The Faces of the Crystal Damanhur E-Book

Coboldo Melo

• Herausgeber: WS
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 237

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Over the centuries, philosophers and spiritual leaders who did not behave in a "virtuous" way or spoke too freely of their theories often had problems with survival: from Socrates to Plato, and then Osho, Krishnamurti, Mere, Kriyananda, all the way to the spiritual guide of Damanhur, Falco Tarassaco.

On these pages, we recapitulate the events of a very Italian experience that started more than forty years ago: esoteric thought, creation of a Popolo Spirituale (Spiritual People), community life with transformations that have come about through alchemies that were not always easy, through Temples, art, alternative economy, Selfica technology, networks of organizations, and a complex social-political organization.

Damanhur is like a crystal with many faces to discover, visiting or living there for shorter or longer periods of time.



Leseprobe

Coboldo Melo (Roberto Sparagio)

THE FACES OF THE CRYSTAL DAMANHUR

ISBN: 978-88-99652-59-3

DEVODAMA srl publications, Vidracco (TO), Italy

COPYRIGHT 2017© MIL Social Promotion Association

The current volume was created by the Associazione di Promozione Sociale MIL as part of the activities and functions of the statute.

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form without the written authorization of the publisher, except for brief citations used for book reviews.

Printed in the month of October 2017

THE FACES OF THE CRYSTAL DAMANHUR

HOW TO CREATE A COMMUNITY AND HAVE MORE LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE

INTRODUCTION

We live in a historical period in which we consume a lot, and we elaborate little to nothing with respect to our capacity of thinking, which is what distinguishes humans from other beings on the planet. We are actually living from our memories, often incomplete and inaccurate ones that are almost never connected with one another according to a logical thread of events that happen over time.

Today we celebrate philosophers and spiritual leaders, and we honor characters and entrepreneurs who have collected more suspicion than glory in their lives, including ostracism and persecution. Some great thinkers, who in certain moments have illuminated the world with their works, seem destined to the same fate as artists who become famous only after death.

Everything is repeated with unchanging monotony, and the sense of important experiences and teachings is relegated to history, while in present times, there is a perpetuation of diffidence and ostracism towards innovators. Often the vision of the whole is completely neglected, and we lack the passage from making good arguments to putting them into practice in everyday life.

It is worth reflecting on some illuminating stories: Greek philosophers who were caught between honors and condemnations by state and religious power, spiritual leaders venerated in the East and persecuted in the West, entrepreneurs considered to be models but only as long as they were living, thinkers with worth that is recognized by society but who cannot find anyone willing to put their theories into practice.

Other examples involve characters who have succeeded in building their concrete utopias, albeit not without battles, divisions, and numerous defamatory campaigns. The experiences of Falco Tarassaco and Damanhur are very relevant in the chapter about ideas realized among controversies and difficult moments.

It could be useful to deepen the exploration of the spiritual and social model of Damanhur, retracing the main historical stages compared to the current situation. Certainly, many things change over a short period of time. We can consider that this kind of change is one of the most interesting characteristics of Damanhur.

The current situation can be more easily understood by reviewing the history of the Constitution of Damanhur, which is the foundation of the social aspects and always a reference point for approving laws that govern community life. The same is true for the economic system, which involves the use of the “Credito,” a complementary currency that has been in use for over forty years now.

Between spirit and matter, we find original aspects such as the game of Damanhurian Risk, known for its fun and useful nature that develops multiple levels of logic, and also proposals for an alternative economy destined for a more expansive territory.

Damanhur experiments with, elaborates, and proposes projects that are very different from one another, which can be applied in other environments and social models. The community experience is summarized in a course dedicated to creating life in communities that are very different from one another. An integral part of the training course for new community groups is the element of diversity, the need to not replicate the same situations within the context of Damanhur, and also not exporting this model to the world as the solution to all problems.

These aspects have always stimulated Damanhur to maintain activities and contacts with other Italian and international communities. Such collaborations have facilitated the organization of events and conferences and have helped to develop the text of an Italian law with the intent of regulating life in communities, ecovillages and cohousing in urban centers. A lot of history and activism has stimulated many considerations, articles, and rivers of words in blogs, including criticism that is sometimes sensible and sometimes specious.

A cycle of history that endlessly repeats the usual patterns is completed with the analysis of recurring accusations against a community movement considered to be a model to study and replicate, and yet implicated with being a harmful sectarian group grasping for money.

As Greek philosophers could comment, we pass from the hope for change yearned for by the youth of society, to facing troubles with the establishment, to ending up in the Olympus of great thinkers, unless we end up becoming only a specter in the school exams of today’s youth, and not a living history.

Basically, nothing new under the sun.

SCHOOLS AND COMMUNITIES BETWEEN INNOVATION AND CONFLICT

Given that the centuries pass for everyone, and we cannot assume that words retain the same meaning over time, it may be worthwhile examining the word “community,” taking a peek here and there in old dictionaries and on an online encyclopedia.

So, the origin comes from the Latin word “communitate” and usually, it simply translates to the term “commune,” indicating “a gathering of people who live on the same land or have common origins, traditions, ideas and interests, or even a group of people living together who pool their assets” (Dictionary Garzanti).

In other texts, the word community is “a collective in which members share most or all of their activities, developing intense interpersonal relationships,” or “a collective that shares a portion of land for their daily activities” (Encyclopedia Treccani).

On the internet under “sociology”, they describe the term in pretty much the same way: “In the social sciences, with ‘community’ we mean a collection of human groups or individuals who, more or less consciously, share norms, values and some sense of belonging” (www.sapere.it).

Both encyclopedias and dictionaries make reference to the works of Ferdinand Tönnies1 that analyze the classic theme of the dichotomy between community and society. The first is a form of coexistence based on a sense of belonging and the fusion of individual wills. The second, on the other hand, is characterized by a clear division of individual roles and differences, where social cohesion is entrusted to a systems of contracts and exchanges.

Explained in another way, a community is a natural entity in which individuals are united by a spontaneous solidarity among members, while society is dominated by market relations based on private property and some popular concepts such as individualism, competition, mobility and a rational view of the world.

According to academics such as MacIver2 and König3, by their nature, communities are able to meet the primary needs of individuals, because they are the most immediate level of organization and self-organization of social groups.

Sociology aside, using the basic language of film to describe a hypothetical dark side of communities, we could say that there are stories of blood, sweat and tears, while on their good side, the solar side, we find imagination, union, solidarity, and many, many high ideals.

Considering that the truth is always somewhere in the middle, everyone can find their own balance point between the dark side and the good side of the force, but without going too far into the realm of Jedi knights, you may notice that many philosophers and their schools of thought cultivate small seeds of new sociality, which sooner or later create situations that either come into conflict with the rest of the world or are perfectly integrated into society.

There is nothing to be surprised about, given that philosophers, Indian gurus, and masters from any provenance teach spiritual knowledge - which is a patrimony of humanity - to help individuals evolve, and in this way, come closer to divinity or feel that they themselves are divinities; their schools are often small communities because this is the most practical and accelerated way of demonstrating to their students how to put the teachings into practice.

Evolving means changing, discovering yourself as different than before, and there is always someone who considers change not as an optimum condition for building your own destiny, but as an attempt to change society as a whole. Now let’s be honest, some people may feel irritated with those seeking to create change, perceiving the situation as a threat to oppose.

Usually, a social system does not like change if it was not foreseen by the system itself, and if it feels threatened in its solid integrity, it may react accordingly.

So then, from society’s point of view, is danger nested in the idea of social and political change proposed by those who live outside the usual patterns?

No... even though, if we examine history, there is no lack of encounters, disputes and clashes that have generated an infinite number of events. The thing is that changes occur naturally, and this means it is necessary to observe situations over a period of time while events occur.

Laws, customs, nutritional tastes and social behaviors are not always the same. Technology changes, but in general, the powers that be do not like to leave space for small groups who want to experiment and try something new, especially if this is outside the established patterns.

In past centuries there have been several examples of disputes, which can also happen in our times. To avoid going into ancient texts written in Sanskrit and Eastern histories, we can examine some situations of the past and then look at the example of Damanhur, Federation of Communities, a completely Italian experience, founded and developed in the Old World.

Damanhur has recently celebrated its 40th birthday, and this is considered a remarkable age for a community to reach.

1 Tönnies, Ferdinand, German sociologist (1855-1936), published Community and Society in 1887.

2 MacIver, Robert Morrison, American sociologist of Scottish origins (1882-1970), focused on state political organization, institutions and sociology.

3 König, René, German sociologist (1906-1992). Professor of Sociology, President of the German Sociology Society, one of the founders of the International Sociology Association (ISA).

NOT ALWAYS EASY PATHS

The European Union has scolded Greece for economic management considered below standard, and some commentators have likened the actions of the EU to the famous story of the condemned person forced to drink hemlock to atone for his sins, permanently. You could say that Greece could have refused the hemlock by distancing itself from Europe, thus choosing the uncertain road of exile, but these are stories that repeat themselves, even if the protagonists are different from one another. Governments, peoples and individuals who fall outside established patterns must change their paths, or the path itself is ended.

In particular, philosophers who were determined to not behave virtuously or who even created scandal by speaking about their theories in public, at times had some small problems with survival. In books we only find chronicles of the cases that have incited the most headlines, and there is no doubt that many similar incidents have been ignored or forgotten.

Classical culture celebrates the ingenuity of Greek philosophers of paramount importance, but it seems to forget the tragedy generated by their conflict with the society of the time, that is, with established authority.The young Socrates (Athens, no registry of birth although we certainly know he died in 399 BC) was distinguished early in his life for courage demonstrated in war.

At age 15, he left the army and soon after he was appointed to the Senate of his polis.

At a mature age, he was well known for what he taught, as well as for his problems with the customs and traditions of his time. During the last year of his life, the civil and religious authorities accused him of not believing in the gods and of corrupting the youth with unconventional ideas. The famous public trial, masterfully described by Plato, ends with a conviction for impiety. Stubborn and at the same time coherent with his teachings, Socrates rejected the exile that would have allowed him to avoid death, and he ended the game by drinking hemlock.

A philosopher who was intelligent and sharply critical of the social and political administration of the city, he was considered a negative example for his theories and for the way he lived. His ideas are well known, at least to students in current times, while it was said that he was excessively scruffy in his appearance, too attached to the bottle and often completely drunk and collapsed in some alleyway, and - even more scandalous - he preferred to walk barefoot.

A few decades later it was Aristotle’s turn (383-324 BC). He studied at the Academy founded by Plato, who had been a student of Socrates. At the age of almost 40, he became the tutor of Alexander the Great, the most powerful man in the world.

His school in Athens is called Perìpato (walking), because Aristotle taught while strolling in the garden. At the death of Alexander the Great (323 BC), the Athenians celebrated the funeral with great fanfare, and immediately after, they accused Aristotle of impiety. Perhaps mindful of the previous illustrious philosopher, Aristotle chose exile and died the following year.

In our times, the young Osho (1931-1990) did not follow the Jain faith of his family, and he often had attitudes of challenging authority. At 21 years old, he experienced his enlightenment, and soon after he held his first public conferences. He got a degree in philosophy, became a university professor, and in 1964 he organized meditation camps. Then, he left his job and opened an ashram in Pune.

A few years later, he temporarily moved to Oregon, USA, where he founded a commune, but a few years later, the federal authorities accused him of tax evasion and sent him to prison. Released in 1987, he went back to Pune where he discovered that he was poisoned while in custody, and he died three years later. Other masters, gurus, and spiritual guides have had less tragic fates, although they always seem to have some small problem with the authorities, or they experience intense divergences within the group.

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986) was 14 years old when he began to follow the teachings of Helena Blavatsky, and he quickly accrued a large following of people who contributed to funding foundations, schools and his publications in Europe and the USA. His group was called the Order of the Star.

In many countries his teachings triggered conflicting reactions, and his lifestyle was often criticized to the point that some governments limited the diffusion of his talks. After internal conflicts, he dissolved the Order of the Star, and in the mid 1900s he was accused of having “illicitly stolen children from their parents for unnatural purposes.” He died in 1986.

Mère (1878-1973) was named Mirra Alfassa when she received a scientific education, although she was fascinated by art and studied occultism. During a trip to French India, in Pondicherry, she met Sri Aurobindo who called her “Mère,” the Mother.

In a subsequent trip to Japan, she practiced Zen and in 1920 she returned to Pondicherry and lived by Sri Aurobindo’s side for 30 years, taking on the responsibility for the ashram. In 1973, after a period of disputes and resistance, she was forced to leave.

Ideological and social conflict, the nature of teachings that put spirit at the center, are not exceptions. Often life is also difficult for innovators who act in more “normal” economic and productive environments.

For example, a famous entrepreneur has changed the ways of labor, improving the culture and education of the workers and their families, using profit for the benefit of the local areas, as documented in works, writings and his own involvement in politics. After his death, his efforts are immediately ended, and all those changes gradually disappear.

ENTREPRENEURS, THINKERS AND PHILOSOPHERS IN THE 20th AND 21ST CENTURY

Adriano Olivetti (1901-1960) is universally recognized as one of the most influential entrepreneurs of the twentieth century. He was an intellectual, a politician, an innovator in the social sciences, and the forerunner of urbanism. Between 1930 and 1960, he led the typewriter factory founded by his father to the peak of world success.

The company was an industry model with strong technological innovation, and it became a vehicle for supporting large-scale projects in the social sphere with a sense of community, based on respect for the dignity of human beings with attention to cultural values and opportunities for technical progress, to build a more spiritually elevated world.

In 1945 he became convinced that the crisis in society was the result of inadequacy in politics, while the world was experiencing rapid evolution. He wrote a list of the things that were not working, nothing short of a ruthless list: disassociation between ethics and culture, and between culture and technology, conflict between the state and the individual, the negative actions of capitalism, a lack of political education, obsolete administration of the state, lack of respect for the inalienable rights of human beings, the inability of the state to deal with cyclical crises and unemployment due to technology, a lack of laws that protect the material and spiritual rights of the individual against the direct and indirect power of money.

His worldview was spread through books, pamphlets and publications, and just like that, it provoked furious reactions from politicians, entrepreneurs and even labor unions. Responding to the criticism, he constantly elaborated proposals which he then personally financed. Young sociologists, engineers and architects collaborated with him, participating in the creation of a new social and political vision with the intention of counteracting the general degradation.

He even launched the idea of a society based on democracy and individual freedom, characterized by land-based communities where conflicts would be resolved in a spirit of solidarity and brotherhood/sisterhood, with synergies that would make it possible to develop agriculture, industries and high-quality crafts.

He had very ambitious goals, which can be summarized with this quote from Adriano Olivetti himself, “The Community will be the domain of human beings. The territory of a region can only be managed by means of a motor vehicle, and the State with the means of an aircraft or a railroad. The only completely human element is the Community.”4

Franco Ferrarotti5, who is now considered the forefather of Italian sociology, was a young collaborator of Olivetti’s at the time, and he has maintained a clear and vivacious memory of that experience, “Adriano Olivetti was brilliant because he had transcended the conditions of his origins. He was a non-industrial industrialist. He was a rich man for the poor, a liberal Socialist, in short, he could not be categorized. In the 1950s, together with Olivetti, I elaborated the concept of multiplicity in property ownership, which had a sort of four-fold nature: technological, through collaboration with the Turin Politecnico (a public university); local, with initiatives realized mostly with the town of Ivrea, Italy (home of the Olivetti industry); workers, through the Olivetti Foundation which brought together workers, office workers and managers, and lastly, private shareholders who were still members of the company.”

The idea of an industrial property divided among public and private subjects with financing shareholders in the minority was never realized, and his initiatives dematerialized very quickly, one after the other.

Another interesting social and political utopia regards the concept of a federalism that could characterize a truly united Europe. Gianfranco Miglio (1918-2001) was one of the most well known Italian scholars of European federalism, a lucid analyst of international politics and author of a complex reform proposal. “A true federalist system should have a chamber that controls the federal government and an assembly of representatives from the main territorial communities of the federation.”6

His analysis of large countries was very critical, to the point that he did not consider the USA and Germany to be true federalist systems, because they are based on two chambers, one controlled by the parties who determine their candidates, and the other with representatives of the territories, who anyhow have little power of control over the central government.

According to Miglio, the powers of central government and administration need to be clearly separated with respect to those of local authorities. He was convinced that we need macro-regions created based on criteria that are ethnic-linguistic, geo-economic, and that consider administrative functioning, to avoid ending up with some areas that are more prosperous than others: “The power to decide intervention timing should not be left up to the capacity and good intentions of government parties. In a real federalist system, government decisions should have timing that is defined and quick. The federal President should be elected by the citizens, and it is up to him to appoint the Ministers.

The Federation is governed by a Board comprised of the President and Governors of the macro-regions, elected by the citizens.”7 On taxes: “We need a municipal tax structure and a separate cantonal, for direct and indirect taxes.”8

In Italy at the end of the 1900s, Gianfranco Miglio was universally recognized as one of the leading experts of federalism, even though, in the end, no one supported his projects. Apparently, it is not easy to achieve significant political, economic and social changes, relying on the support of the usual forces at play.

It is probable that only a few spiritual leaders were able to imagine concrete utopias and realize them, albeit on a smaller scale than in Europe. Swami Kriyananda (J. Donald Walters, 1926-2013) was a direct disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda. He founded the Ananda Community in the USA, Italy and India, following the teachings and indications of his guru to create “a community of world brotherhood.”

These places were also created to serve as centers for learning and practice in self-realization. According to this teaching, communities are home, work place, school and temple, all in the same location. They are a place where people live, people who think in the same way, aspire to high ideals, and desire a simpler and less-frenetic life.

Almost forty years ago, Swami Kriyananda founded a first community in California, the Ananda World Brotherhood Village. Today there is an international network with seven spiritual communities and hundreds of additional centers and meditation groups in Europe, USA and India.

Almost a thousand people of every age live in the communities; the Italian one was established in 1986 near Assisi, and today there are more than a hundred people there.

Falco Tarassaco (Oberto Airaudi, 1950-2013) was the original founder and spiritual guide of Damanhur, Federation of Communities. He was an esotericist, a philosopher and researcher in spiritual disciplines. He was a lecturer, a writer, a painter, and when he was just over 20 years old, he created a School of Meditation that now has participants from Europe, the USA and Japan.

Over the years, he started schools of spiritual healing, alchemy, ritual practice, hypnosis, politics and sociality. He was also the creator and designer of the Temples of Humankind, a unique underground construction dedicated to meditation, healing and spiritual research.

4 Adriano Olivetti, The Political Order of Communities, New Editions Ivrea, 1945.

5 Franco Ferrarotti (1926), writer, translator, in 1959 entrusted with the Community Movement founded by Adriano Olivetti. He taught sociology in various Italian and American universities. The quotations are taken from an interview in 2008 in Rome on the occasion of the conference on Chosen or subjected laws: the judiciary interrogates. Ethical values and comparing experiences.

6 Gianfranco Miglio, False and Degenerate Federalisms, Sperling & Kupfer, 1997.

7 Gianfranco Miglio, False and Degenerate Federalisms, Sperling & Kupfer, 1997.

8 Gianfranco Miglio, False and Degenerate Federalisms, Sperling & Kupfer, 1997.

FALCO AND DAMANHUR, BETWEEN ESOTERISM AND PHILOSOPHY

What do individuals need? If we disregard material needs for the moment, the answers are diverse because the quantity and quality of human relationships are difficult to measure.

By nature, communities have the numbers to satisfy many demands, and in some respects, they seem to be distinguishable in two historical categories: communities based on religions that are recognized, appreciated or criticized for their interpretation of religious precepts, and lay or ethical communities that give great importance to a material vision of life, even from a perspective of guaranteeing constitutional rights with respect to dominant social patterns. There is also a third category which includes spiritual communities, which usually do not want to be categorized in the other two definitions. For many reasons including this one, they are difficult to frame in normal sociology.

An example for everyone is Damanhur, which has always laid claim to originality in its spiritual and social research. Social life is part of spirituality because it enables individuals to realize the evolution of the human soul on the material plane. Falco spoke about this widely during his first public talks in Turin during the first half of the 1970s, when Damanhur only existed in his vision of the future.

A few years later he collected his ideas, as if to give order to the theoretical and practical steps for the creation of a new society. The idea of a spirituality in perpetual motion fits very well with community life, always struggling with variable human relationships, including intense and beautiful moments as well as divergences with authorities, who often have a hard time contextualizing the nature of a community group. Falco spoke about this in dozens of talks and interviews, during which he elaborated on his idea of spiritual evolution.

Living together is an art form that we can manage in different ways. Knowing how to live together is more than just the sum of economy and social life, it is an archetype that has been removed from human beings to slow down our evolutionary path.

Yet it is still possible to recover this memory, regaining the foundations of communication and social life in order to build a creative and peaceful existence through paths of individual and collective growth. Innovators always incite fear.

With bureaucracy, the institutions that should be guiding the growth of a nation become the cancer that destroys the organism.

Communities rise among thousands of problems. They fight for ideals, as has always occurred, much more today in a non-violent way. But they are still dangerous, because they change the backdrop of static conditions, the social stagnation in current and historical development.

Perhaps the laws and institutions are in part responsible for overcoming the economic crisis and inflation? Or was it instead thanks to the small business owners, the little lively companies, and adversaries of this nation? What is history, if not the clash between what is static (like the “State”) and what is vital?

We do not want to be part of any political system or feud. We want respect for the freedom that is so well-expressed by the Italian Constitution, and so disregarded.

We are a social experiment, and we have chosen to experience it in first person. No one is obligated to follow our example.9

In essence, Falco believed that there is a connection between a spiritual path and social life, with the recommendation to set relationships through example and innovation and not through intense declarations, even though to stimulate the growth of individuals, you need strong ideals: “Community is going beyond yourself, doing something that leads to an ideal and not just security, doing something more than what you could even do with a company, a village, with other people. To build something together, you need to have a common ideal. You need to know how to maintain it, you need to have someone who is engaged with these aspects.”10

The birth and growth of a group, just like the relationships among the individuals who comprise it, have always been subject of observations and reflections, even before they were codified by the study of these experiences.

In indigenous peoples, knowledge is handed down through tribal channels, non family ones. The concept of family is not extremely recent, but it is not as ancient as it seems. When families were formed, blood relatives who shared knowledge of the environment and experiences could hand down and therefore maintain this knowledge within their groups.