A VOZ DO SILÊNCIO de Helena Blavatsky - Comentários Filosóficos Prof. Lúcia Helena Galvão

New Acropolis The Mysteries of Tibet Comments on the book "The Voice of Silence" by Helena Blavatsky Lúcia Helena Galvão Goodevening! Most of you already know me, my name is Lucia. The idea today is to talk a little bit about Tibetan Philosophy. Specifically about a book called "The Voice of the Silence". Tibetan philosophy because today the East has a certain attraction to the West. We start to want to know a little more, especially about Indian philosophy, Chinese philosophy. But Tibet is still a bit mysterious. Not only because its literature is scarcer, as also their language is

more difficult to understand. We are going to deal with a very important part, which for a long time was discussed, doubted. There was much discussion about this book "The Voice of the Silence", to find out if it was actually originated in Tibet or not. Because the writer, Helena Blavatsky, suffered a strong challenge in the 20th century. Today it is a fact. Today there are documents in Tibet, public books, compilations of sacred documents, like the "Kanjur", the "Tanjur" Including testimonials from highly ranked llamas that talk about this document. That in its original name, is called "The

Book of Golden Precepts". It is a set of 90 verses, 37 of which were transcribed by Helena Blavatsky. We are going to know a little about the subject, because it is not long. Who is curious to know "The Voice of Silence" is a short book. But difficult for us to transmit in such a quick conference. For being even very metaphysical. Tibet's thinking seems to be as high as the Himalayas where they were born. Really are the roof of the world, at least philosophically and geographically as well. "The Voice of Silence" is a gem. So let's

get to know a little bit. Beautiful landscape, Himalayas! A little, just so that we can locate ourselves geographically, Tibet which is now annexed by China. I don't need to tell you about all that this entailed. Of more than 200 monasteries, today there are only twenty or so. Two-thirds of Tibet's population is Chinese, settled there. In other words, Tibet was practically destroyed, its beliefs severely attacked. Tibet is what's left of Tibet. The Dalai Lama himself, who is the high priest of one of the forms of Tibetan philosophy, which is the Gelugpa school, today he lives in

Dharamsala, India, for survival. By the way, the leader of the Karmapa school also fled. Today it is very difficult to survive under the command of China. With all the beliefs they have, we don't need to talk about it. It is not our goal, although it would make a good lecture. Telling the story of Tibet, all the tradition that was already there when Buddhism arrived for the first time, when it is brought by Padmasambhava, Marpa, Milarepa, Tsongkhapa. It's a beautiful story. Very beautiful. And the denominations that exist in Tibet, because people look from afar and think

it's just one thing. Tibet is very polyfaceted. There are various facets of the Buddhist religion there. The Nyingma School, Gelugpa School, Karma Kagyu School... there's a lot of stuff there. It's not as simple as we imagine. And what went before that are the Bon-po beliefs. It is a very rich tradition. Anyway, and it is a relatively large territory. From a very high elevation and inhospitable temperatures. That is, a place that, in a certain way, was inaccessible to the West for a long time. When Helena Blavatsky lives, 19th century, she was born in 1831 and died

in 1891, it was very difficult to arrive in Tibet. A westerner would practically give up halfway through, because he is naturally isolated, mountain range, difficult temperatures, arid. So it was a place that knew few European visitors. And we will see that she penetrates there, spends some time inside a monastery, Shigatse, where the Teshu-Lama lived and learns a lot and transcribes some things, which is a series of works, which perhaps some of you have heard of. "The Secret Doctrine", "The Voice of Silence" are some of the works that are transcribed of the Tibetan holy books. It

is a people that, as they have to live in a very inhospitable situation, they have a way, a little, let's say, laconic, if you can say that. They express themselves in a different way, used to a very arid life. While the West speaks more, uses more words, the Tibetan is very dry in his expression. This sometimes makes it even more difficult for a Westerner to understand the Tibetan tradition. You will realize that one thing was, the Europeans set foot in Tibet physically, another thing was understanding Tibet, which is a process that has not ended until

today and I don't know when it ends, because it's a really hard philosophy to understand. And in that sense Helena Blavatsky did us a huge favor, having gone there and having brought a lot of things, transcribed in a language that we can understand More or less, isn't it? At least in part we can understand. So today we're going to get to know a little bit about "The Voice of Silence". I brought you this scheme that I found interesting, where a little of the thinking that is not just Tibetan is shown. You will see that this

is more or less Universal. It is considered, in peoples like Tibet, Egypt thought so, Greece of the Orphic mysteries thought so... that man advances towards knowledge through three steps. The first would be a step through myths, through symbols, he places himself in relation with the existence of the Divine. So understand this. I don't know if you've heard about it, recently in Spain they discovered this, remains of a rather ancient, prehistoric civilization, where they have already discovered some stones which were necessarily, as deduced by scientists, were of religious use. They were not a utility vehicle, they

had nothing to do with food, with hunting, they were a representation of something which was sacred to them, was a small altar. You will realize that, at a certain point, this mentality, which is typical of human beings, they begin to want to understand the Universe around them and find a cause that justifies, a thread that gives meaning to all this, which at first seems so chaotic. This is very distinctive of a human being. Professor Jorge Angel Livraga who founded New Acropolis who was a very experienced philosopher, used to say that what differentiates an animal from

a human being is not so much these characteristics that sometimes science puts in a primitive logic, opposable thumb or I don't know what else, but the ability to recognize something sacred, to kneel down to something which he perceives as existing although he cannot understand it through a logical equation. In other words, the metaphysical. And this metaphysician proceeds through a few steps. In Tibet it is also like this. First is the recognition that there is something beyond time and beyond space in nature. I'm here and there's something divine outside. You will see that there is a

beautiful book from the Hebrew tradition, sorry, from the Arab tradition what is called the self-taught philosopher which shows a man living alone on an island and going through these stages. So first the perception of God out. Then necessarily, when moving in that direction, you begin to realize that God is outside but also within you. Through the attributes that you find in yourself, justice, fraternity, of integrity, of harmony, you begin to realize that he is out but he has something inside you. There begins the know yourself, which is the philosophical stage. And these traditions say that

there is a third step which is the initiations where God is no longer outside nor outside and inside. It does not exist outside and inside. You and nature are one! Do you understand this idea? And the unit. You no longer distinguish between inside and outside. You become a digit of God. As if it were a momentary separation from the unit to act on an illusory stage, which is the manifested world. That would be Wisdom. Philosophy is just the pursuit of Wisdom. Philo+sophos. There would then be the first symbolic stage, a second stage of searching for

a more logical understanding, and a third, initiation. That's not news! You'll see it in Abydos in Egypt, you'll see it in the mysteries of Eleusis in Greece. You will see this everywhere. The Mysteries of Mithra, Persia. The idea that man at a given moment goes beyond this separateness. This is the core thought of Tibet. No one will ever be able to prove it to us if it arose in several places, or if it arose in one place and radiated. Helena Blavatsky says, for example, that Tibet as we know it, he received strong influence from India.

But much earlier in history, India received influence from Tibet. That it would be an even older civilization and would have received the root of its thought from there. This idea that the Universe is a path towards Unity. This idea of ​​finding how all things fit together, this idea of ​​finding the thread that runs through all the necklace beads in the Universe. Retrieve unity in multiplicity. It would be a very old idea from the Tibetan region, which was already decaying when Buddhism entered. Because Tibet as we know it is Buddhist. So logically, much later than Buddhism,

where he was born, which is in India with Siddhartha Gautama. More or less in the century. II BC we see Tsongkhapa, bringing Buddhism to Tibet for the first time. But it seems that there was already something older there. So this structure is interesting for us to understand. We are talking about a book that does not belong to anything external. If you enter a Tibetan lamasery... enter, because now you don't enter anywhere else. If you went into a Tibetan lamasery before the Chinese invasion, you would not find the "Book of Golden Precepts", because that was not

exoteric, external, to the public. This was a document used by initiated Lamas, it was an internal document, which would have been released, in part, to the West. A fragment, a third of that book, would have been brought to the West by Helena Blavatsky. And today it is recognized as really a Tibetan document. So let's go! Helena Blavatsky, I won't say too much about her, but she deserves a little mention. In fact, she spent, after her death, a hundred years being called and lied to. Because there was no proof that these works had really come from

there. She lives, no one can say exactly how long, but at least three years, in Shigatse, which is a very internal region, in the Tashilhunpo monastery, where it is a very internal region of Tibet, difficult to access. She lives there and becomes a disciple of Tibetan Lamaist Buddhism. And she comes back with a series of ideas that we can find in her work, in a "Secret Doctrine", in an "Isis without Veil" and in that little jewel that is the "Voice of Silence". Where she says, "Look, the document was so internal that I wasn't allowed to

bring anything written" "They asked me to memorize what I could memorize. "...I memorized thirty something verses, there were ninety." And I brought it, because it was an internal document, it could not be transported in any way. A document used within monasteries on blades, of those ancient blades that were used on altars, which it seems that even today in Tibetan Buddhism they are still used. Slides in palm leaves where passages from the sacred books are written. So Helena Blavatsky lives more or less in this period. She was a Russian who died in England, founder of the

theosophical movement, born in 1831 and died in 1891, a great traveler and a first-rate philosopher, who recovered many documents, that without it we would not have access in the West. And very wronged for a long time and today it is undoubted. What she really left behind was a work of Tibetan origin. These Kiu-te Tibetan books that she consults, which was an internal library of Shigatse Monastery, it is composed of 35 external volumes, which were open to the public, and 14 internal ones, only for the use of the Lamas, which were very old comments. From the

first of these comments she makes "The Secret Doctrine" which are the "Stations of Dzyan". And from another part of these comments she takes verses from the "Golden Book of Precepts". You will see that it later comes to light through another theosophist, Mabel Collins, a little more of this book, which is "Luz do Caminho", it is the continuation of the same "Book of Golden Precepts". And thanks to both, we have some contact with this document. That even today, even with Buddhism the way it is, practically a refugee in India, because the great Tibetan leaders fled, they

couldn't survive, but even today this document has not been made public. But when you take a document that, yes, exists for the public, which is Kanjur and Tanjur, Which are large compilations of ancient Tibetan holy books, they mention it and today it is very well known, they make constant mention of Kiu-te's books, they make mention of the "Book of Golden Precepts". How unpleasant it is for us to look back and see the number of people who denied and offended someone who was speaking the truth. The Prejudices of Humanity. Let's hope we don't do that again

in relation to the future, right? Close the doors to something you don't know. Helena Blavatsky was offended in every way and today there is evidence that she spoke the truth. So these books, which are Kanjur and Tanjur, do not exist as far as I know in Portuguese, there are free versions on the internet in English. Very difficult, you don't understand much. But they are open to the public and they cite these documents, of which Helena Blavatsky speaks, even, there are whole sentences of the "Voice of Silence" in there, ipsis litteris, exactly as it is in

Helena Blavatsky's book, that is, there is no way anyone can deny it anymore. So let's get to know a little bit about this book. I would like to show you. There is "The Book of Golden Precepts", Helena Blavatsky made "The Voice of Silence" Mabel Collins made the "Light on the Path". "Luz no Caminho is also a gem, They are books of a beauty that you have no idea. They are poetry, mysterious poetry, Complex to understand, but the kind of book that you will make a very interesting observation. Read today, if in ten years from now

you have grown from the point of view of consciousness, you will read the same book and it will not be the same book. This type of book has this characteristic. You have to check it to make sure it's the same, because otherwise you won't believe it. Extremely symbolic and as you open doors inside, it will give you deeper hits. Very interesting! So I recommend both, two wonderful little books. I even talk to my students that today there are those who publish lists of "one hundred books you must read before you die". I have yet to

publish my own list. When I look at these lists I don't see anything worth waiting for you to die after! Little thing, not nothing, but little thing. Books like this one for example you won't find in any of these lists. And they are mandatory works. So "The Voice of Silence"! I brought you some verses, so that we understand the basis. You will find that there are certain things that are synonymous with the "Voice of the Silence". The idea of ​​heresy of separateness that we are going to see. The idea of ​​the three rooms. For those

who know, for example, the myth of Plato's cave, the three rooms are the Tibetan version of the myth of the cave. It's a good thing we have the myth of the cave to help us understand, because otherwise we wouldn't understand. You're going to see the idea of ​​sacred pain and efficient pain, intelligent pain. The overcoming of separateness is the encounter of Unity. This is basically a summary of the main ideas of Tibetan philosophy. But beautifully displayed. I made a point of bringing some phrases for you to know, to know how they express themselves. "When, to

yourself, your own form seems unreal to you, as they are when you wake up, all forms seen in dreams... when he has ceased to hear the many, he will be able to discern the One (...)" This is something you will see in Aristotle. Aristotle says something very similar to this, that the awakening of philosophy is exhaustion. When you look at the things around you and realize that they are unreal, very repetitive, that reality is not outside of you, it is within. I don't know if you've seen this illusion, when I was a teenager I thought

like this, that there was some place in the world so wonderful, where there were wonderful things to see. Then I dreamed of traveling around the world to find this place. Luckily I found philosophy before I started traveling. Because I would be so disappointed. Because what you find in the four corners of the world, now I already had the opportunity to be in some of these corners, they are selfish, ambitious men, alienated in materialism, wrapped in paper with a more or less different cultural garment. But nothing deep. In the four corners of the world you will

see people contaminated by selfishness, vanity, pride, thinking too much only of themselves, by its own ambitions and alienations. Chasing the survival instinct and perpetuation of the species with the greatest possible comfort. That wrapped in ethnic robes, slightly different, but essentially the same thing. A person who is looking for deep differences, if you thought you'd find it doing tourism, you'd die of boredom. It's desperate, the human being is the same in the four, five, ten, thousand corners of the world. It doesn't change anything essential. Cultural details, it doesn't change anything essential. One of the things that

is complicated, when sometimes there are people who say: "Brazil is hopeless". Look, don't overestimate the world. Materialism is globalized. Materialist alienation is globalized. Selfishness is the most globalized thing there is. It may be that some have done better in this game and others a little worse, but selfishness exists in the same way for all corners. The real difference is within you. I remember that there is a very beautiful passage, just for you to have an idea of how everyone talks about it. The Celtic Tradition, "Book of the Conquests of Ireland". "Lebor Gabála Érenn", as they

call it. They will say the following: that there are two moments of the day that are sunrise and sunset, where as you have a contrast between light and dark, in contrast, it is the most propitious moment to become aware. They were very fond of doing reception ceremonies and watching the sun go down. They said that at that moment everything seems like a dream. Do you notice that it has a sort of golden, sort of gray atmosphere? Everything seems like a dream. And they say, this is reality, this world is a dream. When you are in

the middle of the day or the middle of the night, you don't realize it, it all seems real. This is a dream. That's the moment you realize things most clearly, that reality is within you. They said it's ideal, do ceremonies there, because you'll realize the real deception. The manifested world is an illusion. Which I find funny and I also comment a lot is that if you take it today a good quantum physicist, he will tell you, "the material world is an illusion". Any tradition of these ancient ones said that. Plato's myth of the cave speaks

to this. So sometimes you get a good 21st century quantum physicist he might... a Capra, an Amit Goswami, also says very similar things. You will see that they are closer to ancient philosophy, perhaps than modern and contemporary philosophy. It's curious, isn't it? Because this notion of the unreality of things today it is getting very strong, in this environment and they themselves begin to relate to it. Talking about Buddhism, for example. So that's interesting. She will say, just going back a little earlier: "when to herself her own form seems unreal to you", that is, this is

an illusion, today it is here, tomorrow it is gone. When you lose a loved one, you look and suddenly you have life and suddenly there is no life. Where has life gone? All those dreams, all those reflections, all that deep stuff that was there turned into nothing? Then there is nothing, it is an illusion. How can you? Life is too much to turn into nothing. What's behind appearances? what's behind the scenes of life? And in a little while I, who am a little pile of organic matter, will have the same fate. Where are my dreams?

Where is everything that I aspire to of the sacred, the divine, the eternal? Is this an illusion? This is meaningless. these are paradoxes that put human beings in the face of a profound restlessness and these paradoxes are the birth of philosophy. The love of Wisdom, which will make you walk towards it. So we looked and found all this unrealistic and so repetitive. It looks like it's a combinatorial analysis that you already know all the results. This is the exhaustion of which Aristotle spoke, which gives birth to the philosopher. A combinatorial analysis with half a dozen

materialistic elements that any combination you make there is predictable. It feels like the end of a novel. Everybody knows the good guy is going to break up with the little girl and the culprit is the butler. Everyone knows. The world is too predictable, when seen only externally. Now it's a mystery when you dive into the man. These are impressive possibilities. The human being is a mystery, nature is a mystery. Then, "when he has ceased to hear the many, he will be able to discern the One". Then you start to dive inside yourself and have what

we can call, in a more western language, of inner life. What the Greeks said "know thyself". Turn inside. I always speak in my lectures of loneliness that loneliness is not being unaccompanied by the other. It's being unaccompanied by yourself. you are a stranger to yourself. You will see that in a small town with a hundred thousand inhabitants, people are less lonely than in greater São Paulo. It's not the other's lack of loneliness, it's the lack of yourself. Dive into yourself and find the mystery. I always like to quote an Egyptian passage which is from the

"Livro dos Cantos Potentes" which says: "Your name is more precious than the gods, the name engraved on your shield. The name of the resident sitting in the center of your boat. O boatman, hold your oar, turn around and look into the eyes of the owner of your boat." That is, the divine being that resides in the center of your boat, which is your essence, is yourself. And we are identified only with the mere rower, who is madly in the world without knowing who he is leading or where. Lack of self-knowledge, lack of depth. "Before the

Soul can see, inward harmony must be gained, and carnal eyes made blind to all illusion." When man suspects that there is Unity he has to start preparing himself to see reality. Understand this phrase that is Tibetan and, for me at least for the first time that I saw it, I found it very enigmatic. Wisdom is a preparation to see reality. Can you imagine that this story that the world is Unity. There is even an example that I use a lot, imagine that you are on the edge of a beach and you make a groove in

the sand with your finger, make another groove with your finger. You imagine, the first furrow is sand, the second is sand and the gap between them, sand. You don't have two grooves, you have sand momentarily differentiated. Then you imagine the motivations of the world, ours, with which we get out of bed in the morning. Possessing things wanting to project our name, want to get goods, get fame. Always get things, what if everything is yours? What will your motivation be? Why would you get out of bed if you saw Oneness now? Do you realize that we

would go catatonic, not get out of bed? Because you can't own anything, you already are everything! We are not prepared to see reality. A psychological framework for realizing that separateness is an illusion. Separateness is like my hand wanting to possess my foot. Like this? It's all a body! The two are already part of one body, no one can own anyone here. Crazy! As our whole motivation is in possessing, in rejecting, in projecting, in debasing, when you find that there are no parts to own, nor to reject, nor to promote, it's complicated for a mentality like

ours. That is why the quest for Wisdom is the quest to prepare oneself to see reality. The reality for these peoples is Unity. Things are momentarily differentiated aspects of a Unity that remains behind the scenes of Life. All of these represent moments of that being in time and space. "Before the Soul can see inner harmony must be achieved and carnal eyes made blind to all illusion" Doesn't mean you don't see things. it means that you no longer see the point in living just to have things. It demotivates, it generates what they call sacred indifference. I

can do everything possible to make these statues last, because I think they are beautiful. But I don't want them for myself. I want them to be in the place that's best for them. Where they can decorate, where they can be seen. I'm speaking as an example, I'm not saying I'm like that, don't get me wrong. I'm like you looking for. But imagine that kind of mentality in a human being. I perform at my best on the stage of life. I'm a good actor, but I know I'm not that character. I know that I am an

actor who is there behind the scenes, this here is a character. And since I agreed to come to the stage of life, I play my role well. But I know that nothing here is real. People who know things aren't real don't want to own them, they are the ones who respect things the most. Respect comes from "respicere", knowing how to see. You see behind everything an episode of the divine, as in you. When you don't want things, don't think you treat them worse, you treat them better. Because you respect things for themselves and not for

what they can serve you. Because when we see things through our interest, if they are no longer useful: rubbish! And we are great predators. We commit constant waste, we disrespect all nature, as if everything were at our disposal. So the one who knows how to see behind material things, what they have of divine, respect them more. But materially you don't want them. And you will see that desire is at the source of all suffering. "Before the Soul can hear, it is necessary for man to become deaf so much to the roars as for the whispers,

to the roars of angry elephants as for the silvery hum of the golden firefly." This is also very common, in Indian tradition, everywhere. That is, you have a center which is the balance of the human being. As if it were a triangle. You have a center above, which is the notion of duty, the notion of humanity. Here you will get an extreme. What is fear, the inertia. And here is another extreme which is desire, impulse. Fear will be stimulated by this roar of angry elephants. When you confront the forces of nature who try to stop

you on your way, they will frighten you, they will sound like the roars of an angry elephant. Do not think that these forces of Nature are against you. They are not personal they are obstacles for you to overcome, strengthen your Will. Conquer your Identity. I remember, I always joke with my students, and I talk about my grandmother. My grandmother was a super humble lady and I found out that she had a phrase that she always said which is from a philosopher out there. As my grandmother knew a philosopher's phrase. She knew no philosopher of any

kind. He was a simple person. She said: "Look, life is like a whetstone, it either sharpens you or wears you down. "Depends on whether you're a good knife or a bad knife." Recently I saw that this phrase is from a philosopher, who she must have never heard in her life. But do you understand? Life is a whetstone, it doesn't want to wear you down, but sometimes it wears out if you are a bad knife, that is, very weak, very weak, unprepared for life. But it exists to sharpen you. Then the forces of nature do not

exist to frighten you, but to be able to get you over the fear. They don't exist to stop you, but to make you develop enough Will to proceed. Then either they will tempt you with desire, which is the silvery hum of the gold firefly. "Wow how good you are!" "Look, you're special!" You are trying to develop detachment, you are trying to fight your vanity, go there, make an effort and on the other side vanity is the first thing that awaits you, right? "Wow, it's not that you did it!" "Someone else wouldn't, look how good you

are. There's nobody here like you!" It's not like this? She's the first one waiting for you on the other side. And you have to overcome all of that. The fear "Look, you're going to lose such a thing", "Look, you are special, you deserve more than that". All the time these animal self voices. I like to make this drawing, few people know this drawing. It's a drawing you usually do at your house at Christmas. They put here in inertia, in fear, the donkey, which exactly represents inertia. On the other side they place the bull, or the

ox which exactly represents the desire, the impulse. And here on top of the manger who do you put? The Christ, the balance, isn't it? Harmonic and spiritual awareness. This is a design that is present in several traditions. That is Rajas, Tamas and Satwa in the Indian tradition. The man who can overcome these forces that try to pull him this way and that, manages to achieve balance and rise towards his human nature, to your conscience that lies behind it all. "Three halls, O pilgrim, lead to the end of toilsome labors... three rooms will lead you to

a heightened state of spiritual awareness". I was talking to you about the Myth of the Cave, for those who know it, it's clearly the same thing. The moment of the cave prisoners, the moment of those who are seeking to leave and the moment of those who came out of the cave. Which is the room of ignorance, the room of learning and the room of wisdom. This is the Tibetan version. If you consider that it is much older than the Myth of the Cave, Then you will say: “It is not possible that there was communication”. I

don't know. If you take for example a Hercules. Even Cicero recognized that Hercules, the Greek Heracles, was Balarama of India, brother of Krishna. It's the same figure. Much more came from India to Greece than you can imagine. And do you think that things from Tibet no longer came to India? Very likely. What were the communications and exchanges of ideas across the ancient world? We can neither confirm nor deny. Without running the risk of committing injustices. The name of the third room is Wisdom, the name of the first room is Ignorance, the name of the second

room is Instruction. First room is that where man seeks, simply those two instincts that I told you: survive and procreate as comfortably as possible. So the mind is used as a means to an end which is animal. Surviving and procreating is what any animal, even an amoeba, it is the life purpose of an amoeba. And the mind potentiates it, that is, it makes an animal instinctive, highly predatory, but whose purpose is animal is not human. Only means are rational. That's really a rational animal. Which is the room, in general, in which we have been living

and something of her always stays with us. The second, which is Instruction, is merely mental. We began to be interested in knowledge, but we still haven't overcome vanity, pride. And then, instead of wanting to stand out for our instinctive ability, to survive better by the law of the fittest, we started to want to stand out for the law of the most intelligent, most cultured, the most enlightened, what else knows how to quote, what else knows. That is, a thirst for intellectualism begins. He will say: "in the Instruction room, they will offer you a flower, which

is knowledge, but at the end of every flower there is a coiled serpent". That it's vanity, pride, that instead of making you break free, will make you bury yourself even more. Because it's a type of vanity that's harder to fight than physics. Because in physics, the body will age and lose its beauty. And the one who thinks he is intellectually superior can get more and more petulant as life goes on and more prisoner, and more selfish, and more vain. Subtle selfishness, Helena Blavatsky says, is worse than physical. The dense is sillier, it's more ridiculous, it's

easier to see and fight. And the third which is the room of Wisdom, where man no longer takes a step that is not motivated by an idea, compassion, fraternity, humanity, commitment to humanity. It no longer does it by itself. Remember the motto of the Medieval Knights Templar? I want to make some comparisons, so that you realize how universal this is. The Templars had a motto that said: "Nothing for us, Lord. Nothing for us... "but all to the glory of Thy name." That is, when I start doing things out of a true sense of Unity, without

wanting to leave any piece of that Unity behind. I don't do it to relieve myself of pain, I don't do it to stand out, I don't do anything for myself. It's altruism, it's for the other, it is not self-help, knowledge is not self-help, it is help to the other. It is an ever-increasing commitment to humanity. This is one of the strongest points of "Voice of Silence". "If you want to cross the first room safely, make sure your mind doesn't mistake it for light from the Sun of Life... the fires of lust and desire that burn

there." The grossest mentality is the room of Ignorance. Simply wanting to stand out for having a physical, for a physical vanity, for very instinctive desires. The second is worse to release. "In the room of Instruction, your Soul will find the flowers of life, But underneath every flower is a snake... Do not look for your guru in these Mayavic regions." Maya is illusion. These illusory regions. It is interesting that you see him say, "Don't look for your guru there." It means that at some point you have to find a master who instructs you, who has one

step more wisdom than you. But this is not the time. Don't look for someone who has a lot of information, this one will only take you in the same direction they are going. Looking for someone who has depth, verticality and not quantity. This will not add anything to you, just weight. A weight that is dead when you have to face problems in life. The intellectual does not respond better to life's problems than an uneducated man. Sometimes even a simple country man knows how to find better answers. So don't look for your guru in these Mayavic

regions. "If, through the Hall of Wisdom, you intend to reach bliss, completely close your senses to the great Heresy of Separation, that separates you from others." Then they are peremptory, decisive. The Heresy of Separateness is the cause of all man's problems. We could transfer that a little bit to a more Western idea, a word better known to us, which is selfishness. And I always challenge you to that. Show me a social, economic, political problem, of any nature, that affects man and that selfishness is not hidden behind. Family, individual, whoever you want. Look, I never found.

They never managed to find a problem that didn't have selfishness behind it. Never. They say, "The Heresy of Separateness makes me think that she is one and I am another and there is a non-being in between". What do I do, it has nothing to do with her. I can win and she lose. If I steal her purse for example, she loses and I win. That's where violence comes from. If I steal her job, I get promoted and she gets demoted. That's where opportunism, cleverness, the struggle of man against man. Man as wolf to man. All

elements that cause conflict, loss of coexistence, loss of principles, they are born of me thinking that she is one and I am another. And what I do with it doesn't affect me. He who has overcome the Heresy of Separateness knows that when a single human being falls into a hole, something of us goes with it. When a single man rises, something of us rises with him. A human being, that when you read in the newspaper that he committed an atrocious crime on the other side of the world, it is a being that one day we

will have to go there and rescue. And we're going to have to fight to be better for him too. Because humanity is one, whether we know it or not. And it's our family and our responsibility. Then he says that all the evils in the world come from the Heresy of Separateness. This is a trademark of "Voice of Silence". This is very beautiful. Notice the subtlety: "Abandon your life..." tiny little fellow, "...if you want to live." Abandon a private, selfish life where you want to project a heap of organic matter, who is inexorably condemned to death,

to a state of immortality, projection, eternity, which he will not conquer, because it is not his own. The law of life says that this is a vehicle, passenger, through which you carry out the experience. Who are you? Abandon the interest in making this little life derisory is the most important thing in the Universe, if you want to start living seriously as a human being. Then I put some other versions of that same sentence. Philosophy works a lot with comparative study, and I think this is very important. This second, do you remember who it is? “It

is by dying that one is born to eternal Life”. Whose is it? Saint Francis of Assisi. Dying as a small, selfish me personalistic, who has all his goals in the personal, you are born into eternity, which is beyond time, which is beyond space. “Truly, I say to you, no one will enter the kingdom of heaven unless he is born again.” Jesus Christ to Nicodemus. “What do you mean Lord? Am I going to have to go back to my mother's belly again, me being old?" “Indeed, whoever has eyes to see, let him see. Whoever has ears

to hear, let him hear!” He wasn't talking about material eyes or ears because that's what almost everyone has. But from someone who is able to go further in that sentence. And Medieval Alchemy had this phrase that I find very interesting. “Solve-coagula”. It dissolves in one plane and is born in another. Like a Phoenix. Accept that personality is not going to be the most important thing in the world. No personality is. We talk about people, such as Plato, who are super important for philosophy. It is good! He is super important, but if he hadn't been born

Plato, would there be no philosophy? Would there be no more men seeking the truth? No! Who was so important in history as a personality? You realize that beings are important when they transcend the personality and give us a way to do it. Projection of the small self does not make anyone great. And personality is just a vehicle, it is not what we really are. At least if we consider this tradition to be true. Spending your energy there is selfish. It is one of the most unsuccessful shortcuts in human history, if not the most unsuccessful. "The

pure waters of eternal life, clear and crystalline..." "...cannot mingle with the muddy torrents of monsoon storms." Do you know what that means? You have a material part, which is typical of the things of the world, which guarantees your survival. And it would have a human, spiritual, flat part of Plato's ideas, whichever you prefer. That material part is not bad if it serves the spiritual part. Your vehicle is good if it obeys your command. But if you get there, you try to turn it on and it doesn't work, you turn the steering wheel one way, it

goes the other way, who's going to drive such a thing? It's nonsense. A vehicle is good when it serves its driver. The driver is our essence, our body should serve it. When this game turns upside down, you are putting in command what you do not know how to command. Which was not made to command. Everything in its place, nothing is bad in the Universe, that's Plato. It is the concept of justice. The body serves you, makes an interface with the world. Instincts serve you, help you survive, they are indispensable. But they are not meant to

be the commanders of your life. And when you do that, you're mixing pure water with muddy water in the same place. You will only have cloudy water. What is the version of this in the western religious tradition? "You shall not serve two masters at the same time". In the Koran: "You shall not ride two camels at the same time". Anyone who has ever ridden a camel knows that one camel is extremely difficult, two I don't know how to do it. That is, not in command. Everything in its place, there is nothing bad in the Universe.

This is also super recurring. That is, it is very likely that around have a truth of nature, as so many people say. It is very difficult that all these people have come together to deceive us. Something real is there. This one is beautiful! Will talk about sacred pain and smart pain. "... let the burning human tears fall one by one in your heart..." "...and they remain there without being wiped away, until the pain that caused them is gone." Don't dry a tear that runs down your face, before the last of mortals' tears dry. The holy

pain. This is absurd for today's society, because pain is a bad thing for us. You have to look for immediate relief. Do you know why? The meaning of life of our society it's not evolution, it's pleasure. I have to be comfortable. And pain gets in the way, so I have to get rid of it fast. And sometimes the pain was the only hope you had of growing up. As my little voice used to say: "Necessity is what makes the frog jump". It is the heat of the ground that makes the caterpillar turn into a cocoon,

develop wings and turn into a butterfly. If not, I'd be crawling around for a lifetime. Men, when they are terrified of pain, which we are, they become static, stabilized. Pain came, he seeks immediate relief. Humanity's pain drives us to be better. Gets us out of bed every day, doesn't let us make many concessions. If you stop to think about it, and this is a very interesting structure, which belongs to the Indian tradition. I don't have much time to go into detail with you, but they talk about something called future Karma. What is that? you go

walking, evolving, growing as a human being. For those who are growing as human beings, you walk somewhere. He says that there is a human being who also needs hope, you also need to see some meaning in life, whose path will cross with yours right here. You are walking at speed x, halfway you stop for concessions it makes to weakness, to inertia, laziness, selfishness, for nothing. Stop your way, miss the march, you may not be in that commitment. And this person right here has an abyss, if she doesn't meet you here, she will lose her last

hopes. And you gave up being there for a concession to a weakness, that he didn't deserve. This is a tradition that comes from India, which is quite interesting. Future karma means: if I don't commit to growing how can I and how should I I'm going to miss an appointment with the future. Someone will be waiting for me and I won't be there, someone's hopes will die and this is very important to understand. So it says you can't help but have this dose of pain, because if you do, do this exercise that I've done several times,

fight against laziness in the morning in bed using personal resources "Ah come on, you committed! "..."Ah, what is it?" "you didn't commit that much, no one needs you." "Ah, so-and-so is waiting for you." "No, he's not, he's already called someone else, he won't even miss you." You can't get your body out of bed with selfish arguments. It says, I'm paying for this concession with a single coin, pain of humanity. You will see that your conscience throws you out of bed. No, I don't pay this price, it's not worthy, I don't accept it. At least if

you're philosophically minded, you won't accept it. This price is not worthy, I do not accept. That is, this sacred pain pulls you forward. She cannot cease to exist, not a day of her life. Otherwise you stop. It is the pain of compassion, the pain of fraternity, what makes you human. Now she has to be also smart, that is, she has to act by fading the pain that caused her, that is, you do not provide a palliative for other people's pain, because this makes the person dependent on you and does not grow you go to the

source of pain, you try to undermine ignorance, tries to undermine alienation, tries to undermine the excess of selfishness. Like the example we always set at school you don't wipe up the puddle on the floor, you fix the leak in the roof, you go to the causes of pain. This is interesting because when we say: We do social volunteering through philosophy, of teaching philosophy, people say: but is this social volunteering? Social volunteering is picking up food and taking it to a needy community. Okay, I think this is good too. But don't forget, the cause of misery

does not come from the lack of food, it comes from the lack of values The cause of hunger does not come from lack of food, it comes from lack of fraternity. and if you don't act on the causes, you're not changing much. It is generating a palliative. And right here, in the voice of silence, they're going to talk about it. Okay, so you don't let this tear dry on your face, but act on its causes, starting with yourself creating the values, which you want to convey to others, in you. "The ladder by which the candidate

ascends is formed by steps of suffering and pain. These can only be silenced by the voice of virtue." A state of anguish, of despair, is always tied to losses and gains to things we want to gain, things we aspire to, anxieties. When we don't want anything else, it's like going to the center of the hurricane. The material world spinning around you and doesn't reach you anymore. because there is nothing there that can be taken from you or that they can give you whatever you want. Nothing that is really yours can be taken from you, even

this here will be taken from us. But if you love your honesty, your fraternity, you love the things you discovered through life, the little bit of God he saw through the veils of illusion, no one takes that away from you. You have solid ground to stand on, in which your conscience will stand up in front of life or in front of death. You see, you have security, you have ground, and this no one can take away, it has roots. And then there comes a certain moment when this pain is silenced by the voice of virtue,

and then you have something to tell humanity. You have an answer to humanity's drama. Best thing we can do for the beings we love is to grow, said Plato. Growing up as human beings, because you have an answer to the pain of humanity, otherwise it's no use, it's an innocuous charity. You have nothing to give, if not palliatives, painkillers, and not something that really cures pain, that acts on its causes. "Fight your impure thoughts before they overwhelm you. Treat them how they want to treat you. If you spare them, they will take root, dominate you

and kill you." Egyptian tradition says: the universe is mental If you let all the coarse, vulgar elements, vanity, hatred, separateness, take root in your mind, they will continue to provoke events in your life. And keep causing pain to you and humanity and you will be a minus factor in the world. So the foreground where you have to look, the one you want to move forward, have a little command a little balance, a little mastery, it's in the mind. And the more coherent you become, expands this possibility. Beware of thinking that thoughts are unpunished things, nobody

sees, they are on a subtle plane, they do not exist, they do not generate consequences Thoughts are the causes of all the consequences that occur in the world. You will not meet a person who has committed a heinous act, a violent act, without having thought about it first at some point, sometimes several times. and seized a sliver of opportunity and made it come true Sometimes it was even driven to it by an opportunity, but I had already thought about it, if I hadn't thought about it I wouldn't have done it. It is on this mental

plane that everything is born, both for good and for bad. It is the first plan that we have to fight our battle. "Do not wish for anything; do not fret about karma or the immutable laws of Nature. It fights only against the personal, the ephemeral, the perishable." A funny thing is that these days a student was talking about this with me, very little time. She would say: Wow, I feel myself getting older, losing my energy, changing my face in the mirror, some of my relatives die, this is so bad, I can't come to terms with

old age I kept thinking: guys, we know that life is like this since we were born, at four or five years old the bird died or the kitten died, you should have known that life is like that, you would grow old and you would die it's predictable, it's the Laws of Nature. But why don't we find answers to this, do we suffer when we confront the predictable? Because we don't look for answers in what doesn't change. We remain attached to the changeable with the hope that only for us he will not change. That only for

us it won't be ephemeral... ... and it will be. If you're looking for something that lasts, it's the only way. Do you imagine regretting that you are going to grow old and die, It goes the same way, regretting it or not. Look for that which does not die. The only thing that can you give you some comfort in the face of the loss of loved ones, facing the aging of our own body There's no other way out. "Help Nature and cooperate with her, and Nature will have you as one of her creators and will become

obedient." From the moment we work not as creation, but as part of the creator, as a pure mind, which wants nothing but unity and goodness, it is as if we and the oneness, which created the manifested universe, were one and the same. We have the status of creators and then we start to make history. But once, Professor Jorge Angel Livraga, who is the creator of Nova Acropolis, there is a phrase that I find very interesting, he says that the individual man, the man who discovers himself, who is this who cooperates with nature, he writes history.

The mass man usually doesn't even read it. Do you realize that you stand out from the created category, thought by others, programmed by culture and the mass and start to enter a creator status? that can make history, can set an example, can set what people need to receive, that an example, a reference, a principle, a meaning of life is so rare. You stand out from nature and she starts serving you Jung also talks a lot about this in the concept of synchronicity. "Even ignorance is preferable to the learning of the head without the wisdom of

the Soul to enlighten and guide." Isn't this cool? This Socrates said: only the knowledge that makes us better is useful. Plato: is preferable to absolute ignorance than knowledge in inadequate hands. That is to say, even ignorance is preferable to the erudition of the head without the wisdom of the soul. What is the Instruction Room, when the citizen was bitten by the serpent and stayed there, poisoned in the Instruction Room. In ignorance he had more chance even to react and grow. Sometimes it gets stuck there for a long time. "Would you like to refrain from action?"

This is also an interesting thing about orientalism that sometimes comes to the West misunderstood, believes that evolution is to remain static, just meditating on nature. Nietzsche, who is a great philosopher, used to say: I prefer men who meditate while running. In the historical moment with so many needs, any action you take for the benefit of humanity is better than the simple movement of the lips. "Would you like to refrain from action? To achieve liberation, it is necessary to achieve Self-knowledge, and Self-knowledge is the child of loving acts." It is not fruit in inertia, not in

our moment. You will see this in the Indian tradition too, in a classic called Bhagavad Gita exactly the same idea. The alchemists had the maxim that said: "ora et labora et inventies" That is, pray and work and you will discover, this is the process. "Give light and comfort to the weary pilgrim, and look for the one who knows less than you, who in her wretched desolation, is hungry for the bread of wisdom, without a teacher, hope or consolation Make him hear the Law." But once I remember the Myth of the Cave, When Plato says that

the wise man is he who sees things illuminated by sunlight, which is the idea of ​​Good, is the great Law of the Universe. It is what the Indians call Dharma, it is the arm of God extended over the Cosmos. the center of the world is no longer my personality with her little interests, The center of the world is the pillar of the Law of the universe, it is the Dharma, I serve this. Plato says that this is the dividing line of human love, when you stop looking at things and asking what is it for me,

when you start looking at things and asking how I can serve this. That is, it makes that person leave the alienation to serve your selfishness and see the center, and see the Law. There the symbolism of the center, which incidentally once again Jung talks a lot about this, there is a very beautiful book that he comments on, which is the Secret of the Golden Flower, that he talks about it all the time, find the center, the center of the Universe, all things revolve around a center, which is your deepest identity, that gives it meaning, and

serve this purpose. So it is in the solar system, so it is in the constellation so it is in the nests of galaxies. Everything revolves around a Center, man has a Center And more or less as if it were that place where a thread passes, which is only one that connects all beings in the Universe, the sutratma of the Indians. A single Center for the entire Universe "Be humble if you want to acquire wisdom. Be even more humble when you have conquered it." This is interesting, says that an intellectual, the more intellectual he becomes, the

more vain he is. A wise man, the wiser he becomes, the more humble he is. Because he glimpses the size of what exists to know and the proportion he has is very small. Who considers that he has a lot, it is because his Universe is of this size, and within this Universe he has a significant share. He who envisions a very large universe says: I only know that I don't know, like Socrates It is real because he knew an insignificant part within the whole, but for a human being it is sensational what he knew. But

very little close to the possibilities of the universe. This humility is fundamental, otherwise it is madness, it is alienation, again what Jung called ego inflation, you think you're on the tenth rung, when you're in the first. It generates an alienation and a fantasy. "You have to live and breathe in everything, how everything you perceive breathes in you; you must feel yourself dwelling in all things, and all things in the Self." "Must the heart of him who would enter the stream vibrate in response to every sigh and thought of all that lives and sighs." Do you

want to enter the stream, do you want to serve the Dharma? have to learn to see God in all things Don't think that exceptional events need to happen in your life for you to see a greater meaning. The Tibetan Buddhist tradition itself in another book called Bardo Thodol, which is the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The Bardo Thodol says, that there is no fact of your life that is not pedagogical, because if I had nothing to teach you, I would have been taken out of your life by now. So behind every fact there is a

message, there is a meaning, there is a digit of God something sacred, something transcendent. And if we learn to dialogue with life, and see, because the philosopher is this, he goes beyond the symbol it decodes the symbol. The fundamental symbol is your life, it is all symbolic. Learn to look at teaching. I remember that one time I received a carnation as a gift, I tell you this example not wanting to brag, it is because it is a very simple thing, and the philosopher's reflection is a very simple thing. This carnation lived an enormous time, and

all of a sudden i was studying at my desk and i looked at him and I got the feeling that he and I we were two resistance posts of life against the same factors, of decomposition, of time, of wear, as if we were two episodes of God in time and space. He fighting the same forces as me, he as a carnation I as a human being. Struggling against wear and tear, against loss of consciousness, against the decomposition of what we are. And I wanted to turn to him and say, Hang in there, buddy! Fight at

your post and I'll fight at mine. I will reach my peak, just as you are reaching yours. But the sensation is a fleeting sensation, which any one of us can have, that carnation was showing me a mystery of nature. Plato says that in something that works you can abstract a universal law and you can use it to anything from your life, in small facts. Learning to see God through things, learn to see eternity through time The man who walks towards wisdom has to start making his life entirely pedagogical, because she is, and when you don't

learn from life it means: I missed class today. You tonight thinking about your day and not being able to remember one thing that today taught you means I missed the class, because the class was given. Otherwise this day would not be in your life. "Can there be bliss when all that lives must suffer? Would you want to save yourself by hearing the whole world cry?" Is there any kind of bliss other than committing yourself to life, committing to humanity? Which is? It's get what? Is it getting where? Remember that we are within the Buddhist tradition

which says that the Buddha he would have said, before entering Nirvana, this says the Halita Vistara who speaks of the future episodes of Buddha, that before he entered Nirvana he would have said: I do not rest until I see the back of the last man entering Nirvana. So who will be the last man? That is, to commit to all of life and find your happiness and fulfillment in it. Because this is human happiness and fulfillment, others are animal, instinctive, non-human happiness and fulfillment. And each being fulfills himself by being what he is, what Nature expects

from him. And finally, "Compassion is not an attribute; is the Law of Laws, the eternal harmony, a universal essence without shores, the light of eternal Justice, the balance of all things, the norm of Perpetual Love." Compassion is not merely a feeling, or an emotion or an attribute, is the Law of Laws, and just by evolving through it, that is, you will not walk if you do not become the path itself, and the path is paved with compassion. This phrase is also Voice of Silence. Reminds me of another Christian phrase: I am the way, the truth

and the life Until you and the path become one, you do not evolve. And the Law is compassion, if you are not of the same nature as the law, you do not pass through it. It's not just a nice attribute, it's Dharma. There is a very beautiful passage by Helena Blavatsky in another work, that she talks about dynamic eternity, she says: Imagine this amount of stars and planets out there, there must be countless forms of life and in those myriad forms of life there must be beings trying to pull it along, as there is here,

as there was here as it will always be here. Where there is life there will be more advanced beings trying to pull them towards evolution. I don't know the shape of these lives, I don't know what languages ​​they speak, but i know what they say, they call all beings back to the father's house, to unity. A call echoes through the four corners, back to the father's house, back to the unit. If we consider that our destination is towards unity, the feeling is this, it is compassion, it is fraternity. And anything that takes us in the

opposite direction will give us the perception clear ethics that is not human, therefore, it does not make us happy, it does not fulfill us, it is not a life worthy of a human being. This is the essence of the Voice of the Silence. As I told you, a book that is too difficult, too dense for you to synthesize in fifty minutes it's really worth your reading but the main ideas I wanted to leave for you to reflect a little about it and see what jewels we have as humanity's heritage Sometimes we go through a lifetime

and give it up. It's a very dense experience. of a people who knew what they were saying, gathered a wisdom and is a heritage of humanity, not just the Tibetans So I invite you to have this book on your bedside table, and I remember that it is part of our Philosophy course Voice of Silence is class three of the ethics course. Those who still don't do philosophy with us are invited, because this is doing philosophy Learning the art of living, recover this knowledge that has been accumulated throughout humanity, of human history and which belongs to

us Those who knew how to live always liked to teach, it is enough that we like to learn. And this is Philosophy. New Acropolis