Being natural means first and foremost not suppressing yourself, your feelings, and needs. The first suppression leads to the first loss of contact with oneself. The second to the second loss and so on. And just as a small mistake or inattention can lead to a further series of mistakes and inattentions, the number of losses increases and the detachment from oneself increases and accelerates.
“The non-acceptance of one’s own nature is the only cause of the loss of our happiness and satisfaction, which we then set out to find in life in the most diverse places, without recognizing that there is nowhere to go and that the solution is within us.”
The loss of oneself, the loss of contact with oneself hurts, because we do not accept ourselves for who we are. Rejection hurts, it is traumatizing, and so we create a mechanism that allows us not to feel the pain and keep the need suppressed, because if we were to give it freedom again, it would remind us again and we would experience the pain again. This mechanism is suppression and compensation. Suppression is obvious. We lock our need and pain in the basement of the subconscious. Compensation is an illusion, an idea. The idea that I am someone else, that this new “I” does not need what was suppressed. This is how wounded people become overly tough people who never need help, those who are rejected become proud or those who do not deserve anything, are victims of circumstances, etc. This is how an illusion is created that always has its roots in rejection and pain. With each new suppression, our new “I” grows, a personality structure is created that is full of unconscious injuries and merciful lies.
“The greatest cruelty is ignorance, which stands in the way of a person discovering himself and his satisfaction.”
We are assured from all sides of the maturity of our society. Yes, in general, science, technology, medicine, and economics have created the conditions for us to live comfortable lives. Comfortable in that we do not have to expend great effort on our own physical survival. But who lives these comfortable lives? Traumatized people who are detached from themselves and do not know who they are, whose agony is further intensified by a society that creates pressure to conform, which we witness in education, work, and families, and exploits animal instincts and feelings of unfulfillment in order to profit from them in politics or business. In this respect, our society is very cruel and ignorant. Ignorance is the source of trauma, of pain, from which cruelty then emerges as compensation. Cruelty is the opposite of compassion. Ignorance breeds ignorance, just as war breeds war. Peace is an expression of acceptance, and this requires understanding, otherwise it is just a truce before the next conflict.
“Is our society really as mature as we claim it is?”
Compared to previous generations of people, we are extremely technologically advanced, but also extremely ignorant, just like in the movies where society is divided and the most technologically advanced is usually the least compassionate. We adore intellect and forget that its main function is the ability to distinguish, but try to feel with intellect. It doesn’t work and if we don’t feel, we have no depth, we lack real understanding and we don’t know anything existentially and vitally important.
“To find one’s own nature, which patiently waits within us, means to get rid of the illusion about oneself. About what we have accumulated in life.”
To find oneself means to cut through the illusion about oneself, because behind this illusion still patiently waits the whole, healthy and authentic person who was rejected and overlooked. The way to it leads through traumas, which we must recognize, release from the prison of suppression and experience what we have suppressed and did not have the courage to experience in the past, because only then will there be a real and deep understanding of who we are not and what we have caused ourselves with the great contribution and support of society.
“Not addition, but reduction. The complicated cannot live an uplifting and free life.”
One of the Renaissance artists is said to have once answered the question “How would you proceed, if you had to carve a lion out of a piece of marble?” replied that he would remove everything that did not belong to the lion. That’s exactly what we have to do. First we go piece by piece, injury by injury, illusion by illusion, and when the connection with oneself is already strong enough we can throw away the rest of the stone that imprisons us, which imprisons the truth about us, with one blow of the hammer. The blow must come from a deep understanding, desire and decision and requires great courage, because then there is no illusion left to protect us. Nothing to hide behind and defend ourselves with, but at the same time everything that is needed for deep and unshakable satisfaction.
