Sacrifice and catastrophes

"There are periods in the life of humanity, which generally coincide with the beginning of the fall of cultures and civilizations, when the masses irretrievably lose their reason and begin to destroy everything that has been created by centuries and millenniums of culture. Such periods of mass madness, often coinciding with geological cataclysms, climatic changes and similar phenomena of a planetary character, release a very great quantity of the matter of knowledge. This, in its turn, requires the work of collecting this matter of knowledge, which would otherwise be lost.

Thus the work of collecting scattered matter of knowledge frequently coincides with the beginning of the destruction and fall of cultures and civilizations”. (Ouspensky P. “In search of a miracle”

Nowadays the newspapers and the internet bring to all the news of horrible events very fast: no one can live any longer in the illusion that our planet lives in perfect ecologic harmony.

Catastrophic events as the earthquake in Haiti and Malesya as well as the earthquake and tsunami  in Chile, which claimed the life of thousands of people in only a few weeks, are sad reminders of the tragic times we live in: times of uncertainty, times of challenge, times when the human being cannot avoid being confronted by the question of what life means and what is the sense of so many deaths, so much destruction, so much suffering.

Life has become more and more precarious; it is hanging more and more from a thin thread.   Gone the fictitious sense of security provided by the fast growing economy, the greater wealth of the last part of the previous century, the medical claims that disease can be won altogether, human beings are now faced with the hard facts:  death is much closer than one would like to imagine, than one would want it to be.

Few are, however, those who, in the midst of this situation keep their ‘hair on’ and try to look through the thick curtain of despair and suffering which has befallen humanity.  These are the few people who, having devoted their existence to the understanding of the meaning and purpose of their life and that of others in general, carry on walking on a path of both self-development and rescue of the whole humanity, by proposing that a qualitative shift is made through True Knowledge.  Their proposal is not simply one of ‘survival’, but one of radical change: a qualitative jump ahead, a journey that, whilst rising personal power, also generally raises the level of the common vibrations of the whole planet.

This proposal is, however, meeting deaf ears: locked in their pain and in the desire of holding on to possession and values that any earthquake, landslide or tsunami can take away in a few seconds people, blindly, refuse a Knowledge that will lead them to freedom and to a new style of life, based on real values, on the liberations of one’s talents, on the attainment of good health, on the development of oneself, according to one’s intrinsic nature. They opt for maintaining the old, even when this has proven not only redundant, but also damaging, killing.

Earthquakes, tsunamis, fires, landslides not only will not stop but, on the contrary, will increase: this, according to what seismologists, astrophysicists and scientists of all sorts claim; no one can stop them, no one can prevent them.  Some say that a ‘curse’ has descended upon Earth, condemning its inhabitants to endure terrible situations.  

Why would they live in refusal of the alternatives and the durable solutions that true Knowledge could offer them?? The answer is simple: most people desires and aims are very small and, yet, so frantically pursued that in the anxiety and stress that this situation creates, no room is given to wider existential issues, to altruistic purposes, to trying to solve common issues. Everyone fences as well as possible for himself and expects solutions to come from the outside, from others.

The truth is that, to take a different and braver stand in life, would require some sort of sacrifice: sometimes financial, sometimes emotional and, sometimes, even a sacrifice that requires the abandonment of old values, habits and beliefs, seed thoughts and emotions. 

Ancient knowledge passed on from generation to generation suggests that, in many cases, when  terrible circumstances drag a people or a place to their knees,   the wise man  suggests the offering of some sort of sacrifice.  This is also the case in many biblical instances, when God appeared to people and suggested that they offered a sacrifice to Him, following which they would be safe. Nowadays, however, people are reluctant to offer any sacrifice to God, not only because of the stubborn determination of not parting from either their material, emotional, mental or symbolic possession, but also because they no longer and truly believe in God. How many people, in an act of obedience to God’s orders, would take their only beloved son to the mountain and be ready to sacrifice him? (Old Testament: Gen.22). Yet Abraham did; he did it because he trusted that from this sacrifice only good could come and this is why God praised his devotion and trust and spared his son’s life.

In the eyes of many contemporary people, even the concept ‘God’ seems a bit too farfetched, a bit too rooted in old and surpassed traditions for it to have a meaning in the here and now.  Stuck between tightness - with regards to giving something up in order to coming closer to knowledge and embracing it – and the great reluctance to ask for rescue by offering some sort of sacrifice, contemporary man is, thus, left in a situation without escape: to remain the passive victim of all sorts of threats, of which he cannot understand the meaning. He is thus left to live his days in fear and trepidation of great losses and leaving a meaningless life.

Of course, this picture applies to many, but not to all.

We all can make a decision: next time we are faced with the choice of holding on to precarious matter, precarious ideas and feelings or let them go in order to pursue a greater scope, open wider horizons, change our life and help other people changing theirs in order to create better conditions of living on Earth, what will we do???  Turn our backs and carry on living in our misery or make a qualitative jump and find ourselves on the other side of the ‘river’, the side where knowledge, change and protection are offered?  Will we be willing to embrace the Knowledge released and available to us in these tragic times or will we play dumb and go on leading a life of loss?  We have a choice…