I concluded the previous article by stating a presumption: “The human being has the opportunity to know the landmarks of Life and to tune in to them, if we learn to look deeply, widely, comprehensively.”
Could this be a beacon paradigm, guiding society in uncertain times, illuminating a path of navigation through the sirens’ songs of the human Odyssey?
“The path that forces you to face the world with integrity”~, as I concluded the first article in the series aimed at introducing the “Sustainable Community Pădureni” project, recognizing its purpose and opportunities gradually and naturally.
How can we, as humans, have a focus aligned with Life? How can we see and understand the World, Life, the Universe, as they are, balanced in meaning and manifestation?”
What are the landmarks of Life, of Existence, that can draw our attention, focus, and consequently, the reality with Life itself?
To begin with, by learning to understand the dual nature of a part of our minds, the two faces of the same coin, the two poles between which a part of the human mind constantly oscillates in the search for unity.
Each face of the same coin, like the two hemispheres of the same brain, each pole – plus-minus, up-down, left-right, good-bad, pleasure-pain, easy-hard, represents a landmark that indicates the All to me at every moment, it shows me at the same moment, in the same here and now, that the opposite pole co-exists, that Life is All(all actual occurrence, both tangible and intangible), and I, as a human, have the opportunity to see and know it in its Allness.
Money has two faces at the same time, physically and in its significance. It is “good” in many ways, by facilitating exchanges, by creating a perception of stability, by being a standard, and it is “bad” in just as many ways, by limiting interpersonal interactions, by creating a perception of stability while simultaneously keeping us in limiting comfort, by being a standard that confines vision to its frame, and so on.
Chocolate is “good” because it is sweet; a bit of chocolate brings precious sugar or sweetens life when perceived as bitter. It is “bad” because it is sweet; more chocolate brings excess sugar and addiction or sweetens life when perceived as bitter, and I don’t see how life is sweet at the same moment I perceive it as bitter.
The systems created by humans are dual, just like the age-old pro and contra religious debates, or those pro and contra of the moment: vegan-omnivore, with mask-without mask, virtual-palpable/biological, science-pseudoscience. Almost every thought, decision, and action of humans carries within itself its opposite pole.
And it is only natural and important to know that it is so.
Attachments to one of the poles that one part of the mind constructs in the constant search for prey without a predator and the „easy” without the „hard” are the ones that limit us and are responsible for the profound identity crisis about which I wrote in the first two articles.
“The path that forces you to face the world with integrity” is a path to balance, to the constant rediscovery of the middle ground between the two poles, through which we usually pass so quickly in the constant bouncing of the mind that we rarely notice.
Balance cannot be forced, imposed, or obtained; it is a state that becomes natural at some point because it is linked to our perceptions. We are our perceptions, which also means that we are limited by them and that we understand Life within their limits.
If the existence of a human being means their perceptions of Life and not what Life is in its Allness, we can assume that personal landmarks are limiting and often different from those of Life, of the entire Existence.
Existence landmarks become visible by expanding presence, building it day by day, moment by moment, through each intentionally breathed here and now, through clear and precise information, through understanding how universal laws manifest and especially through placing this understanding in everyday life, through integrating polarities and the reality that everything makes sense in the All, every atom, thought, meeting, action, or inaction forms, deforms, and reforms.
Thus, the words in the “thousand ways” of Existence can be understood.
It is complex and not easy at all because we have not been taught to look at Life in this way, and we have not had the correct landmarks to be able to see the All as it is. It is simple in essence, with the addition that simplicity is equally complex, and, most of the time, especially not easy for the human mind.
Today, more than ever, we have the opportunity to learn to look deeper, wider, more comprehensively, and this is one of the objectives of the Pădureni Community project.
Everything I have written above is known and approached in various ways and through various systems, and, fortunately, by more and more people and organizations.
Remodeling old approaches like “Regenerative thinking, cultures, systems” in the search for balancing the concept of Sustainability, Professor Alan Rayner‘s inspiring “Natural Inclusion” about which he has been talking dedicatedly for more than 20 years, the exceptional studies of Professor Suzanne Simard, the author of the book “Finding the Mother Tree” about how fungi and roots facilitate communication and interaction between the trees and plants of an ecosystem, or the books of forester Peter Wohlleben, which show how everything is interconnected in ways we know very little or nothing about, are a few recent examples.
It’s worth asking ourselves, if trees, forests, and plants are so deeply interconnected, support each other, and communicate in ways science has not imagined until now, how are humans interconnected differently than we are accustomed to understanding today?
How are humans interconnected with the surrounding environment, with All, and how can we perceive this interdependent connection?
Is it an interdependent connection, or are we simply… All? If everything is energy, how can we “think” like this in everyday life?
We live in blessed times, moments of humanity’s shift as we probably have never had the opportunity to see and understand as a society before.
Therefore, the Sustainable Community Pădureni project is one of the projects that has a “purpose”, “mission”, and everything that is today natural to be requested and sought, so that it can receive society’s support.
It is also probably one of the few that, in addition to the goal of sustainable housing and living, has the goal of “purposeless” research. The research goal is designed to provide participants with the motivation and means (clear and precise information, aligned with Life) to accept the daily challenge of conscious living, shaping and growing personal and communal presence space, and constant observation of a fractal formed by human beings dedicated to a journey.
Thus, after sufficiently relevant cycles of 7-9-12 years, we hope to offer conclusions on this particular case, as we cannot fit the project within the limits that science currently outlines for the research concept.
It remains for us to continue, in the following articles, to look at possible living in the Pădureni Community from various perspectives.