On Profound and Essential Change
I believe that 100 Thousand Poets for Change is much more than an “event” – that it is among the first stirrings of a powerful and joyous worldwide movement toward what South American writer, thinker and spiritual guide Silo has called “Profound and Essential Change.”
In 2004, Silo spoke these heartening words: “We are at the end of a dark period in history, and nothing will ever be the same as before. Little by little, the dawning of a new day will come. Cultures will begin to understand one another; the peoples will experience a growing yearning for progress for all, understanding that progress for the few ends up being progress for no one. Yes, there will be peace, and out of necessity it will be understood that the outline of a universal human nation is taking shape.”
Yet such a luminous future will not come without a significant number of us human beings bringing about this “Profound and Essential Change” within ourselves. I would like to share with you an excerpt from a letter that Silo wrote to a friend in 2008, discussing what such Change is, and the real possibility of achieving it in today’s world:
“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 hominids, and the possibility of essential change that is not due to simple evolutionary mechanics, or to ‘natural’ accidents, but to a direction, an intention of the human consciousness regarding itself.
“The point is that peripheral changes are making a lot of people believe that those are the changes that must be aspired to. We have to go beyond Science and Justice in order to understand this change. Indeed, as we have pointed out on several occasions, whoever works for the advance of Science and Justice is making the best of efforts to promote the overcoming of pain and suffering, facilitating the conditions for change.
“But today it is clear that even Justice and Science are being twisted into a pressured parabola in which the search for change is being oriented objectally, ignoring what is most important in essential change. This forgetting of self, this ignorance of the overcoming of one’s mental mechanics, leads us to question the possibilities of change…
“…Essential change is not possible without decisively moving in that direction. And the epoch is closing the horizon of that mental direction.
“Whoever has followed our trajectory over the years has observed that our works have been oriented in the direction of ‘simultaneous change’ [personal and social], and in Humanism this took on great strength. However, the effort toward changing our mental conditions has sometimes been 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 is living (and of course ourselves), if we do not work to overcome all censure and censorship, including what is self-imposed, throwing ourselves into the meanings and works of the Message, then 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 driving forward the evolution of the human being. Now it is urgent and we have no other way to make this impulse known.
“However, … I believe that we have some inner connection that can be communicated, and this is possible because within each of us is the unfathomable source of the Profound, from whose waters we must drink.”
*Silo’s Message – http://www.silo.net; http://www.SilosMessage.net
Poetry – the Word, written and spoken from the heart – is an experience that can open the way to the Profound. That is why 100 Thousand Poets for Change is such an inspiring and hopeful phenomenon. May it inspire many, many of us to look deep within ourselves, the only place we will find the strength, wisdom and kindness to build the peaceful and sustainable future that all beings on earth deserve, simply by being alive.