Hello! ! Today we came here to my house, I welcome you.
To talk about a subject that is more than just a lecture, it is a chat that for me has a lot of value. As a speaker, my intention has always been, and always will be, to pass on to you something that is useful, something that disappears in your life. I follow very critically, I try to follow as closely as I can, that principle of Cicero, who said that a bad speaker makes people leave and keep thinking about him, wow, how good, how skillful he is!
And a good speaker makes people think about themselves. So I kept imagining, with the help of my dear Luana, who always supports me in this, I kept imagining what I could add, what title would be interesting, that I could synthesize a series of things that have been a very useful life tool for me. So, within that, we decided to make this chat of ours today, which is called The most important things I learned with New Acropolis.
You know, I am a philosopher from New Acropolis. I came here almost 30 years ago, I came to this institution with some loose tools, but nothing aligned, nothing connected, nothing directed, so that I could have a building tool, neither of myself, nor of the help of people around me. I consider what I learned in New Acropolis sensational, because it ordered all my tools, it ordered my thoughts, it gave certain parameters, what the Greeks called the Canons of Apollo, it gave certain parameters within which I framed my life, and I started to give it a meaning.
And consequently, I had something to give, I had something to share. So it is not easy to select the aspects that I received in this institution, but I will try. I tried to take a peek inside my heart and I saw what the walls of my house have been, what has framed my life in recent years, in recent decades, to share this with you and try to make you understand how important this is.
Well, everyone knows, or should know, who follows the channel, that New Acropolis is an international institution, today it is in 60 countries, for 61 years, and it has a series of cultural activities, has a series of voluntary activities, but the axis of our activities is the philosophy of living, the practical philosophy. To give a breath of life in the teaching of our ancestors, to make these teachings useful for us. So, suddenly, one day I was talking to my students about it.
We sometimes invent and want to know if our ancestors, two, three, four generations, left some heritage for us, left some title. I guarantee you that if you retreat more than two, three, four generations, to two hundred, three hundred, four hundred, some millennia in history, you will find great treasures that our ancestors left for us, from then on, which are the treasures of philosophy. Who knew how to live, likes to teach.
And, as incredible as it may seem, there were many human beings who knew how to live, and wanted to leave all this heritage for future generations to start from it. So think a lot about it, because today we are used to knowledge of short duration, short validity, because technology is renewed very quickly. It may be that any book of technology with ten years old is old, but a book of philosophy with 2,400 years, is very new.
And there is a lot that can teach you. So, New Acropolis, which is this international institution, works with culture, works with volunteering, but its axis is philosophy as the art of living. And it is very difficult, through only this title, suggest the type of tools that New Acropolis offers.
So I will try, in a few words, in a conference of about an hour, pass to you the tools that I consider to be the most useful for me, of everything I have learned in this institution. Well, let's start. You see on the first screen the site of the institution, our New Acropolis channel on YouTube, where there is a lot of other complementary information, for those who want.
Things I learned in New Acropolis, as I explained, the first one will be the Law of Karma. The Law of Karma, obviously, you open the internet, a good research site, they will explain to you technically what it means. It seems to be one of Newton's laws.
In every action, it causes a reaction. In all levels, even a thought, it causes a reaction at its specific level, or even at a more concrete level. A reaction that is consistent with the size, with the intensity, with the intentionality of the action that was generated.
And that has no punitive intention. It has an educational intention. Karma does not hit to take revenge on anyone.
It hits to correct, to bring back to the path. So there would be a great path, a great law of the universe, which India calls Dharma. And karma would be what pushes us when we deviate from the road.
So, deep down, it is an act of mercy. It does not want to hurt us, it wants to bring us back home. And it is one of the things that we realize that not always the pleasant, is good, and the unpleasant, is bad.
Because our tastes are not so well formed. Well, in New Acropolis I learned, in addition to learning this law of karma, which we studied, because we studied India, its basic philosophy, especially the Vedantic one, but we also understand how it works in our day to day. Because when we do not understand that life has laws, that life has meaning, we trivialize the experience.
And we take into account an abstract and surreal thing called chance. And I started to understand, I'm still in this process, because nothing is closed, who am I? I'm starting, I'm a philosopher's apprentice.
But I started to understand that banishing chance in my life had an explosive effect. Because if things don't hit me by chance, they hit me for some reason. That I can seek and connect with this consequence.
And I can avoid reproducing reasons, whose consequences will affect me in the future. It will greatly influence banishing what I will talk about later, in more detail, which is victimization. So I'm not a victim of anything.
There are no hidden forces that prevent me from governing my life. I simply generated causes whose consequences mislead me. It may be that I can, pulling it into memory, find these causes consciously.
It may not be that they have been lost in my memory. But anyway, believe that there is this connection. And start to take all the difficulties of life as proofs.
And not as punishments. As we usually act with resentment, with a spirit of revenge against those who offend us, we transfer this deformation of character to the laws of nature. And we think they are also punitive or vindictive.
And they are not. They are all educational. So at a certain moment you start to perceive the painful situations of life as proofs.
Consequently, as opportunities. You send your child to school and he will do the test. He thinks that is a curse.
But you know that it will allow him to have access to the following series. To the second grade, to graduation, whatever it is. You realize that that test is not trying to crush him, but when it is applied to our life, because human pedagogy is a copy of the laws of life, we do not realize very well.
Imagine the following. That one of you was here visiting me, on today, Easter day in Brasília, and you came and crossed the door, and I matched with Luana, who is here kindly filming me. Luana, let's play a joke on this person.
When he crosses the door, let's say that today we agreed that he will give the lecture. And you enter and are totally upset and angry because we did not warn you, because it was a bad taste game. But if you, on the outside, from the door, had heard our conversation and knew that we are wanting to apply a test to measure your emotional balance, you would no longer be irritated.
Quite the opposite, you would be very cold. You would say, well, the only thing I have to say is the Socratic maxim, I just know that I don't know anything. Good day, happy Easter.
And that's it. There would not be this emotional impact, there would not be the point of pain, because you know it's just a test. Now imagine in you this state of consciousness transferred to all the difficulties of our lives.
Understanding the law of karma shows us an orderly and signified universe and endowed with meaning. So, this gives us a lot of tranquility and we are not at the mercy of a crazy chaos, we are not at the mercy of a senseless banality that can run us over at any time. So, this gives us confidence, this allows us to react intelligently in the face of difficulties.
This practical application that allows me to look at things and think what can I learn from this? I wouldn't think so if I hadn't entered a philosophy course. I'm not here to deify an institution.
I'm just wanting you to understand that philosophy throughout history was a systematization of all useful teaching to be applied in the art of living. And this philosophy we have taken up in New Acropolis. There have been many other institutions, we have taken up in New Acropolis.
It has always been and will always be useful for those who want to learn to live. Well, another interesting thing. The human constitution .
. . Think about how this type of understanding is interesting.
The human constitution and the possibility of, in the midst of a thousand voices that exist within us, to find ourselves. I'm not going to go into much detail with you, but we study several traditions, from the Greeks with the Mercury Caduceus to the Indian Septuagint Constitution, which show that within us it is as if it were a car. There is a pilot, but there are several elements there is the steering wheel, there are the wheels, there is the brake, there is the clutch, these things are to serve the driver's will.
And not the other way around. The driver is not at the mercy of the will of the tires. They run where they want and you are loaded.
You have to be aware of who you are in the middle of that complex device and take the reins of the vehicle. So all these traditions speak making a very simplified parallel because I hope you understand And I hope you can dedicate yourselves to studying more about. That we have several bodies.
It is as if you had a driver who is a higher consciousness, which in India is represented by a triangle, our essence. And down here you have a physical body, an energetic body, an emotional body and a mental body. And sometimes when we don't have a high command exercise, know yourself, dominate you, transform you.
That is the continuation of the temple of Delphi, the pothole of the temple of Delphi. When we don't know how to do that, sometimes the vehicle takes the reins of our life. So the paradise of the physical body is the law of the least effort, similar to minerals, it wants to be stopped.
If you let it dominate, it will tend to laziness, procrastination. The paradise of the energetic is everything that provides energy, resources, it becomes a burden. It is a waste of energy of others to itself.
A failure and an egoist. And often with disrespect to small things, objects. Things have a price, they have no value.
The emotional, if you leave it, which is called in India astral, it will make of your life a constant melodrama, pure adrenaline. Intense emotions that never allow you to think. There will be no moments of lucidity, because when the emotion when it is very rough, is very intense the reason is recovered.
So you live in a choleric, passionate, enraged, sad, this can turn into a depression. It is such a violent emotional oscillation that it does not allow the presence of reason. And keep acting only for passion.
And the mental, if you leave the inferior mental, this more concrete, if you leave it, it will guide you with an intense curiosity, without knowing how things work, but without any transcendence of knowing who they can serve, to whom they are useful, where all this goes. That is, without a metaphysics, without a greater vision of the meaning of things. It is a search for know-how, to know how, but never the search for why or where.
So there are these four elements that curiously sometimes fight each other. I always remember the example of a lazy and passionate young man. Think about the drama!
The body wants to stay in bed and the passions want him to go to his girlfriend's house. And this generates a conflict that can generate pain. And this vehicle has no pilot.
So the vehicles keep alternating in the command. This is a cause of internal contradictions, of incoherence and a lot of suffering, a lot of energy loss. Well, what did I learn inside New Acropolis?
That we can use something called intelligence that comes from intelligere, choose within. Choose among the many things that exist within you, among the many voices, who are you? Choose within the multiple who is the true One.
So intelligence, the ultimate intelligence is identity. It is knowing when people offer you options, when culture offers you options, to say, I will take this into consideration in part, and I will deny it completely. Because I have an I.
I know myself. I have an I in relation to which I establish a relationship with things. I accept part of it, I accept a larger part of it, I completely deny it, because I establish a relationship with my deep, true identity.
I know how to find myself within myself. We all know that there are voices within us. What is that?
What are these voices that sometimes want us not to get out of bed? that want us to read soft reports in the newspaper, which have nothing informative, have more morbidity anyway, how do we find ourselves in the middle of all this? Because if you find yourself, you take the reins of the vehicles and they serve you.
Otherwise they enslave you. And this center makes you unable to be manipulated. You establish a domain over the vehicles and a domain over the means in which these vehicles move.
So Socrates said, every man, very well intended, can be manipulated. A philosopher does not. Because he has a balance center with which he ponders and evaluates the world.
Therefore he knows how to choose the best. And that was a great learning. Think about it, these are simple things.
The day I learned this within New Acropolis, that I was not one, I was multiple, but that the true me was in the middle of all this and had to be found, that there were already men who found and taught, left a map. They taught how to walk this way. They do not walk by us, because this cannot be done, it would be a manipulation.
But they point the way, and it's wonderful. So it was a second precious teaching. Let's move on to the third.
The theory of the center. Trust in the laws of the universe. Well, one fine day in New Acropolis I learned that there is something curious about the center in the universe.
The citizen is going to found a city, and there is a mark, and it is the center. There they build a matrix church. The city expands from that point, and when there is a festivity that wants to remember who it is, wants to go back to the beginning, it returns to that center.
That center feeds the identity, gives cohesion to that whole city. Then you observe an atom, it is the center too, everything revolves around it. You observe a cell, it is the center too, it is the nucleus, everything revolves around it.
Then you observe a galaxy, it is the center too. You start to realize that there is a certain logic in the universe. As Caibalion says, what is above, is below.
In all levels there is a logic of the center. And in general, when things run to the center, they find the meaning. And they feel protected, they feel welcomed.
So at a certain moment, you start to realize not only the center inside you, your identity, but what is the center of life, what is the center of the universe, what is around you, because sometimes you need to run to it to feel protected, as the Scandinavians were with the Yggdrasil tree. There must be a nucleus, there must be an axis of the world near which you get attached. So, each one who gave the name and wanted it, I respect each one, but for me there is an axis that is justice, goodness, truth, that some call God, some simply call it Dharma the law of the universe.
It is very difficult when you are facing a difficulty in life to say this is an absolute injustice. Because if there was an absolute injustice, there would be no God, there would be no law. So you dive inside you and think, I believe that this axis of the world exists, call it whatever name you want, I believe, I believe, there is no possibility of the world without it.
I feel it inside me, my identity is part of this axis. So if there is an axis, there is no absolute injustice. There must be a meaning in this experience, it must have something good, it must be wanting to teach me.
For a very simple logic, if there is this absolute axis, it cannot allow things to happen outside it. If there was an object that was absolutely unfair, it would deny God. Because it is something that God would not have control over.
So it is not absolute. It is between God and this piece of paper. This piece of paper limits God, or limits the Dharma, or limits whatever you want to say.
Understand! So if you go back to this axis and strengthen your confidence, I believe, there is law. You go to the object and look at it from another angle.
No, boy, you are not absolute injustice. There is no such thing, there is only one absolute. If there were two absolutes, both would be relative.
So you are not absolutely evil. Show me your luminous face. In the face of a difficulty in life, sometimes heavy, you can go to her and say: I caught you.
You can't be absolute You are not God. Show me your face is light. You are dual, like all things.
This is such an interesting element. I had a teacher who marked me a lot, professor Michel Eschenick, who said, When it rains, everyone runs home. It's something so simple, so disconcerting.
But that's really it. When it rains in our life, we have to have a house to return to. An axis that shelters us and returns our confidence in the order of life.
Otherwise the whole world collapses on top of you. The world is not a simple equation to understand. Our body is aging at a speed that seems very great to us.
People we love are taking their course and in general they end up far from us. At a certain moment we have to deal with things that are very painful. Many losses, many confrontations.
Life is not a simple equation. If you don't enter with some defined constants, everything becomes incognito. An equation with only incognito cannot be solved.
There must be a defined constant, an axis. So that when it rains we run home. Otherwise we are lost.
We are in the rain and there is no shelter for us. This is a point of balance. Sorry for those who do not believe in God.
Give the name you want. But this point of balance and confidence in the law of the universe is indispensable to balance your psyche. It is essential to keep your feet up against the storm.
Otherwise it is very complicated. It is like a tree well set, a mast that when it rains you grab it. And it always rains.
And it will always rain. So this is an important element, the central theory. Remember that.
It has already helped me in many situations. I'm not talking to you about theories. I'm talking about situations that have already helped me in my life.
Once again, Professor Michel Schoenig, who was a very funny person, he said, if you entered through the pipe, my daughter, go out through the pipe. Because fortunately, by definition, every pipe has an entrance and an exit. I thought it was very funny.
And it was an absolute certainty that the pipe had an exit. Which many times took me out of the pipe. That is, certain definitions that seem simplistic, but that are a help, a great support in times of adversity.
Well, the next thing would be the theory of responsibility. I still remember the day, I don't know, twenty-something years ago, a long time ago, when my teacher, Carlos Marques, taught me about Stoicism. I learned this blessed and wonderful theory of responsibility, which would be from Emperor Marco Aurélio Romano.
This is a devastating thing from the point of view of exchanging our concepts. as I told you, we are acid practitioners of victimization. It is such a strong addiction that it can generate the syndrome of abstinence.
If no one did anything to you today, the whole day, you will start to feel bad. You will start to remember the past. You have to get something.
You have to be a victim every day. Because it generates a stimulus, as if it were a drug stimulus. And it's an impressive thing.
If the other has guilt, the one who has to change is the other. So it can relieve you momentarily, but it has a terrible contraindication, that every analgesic, when it is very strong, has. If the other is wrong, he is the one who has to change, and I am not.
And then I don't change. I don't get out of place. So, trying to decode a little for you, in a simple way, and with my words, this theory of Marco Aurélio, that he said, nothing happens to the man that is not his own.
So imagine that you come to life for a reason. You need to grow and become closer to what nature considers a true human being. Everything evolves towards your ideal.
A human ideal of values, virtues and wisdom. And you have several flaws to correct, to get closer, to take a step towards that. These flaws that you have, are like a magnetic card.
That will attract to your life, elements that will allow you to work them. See them and work them. So these elements come because you called.
Because life called. There was a synchronicity, as Jung said. Life called, so that through them you see yourself.
And then comes Jung, with his theories of transference, who talks a lot about it. So understand, if you live with a lot of boring people, I already had a student who told me that, I live with ten boring people. You probably did a public contest, and these were the approved ones.
They came because you called. Maybe because you have to develop patience. Maybe because you have to develop awareness that the boring is you.
But something is happening there. If it weren't for these people, they would be others. If it weren't for people, it would be an event, it would be a place.
But you would have to go through it. Because this place has a key, that allows you to open the next door. Sometimes when we transfer responsibilities to the other, we don't get the key.
And we are stuck in front of the same door, all our lives. But it's always someone's fault. See what an annoying social habit.
There are people at the end of their lives, blaming what they are for their parents, that they stopped seeing at the age of 18. 70% of their lives they went without a father. There was no cause.
It's the boss's fault at work. The fault at the wedding is the mother-in-law's. That's very good.
There is always a guilty. There is always one who assumes his shadows. Because consciousness does not want to pay that price.
But if she pays that price, she grows. And when you grow up and look back, you end up thinking it was cheap. It was well paid for what allowed you to grow.
So this is a very interesting element. Nothing happens to man that is not man's own. When you are making yourself a victim, it is fulminating.
Personality gets angry. This is the bitter syrup for the moment of victimization. It helps a lot.
A thousand and one philosophical utilities. Continuing. Theory of impact.
The birth of consciousness. This is an oriental theory. These point that I remember with great clarity.
The day I learned them. And the day after. What happened from there.
Because I had to face life in a totally different way. And it gives a certain pain, a certain resistance. It makes you want to leave it there and forget.
But when we have this little carpenter of philosophy inside us, It asks "and you will not think about it? " Look at that. Until you can't stand it anymore.
And one hour you have to sit down and think about it. This theory of the impact of the birth of consciousness is very interesting. It says the following.
That consciousness is born by contrast. So if you have a white object, and the whole world was white, or blue, or red, you would only notice the blue, the red or the white. When the blue ends and the red begins, you notice both.
If you have a musical note playing and it is uninterrupted, you do not notice it. Even Pythagoras talked about this. About the music of the spheres, that would play this note permanently, and we would not notice it because it has no interruption.
When a note stops and comes the silence, between the silence and the sound, you notice both. Sometimes you will notice the value of a place you lived when you left there. Or the value of a person who lived with you, when he lost it.
This is so common. And many times it allows us to know the value of life when we are facing death. It will allow us to reflect on it.
And then it is an obligatory reflection. But later, when you can no longer do anything. So this question of contrast, realizing that suddenly life generates contrasts, so that we can see something, is very important.
Because if you consider that life is bringing, you are going in a dimension, horizontal. Life puts a wall in front of you, and generates a contrast between horizontal and vertical. Maybe she doesn't want you to get hurt, hitting your face against the wall.
Maybe she wants you to notice these two dimensions. And choose another higher one. Maybe it's not a punishment, maybe it's a prize.
Maybe there was a little bell ringing, time to grow. And if life didn't put you against the wall, with some contrast, you would never realize that it's time to grow. So we started to consider these events that stir our lives, as a good sign of approval for the next school series, in the life discipline.
It's time to grow. It's time to move on. We started to measure and consider, for example, this contrast between life and death, in our imagination, trying to anticipate it for now.
Because if you see, what you will take with you, and what you can't take, at this moment, you can still reverse it. In front of death, you can't do anything anymore. So I try to pull, through reflection, this moment for now.
So that I can realize what is real in my life, and what is illusory. You borrow the impact theory, and ask it to give you advice. Look, come here, lend me death, in the middle of life.
There was a philosopher, Campbell, I love this phrase of his, who said that, as he was always trying to grow with difficulties, he was so intimate with death, that when she arrived, she was a well-known companion. Because every day something died in him, and every day others were born. So he was already very close to death, very close to her, her comrade.
Why would she scare him? I think that's beautiful, this is a practical application of the impact theory, and that really changes your life. One more point, let's go.
In a little while I invite you to Easter lunch. Or at least, I imagine all of you with me at this moment. Where something we are trying to do with which it is reborn as spiritual in us.
The commitment as a firm land. This was terrible for me. Imagine, I arrived in New Acropolis very young, and dragged to a tribe mentality, of young people, who had a horrible commitment.
And at a certain moment, my teacher, to whom I owe so much, started to bring me these things, and tell me, look, it's the only rope that rescues you in the middle of the storm. The only thing that prevents you from being dragged by diversity is commitment. Because when you are intimately, have respect for yourself first, and is intimately linked to something like a spirit of mission, you are already dying.
You say to death, wait a little bit, I have to pay this bill. Wait a little bit, I have to go there and give a message to this and that. I have to finish such a job.
So it is a link so strong with the future, that it is as if you had fallen in the middle of the ocean, and someone threw you a hook, and rescues you from there. You have to get out. Because on the other side, there is something, someone who needs you.
Even to get up in the morning with that terrible laziness, which often attacks us, attacks all of us. You think, I'm going to pay for this laziness with a coin, human pain. Someone will need me there in the front, and I won't be there, because I wasted time with nonsense.
Some human need marked a meeting with me in the future. And I won't make it in time, because I wasted time in the middle of the way with nonsense, with banalities. So we realize that commitment is a axis, a firm ground, that takes you out of the biggest cracks.
Now someone who is not committed to anything. Jung said that many times his research on the unconscious, he returned for love. Love to commitments, love to people, love to ideas, that he had to bring to the world, a mission he had to share.
Everything he had discovered. And this love brought him back, because if not, some of his research, he would have dived and not returned anymore. So it seems that it is more or less a consensus in history.
That this commitment established from the heart, based on an idea of respect to oneself or the other, that there have been moments in history that were considered important, not so remote. You must have heard of it, I don't know, some generations ago, that were not perfect, but all are dual. That gentleman who pulled a mustache said, this is my word.
And the world could turn upside down. Your word would be rescued. In a sense of honor, of respect, which today is very complicated, because we live in a circumstance, we will talk about it soon, of loss of trust in the human being, including loss of trust in ourselves.
So the commitments are all very tender, and you don't know what or whom you can trust. So this idea of considering the commitment as something sacred, because it is the only thing that rescues me in the midst of the storm, is also a learning from New Acropolis, which has been useful to me in countless ways. There are 30 years of life, where this has already been a tool, and it has already generated many good fruits.
Continuing in our conversation, the will and its concretization. There is an English saying that says, where there is a will, there is a way. The will is that tremendous power that requires that there be a commitment, a goal, but it is able to drive you to overcome all the difficulties in the middle of the way.
It is able to give you a driving force, that there is no way that is sufficiently obstructed. Once again, Professor Michel Echenique on a occasion said a complex question that he answered in a tremendously simple way, that this is very Acropolis. A person asked, how to channel the will now?
And he said, two tools, on the mental level, identity. On the physical level, perseverance and constancy. Without haste and without pause.
On the mental level, an identity. I am human and I will honor this condition. On the physical level, without haste and without pause.
Fighting with each obstacle that appears in front of us, without running, but also without giving up. Because the rhythm is fundamental. The rhythm guarantees life.
It is the rhythm of your heart, it is the rhythm of your lung, it is the rhythm of expansion and contraction of the universe. The rhythm is the key to life. So, above the definition, and below the rhythm.
Without haste and without pause. And so you overcome obstacles, that seem to be inexhaustible. Look at history.
You will see that there have been men who have overcome obstacles, that before them were considered inexhaustible. If a human being holds will, all humanity has this in potential. This seed is inside us.
So, if someone wants to hold your will, or will grab you on the physical plane, and make you break the rhythm, which is boring, but you recover. Or will enter your mental plane and will put a doubt. Will it?
Is it really a better human being to have a good life goal? Look at your case, you will not have fun. Are you sure?
If you think, will it be? You will infiltrate a crack that goes to the deepest of your life. And you will lose the rhythm, and you will lose perseverance, you will lose constancy, you lose everything.
And then comes a dogma, very poorly understood in our historical moment. That doubt is always a benefit. Doubt, like everything in the world, is dual.
In certain situations it is a benefit. In others it is a total loss. So Albert Einstein must have had a thousand doubts to reach his theory of relativity.
But at no time did he doubt that what he was, was a physicist. If in the middle of the way he decided to become a veterinarian, he would not have enough energy to go so far. Nothing against veterinarians, I really like this profession, but the fact is that some things have to be defined.
The apex of the pyramid has to be defined. The face by which you will climb, well, there are many doubts. This theory or another, this path or another, but that you have as a goal to become a more complete human being, better, there can be no doubt about that.
Because everything else is lost and you don't get anywhere. So this element was very useful to me, to learn a practical formula to realize the will, which is useful to all of us. Generosity as a measure of human stature.
There are also moments that were very beautiful. They accumulate because they are many years in New Acropolis, but some things were very striking. Because they were echoing in my head, even forcing me to change, even a little bit.
And a little bit that you change, it justifies a life. When I stopped to think that our criteria of value in our society is aimed at those who have a lot, and when you look at history, the men of value were those who donated a lot and not those who received, I'm impressed . How did we get to this mistake?
Gibran said that we are a place of enrichment of the gifts of life. Things come, we enrich, we put all the accessories that only we could put, we deliver, we move on. If you retain a gift of life, It's like stagnant water, rotting.
And the great men were not the ones who had a lot. They were the ones who gave a lot. And the more you give, the more life will ask.
So if you are generous with your goods, life will ask you to be generous with your emotional, that you are not so vain, that you are not so arrogant, have patience with people. If you consent and give, it will ask you to be generous on the mental plane, that you do not have dogmas, that you do not have prejudices, that you do not have addicted visions. If you give, it will ask more and more, until it integrates you with a universe that has no limits.
It is the idea of unity. Now, if it reaches a certain point and you say, this is not, okay, life will respect. But this is your size.
The man is the size of your generosity. And you realize that. How much my heart is open.
This is my size. The width and height of the door, of this mysterious heart, of this center, of this symbol, this is my real stature. The rest are illusions.
This was also something that was of fundamental importance to me. And finally, it's not the last thing I learned. This would give a seminar, I don't know, from here until Easter next year.
But some elements for reflection today. The last thing I'm going to talk about is the idea of unity as transformation and direction. Professor Jorge Angel Livraga, who founded New Acropolis, told me a story that I consider too beautiful.
I love stories for the beginning of the conversation. India taught me that they are the best pedagogical form. The gender, unity, chastity, education through stories, is a sensational thing.
And Professor Jorge Angeli told the following. Imagine that you are a person who does not like the sun. I don't know, it's crazy.
I don't like the sun. I don't like it. So I live in a dark house with windows and closed doors.
I don't want to know about the sun. One fine day I review this position. It's a dogmatic and strange position.
And I decide to establish contact with the sun. I open the doors, I open the windows and let it in. Notice that with the house closed and with the house open, my distance from the sun is exactly the same.
But only my willingness to get in touch with it makes me enlightened now. At that moment, it already brings me light. So if I walk 1 km, 2 km, 100 km, this light will intensify.
But only the position of consciousness, of wanting to be in contact with it, already changes my life now. So these traditions in general, starting with a Pythagoras with his decade, who did the 1 at the beginning of the sequence of the decade, and at the end the 10, 1 plus 0 is 1 again, says that the universe came from the unity to expand consciousness and return to the Father's house with his arms full of fruit. That is, return to unity.
It is the same symbol of the pyramid. It goes up by one face and there are multiple faces. But you have a clear indication, if the citizen is going up, he is getting closer to unity.
That is, there is more fraternity, more generosity, more internal and external harmony. If he is more and more conflicted with himself and with the world, it is a symptom of the fact that he is going down. There is no doubt about that.
So, consider that this idea of unity is the right hand for where we should walk. Necessarily, whatever it is that we are doing, it should result in more fraternity, in more understanding, in more integration, in more harmony, in more capacity to occupy your place in the world in a productive way, not only for you, but for the world. To make the world a little better than you found it, a little like that.
And also to get out of here a little more integral than what entered, a little like that. Integrate inside and outside. This is the evolutionary meaning of the universe.
So, when we have doubts about an immediate decision, think, think at the end of the way, it is fraternity. For a person who seeks fraternity, what should I be doing now? For a person who seeks generosity, integration, harmony, what should I be doing now?
It's like the citizen who opened the windows of the house. It is no longer dark inside his house. He has to live with clarity now.
Although the sun is still very distant. Only by consciously putting yourself in front of unity, your life changes now. It illuminates wherever you are.
It is no longer a person who can be shamelessly selfish, as we were in the past. Now I see unity and I know that that's the way I'm going. My conscience will charge a very expensive price if I take the other hand of the sun, the other hand of my sense of life.
So I have a reference. If I'm going up the pyramid, I'm closer to unity. I'm going down and this is a difficult spatial geometry to put into question.
It's obvious. So they are elements that were there in front of us all the time. All the time.
But one day, philosophy, which was made as a school of the art of living, comes and brings it to you and says look here, you are not taking these things into consideration. Because we are scattered and we end up alienating ourselves in shadows. Which are the little material things that should not be disregarded, but should be illuminated from top to bottom.
There must be a light axis that comes from top to bottom, so that we can see them in their fair value, in their fair dimension, so that they do not seem greater than they are, so that we do not distort the colors of things, so that it does not give a very great intensity to passing things, so that you do not drown in a glass of water. If you throw the light from above, you see the proportion between you and the glass of water. The proportion between good and the glass of water.
between your heart and the glass of water. When the light comes from the right place. So certain parameters of life.
And we can say that at least in New Acropolis, I do not want to argue here, there must be a lot of people looking for this around the world, and I am not even aware to know who is looking for this. There must be, the more there is, the better. But within New Acropolis we are looking for this.
And I work for it, we work for it. As an institution, in the whole world, in 60 countries, more than 80 headquarters in Brazil, we work for it. Make aware a heritage that is there, but that we have not yet assumed.
Imagine a very silly example, you are hungry and have money in your pocket, but you are not aware of it. You keep starving. When we become aware of our wealth, our life changes.
Philosophy throws light on our wealth. That are there, the wealth of the condition and teaches you to use. It is a very practical school of life.
It has nothing to do with religion, has nothing to do with politics, has nothing to do with science, although it studies and reflects a little about all human professions. But it has to do with the art of living, more and more human. Well, that's what I would like to bring to you, again, our website, our YouTube page, I hope to find you there.
I wanted today, in a very simple way, I hope I have achieved, and with all honesty, to tell you when I got in here, 30 years ago, because sometimes people tend to personalize, look how good Lucia is. When I got in here, 30 years ago, I was a very intentional girl, but with the whole world dismantled. Philosophy set my puzzle.
And I wouldn't have done it alone. I think of you, as one of our teachers says, that it is a beautiful day, taking the sun on the beach, and taking the face of Plato's justice, the center theory, alone, I wouldn't go. I needed someone to show me these possibilities, because for me they were very surprising, I wouldn't discover it alone.
The tendency of the collective, of the collective mentality, would probably massify me. So philosophy takes all the potentials you have and helps you use them. It doesn't give anything for free, You are the one who will have to walk but it helps to give order to your world, to strengthen your tools, to enhance your possibilities, your internal powers, from the internal powers we inherit from humanity.
If I dedicate this to you, I'm not dedicating that everyone should go to school, because I know this won't be possible, but I dedicate it to you, to have a little philosophical reflection, you can be sure, agree or disagree, because I respect those who disagree, but I'm doing it with the intention to offer what I have for the best. Therefore, as Helena Blavatsky says: whoever does his best, does everything that can be expecte and that leaves me very calm, very at peace. And this joy, this peace, I dedicate to you today, on this Easter Sunday.
Thank you very much and a hug to everyone. Thank you.
