Principle 10. Week 3. Solidarity.
“ When You Treat Others As You Would Have Them Treat You, You Liberate Yourself.”
Last time: The Why
This Time: The Other
An Invitation
Each week we propose considering a principle in light of its general meaning, and its application in our past, present, or future. Setting aside a minute or so every day to try and find one or two concrete examples in my life is a simple and powerful tool that can dramatically increase our understanding of the principles. In that brief work I make an effort to see, recall or imagine the impact of applying (or not applying) the principle in question. Interestingly the crucial thing isn’t whether I find clear examples or not I, like many of others, have discovered that the effort itself is well rewarded by the new intuitions and understandings that arise over the next days
This Week:
In the last two weeks we focused on the principle’s structure and general meaning as well as considering it in terms of our past situations. This week are focus is on the present and how we might apply the principle of solidarity in current situations.
Personal Reflections:
What follows are my reflections. I make no greater claim for them but offer them in the spirit of exchange and dialogue.
I recently wrote about reflections on the meaning of the phrase “you liberate yourself”. This week I find myself thing about another term that appears in this principle i.e, the “others”.
It’s a subject that reminds me of the following material in Silo’s Human Landscape (the third book in the collection Humanize the Earth).
Personally I find the chapter a bit heavy going but the rewards are well worth the effort.
III. The Human Body as the Object of Intention
1. The body, as a natural object, is subject to natural modifications, and thanks to human intention is, of course, susceptible to transformation—not only in its most external expressions but also in its innermost functioning. One’s own body takes on its greatest significance when viewed in this way—as the prosthesis of intention. However, a social process intervenes between the immediate (unmediated) governance of one’s own body and the adaptation of the body to the needs and purposes of others. This process does not depend on the isolated individual but entails others as well.
2. Ownership of my psychophysical structure is given by my intentionality, while external objects present themselves to me as only indirectly subject to my control (through the action of my body) and outside of my immediate ownership. There is a particular type of object, however, that I intuit as the property of a foreign intention, and that is the body of the other. That otherness puts me in the position of being “seen from outside,” seen from someone else’s intention. My vision of the other is, therefore, an interpretation—a landscape extending to every object that carries the mark of human intention, whether produced or used today or in the past.
In that human landscape I can obliterate the intention of others by considering them prostheses of my own body, in which case I must “empty” them of their subjectivity, at least in those areas of thought, feeling, or action that I wish to control directly. But this objectification of others necessarily dehumanizes me as well, and so I justify this situation by claiming that it is the consequence of “Passion,” “God,” “A Cause,” “Natural Inequity,” “Fate,” “Society,” and so forth.
If, like me, you find that exposition a bit difficult here’s something based a talk Silo gave on the Psychology of the Image, September 9, 1989 in Potrerillos, Argentina.
Some say we have to “treat the other as the other wants to be treated”. But we don’t know what the other really wants, or how they feel. And we certainly can’t tell them what they should do. For us the emphasis is placed on my action leaving me with a memory of having acted with unity.
I recognize in the other an intentionality like mine, and a field of freedom that places limits on me. We are not alone, isolated in our own consciousness. On the contrary we are inter-connected, we influence others and they influence us. From this point of view it is not indifferent to your evolution what you do, or how you treat others.
Remember:
Meditation isn’t Only for When You Close Your Eyes.
Here we sit with closed eyes in order to go deep inside and discover the source of inner peace, vital force and real joy.
And when we open our eyes we seek to discover how to transform our daily life into a spiritual path.
Worth Repeating:
Last year at this time Juli Riczu in Turkey shared some thoughts on the relation of this principle of solidarity and compassion. She wrote:
“…continuing my reflections I came to that I live my life mainly in between boundaries. On one hand there is a physical separation which is my body from the world and on the other hand the psychological which is the “I”. However in those very few moments when I felt connected to the feeling of compassion all those boundaries has disappeared. I remember now as something which is “breaking” into the world of “others” and connects these “two worlds” into “one”.
Coming up:
Next week we will continue with our considerations of The Principle of Solidarity, in relation to our present situations.
Note:
These notes have been posted on Facebook and sent to our email list, and thanks to Fernando Aranguiz on my website www.dzuckerbrot.com
A slightly different version will be available on instagram. Look for silo_toronto
We’d all love to hear your comments, thoughts, considerations, artwork, etc about any of this.
Want More:
General information about, the principles, materials, parks, etc can be found at www.silo.net or www.silosmessage.net
There are currently 2 Parks of Study and Reflection in North America. These are Red Bluff (www.redbluffpark.org) in California and Hudson Valley (www.hudsonvalleypark.org) in New York. The Parks of Study and Reflection are projects built and paid for by individuals inspired by Silo’s teachings. More information is available on their respective websites.
