An existential overview
There are 3 levels in which we can inhabit in ourselves, they are arranged like in a pyramid; from bottom to the top.
At the bottom we find consumption, at the mid-level we find doing, and at the top – being.
One could only exist in two third out of the 3 thirds, either the upper 2 thirds’ do and be, or the lower 2 thirds; have and do. Most people exist in the lower 2 thirds.
To have is to be subject to consumption, one believes that the road to happiness is by increasing his degree of consuming.
To do, here we believes that more we will do the better would be our life, to be in activity as much as possible.
To be is to be present with the whole of yourself, this is very rare.
If one is at level of be then doing will happen on him by itself, if one is based in doing, then his doing will allow him (by having money) – to consume. But the opposite order is not possible; if one is based in having this will not bring him to be able to do, and if one is based in doing it does not mean that he can be.
Now about the top level; the level of be, or being: we are divorced from the level of being, of others around us as well as from our own being.
Animals, which we relate to as inferior, are never disconnected from their essential, authentic – Being. Their Animal Being is ruling and uniting them. However, in us humans – every single part of us aspires to domineer the other ones, to take control and become a single ruling monarch, even if only for a while: our gluttony, our longing for empathy, our sexual urges, our greediness, pride, vulnerability, and lust for power – every part wishes the whole dominion for itself. If the boss (the Being) is not at home, the various kids are in frenzy for dominance and control.
When Gulliver arrived at the “Yahoo’s land”, he met human beings who were subject to their most primitive and raw urges and thus acted “like animals”, where in fact their behavior was typically human. They behaved in a manner which we (unjustly) attribute to animals, although animals never behave the way humans do. The animals (horses) in “Yahoo’s land”, who were the masters of the place, were peaceful, and full of essence and being. The implication is clear: not like the animals, who have stayed faithful to the voice of their natural beings, we Humans have crowned upon our undeveloped inner being the demons of lust and desire, while at the same time we portray ourselves as being advanced, by having high education, science and more.
To be in touch with our being means: to be authentic, to come from within, and to be in communion with our inner core, with our own personal center of gravity, with one’s own inner child.
It is like a group of people who crash-land on a deserted island. Once they settle, each one of them gets involved in a different activity, as suits his or her traits, inclinations and whims: one is looking for some food, another is busy wandering around, another builds a tree house, while others swim, pray or do whatever. They all try to personally adjust to the situation, none of them is connected to the very essence, the real and only being of what it actually means, to be stuck on a deserted island. If they were, they should be burning with the fire and urge of finding a way out. Indeed, this is the term which best defines the attitude towards the being: to burn with an inner fire.
What comes from within, from the inner core of our selfhood (inner being) is charging us with great strength and vitality, as if we were connected to an electrical current source. That means that things may happen because we are – not because we do. The alternative is to get yourself charged up and activated by your own batteries: by what we do or what we have.
To be activated by and from the Being is to be present, to live life generated from your true and real existence. You do not have to do anything from your own initiative – because the mere fact of being is enough.
This is like the famous riddle of “what comes first – the chicken or the egg?” Do you need to do so you could be, or do you need to be so you could do?
Well, of course, the being comes first. The doing results from the being. However, most people are investing in doing– escaping the void which lurks within, getting from this doing a kind of false sense of having a being. This activity is not natural and is mechanical. Indeed, Sisyphus curse has its print here – each time over and again we try by having and by doing – to be, in nature, all comes from being, from the core. Only we, human beings, are in exile from our homeland, from our own being, ceaselessly trying to reach fulfillment and happiness, exerting efforts non-stop, going full gas all the time, with
To be divorced from our being is to be asleep. To wake up from being fast asleep means to wake up the sleeping beauty in the being-castle. Who will be the silver prince? Who will wake the sleeping princess up from her slumber and will sublimate her romantic fantasy with the fresh vivid reality? Who will give her back her dominion in the kingdom of the living? Maybe the artists?
The artists represent the being to the world – therefore their homeland must be authenticity, loyalty to the voice of the Being. Their craftsmanship is to shape and model the voice of the being that overflows from within them.
Poets, playwrights, musicians, singers, painters – driven by the spirit of the being breathing inside them – try to give it expression and enable it via their art. In other words, artists may be awake and aware to the cry of their beings and to the being in exile around them. However, their ‘curse’ is that they can express their being only through the limited medium of their arts, confined and conditioned by the society of the sleeping people, who would permit the being to exist only if presented as and by art. In the isolated reserves or ghettos of their arts, far away from the political commercial reality of everyday life, the artists may experience a true sense of being.
But, some artists may stray and conform to the social accepted norms for money, deserting the vision of the being for personal gain, surrendering their art to the ruling establishment. Painters become graphic artists, writers turn into journalists, playwrights become copywriters, directors of features become directors of commercials or soap operas, thinkers and philosophers become gurus, poets become jingle composers.
Quotes:
“My prayer: to be what I’ll be and do what I may do. All which I want to do, is to live in rhythm with myself. All that I want – is to do what I am doing and not to try to do what I am not doing. Just to do what I am doing. Just to advance step by step with myself. I will be what I will be.” “I will be what I will be – but now I am what I am, and here I need to invest my vigor, I am in need for all of my strength in order to be what I am today. Today I’ll work in the same rhythm with myself and with what I need to be. And in order to work in rhythm with myself I need to continue and deepen into myself. God revealed his name to Moses, and it was: I’ll be what I’ll be.”
– Hugh Prather, “Notes to myself”.
“How awful it is that most people accept willingly a work of art that was born from the innermost hidden feeling of the artists, but separates them from reality with a thick wall.”
– Albert Einstein
Gabriel