New Acropolis Presents The Symbolic Language of Life Lucia Helena Galvao 2018 Hello welcome to my home, make yourself comfortable Today we are going to talk a little bit about the language of the Sacred Every symbol implies a representative and a represented a relationship between two ideas or between an idea and its shadow This is covered in a specific discipline called semiology that I find interesting, I know a little but I don't intend to stick only to semiology but also to put many concepts of classical traditional philosophy of eastern philosophy, in other words, giving it a simple, practical approach so you understand how comprehending the symbol can help you live better I hope to succed with this approach, in our conversation today So let's go! About the idea of the Sacred: there was an anthropologist from the last century, called Mircea Eliade Whose definition for this word, from everything I've read, has impressed me a lot This word comes from the Indo-European 'sec', which means to sanctify that is, bound a space and bring upon it a special value Also, Mircea Eliade used to say that the Sacred is the function of entrusting meaning I think this concept is great: the function of making sense Which means to redeem, to rescue a certain thing from banality and bring it to a land where it has a whole special value It represents something very important to you As you will find, in many ceremonials from various religious traditions sometimes when is going to happen a rite, they put up candles and surround the area In other words, you delimit and illuminate: that place, now, is an area endowed with a greater meaning than its material use It represents something beyond matter For the Greeks, there was always the possibility of trivializing or sacralizing life when some object, be it a space, a place, a person is given a meaning beyond its mere physical presence but a representation of something greater, it becomes, for us, sacred If we consider ancient traditions, above all, from the east they considered as man's goal making his whole life sacred which means, all of it endowed with meaning redeemed from arbitrariness, imbued with a value greater than its material presence about what it conveys, or the idea it embodies and represents within our life So, "sacred" would be the function of entrusting meaning Things that are not located or associated with an idea, would be banal would not be endowed with meaning I'll give you a small example, which is something I've even talked about in other lectures I really admire beautiful things, beautiful objects and on one occasion, very recently, I walked into a decoration store full of very beautiful objects But none of them interested me Do you know why? None of them were the symbolic representation of anything So there were a lot of stylized things, vases, pieces of all kinds But merely a set of shapes and colors to match a rug or a sofa There was no idea behind it And for me it's very meaningless something that doesn't carry an idea So when you want to give someone a gift and an object resembles an attribute of that Being or reminds you of a virtue you wish upon that person or resembles some ancient symbol that represents a certain attitude towards life You're not only giving a physical object, you're giving an idea You're giving an inspiration or a vote of greatness to this person So they reach the fullness of this symbol So, things are valued and transcend when they are symbolic They are no longer merely a material object and we are going to talk a lot about that Well, we'll see that when we talk about an ancient civilization or the history of a particular people or the history of a particular mythological Pantheon those who understand those subjects often have a very horizontal understanding on it they may know every data there is, or in terms of historical dating or everything that can be known depending on the civilization, on the historical moment everything that is within the reach of science in terms of what happened there but when you try to get to know what's beyond that <i>why</i> those things happened and not just <i>how</i> they happened what did they mean?
what value did they have for that people? what did they want to represent with that? You get silence that is, oftentimes, knowledge in our historical moment is horizontal, is shallow.
It's extensive but not deep Where you know everything they said but you don't know what they meant by it There is not much depth in the sense of seeing beyond what is written what was placed behind it, or what was intended to be revealed through those words that were written or those buildings that were left so we live a time of knowing a lot about <i>how</i> things were, "<i>Know-How</i>" but very little about <i>why</i> they were like that and <i>what</i> was meant behind them So let's continue talking a little about this meaning that may be behind things What is symbolism? Where is it? Is it everywhere, including our lives too?
Well, in Greece there was an expression, a word, which was "sumballo" Sumballo is said to be a small plate, usually made of clay, that two friends shared when they eventually needed to get apart from eachother they would split this plate in half in such a way that only those two plates would fit perfectly and each one would keep a half of it Sometimes, when one of them would come back decades later, or not even that, but send their child instead When he arrived with that little piece of clay, both would fit together and form a whole again they would recognized each other by conecting the plate back again A son of an old friend who passed away, but left the plaque with him, was part of that family too They were two halves that met, and this idea is very interesting if you look at the etymology of the symbol itself the word "Sumballo" means something thrown into the world which remained attached to something still on the plane of ideas In other words, two things that fit perfectly if put together What we are and what we represent in the world Do our essence and our image fit together? If so, our physical personality is a perfect symbol of our immaterial essence and it seems that this is what was expected of human beings that we represent the idea behind our physical appearance that we represent as faithfully as possible Moving on In Egypt, there was this conception of the symbol as two joined hands the form of ideograms, hieroglyphics, it was represented as two joined hands that is, there's a content we've came to bring to the world and the symbol is what contains it veils it and also reveals it, which tries in the best possible way to present it to the world without tampering with it It's like a hand of our essence, a fragment of the hand of God a fragment of the world of ideas that needs to do some work in the material world and our appearance, our personality, all our physical, psychological and mental structure - that's what I mean when I call it personality Would be like a glove which would have to properly fit this hand of the Essence, this hand of the being so that it would have freedom and precision to operate its work in the world when this glove doesn't represent that hand well, it doesn't allow it to act either it's too tight, it's too loose or the fingers are stuck it doesn't allow the hand of Spirit to act in the world of matter means that what it appears to be, doesn't correspond to our essence There was no vertical dialogue between <i>what</i> we are and <i>how</i> we are and this is a very interesting conception for us to target the wise man would be the one whose essence and appearance match perfectly the hand is very well suited when the glove that fits it and is able to act freely and fulfill its mission in the world Well, so according ancient traditions that put it in a more abstract, not well defined way, this idea very much of the symbol there are two types of creation: a creation of nature - for those who prefer, a divine creation that is, a creation in which we don't participate, but enjoy and a human creation: everything that we create in nature to serve us in some way and that constitutes what we call "Culture" These two kinds of creations have an idea behind them and they came into the world to represent an idea they're a passport for the arrival of ideas to the world so, we can say that any type of creation that has been effective and corresponds to the idea that generated it is a good glove and fits the hand that it has to serve It works well in the world, serving that being that inspired it Think of the person who one day coined the word "love" What did they feel? They've created a word to represent this feeling Does that word, nowadays, still serve this feeling very well?
Or did it deform and mean anything else? the emptying of words is also a very important symbolic loss so, for India, for instance, we live in an illusory world in the conception of reality for these ancient peoples, especially in the east reality is that which is eternal everything that is fleeting, everything that is perishable, is an illusion and we live in a world where things are all shadows, they are fleeting so everything is "Maya" Maya was an Indian goddess who represented illusions So we live in a Mayan world where things don't exist in themselves they are reflections, yes, of things that exist through which you can reach the object, as through the shadow I can perceive and confront the object that generated it So, the things of the material world are invitations for you to ascend to your essence and see, face to face, the idea that generated it but there would be nothing in the world that was real when we transplant this to Greece, to Plato's cave myth - for those who know, it's the same idea a gloomy cave that is actually just depicting real objects and the man's idea is going towars the light and seeing things as they are in their reality, that is, to the plane of essences, to the plane of ideas that is, symbol would be a faithful representation of the object that is trying to manifest itself through it in the world is a bridge between two worlds this is very important to understand: a real symbol is always a vertical bridge between an essence and an appearance It reveals something to the world that could not be revealed without it Something that is not proper to this dimension, which is not proper to the material world I brought you an image that I find quite interesting which is how I represented a passage from Plato's book "Republic" at a certain moment, Socrates, who is the central character of the book talks with a young man, who participated in the Dialogue, named Glauco and he wants to explain to Glauco something similar to this idea of a symbol then he says, "Imagine, Glauco, that a man falls into the sea and his body stays there. .
. and over time It's corroded by marine animals, and stuck together by crustaceans, deforming and when someone drags this body out of the sea, It's no longer recognized very well as a human body it seems an aberrant, strange thing. " Imagine you, what does this story mean To fall into the sea, in general, in ancient symbologies the horizontality of the waters represented the material world if you take a glass of water and turn it over, water is always horizontal, it's the world of matter whereas fire, whichever way you turn a torch, it's always vertical would be the Cross of the world: spirit and matter falling into the sea, in general, is falling into the material world So, Socrates is proposing that when the human being falls into the material world starts deforming himself, losing his human form and others things start to stick to it In such a way that you no longer recognize it as a representative of the human race then imagine that there is, in the plane of ideas, a form that represents the material world The stones that evolve by inertia.
A diamond is tremendously evolved by its molecular organization which makes it tremendously inert, tremendously resistant Inertia for a stone is virtue, for a man it would be laziness But he takes this symbol of the mineral, applies to himself, and by that, deforms himself And here comes the plant world Vegetables, which are the base of the food chain, make an important gas exchange They generate all the food for the entire chain that comes up they are the big energy collectors and transformers this, for the vegetable, is virtue Now, if man becomes merely an energies collector, that, for him, is avarice, it's ambition then he deforms himself a little more, assuming an archetype that is not his The animals. What would be desirable for them? Survival instinct, and species perpetuation instinct Then, man takes it, which is a virtue for an animal species, and applies it to himself and becomes totally instinctive.
Remains a little bit of the man-idea, which would be the search for values virtues and wisdom, but only a little bit Binding all this together, you'll have a kind of frankenstein deformed in such a way that you look at it and can't tell what it is So evolution would be, in a way, taking away from us ideas that are not human put everything in its place. This is Plato's concept of Justice And take for ourselves the idea that generated us. As we approach that idea that we came to represent in the world we are evolving, we are developing, unrolling the papyrus of the Mystery of our own life because develop comes from that, "desarrollo", "to unroll", to open this papyrus that contains The Mystery of our own Essence In other words, approaching to what is expected of a human being cleaning other ideas, which are good in their own place, but not suitable for us then this "representing the human idea in its fullness" would be the human ideal according to these traditions It's a very interesting example that we have in Plato's dialogue "Republic" I put here, for you, some very simple ideas for you to understand this relationship a little we have different ways within society, to represent things through an ideogram, through a logo So if you have, for instance, a bottle of coke and the symbol of coke the symbol and the symbolized are on the same plane that is, they belong to the same material world while if you have a real symbol, for example, a dove That dove is representing peace this peace is not on the material plane, it's not beside it, it's an idea it's an archetype, it's an ideal So this relationship is vertical.
The symbol is always based on a vertical relationship representative and represented are not in the same world One is on the plane of ideas and the other is on the material plane and when they match effectively, that's a good symbol. It represents its idea well in the world, it delivers its message well So let's not confuse ideograms or logos: they are not symbols. Symbols are Bridges between the spiritual and the material worlds between the plane of ideas and the plane of materialization of ideas I brought a very interesting example, which is addressed by Professor Jorge Angel Livraga Who is the New Acropolis' founder.
He brings a very curious example Imagine that we are going to do a technical analysis of a book but we don't know how to read! So with all the technological apparatus we have today, let's examine the fiber of Paper what it was made of, when it was made, let's date it let's analyze the leather of the cover, how it was worked What animal did it belong to, how was that leather tanned the ink that was used to engrave the cover the ink that was used to print those graphic symbols on the pages we know in depth the entire physical structure of the book There's only one thing that we don't know and don't believe that is, putting together those little symbols in the graphics you form increasingly larger units that refer to something that isn't in the book it's elsewhere So in that pile of paper, leather and ink you can have reference to a world that has no physical matter at all you may be talking about honesty, fraternity, goodness, justice you may be referring to things that are outside the book so a very materialistic man would look at these graphic units that are the letters would know everything about them, but not what they mean together Notice that this is more or less what we do. Let's study Egypt Take the God Anubis, for example.
You know how it was made, when it was supposed to be painted probably to what dynasty it belongs to You know the basic attributes that were given to him but you don't know about him, in that context for example, of the embalming of a dead man, united to another God what as a phrase, as a prayer, could it mean? What did that refer to, what was being said there I mean, we don't know how to transform these symbols into emblems in sets, in words, in sentences that could refer us to realities that go beyond the book So, we interpret pieces in isolation, we dissect the symbols of the past but we don't know how to read them when they're all together and we don't know what they represent And it's not just about the symbols of the past. We do this with our own life You saw it, according to Indian tradition, if we take it as a reference everything is symbolic, including our life so, the events of our life, happen in a sequence that corresponds to our need for awareness they are not casual, they are attracted to us by our will to grow our will to learn, to overcome limitations and there's an intelligent sequence of things they want to convey We take everything as casual, as isolated things with no relationship between them and we don't read the sentence life have sent us I always give an example, which is well known in my lectures about entering a line just to learn your line is the slowest one.
You switch lines, then the previous line moves, and the actual one stops What is our behavior in relation to facts of this type? a chance, a misfortune, happened now, in a little while it won't happen anymore it could have happened to anyone And if I consider this fact imbued with meaning, what is life trying to tell me with this? Maybe it's suggesting that I have to be more patient, that I have to control my anxiety that I have to overcome my very exaggerated sense of self-importance Elements of our life, perhaps have more than merely a superficial message maybe there is a grammar, maybe behind it there is a teaching to be captured we'll have to learn to read life, starting with our own So we can later intend to read the lives of Egyptians, Greeks, Celts, whoever it is this complex symbolism of people who lived in another folk but deep down they were talking about the same thing: human life how to face it, how to reach the development that corresponds to us to reach the fullness of the human condition which is what all nature expects from us continuing As I told you, there is within the same work "Republic" of Plato, in Chapter 7 the very famous cave myth.
I won't tell the whole story, because it's not the point There's a lecture about it on our New Acropolis YouTube channel but basically, there is a certain moment when one of the men who lived in the cave staring at shadows projected on a wall manages to break free from that cave, get out, see things lit up by the sunlight see what objects cause those shadows and out of compassion he decides to go back it just so happens that, those prisoners who are inside the cave They elect among them who is more skillful, smarter the one who identifies the shadows better, knows the order they usually pass how they move, what sounds come from them They have a leader among them, who understands the most about shadows and has spent his entire life studying them Do you realize now, that a man who went out there, that is, has a vertical relationship goes up outside the cave, sees the sunlight sees where the shadows come from, sees the objects that are causing the shadows when he comes back in 2 minutes he knows more about shadows than those who studied their whole life but don't know its origin haven't verticalized, haven't risen to the plane of ideas haven't seen what's behind the shadows I mean, in 2 minutes he mastered better knowledge of shadows than those who only accumulated horizontal knowledge this reflection that underlies this myth is very interesting what is knowing the shadows of the material world? simply collecting their characteristics, or knowing what caused them? a glimpse of what is behind the shadows is enough to give us a much clearer definition of what they are what is the meaning of life, what is behind all this where we are going to go with all this continuing Professor Jorge Angel Livraga who is the founder of New Acropolis he used to say in the future, if our civilization get lost and in a few thousands of years from now an archaeologist finds a treatise, for example, on current chemistry a periodic table, some definitions of chemical elements without any knowledge of the context in which we live now he might, for example, think that "h2o" was a magic formula, a mantra that we used to have fun standing in circles pronouncing sacred mantras "Naoh", "OH" You must agree that this is ridiculous but he would no longer know the structure behind an "h2o", a "Naoh" He would interpret literally within what it means to him Do you realize that we do this with our past ourselves?
We see it superficially and interpret it according to our prejudices and we don't know what it once represented because there's a whole history behind it we're no longer able to capture and it isn't for lack of historical data only it's because we've lost the ability to capture the symbolism of our own life of the events of our life more than reading a thousand books understanding symbolism is learning to dialogue with life itself and see what it's suggesting to you at every moment life is entirely pedagogical says the Bardo Thodol, the Tibetan book of the dead that if there was a minute in your life with nothing to teach you it would have already been removed from your life because life doesn't leave leftovers, life doesn't leave voids so, if every moment of our life wants to teach us something it means that behind all of them there is a signifier there is an idea that is being represented through this event, this fact, this sound, this person this word, of the thousand ways these ideas reach us and we often behave as a student who is present in body and not in soul we see all this but we don't see it. We see it all and we don't read what it represents so we live repetitive experiences without learning what they mean as if he were a child who always repeats the same classes not understanding what that year's subject has to convey what that year's program has to teach him so, we are often repeating the lessons of life because we don't know how to speak the language of life, which is Symbol and not knowing how to speak the language of life, we don't communicate with it If every time life proposes something, you think "what does it want to tell me with that? " And if you have a proper posture, a change of attitude you will notice that it proposes something else you have another appropriate posture, change the attitude again there will come a certain moment that will make you very curious to know who this hidden interlocutor is that behind the scenes of life communicates with you through facts, moments What is he trying to tell you?
Who is he? several times you will realize that life it gives you the answer when you set out to understand it It gives you the answer It reinforces your attempts at change when you're going in the right direction The language of life is a symbol so, knowing the symbolic vision, for me is synonymous with being a philosopher proposing yourself to interpret life give it meaning, know that It's not a cause, it's cosmos and it has something to transmit, it's pedagogical Other than that, superficiality. We fall into the quantitative and not the qualitative Horizontally, never vertically.
Our knowledge is sometimes shallow like a saucer or like a big bowl of soup: very extensive, but very shallow One has to know what is beyond the little letters written in the book One has to know what words they form and what those words point to, which is far beyond the book sometimes far beyond the manifested world So this is a proposal for you to understand. I was very succinct and only put some basic ideas as I told you, it's a whole universe of conjunctures and concepts behind it I was very synthetic and my goal is not to train anyone as an expert in semiotics or whatever but to make you find it possible that life is symbolic, and more than that that our own personality aims to be a symbol of something higher But we can't represent what we don't know. Hence the need for interior life, for reflection, for self-knowledge So that our personality has the opportunity to represent our hidden dweller in the world I often propose to my students that one day they close their eyes, and open before a big mirror in front of them, and think: I'm going to be introduced to a new person, a person I don't know and when you open your eyes, see the first impression your image gives you you will notice that there is a lot in posture, in the way of dressing, in the look There is a lot that is symbolic and that is representing ideas that are not yours Ideas you absorbed from society.
It could be that your personality is representing trendy ideas and not what you really believe in for not knowing how to evaluate what your personality serves to, or what you're representing not seeking coherence between these two worlds having an inner life and representing it in the outer life it's a challenge for anyone who wants to know himself and achieve his place as a human being in the world Well, this is basically the chat I propose to bring to you and I hope you reflect on it and remember: The symbol is like a glove that fits the hand of the spirit Our role is to be a suitable glove so our own essence may conveys its message to the world Because that's why we came. Our word is sacred Remember the Dhammapada when it says that more than a thousand meaningless words worth a single one that brings consolation to its listeners One word that adds up to the world, one word that makes a difference There's something inside us willing to pronounce this word May our voice be a servant to that! Understanding that our personality, if it doesn't represent our essence it will represent anything else of society Different ideias that we may not even belive in Think about it for a moment Thank you very much, and take care all New Acropolis is an independent, non-profit international philosophical movement based on culture, philosophy and volunteerism There are schools of applied philosophy in more than fifty countries around the world.
Find one near you, we look forward to your visit!
