Principle 10 Solidarity – Week 3 – 2024

October 11, 2024 

Principle 10. Solidarity. Week 3 

When You Treat Others As You Would Have Them Treat You, You Liberate Yourself.

Last time: The Social Dimension

This time: The Other

This Week:

In the last two weeks we looked at the principle’s structure and general meaning as well as how it applied or could have applied in our past.

This week are focus is on the present and how we might apply the principle of solidarity in current situations.

Warning!

The principles are simply platitudes if you don’t make the effort to transform them into something more. They are not important because they are commanded by some deity, sanctioned by other people, or by respected institutions. 

They are important if they can help you build a more coherent life filled with growing Peace in yourself, and around you, internal Force to face life’s difficulties, and the Joy of an open future.

Can’t think of anything in the present?

Perhaps Start Here:

1. Is there currently a situation where I’m not treating someone as you want to be treated. 

2. At the present time is there a situation, person, or people I feel enchained to? Am I treating them differently than I want to to be treated. 

3. It’s interesting to observe that sometimes I think I’m being kind by treating others very differently than I want to be treated. For example, perhaps I’d like to be treated with honesty (even if it it makes me feel bad in the moment). Nonetheless, I might treat someone “with kid gloves” in order to spare their feelings. Or on the contrary. Perhaps, I like when people show me more kindness even if it involves a “white lie” or two. Do I act that way to others? 

Some people believe in being “brutally honest” with their criticism of others. But not so much with themselves, or on the other hand echo the criticisms of their internal judge rather than the wisdom of their internal guide. In that way, forgetting to treat themselves with the same kindness, and friendship they wish to treat others.

As another aid in our examination this principle we will also play the game of 

Name It!

The Game of the Week.

With your understanding of the principle in mind, try to come up with a new version of the principle, or some aspect of the principle. Then give that new formulation a name that synthesizes it or, in some way captures its essence.

Personal Reflections:

This week Boldy read point 10 from a letter containing 12 “reminders”. If you’d like me to send you the whole thing, let me know.

10.  Make the Principle of Solidarity an active position. 

You don’t need to wait for a crisis to apply it. In almost every moment of life you can create an opportunity and way to do that. First ask yourself how I want to be treated? How do I want my kids to treat me? My couple? My friends?  My boss? You don’t know? Then ask yourself what pisses you off. What do they do that makes you angry, sad or out of sorts? Then make an effort to change your behaviour and treat them the way you want to be treated. For example: I want to be treated with kindness, respect, etc. I want others to listen to me and appreciate my input. I want… So today make an effort to treat others with kindness, respect, etc. Do you want people to listen to you? Learn to listen to them. Do you think you already do that? Great. Can you do it a little better, a little more, with a little more care?

But remember you are doing all that to, as the principle says “liberate yourself” not to change someone else. If you want to claim the reward of changing their behaviour you may be disappointed when they don’t act accordingly, but successful or not you have chosen that reward rather than liberation.

Last week I sent out something Roberto wrote much earlier about the broad social dimension of the principles. Here’s some brief thoughts from Silo, taken from a talk in 1989.

Some say must 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.

And…. taken from  the Manual for Messengers: Excerpted from a talk by Silo, Las Palmas, Canary Islands 

September 29, 1978 

In very general principles we have indicated the registers of valid action, and highest among these principles is the one known as the “golden rule.” This principle says, “When you treat others as you want them to treat you, you liberate yourself.” This is not a new principle – it is thousands of years old, and in many parts of the world, in many cultures, it has withstood the test of time. It is a universally accepted and valid principle that has been formulated in various ways – sometimes in the negative, as in “Do nothing to others that you do not want them to do to you.” That is simply another approach to the same idea, as is the formulation, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Of course, it is not exactly the same as saying, “Treat others as you want them to treat you.” But that’s all right; however they may have phrased it, since ancient times people have invoked this, the highest of all moral principles, the highest of all principles of valid action. 

…This principle that speaks of treating others according to how I want them to treat me, according to what would be good for me, is all very well. But it would be even better if I knew what would be good for me. So that’s how things stand, and we’re interested in turning now to the basis of valid action, and the basis of valid action lies in the register that one obtains from this action. 

Remember:

Meditation isn’t Only for When You Close Your Eyes.

It is here amid all the little joys and daily crap that we can actually create a practice that can be practiced at every moment and in every circumstance. This is a dynamic meditation, requiring neither particular postures, or wardrobe, nor any special conditions. With time and application these efforts give all my activities a particular tone, mood, and mental direction.  

Consider:

“If my thoughts, my feelings, and my actions are in agreement, if they all go in the same direction, if my actions do not create contradiction with what I feel, then I can say that my life has coherence. But though I am true to myself, this does not necessarily mean I am being true to those in my immediate environment. I still need to achieve this same coherence in my relationships with others, treating them the way I would like to be treated”.

Silo_ Letters to My Friends 

Worth Repeating:

“Learn to treat others in the way that you want to be treated.” 

Silo_ The Path 

Coming up:

Next week we will continue with our considerations of The Principle of Solidarity, in relation to our current situation. Marie-Claire will be our host.

These notes have been posted on our Facebook page (Community of Silo’s Message Toronto Annex), sent to our email list, and are also on my webpage at  www.dzuckerbrot.com

A Gift: 

In some moment of the day or night inhale a breath of air and imagine that you carry this air to your heart. Then, ask with strength for yourself and for your loved ones. Ask with strength to move away from all that brings you contradiction; ask for your life to have unity. Don't take a lot of time with this brief prayer, this brief asking, because it is enough that you interrupt for one brief moment what is happening in your life for this contact with your interior to give clarity to your feelings and your ideas.

Silo_ La Reja, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2005