Three main rapports are possible in the relationships between man and the world. These relationships, if understood as golden rules, in the sense of being subject to a precise Law, can be seen as three states of experience with which the Being experiences itself.
- Man confused and lost in the world
- Man rejected and alienated from the world
- Man in the world but not of the world
In the first two relationships, man, identified in the structure that shapes his facade personality, is split from his own Essence and confused in the world of appearances. In the third relationship, man awakened to his Essence is in the world but not of the world.
In the first relationship we find the man who is identified and lost in the world. This is the most common state of modern man, totally identified with the external forms of the surrounding world and therefore dissolved in all the accidents and beliefs of this world. This man is not aware of wandering in total confusion, of being split from his true Essence. Subjected to the flow of time, pathologically ill with the future, he runs all day to start running again the next day, until, at the end of his strength, his body demands or imposes a necessary break. Beyond his good intentions, the goal that moves him is the same as always: to compete and fight to catch a “chicken” for lunch, and if the craving is not satisfied, to compete and fight to catch a “hen” for dinner. This type of man belongs to the category of the “hallucinated” ones. The key values of this type of man lost in the world are Power, Money and Sex, and the corresponding competition to fill the lack of them.
In the second relationship we find the man who is rejected and alienated from the world. This is the man incapable of adhering to a social scheme, unsuitable or inadequate to the social and cultural standards of the time, an outcast, in the worst version perhaps an alien, a bum, and in the best version an anchorite or a hermit; in all cases he no longer participates in the world: the world has completely rejected him, exiled him, marginalized him and forgotten him. This type of man belongs to the caste of the “forgotten” ones. The values of this type of man are Independence, Autonomy, Survival, Adaptation, and the various ways to obtain them.
In the third relationship there is the relationship that interests us the most: the man in the world but not of this world. This third and particular man-world relationship is excellently cited in the Gospels with the parable: “I am in the world, but I am not of this world“.
This type of man participates in the life of the world by remembering himself, that is, by keeping alive the consxiousness of his own Essence: he is alert and awake; how many times in the Gospels is the word used: Wake up, Stay awake!
This man makes use of new techniques and the opportunities they offer, he knows how to integrate them into his life because he has a purpose. This man in his exteriority is turned towards the Elsewhere, because internally his gaze scrutinizes the Beyond. He is beyond the known, beyond everyday life and ordinariness, because he has transcended conventions and integrated the interpretations dictated by personal points of view. Bold, he is often on a border line; he cultivates Peace and practices healthy Madness. This man is initiated into Art, because he experiments and works in the world through the Mysticism of his innate art. In a state of consxiousness of shared detachment, he is beyond good and evil, for this reason he avoids falling into the net into which men lost in the world and men rejected by the world have fallen. This man is the after-man, the Christic entity without a cross, he who after hard Work has awakened to the very source of Life, source and wellspring of Living Thought. This is the one who the moral rule, followed and defended by the crowd, labels as crazy or defines as an idiot.
“The word ‘idiot’ has two meanings: the true meaning, which was given to it by the ancient sages, was ‘to be oneself’. A man who is himself looks and acts like a fool to those who live in the world of illusions, so when they call a man an idiot, they mean that he does not share their illusions. Anyone who decides to work on himself is an idiot in both senses. The wise man knows that he is seeking reality. The fool thinks that he has gone mad. We here presume to seek reality, therefore we should all be idiots: but no one can make you an idiot.
You must choose it yourself.”
E. Bennet – Idiots in Paris (from a quote by G.I. Gurdjieff)
