THE BIBLE CEASED TO BE A SACRED BOOK

 The End of Biblical Religions ?

 The Bible ceased to be a sacred book

 

Mauro Biglino, translator of Biblical Hebrew, maintains that when the Bible is stripped bare, it loses its sacred character, and on the contrary, it is a great deception. He says:

 

Once stripped bare, the Bible is extremely different from how it was always told: it does not contain a spiritual God, omnipotent, and omniscient, it does not contain eternity. No apples, no wriggling tempting snakes. No winged angel. Not even the Red Sea: the people of the Exodus are limited to looking at a simple straw. (Bibbia Nuda, and La Bibbia is not a sacred book. Il Grande inganno) (A great deceit). Mauro Biglino, (2017).

 

Biglino is one of the many authors who have recently dedicated themselves to disarming the sacredness of the biblical text. With due reason, what he maintains is consistent with the archaeological discoveries.

 

My relationship with the Bible began during the 1960s. While I was studying and listening to the radio, I heard the news that Nobel laureate William Faulkner had been awarded another Pulitzer Prize in the United States. His central message, the radio said, was that the man would not only last, but would also prevail. The radio added that this idea came from the Bible. “I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.” In other words, Faulkner believed that man would not only last, but would prevail.

 

I thought that if the Bible contained those ideas, it was a book that I should own. Within months I was able to buy it, at the cost of almost going to jail (the police suspected my insistent look around the window of a bookstore, there were so many editions!) A month later I bought one and tried to read it. It seemed incoherent to me, a series of brutalities and contradictions. Later, a colleague from the university told me that the Bible must be read with the spiritual depth of awareness, because the literal sense is often barbaric. Wars, deaths, incest, betrayals, murders, crucifixions, some blessings, etc. Searching for meaning beyond words had an appeal. With that search I was improving and expanding the reading. I used the text as something magical, something unique, often metaphorical, symbolic and metaphysical.

 

I learned to reiterate the words of the text, because they gave me authority and importance before others. I preached the book, I took it to prisons, I gave it away. I knew how to repeat the words of the text with passion, which I got to know very well; internally, I was proud of it. I wrote some inspired articles based on the Bible. Although I often found aspects of certain texts that did not “sound good to me” or did not make sense. For example: the duty to fulfill the commandments in one chapter and violate them in the next. When I read academic questions proposing the end of biblical studies, they were a wake-up call sowing rational doubts in me. Recently, when doing a piece of research, I discovered another way to read the text: through archaeological/geological investigations. The analysis of stones and soils through the carbon 14 system allows precise dating of events and times. That removes doubts and much vagueness. Indeed, the Bible is not a history book, it uses data from history to create historical fictions. Words are easily manipulated, and they often create their own reality, independent of truth. The Bible looks like a history book, but it is not. Most of the text takes the form of a historical account; even the psalms or prophecies seem like historical accounts. Many religions have established themselves by using the Bible as a true and sacred text, but the latest studies indicate that it is not.

 

Practically all books are copies of earlier Sumerian, Egyptian, Babylonian, etc. texts. Hebrew specialists do not speak of plagiarism but of "shared literary traditions" in form and content. The story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife is the "Egyptian story of two brothers." Some proverbs (22-23) are true copies of the teachings of Amen-em-Opet. (The Bible as Literature), the Bible as a book of laws and precepts is poor compared to the legal systems of the Hittites, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, let us only remember the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi, (1750 BC).

 

 on biblical sites and their dating carried out by the archeology departments of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem University and those of Archaeological Institutes and Cultural Assets. They have produced relevant reports, especially archaeologist Israel Finkelstein with his colleague Neil A. Silberman. His videos can be seen on Internet. They tell us that there are no records of the Patriarchs, they are fictional characters, nor did they find evidence that the Exodus took place.

 

Something I had suspected for a long time. The reason? In more than three thousand years, a sword, pottery remains, bones, food remains, etc. had not been found. No trace of the passage of hundreds of thousands of people leaving Egypt, crossing the Red Sea, who spent forty years wandering in the desert, without water and without food. One or two miracles are believable, but thousands every day? Huummm… if every day they produced miracles they are no longer miracles they are the trivial routine. Science demands proof, verification, but: the dilemma for believers is that there is no proof of biblical claims.

 

So, to believe or not to believe? It was this fact that made the professor of history at the University of Jerusalem, Yuval Noah Harari, affirm that the biblical writers were all fanciful/illusionary. Prof. Finkelstein, as director of the archeology department of the Tel Aviv University was more cautious. He said that these writers did not take into account the real situation of the times they described, neither the political nor the geographical conditions. In other words, they wrote without foundation. At the time of the Exodus all of Palestine was a province of Egypt. That being the case, the Jews could not escape Pharaoh's army and be safe on the other side, because all of Palestine and the Sinai Peninsula were part of the Egyptian empire. On the Sinai Peninsula was the mighty fortress of Ramses II with his soldiers. Could they escape into the hands of those soldiers of Pharaoh? Considering reality, it doesn't make any sense. The Egyptians kept careful records of the events of the kingdom. How is there no record of a group of hundreds of thousands of Jews fleeing? Nor is the name of the pharaoh who oppressed them mentioned. The reason is that those writers did not know.

 

 The Dutch Sephardic philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) in the 17th century had already criticized aspects of the Bible, such as the fact that after Moses died, he ordered Joshua, upon entering the land promised to Abram to destroy all kingdoms, kill men, women, and children, take as just the treasures. Today this would be monstrous. Unfortunately, no destruction of fortresses or walls like that of Jericho has been found, nor cities reduced to zero, nor burned stones. Neither bones nor goods of the dead. They found no records in Moab, Edom, Ammon, and other kingdoms, being conquered by slaves fleeing from Egypt. There are no proofs of those conquests. At this point we must ask, is the Bible a collection of myths, allegories, and fantasy stories? That is the affirmation that emerges from Professor Harari, since the biblical writers were “fantasists”. Jorge Luis Borges argued that the Bible should be considered part of fantastic literature.

 

The way to save the text has been "allegorizing", that is, giving it an allegorical interpretation that the authors never thought of. For example, The Song of Songs, which is a love poem celebrating physical union, has been read as an allegory of the union not of a man and a woman, but of the church and The lover and the beloved also interpreted as the relationship between Yahweh and Israel. Is there an explanation?

 

Yes, a very reasonable one: many of the texts of the Old Testament (Hebraic Bible) were written in Babylon, during the slavery imposed by King Nebuchadnezzar. The Jews watched for decades, as the Babylonians keep records of the important events of the kingdom, floods, plagues, wars, etc. At that time there was no Internet or large bookstores that they had access to. Considering that their stories would be lost over time, they began to write the memories, but enlarging them for posterity. Exaggeration is an ancient literary weapon to impress readers.

 

Gabel, Wheeler, and York, the authors of “The Bible as Literature” An Introduction, say about Genesis: The object of the text is recognizable: a series of cosmic events, but that no human being witnessed or lived. It makes no sense to ask if the universe was created in seven days, or if light could exist without any objects emitting light, or that the sun is created after the earth. For the authors, the answers lead nowhere. But for the priests it was perfect in that way and in that the way it had to be accepted. In other words, it is a priestly imposition.

 

The Bible is an anthology that uses hyperbole, that is, exaggeration in order to impress readers. Also, poetry, story, history, etc. Of the patriarchs there are no records, it is not even known if they really existed. Some consider them to be fictional characters. Many accounts are taken from earlier writings, the universal flood is contained in a number of Mesopotamian texts (Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian, such as The Epic of Gilgamesh, and others). Some psalms are true copies of earlier Egyptian texts. The character "Moses" has many antecedents as a fictional character, but the real historical antecedent of the boy thrown in a basket over the Euphrates River was Sargon of Akkad, considered the first emperor in history, who conquered all the Sumerian kingdoms up to Ur, city ​​from which the Bible attributes the origin of Abram.

 

Why attribute to Ur, (of the Chaldeans?), the origin of the people of Israel? For a matter of prestige, say the archaeologists. In reality, it was the model to follow with the temple (ziggurat) as the center of society, and the Enzi (high priest) the highest religious, political and military authority. In Sumer the temple centralized its religious activity with its sacrifices, the registration of contracts and the filing of tablets, the teaching of cuneiform writing, and arts and crafts workshops. Additionally, they developed the wheel and irrigation canals, weapons manufacturing, large constructions, fortified cities, the social organization with the ziggurats as the center of worship, with the powerful priestly class. This system that was in place for thousands of years finally collapsed.

 

The book of Daniel was written 300 years after the events related. There never was a Daniel and his friends in the court of the king of Assyria. In this way we better understand what Jorge Luis Borges said, "the Bible is a text of fantastic literature." Others will say that they are “fake news”. Several philosophers denied the Bible, and therefore suffered the consequences: exile, persecution, etc. Mainly Spinoza and Leibniz, criticized the inconsistencies of the text. Luther himself made strong objections to the book, stating that the only valid parts were those that referred to the Spirit.

 

Since for centuries it was the only religious text, the possibility of other texts from the Middle East was not considered. This lasted until the middle of the 19th century. Mainly  because of  the ignorance of texts in other languages, when they began to discover how to interpret the other languages ​​of the Middle East, everything began to change. There are thousands of texts to translate, there are hundreds of thousands of tablets to transcribe, only the Egyptian texts are extremely numerous, and many of them were ignored considering that they were just drawings, until it was discovered that they are a language. For example, one of the psalms is considered to be a verbatim copy of an earlier Egyptian text.

 

The discovery of ignorance

During Napoleon's campaign in Egypt (1799) in a village called Rosetta, the expeditionary found a small stone that would be the key to the knowledge of ancient texts. This stone contained a text in three languages: the first was Egyptian hieroglyphics, the second was in Demotic Egyptian, which is the same language, but in italics, the third was in ancient Greek. Sure, linguists knew Greek, but they never thought hieroglyphs were a language. The mission of deciphering the texts fell to the French linguist Jean-François Champollion. All three texts were the same decree of King Ptolemy V, Epiphanes. That grain diorite stele was the key to my ignorance and possibly to many more. Ignorance of unawareness. The inscription was from 196 BC, the so-called inter-testamental period. The Egyptians considered language an invention of the god Thoth to allow them to communicate ideas, feelings and norms.

 

 The Rosetta Stone is a fragment of an ancient granodiorite stele inscribed with a decree issued in Memphis in 196 BC. C. in the name of Pharaoh Ptolemy V. The decree appears in three different scripts: the upper text in Egyptian hieroglyphics, the middle part in demotic script and the lower part in ancient Greek. For almost two thousand years the only text in circulation (that spoke of antiquity) was the Bible. Nobody could think that it was a drop in an ocean of ignored texts. The investigations of Bible societies founded by Protestant groups in America and Europe were never intentional to discover other texts, but to search for those that ratify the Bible, the others were set aside or simply destroyed. They were German scholars who began with literary criticism of the Bible, questioning many mythological aspects.

 

The King James Version held that the age of the earth began 4004 years before Christ. When geological studies were published (Charles Lyell: Principles of Geology, 1830-33), taking the age of the earth to millions of years, to think that the creation of the world took place in a week beginning in 4004 before Christ, was meaningless. The myth of the universal deluge, with small variations, was part of various texts of Sumerian-Mesopotamian literature. Area that includes two large rivers that, with excess rain, then overflowing, produced extensive fields of water and for quite some time.

 

 The thesis by which Héctor Avalos proposes the elimination of biblical studies maintains:

Modern academic studies have shown that the Bible is the product of cultures whose values ​​and beliefs about the origin, nature, and purpose of our world are not held to be relevant, even by most Christians and Jews. (The End of Biblical Studies, Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York, 2007).

 

What value (moral or legal) does the story of Moses looking to the right and left and not seeing anyone kill an Egyptian who was punishing a Hebrew and buries him in the sand? (Exodus 2:11-12) Today it would be considered intentional murder, without extenuation, with a possible death penalty in the electric chair. Or the great King David who had Bathsheba brought to his rooms, whom he impregnates, and in order to cover the adultery, he had Uriah, her husband, killed (Samuel 11: 1 to 12: 25). What great moral example is it for our days? It was the strength of the prophets for or against the people that shaped the Jewish character in a certain way. The prophets represent a moral force to confront the powerful in the name of a higher principle.

 

Regarding the New Testament, the writer Corrado Augias asks the professor emeritus of the University of Torino, Giovanni Savorano:

 

“From the historical and material point of view of its writing, what are the Gospels? Who wrote them? When? He replied:

 

We are in Italy, if we were in another country the answer I am about to give you would be different. Italy is a Catholic country. Rome is the seat of the papacy, the Gospels are inevitably conditioned of this presence being texts that in a certain way were fixed by the Catholic Church as sacred texts, that is, divinely inspired!

 

A translation professor told me that if someone saw the original texts of the Bible they would be remarkably surprised, they are really crude. It was the successive translations through the centuries that embellished with new terms and alternative meanings, to make them acceptable to the expressions of the time, until today. Without forgetting that the biblical messages were exclusively for the tribes of Israel. It was necessary to transform them into a universal message applicable to peoples and completely different continents. It is a wonder that a group of tribes that almost all the time fought each other, has risen to such prominence in the world. Undoubtedly, the Hebrew Bible or the Torah was an anchor that kept them together and more than that, it was the attitude of reading, which gave rise to a culture, relating daily life to a book.

 

Many concepts are completely at odds with the established ideas today especially those related to human rights and care for the environment. They do not resonate in the present collective consciousness. Therefore, "multiplying" and “subduing the earth" (including plants and animals) are considered by many to be the cause of humanity's environmental problems. It is these aspects that for centuries were inspired, today they are miserable. The messages of prophets like Isaiah to do good, help the downtrodden, be fair to orphans, and help widows were rarely fully carried out Not even among the same tribes. Given the overwhelming amount of information disproving the Bible, those of us who believed in it, what choice do we have? The moment arrives when we must face the dilemma of continuing with our beliefs or the truth that science proposes to us. Each person must decide for himself or herself. In my case, I consider a new beginning is necessary. God was the product of the creative imagination, as it is for art and science. It was the attempt to give meaning to human existence and its mysteries, as the same reality that enveloped the sapiens transcended their life to "that" that transcended they called it God, although the Chinese Lao Tsè called it "Tao".

 

In each age not only religious but philosophers and scientists gave answers to the transcendent. At this time when science has given answers to many mysteries, we cannot return to the same. Let's say that the metaphysical answer to the transcendent never satisfied completely. That is why Judaism prohibited naming the sacred name of the deity, and in Islam representations of it cannot be made. This is to make it clear that the idea of ​​God escapes definitions or common material visions.

The second aspect of every text is when readers turns the work into something of their own, with their interpretation, with the anointing with which they read it and the emotion that it transmits. It is the reader who, with his/her intention, can turn the text into something profane or something sacred and inspiring. The Bible will remain an interesting book but no more sacred.

 

We return to the beginning, to the pre-religious period, but we cannot drift or return to animism, that is, to find the spirit in every stone, in every tree, or in the rivers, or in every wild animal. The spirit either we find in ourselves or we will not find it anywhere. We must find in our conscience the root of the essential, the sacredness of the vital spirit, the source of harmony and well-being. The beginning of existence on which to ground our experiences. Nor should we fall into the idea of ​​forming a religion with each experience, whether it is of an important character or not. Each being is his own religion with which he/she will fulfill his own destiny.

 

All of us at some point have had some sensation or experience of the ineffable, of a presence that we do not know what it is. In my case I had three. One of them was so beautiful that I experienced it for several days. And then the memory for months in a state of hallelujah, in subtle and profound ecstasy: it was feeling part of the whole universe and the whole universe was my being. I could touch every star tour every planet and its satellites. There was no part of the cosmos that was not part of me. Everything was beautiful and harmonious. I think that like many of the spiritual experiences it was non-transferable. How do you stop transferring the infinite, the eternal, the incommunicable that elevates and transforms us? The most accurate is the music of silence. Another experience was a healing of vitiligo which at that time (I worked at the Chrysler car factory) was incurable. In the face of adversity, I maintained the security of the omnipotent spirit in us that could transform me, if a circumstance had caused me an illness, the spirit (as the principle of my existence) could remake me again, because existence possesses regenerative love, the element that unites opposite parts to redeem and bless. Everything is in our being from the very origin, if something exists it is because it has the elements of harmony that make it exist. As I said: each being is its own religion of pure behavior, uncontaminated behavior, a clean soul, a healthy mind, with which each being will fulfill his own destiny. Nothing relevant is out there, everything is in our being, our infinite being here and now.

 

 ©Pietro Grieco / August 4/2022

 

 Bibliography:

 Karen Armstrong, A History of God, Ballantine Books, New York, 1994.

 

Avalos, Hector. The End of Biblical Studies, Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York, 2007.

 

Corrado Augias, Giovanni Filoramo, Il Grande Romanzo Dei Vangeli, Giulio Einaudi spa. Turin, 2021.

 

John B. Gaber, Charles B. Wheeler, Anthony D. York, “The Bible as Literature, An Introduction” Oxford University Press, New York, 2000.

 

La Bibbia di Gerusalemme, Centro Editoriale Dehoniano, Bologna/Trento, 2020.

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ATTENTION! ATTENTION!

 

 A student went to consult with his Zen master to write him a wise concept… The master wrote: "Attention." The student asked "is that all?" The teacher wrote: "Attention," "Attention." 

 

The disciple, a little irritated, said that he did not see anything wise in that word. The teacher silently wrote: "Attention", "Attention", "Attention". The frustrated student asked again what he had meant by the word “Attention”. The teacher replied: "Attention" means "Attention." 

 

We, as that student, would like to know what his teacher meant, but in Zen Buddhism, teaching is done through koans, phrases like: When can we go shopping? “The cypress is in the patio”; that apparently do not make sense and, whose answer cannot be reached through rational reasoning. Because the goal is to deconstruct the mind, so that it uses another cognitive procedure, be it through intuition, prayer, meditation, contemplation, simple silence or dreams, to find an answer.

 

William James (in his classic The Varieties of Religious Experience) explains that the “faculty of attention is the ability to re-undertake a scattered and vagrant attention, which more often than not is the root of judgment, character and willpower." And he adds, "that an education aimed at the perfection of this faculty would be the education of excellence." I must confess that lately, I am more lethargic than what I am aware of. 

The physician and researcher on the mind, Richard J. Davidson went on a spiritual retreat in India; There he received a kind of electric shock or, inspiration, that this education of excellence was meditation. (Meditation as a cure, Chapter 7, Daniel Coleman and Richard J. Davidson. Mondadori Libri Sp A, Milano 2019).  

I must admit that this concept of Attention, attention, attention comes in handy because lately I am dispersed. Bombarded by media, my thinking wanders from terrorism, to political problems. Corruption, violence, alternative truths that circulate on the internet, the Covid-19 pandemic, my personal problems and, the disconcerting measures of governments that claim to work for the people, but the truth (in most of the countries) is that they look more to their interests of political and economic power than to the health of the people. 

 

Many of the human problems come from not paying attention to what happens to us personally. We do not do introspection. We are blind looking at what we want to see, but not what we must see and discern.

 

Einstein said: "Intellectuals solve problems, sages avoid them." 

 

 With the pandemic we must avoid problems, and be focused on our wise and spiritual being. Do not allow ourselves to be destabilized by problems, because crises are not a single problem, but an accumulation of small problems that can alter our peace of mind, produce fear and in some panic. But, as has been observed since ancient times, "crisis" means a moment of change. 

 

Decades ago, scientists have observed that increasing populations require more food, more houses, and more minerals for the production of sophisticated products. Relevant changes are required to avoid water and air pollution; save species of animals that disappear every day; jungles and forests that are razed to dedicate them to agriculture and livestock; which in turn pushes wild animals and their viruses to prowl urban centers. We know that political solutions abound, but wise and permanent ones are lacking. But there are exceptions. 

One place where the virus was permanently eradicated, after changing paradigms, is Easter Island (Chile), located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, without many defenses and thousands of miles from continental land. The first contagion came from a traveler on a flight. 

It soon spread, but in mid-April the transmission was cut off. Now they have zero cases. The president of the island's council of elders’ Pedro Edmunds Paoa, explained that, when the first infected arrived on the island in March 2020, they had few elements, a population of more than 7,000 people, which receives 100,000 tourists a year. His decision was to close the island. Part of the population considered that it would ruin the local economy, which depends on tourism. To avoid a revolt,

 

          

He found something that would unite people to defeat the enemy that was the virus. The solution was to apply the sacred word Tapu (which the English translated as “taboo”, and in Spanish “tabú”). Within the Polynesian Tapu culture represents a sacred order to protect health, life and the elderly. It is part of their ancient wisdom. It is a form of discipline rooted in Polynesian culture that has to do with restrictions, but also with respect.

 

Once the virus had been defeated, with the population tired of the confinement and without work, he understood that he had to look for another concept, a word-force, so as not to return to the previous state. They had to change and not depend on tourism or provisions from Chile. At this stage he used the word "umanga"; which refers to the self-sustainability that they possessed before the arrival of the Europeans. They had to go back to their ancestral culture for new solutions. They had to change the economic paradigm, go from dependency to self-sustainability. And that’s what they did. Projects, led by women, were created to produce food and employ 500 people, and others followed. 

The paradigm shift, based on ancestral spiritual values, not only meant defeating the virus but also overcoming the apathy and dependence of Chile and tourists. Paoa argues that the virus and the crisis can be a blessing. As a leader for almost 30 years, he is grateful for the pandemic, as it allowed him to establish a plan for sustainability and respect for nature. He said: "Until March 2020, we had a mask covering our eyes, and we couldn't see." This example from Easter Island allows us to have hope. We can meditate being attentive and discerning what paradigm shift to make, to transform the pandemic into a blessing. This confirms what has been expressed through centuries by spiritual thinkers. Take away the masks of false beliefs covering our eyes, and think with fresh ideas bringing new paradigms. 

 

 

©Pietro Grieco

 See article by Mark Johanson, 

1) http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20201026-the-origin-of-the-word-taboo

See also

2) Spiritual Plan in Times of Crisis 

 3)Sintonía con el Ser, p. 331/4, Edit. Caligrama, Barcelona, 2019). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

QUARANTINED LIFE

Many people ask themselves: How do I maintain my security? When does this quarantine end, and what is the point for me? Some biologists and historians believe that life scientifically has no meaning, as it is the result of blind processes of evolution, or of chance and necessity. Physicist Max Planck does not hold the same idea, and psychologists hold that finding meaning in individual experience can produce positive effects on life and death.

This was what Dr. Viktor E. Frankl discovered by observing life in the Nazi concentration camps. In the midst of the horror he was able to discover that the search for meaning in life is what gives humanity value. In his work "The Man in Search of Meaning" he says: "The prisoner who lost faith in the future — in his future — was condemned. With the loss of faith in the future, it also lost its spiritual support; abandoned and decayed he became a subject of physical and mental annihilation” (Editorial Herder, Barcelona, ​​p.76). The meaning of life is not found in inert matter or in biological processes, but in something intangible that is the spiritual support of being. Max Planck, author of quantum theory, (Nobel Prize 1914) said that the universe did not resemble a machine, but a mind that was the matrix of all things. A mind is not a machine of chance but a fluid structure capable of giving coherence, unity and coordination.

Dr. Frankl presents cases that demonstrate the link between future loss of faith and the ultimate consequences. He mentions Case “F”, the head of his barracks, a well-known musician and librettist, who one day confided a strange dream to him. A voice told him to ask what he wanted to know and all his questions would be answered. His question was: When would the war end? But he reiterated: "For me!" In other words, he wanted to know when they would be released and their sufferings would end. He had the dream in February 1945, and told him in early March; Dr. Frankl asked him what answer the voice gave him. "F" said to him: "March thirty." When he had the dream he was full of hope, convinced that his dream was not wrong. On March 29, the news coming from the end of the war was not encouraging, at night he fell ill with a very high fever, the next day, on the 30th, he fell into a state of delirium, lost consciousness, and the day 31 passed away. The appearance was that he died of typhus.

Dr. Frankl explains the relationship between a person's mood and their values ​​and hopes, or how the lack of both affects the immune capacity of the body. He knew that if a loss of hope and courage occurs, it can lead to death. In the case of his friend it was the loss of faith in the future and his will to live. He had a paralysis of faith in the future, which made his body sick and his dreams come true. He also noted that the death rate between Christmas 1944 and the New Year increased dramatically. His explanation of the abnormality was not due to worsening working conditions, food ration, climate change, or the outbreak of new epidemics, but rather in the hope of most prisoners that they would be released.

For Christmas; when this hopeful event did not occur, they lost their value and discouragement overcame them.

 

Frankl quotes Nietzsche: "Whoever has something to live for is able to bear any how." This well-known phrase leads us to ask what is my something to live for that gives meaning to my life? For the answer, Frankl inverts the question, since the search has a focus from the human ego. For this reason, he maintains that "it does not really matter that we do not expect anything from life, but rather that life expects something from us." This means that life has a meaning, a consciousness and a cosmological mind, which, as Max Plank said, is the matrix of all things. We can stop asking about the meaning of life; and think as beings whom life continually and unceasingly interrogates. The answer should not be one of words but of righteous conduct and action. Life with an ethical sense. Ultimately, living means taking responsibility for finding the right answers to the problems you pose.

Each of us must define what that something is that gives us hope to live, makes us travel to the future and overcome any obstacle. But also looking back to what we have lived and has made us what we are, because this gave meaning to the joys we had and no one will be able to tear them from our memory, and those, however small, gave meaning to our life, even the sufferings and frustrations also gave it. Sense that we capitalize because they taught us something. Even in the face of death, for those in a prison camp, it made sense to face it with dignity.

Whoever thinks that a few months of quarantine is a lot, think about the years that Anne Frank spent hidden with constant danger over her life. Quarantine gives us an opportunity to reconsider whether we should make changes for our well-being. Remember, Anne Frank, who spent two years and a month hiding with her family in Amsterdam behind a library during the Nazi occupation, however was able to write: "Think of all the beauty around you and be happy."

Many times we do not perceive the beneficial effect of an ethical and generous thought that, according to Dr. Frankl, blessed even his enemies and jailers. He says that after being released, he learned from another prisoner doctor like himself that the Director of the Camp had sent many times to buy medicines for the sick in a near town, and paid significant sums out of his pocket. After liberation, what did the Jews do about this SS commander? Well, three young Hungarian Jews hid him in the Bavarian forests. Later they appeared before the North American officials eager to capture this chief. They would tell them where he was if they promised that they would not harm him. The American officer hesitated, but accepted, made the promise and kept it.

Therefore, it is important to maintain something ethical to live for, something compassionate, especially during times of emergency, war or pandemic: preserve hope. There were many cruel guards, but it was not the case with that commander, who was reinstated in a similar role: to take care of collecting clothes from neighboring villages, and to distribute them among the released prisoners. He also had something to live for that enabled him to be redeemed.

Governments can be wrong, and make mistakes, but we can have compassion, because it is very human to be wrong.

Quarantine gives us the opportunity to meditate and look at the beautiful things that surround us and not be weak, but strong. An honest thinker is always free.

Only those who are slaves to their desires or egocentric thoughts are imprisoned.

Let us be free to get out of quarantine, with love for ourselves and all humanity of which we are part as one body.

Blessings, Pietro

July/2020©Pietro Grieco

OVERCOMING FEARS AND CONTAGIONS

         "Fear kills more than the virus" said the news headline. The program had the presence of specialists, writers, and experienced journalists. Any unknown situation, product of a virus, bacteria or disaster affects the psychological state of individuals.

A friend told me: "The thought of being cooped up on a cruise, with people infected with a virus, and me raises the temperature to 120°F.”  Fear is an important aspect of the human psyche; its function is alert us of danger, with the immediate response to run or tackle the problem. However excessive fear can paralyze or  sicken people. Governments can take numerous health measures but cannot prohibit fear.

Fear is a unique feeling, some people fear snakes, spiders others. Some individuals fear air travel, others travel in a lift. Fear prevents right thinking, and giving the right answers to problems.

 So it is no wonder that FD Roosevelt, the President of the United States, in his opening speech (1933) said, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. What Roosevelt meant was that acts performed under fear only worsen the situation. If there is a rumor that we will lack water, all citizens will be at the supermarket; thus water will run out soon, the same with oil, cotton, toilet paper, a remedy, or notes in banks. If we have no control, fear worsens the situation.

Each individual faces situations with external dangers and internal dangers. Fear is an internal aspect that we can control preventing it from terrorizing us. Dominating our inner emotions, harmonious decisions can be made successfully avoiding danger or violence. Years ago with my wife, we visited the island of Chiloe, in Chile, it was very nice. We went for a walk and we were followed by the B&B owner’s dog. It was an Irish setter. He wanted to show us his skills and entered into a property and brought a duck. We took it from his mouth and returned to the garden where he had "hunted" it. Later it went into another house and brought a chicken, again I thanked him, took from his mouth [to] the poor animal and returned to the house, and as soon as we could with my wife we ​​went for a walk along the beach. There, the setter looked around and found some small branches and brought them to me, but never gave them easily; his idea was that I had to fight for them!

Suddenly, at one point five stray dogs appeared, and surrounded the setter barking at him aggressively. The animal looked at us, sat down and waited looking at the sea undeterred. We were about five meters, and calmly waited to see whether we should intervene. Those dogs were of a size slightly larger than the setter. After several minutes one of the dogs stopped barking. Then I clapped my hands and shouted at them: “Stop, it is enough, out!” They looked at us, stopped barking and wagging their tails went away. It was a teaching experience of calm producing calm. After a few deep breaths, we continued our walk accompanied by our new peaceful friend.

Any virus or bacteria to harm must find a gateway. We cannot be careless or unconscious with an attitude of apprehension, ignorance, or fear. We know that when the human body faces an intruder it is prepared to isolate and remove any foreign aggressive element, and doesn’t matter whether it's a virus or bacteria that enters through the skin, nostrils, or mouth. After reading Alexis Carrel it always amazed me how the defense team immediately works: the police, the fire fighters, and intelligence services of the body that detect and neutralize the intruder if it is harmful.

If humanity has managed to live for millions of years, it was because it developed a system of immune protection. This system produces cells in different parts of the body that defend and attack intruder elements. In addition, all entry points have guards. Nose mucus traps particles and germs, the earwax does something similar, and saliva possesses compounds to eliminate many of the elements entering into the mouth. And if they pass into the stomach, gastric juices are a powerful shredder. Even the tears contain substances that cleanse and protect the eyes. The human body is a wonder! We must care for it and strengthen it.

 

Individuals should be responsible for their own health, and know what is healthy. If we damage or weaken our immune system with toxic substances such as alcohol, drugs, snuff, opioids, stimulants, etc., this creates a sense of unnecessary damage, which makes us feel weak at a time of danger. This is evident with tongue piercings, navel or other piercings, and tattoos (white of the eye, with the risk of becoming blind), or sex toys use done without considering the consequences. Desires for pleasure often end from bad to very bad, like death by asphyxiation. They all start as a mental contagion. We must therefore be vigilant and not be subject to manias or examples from films. In each case the instructions of the responsible health authorities must be followed.

The effect of a virus, depending on the individual's immune system, may be zero, or cause some discomfort. The flu virus produces slight temperature rise in one, in another fever, and in others severe disease. The worst situation must be avoided: when contagion spreads a virus to become pandemic. It does this through a psychosis of fear and ignorance. In any contagion case, it is a major mental element that can strengthen or weaken the immune system.

Spirituality instructs us to keep calm, serene and send messages

of power and love to the body through prayer and meditation. If we send messages of fear, nervousness, or uncontrolled fright, this will not help the immune system of our body. There is also no possibility of overcoming the spread, if individuals are declared defeated before becoming ill. Sickness comes from the Latin: infirmitas , which means not stand firm. One study found that many of those killed by a virus were already suffering from a disease. So they were not firm. 

Do not be afraid. We keep our mind firmly based on the power of the spirit. Life gave us a spirit of love, power and self-control. Let's [us] use this power! 

Clothed in the power of the spirit nothing can harm us. To do this we can use meditation and prayer to strengthen our spiritual essence, and make our shield invulnerable. Exaggerated mass media bark news like dogs, which doesn’t help. We must be serene, because calm produces calm. Regular meditation strengthens our mind and immune system. So we have to cultivate it. Loving ourselves means taking care of ourselves.

Once, in the middle of viral crises I had to go to the hospital to see the eye doctor. The advice was: do not go; as it is said, hospitals are the main centers of infection and spread of virus. After thinking I realized that not going was a symptom of fear, and should go without fear. I had to face and overcome my doubts and fears. I meditated and I affirmed my spiritual identity. When I felt strong, I was confident that everything was fine. I was treated by an experienced doctor. I was grateful to see her doing her work dedicatedly, serving large numbers of patients without rest. I recommended her to be careful. She smiled, and told me: “That’s what I have been doing for over thirty-five years.”

We meditate on the good and the good will bless us, [to] those around us and the entire community. Anything that inspires in us security: masks, gloves or a cash reserve is useful. However the protection of the shield of the spirit is available in the middle of the sea, the top of a mountain or in outer space.

Spiritualized consciousness rejects any virus, because the spirit is not subject to contagions or illness.

As the doctor told me, we can practice the smile meditation. Breathe a few seconds and exhale in few seconds with a smile. This remedy is free, and those [that used it have been wonderful in its results] who have used it have found wonderful results. And you will smile a lot! Life is always powerful and sustains us.

Loving ourselves means taking care of ourselves.

 Blessings and strong health for everyone!

© Pietro Grieco/2020