New acropolis presents: Reflections on peace. Lúcia Helena Galvão, 2020. Song: Moonlight sonata, Beethoven.
Hello. Welcome to one of our meetings. I thought this date on which we met would be a good time to talk specifically about a subject that has never been dealt with until now.
Today our chat is about peace. That's right. Like all the concepts we have worked out, we'll see that they are in general much more than we imagine.
Or, as we'll see in relation to peace, it has very little to do with what we imagine. A concept often goes through that wireless phone effect and is being emptied throughout history. At a certain point, we have in our hand no longer a concept, but a misconception.
An idea riddled with misunderstandings. And therefore riddled with difficulties of application. Our purpose, our intention today is to work together to understand this idea of peace.
Let's go? Let's start, then, with what you know I always start with. Talking about the origin of the word, the etymology.
I went a little further here, beyond the latin pax, I went there at the European Protoindo, which is pac. And pac meant to lock, to fasten, to join. In other words, in general, pax had to do with pact, a signed agreement.
An agreement of non-conflict, of non-aggression. Well, is peace about agreement? It does, but not in the way it looks.
This agreement idea, we know that it was used a lot later in the concept of the social contract. Let's say it's the most superficial and usual version of peace through an agreement. But it wasn't quite that, and maybe not even that.
Let's go with this concept. Well, Roman pax is an expression that was used quite a bit as well. It meant a period when Rome had no civil wars.
It was from the period of Augustus to Marcus Aurelius. A very long period, from 28 BC until 180 AD, where there were no civil wars. But the wars with the outside world remained the same.
But keep that idea in mind. Of harmony within, to face the war outside. And that was called the Roman pax.
And from this Roman pax, we can make a parody and maybe find some elements of the human pax, which bears some resemblance. Peace as agreement, which is the strongest idea we have taken from the word so far. I can't help but quickly remember to you of something that I have talked about many times, which is Plato's myth of Giges.
As those who listen to me already know the story well, I will tell it in a very compact way. Giges was a lydian shepherd, it's a Platonic myth, he was very honest, until one day he found a ring that, when he put it on his finger in a certain way, it made him invisible. And then the virtuous Giges became the vicious Giges.
He started stealing, profaning, even killing people. And here comes that question, what would we do with Giges' ring on our hand? That is a complex question, I reserve to you.
But Plato continues with the story. And he says the following, imagine situation 2. Giges found the ring, wears the ring.
And invisible, he continues as ethical, as respectful, as fair, as he was when he was visible. If people knew about that, the community, the village in Lydia, would say "How good he is, Giges, how wonderful! " For fear that he would hit them when he was invisible.
But secretly, when the last door closed behind them, they would say: "How stupid Giges is, huh? " "What a waste of opportunity, why didn't I find this ring? I would do well.
" In other words, Plato's conclusion about this story, people do not love justice. They make a social pact. Because if I rob you, you will rob me too, maybe you are stronger.
If you are smarter, more skillful, I lose out. So for no one to run this risk, we make a pact. I don't steal from you, you don't steal from me.
And so coexistence becomes acceptable. But if an exception situation arises, a Giges ring, of course I'm going to do what I want, because it is not deeply integrated in me. It's just a convention, it's just a pact.
So, you may say, good thing Giges' ring doesn't exist. It does exist. At that moment, your thought is a Giges ring.
What you think, you think it will not generate any practical effect, it's a lie. Sooner or later, your thought will tension life and generate an impact there, will generate facts. We think that we can think anything that we are unpunished.
It is a Giges ring. Another thing, the power is a Giges ring. Many times when a person is endowed with power, he thinks he can do anything and there will be no counterpart, because his power protects him.
It is a mistake too, there will be a counterpart. But finally, the fundamental element of this myth is, in a social pact, nobody likes justice. Do it because there is an agreement for you not to to be so damaged, to enable coexistence.
And this is an important element that we have to consider in all pacts. Are they made by interests? Or are they made by a legitimate will, with a legitimate love of justice?
In general, no. In general, by interests. A necessary repression to make coexistence possible.
We know that at a certain point in philosophy the idea of the social contract emerged. Those so-called contractualist philosophers, Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. The idea that if we do not establish an implicit or explicit contract within a society we don't mark the end of the natural state and the beginning of a possible social and political life.
We are back to everything we have already said. If there isn't this pact, this contract, coexistence will not work. It will be a war of barbarism.
And it will not promote some kind of viable social or political life. That's right and that's wrong. I will use an image, a phrase from a philosopher named Francis Bacon, and I will make a parody of it so that you understand my restrictions about the idea of the social pact, the social contract.
Francis Bacon speaks in relation to hope, that hope is a good lunch, but a bad dinner. He is right. By dinner time you have to be acting and not just waiting.
Making a parody of it for a social contract, I would say that the social contract is a tolerable lunch. But what are we serving for dinner? At a certain point, it must have stopped being coercion, there has to be a deeper way of sustaining social life.
Otherwise, in any exceptional situation, barbarism returns, because it's only repressed and not transmuted. So what are we serving for dinner? That is the big question.
Social contract at lunch. At dinner what is the menu? How about replacing a social contract for an essential contract?
We will explain in a moment what this is all about. It is still a pact, still a contract. But between which parts?
What would really be a more lasting way to sustain human peace? Coexistence and life in society. The social contract at dinner becomes a straitjacket of the most brutal and animalistic human impulses.
Which is exactly what we live. Let us put on a straitjacket until lunchtime. By dinner time it is unbearable.
There are already many ways to bypass this straitjacket. And social life starts to come to the edge of unfeasibility. I hope you are reflecting on what I am talking about.
Because it is a panel of many things that we live searching for its bases. Today some people say that the social contract was the best thing ever invented. Philosophically, no.
That is what I am questioning here. It's a sustaining of peace through the straitjacket. What other alternative could there be?
As a start, yes, necessary. But from then on, what can we do until dinner time? Returning to a more general philosophical consideration.
We are inside a dual universe. As we have said a million times before. So everything that manifests here has a light face and a shadow face.
In everything there is duality. And here we have a duality that lies behind peace. Underlying the peace.
Which is the duality between conflict and harmony, that you have to understand it well. Well, harmony is an extremely necessary thing. But harmony is also dual.
There is positive harmony where all is well. There is negative harmony. Things are so good that I don't want to change.
Then I get stuck in place. I become paralyzed, I fall into inertia. That is a dark aspect of harmony.
And the conflict? It is also dual. Well, there is the terribly negative conflict.
Which is the one where everyone feels like they own the truth. And then they will be like two bulls. Slapping their foreheads until they drop dead.
There is the positive conflict. Which is the one that you have a position, but you know that you don't own the truth. The other has a position, but he also knows.
One accepts to learn from the other and both come out bigger. Thesis, antithesis and synthesis. The hegelian dialectic.
Isn't that right? When there is this flexibility, this apprentice spirit, conflict is positive. Because there is growth.
If you imagine, for example, the way I move in this room, is just through the friction between the sole of my shoe and the ground. The way this room is lit is the friction between the flow of electrons and a resistance. By the way, friction and resistance is also something that happens in our body's immunity.
Why don't we die? Because the body comes with a heavy load of antibodies, to kill everything that comes in and harms order. You will see that life has this.
Is life peaceful or is it warlike? I think life is pretty harmonious. But it's a single-celled being.
It surrounds, organizes and protects. What enters here with the intention of dissociate life, it will be put out. In other words, notice how there is a dance where harmony and conflict are not always excluded.
Sometimes they even work together. Life is harmonious, but it generates conflict. It's a law that sustains and makes life possible.
So, there are a number of concepts that are quite complicated that we have to chew on philosophically, not generate dogmas, and not generate superficial and ill-founded opinions. Understanding the laws of life, the scenario in which we are moving. So, eternally conflict, destruction.
Conflict at the right times: growth. Eternally harmony: apathy and freezing. Harmony at the right times, serenity, happiness.
Well, another element that is very important. Life, then, is an example of harmony. And life involves conflict too, at the right moments, as we already said.
And life is not pugnacious. Life is an example of how to manage well all the forces of nature, in the sense of generating something extremely intelligent. Well, another important element for us to understand.
Peace is not synonymous with passivity. As we have seen, peace includes these two things, it has these two things in it. Peace sustains conflict on one side, harmony on the other side, simultaneously.
So that it can maintain itself. Passivity would be a body without immunity. Passivity would be someone frozen on a stair landing, he doesn't grow.
Because going up a ladder, you have a vertical vector of conflict. And a horizontal harmony vector. If you don't know how to abandon this vector, go through the conflict, overcome it, you don't grow.
And peace means a state of well being where we are aligned with nature. And one of nature's needs is to harmonize, the other is to grow. And for this, harmony and conflict are necessary.
So peace is a process that includes conflict and harmony as a greater goal. Maintaining life and improving it by overcoming conflicts. Peace has a higher goal, which is the secret of life.
Maintain and expand life. And for this it needs two tools, which are harmony and conflict. Isn't that interesting?
It is very interesting. This is philosophy. And it is the root of things to be able to act effectively.
Don't work with superficialities that don't solve anything. Moving on. .
. To love life is to respect its methods, to understand it, and to collaborate with it. Life works that way.
Peace is a fundamental life tool. It works by reconciling, at times, the opposites. Taking the power of opposites to generatea certain balance and expansion.
Which is exactly the case we are talking about. Conflict when it's time to grow, harmony when it's time to stabilize. But both working toward the realization of each being's purpose.
Both working for the plants to realize themselves as plants, the animals to realize themselves as animals, men realize themselves as men. They are just tools. Necessary in every moment.
Each one at the right time. To adjust the gears and keep walking. Obey life's call to do what fits us at each moment.
It is peace on the outside and serenity on the inside. Understand this. Serenity is another name for peace.
When it is inside of us. And peace, which is the result of harmony and conflict, is serenity on the outside. When we understand the purpose of life and want to collaborate with it, we have to know how to use the toolbox that life has given us.
Peace is a powerful helper of life. Now understand what pact the word Pax is talking about. The pact is between you and life.
The pact is between nature as a whole with human nature. That is the real pact. I as a human being.
. . commit to life.
My human nature is committed to life as a whole. It is a profound pact born from understanding, from identity, from belonging, from understanding what brought us into the world, to understand what our role is here. In other words, I have a pact.
I want to serve the purposes of nature. I want to serve the purposes of the whole. I want to play my part on the stage of life.
That is a pact. But it is not a pact for a game of interests. It is based in conscience, in identity, in understanding what corresponds to us in the scheme of manifestation.
And that pact is the basis of peace. Not a horizontal pact between people to defend their interests and keep up appearances, put the savagery in the straitjacket. It is a vertical pact that overcomes, transmutes savagery.
I want to, consciously and intelligently, to give my best as a human being so that the harmony of the cosmos works. Just as the plant does its best, the animal does its best, but they are not very conscious of it. The glory of man is to be able to do this consciously as a choice.
I choose to serve the whole. I choose to be an intelligent and participative cell. That is a pact.
This is a pact that subdues and transmutes brutality. It makes you a truly human being. And it is this pact that is the basis of peace.
Isn't that curious and interesting? That is why it is good and important to reflect to philosophize, and go to the roots of things, so that we can live deeply the concepts that surround us. Peace has nothing to do with passivity.
It is active. It works actively so that nature's purposes for us may be fulfilled. It is not repression, but realization.
So we can speak of Roman Pax and Human Pax. That is, the balance within. When you understand all these things and make a pact with life, with nature as a whole, that pact signed by your awakened conscience guarantees no more civil wars.
You will have a period of Human Pax. And this Human Pax, this serenity, this inner harmony, allows you to be at peace outside, whatever the adversities. A state of peace, of serenity, of lucidity, that allows you to pass well by roads, whether in good asphalt conditions or bumpy roads.
Whatever the circumstances. Since everything I need I have within me, I have a state of fullness, of stability, of harmony, such that it radiates from the outside with an ability to stay in control of myself. Whatever circumstances we go through.
To be at peace is to be well and solid, in quiet or tumultuous moments. Exactly a peaceful man is one who no circumstance steals his peace. You will say, well, but that is a distant ideal.
Remember, the ideals, though far away, if we relate to them, they light us up where we are. Remember that old example that I already gave a million times. If I don't want to relate to the sun, I live in darkness.
If I decide to relate to the sun, I stay in the same place, but open doors and windows. And the sun already illuminates me where I am. A man who is so solid that the circumstances cannot steal anything from his principles, from his values, they can hurt him physically, but they will not corrupt him, it is an ideal.
But we need to be in touch with this ideal. Because this contact alone illuminates us wherever we are. Crises don't steal anything from him.
He remains intact and quite the opposite. Take advantage of the conditions of the road to be able to refine his criteria, having more tools to deal with other difficulties in the future. That is, the man who is at peace, no adversity corrupts him.
He comes out with integrity and grows in the midst of all the difficulties. Peace versus happiness. This is another very interesting element for us to reflect on.
What can bring us a state of well-being to be enduring, as the background of our life? That's what happiness is. Happiness is not pleasure, is not joy, which is something temporary.
A passing emotion, like that of the cinema where you cry and soon you're laughing in the food court. Happiness isn't that, it's a permanent state as if it were a permanent background of your life. Like the background that an orchestra makes for an area to be performed by a singer.
It is balanced, stable and beautiful. And it guarantees that whatever you do in life will be well grounded. It will have a good chance of not shaking you.
Because there is this sustaining of happiness. Happiness is directly related to this peace that you have achieved. When you are even with yourself, reaches a state of serenity that is true human happiness.
Happiness is something that cannot depend on other things. The pleasure can, the joy can. Happiness is something that can only depend on us, or else we don't have it.
It is evident that this happiness comes from a deep encounter and agreement with the laws of nature. With the metaphysical, with God, for those who believe in God. That is, with the harmony of the part with the whole.
That no circumstance can shake it. This makes a background that is wonderful. It is an orchestra playing in a super harmonious way.
Whatever happens there tends to be embellished by this background. As dramatic as it is. It can be a very sad area, but the background tends to justify and embellish it.
Often the mood, the deep pleasure, the explosion of joy, is dual as well. In other words, an excess of joy. Didn't your grandmother used to say that phrase, day of much laughter, eve of much sorrow?
My grandma used to say that. She was right. Sometimes that mood, that joy a little out of purpose, the next day a lot of depression, a lot of sadness.
These passing things are dual. Happiness and peace are not dual. They are a permanent state.
And it ensures that what you do is well grounded. You will not lose your human condition, you will not lose your dignity, because you are very solid, you have a very solid column that communicates the earth with the sky. Nothing can stick, nothing can deform.
How to live day by day so that everything that which is fearful, including death, does not take away our peace. Find us in peace. How do we live in a way that peace walks with us every day.
Come what may, even death will find me at peace. And then we have to remember discipline. It is inevitable.
It's called to the stage at this moment. Discipline assures us that we will accomplish each day of our lives with respect to this pact that has been signed. Considering it is the most important thing in the world.
I made a pact with nature as a whole, with the purposes of life, with God's purposes. And every day I have to remember this and honor it. If I do this and if I fulfill that pact, I am in a state of security and harmony that anything that gets me will get me well balanced, well grounded in life.
It's not anything that's going to shake me. I have a very solid foundation. I feel the ground under my feet.
It is not so easily that something will throw me off balance. This state of balance allows us to offer much to the world. If we are unstable, we have little to give to the world.
I always talk in many of my lectures, maybe some of you already know the example, that a chair is a junction of balance, stability, and generosity. That is, it balances on the floor and offers a comfort shell for the tired hiker to restore his energy. Someone who has balance can offer a lot to the world.
Therefore, this state of peace associated with the happiness it generates puts us in a way that we are prepared for whatever comes. As long as there is a discipline to remembering and updating this pact every day. An Indian tradition says that the great pacts of our life should be renewed every day.
Did you know that? There was even a habit, at least within this tradition, even the weddings every day, at a certain moment, the couple held hands and updated their bond. I think it's extremely beautiful.
It's not overly romanticism on my part, it's because it's really beautiful. The pacts are eternal, but the human memory, the human consciousness, at our level, it's so volatile that it has no end. Therefore, reaffirming is a way of guaranteeing.
Every day reaffirm in your memory your pact with life. Sign again. Write a new page of your life.
Sign each page of the contract, I have make the rubric again. Rubricate today's page. To make sure you don't forget it.
This gives you a lot of support, this is a fundamental discipline. Control, correction, daily discipline. Every day see what could put in risk the fulfillment of this agreement, this contract.
Keep trimming the edges. Put awareness into your day. And make sure that every day you go to the limit of your possibilities.
Do your best to honor that pact. I repeat that sentence by Helena Blavatsky that I love so much. Who does his best, does everything that can be expected of him.
Both heaven and earth cannot wait of man that he does more than his best at every step. Your best in every moment. And today's best will expand my possibilities to do even better tomorrow.
It will form my muscles, it will generate the virtue of surrender. And it will make this pact better fulfilled tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. So I have to guarantee my consciousness, my memory, re-actualize this pact every day and go to the limit of my possibilities to fulfill it.
That is discipline, that is rhythm. Remember that rhythm sustains life. The rhythm of our heart, the rhythm of the lung, the peristaltic rhythm of the intestines.
In other words, rhythm sustains the validity of things on the manifested plane. So don't forget and reiterate every day the pact we have with life. We will realize that from the daily practice, from this stabilization, from this peace, when the frictions are greater, they will demand even greater serenity.
And if we practice and reiterate, we are every day forming muscles for something bigger. Do not think that there are great warriors in history that they're good because they only trained during the war. There is no such thing.
They were people who trained their musculature and their fear all their lives to face a hostile situation to defend their civilization, their homeland. This parallel, even though they don't like war, is very pertinent to the war we are waging against adversity. If every day we have a more solid peace that gives us sustenance, more serious things will come and we will be able to maintain serenity and lucidity and give our best, and come out as best you can on the other side bigger than you went in, benefiting ourselves and all those around us.
That is, we have to work for peace today and to guarantee our peace in the future. Adversity in general is man-sized. When we grow up, they grow up too.
Major frictions will require greater serenity, as we talked about, but nothing will rob me of myself. Can you imagine being able to say that in front of the mirror? I am preparing myself, training hard so that nothing can rob me of myself.
Every day reaffirming who I am and what I serve. Nothing will rob me of myself. Maybe they can take my physical life in certain moment, but my dignity and my honor, no.
Know that inexorably something will take our physical life at some point. But we can't let them steal our metaphysical life before that happens. Corrupt our character, take away from us our dignity, take away our peace and our happiness.
I really like this sentence that I brought already as a conclusion. It's a quote from George Arundale who says, "Loving God consists in being useful to his worlds. " No matter how many dimensions have been created that we are far from understanding.
Science itself sometimes gets a little confused on concepts like multiverses. Anyway, the fact is that whatever the size of the demonstration is. To love God consists in serving his worlds.
To take God's purposes as priority in my life's purposes, as I have been saying lately. And that is part of the pact, that is part of peace. Walk serene, solid, ready for easy and difficult paths.
And finally, a phrase from Epithet that I have brought a short summary of it, just to make it well recorded, because this phrase to me is the most beautiful thing that has ever been said about happiness. "Happiness is a verb", not a state, you are standing still in a state of happiness, it is a verb. "It is the constant practice of acts of value.
" Every day I respond to life with peace, without letting it corrupt my happiness. This is happiness itself. It is either under your feet or it is nowhere.
It is a verb, it is the constant practice of acts of value. And happiness goes hand in hand with peace. Possibly they are not even twins, they are one being.
And finally I brought to you an excerpt from a poem of mine, which is called "Votes for the New Year". It has a little piece that says something that I think it's very interesting as a closing to our little reflection today. "May you have peace, finally, the peace of one who fights, serenity in full motion, eternity behind every moment, intense present and effective action.
" This is what I wish you, As a closing to this work of ours, may human peace be with you. A hug to all. New Acropolis is an international philosophical movement, independent and non-profit, based on philosophy, culture and volunteerism.
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