The way of the heart is beautiful but dangerous... The way of logic is ordinary but safe...
As time goes by for all of us, we do not understand how we can become hard and rigid. We do not consciously observe ourselves and others around us and this seems normal to us. So we have lost the sensitivity for life. We are in a constant distraction into the everyday tasks that concern us as individuals. We miss the sensitivity and the essential connection with life.
But what is sensitivity to life?
Let me tell you a story:
A camel owner went to the animal market. There, he noticed that his camel was the smallest of all the others in the bazaar.
Curious, he asked the merchant how come and his own camels were twice the size of his?
The merchant replied, "Because yours is not castrated."
"And how can I castrate it?" the camel owner asked innocently.
It's very simple," the merchant replies, "you take two bricks and use them to hit the camel's genitals with all your might."
"But won't it hurt?" The camel owner asked.
"Not at all," replied the merchant, "I will show you."
So he took two bricks in his hands and just as he had described, he hit the camel's genitals with force, crushing them. The camel screamed and started running away.
"But you said it would not hurt!" Said the camel owner indignantly.
"It can only hurt if one of your fingers is between the bricks," the merchant replied.
This is a state of egocentric sensitivity in which too many people find themselves. It upsets us when we hear some harsh news, for example how many were killed or slaughtered in a battle or a criminal act and we react to injustice. But we need to be honest deep inside ourselves, in order to hope to change the state of our consciousness. So if we honestly look at how we feel about such news, we usually find that it is the fear and terror that makes us react. Fear of what will happen if we find ourselves in the same position as a victim or as a perpetrator. We soon forget it, or even worse we say: "Fortunately it did not happen to me or my loved ones!" But such a thing will not get us far.
When we go deeper, we see with this new consciousness, that cruelty, action, the great effort to impose ourselves on others and the environment, as well as the constant struggle for survival, is not the reality of human life.
An example and a common phenomenon we would say, is violence between men and women. Traditionally, men choose the path of reason and women that of sensitivity, which in(until recently male-dominated world) found no place. Women could not adapt to a society created by men.
The cruelty that is so prevalent in the world, refers to the reaction, the intensity and the withdrawal that we live. Cinemas are full of action and horror movies. The wars and the cruelty that the media bring us, fill us with sorrow. We see another picture of life that confuses us, we have not consciously practiced basic emotional, mental, physical skills that can make us more sensitive and conscious with life.
Someone who lives a hard unconscious life away from his emotions in tension or in withdrawal gradually ends up needing something harder to react. This creates an illusion, such as that created by someone in pain in bed, who needs to feel something more intense to distract his attention for a moment away from his constant pain.
We need to make it clear to ourselves that pain as a physical stimulus has its functionality, as it helps to focus our attention on the present, asking for the right response to maintain our body health. On the other hand, mental pain and horror do not have any similar kind of utility as a reflex. On the contrary, the memory of pain and horror often makes it difficult for us to move forward.Life itself is not endangered by our emotions or thoughts as we are lost in them. So we basically resist the stimuli of life through a crude psychology, confused internally we do not live facts but illusions.
We can see this as our emotional psychological drama, what in psychology is called the "Odyssey of Suffering", where nothing happens in a misery repeated, recycled and every new developmental step is impulsively rejected because "we are not ready". So the present moment is lost in the name of preparation.
Somehow, with our sad state, we roam the world unconsciously, frightened and terrified. This idea that something tragic could happen to us, frightens us and makes us scared.
Looking at the primordial part of ourselves we can find the sensitivity within us. It appears in the pure crystalline gaze of a wild animal and then we understand what connection with the real power of life means.
Logic has provided us with important tools, as for beauty we need to put a little more heart in everything!