The world belongs to the brave – an old saying, everyone knows it, and indeed it does, otherwise who should own the world if not the brave?
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Let’s take a closer look at what the world is – first of all, the world is our planet Earth … and the conquerors, the conquistadores of past centuries, made the world theirs, that is, more precisely, foreign countries and peoples that never belonged to them. Undoubtedly courageous, sometimes cruelly brave and unscrupulous daredevils who subjugated other continents in the service of church and king. Of course, this cannot be what is meant by this introductory thought, but once again – it is true; it is true if by world we mean the Small World, the microcosm of man. Man is called to become and be a conscious part, a conscious, self-responsible co-creator of his universe, the universe of his being.
Eespecially in these days that we are living through at the moment, it is becoming clear to countless people that we cannot trust anyone or anything that people try to persuade us of as truth or necessity. This means, then, that the wonderful old exhortation test everything, keep what is good, is becoming more than ever a necessity of life for people who feel that something else is at stake. The „other“, which we almost all feel in some form or other, as a longing, as a presentiment of something beautiful, perfect, eternal, a longing for the home of souls, for nirvana or paradise, as we call it in the West … This other must be recognised in us.
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Intuition – We carry something like an intuition for happiness and joy within us. Everything you think, speak, do is you and the fruits of it fall into your lap. It is almost useless to think about this rule, it is too self-evident – and yet none of us can say that it would always be easy to be aware of it all the time – We are actually very unfree over long periods of time, that is, we are lived by a myriad of sensations, old ideas, social patterns, all of which spring from old superstitions, a system of values that deprive us of breath but offer us quick securities.
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Puberty – The time of puberty should be for the growing adolescent the freeing from the constraints of the habits, ideas and life plans of parents, indeed of all authorities. Have we as adults actually already taken this step or are we still caught in the web of collective, beloved unfreedoms? – In a spiritual sense adulthood and awakening are close together …
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We know the expressions courageous, courage, coraggio (Ital.), coraje (Span.) courage (French.)- they all refer to the heart (French: le coeur).
The world belongs to the courageous … at some point we stop wanting to continue discovering and improving the world on the outside; at some point we learn through our experiences that there is no paradise, nowhere, if we don’t start looking for it, the land of life, within ourselves. And when we search within ourselves, then our interest in philosophy, spirituality and the like awakens – and we make the often so joyful experience that actually everything is within us. The masters of the East and the West talk about this, countless works in art, literature and open-minded science tell of it.
And in order to come closer to this experience, we must have the courage to take an interest in the „cellar“, in the dark sides, in the shadows. No, not you and me, not we have to illuminate our darkness, that is the old thing of impossibility, we have to become aware that light can be found in our heart … and so it becomes clear: we only have to give space to the light, follow it. The light is the compass needle … and now the mystery emerges from the mists of uncertainty: Freedom and inner realisation can only be in the now, in living today. – And at the same time a wise courage is born, not arrogance, not pusillanimity, most likely gentleness or humility, which become possible through recognition, through understanding the connections. – Is that perhaps the attitude to freedom? And freedom in the high, spiritual sense means peace, deep connectedness and happiness, radiant happiness, which makes one forget all the adversities of outer life, indeed makes one dissolve, as it were. And only the human being who is connected with his deepest self lives and feels at one with his fellow creatures … And in order to be connected with his deepest self, courage is needed, courage to be free of the old conventions and patterns.
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To be recognisable – Should the processes of renewal begin to come alive in a human being – should he or she recognise the urgent connections, the background of the world and its history, the essence, the light-of-life gain power – then such a human being can no longer help but know himself or herself to be connected with the whole of humanity. Those who experience renewal in themselves become recognisable to others.
Nothing is more healing, more contagious, than a person who has become free from all the heavy, dark conventions and prejudices of a world gone wrong. He can pass on the fire. Infect others with the joy of inner knowledge, with the joy of renewal.
Within you is a silence and a sanctuary to which you can always return (Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse). This sanctuary is the heart of the human being, there and only there do we meet our friends, our brothers and sisters who, like us, are searching for the One Whole. – Sooner or later all of humanity is called to live into the renaissance, the new birth of the fire. And it is people who have recognised and become recognisable who carry this development.