State-of-being: an expression coined to emphasize the concept that there is no being separate from a state, except as hypothesis, thus challenging and deconstructing the dualistic concept of matter versus spirit; breaking idealism into a radical phenomenology of existentialist character, overcoming some psychologisms typical of phenomenology in its inaugural phase; emptying, in some terms, the discourses that oppose consciousness and corporeality.
THE PATH OF BEING
We characterize the human crisis as an evolutionary immaturity structured by two linked factors: the scarcity of knowledge of the 'es' (a Nietzschean term designating a metaphysical entity situated more deeply in human nature than the Freudian subconscious) added to a dysfunction of communication or connectivity. We present a traditional path in the light of current science, highlighting the value of Ayahuasca as 'psychoconnector', a sacred medicine capable of establishing connectivity between dissociated parts, catalyzing a movement in search of a fuller use of the Logos, of the faculty of knowing. Ayahuasca as an instrument capable, in proper use, of eradicating the 'Tower of Babel syndrome', the dysfunctions of communication between cognitive function and feeling; between the 'ergotropic' and 'trophotropic' phases of psycho-neurological functioning.
In the first degree of dissociation, an anguished subject becomes eccentric in relation to the environment (by introversion or extroversion; hypoactive or hyperactive), and in the second degree of dissociation, eccentric in relation to oneself, by disconnecting from the emotional, thoracic plane, and closing oneself in the cephalic plane, in the world of symbols; reason removed from the heart, from affectivity, from loving common sense. Such dissociations generate and maintain functional disagreements and disharmonies between the individual, the context and the various brain units, with significant detriment in the area of creativity. The achievement of a greater level of concord, harmony and balance is an adventure full of tests and challenges. Both the metaphor of the carriage (of Hindu origin) and the metaphor of the ox in 10 frames (originating in Zen Buddhist culture) tell something of the adventure.
The carriage is pulled by a horse, guided by a coachman, in the service of an owner. The most dramatic situation occurs when both, the coachman and his master, are asleep. The journey is left to the horse, which symbolizes unbridled emotions. The crisis state exemplifies this command. A vision (of oneself in the future) gives rise to an emotion (anguish) that generates a reaction (defense and flight) that leads to a result (a hole in the ozone layer). In the metaphor of the Ox, the pilgrim, aimless in the forest, occasionally observes the animal's tracks.
A different situation occurs when the coachman, now awakened, drives the horse. The coachman represents the operating programs subordinated (because not revised) to reproducing in life what has already passed. It is the sameness of predictable, conditioned behaviors, of responses that generate known results. In the forest, already on the trail, the individual begins to wrestle with the ox.
The situation of greatest mastery occurs when the owner of the carriage, now conscious of his creative force, commands the coachman who drives the horse in the chosen direction; it is the rediscovery of the lost word. The master of the carriage knows to a certain extent — a point to be known through experience — that he is the cause of his circumstances. Life becomes a production, but the author knows how to 'forget' himself, to live as a simple character in the scenarios he has designed. In the metaphor of the ox, the individual, now seated on the animal, plays his flute, absorbed in the great perfection. O ox and ox-herder, where do you wander? The rays of the sun shine on the morning dew; the breeze plays Pan's flute in the bamboo grove.
To know how to connect, in agreement and harmony, in mystical union, to be the whole, the totality (to be the owner and the coachman, the horse and the carriage, the path and the destination) is the goal. Perhaps it is enough to let it flow, to trust intuition, to immerse oneself in the royalty of nature. I think the future will not come to offer essential values different from those available: the human being who lived thousands of years ago did not lack these same values either. The final objective is simply 'to exist', full and complete, to experience essentiality, the 'es', which hovers above space-time and dichotomies. Indifferent to technological levels, this path will always have to pass through some meditative discipline.