation of a humanity that has worked for thousands of years, hundreds of thousands of years. How can I experience love for that humanity? It is a process, I feel love for the human process, something that is keeps changing, that keeps being transformed, not like a stone, something static - something that has future, something that makes me move aside all the stones in the road. (Negro’s eyes are shining and the wave of his emotion reaches the whole room)

Q: And about kindness?

A: And about kindness, what could I say to you about kindness? That it is experienced as a reconciliation with oneself although, it is referred to others. The same way hate is experienced, the opposite of reconciliation, of kindness. Hate brings you to a tension that requires a catharsis, an unbearable tension, in which you can’t stand the other. In kindness the other expands, and in him or her you recognize yourself, and that reconciles you. And this is a unitive register. The other is a register of dissolution, of disintegration. And when that happens, you remember it as something disintegrative, something bad that happened to you. And when the other happens, when you remember an act of kindness that you have done, you bring it to mind and it serves you today. That is what you need to remember, the good you have done, and that is what invites you to do those good things in the future. If there were a soul, that soul would work with strengths, with strengths that produce a kind of unity - or with strengths that contrast, that oppose each other. Why would that soul have to always continue to feel that suffering, that opposition? Better that it disappear! (laughter) If this soul exists, we would want it to be a unitive soul, we would want it to have a center toward which everything converges, and where everything harmonizes. We would want that to keep growing. We would aspire to have a soul that is growing and not a static, fixed soul like a photograph, living in a particular house, in a room. It would be a soul that is expanding.

In the middle ages they spoke of the soul of the world. A soul beyond the personal individual, but that would permit things to function. In that age it was believed that a soul existed, in animals and in people, in people and animals. It was that which anim-ated the anim-als. It was that principle that gave them movement. And from that soul it was understood that at some moment there would be produced a new principle that now wasn't just the soul. It looked more like a breath, a spirit, something that was felt within, in the heart, in the lungs, it was like something respiratory, a ‘pneuma’, like tires (‘neumaticos’) (laughter) that have air inside them. That was how they felt the spirit at that time, like a principle that was different from the soul, and that spirit hadn’t always been in existence, it was being created, it was being generated by what you did, because you were in this world with your body and you were doing things with your body, you didn’t just subsist, you didn’t just eat things and fulfill your necessities. You had aspirations, you had tendencies toward the future, to see what kind of things you were going to achieve, and you did it with people, in a world of people. You related to people in a unitive or contradictory way. And when you related to people in a contradictory way, you also were creating contradiction in yourself, so you couldn't fly toward the spirit, you couldn't build it, you lacked unity. And to obtain this unity you needed acts of kindness. That is what the ancients believed.

Q: And what do we believe now?

A: We never know very well how things are, so we make the effort to try to understand them. Because everything is changing very quickly. The question should be, what are we going to believe tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, because what we believe today is no guarantee for the future. And things that are believed and not believed today change, they are going to change very quickly. Many people will begin to believe things they don't believe today, things they don't imagine. Many people who believe that the world is in some way determined will see very soon how what they believe changes. That’s why what we believe today is fine, but above all where are we going, in what direction are we going, what are we going to believe. It is our mental direction that is in play in these things. We will keep giving unity to our mind, to our actions, or we will keep dissolving that unity, augmenting our load of contradictions, or we will put all our efforts into directing ourselves toward life. That is what I can comment about the way I see things. On love, love for people, love for humanity, on kindness, on what is in motion, whether it is that which I see, or everyone I see but who are not even here, but who are in a long process toward the future.

Well, we are fine. If we feel love, better! And if we feel love for humanity, even if it is a weak affection, we are on the road (laughter), a minimal affection for humanity, how that is needed! But in one person, in another and in another, and in all people, a minimum of affection for humanity, it looks like that wouldn't be the case today. However, history is long, in other words, affection for others will begin to arise. It doesn’t matter what happens, the issue is how we can move aside the stones in that road. That’s what it is!

Q: Mario, the aphorism that I’ve read every now and then in some material that has been in circulation: "Whoever dies before dying will never die." I've always read this in my own way, according to my own interpretation. Speaking with others I’ve discovered that there are other interpretations - so when you are talking, exactly what are you talking about?

A: Well, we are talking about a very old ceremony that we used to do. It was a ceremony and an experience. More than an aphorism, it wasn’t an aphorism, it was an experience. We were working practically with this phrase: "Whoever dies before dying will never die." So in that ceremony different experiences would happen, it was a process, and finally you located yourself in a mental space in which you tried to represent and feel your own death. Of course, it was an enormous work (laughter) and you couldn’t do it, so you leaned on visual images, on scenery, it was almost a theater piece and it ended with the phrase: “Whoever dies before dying will never die.” As if you had achieved an experience that you might have in the future. As if you had achieved an experience that would bring you toward the future. That was what it meant, that was what it was about, a collection of experiences, a complicated Ceremony full of allegories and of paths that people were circulating on. It was also a kind of guided experience, it was more like a guided experience than an aphorism. That is what is meant and what was done! Those ceremonies, of course, were very extraordinary ceremonies that we do not do today because times have changed, people have become more serious (laughter), they are no longer children, they don't do those things, older people don't die, so they don't have to worry about never dying. That is how that happened in that epoch. And those who could die before dying, those children, will never die.

Q: And what about us? Those of us who didn’t do that ceremony… do we have a problem? (laughter)

A: It’s hard to feel that. (laughter)

Well, what a face, all is well (laughter). Thank you very much, we will be in contact I believe, perhaps. Because distance and all that doesn't exist today. The only thing to worry about is mental distance, not spatial distance - not even temporal distance is worrisome, but mental distance, the distance that separates us, that is the concern.

Q: I wanted to ask about who I am and where I am going? (laughter)

A: That is a problem (laughter) The whole path is a problem. They are few words – luckily they are few words! – (laughter). Who I am and where I am going. Insofar as you try to understand who you are, when you try to think who am I, you begin, without realizing it, to do an analysis, a division, mentally you begin to divide. I am not the person I was yesterday, however something has been conserved in me since I was a child. But I am no longer that child. What is it that has been conserved in me since I was a child that allows me to say I am the same? However I am not the same, there is a permanent hallucination, (laughter) there’s something that allows me to say: yes, yes I am the same but I am not the same. Well, let’s come to an agreement with ourselves! (laughter) There is something that doesn’t change – and what doesn’t change? Even our clothes change, my clothes from before are too small now, in a little while longer they’ll be too big (laughter). Well, what lasts then? Your name lasts, something external, an identity card (laughter). What else? What gives me identity? Who am I? Am I my name? No, not my name. Do my experiences give me identity? Or do I remember myself in a very distinct way one moment and in a different way the next moment. It turns out not even my memory gives me permanence, my projects have changed, that is, my imagination of how things will be in the future has changed.

So who am I? Maybe I am only an illusion. I, as myself, maybe I don't exist, maybe I am a sum of things, that give me the register of the I, an I that doesn’t change, as if it were a unity. But if I begin to discover that on the contrary this I is changeable, and I determine also that if this I changes, has no permanence, is illusory, is a sum of things, is memory, is image, is remembrance, is a project, but is not a thing... But up to now I’ve believed that my I is permanent. And when I say “I," I am the center of the world (laughter) and I say so. That is the register of the universal in me. Well, it’s not that way! (laughter). But of course, let’s not mortify people, why should we mortify people? Because if this I is illusory, everything I believe… well, also everything I suffer over is a little illusory. But let’s not mortify people because if what I believe, what I think and what I feel is illusory, and my suffering is also illusory, what we are saying won't help people. So when you ask me about that, I escape from answering (laughter) because it creates a lot of problems, but at any rate a little work on asking myself who I am, makes me reflect on things that are not so permanent, so certain, so immobile and makes me think about meaning, but without mortifying myself, gently, gently.

Where do I come from? That is a review. Where am I going? I don’t know, I don’t have that so clear, it would be interesting to begin to clarify this path, as if in that reflection a future were little by little outlining itself. But without mortifying myself, otherwise this reflection taken to the depths creates a lot of problems. We go slowly, this path is a path to take slowly, not to get into depths where I end up discovering that the I disappears, that my aspirations are motivated by ephemeral things, that my suffering is based on ephemeral things, that what I want to achieve and what I fear losing, what I suffer about by imagination, by memory, that I suffer through the impressions of an I that is mobile. It isn't worth suffering like that! (laughter) - it isn't worth having an I. Better to have a we (laughter) and to have things facilitated in people in the we, and not I, stuck in myself. Only me on a mental island, where everything I think, everything I feel, everything that happens to me is illusory and suffering. That’s not a good business. In sum, that's why it's good to consider gently who I am and where I am going. That is what I can tell you.

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