The great leap of mind

COLLAPSE, FAMILY AND EGO

INTERLOCUTOR: You talk about the collapse of the industrial civilization, both capitalist and communist. What is the place of the family, as you see it, in this extraordinary situation?

RUBEN FELDMAN GONZALEZ: The collapse is psycho-social, cultural, economic, environmental, religious, political and its nature is so deep, its scope is so wide, that the family can't be out of it. First of all we are talking about “the family” as if there was such a thing, something homogeneous, universal and clearly definable. There is not such a family anymore. We have families in bankruptcy, homeless families, families that do not own their house and still pay rent, and immigrant families. These are groups of people bound by name, but the functions of the family are lost in the havoc. It is almost unfair to call them families. The farmer that lost his farm to the bank, the suddenly unemployed military man or woman, cannot hold his family together anymore as such. If we talk about the homeless, let's remember that families are the fastest growing segment of the homeless in inner-city USA in December 1996. The bankrupt family, the homeless and the immigrant family are all very disorganized. It's hard, under those conditions to maintain identity, intimacy, values and adequate nutrition. It's hard even to have a decent shower once in a while.

INTERLOCUTOR: Fortunately these are not all the families.

R.F.G.: Well, these are the families “with no roof.” Now, the families with a roof are not doing much better. The man whose wife dies becomes a single parent. He is “the lonely-widow-father”. Will he have time to provide a qualitative relationship to his children? I doubt it. Fortunately this situation is rare. But the lonely mother is a very common phenomenon. 70% of couples go into divorce, there you have a lot of single mothers... Adolescent girls are getting pregnant since age 14, by age 18 they have already four children and most of them don't have a recognizable father for their children, because most of them have been very sexually promiscuous, some of them with AIDS, TB, alcohol and drug addiction, depression, extreme poverty, malnutrition, dental catastrophe, suicidal thoughts. And the children grow in that atmosphere! More lesbian women get pregnant and nine months later the man has forgotten the encounter and the woman. The single Afro-American or Latin-American grandmother playing the mother’s role has become very common in the U.S.A. (so it has in Latin America and Africa).They are generally physically disabled, depressed or diseased and can hardly take care of the children. It is more and more common to see a divorced mother with a visiting male lover, who has to play (willingly or unwillingly) the “father role.” It is a tense and sad situation, mainly when the “birth-father” doesn't want to stop visiting his children in spite of mom, “step-dad,” the lawyers and the social workers. Again, what is frequently the quality of human relationships and fathering under those circumstances? Zero! Many times these children end up in foster or adopting homes. Foster and adopting parents are generally very frustrated. They have to deal with children who have suffered prenatal stress, malnutrition and alcohol intoxication in utero! Their mothers are many times prostitutes, alcoholic, very young, very uneducated and drug-addicted. And foster and adopting parents many times have to deal with these “birth-mothers” too! The children generally have lived in other foster-homes before. They are used to bonding and separation being frequent and they end up having no trust in adults, they find difficulty to love anyone and they “test” everybody with very inappropriate behaviours. If left unattended these children develop serious personality disorders like the so called antisocial, narcissistic, borderline and histrionic. Almost three million children live like this only in the USA! They believe they have two families and they believe they have none. Foster parents get very frustrated, dealing with supervising social workers, dealing tensely with birth-mothers and having very superficial, fragile and transitory relationships with their children. If society and family are not ready to take good care of children, why do we have children? Anyone can get a vasectomy or a tubal ligation without pain in only fifteen minutes. In the same amount of time two people can make another child ! This child will be unhappy, uneducated, untrained, even dangerous... In the majority of cases the child will be a slave or a cheap employee... perhaps unemployed and indigent...

INTERLOCUTOR: May the families produce children that are not so unlucky and violent?

R.F.G.: Again, what kind of family are we talking about? Women, children and elderly people are commonly victims of violence in the home. I mean in the home. It is also in the home where 40% of homicides occur in the U.S.A.. Sometimes these homicides are committed by children, or the mothers themselves against their own children. This is happening more and more frequently. It is happening everywhere (town and country) and it is happening among the poor and among the wealthy.

INTERLOCUTOR: How can we make virtuous children?

R.F.G.: If you push children into virtue they become righteous (activists of virtue). Righteous people are a pain for self and others, because they are more interested in activity than in virtue, they are more concerned with your honesty than with their own honesty. Virtue without effort, silent honesty, simply happens when there are a home, an environment and a school where silent virtue is a way of life and not a goal. Can the child feel free without becoming self indulgent or selfish?

INTERLOCUTOR: The question could be: Can the child simply “be,” without conflict or struggle?

R.F.G.: Exactly ! The child can be allowed to “be” without the permanent struggle to become “somebody” or to become “virtuous.” A healthy child doesn't have to become a righteous, isolated self. I think we can teach children religion without so many words and symbols. There is a point in which you have to drop all words and symbols, and after which you start to live a religious life which is silence, bliss, peace, excellence, tenderness and beauty in Unitary Perception. If you love somebody, you love the person for what she is, not because she is an expression of God. Without complete honesty there will be no freedom, welfare and peace for man, woman, child and the whole of mankind. The essence of honesty is Unitary Perception. And there is no Unitary perception in present education ! That's why we don't take time to patiently observe each child and offer what he needs. We simplistically want to throw him into a pattern of action, into a preformulated system or ideal. But we seldom relate to the child and seldom really educate the child,because that needs time and we are too busy and too impatient to be tender, calm, unhurried, equanimous, loving and honest in Unitary Perception. In Unitary Perception, the mind is very quiet, very silent. In such a perceptive mind, there is not a problem with the child discovering himself what a silent, peaceful mind really is. But do we truly want a healthy and peaceful child ? Or is it that we want a child who will become a very efficient, “successful,” powerful, important and wealthy man? It doesn't matter how miserable, how angry, how stressed, how competitive and hostile or war-oriented that man will be, right?

INTERLOCUTOR: We know both us and our children are not happy with a horribly competitive, hostile way of life based on the search for power, status and profit. But if I have no guideline to educate my children, no formula, no system, how will I start to educate them?

R.F.G: You start to reeducate your own perception. In Unitary Perception you discover that there is no thinker,but only thought. After you find out such a fundamental, basic fact, then you'll easily find the way to teach that to your children, or to the children of others. You start by suspending the habit of language and so you are much more able to listen to all the sound at the same time, without any distortion whatsoever from your own thought or language. By listening silently and thoroughly to all sound, with no naming, evoking no terms or words as you listen and see at the same time, then you start living a whole life, full of joy. Then you truly start to listen to what others have to say! In such a beautiful life you don't want to be or become anything, you simply are what you are.

INTERLOCUTOR: So, then, what's the relationship between me and thought?

R.F.G.: Thought seeks permanency by inventing the thinker. But neither thought nor the thinker are permanent. There is only thought and thought is transitory. You don't need me to find that out. It's too obvious! That's why I often repeat that there is thought but no thinker. Every time I repeat the sentence I get a new insight about it. It may seem hard to understand or rather mysterious (or even crazy) simply because it is against everything we have been taught about the process of thought!

INTERLOCUTOR: So, there is no permanent ego, no eternal self?...

R.F.G.: If it does exist, it will not be discovered by thought, which is a transitory process. What is readily obvious to us is the existence of a transitory ego, created by thought, which is itself transitory too. That “ego” is partly the belief that you and I are separate, that we have nothing in common, that each one has to defend himself. So, that “ego,” is both transitory and isolated, in relationship with nothing, except intellectual images and representations. In the second silence of Unitary Perception there is contact with the vibrant and energetic silence of Universal Consciousness. Universal Consciousness is what every living creature has in common with other living creatures. We are seemingly separate in different and distinct bodies. I think that is what the Gospel of John means when it talks about “Christ.” “Christ” is the origin and common denominator of all beings. I think that is what the Brahmin meant (before degenerating) when they talked about Atman. Atman was mistranslated as “superior-self.” Atman meant Universal Consciousness “hidden” in everyone as “soul.” The soul can't be saved independently and it can't save itself, but it is part of that totality (Atman), that Universal Consciousness, that Cosmic Christ. Jesus-Christ himself said “he who wants to save his soul will lose it.” I think he was talking about the ego-belief (a product of thought) in a separate soul, something not really existing. Luckily ego is transitory, same as its desires and fears. But ego can do a lot of harm and it does it. My answer to the question “Is there an eternal self or a permanent ego” is as follows: Obviously not, fortunately, because ego is constantly being produced by transitory thought and thought believes it is separated from everything and everybody. I say we don't need belief nor ideologies, we only need a silent mind, which is the only mind that can make contact with universal consciousness. That contact is beauty, order, light, peace, bliss and joy. I also say that without Unitary Perception there is no deep silence of the mind.

INTERLOCUTOR: Ego changes constantly, that's why it is not permanent.

R.F.G.: Of course ! The only thing that remains the same is the word “I” or “ego.” But ego itself (without the word “ego”) is a series of memories, plans, wishes, fears, thoughts and emotions that are constantly changing. You can easily see that by yourself (in yourself). Do not take it as an idea of Ruben. See if it is true, from now on. Don't read Zen nor Tantra, don't read New Age books, start to live in Unitary Perception every day and all day long. Universal consciousness doesn't stop being a totality because it is manifested in your intelligence and mine. Our common denominator is Universal Consciousness (or Cosmic Christ, if you prefer those words). If intelligence separates us, it may not be intelligence. It is not intelligent to invent enemies.