Ah, yes. The infamous cover of a London-based newspaper picturing the Eiffel Tower topped with a lovely crescent overlooking dusk-time Paris. Meet Eurabia – partly fact, partly silly chimerical exageration. Although Muslims make up less then 4% of Europe’s population, their concentration in urban areas cummulated with pejorative predjudices about them has sent many Europeans fretting. A new mosque of considerable size to be built in proximity to one of the 2012 Olympic venues has sparked intense rows in east London. Similarly, as if Paris’s banlieues hadn’t been troublesome enough, there are now fights between Muslims and Jews, a staggering 24% of Amsterdam’s inhabitants are Muslims and the mayor of Rotterdam is now Ahmed Aboutaleb.
I don’t think it would surprise anyone if I said that some elderly Dutch inhabitants of Rotterdam are dead-scared of leaving their flats, thanks to the sudden change in their boroughs. Instead, what’s really surprising is that European cities are handling the situation remarkably well. What would seem to be the perfect mix towards a sweeping “civilisation clash”, proves to be met with pragmatism and common-sense by the large majority of policymakers and community leaders. Although a Conservative and a considered iconoclast, Boris Johnson organized the Eid al-Fitr celebration in Trafalgar Square last year as thoroughly as his predecessor, Ken Livingstone. Meanwhile, townhalls in France generally accept the need of more purpose-built mosques. For all the worries, a scent of compromise is in the air, both with the European and the Islamic sides.
But is it enough? Even though pragmatism, compromise and common-sense largely appear to mend things, they only do so on the short term. Both parties need to have for an end result a harmonious, stable hybrid-society. Here, cultural relativism steps in. It’s a term coined by Franz Boas, who states that as cultures are based on different ideas about the world, they can only be properly understood in terms of their own standards and values. The moment the vast majority of the population becomes cultural relativist – and by that I do mean a deep understanding of and empathy towards the other party – stability will be attained.
At first glance, a number of possible strategies spring up in one’s mind – education, effective and proactive community leadership etc – that could bring us closer to the desired cultural-relativist population. At its core, though, it is a daring objective that needs more than just the run-of-the-mill solutions. It’s an objective to which applied anthropology can offer much – even bring the key to follow through. To give an example of a quandaray that ought to be tackled by anthropologists, think segregated swimming in France. The mayor of a French town with a Turkish population has recently prohibited a weekly session reserved for women. The reason had nothing to do with neither Muslims nor Christians protesting against the session. It’s just that the practice had started to irk French officials, by seemingly desecrating French ideals of equality. It’s these kind of impasses that should open the eyes of European policymakers to the urgency of applied anthropology.
Daughter: Daddy, how much do you know?
Father: Me? Hmm – I have about a pound of knowledge.
D: Don’t be silly. Is it a pound sterling or a pound weight?
F: Well, my brain weighs about two pounds and I suppose I use about a quarter of it – or use it at a quarter efficiency. So let’s say half a pound.
[…]
D: Daddy, why don’t you use the other three-quarters of your brain?
F: Oh yes – that – you see the trouble is that I had school teachers as well. And they filled up about a quarter of my brain with fog. And then I read newspapers and listened to what other people said, and that filled up another quarter with fog.
D: And the other quarter, Daddy?
F: Oh – that’s fog that I made for myself when I was trying to think. ( G. Bateson, A Review of General Semantics vol. X/1953 )
This metalogue is a perfect example of a modern induction-based mind. Now, why does this way of thinking, of binding ideas and thoughts create more fog than clarity? For a start, let us look at things from a behavioural scientists’ vantage point. The usual modus operandi of such a scientist couldn’t be more eloquent in hope of ever understanding this pattern of thought. First, our usual, run-of-the-mill scientist gathers raw data which he then analyses, compares, rummages and cooks, having for an intermediate result an imperfectly defined concept, a heuristic notion that is a long way from reaching the status of ’sufficiently explanatory’. He then tests his brand-new half-finished hypotheses against more data, ever pursuing its improvement so that it can gain worthiness of a place among the so-called fundamentals (truistical propositions and “laws” which are generally true). Consider this the backbone of inductive reasoning.
The obvious problem with such reasoning is that a myriad of heuristic concepts appear, with a tiny amount of scientists ever achieving to follow through. “Self”, “psyche”, “purpouse”, “anxiety”, “intelligence”, all unfinished notions, all half-baked cakes. Confusion reigns. It is all too clear that inductive reasoning is not healthy for at least the behavioural sciences – as Bateson himself puts it, “the vast majority of the concepts of contemporary psychology, psychiatry, sociology, anthropology and economics are totally detached from the network of scientific fundamentals”. I’m not saying inductive reasoning is flawed altogether (which would be nonsense), I am stressing the importance of a different, deductive approach to at least the behavioural sciences. Some believe a bridgehead to the fundamentals, useful to dismiss or approve and verify heuristic concepts cannot be built, since not enough fundamentals exist to make the process an auto-catalytic one. I should think not – human-kind has tried to explain the universe deductively in the past and managed to do so correctly without any other truistical proposition. Take creation myths. In almost all creation myths, even in the book of Genesis, the problems treated are the origin of matter and order, always stressing the a fundamental division between material creation and differentiation, order. With a bit of imagination, we can stretch this outline to the modern times and see it has always been on the list of fundamentals: the dichotomy between substance and form, their complementarity and tendency to alter the status quo and so on. If they could do it thousands of years earlier, why not we?
Following a totally different train of thought, this kind of fog, may also be considered emotionally-generated – another type of fog, but only a tad different. Just like intelectually-generated fog imperils logic, emotionally-generated fog poses death-traps to relationships. Lovers, spouses, siblings, clans, tribes and even entire peoples ride this peril-laden roller coaster. Even though this is almost entirely sepparated from the intelect, the process is almost alike the above described and makes coining it ‘inductive’ almost correct. We see it happen when the subjects run on a so-called autopilot, when they take fundamentals for granted. When feedback is no longer given, paralanguage’s validity collapses and so many ‘data’ (behaviour) is incorrectly explained through distorted views of the relationship such as a ludicrous and unsound belief about the other party. I’m sure this sounds familiar to us all and is, therefore, a sad and disheartening view to watch, let alone to be a part of it.
What’s more, dispersing this type of ‘fog’ is even harder then the other. It entails getting ourselves out of the emotional muddle and rising above the fog with the help of a certain undescribable awareness and that sacred mindfulness which I have previously mentioned. You’ll have to gracefully, confidently and lovingly make your way onto that smooth and enriching ride.
We are frequently exposed to views portraying us living in an increasingly dumb, homogenized world, dominated by McDonald’s and Coca-Cola, where all thoughts of distinctive cultures are blown away by the all-engulfing consumerism of Nike. A world, some might say, where American culture clouds everything, death-sentencing indigenous people all over the world. No one can escape. In the end all 6.5 billion of us will chew on cheeseburgers and gossip with our friends with the help of a bluetooth ear-piece, while driving our gargantuan SUVs for just 500 metres to Sunday’s sermon.
Rubbish. To anyone believing the junk briefly exposed above, mind you: it’s nonsense. Today’s view on globalisation’s effects is exaggerated and rather shaky relative to a modicum of reasonable reasoning. In the hope of ever overcoming such biased views, it is only natural to understand the premises of globalisation. An increased global connectedness, cumulated with the intensified movement of people, objects and ideas made us ponder on its consequences – hence the birth of the word ‘globalisation’. The word has ever since been used in many different ways, in totally differing contexts to describe radically different ideas. The end result, so far? A corrupt and malignant view towards globalisation.
In common parlance, globalisation, with all these corporate giants and almighty products taking over the reigns and with all these tight economic bonds, will erase all our piquant cultural elements and obliterate diversity. Somewhere along this rationale, logic is lost, matters are taken for granted. Coke, hamburgers, jeans and Nike shoes DO NOT radically change underlying social and cultural beliefs, rites and behaviour. Each of these products is assimilated in a specific way, depending on the culture at hand. One such example is the adoption of Christianity in Mexico. Unlike any other Christians, Mexican Catholics place the Virgin of Guadalupe in a position of greater importance than Jesus or even God, creating a layout that resonates with previous social codes: in a Mexican familiy it is the mother that plays the dominant role in holding things together, she is the nucleus.
As for the economics related argument, yes, such economic globalisation exists. Not only does it exist, but it also manifests on a large scale, usually with appalling consequences, as we all are witnessing in the current economic maelstrom. But there is no motive whatsoever for the economy to dictate the social and cultural leadership of a people. The fact that capitalism now pervades is only due to the fact that it’s the best option available. For all its flaws, it is the best economic system man has invented yet.
Moreover, exactly the opposite of what was predicted is happening. We are experiencing a surge in nationalism and ‘tribalization’, as more and more people from almost everywhere in the world crave for national freedom and are willing to defend their country or their culture with anything from arguments, to coups and even to wars. Kosovo, Abkhazia, South Ossetia all aim to be regarded as autonomous countries. Congo is torn apart by rebel groups fighting for power, fueled by a simmering Hutu-Tutsi fire. Tibet longs for freedom, as Glasgow and Edinburgh look disdainfully at each other, each brandishing its special individuality. It is becoming clearer that globalisation – here defined as an escalating inter-connectedness – is indeed a catalyst for change, but a change of a different sort than initially foreseen.
If we were to pay attention only to the Greek base of the word ‘anthropology’, its translation – the study of human beings – wouldn’t explain much. On the contrary, it would further mistify the subject. A similar effect is caused when we try to define it, as both students and teachers of anthropology, even though fascinated by it, have a slight reluctance and an eye-rolling reaction when posed the question: ‘what on earth is anthropology?’. Nothing seems to be fixed firmly in place here, as we are dealing with a social science that straddles the border of the humanities and the scientific world. Nevertheless, it is crystal-clear to the open-minded.
The classification of anthropology’s branches is rather flexible but it looks pretty much like the following. A first branch, called biological anthropology, deals with human physiology and anatomy and is used to draw up theories concerning human evolution (consequent to this branch’s similarity with archaeology, the latter is at times considered to be part of anthropology). Grosso modo, the other part of anthropology can simply be dubbed as social anthropology, engulfing both linguistics and cultural anthropology.
What depicts an anthropologist first and foremost is an underlying urge to know and understand different ways people have of looking at the world they live in, as they develop in their respective societies or groups. Through living amongst certain societies for extended periods of time (a method called participant observation), learning their languages and then presenting the etnographies is how anthropologists usually collect data, in the hope of understanding the differences and diversity of the studied groups of people. But it is vital to correctly interpret the momentum of such research: no matter how much interest is seemingly placed on differences between people, the core goal always was and always will be to reveal fundamental principles in the way that human beings organize and stage their social, political and sacramental life. Alas, until now, the world somehow lost touch with this all-too-important subject.
Anthropology should have changed the world, yet the subject is almost invisible in the public sphere outside the academy. [...] Anthropologists should have been at the forefront of public debate about multiculturalism and nationalism, the human aspects of information technology, poverty and economic globalization, human rights issues [...] but somehow [they] fail to get their message across. ( Eriksen, 2006 )
Now, ponder these images for a while. On Sundays, the HSBC building in Hong Kong, a renowned landmark, shades thousands of Filipina women, who swarm into the city’s business district to chatter, laugh, gossip, dance and rejoice. But this is in utter contrast with the other days of the week, in which the view is a lot grimmer: spiky and permanently stressed Chinese businessmen shouldering their way through the crowd. On these days of the week, the Filipina women work as amahs (Cantonese for “domestic helper”), a job that can easily be translated as slavery, having in mind that they sleep on bathroom floors and in kitchen cupboards, while obeying all of their Chinese masters requirements. Halfway around the globe, an immigrant family from Albania living in Belgium turns on its computer screen and has breakfast with their grandmother back home, via a webcam, just like in every other morning. Somewhat differently, a French entrepreneur, owner of a large mobile-phone producing company, is reflecting on a puzzling fact from the Far East and on how will it influence its business: in some parts of China it is customary to take your mobile-phone to a local Buddhist monk for a blessing.
Although all of the above cases constitute by their very nature anthropological themes, they primarily illustrate something of much more meaning: as the world witnesses more and more diasporas, as transnationalism reigns and rotten theories about globalisation seem to be taken for granted albeit the appalling consequences, anthropology is slowly moving into the spotlight, due to an ubiquitous compelling need for it. In today’s syncopated modernity, creativity and ‘infinite innovation’ are paramount, with right-brainers leading and reshaping everything around them. It is without doubt that the mere intention of being successful in this increasingly fast-paced world, where space and time seem to shrink, has us all stampeding for an intangibile success-acquiring secret. With all this rush, people seem to forget this ’secret’ lies in the person next to them, it’s in the human nature itself. The human brain is emotionally wired, the limbic system will always overpower the neocortex, feelings will always throne over logic and reason. Thus, our underlying characteristic is not reason, it’s being human.
The technological advances that have been made are astounding and as a result people interact more than they have ever done, comparatively speaking. This, cumulated with the above-mentioned conditions of the modern day leads to only one natural conclusion: the key is in subtleties, in understanding others, in knowing what drives human beings, in answering major questions about the origins, reasons and potential of society, cultural innovation and human nature. Can anthropology provide these vital answers? Most surely. The trick is – yet again – in creatively reinventing bits of it, for general appliance. We’ll all stay tuned, won’t we?
Morning. The 16th of July. The families of Sgt. First Class Ehud Goldwasser and Staff Sgt. Eldad Regev are waiting, frozen with terror, for their sons’ return from a two-year imprisonment. The two soldiers were captured by the Lebanese Shia militia, Hezbollah, in a cross-border raid on July 12th, 2006, an assault that provoked the month-long Israeli-Lebanese war. Now, the Israeli government has finally yielded to the augmenting pressure: it would trade five Lebanese prisoners along with the bodies of many more for its two missing soldiers. Finally the two-year-long nightmare for the beleaguered families can end. Finally they can resume a worry-free life. At least that’s how they thought back when Israel announced the exchange. Now, alas, they are torn between so many different possible scenarios. They’re minds are racing.
For the last two years, Hezbollah had adamantly avoided shedding light on the state of the prisoners, no one really knows if they are alive or not. A couple of days before, Hizbullah officials had apparently changed their minds and decided to let Israel know that one of the kidnapped soldiers is dead. The border had been reinforced, the entry point well prepared. Nearly all televisions are broadcasting the moment, while Israel’s citizens sit down to watch the exchange, falling prey to that increasingly spreading sinister silence. All cameras focus on Wafiq Safa, a Hezbollah representative. “The fate of the soldiers will now be revealed”, he declares, as he opens a jeep’s back doors.
I end the use of present-tense, further words cannot fully grasp the ending. One can only imagine the shock and horror felt by thousands as two coffins were unveiled.
Emotions aside, it is easily noticeable the script of the story shares a remarkable resemblance to others from the same region. The Middle-East is full of oxymorons. Bittersweet, both permissive and hard-lined, both peaceful and bellicose, of a cruel tenderness. Be that as it may, but it is also brilliantly characterized by a thick omnipresent layer of fog. A murk that is clearly not healthy. A murk that is almost sure to bring about tragedies like the above mentioned.
Accountable for this mess is no other than the world’s twisted political stage. Take Pakistan, for example. The army-backed dictator Pervez Musharaf has been Pakistan’s president for little less than a decade. Facing imminent impeachment, on August the 18th he resigned (continuously declaring that everything he stood for was democracy). In translation, he was thrashed by the first fairly-elected government in Pakistan. Thumbs up for that. Too bad the good news ends there. Musharaf’s sacking occurs in a time of great instability in Pakistan. The north is begging for peaceful leadership, inflation is a mile high and politicians lack a great deal of confidence.
Miles away, Israel’s prime-minister, Ehud Olmert, fought with a corruption scandal for months, just to be defeated in the end: he promised to leave post after his party decides on a new leader. Mr Olmert’s party is likely to have lost credibility, leaving the opposition Likud party and its hawkish leader, Binyamin Netanyahu, a lot of space for maneuvers. It is worth underlining that Mr Netanyahu is prone to make even fewer peace efforts.
A little to the north, Syria hosted Lebanon’s president, Michel Suleiman and brags about a new diplomatic relationship with Lebanon, a normal, friendly one. In the same time, Syria continues to charge a couple of its own citizens on the grounds of ‘publicly calling for normal relations with Lebanon’. Figure that out.
These are truly perilous waters, sailed by the shrewd and cunning. What’s saddening is that the importance of keeping the lights on is dismissed and so wreckages befall, affecting the masses, the bystanders. Nevertheless, the silver lining is present, although currently vague and hardly noticeable. No one really knows what it looks like, but, who knows, it may look a bit like this:
If LMT doesn’t ring any bells for you, here’s the short story. At its core, LMT (Leaders for the Third Millennium) is an educational programme focused on leadership and soft-skills, programme in which I work myself, as a trainer. Just a few years ago, as the programme engulfed high-school after high-school all over the country, gathering thousands and thousands to its courses, an initially small group of student trainers and alumni formed Club LMT, an NGO firstly destined to put the theory learned in the programme into practice. That initial raw and nebulous goal for the new-born NGO now concretized in its vision – we encourage youth to participate (pro)-actively in building their own future – and its mission – our mission is to transform Romania’s youth through their involvement in educational, cultural and civic projects, to build together the country in which we can evolve harmoniously professionally and personally.
From the collective work of the Club’s members, Branding Romania was born – a national seminar/boot-camp (13th-19th of August) designed to amass and inspire 65 of Romania’s most valuable youngsters. The participants were scattered to the workshops ( Communication & Advertising, Tourism & Environment, Traditional vs. Urban Culture, Entrepreneurship, Education ) where they were introduced to key-concepts of the respective domains of interest and project management. The end result was a combination of self-improvement and well thought out projects that could be implemented back in their communities.
So far so good. But why does this seemingly serious and business-like post has for a title ‘an enlarging microcosm’? Why do I relentlessly associate LMT with the concept of ‘microcosm’? By definition, a microcosm is a world in miniature, in which the elements share one specific characteristic, like the elements in a mathematical set. To those who have felt it, the question will seem rather silly and out-of-place. Try and follow me and you’ll see why. This is a short story of a young boy, named Gotama, later to be Buddha.
[...], but in later years he recalled that there had been one moment which had given him intimations of another mode of being. His father had taken him to watch the ceremonial ploughing of the fields before the planting of the next year’s crop. All the men of the villages and townships took part in this annual event, so Suddhodana had left his small son in the care of his nurses under the shade of a rose-apple tree while he went to work. But the nurses decided to go and watch the ploughing, and, finding himself alone, Gotama sat up. In one version of this story, we are told that when he looked at the field that was being ploughed, he noticed that the young grass had been torn up and that insects and the eggs they had laid in these new shoots had been destroyed . The little boy gazed at the carnage and felt a strange sorrow, as though it were his own relatives that had been killed. But it was a beautiful day, and a feeling of pure joy rose up unbidden in his heart.
You’re probably wondering, what on earth do LMT and Gotama’s episode have in common? Well…Extasis. Yes. Extasis. But don’t be tempted to interpert the word through the prevalent pejorative filter that associates extasis with drug usage. Extasis literally means ‘to stand outside the self’. And that’s the widespread phenomenon that’s gripped LMT. If it should be explained furthermore, I’d say it’s a stance in which one experiences unpremeditated joy, while fully empathizing with those around him. I daresay this stance, fundamentally based on spontaneous compassion and selfless empathy, triggers a rapture so strong that it brings for those who feel it a moment of spiritual release. Really, really. :)
Given the fact that I had been through somewhat similar stories, I figured beforehand that it would mean just work to me. But, ‘expect the unexpected’ eh? As the event unfolded, whatever role I played – organizer, trainer, participant, etc – it was innevitable not to feel the vast surge of energy that now has all of us pointing confidently at whichever goal, dream or vision we hold dear. One big collective thank you.
I believe American politics is well on its way to reaching a zenith of both excitement and bewilderment. Asian Americans, Americans living abroad, Women, Latinos, Youth and African-Americans are all breathless at the upcoming decision to be made by the deep-rooted white men – go over to the promising young Obama or choose the Republicans, like they have always been prone to do? Even with this seemingly-general trend to become an Obamafan, Obama’s victory is not yet certain – white men come in…well, huge numbers!
Although problems still exist at home, the man whose middle name is Hussein enjoys a never-before-seen popularity all around the world:
If the business of electing the most powerful man in the world were up to the world, rather than just those pesky Americans, Barack Obama would face no contest. [...] Britons would back him against John McCain by the astonishing margin of five to one. The Pew Research Centre reported last month that, in each of the main European countries, at least twice as many people have confidence in Mr Obama as in his rival. Elsewhere things are a bit more nuanced, but from Mexico to China, and from Russia to Australia, the foreigners are firmly in the Obama camp. (The Economist – July 17th)
With his well crafted rhetoric, Obama managed to win the attention and hearts of millions. One volunteer for the Obama-campaign actually told me that every time he heard the campaign’s “Change” message he got goosebumps… These goosebumps made him volunteer. “This movement…is fascinating. I had to be a part of it”, he says.
If we take a closer look at Obama’s approach on his campaign, it is somewhat easy to see why he inspires so many. Besides cleverly thinking out strategies on political, economic and social issues, he tells the people to believe not only in his power to change the status quo, but in theirs. One of the more or less ‘veiled’ messages he is transmitting is this: ‘You have the power’. In other words, he is labeling people, by saying: ‘You’re the one up for the challenge’. Now, although this may not seem revolutionary, it is one of the key-ingredients of persuasion, it has an immense effect on people.
You can see what I’m talking about just below. Enjoy!
Centuries before the common era, people were gripped by a malaise that had spread to several far-flung regions of the world. They were becoming aware that the spiritual cosmologies of their ancestors were faulty and blemished, that the animistic-influenced spiritual hierophanies were kept to the elite few and never shared with the masses. People had enough of their brief, awry and contingent lives. And their only solace was inaccessible to them. Thus, a world-wide spiritual crisis manifested, which triggered massive efforts to reinvent religion. These efforts became real phenomena, having in mind that entire new social classes appeared like mushrooms after rain. For example, Bhikkhus (meaning “almsmen”), who basically were mendicant monks appeared in Northern India; they were even revered (it was an honor to give alms to a bhikkhu), because they were looking for a ‘cure’ for life’s suffering.
This great transformation that the Axial Age implied marked the appearance of Taoism and Confucianism in China, Greek rationalism in Europe, Zoroastrianism in Iran and the Middle East and Buddhism and Hinduism in India – all between 800 and 200 B.C.E. These religions, albeit very different in appearance, share the same fundamental impulse, the Axial impulse. The sages which brought forth and led these movements, systems of thought, religions – whatever you want to call them – all tried to teach common human beings how to transcend their misery, their weaknesses, how to cope with their seemingly dreadful lives and live in peace.
People who participated in this great transformation were convinced they were on the brink of a new era and that the world would never be the same again. During this period, men and women became conscious of their existence, their own nature and their limitations in an unprecedented way. The ethos forged in this [couple of centuries] has continued to nourish men and women to the present day. (Karen Armstrong – Buddha)
Alas, if only that ethos had remained untouched by ignorance, profane lust for power and egotism. Religions and beliefs now are one of the main contributing factors to conflicts, whether inter-religious or intra-religious. It is amazing how different persons or entire groups of persons manage to reinterpret, rethink and reform original principles, documents, beliefs etc. It is a perverse, heinous phenomenon that brings such a bitter after-taste. Al-Qaeda stated that it was simply continuing an ancient conflict, an ancient crusade. In Sri Lanka, buddhist monks support Tamil sepparatists. Conflicts between different forms of Christianity have stormed Northern Ireland and the Balkans. Turkey is one step away from its 24th banning of a ruling party, due to an Islam-impregnated trend. Like I said, the best two adjectives to describe the current situation are ‘perverse’ and ‘heinous’. It is a sad view to watch, how the world looks on religion and how it was supposed to.
But how are we supposed to look at it? I believe the answer is rather straightforward and quite familiar. All that humans have ever tried to do is understand themselves and the cosmos. We can easily eliminate the cosmos out of the equation, by simply looking at what quantum physicists are pointing at more and more: space is directly influenced if mind enters into it (and thus space is a reflection of the mind, more or less accurate). So what it all comes down to, is knowledge of Self. Whether we are talking about Buddhism, Islam, Christianity or Zoroastrianism, in essence, the same message is being transmitted: all are saying that understanding God is understanding yourself. A message that has sadly been lost somewhere beneath all the DO’s and DON’T’s.
What most people do not realize is that understanding yourself means more than meets the eye. It means more than knowing you are altruistic, narcissistic or handsome. Knowledge of Self implies that you meditate at all times, but I’m certainly not talking about the esoteric-kind of meditation (e.g yoga). To meditate one needs an amazingly keen mind; meditation does not mean controlling one’s thoughts and one’s thinking processes; when controlling is tried, conflict between different instances is automatically triggered. But when thoughts and thinking are understood, when one becomes aware of them, that’s when a deep, profound silence sets in. You become conscious of your thoughts, but they do not have the upper hand anymore. You objectively choose your next actions. You no longer see things as good or bad, you see what is. You enter a state of mindfulness. And that’s just the beginning.
If your eyes rolled, thinking that like you’ve already heard bits of the last two paragraphs, I’d like to ask you to think again. I’m sure you know about how religions merge, why the understanding of Self is so important etc. But are you wise enough to do something with what you know? :) We should all keep in mind that knowledge is just knowledge. Wisdom is applying it, “wisdom is doing it”.
