A NEW FUTURE

Dear Friends,

The current society is on the edge of an abyss while another society is taking shape in the sensitivity, behaviour and in the consciousness of ever-growing human groups.
In order to avoid that the world plummets into barbarism before another world has the chance to be born, it is necessary to unite all the people who feel the need for a profound change in a great project of personal and social change.

Discussion:
- Do I feel the need for a profound change in society, values, and relationships between people?
- What can I do to contribute to make this happen?

Guided Experience: The Time Machine

Interest: What we believe about the future is a belief, not a fact. The future has not been decided yet, but it is built through our choices. Nonetheless, our beliefs about the future, whether positive or negative, condition our way of thinking, feeling, and acting. For this reason, it is important to have faith in our future, in the future of the people around us, and in humanity in general. This will make us, as well as those around us, live better and it will increase the possibilities that such a future really happens.

Guided Experience: The Time Machine

My friend and I are part of a group visiting the most advanced technological research centre around. The guide leads us through rooms and laboratories, explaining to us in simple terms the research in progress, and the progress made. (*)

My friend and I lag behind to comment on the devices. Suddenly, a smiling old man appears before us. He has long hair and a beard that's white as snow. He must be one of the scientists, since he is wearing a white smock with a name-tag on his chest that says: "Faith Engineer". I feel that we've already met, but I couldn't say when or where. (*)

The old man invites us to follow him; after a moment of hesitation we obey, going up a staircase and then along a corridor until we reach the entry to a laboratory. The old man puts his hand on a lighted plate, and the heavy metallic door opens with a sigh, to close on its own once we have entered. (*)

The room is very large and well-lit, and it doesn't have other exits or windows. I observe a wall covered with highly sophisticated equipment. The screens show graphics in various colours, and the panels shine with moving lights. Strange buttons and controls defy our imagination. In the middle of the room there is a kind of big, white egg mounted on a platform, made of plastic, steel, or some other unknown material. I see that this capsule has an entry hatch with a small window. (*)

The old man explains that this is his "toy", the most advanced research of the time, and he invites us to try it. My mouth drops open: I wasn't expecting something like this. Nonetheless, I realise that it is a unique opportunity. I could solve a problem that worries me, and learn something that is worth knowing: what is the future of humanity? What will the outcome of these difficult times be? Will things get worse or better? (*)

I decide to try. I tell the old man, who nods and invites me to take my place in the capsule. Then he closes the hatch and we communicate through an intercom. I am comfortably seated in a kind of padded chair that fits the edge of my body. I put on a strange pair of gloves and a helmet, inside of which there is a kind of curved television screen. For the moment, I only see a white light, and I realise that everything is connected to the lab's equipment. (*)

I feel a vibration throughout my whole body, and for a moment, I feel a pleasant sensation of mental change disorients me. Then a scene starts to take shape: people and places, known and unknown, appear and move around me. I am not sure if I am only perceiving it or if I am really there. I see confusion and uncertainty everywhere. I am aware of the growing unemployment and the misery of millions of people, of mental illnesses, of drugs and suicide. I see the increase in crime mixed with the economic crisis, the social tumult and the wars. Individualism is rampant, and people take refuge in ever smaller "islands" or in meaningless search for pleasure. I see all of this whirlwind without being able to do anything about it. (*)

How far away am I from my time? What period am I seeing? Thousands of people celebrate in the main square of an unknown city while fireworks rise into the dark sky and a giant screen announces the coming of a new year. I realise that this is the end of the old; we have touched the turning point. (*)

While I continue to spy on the future, I notice things that I missed before, absorbed as I was by the negative stuff. I see Life that agitates everywhere, among the rubble of the old, destroyed world; I see ordinary people who move towards each other, holding hands and then opening themselves up to others with a new solidarity. I intuit that a new sensitivity is developing simultaneously all over the world in a chain reaction that is gaining strength. A new meaning is rising, and the darkness is dissipating. It is the end of the human being's infancy -- the end of the violent pre-history. I see how new bonds are formed. Positive events, unthinkable until now, start to happen, until the heritage of humanity is finally divided among everyone. It is the dawn of a new era, the dawn of the universal human nation. (*)

I am moved by this indescribable scene, and from the bottom of my heart, expanding in all directions, something good is freed, that brings me beyond my old being. I let myself go in this experience and all the forms melt in a pure light, in a silence without time. (*)

I take off the helmet, the gloves, and the rest. When I get out of the capsule, the old man says: "Now, if you will excuse me, I must leave you. By the way: now and always, everything depends on the choices you make." He says good-bye with a nod of his head, and quickly goes out. After a brief hesitation, we also leave. At the bottom of the stairs we meet our group's guide, who asks us with reproof: "Where did you disappear to? I looked for you everywhere!"

"We were upstairs, in the laboratory of the Faith Engineer," my friend explains.

"Come on! I know all the scientists in this place, and there is no one with that name. In addition, the upper levels only have empty rooms, that will be assigned to future projects."

"Oh yeah?" my friend and I say together. Then we break out laughing. The guide looks at us as if we are crazy, then he slowly steps back, turns, and nervously goes away from us to return to the group.

We follow him and rejoin the others. Thousands of questions buzz through my mind, but my heart is swollen with renewed faith, strong and positive, ready to spill over into everyday life. (*)


Scepticism

Scepticism comes out in a pessimistic attitude towards life and the future, in the negation of the possibility of changing and resolving situations. The sceptic usually acts as though they are rationally superior to those who look for new paths, and he or she degrades and ridicules the searcher's attempts by pitting "it's not possible" against hope.

Discussion:
- What effect does the scepticism of others produce in me, in particular when it is aimed at something important to me?
- Do I ever take on a sceptical attitude towards other proposals and initiatives? How do I feel when that happens?

Guided Experience: The Ascent

Interest: The problems that come up when one tries to make images "rise" indicate the anguish of not being able to reach an objective and worry about an uncertain future. Being able to move these images can help orient behaviour in a positive direction.

THE ASCENT

It is daytime. I see a house, and enter it. Slowly I begin to climb some stairs. I reach the second floor and continue to go up until I am on a roof terrace.
I see a metal spiral staircase. It does not have a protective handrail. I have to climb it to reach a platform on top of a water tank. I go up the staircase calmly.
Now I am standing on top of the water tank. Its platform is quite small. The whole structure I am standing on shakes in the gusting wind. (*)
I go near the edge. Down below me I see the roof of the house. I feel pulled by the empty space, but I calm myself and continue looking. I let my gaze wander over the landscape. (*)
Above me there is a helicopter which lets down a rope ladder. The rungs of this ladder are made of wood. I grab hold of it and put both feet on the lowest rung. The helicopter slowly begins to ascend. Below me I see the water tank becoming smaller and smaller. (*)
I climb up the ladder until I reach the door of the helicopter and I try to open the door, but it is stuck. I look down. (*)
The metal door slides open. A young pilot reaches out and gives me a hand. I enter the helicopter, and we begin to ascend very rapidly.
Someone announces that the engine is failing. I hear the sound of grinding machinery. The rotor blades become stuck. We begin to lose altitude faster and faster.
Parachutes are passed out, and the two pilots jump out into space. I am standing in the doorway. We are falling dizzily.
I decide to jump. I fall out facing downwards. The acceleration makes it hard to breathe. I pull on the release cord, and the parachute opens in a great white sheet above me. I feel a strong jolt and a bounce as the parachute brakes my fall.
I have to try to land on top of the water tank. Otherwise I will fall into some high-tension electricity cables, or else into some pine trees, whose top branches are waiting like upturned needles. I guide the parachute by pulling on the cords. Fortunately, the wind is helping me. (*)
I fall on top of the tank, and roll towards the edge. The parachute covers me. I untangle myself from it, and see how messily it falls.
I get to my feet again, and slowly begin to go down the spiral staircase. I reach the roof of the house, and descend the stair to the second floor. I continue to descend until I reach the first floor. I do so without hurrying. I am on the ground floor of the house. I go towards the door, open it, and leave.

HUMAN INTENTIONALITY

Framework:

Since human value is so central to us, it is interesting to clarify what we understand makes us human. Also our particular values because there are many human characteristics that although they are valuable they are not exclusives to us.

For example: feelings. They can be something very noble, but they are not exclusive, we share them with plenty of species. Let's see together examples of feelings in animals. (Brainstorm of examples)

Now let's see intelligence. No doubt, our specie can be very intelligent, but we also find very clever animals. Examples? (Brainstorm of examples)

It is now the turn of social organisation. We organise ourselves in many ways, but animals organise themselves. Examples? (Brainstorm of examples)

But, there is a capacity which belongs to us, which is exclusive, and that is our ability to change and to transmit change historically, the capacity to learn from previous generations and the examples of others, and to transform personally (ourselves and our body) and socially (changing the society in which we live). We all know the changes we can perform on our own body, from glasses, acrylic teeth, vitamins, artificial organs, and.... (Examples). We also know the changes we have performed in our social organisations (matriarchy, patriarchy, kingdom, democracy, dictatorship ... examples).

Human Beings are defined in Letter 4 as: " historical beings whose manner of social action transforms their own nature." This is opposed to a current of thought which has led to such discrimination and violence against many human beings, which proposes that certain things are "natural", such as wars, inequality etc, or part of human "nature" (as though human "nature" was the same as an unchanging natural law such as gravity)

This huge capacity to change, this human intentionality, is today partially asleep since it is been used by a few people to convince many people that their effort is so little, and that it means nothing. But if we look into our own experience, we will discover that that potential is still alive and needs to flow.

Individual Work.
Each one looks for an example in his/her own lifetime when something considered as "impossible" or difficult considering the age or the circumstances it was performed in was achieved, and when they achieved something that was considered impossible by others.

Exchange:
Each one comments on his/her own "impossible" achievement.

Individual Work:
In order to rescue this "asleep" potential, each one makes a list of the priorities for this week, emphasising his/her best quality to carry them out and giving proper value to their own intentionality.

Proposal:
Find a personal situation of lack of communication, violence or injustice (among family, work, friends, etc.) which I have decided to change this week by exercising my intentionality.