• The first mechanism has a lot to do with trying to preserve the integrity of the body.
• Pain and suffering are indicators that the body is in danger or that something is not right. Pain has to do with the body; suffering, on the other hand, is mental.
• But, although suffering is mental, it is anyway, registered in the body.
• In reality, both are registered as image in the space of representation – where the limit is the body – registered within the body.
• Basically, these suffering follow three pathways: through memory, through sensation and through imagination.
• What do we mean when we say that suffering is mental? Does it mean that these are purely psychological and not real?
• In general, we suffer because of our fears.
"You must understand that this suffering is always rooted in the violence that exists in your own consciousness. You suffer because you fear losing what you have, or because of what you have already lost, or because of what you desperately long to reach. You suffer because of what you lack, or because you fear in general.
These, then, are the great enemies of humanity: fear of sickness, fear of poverty, fear of death, fear of loneliness. All these forms of suffering pertain to your mind, and all of them reveal your inner violence, the violence that is in your mind. Notice how that violence always stems from desire. The more violent a person is, the more gross are that person’s desires." --Silo, http://siloswords.blogspot.com/2009/03/silo-speaks.html
• Do westernized cultures put more emphasis and adopt the instincts of individual preservation more than the preservation of the species?
• And do non-westernized cultures (eastern culture) put more emphasis and adopt the preservation of the species ahead of preservation of the individual?
• What are the examples of how the west and the east differ with regards the above to bolster this theory?
• Does violence and vengeance have anything to do with a culture's reverie nucleus*?
• Does this nucleus have to do with the "climate of injustice" of the West?
• Does it have anything to do with it's mental form?
• Is this mental form exclusive to the west? And since the west has been the dominant culture for the last 5 centuries, is most of the world affected by this form? If this is true; what is the mental form of the east?
• Could it be that in the those early period of man's existence the west and the east went on their seperate ways, with the west becoming more individualistic, while the east became more social? With the west becoming more patriarchal, while the east becoming more matriarchal? Even today, there are examples of matriachal societies still existing -- the Minangkabu - a group in West Sumatra, numbering about 4 million. Much smaller are the Mosuo people of Yunnan province in Southern China; the Minicoy Islanders of the Maldives, a society of matrilineal Muslims; and the Nair community in Kerala state, South India. All in the East.
• In general, the vital stage where the human being is in now, is adolescence going to maturity; and his level of consciousness is vacillating between sleep and semi-sleep. Although, he is about to awaken, he is still very much in a daze (he is exhausted from yesterday's shopping spree).
• Is this the reason why all the sages in history were talking about the "awakening" of man -- because, of the fact that man is still asleep? And are we about to experience the dawning of his final awakening?
• The mind believes when it is asleep -- it knows when it is awake.
• Finally, at least for now, is it possible that since the general level of consciousness in which the human species find itself is sort of transitory semi-sleep – we have this illusion that we are still in constant danger – so that we have to be always on alert and ready to defend ourselves?
• But, from what?
*The consciousness in front of the world tends to compensate it structurally by means of a complex system of responses. Some responses reach the objectal world directly (expressed through the centers), but others remain in the consciousness and reach the world indirectly through some manifestation of behavior. These compensations of the consciousness tend to balance the internal world with respect to the external one. Such connection is established according to exigencies, with the individual finding herself pressed to respond to a complex world that is natural, human, social, cultural, technical, and so on. The “reverie nucleus” arises as an important compensatory response, and the “secondary reveries” as specific responses to the exigencies.
Reveries can be visualized as images; not so the nucleus, which is perceived as an allusive climate” as it is configured over time, increasing its power to direct a person’s tendencies, their personal aspirations. In the stage when the reverie nucleus is wearing out, when it ceases to direct the psychism, the forms and images that it had adopted can be observed. For this reason the nucleus is easier to register at the beginning as well as at the end of its process, but not in its middle stage, which is when it most strongly directs the psychic activity. The paradox arises that the human being is unable to perceive what most determines its behavior, since the nucleus works as a background that responds in a totalizing way to the multiple demands of daily life.
The reverie nucleus” rules the aspirations, ideals and illusions that change in each vital stage. Following these changes or variations in the nucleus, existence is oriented in other directions and, concomitantly, changes in personality are produced. This nucleus wears out individually, in the same way that epochal reveries that have directed the activities of a whole society wear out. Whereas on one hand the nucleus gives a general response to the environment’s demands, on the other it compensates the personality’s basic deficiencies and lacks, imprinting a certain direction on the behavior. This direction can be weighted depending on whether or not it follows the line of growing adaptation. The reveries and nucleus imprint their powers of suggestion over the consciousness, producing the characteristic blocking of criticism and self-criticism proper to the infravigilic levels. For this reason, any direct confrontation with or opposition to the suggestion of the reverie nucleus” is useless, as it simply ends up reinforcing the compulsion. The possibility of producing a change of direction in an evolutionary line lies in making gradual modifications. The nucleus can regress or become fixed. In the first case, the psychism returns to previous stages, increasing the discords between processes and the situation in the environment. In the second case, when the nucleus becomes fixed, the individual is progressively disconnected from his environment, producing a behavior that does not adjust to the dynamic of events.
The reverie” nucleus launches the human being in the pursuit of mirages, which, when they are not realized, produce painful states (dis-illusions), while partial fulfillments produce pleasurable situations. We thus discover that the reveries and their nucleus lie at the root of psychological suffering. It is in the great failures—when expectations collapse and mirages fade—when the possibility arises for a new direction in life. In such a situation the “knot of pain” is exposed—the biographical knot that the consciousness suffered from for so long. --Silo, Psychology I, http://siloswords.blogspot.com/2009/03/silopsychology-i.html
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