This is a summary of a conversation between two friends. One is the founder of the Humanist Movement.
Informal Conversation with Silo
Mendoza, 15th January 2008
(Notes by José S. and Marlon O.)
These points are non-textual notes. Fragments of a fragile memory that attempts to reconstruct an inspirational conversation. Its thematic structure contextualises some aspects of the moment of process in which new initiatives are emerging and Halls of Silo’s Message are multiplying.
Introduction:
The conversation started with a few comments about the last meeting of the General Assembly of GCs. The theme of the inter-node connections was highlighted and the Acrobat Connect system that is found to be in a process of being perfected. In a few months everything will be ready. It was seen to be interesting that signals were sent from the parks at La Reja and Caucaia and the connection from the halls. He commented, in addition, about the connection tests done in the previous days between the halls and specifically from Manantiales, where he was present and which worked with a system of cell cards.
The times
The contra
He referred to the advance of the parks and halls around the world, recent advances like those in Toledo, Attigliano, Red Bluff, Caucaia and others, where their development is presenting diverse characteristics. However, he dwelt on the consideration of the difficulties presented by the installation of Alexandria Park and the relationship with the contra. How do the contra arrive?... through different channels and now they come from Egypt, where we are accused of attacking morality and the good customs of Islam and working against it. Now they accuse us of being Zionists. Their way of working is always the same: first they make noise with the press, this creates the appropriate climate for the police to come and attack us, to the point that there was the deportation of one of our people who comes from Portugal.
We will not leave it there. We will withdraw for now, without leaving aside our interest in reaching these cultures, Arab, Islamic, Asian, that are millions. Not because there is resistance in the place do we have to abandon everything else. We should advance.
The contra is fundamentalist, it has no clear arguments. To have good contacts with the director of Alexandria Library has not been sufficient either. In reality, it is the same thing that has been repeated since our beginnings: a whole army to take down a hermitage. It is like something paranormal, it would seem that they sense that something is going to happen. It is not an organised question, but rather it arises simultaneously in the human consciousness. Nor is it something intentional, it is more visceral. It is they themselves who put on the self-bomb.
Destructuring
It recently started, and we have no idea what will be produced by growing destructuring. Destructuring is going to be around for a long time. It recently started, both inside and out.
The system is starting to be destabilised and strange things are starting to appear. It is no longer the times of the anti-heroes, where the husband went to work, his boss shouted at him and he bowed his head, he arrived back home, she threw the plates at him and he said nothing. We are no longer living in these times. Now we are living in times where personalities are emerging who dare to say and do interesting things. They are breaking schemes. Here are appearing strong personalities like Chavez, Evo, Correa, Ollanta and even Kirschner.
Chavez is interesting, but if he could listen he would be better. He made a mistake in his last referendum. He committed a communication error: “Homeland for everyone, socialism or death”… State socialism. Don’t say that! Don’t use phrases that produce rejection in the population and especially in young people. These are phrases that correspond to another landscape. He still doesn’t understand that his campaign was rolled out from his formation landscape. It cost him his failure with the youth who didn’t vote for him. They don’t want to hear talk of death. Different to Evo who speaks of life. Chavez doesn’t listen, the compulsion of his personality overpowers him. He must be careful with the spur of his energy. His error was in the communication… Don’t say that!... You have to locate yourself in these times! You can’t continue reproducing schemes of a world that has passed. It fulfils everything that we have said: every generation in power is out of date.
Then he commented about the incident produced by the phrase “why don’t you shut up!” being part of the surrealism of the times. This situation made things complicated for Zapatero , who of course is not a strong personality. This social democrat “is boring” as the Chileans say, he didn’t know which side to take. The situation overwhelmed him, he wasn’t expecting it, he wanted to be friendly with both of them, to make his handwriting look nice (Chilean Expression), so that his image stays good, more worried for his profile, how he will be in the photo, to always be well presented, but everything went wrong for him.
And he continued that strong personalities in negative are appearing like Bush, Aznar and Uribe who disorientate and could carry out actions, also with the support of many people.
What the President of Guatemala said when elected is interesting. He made it clear that his government will take charge of the poor because when their situation improves, “this will be good for everyone”. This proposal is very interesting as it opens possibilities to these human groups: that the poor improve their situation, is good for everyone. Not that it is bad for the power structures. On the contrary, it is good for all, because everyone would benefit, when the situation for poor people improves.
If you look at it from the productive point of view, which of course doesn’t correspond to our look, even production would improve, if the marginalised sectors are included. For example, it would be interesting to open possibilities of participation and expression of women who are 50% of the population. Half of the global population has been left to one side. The same with young people, who have historically had their possibilities of expression closed. This is bad for everyone. It is the oppression over half the production: women, workers, young people. It is the closing off of human consciousness. If someone says that something is good for everyone, it also means that what is bad for some is also bad for everyone.
Globalisation is characterised by the effects of destructuring. Countries are destructuring, but also the USA. For them it is good that countries disappear, apart from theirs. They don’t want to see that destructuring also reaches them.
Disturbances
These times are characterised by disturbances. It is the time of the disillusioned soul (Ortega y Gasset). The revolution is not fed by things that happen, but rather by profound changes that occur in the consciousness. There is a moment in revolutions in which there is a struggle against someone, against an unjust system; people protest against abuses of this unjust system. After the demands against oppression, come the denouncements against their uses. People protest against the uses of the times, not against the abuses. So it is when social disturbances are produced and the strange things that sociologists don’t know how to explain.
The Media
The TV in its dynamic has diversified, it is also part of the destructuring: before there was only one channel; then various, subsequently Cable TV; and now a great multiplication of alternative websites.
The media has been democratised, but through people pressure. They have been obliged to do so in order to remain with customers. The ratings have marked a turning point. In their polls they have discovered what people want to see and they have adapted to the demand. Who is interested in producing programmes that no one sees? That’s why they had to adapt and this is part of the destructuring. They have not wanted to sidestep the people. The ratings are at the base of this democratisation of the media.
Fall of ideologies:
In front of the fall of ideologies, dogma appears and then come the slogans. Now they take the few loose ideas that remain. Slogans today are supplanting ideologies. Slogans are put together, adding some to others, producing some strange mixtures. They are mixing something that worked in one thing with others. For example, they take “quality of life” and mix it with another slogan that may have worked, until they obtain a marketing product.
Control of the system:
The Human being is living inside a system that is tending to control it and prevent its expression. The consciousness of the human being is trapped in self-censorship, censorship and the control that this system exercises over people. The system impedes people’s expression. It fixes conduct, behaviours, ways of thinking and being. It tries to maintain and fix things from a world that has already passed. People in power are tending to reproduce these schemes and models of conduct in which they were formed and that correspond to a world that has already passed. It tries to control, to exercise control and thereby to oppress human consciousness.
In his moment, Gorbachev made a contribution. He allowed the opening of the Soviet State, facilitating the conditions for these human beings to be able to liberate themselves from this oppressive system.
The contribution of Luther , was in the same direction. He opened the reflection in front of a dogmatic religion. He opened the doors to free interpretation. He tried to liberate the believer of institutionalised religion from the control of the church.
The same things happened in China. “Let a thousand flowers bloom” and then Mao appeared and his followers monopolized them.
On the other hand Rationalism has not has not yet passed the test of History… Its censorship has affected the human process. The inquisition of other times, is not the only thing that has had an affect, but also and with greater seriousness, rationalism.
The profound
PdV has its nocturnal view. The appropriate lights. They are very gentle. We are not talking about lights like the ones in Las Vegas (lights in the desert). That doesn’t arrive. We are interested in reaching and connecting with more interesting spaces. Why do things that are already done? What’s the point? We have to do things that are not done, intangibles, that hit against other intangible, yet existing, worlds. This gentle thing reaches and connects with those other worlds that exist in each person, but that you cannot see.
There is an inner world that moves things. There are worlds that are there although they can’t be seen. There are internal states from where things are inspired. And if not, from where do poetry, painting, and great actions come, if not from these states? They aren’t done by people to whom nothing happens on the inside. They were people who did things with a lot of strength and from there they brought great changes or produced things with such strength that they changed the course of things and of their times.
The historical changes happen when human consciousness connects with the profound and it is from here where evolutionary changes and steps are made, the other things that “history” teaches us are anecdotes. What moves history is this inner motor. It is from the profound that inspirational things happen.
There is something that moves things, something that you can’t see. People describe things, but they don’t notice what moves them. You describe the car, the wheels, the steering wheel, etc but you don’t notice the motor. It is this motor that moves the car.
But, how can I connect with the profound if my mind is restless, my heart troubled and my body tense?
The inspired consciousness
People can connect with other states of consciousness, like the inspired consciousness. It is a way of being in the world. They are structurations of consciousness. More profound states, from which something more interesting for the human being can emerge. States that if they are connected between people, can produce a sort of contagion, although the word contagion is not correct, because it is more associated with illnesses, but it is a phenomenon of transmission that can allow the human consciousness, trapped by this system, to be liberated. It is from the emergence of this inspired consciousness that can appear new evolutionary possibilities for the human being. It is a theme to go deeper in. We already referred to it in Psychology IV.
Translation of signals of the profound
There are moments in which one connects with certain states that they didn’t know they had in them. They are states that move you, many things move you. It is important to attend to the signals of the profound in oneself, how these signals are expressed and translated in the world. How are these signals given by the consciousness translated? They can be translated with kindness but also they can be translated negatively. Hopefully this translation may open towards the positive.
In any case, even when they end up being expressed negatively in the world, life will continue opening the way as it has done throughout history. Life expresses itself and opens the way and the consciousness has advanced, life has grown. We can see the positive and also the negative.
Other expressions of the profound:
In the indigenous culture, Pachamama, Mother Earth or Mother Nature, is very important. And so, as nature allows us to connect with states of inner peace, when we contemplate it and it allows us to connect ourselves with this inner world, with this register of peace with nature, in the indigenous world the same thing also happens. Surely they experience this love for nature when they evoke their Pachamama.
Their shamans for example carry out certain practices; they put themselves in a certain way in order to connect with their inner world. It’s good how they do it, how they connect. Shamanism is the most widespread religion on the earth, although they say it isn’t. They carry out certain ceremonies like the ones they did together with us in Tiahuanaco, prior to the Regional Forum. They carry out their ceremonies and we also did ours and very good. No problem to share with indigenous people ceremonies in our halls.
It is interesting how in the field of cultural anthropology and only in this speciality, they have advanced in their interest in what happens within cultures, and not only externally. It is interesting that they are going into what happens internally in people.
Females:
The Pachamama or Mother Earth is also a feminine entity.
It could be very interesting to open the doors for them to participate in our halls. Females, young women, very interesting their protagonism. They have demonstrated it. They have qualities to take things forward.
To open participation to women is very important. It is the moment of females, not of males. Females go and men cry. Females have the future assured. It is the moment for females. It is the moment for the mothers’ revolution. It is sure that there is everything between females and males. There are also bad copies that try to reproduce the male model, like certain female executives. But of course it’s not all of them. This is understandable, because now is their moment after centuries of oppression.
The vocational
To not kick aside the spur of the vocational in oneself, to not suffocate the vocation in oneself as this is the inner voice that is searching a way forward. To develop the vocation in oneself is to generate conditions to produce inspiration in human consciousness, this is good for everyone. The vocational allows you to channel energy towards the world because you are part of it, let everyone develop their vocation in the social, artistic, cultural fields, etc where ever you like, don’t hold it back. It is important to compare the experience of some with others, the comparison is important.
Don’t kick aside the spur of your vocation; don’t stop listening to your inner voice. Everyone has their own vocation, in different fields. Don’t suffocate your vocation.
Purpose
You must differentiate two types of purpose. The purpose of life, that has to do with your own dynamic that you don’t need to worry about, because it doesn’t depend on you. This purpose goes on by itself and takes care that life advances and the other purpose that is more intentional. The intentional Purpose has to do with what I visualised previously, with what I want to do and decide to do and then act co-presently; once you clarify your purpose, it will continue to operate on you co-presently even though you are no longer thinking about it. After defining it precisely, you release it so that it may act co-presently. It is different to aspiration; the latter does not have the strength that purpose has.
Personal crisis and Message
Collapse of beliefs
When you realise that you are not going anywhere, you search experience.
If your beliefs collapse, they will not be internally reconstructed through reconstructive arguing. Some use another mechanism: “have faith”, but we go with the Message, through Ceremonies. We are trying to create conditions to facilitate things, we are not putting up fences; on top of the fact that people are not well, we cannot put more obstacles.
In front of personal crises, to work with what is proposed in the Message, here is the essential, let the mental direction be reordered and reorganised. To go deeper into the procedures and the practices proposed in the Message and hopefully accompanied by others.
Everyone can reach the sensation of crisis through various ways. Everyone can reach these states through different paths. Everyone is living the crisis in their own time, everyone is in their moment, you can’t do anything from outside.
The message counts on a system of small tools so that people can immerse themselves in their internal experience. We need to learn to interchange what happens to us with others, with our friends. With a friend we can develop a same level of interchange because we have the same pre-predicates. About ones own themes, one talks with friends. It is not a discussion of ideas, nor a dialogue of knowledge. We mean an interchange of experiences, where we are all enriched, one is enriched by the experience of the other, it happens differently to the other, and vice versa. Interchange is based on an affectionate tone, in a reciprocal intention to help to improve things, connected by a mental direction. In the way I put myself internally in front of you, I suppose that you do the same. From this internal posture, is born the interchange with the same pre-predicates. One would have to work in this dimension of the personal. Because the vocational allows you to work in the world, in the social, but to channel your mental direction is something that is achieved with internal work.
How to read the book of the Message
He emphasises its format. Hard cover and new type of edition (he shows us the Argentine edition). It is not a book to read on the move. There are pages with little writing, with a lot of blank space. It is meant to be read page by page, paragraph by paragraph and to meditate. To take your time. Without hurry.
Parks and Halls
Punta de Vacas Park:
The characteristic of Punta de Vacas is that alongside runs the road along which a lot of transport travels that connects Brazil, Argentina, Chile. As it is a point of connection and business interchange between countries, the roads are maintained. They clear the roads quickly if there is snow for example. There are machines that pass by cleaning the road and in two days it’s done. In this sense we are well looked after when we speak of road cleaning.
But this happens outside PdV, within the park, we have to look after it ourselves. The place where the park is built is not easy. There are 240km/h winds. They are strong winds. To build a park in these conditions is very hard. The wind has taken various things, among them a door that it uprooted with bricks and everything. They are difficult conditions that arise in certain times of the year. The “skull has white bones” (in reference to who puts themselves in something has to take responsibility). No good crying about it. The conditions are strong, complicated and we are responding with gentleness, we are putting gentle lights…
People say to you, and why has it been built so far away… And you’d prefer we did it in front of your house? You cross the road and there it is, what’s that about? The challenge is important. Everything that is difficult has value. If you put it in front of your house, what importance does it have?
Adaptation of the halls
In reality they are born from a state of inspiration in those who want to set things in motion. They are adapted to each place and are built in accordance with the conditions of each point. Some will start with the land and then the monolith as they have done in Red Bluff. Others with the facilities that they may already have. The people of each place participate. There are parks that present different degrees of complexity and technology in the construction. They are adapted to each place. In accordance with the conditions of each point. From free interpretation and free organisation, the people see how they can do it and with what materials.
Functioning of the parks:
The parks are conditions from which a reference irradiates. They are not called the same thing in all places. For example in India they are called Ashrams, which means: Cultural Centres.
The human consciousness comes equipped, it has the instrument, the equipment, but in order to be able to take a leap and do it, it needs conditions. We are working on the creation of conditions so that change happens, not the carrying out of those changes.
The parks and the halls aim to create the conditions so that the profound can express itself; they are the catalyst for inner experience. Nothing controlled, many ways of organisation and interpretation, just like the Message works.
They are ambits where it’s a question of creating conditions that will help the human consciousness express itself and for that it is necessary to generate environments, places where the people can compare, interchange, and find out that there are others who are and who feel as they do, so that they can jointly inspire each other, and find solutions together. This is the function that the Halls and the Parks fulfill.
The halls are a nuclear reactor.
Change
Disillusioned consciousness
We are experiencing what Ortega y Gasset called the epoch of the disillusioned consciousness, the epoch in which dogs howl at the moon asking for something, and they don't know exactly what it is. That is exactly the dangerous part because they tend to grab onto anything however hot it may be.
If I don’t have the answer to the question “Where am I going?” it may be that there is someone who will tell me the answer (a strong personality, for example), although it can also happen that ones dependence becomes evident and one decides to break away from this dependence advancing toward the inner world. This should be studied.
The issue is what opening will there be for us. What possibilities of change do we have.
The essential:
In this point he reads and places special emphasis on each paragraph of the Letter sent to David a few days before:
Yes, approximately 10 days ago there were some nice dinners in Manantiales, and at one of them we touched on this theme, which it seems to me important to consider.
Is profound and essential change possible in the human being? Yes, I believe it is, but I distinguish between that undeniable but slow change that began in the first humanoids, and the possibility of change that isn’t thanks to a simple evolutionary mechanic, nor to "natural" accidents, but to a direction, an intention of the human consciousness regarding itself.
The point is that the peripheral changes are making a lot of people think that these are the changes we must aspire to. We have to go beyond Science and Justice to understand this change. In fact, as we have emphasized on several occasions, whoever works for the advance of Science and Justice makes the greatest effort to facilitate the overcoming of pain and suffering, facilitating the conditions for change. But it is clear that even Justice and Science are being twisted in a hurried parabola in which the search for change is being oriented objectively, ignoring what is most important about essential change. This forgetting of self, this ignorance of the overcoming of mental mechanics, leads us to question the possibilities of change...
And here we arrive at the point of this disquieting but healthful evening, in which we were able to say: Essential change is not possible without moving clearly in that direction. And the epoch is closing the horizon of that mental direction.
Whoever has followed our trajectory for several years has observed that our work has been oriented toward “simultaneous change” and in Humanism this took on great strength. However, the effort toward changing our mental conditions has been sometimes weak and sometimes intermittent.
I put the argument in a way that is somewhat harsh: Everything that has been done up to this moment has great meaning, but it will not be enough until the people (even the nicest and kindest) decide to Convert their lives, realizing the need for a profound mental change. It is of this that our work speaks in its last phase; it is of this that the Message speaks.
I believe that in the current situation in which Humanity finds itself (and of course this includes us too), if we do not work to overcome all censure and self-censure, throwing ourselves into the meanings and works of the Message, essential change will not be possible. The direction must be toward the Profound of the consciousness to connect with the meanings that have been slowly pressing forward the evolution of the human being. Now it is urgent and we no longer have a way to make this impulse known.
When we spoke at that dinner of the difficulties that the human mind is facing, disheartenment blew like an icy wind among those present. We were left with the sensation that this way, submerged in our humanity, we are not penetrating into the Profound and if that doesn’t happen, Change is not possible. That was the saddest part of that talk, to which people replied with a certain stoicism: "... “What you say is not very hopeful!”
However, going beyond the anecdote, I believe that we have some inner connection that can be communicated, and this is possible because in each of us is the unfathomable source of the Profound, of whose waters we must drink.
My dear David, I believe that many grasped the gravity of the current moment and your letter is a reflection of what happened and has not yet stopped.
I send you the most affectionate hug,
Silo
Clarification about the big scare:
This has nothing to do with announcing a catastrophe. It’s something else. It’s important to mention it so that people don’t believe that the change will come about mechanically. There is something that must be done intentionally, after registering this big scare internally.
The human being is endowed for change
The backpack:
The human being is endowed with what he needs. He has his backpack. His consciousness has everything.
The equipment is in everyone, we all have a backpack that contains the same equipment. We need to learn to use what is in the backpack. Why are you carrying this backpack? You haven’t even seen what's inside it, that’s why you haven’t used it. And you can say: but there are chocolates in there, and I’m not hungry! It’s fine that at this moment you aren’t hungry, but you will be hungry at some point. Better to remember that we all have the same “equipment,” the consciousness is equipped.
We have various interesting mechanisms, one of them being the guide.
The Guide
This is an issue with several layers, you can see it in different ways. The guide may also be a strong personality, these act as references in the face of a collective need, hopefully they will go in a good direction, if not we have a violent fundamentalist or something like that. It doesn’t matter if it has an image or not, but it should have a register, that gives one the sensation that it really exists. The important thing is that it fulfill the inner function, it has to do with the epoch even if it is a cenesthetic representation of something that dwells within you.
The Asking
This is another very interesting mechanism. In some cases you don’t even know whom you are asking, but you ask without even knowing where the requests are going. The asking is a very old mechanism. It has been used since the very beginnings of the human process when the people made use of it. Internally it has meaning and a certain direction, therefore it must be treated delicately. It is a mechanism that is part of the backpack. The interesting thing is that once the asking has been made, it keeps on acting in co-presence. “Hopefully…”, “Oh Allah, please…”, "Oh God, please…”. There is something very interesting that happens when you do an asking, you recognize when someone is sincerely asking something for you, for example: “I ask for things to go well for you."
The Ceremonies:
In the ceremonies many mechanisms are in motion that are within reach of the people. The ceremonies and the asking are in society and have been there since ancient times, they are mechanisms that the people understand. A mechanism is set in motion because we know its function. They are mental zones that are a little out of time, time doesn’t happen there. That is why we are touching on those structures, but they have to be genuine; if it doesn’t work, or doesn’t ring true, better not to force it.
Our thing – what it is…
The traditional in religions doesn’t go toward the profound, it’s an “as if.”
What we do keeps opening up as a way of being in the world, it’s like a mental structure. The structure of the wretched, unfortunate consciousness is no more – now it’s the structure of the inspired consciousness that seeks to open its way in the world of the worn-out, the gray, behind the signal lights that keep changing from red to green, and from green to red, day after day; behind the loss of meaning. The inspired consciousness is very much linked to meaning. What we are experiencing right now is not what will take us to other worlds. From “I have my feet on the ground,” the inspired consciousness isn't possible, there's no commotion. When one is in inspired consciousness, one is moved, is stirred.
Today we want to escape from the non-meaning, from the nothingness. We are in another historic and psychological instance. We are not going the way of explaining things, this doesn’t work with explanations. Not because the explanatory reflex is not important, but because in this realm it is not necessary. In fact there are areas in which the explanatory reflex is important, but in the realm in which one registers non-meaning and one wants to advance towards meaning, that is not the way. What we do doesn’t go through the explanatory route, don’t do it that way, it won’t work.
At the present moment there is no method. It’s not like in other epochs when a method gave direction to whoever believed in it, independently of whether you were in agreement or not with that vision. Dialectical materialism, with its thesis, antithesis and synthesis, at least gave direction to those who believed in it. And what does a method have to do with a revolution? It gives direction.
Today on the contrary, the logic is the logic of destructuration, of incoherence. With that people are experiencing and registering that progressive disintegration. That is how its reveries and aspirations, such as that of unity, can be understood. The search for integration among the peoples comes from there, it is a translation of that need for internal integration, for feeling internal cohesion, internal unity, in the face of their growing register of psychological disintegration.
The people don’t organize what is happening to them, they have a salad in their head. The current logic is the logic of slogans. Everything is reduced to slogans that are repeated in books, on TV, etc. but you can’t deal with everything with slogans. The social climate is full of slogans. The ideologies were full of slogans, but today those things are no longer said; they are no longer said for considerations of convenience and social coexistence.
Ours is a different logic, it's a logic that takes into account not only what is seen but also what is not seen, the co-presences. It’s a way of doing things that will influence the direction of what is going to be happening. The way of organizing determines the way of being in the world.
The inner religion doesn’t need any of those things, it generates a great void as Hegel said: “God expresses himself as a void.” It’s almost the way it's proposed in Buddhism, although Buddhism arose as an interesting proposal and then everything ended up as a religion.
The religions have made a show of reaching the interiority of the human being, but have not achieved it.
The gods are very far away, the route of the gods is not the way, it's very complicated to arrive at the gods. The gods don’t listen to us. The human being has had moments in which he has been able to find his own answers and his own solutions.
He ends up in a drama through the suffering that oppression produces. Through the pain that the conditions of life bring about. Through injustice, through what some do to others, through everything done by those who provoke suffering. Those who do things to overcome the conditions of suffering in human beings do their part, create conditions. They aren’t going to resolve things for the people, but they are creating conditions. Good for those who work for that.
Epilogue
It's 10 at night. All this time we have been moving from one place in Mendoza to another with our wonderful host: his office, the café, the city, San Martin Park, his house in Chacras de Coria, and back to his office. We end the visit with the re-sending of the letter to David that he kindly sends us over the Internet. On the road after saying goodbye, we reflect: the virtual message has already gone… where will it be now?... In some place where it can’t be seen, but it exists…
The next day we take the bus from Mendoza to Punta de Vacas Park. We decide to stay there a few hours, before continuing on to Santiago and then Quito. As we ride along we try to reconstruct part of that inspiring conversation. While we are conversing, I feel someone looking at us with her eyes lit up, listening to us very attentively. In a moment of silence, the girl in the seat across from us comments:
- I’ve been listening to your conversation… I’m very interested in what you're saying about the non-meaning and the profound...
We begin talking and in a few minutes we already feel "the contagion." She tells us she is on a search. She is going to Uspallata to Emilio’s community. She’s from Buenos Aires, she's about to finish her last year in Political Science, and she tells us of her anxiety: “there is no meaning.”
We invite her to come with us for a few hours to Punta de Vacas Park. She agrees and stays with us the whole time. She listens attentively to the story of the hermitage. Then we invite her to the hall to do the Ceremony of the Service. She puts herself in the appropriate attitude. Then she does the asking and finally we give each other a heartfelt hug.
We finish by eating something at the Plaza of the Stelas… and finally we get ready to say goodbye. We ask her one final question: What did you like most about this experience?... and she answers: the ceremony! Then we exchange information and addresses and she reminds us: For sure we’ll see each other in 2010!
