Summary Information, Silo's Message

Summary Information

1.- This site (silo.net)
This site (silo.net) contains the original text of the Message as well as accurate translations into different languages.
In the measure that these materials circulate, they are subjected to all kinds of mutilations, additions and distortions. This is why it is important to permanently guarantee the authenticity of the texts. This site is not meant to serve the dissemination of the Message nor the interchange about it on a large scale.

2.- Silo. Writings
Silo is the pseudonym of Mario Luis Rodríguez Cobos. He was born in 1938 near Mendoza, located between Argentina and Chile.
His writings have been translated into numerous languages and his Complete Works contained in two volumes are currently being edited.

The book Silo Speaks may be consulted in order to understand the antecedents of the Message.

3.- The Community of the Message, Freedom of Interpretation and Freedom of Association
Any group of people that shares the ideas, sentiments and procedures based on the Message can be considered to be a Community of the Message. This community is based on two pillars: freedom of interpretation of the Message and freedom of association around the Message.

From the free interpretation of the Message, different and sometimes even opposing positions arise, which should be fully recognized with complete freedom of thought. This obviously excludes any given position or interpretation from being considered as the only correct one.

The freedom of association around the Message gives rise to different forms of organization that enable the experiences and studies proposed in the Book, the Experience and the Path to be developed. Whatever the form of organization a community adopts, decisions affecting the whole should be made by consensus or by direct vote, if consensus is not possible.

4.- The difficult Points: Immortality and the Sacred
All human beings should have full rights to believe, or not to believe, in immortality and the sacred. The Message gives the utmost importance to the themes of immortality and the sacred because, depending on how a person places him or herself with respect to these themes, so will be his or her orientation in life. The Message takes on the difficulties of openly examining the fundamental beliefs, clashing with the censorship and self-censorship that inhibit freedom of thought and good conscience.

Within the context of freedom of interpretation, immortality for some refers to the actions performed in life continuing in the world despite physical death. For others, the memory that continues in loved ones, or even in societies, guarantees the persistence after physical death. For still others, immortality is accepted as personal persistence in another level of existence.

Continuing with freedom of interpretation, some feel the sacred as one’s deepest affection. For them, their children or other loved ones represent the sacred and possess an utmost value that should not be defiled for any reason. There are some others who consider the human being and his universal rights as sacred. Still others experience the divinity as the essence of the sacred.

The different positions taken with respect to the themes of immortality and the sacred should not be simply “tolerated,” but rather genuinely respected. This is the attitude taken in the communities that are formed around the Message.

5.- Different forms of implementing the Message
The Message will reach all corners of the world because it will touch the hearts in need of meaning, affection and hope.
The people who presently are reached by the Message usually meet once a week in order to carry out the ceremonies and therefore participate in comforting and heart-felt experiences. Some of them take the propagation of the Message into their own hands and for this reason meet in a second weekly meeting in which they study the Book, the Experience and the Path. Sometimes a complementary material such as Silo Speaks or Guided Experiences is used.
Those who feel a calling to propagate the Message coordinate among themselves so as to spread it through the means at their disposal. They become true Messengers after having publicly declared their intentions in the ceremony of Recognition that is performed in front of the full community.

6.- Weekly meeting of experience
In the weekly meeting the Service is performed as a minimum. It is a meeting to make contact with and experience the Force. The more people that participate in relation with the Force, the better the experiences will be. All other ceremonies are performed upon request, so if they’re not requested, they’re not performed. Ceremonies have a modular structure, so they may be combined in different ways according to the needs of the community.

The ceremonies of experience are: the Service, the Laying on of Hands and Recognition. Assistance can also be included in this group. There are others that have a social character: Marriage, Protection, Well-Being and Death.

It’s interesting when people attending the ceremonies actively participate. When someone gives a personal testimony, the meaning of the ceremony is reinforced. In the ceremonies of Protection, Death and Well-Being, people oftentimes give their testimonies before, during or after the ceremony, according to the circumstances. Likewise during a Service, when reflecting upon a passage from the Book, someone may want to express themselves on that subject and speak to the community at large.

7.- Weekly study meeting
This second weekly meeting is for those who have participated in the ceremony of Recognition and wish to spread the Message.

In this meeting, the Message is studied in depth by discussing the Book or other complementary materials. Materials to be used for personal communication or for the mass media are also prepared and produced in this meeting. Activities of social solidarity also tend to be organized in this meeting.

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