Imaginação: Desvendando o Poder Criativo do Ser Humano com Prof. Lúcia Helena Galvão | Nova Acrópole

Imagination: Man's power of Creation Lúcia Helena Galvão Good evening everyone, and welcome! Our goal today is to chat about Imagination: Man's Power of Creation As I often say, this is a subject of our Philosophy course, right at the beginning of the second level, We have a discipline called Psychology, in which one of the chapters is about "Imagination" You may think: is it Philosophy or Psychology? In deed, If you think that Philosophy is to love wisdom, clearly, within Philosophy, it was also sought to know about man. The name "Psychology" was created more recently, although the word

"psyche" is greek The knowledge about man, "know thyself", has always been there. We make a comparative study of what has been said about imagination throughout history. I think it's a very adequate topic nowadays I don't know if you remember, but shortly before passing away Steve Jobs was asked about this topic in an interview, and I found interesting what he said They asked him "Aren't you afraid of being replaced by your own creations?" "... or that the technology you make might take your job?" He said "I think of it as a science fiction perspective" "...and by

developing existing ideas, technology will be able to do better and better" but generating new ideas will always be humane and increasingly rare. This is quite interesting, because it really is always humane and increasingly rare. Today we revolve around ready-made ideas and it is very rare that we channel our own ideas. Imagination is this creation tool, to capture your own ideas, to develop them. Ultimately, the imagination even builds us ourselves because we are an absolutely original idea every human being. An idea to be discovered and developed. Every human being is unique and unrepeatable and developing oneself

also works with the idea of imagination. So we'll treat some concepts as far as possible in a short lecture. Those who know a little about Philosophy, or about Plato you may know he used to say that there's a plane of ideas. And that's interesting. As if there's a rough sketch of the manifested world And the material plane is a reflection of this sketch and all that exists here are shadows. Imagine that we're going to form a teaching committee to reform middle school By the way, I'm outdated, it's not middle school anymore. It's high school. Let's

reform high school. "Instead of three grades, we'll make it four" "we'll change the subjects" "we'll put on more practical stuff" "less multiplicity, focusing on a few areas" "we'll have a council and proceed to reform high school" Do you realize that this high school already exists in our ideas, even before the first student goes there? One day, a student will get in there and will be an executor of this idea of ours But even if there were no students, this would already exist on the plane of our ideas. The student is not only a high school

student; he is briefly an executor of an idea that already existed before him. For Plato and those classical philosophers, the world has a set of ideas that would be shaped, even if there was no human being to see them, to witness or to live them. So, what does Plato's theory of ideas have to do with imagination? He says that when these ideas are projected in the world, they do so in a more or less perfect way according to an intermediary. When a human being comes in, with a creative intelligence he has his head in the

sky and his feet on the ground He is a pontiff; he bridges the gap between two worlds. He gets entirely original ideas and brings them to the world. When we have a society where everyone is, as Jobs said, sort of massified, a little without imagination, people are not "tall" enough for their heads to "touch the skies" So, they have to bring down to earth things that sometimes are not so perfect. He says that when land on earth things that aren't perfect, they start to develop a process we call evolution. Evolution is nothing more than the

shadows chasing to represent the object that generated them. It's the material world running after the world of ideas. The word "evolution" itself is interesting, 'cause it comes from an Egyptian notion; the Greeks copied it from Egypt, which meant: develop, unroll, because in Egypt, knowledge was written on papyrus and rolled up. As if you unroll something on the plane of ideas read and imitated it down here. So, development would be the ability to get these ideas and bring them to the world. And then, that would be imagination. It is important to understand this idea. Whether or

not we believe in Plato, the fact is we see things changing and seeking more and more perfection, as if they wanted to match something expected of them. Every thing seeks its ideal. And that's funny, 'cause we expect things to be ideal: our car, our clothes, our house. But not always we expect this from ourselves, as if we didn't have an ideal either. Evolution consists in believing all things have their own ideal. Just as there is the ideal house, the ideal car, there is an ideal human being. To self-develop or evolve is to chase this idea.

Then we can think: "well, things that exist in the plane of 'my' imagination..." "...might not generate any effect in the world..." and if you tell me that, I'll say it's not imagination; it's fantasy. It is very important to distinguish these two things. On the mental plane, we have mental forms that we categorize as imagination or fantasy. The manifested world, people, is dual. If there is bright, there is dark; if there is soft, there is resistant. If there is imagination, there is its negative polarity: fantasy. Imagination is a project of what I will live tomorrow. I

imagine today what I'm going to do tomorrow. But it has a negative counterpart, which is fantasy. It is not a project for tomorrow; it replaces tomorrow. Let's suppose I want to be a pianist. I imagine myself as a concert performer, being very successful, the audience applauding me standing up, recording cds on Deustche Gramophone, which every concert performer dreams of, that is, being really successful, but I don't want the trouble of hiring a teacher, to start from the very beginning, with those boring and repetitive scales, annoying the neighbors, callusing the fingers. I don't want any of

that. It's too much work. So I'd rather close my eyes and fantasize and indulge in fantasy. Fantasy is not projected to be reality; it is self-satisfied; it replaces reality, because it satisfies you at a much lower cost. So, there are two elements that we must know how to distinguish: one is highly positive and, as we'll see, essential: imagination is essential and fantasy can generate an even unhealthy tendency to flee from reality or even some kind of mental alienation. It has to be controlled. But they're born very similar; They're born on the same plane: the plane

of ideas. "Actively: Imagination" Imagination is active. I want to come up with a way to solve a certain problem in my life I think today and I apply tomorrow Fantasy, in general, is passive. You know what it means? Maybe you didn't even create it yourself You absorb it from the environment. Notice that the fantasies in our society are all very similar to each other. There is sort of a cultural pattern of what a successful man is. Nobody plans it; We absorb it ready-made. As if you buy a software called "Fulfilled Life" and just pressed the

play button It already has sort of what a successful man is. It's the man who has a certain type of car, of apartment, who travels to certain places, has a certain pattern of consumption. So, as this is sometimes very difficult to achieve, people evade to fantasy. What I often talk with you, in several lectures is that the consumption pattern of an average American person today is the golden dream of happiness of those seven billion human beings in the world now If we multiply those life standards by seven billion, we don't have enough planet for it.

This is mathematically unfeasible. If we promise people a standard of happiness which they can't afford, they'll evade to fantasy. The paths are all paved. You log in social networks come up with fake identities you watch reality shows, soap operas. I mean, you'll have all the escape routes ready so you can unfold them and deny your identity as something insipid and worthless. Fantasy is more absorbed from the environment than actually created by ourselves. See how interesting this is: There is no way we can create anything without a model of the final product It's like building a

house with no idea what it's going to be like. Doesn't it seem unfeasible? Will it be necessary to do deep excavations or will it be a one-story house? Will it be facing west or east? There's no way to build a house without having a model of what it's going to be when finished There's no way you can build your own-self without having a model of what you want to be when you're a human being, let's say, fulfilling life, sort of done with it. And if you don't create that model, it will be absorbed from the

standards that society sets as official. When you least think, you'll be thinking of yourself as a soap opera "hero". They are the most useless characters there are. They are "heroes" with no commitment to humanity to a social cause or to wisdom. They are entirely useless, existing only to enjoy life and argue with their girlfriends If you don't choose your life model, it infiltrates through the cracks of inattention and, soon, when you least realize it you're daydreaming over this things Fantasy is passive and is very likely to be contagious and not even created by you. And

I find very interesting when classic books speak about what a wise man actually is We don't even believe that there's any wise man left. Lao Tzu, author of Tao Te Ching, Confucius, Plato, great book author in mankind's history they said that man's goal must be to achieve wisdom and then they describe how a wise man must be. I think it's amazing There was a time when I would write these descriptions on sheets of cardboard and stick them on my closet door. It wasn't pretty, but it was useful. Everything I read about sages made me wonder

what they were, I wanted to see them imagining I might get there. I knew that if I didn't consciously occupy that space, a model would fill it's void, unconsciously. I must have a model, the blueprints of my house to be able to build it in that sense. I had beautiful descriptions of sages. The Taoist tradition of Lao Tzu shows expertise in depicting the sages. Lao Tzu says that when you look into the eyes of a sage, it's deep and it seems that, inside, there is a silent dialogue between two beings: a dialogue between a man

and a god. Can you imagine such a being? You look into his eyes and feel that, inside, there's a sacred, intimate dialogue with something very deep. There are wonderful things they say about what wise men are, because they themselves, Lao Tzu, Confucius, were sages. It ignites imagination and helps creating a model. If we don't do this - because this is what imagination is, we fall into fantasy and absorb a collective model Then to be left with elements we consciously don't admire where they work unconsciously to make your decisions. In other words, we are left with

subliminal things straining us in decision making and responses to life. Anyway, this is very important: the imagination is active; fantasy is passive and usually contagious. "Imagination plus Will": If there's anything - by the way, the word "magic"... we associate it with pulling rabbits out of a hat it doesn't obey nature's laws. No rabbit will come out of a hat if he hasn't get there in first place. Magic is great science. Medieval alchemists said that magic has logic, has science, has mathematical equation behind it. Magic is great science. The great science of building men is said

to have two ingredients: which are imagination plus will. You imagine what you want to be tomorrow and put your will on top of it Where there is a will, there is a way There is no one who could stop it! Last week we talked about Will When you put these elements together there is no one to oppose you. You imagine you're gonna be "such thing" and put will in it. It means, decision on the mental plane, perseverance and constancy on the physical plane! Nobody stops a person like that! They have an identity built as an

idea and has an inexorable pace to achieve it. These are the tools that build human beings and, interestingly, they are the two rarest things we have in our historical moment. We are very weak from the point of view of determination, of will and very influenced by the ideas of the collective. We are very unimaginative, very uncreative, very little capable of daring on the plane of imagination. We become patterned men but still we are afraid of cloning. We are already sort of cloned, obeying a "software life" pattern, as I said before in which we only press

"play" button. Anyway. Man, who is endowed with imagination and will, plans him himself and executes it in his daily life. Anytime we might stop him, he'll know he's building himself according to these specific ingredients. One of the questions I'm always asked is: how do we control our own minds? It's a serious problem. We have a lecture on it. I'll give you some spoilers about it, like TV does to tease us. They're smart, it works! How can someone in our level of knowledge control their mind? Our mind is embedded within the mind of humanity, just as

our body is part of nature's body and influences the bodies around us. If I have the flu, I can pass it on to you. Don't worry, I don't have the flu! Our mind is embedded within the mind of humanity. What anyone anywhere in the world thinks can cross our minds at any time. What a person on the other side of the world is thinking, like an idea, can cross your mind. How can we not be influenced by these seven billion people on earth? Only when we define what your own thoughts are. I am a person

who is like that, who thinks in such a way, who has such principles and who has such pursuits and such values. Anything outside of that is not me. So if an idea comes in, I can wave at it as it comes and leaves it's not mine; "go find your owner". I know what inside me is really me. This is intelligence, "intelegere", choosing among. Choosing who you are among the things you're not. Identity is the biggest intelligence. The construction of oneself, on all planes, including the mental plane, is an act of will. I imagine: This is

me. You can even write it down: "I am this", "why?", because I want to" I will define it and watch it so I won't be something else, unless I rationally define it. I define the principles that can delineate my identity and everything outside of it isn't me, thus and I don't recognize it. When an idea comes up and you identify with it, you take possession of it and it becomes yours. This point of the construction of the human being is important. The ingredients are: imagination and will. Plan and execute throughout your life! That's life! If

you're not doing it, you're just surviving. If you're not planning or executing, you're just surviving. What about fantasy? There is an example that I find amusing. You imagine that life is like a road trip: either you are in the front seat, lucid, looking where you are going, or you are in the back seat, blindfolded, taken somewhere you're not even aware of Don't think that if you don't plan your life, it won't join some direction. It's naivety If you're not planning your life, someone else is, 'cause it will be useful to them if it's not useful

to you. There are agendas out there. Some people are interested in whether you think in a certain way, have certain conceptions, have certain values or not. So if you don't plan, you are being planned. If you don't think, you are being thought. And something you are joining in to When people say they don't commit to any idea, they've already committed to the worst idea, which is alienation. You just didn't choose; it is chosen for you. Alienation is the worst of all ideas. Fantasy: someone plans and we execute In the lecture we had about Kybalion, which

are the laws of life in Egypt, we talked about this mental genre that applies a lot there. Our mind also has two polarities: the masculine and the feminine. It needs to be fertilized by an idea, which is the masculine, and then it develops this idea, as if it were the female uterus. Sometimes it is fertilized by an external idea, from someone who comes to you and say: "have you notice that john doe is avoiding you?" "Don't tell him I said that!". "It's just a hint." And then they leave and, based on this idea, you develop

a series of thoughts, questions, doubts. You start to develop a germ that wasn't yours. It's like a cuckoo egg. Cuckoo lays her egg in another bird's nest. That other bird thinks it's his own, because he raised it. This happens a lot on our mental plane. We do not imagine but are "imagined". Someone filters an idea in our mind. And then we work so that it grows, develops, without knowing that the seed is not ours. This is characteristic of men who have no imagination. They are always hatching cuckoo eggs, always developing ideas that are not their

own. They are not creators of their own ideas and, consequently, not of their own lives either. Well "Slits" of attention: this is very important for you to notice. Although fantasy at first, it has no intention of generating facts, but at the moment we get distracted, it will. Things that exist on the plane of ideas create tension in order to reach the world and generate facts. Imagine, for example, a person you don't like. You feed ideas about them not being a good person, you treat them coldly, but you don't let anyone know about it. One day

when you're distracted or stressed You'll greet everyone except that person. You won't see them, you know why? because that idea you fed took advantage of your stressed behavior to generate a fact: you're going to ignore that person. When you least expect it, this fantasy will produce facts in your life if you nurture it Don't delusion that the mental forms you've nurtured in your life will go unpunished, no one will see them, or will be restricted They will generate facts. Eventually, through a lack of attention, you will make a big mistake, you've fed the root of

that mistake. If you don't want to live ideas, don't feed them on the mental plane or else, admit living them at some point. Make a clear connection between what you think and live. This matter of traditional medicine is quite interesting. Traditional and not eastern medicine, because Egypt and the West did that too. In Greece, the priests of Asclepius also did this in their temple, which was a primitive hospital at the same time. They said: There is no way to cure a disease without going to a subtle plane and find the idea that generates it Have

you ever thought about it? I once heard this from a cardiologist. Today, heart diseases are the most lethal, surpassing cancer or any other current diseases Statistically, they're lower only than car accidents. Heart diseases are very lethal. And I asked the doctor why there are so many heart diseases nowadays Dr. said "I have a guess. I think it's because of hatred." She thinks hate affects the heart. Egoism, disaggregation, when they impact the physical plane, what they're more likely to generate? Selfishness is cancerous; it disaggregates and isolates. It generates autonomous cells that do not work for the

body. Traditional medicines said that all diseases come from a subtle plane to a concrete plane. The temple of Asclepius, in Greece Treated people for some illness. Before giving any medicine, they asked you to sleep in the temple, because during your sleep you'd dream of the causes of you illness on subtle planes. then you had to compromise to change your life response patterns, otherwise, the drugs were useless. The disease would find another organ to manifest Illness comes from subtle to concrete, just as ideas come from the subtle to the concrete. The things we imagine will find

a way to generate facts. It's an interesting thing! I brought two examples to share with you. One of them is from a doctor, who has several books published, and who raises a very curious hypothesis; I don't know if it's true. He says that up to two years after people retire, there is a very high incidence of death. That's statistical. Isn't it because we spend our whole lives saying "when I retire I won't do anything"? "I'll just sit around doing nothing at all!" Only the dead does nothing If you're alive, you're doing something. Aren't people programming

themselves to die and the body just executes it? Did they not put this program running and the body put it into practice? It's a possibility. We imagine something without knowing its practical consequences but it will have consequences. The other example is the story a student told me in class, which I found interesting. She said: for years, she worked with a colleague who kept telling her that her life's dream was to earn money without working. That's what she wanted most: to earn without working. After about ten years working together, one day she had a serious accident

and, even today, twenty years later, she earns without working, on top of a bed in her house. Are there any relations? Are we programming the facts of our lives? Or not? All the ancient traditions of medicine, of philosophy will say that you're programming your life. You are generating causes on the mental plane today, which will be facts tomorrow. Does this have any relationship? I think it's quite possible. At least, I think it's worth taking as a possibility. Think about it: the question of the gaps of attention that will generate facts from our mental forms. "Becoming

aware and taking control of the process". This means that everything I want to be I will think of it, I will plan it and I will outline for myself what my future will be. And I'll always be reminding myself so I don't get lost. In the Philosophy course, there is a very interesting topic, which is about individuality, where I ask the following question: Imagine that we put Plato in a time machine, and bring him to the present times. He'd step in with that philosophical calm that characterized him and ask one of us: Who are you?

What would Plato be expecting you to answer? It's a simple question: Who are you? What do you think he expected you to answer? It wouldn't do to show him a piece of ID he would ask: are you this piece of paper? In his days, this tiny paper didn't even exist. No use giving him your email either. He would ask you: what is this, child? What are you going to say to Plato? What is he waiting for you to answer? When you tell someone your identity, it gives that person predictability of what you can and cannot

do in the future. If I give you my ID card, can you predict my future? No! Not even doing numerology with the numbers in my wallet, you could predict my future. What could you say to Plato that he could predict what has to do with you and what doesn't in the future? The Egyptian book of the dead has a very beautiful passage that says: your inner name is in the future. Do you already know who you are? What you imagined and fixed as an identity. "I am Lucia, a person who intends to reach the end

of life in a fairer, more integral, more coherent and more fraternal way." Done. That's my identity. Now you know perfectly well who I am. When I am lucid, when I remember who I am, I strive to be fairer, more coherent and more fraternal. If I'm not doing it, I'm out of my mind. Either it wasn't me or I was out of my mind. It's like that feeling you get the next day when you remember things you wouldn't done and think: I was out of my mind! What means to be inside you? Where are you going?

Do you realize we have to imagine this? If we say that to Plato, he is satisfied and he can even predict what you will and won't do. He can predict your future, where you are always heading. You are telling him where you want to go, that is, you're telling him about your identity created in the plane of imagination. In fact, ancient philosophy said that the word "heart" comes from "core", "courage". It's as if your heart is in your identity already and the rest of your body is just chasing after it. "I love it; it's a

sage's ideal; therefore I want to get there." If you don't occupy this space, it will be occupied by some image of the collective and soon you are unconsciously working towards it. You are making decisions accordingly. "Imagine yourself and not fantasize." In addition to having a clear goal of who we want to be, when that painful moment comes the one we don't like to think, because we are afraid of death, but, in those final moments, when we look back what do we want to find inside us? What trace do we want to leave in the world?

We have to think about this final work! Fix it through imagination! In addition, we got to know in this journey towards this objective, which step we are on, 'cause fantasy can attack us there too "I want to be a fair person and I'm almost there!" You will be surprised and ask me: how so? Be humble! It's ok if you want to be a righteous person with noble goals but look at where you are! Jung called this ego inflation. You're on the second step but think you're on the twentieth If you hit the twentieth first, you'll

tumble and roll down the stairs. Know where you are! This is one of the biggest causes of deep psychological trauma. Imagine a person who thinks he is very brave. One day, they are surprised by a robbery: a bandit with a gun. Does Fantasy Resist the Burglar? Fantasy is the first to collapse and leaves one alone, naked in front of what he really is. The next day, the trauma isn't so much the wallet they lost, but having to face the mirror and remember what they did. Sometimes they forget There is an emptiness, they lose their memory,

because they cannot bear that fact that they cried, screamed, rolled on the floor. They can't bear to face disappointment with themselves, because fantasy doesn't respond to reality. It's the first to leave the person helpless Sometimes the person cannot stand this trauma. If you don't work to see yourself through a conscious effort of will, life will put you up against the wall and show you who you are because you need it. Life plots for your evolution. As the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who was a great philosopher, said: "You shall be correct or corrected"! Either you work

to see yourself, or life will put you up against the wall! It is what is popularly said: for the good or the bad! You'll have to face yourself at a certain moment, because that's the meaning of life: "Know thyself"! So this fantasy is about goals and about how up high we are. Look around you, look at your footprints! "By your works ye shall know yourselves"! How far along this path are we? Is someone who has the kind of problems I have, a fair person? Is a person who has the same relationship difficulties I have, considered

fraternal? Does a person who rules they life in a certain way have a good ability to get along? We have to check by the footprints we left. We must have a more realistic tool so we don't fantasize about ourselves, it will result in many disappointments and very deep traumas. Man imagines that he thinks. This is an unbridled fantasy. He says he has several ideas, but in fact, none are his. Have you ever got to think about what idea you had in which you lived the event, reflected on it, created several hypotheses, tested them in life

and chose? "That's what I think!" "That's what I think about people, beginning with this reflection"! Most people don't have this history, because they bought the idea ready-made. I think it's funny, In our society, it happens a lot that people come to hate a public figure; then tomorrow they adore him; day after tomorrow, they hate him again. Do you think these feelings are real? Or were they cloned? True and deep feelings take work to build. Nobody hates or loves like that overnight. You did it because everyone was doing it as well. Today a public figure is

loved by people; tomorrow he's forgotten; day after tomorrow, come back again. These collective "feelings" are not yours either; are invented. Authentic thoughts and feelings take work to build. They require reflection, depth. Most of the things we think and feel are not ours. We are felt, we are thought and we think we have many concepts about life No, we don't. It's all copied. When we need an answer to life, there is nothing consistent. There are too many facades, too much intellectualism, too many concepts. When it's time to apply them, they don't have consistency. None of them

are really ours. This is an element that would also have to be verified. What, in fact, we imagine, what we create with an idea, what we capture, see, build, and therefore we are copyrighted. "This is ours. This is us!" It's very little. Most things are copied. There is still one last thing, which is very complicated: spiritual, noble and elevated principles are our enemies, they will end our comfort, our self-indulgence, this peaceful life that we live. When we begin to see principles and values swirling around us, "step away!" "...it will clutter my life". I've already told

you a case that happened many years ago. when I had recently joined the New Acropolis, It's been 26 years now and I used to call a student, who was attending classes for some time, who suddenly went missing. I called to ask him why he wasn't going to school anymore. And this student simply replied as follows: I'm not going to the philosophy course anymore because you're telling me things that will force me to change and I don't want to change. It's gonna be a lot of work. Life is so comfortable for me! If I continue to

take this course, I will be forced to confront things that will make me change. I'd rather not know. That was something that impressed me a lot, because in the face of so much honesty, what could I say to him? If he didn't know, I could show him that; but he already knows. And I can't say it's not true. It is true! You will have to change it! If you don't want to change, what can I do? I cannot deceive the "consumer". "In fact, philosophy makes change"! This is very curious. When a person perceives spiritual principles

sees them as their enemies, because they think they'll lose their comfort. It's better not to know certain things! Do you remember the movie "The Matrix"? The first one The character preferred to go back inside the machine, knowing that it was all a fantasy, because it was comfortable, pleasant, tasty. "Illusion is wonderful"! "Illusion is wonderful"! So I prefer not to know instead of losing my comfort. This is an element of fantasy. The person fantasizes every elevated thing as their enemy. A person thinks that anything noble, heroic, elevated, human, will disrupt their life, it will not improve

it. They want to stay away, to get away from it. In this case I was saying about my student, he was aware of it. It's even better, if you're aware of it, you can react. But most people have no conscience. I called several other students besides this one, and they didn't answer me with all this sincerity. They made several excuses and ended up not going back to school. In fact, it is an unconscious escape, because they are afraid of knowing things that may force them to stand differently before life. This is uncomfortable. It's better not

to know! "Making you yourself instead of fantasizing". Check the footprints we leave in the world, the answers that the world has given us, try to really evaluate where we are at and build what we want to be. It is a strategy of building ourselves. Knowing that things don't fall from the sky and nature doesn't make leaps. How will I become a better person to live with? I need a strategy in this regard. How am I going to control my thoughts? I need a strategy in this regard. Otherwise, I will be a sick scavenger, which is

a very common case in our historical moment. How will I build myself? Just taking steps in this direction! Nature doesn't make leaps nor anything is free. Swap the costume for a construction job suit. The second item is very interesting: "Beware of assumptions", because they create an unreal world. Have you ever noticed those people who like to "gossip"? If someone comes to them and says "I was there, I know what happened, I saw that" they'd say "get lost! You killing the fun out of our conversation." the "gossiper" doesn't care what actually happened. They've created a pleasant

fantasy, that gives them pleasure. If they know what actually happened, they'll lose their "fun". They don't want to know the real story. This assumption creates a virtual world, in which we live, because it gives us some kind of pleasure. Most of the things we have about others are assumptions; are not reality. We think that others like us more than they really do They reject us more than they actually do do more or less than they actually did. We don't see others. We project our opinion onto others, as if they were a mirror. This projection replaces

vision. We don't want to know what things really are. It's more comfortable for them to be that way. We are not looking for the answer; we already got the answer, just searching the facts to endorse it. For example, It's like a person who has a prejudice against a certain people: "Latins are no good". They won't try to meet a Latino. They already have their opinion formed about them and don't accept that others do something to change their opinion. They don't want to change their mind. We make assumptions. This kind of alienation can generate a mental

bubble that isolates us from reality. This is pathological. There are cases of people who have a totally virtual world, where they create feelings in others, behaviors in others, and they don't care about any kind of fact that can check with reality, because it's nice to believe in that. Don't we sometimes assume that, in a certain environment, "I'm not going to be welcomed", and when we get there, we realize that it is not at all what we were expecting? It's like another world. That was just a mind bubble. We think people won't like us there, but

actually it's not at all like that. It was just a mind bubble. Sometimes, we are walking and taking this bubble with us and assuming the world, instead of living it. That's fantasy too! And that also generates an addiction. Have you ever heard of victimization, which is one of the worst addictions of our historic moment? It's a fantasy! You think that, everywhere, people are plotting against you. If we don't have that feeling - by the way I once saw a doctor talking about it and I found it very interesting. Victimization generates a cellular stimulus equivalent to

that of a drug. It's addictive! If I go a day or two without feeling like a victim of anyone, I have withdrawal syndrome. It's like a drug. It's addictive! Psychological addictions are very similar to physical ones. I have to look at people and see that they are discriminating against me, treating me badly, doing something to me, otherwise life is very dull; I feel ordinary. It's like people aren't noticing my presence. This is one of the elements that generates an artificial reality, which can lead to schizophrenia. "I am the target of the world". "I'm such an

insignificant person." "Why is it that all people are chasing a person like me"? "There's nothing else to do"? "Why are you thinking badly of me"? "Such idle people!" "Why'd someone think so much about me"? "It's a lot of lack of mental matter!" This type of victimization is a form of self-projection. "If people persecute me, it's because, in a way, I have a specific importance". "That gives me some prominence." It's pathological! It's a product of fantasy! I saw a report from the MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology, now considered the best university in the world. Every

now and then, they bring up some bizarre statistics. One of the subjects was about walking through life unfolded. When we look at people on the street, we can see that they are not there, body and soul. The body is moving mechanically and the mind is picturing that he is the protagonist of some soap opera or picturing the weekend or the vacation. People are split. They said in that study: there is human potential when people are attentive to what they are doing. Everyone has potential for intelligence, for imagination. If people put their full attention on what

they are doing, there would be a lot of quality in everything people do. In general, we are nowhere. They analyzed the life of the average man and realized that the moment when he is most attentive is during intercourse. Only there! The rest of the time, he's unfolded. Funny, isn't it? If we had this pattern of attention to all the facts of our life, we would do all things with great quality. In general, we are unfolded. This is fantasy! We are usually on a plan - 'cause life seems dreary to us... A plan that seems more

tasteful than life itself! So this is the question of the unreal world, of assumptions. "playing transitions..." What does it mean? "Committing to healthy creations stimulates the imagination." You've may heard of a phrase, attributed to Albert Einstein, but we're never really sure who said it, These internet phrases could be anyone's. It's never really known. It says that a bicycle balances itself in motion. Try to stand on a stationary bike It doesn't balance In movement, the bicycle finds balance. Do you realize that when you have goals, when you want to build something, it evokes the imagination? When

you have a mission spirit, you want to fulfill something in your life, you want to add something to the world, to yourself, it makes you pull ideas. This generates, according to Jung, synchronicity. Ever heard of it? When we're too focused on creating something, it's like we're attracting the forces of nature to bring us those tools we need. When, for instance, I have to prepare a lecture, everything during that week has to do with that theme. When I had to do the second lecture of my life, which was about the Inca civilization, I found musicians playing

Inca music in the street, I would turn on the TV to find a show about them on the History Channel It was an "Incan" pursuit on me! I thought about it all the time. It seems that I moved the universe to bring Incas into my life! That's interesting, 'cause when you have a goal, a mission, or you want to build something, you move nature to bring you the tools. If you have motivation, it mobilizes the imagination. You see the relationship between things, you have an insight of how something can be useful to you. Who has

no mission, has no imagination! Who doesn't want to build something great with his life, has no imagination! It's just a "clock puncher"! One day less in life. One day less. Imagination has to do directly with the spirit of mission, with meaning, with wanting to build something with your life. Otherwise, it's not possible! You have to be on the move to balance yourself! "Imagination stimulates memory". Anyone who has taken a memorization course knows that the most effective method of memorizing is through images. No doubt. You imagine one thing on top of another, you relate the numbers

to objects, and you create images: seven is a cane, four is a chair, a cane on top of a chair, two is a duck, and so on, until you memorize the numbers. You create an image and record that. The method of memorization through images is the most efficient. Sometimes, you can record a very extensive oral exposition, creating a corridor with several rooms, where you go in and see things. The image is the best method of memorization there is. Those who do not develop imagination, in general, also have no memory. They are interconnected potentials. It becomes

a very shallow, short memory with little data storage capacity. Imagination and memory are directly related. Create images and be able to pin them. I found this sentence very beautiful from our international director, who talks about the Renaissance as following: "We have the power of our imagination to connect with the archetypal images and, as Giordano Bruno taught, to record these archetypal images in our memory. Every idea has an image. If we capture the image, we capture the idea. If we remember the image, we remember the idea!" Giordano Bruno, who was a thinker of the Renaissance and

who died in 1600 at the stake of Inquisition, had a technique of memorization, which he taught to princes around the world He didn't forget anything. He connected the facts of life with the stars. He was able to record long texts. His memory was prodigious. One of the ways he had to be accepted by the medieval courts was by teaching his method of memorization. Each idea has an image associated with it. If we are able to create this image mentally, we never forget this idea. People with a good memory are people with a good imagination! An

interesting thing happened to me. Every time I was listening to classical music an image would come up. Always A certain melody reminded me of a certain thing. One day, I found out that someone had written lyrics to this classic melody and those lyrics spoke what I imagined when I heard the song. This is not random! A person who proposes to talk about a song, if he concentrates, if he hears it, suddenly, he can capture an image similar to what another person captured, because, perhaps, this sound is associated with an image; not by a random association.

Have you ever heard of people who have a paranormality called kinesthesia? Everything that is captured by one sense could be captured by all the others. For example: sounds might have a color; colors might have a taste. They already did an experiment with two kinesthetics, who were placed in opposite places in the US, and they were showed similar things: a musical note and they report some color. Both gave the same answers. How could it be a simulation? Several stimuli were given and the responses were identical, I mean, this is not random When I'm fixed on an

idea, it will always relate to an image. If I have this ability to create images on the mental plane, I am a person of prodigious memory. This lack of memory is another problem of our historical moment For little imagination This is also a phrase from a philosopher, Professor Jorge Angel Livraga, founder of New Acropolis. I brought some phrases for you to reflect on this phenomenon of imagination. "As Bruno, Paracelsus or Jacob postulated, imagination can effectively move mountains, set peoples in motion, and with it dreams can become reality." It is said that, just as what I

think today, I will be tomorrow, what a generation thinks will be the humanity of the future. We cannot be something that someone has not dreamed of in the past. Things are born first on the plane of ideas. If you believe in humanity and dream of fraternal humanity, one day it will be. But if you don't craft that possibility on the mental plane, it won't happen. To imagine is to make history to believe in man, to establish what he can be. And help humanity to see this possibility too. "But to operate the transformation of vision into

reality, the operator must project his will with the purest feeling he has. According to Marsilio Ficino, a great Renaissance philosopher imagination produces four feelings: desire, pleasure, fear and pain If we don't control them, they stir our soul, causing it to be lost." Fantasy Imagination requires the courage and determination to flee. As I mentioned to you about my philosophy student: he imagined himself more virtuous and was terrified, he dropped school. We must control these emotions, otherwise, we can't imagine. We are so afraid of growing, of changing, that we fall into Penelope's syndrome: what we build during

the day, in the dead of night we go there and pull the thread. If we don't have basic control over our fear, our panic, our dread, our desires, we boycott our imagination. We prefer the "bad" but known instead of eventually "good" but unknown. We boycott ourselves. Paracelsus, who was a great precursor of medicine, said the following: "What is imagination but a Sun in man"? Imagination is capable of creating countless possibilities that nothing else could. "For Paracelsus, active imagination... ...is the intermediary between thought and Being. He conceives imagination... ...as the incarnation of thought in the image:

Symbol. A good reader can capture it." This sole idea of the symbol would give a separate lecture! Can you imagine that the way we act the way we walk, the way we dress the way we gesture, the emphasis on our voice, behind all this there are values that we believe in and that make us act like this? Like those ancient mothers who, when they met a daughter's boyfriend, after only a five minutes talk would say "he isn't good for you, daughter"? By his "attitude"! They said it was because of the boy's attitude This "attitude" was

an ancient way of talking about symbolic imagination. The way we act conveys things we believe in which, sometimes, not even we are aware of it. That's the symbol! If we imagine things clearly, we will soon symbolize them. It's interesting how, after many years doing philosophy, without saying anything to anyone, one day, at my place of work... All philosophy work here is voluntary. We all have our jobs; we work voluntarily on New Acropolis. One day, at my place of work, drinking my coffee, calmly a person approaches me, without me ever having talked about philosophy to them

comes e says: "I don't know what happens to me... ...I've everything that society says is enough to be happy... ...I've good financial conditions, a good family... ...but it seems something's missing." So I stand there with my coffee and ask myself: Who told this person to talk to me? I never said anything to them about philosophy! It's as if I put some sugar on the floor here, and ants start to appear, climbing up and down the walls. We don't know how they appear! Looks like it's an affinity attraction! Who needs values, feels those values in the

way you serve your coffee! Without you ever saying anything, people come to you and not to someone else! Why? Somehow you convey what you are, Right? consciously or unconsciously; you create what you want to convey. When someone asks me how they can help advertise New Acropolis, I always tell them that it's good to give a flyer to a friend, share our email, but the most important thing is that you be virtuous. Everyone will ask you why and you will tell them: philosophy helped me understand this. Things spread what they are: the apple tree spreads an

apple; if you are a philosopher, propagate philosophy. If you have values, propagate values. There's no other way! We cannot want the apple tree to propagate orange! If you don't live values, you can distribute leaflets, at will, that you will not propagate philosophy! Do you understand this idea? Behind our actions, our attitudes towards life, there are values. We need to be aware of this! Like it or not, we are influencing people. Let's be responsible for what we spread around the world! We have to clearly imagine what we want to propagate, what image we want to convey

to the world. We can propagate things we don't truly believe in. Take Care with this! That's the idea of the symbol. A good reader is capable of capturing it. It is said that the wise Egyptian hierophants knew when a person was "fit" for philosophy, whether he was honest or not, according to the way he was passing in the street. They could read these symbols. Today we don't have that much depth for that, but intuitively we capture a lot. "In expressing himself, God manifests himself in a universe that is situated between the pure spirit and the

concrete real, that is, a 'mesocosm', the world of the creative imagination." "Imagining is creating, revealing." When we imagine that we can be fraternal people, we are bringing something that was hidden within us and revealing to the world. We are bringing hidden potentials that were in us into the world. We create a mesocosm, a bridge; we are a pontiff between heaven and earth. The potentials that were latent we reveal them, we make them visible to the world. "Imagination creates in man the essence of his purposes, the power of his surfacing". It's a phrase from a French

historian, which I think is very beautiful. Imagination reveals the potential we have within us, as we couldn't imagine something nonexistent. Imagination captures realities from the plane of ideas. We couldn't imagine ourselves righteous if we didn't have that potential. We couldn't imagine ourselves fraternal if we didn't have that potential. For better or worse, the imagination perceives possibilities that exist within us. If we identify with them and live them through the will, we generate realities. Imagination together with will creates realities, creates facts, makes man a builder. This excerpt is now by Giordano Bruno, who worked a lot

with this idea of imagination: "Imagination claims to be the first link of the soul, a middle ground between the temporal and the eternal"! "It is the sense of the senses and, properly speaking, the only true sense." "It is the body and vehicle of the soul, the source from which human life flows, the most venerable method of communicating with God." We all have external senses: vision, through which we see the surface of objects, hearing, with which we perceive noises, touch, etc... Imagination is an internal sense. It doesn't invent, It gropes something that is inside us. We

are taking into account what many men of the past have said. Imagination is a sense; It's groping for something that is dormant within us. It noticed something; It didn't invent. Sometimes we imagine things we cannot be. But if we can visualize this clearly, we can! Walt Disney used to say that what we can imagine, we can do. And he did! We know what Walt Disney's life was like. Imagination is an inner sense, groping for the highest and most divine we have. To have a dull imagination, to have mental laziness, which is the worst kind of

laziness there is, to not develop the inner life, to not develop the imagination is to go through life as a stranger to oneself. It's ignoring, perhaps, what you had most precious. On one occasion, don't know why, I was in a bookstore and decided to leaf through a book: "The Diary of Marilyn Monroe". It had been published recently, including the facsimile of her handwriting. There's a passage where she says: "People think they love me; people don't even know me. They love a facade, a fashionable image. What I really am I don't even love, because I don't

know; I'm a stranger to myself. And maybe I'll die like that!" I was so impressed with this! We have so many stereotypes! Maybe if Marilyn Monroe were alive, I wouldn't invite her to a philosophy course, because I don't think she'd like that. But it looks like she would! Looks like she needed it She realized that within her there was a hidden core; nor did she know what she was. "I don't even love myself; I don't know what I am and maybe I'll die like that"! And maybe she did Imagination gropes that inner core: your true

identity. Imagination is a tool of inner life. When man becomes dull, shallow, self-indulgent on the mental plane, he becomes a stranger to himself. These are some phrases that I brought because I thought they were very beautiful and I wanted to share them with you. This is a real case that happened a few decades ago. It is the story of Jean-Dominique Bauby. "I've decided to stop feeling sorry for myself." Besides my eye, there are two things that are not paralyzed: my imagination and my memory." Jean-Dominique Bauby suffered a stroke and was completely immobilized. Only one eye

moves yet he is lucid. "The diving suit and the butterfly ", his work He said, "I stopped feeling sorry for myself I have two very good things: an eye and my imagination. My imagination, my memory and my eye! Enough for me to do a lot! What if one has a whole body but neither imagination nor memory? What are they going to do? Perhaps much less than him. We don't call them invalids, but call him that. A person, who is totally devoid of imagination, of inner life, of self-knowledge, we don't call them invalids, but we call

him that. Isn't curious this matter of values? This week, I was told that there will be "invalid day". Who do we call invalid? Someone who is not capable of an act of brotherhood, we don't call an invalid. Someone without any sensitivity to the feelings of others, we don't call invalid. We call the ones without an arm or a leg. But they turn out to be fine but the first one, they are very difficult. From a philosophical point of view, we would have to review what disability is. Psychological disability and soul disability compromise much more than

physical disability. And finally, a quote from Carlyle: "If you want to sow for eternity, sow in the infinite faculties of man, in his intelligence and in his imagination." There is a movie, which I like a lot and is well known: "Gladiator", which has a famous phrase: "What we do in life, echoes through eternity". It's not what we do physically, like eating, sleeping, that's not "doing"; this is inertia, mechanicity. That's an act of instinct; it's not us. What we do in life is what is expected of a human being. It's what we humanly do in life!

What is humane that we do in life necessarily passes through imagination and through will. And that echoes through eternity. This makes a difference, adds up, reasons our life. All men die, but not all men live. Some just survive. This kind of disability which deadens a man's soul makes him only survive; he dies not knowing what nature had stored for him. Die a stranger to yourself. This is very sad. It is the worst form of disability. That's basically what I wanted to bring you to get an idea of how important this was in the classical world.

As I told you, this is covered in our philosophy course. It's a short summary. And so you can work a little with your imagination. Dare to think how much you can grow and be useful to ourselves and humanity through our life. Dare to imagine yourselves big! Dare to imagine yourselves as humans! Nature expects this of us. It made us for this. It imagines us human. It made us for this. One of the worst things that exists these days is losing faith in human beings, because we don't dare to imagine how great we can become. However,

we have this as an implicit potential in the human condition. If a human being was great, it exists within us as an implicit potential and it is our duty to imagine it as possible. Try this: to see the life of a great man and imagining yourself doing it It gives you a certain fear, but inside you, a certain sense of glory. "I can! I indeed can!" "Am I not going to do at least a part of it"? "If so, I won't live"! Answers to questions from the audience Question: Is fantasy always seen on the negative

side? Can't I fantasize, spend a few minutes outside of reality? Answer: You will find that it is quite addictive, because it brings effortless gratification. Question: But isn't that needed? After a stressful day, we need a moment of escape. Answer: There is another way to compensate for stress by bringing awareness to beautiful things, to noble things, without acquiring vices. as if you're saying you're too stressed and taking a drug to deal with it. If you use the drug, you will pay a high price for it. There are ways you can de-stress without going into things that

can compromise you. Fantasy generates a replacement of life and that replacement of life will become an addiction, because it gives you pleasure with much less effort than life. In a little while, you will be unfolded, not fixated on anything. There are people we are talking to, and this is very common today, and after thirty seconds, they are no longer paying attention to us. They stare, but they're no longer there. They cannot fixate attention for a minute. Scattering is a disease; generates pathologies. It's like Machiavelli: the ends justify the means. "I'm going to rest! I can

fantasize, because it's for a good cause!" The ends and the means have to be coherent. Comment: I must then imagine good things for these moments... Answer: Imagining good things, raising awareness with good music, remembering a good time. Use memory for that! Use inspiration! Question: When we talk about fantasy, we can confuse it with imagination... Answer: Both are creating images, but fantasy gives you a kind of pleasure without any pretense of accomplishing anything in your life. Imagine, for example, that I like good music and I mentally run that good music. This, on the mental plane, brings

me inspiration, makes me want to be a little more loving, to express my feelings better. It generates a plan for action. Fantasy generates nothing; on the contrary, it holds us; we want to leave but can't. And any inattention, when we least imagine it, we went "there", we create a parallel world that steal us from life. It does not generate any projection for future accomplishments. It has no relation to this world. It is a world apart. Inaudible Question Answer: In the talk about Caiballion, I talked a little bit about it. Plato also talked a lot about

music. Music is vibration. This vibration pulls your consciousness. It's in tune with that vibration. We don't need to be kinesthetic or psychic to realize that a person who likes vulgar music will, at some point, be vulgar; that a person who likes violent music, at some point, will express violence. Their consciousness is tuned with that vibration. At some point, they will express related things. Nothing in life goes unpunished! In the Caiballion talk, I was telling you that our essence, according to Egyptian tradition, it's the pattern our consciousness vibrates in This is us! The Egyptians called this

an internal name. Our consciousness vibrates on this plane. It vibrates in the face of beauty, goodness, justice. This is us! What do we have to do? We have to look for things that vibrate in the same tune to be able to settle our conscience there or pull it forward. We begin to tune in to things that vibrate down here; will pull our consciousness down. Throughout history, there has always been talk of debugging taste. The taste is not unpunished. What we read, what we hear, the companies we hang out with, everything is vibration. When we create

attunement with a very low vibration, our conscience will go back there. This is too complex for us; for the people of the past it was obvious In Greek theater they were very careful when a person was going to play a character, that was a villain. The person had to be mature, with a lot of identity and a lot of self-control. An immature person, who plays the character of a villain very well, their conscience identifies with it and then they can take that as a possibility. This can generate madness, delinquency, etc. Movie Reviews: "Batman and the

Dark Knight". Everyone was talking, at the time, about the Joker from that Batman movie. Have you seen this Batman movie, where the actor who played Joker killed himself at the end The actor was an immature person, who was confined in a hotel, to study the character and he created a pathological identity, because the character is pathological and he wasn't mature for that. Audience: Paul Walker died in a car accident Greek playwrights such as Aeschylus, They were very careful with the actors. They didn't choose immature actors, because this generated an affinity with a vibration that was

not good for your conscience. The actors were people mature enough to disidentify themselves. Audience: Heath Ledger really identified with the character The Joker is a psychopath. He acquired a mental pattern of a psychopath. He created this as a possibility in his psyche and identified with it. For a Greek to do that to a person would be irresponsible. The kind of music we listen to, the kind of reading we do, They all have consequences in our lives. When we nurture habits of good music, we generate developments in what we do, if we are not musicians. We

generate constructions in what is ours A philosopher generates works in his life. A person of values will generate it, but from that vibratory pattern. There is a relationship between the house we built, the values we have and the music we listen to. Although they are different things, they are all vibrating in the same pattern, in the same tune. Comment: The classical songs, which you listen to while you are studying, can stimulate your learning potential. Baroque music especially! Have you heard about studies they do in plant nurseries? Did you know that plants like Bach? What a

good taste they have! Plants like music and it's not just any classical music. They like Baroque, especially Bach. Plants have better taste than most of humanity. There is a vibratory pattern that even influences plant life. This is very curious. Several studies of music in plant nurseries have already been carried out. Question: In the "coffee" example you gave, when the person approached you to complain that he couldn't be happy, even though he was financially stable how do you explain it philosophically? I don't get the question. What do you mean? He said he couldn't understand... Are you

asking me why that person wasn't happy? Answer: Because he had a very comfortable survival pattern, but he didn't do anything for anyone nor did anything for his growth as a human being. That same routine of getting home and turning on the TV, go to the club on weekends, but being unable to think of the pain of humanity, unable to develop a keener sense of justice, that is, he was focused on his personal "things." Plato has a very beautiful definition of love that says: "There is a threshold of human love: is when you stop looking at

things and ask what they are meant for"? You start looking at things and ask: how can I serve it? When you put yourself at the service of humanity, when you take humanity's pain as your problem, when you take responsibility of being better to set an example, when you feel the need to add something to the world, you are coming out of your personal bubble. No matter how good a person is, if they live only because of that small world, it's like a cell that doesn't work for the body; works just for them How is humanity

going to live as an organism, when some cells don't think of the body? Cells have to think about the body; otherwise it's sick. No society survives with every man for himself. This is unfeasible. One have to cross this human threshold of love, where they start to feel committed to humanity and feel it as their family too. Got to pop this bubble and feel like a member of humanity, which is also our responsibility. And a time will come when our soul will asks for it, as it's the case of this distressed person, despite having everything in

life, hasn't found its meaning. He had a family, raised children, but feels the need for something more. "What is missing in my life?" Question: Lucia, you, as an studious of social constructions do you think some movement is already happening towards of moving from religion to other paths, such as philosophy? I mean, today philosophy serves me more than religion. I have a lot more interest in being here than being in a church. Long ago, religion was said to be the opium of the people. and already was foreseen the moment when humanity would change religion by some

other movement, like psychoanalysis. Could something be happening facing this direction or not? Answer: Your reasoning is not wrong, but within a larger vision, we have to avoid having prejudices. Imagine, for example, a mother who wants her child to eat salad. She cannot go to the child and tell her to eat salad, because it contains fiber, which will help your peristaltic bowel movements. The child would not understand anything "mom, just give me the chocolate" - it won't work What does the mother have to say to the five-year-old? "Daughter, eat salad, otherwise Santa Claus won't bring presents"!

"If you eat the salad, Mom will be happy!" You have to work with an idea that the child is able to understand. At that moment, fear and desire. Education works with what the child is capable of understanding. There are several stages. Imagine a big triangle. There is a basic stage, which takes man out of mere survival and begins to implant values in him. But it is a stage in which the person still needs the external element: "God is sad"! "God likes you"! Then they move on to deeper questions: "What is God"? They will get deeper

answers. "God is an intelligence, who organizes everything, because there is no chaos; there is cosmos". they go further until a threshold, They go on asking deeper and deeper questions, that would be aside to the ideas of religion and philosophy. The writer Amit Goswami speaks of it in a very funny way. What he calls "the afterlife 100", "the afterlife 200", and "the afterlife 300". "Afterlife100" is when you just looking for blessings and not to be punished. The person begins to ask: Why are people punished? God is fair? What is justice? Where did I come from? Where

do I go? They're already approaching the "afterlife 200" and entering the philosophical field. Then they start asking, at a certain moment: Why is God separated from me? Why am I separated from you? Are we two or one? What's behind all this? They've already passed philosophy and is coming to wisdom: the "afterlife 300". It is very funny this classification that this author made, but it shows that everything has its moment and nature does not make leaps. How about Egyptian religion, for example? When a person asked deeper questions, the priest would tell them to study philosophy 'cause

it would help them. When they reached a certain level of philosophy, they moved to the mysteries, to the initiations, now philosophy is not enough for you In the historical moment we live in, it doesn't exist anywhere. Philosophy became intellectualized, there are no more mysteries and religion does not answer all questions anymore. The civilizing pyramid is disconnected. You ask a lot of questions and reach a limit of what can be answered. Philosophy no longer has anything to do with life; it is mere intellectualism, the history of philosophy. The mysteries no longer exist. There is a dichotomy

that was not meant to exist. In Platonic philosophy, there is no dichotomy. Plato was developing perfect logic and suddenly he goes to the god Apollo, the Delphic god, then to the Panathenaic feasts. There was no dissent. Then he entered the mysteries of Zeus. It was all connected. In Egypt as well. In India, one came out of a Vedanta school and entered into philosophy, into the mysteries. It was all connected. Our historical moment is very materialistic, with shallow ideas. It looks like we're having a war. Inaudible comment. We will not go into details regarding denominations, but

what we can see is that when a person has a natural, healthy relationship with religion, They like philosophy. When there's a war or when a philosopher begins to deny religion is strange. It's natural for each one to have its moment and normal flow. It shouldn't be a war. I have given many lectures in external environments... Here it is quite different. You come here to attend a philosophy lecture. When I go to colleges, students are often there to punch the clock. And I'm talking about the thing that I like the most, that moves me the most

Something like the cavern myth and the students are doing other things, like selling merchandising, etc... There are people who are not in a moment of philosophy. We cannot force them! Everything has its moment! These people need to have a religious ethic, that determines its limits. If they don't have it, they are slaves to their instincts. That's good, it's necessary! It is not good when fanaticism dominates a person. Transiting through these steps is natural in human culture. What It's not natural when it closes them off, isolating them and not allowing growth. If any sage appears here,

I'll say philosophy is not for him he must go to Tibet. Not for Tibet! It's all China's now! I don't know where to send it! But so far none have come to me! They are rare! Question: What about children's fantasy? Answer: It is very difficult to define what a childish fantasy is, because there's a lot that we say is fantasy and that is a reality. It happens a lot when children say they have an invisible friend. Due to the little experience of education with children, we observed that most invisible friends are not imaginary; are elementals

of nature, which children perceive. They see fairies and other beings. Their innocence allows them to see. But when it is a process that is replacing reality, for example, the kid won't study, because their classmate will help them in the test, this is already an evasion, and it's dangerous when it leads to the child's maladjustment. The child, in general, has a very large imaginative process. They dream they're the prince, the princess and they could. And must! They have dreams of nobility. There is a very beautiful book by Professor Michel Echenique, the founder of New Acropolis in

Brazil, which is called: "The two end sides". He said that this dream that children have of prince and princess it is what they will accomplish at the end of their life; the two ends of life unite, only here they know how to defend their dreams. No one else will steal from them. What are we going to be? Let's have blue blood inspired by the celestial blue of sky have a behavior totally guided by nobility, dignity. That's a prince, a princess, slaying dragons, which are bestiality, violence, madness, alienation, to save the enchanted princess, who is our

very soul. All this is symbol. What the child believes is more real than what the adult believes. I have a lot of talks on fairy tales. I believe in Santa Claus; it is a reality. Santa Claus is the elder of days. That person dressed in red in the middle of the snow symbolizes the cold of materialism and the soul vibrating there in the middle. Santa Claus is a symbolic reality. People tell a child that Santa Claus is a lie and make them believe in consumerism, in sensuality. Now, that is a lie! it leads nowhere! What

we call childish fantasy, it's imagination. They're imagining a noble life, one day they may live. They can be what they're imagining. Sometimes they notice things in nature that we don't. It can also be a reality. You have to check what is really fantasy and when it goes beyond standards to become pathological, that is, when it replaces reality. Kid won't clean their room, because their little invisible friend will do it, is a case to be checked, it can be laziness or escape from reality. What else, any further questions? Question: On this collective issue, of our politics

being divided into two poles, in which people do not reason each other and are each one for themselves, nobody thinks about the country anymore, some want to conquer power, others to retain it, how to understand all this? Answer: Behind every human problem, whether political, economic, social, there is selfishness. Selfishness manifested itself in politics, in that case you are talking about. It manifests itself in the economy and everywhere. The selfishness, not only of those in charge, but of the whole group. Plato talks about it. In his book: "The Republic", he talks a lot about the formation

of leaders. When you see a child, who picks up a flower in the garden of their house, and takes it to school, because this kid wants many people to enjoy the beauty of this flower, who wants to share the best things they have, can become a leader. But that kid who drags something from school because they want it to themselves, that kid will not be a good ruler. You can't expect a person to be something they're not. This is cruel! You can't expect an apple tree to grow pineapple. An apple tree can only bear an

apple. When you plant an apple tree, you expect it to bear apples. When you put in power people who haven't got over "wanting things for themselves" and we give them freedom to take everything home, knowing they didn't get over it, you are expecting an apple tree to bear pineapple. It is cruel to expect from people what they cannot give! Do you remember the little prince? When the king tells him that he commands the sun to rise and set every day, he replies that the sun already does this by itself. This is typical of the sun!

The king then tells him that would be cruel of you ask the sun for something that was not his own. "I wouldn't be a king; I'd be a tyrant." You cannot ask people for what they cannot give you. When a person is selfish, You can notice that from their teenage years. They need to be educated, but don't let them rule. Power will give them an opportunity that this selfishness will come true on a large scale. Sometimes we transfer to a person in power, a defect that we also have. Wouldn't we do the same thing if

we were there? We want all the beautiful things for ourselves or we think of sharing, to beautify the path we're going through? Do I worry about leaving the places I've been better than when I arrived? This is a characteristic of a leader. If we don't know how to recognize this feature, it's because we don't have it. If we have it inside, we can recognize it outside. If we don't have it, we should be less cruel to people which also do not have this feature. When I look at these politicians doing TV interviews, I feel sorry

for them; are simpletons. We hope them to be apple trees bearing pineapples. They couldn't do more than they actually do, because they don't have that psychological capacity. Why do we believe they did? 'Cause we don't see it Why don't we see it? 'Cause we don't have All of us, in a way, are responsible. Our selfishness makes us blind, 'cause if we had more fraternity, we would recognize who has it, if we had more ability to give, we would recognize who has it. We don't have, so we don't see. It's like a turtle on top of

a tree. How did it get there? Someone put it! And someone must take it out too. A person couldn't go up there. We put it there. We didn't see that it was a turtle. We have to learn to recognize the turtle. We have to look for it within so we can recognize it outside. Question: Why don't we have this ability to look at others and see all its negative traits? inaudible comment Answer: Imagine that two people shoot someone. Imagine that two people shoot at someone. One succeed and the other fails. And you only punish the

one who succeeded. You're not punishing crime, but aim. If everyone is selfish and the one you put in power was corrupt, you are punishing the person's bad luck, for everyone potentially could do it, or most. This one was unlucky to have the opportunity; others haven't; got lucky. You are punishing fate, not the person. Realize this! It's cruel, but we have to be mature to realize it. If I have this virtue and put myself in power, I want to bring everything I have in my house to put there, because I want to leave the place better

than it was when I arrived. So, I have conditions to know who has and who doesn't. If I'm going to go out squandering the world to be able to beautify my things and I want everything to be mine, I must not judge others. The element that is in you is the same that is in power. How often do we come across extremely selfish people! And these are the same people who complain about the government! Dishonesty comes from selfishness. Audience: You could be a reflection of the place where you live in the behavior of people in

traffic, which is different in each country. But don't judge too much for it, It's a reflex Audience: People often use their car as weapons. Certainly, the traffic is brutal, but when we go to a foreigner country, for example, their education is a very superficial veneer. Inside, sometimes they are selfish, petulant people. We might be transparent; we might not have that social veneer. Audience: I don't know if it's a matter of evolution, of punishment... It's more pride and vanity! The English philosopher Roger Scruton wrote about it, around the time there was a riot in London and

that many middle-class people took to the streets breaking everything. He said that English finesse is a "little varnish", a film. Any social tremor causes it to vanish. This is not true education; this is a facade. "Deep within, we are barbarians"! His words caused much indignation, but they were reality. A person, who was that fine, would be sensitive, humane, fraternal, would care about those beyond its borders, would not discriminate so much, I wouldn't have so much vanity, so much arrogance. We often have this habit of attributing this only to us. We are dual like any human

being. We are more transparent, because we didn't receive this education to have varnish, enamel, to make it beautiful "for English to see". We are very rude in that sense. But sometimes we are more fraternal then how we're treated in a country like France. It is difficult to be treated, in Brazil, the way we are treated in one of these countries. Sometimes we are warmer than anywhere else. When we returned from abroad, we felt that impact. The way people look at us, speak to us. Brazilians have a certain human warmth, we are helpful, by nature. Everything

is dual in the world. Nobody is that perfect! Audience: Jekyll and Hyde Channeling the will is a decision on the mental plane and perseverance and constancy on the physical plane. Decision is identity! It is important that we love our identity and the values it has. One of the things that destroys the human being is the absence of identity, both individually and collectively. Brazil has values like any other place, although it is immersed in a culture of license, of permissiveness. Audience comments on the behavior of people from other countries We are involved in a culture of

licentiousness, of permissiveness. Europeans might do the same. They don't do it for values; do by a method of social coercion, of social conditioning, which is very superficial, it is not profound, it is not a transformation of something. We see selfishness all over the world; it's a human problem It's not a Brazilian problem only. Unfortunately! How nice it would be if there were fewer selfish people! I really appreciate everyone's presence! New Acropolis is an international, independent, non-profit philosophical movement, based on Culture, Philosophy and Volunteering. There are hundreds of Applied Philosophy Schools throughout the World Find the

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