The Method
The tendency of the mind and of the associative system in the face of a problem is not to understand its cause and to take steps to do what is possible to solve it, but to find the most economic way to eliminate and to remove the person who has the problem.
It is not the problem but the person with the problem that is eliminated. Which is what happens to persons who have psychic or behavioural problems or who are violent or dangerous; hospitals, mental institutions, jails seem to be the most logical associative solutions. Likewise, if the problem is an undesired pregnancy the analytic associative system opts for the solution of eliminating the undesired person. If the relationship between children and a teacher becomes strained and six year-old children are hyperactive, the most practical solution is to administer psychiatric drugs to selected children considered vivacious. If the body expresses its inability to compensate for a period of fatigue or excessive tension through a migraine headache or a fever, the response that the analytical associative method provides is a pain killer which eliminates the symptom but not the problem.
The associative system prefers eliminating persons and not the problem as its method of operation. It seems more efficacious, radical, advantageous, and economic. It appears to be a faster solution, but in reality it delays in an exponential way the attempt to find the real cause and solution. Eliminating the person and not wanting to understand the cause of the problem in reality eliminates every possible solution. Whatever the problem a person may manifest or have, we must never forget that the solution lies in good part in the person him/herself so that eliminating the person signifies eliminating possible solutions. In practice those who use eliminating people as the method to solve problems are never completely in good faith. Choosing to eliminate heresy by throwing hundreds of thousands of human beings into the fire was not a decision made in good faith. Far from conventions and cultural and ideological prejudices, the perceptive system procedes along a comparative pathway in the search for the cause. It is the method of the Spirit, the method that perceives that everything that exists moves through a cause and effect system. It is only through a clear knowledge of the laws of this system that one can learn to read and to face reality.
The truth in all its splendor and in all of its cognitive power is not acceptable to our associative minds. Jesus himself told his followers: "I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. The method of the Spirit leads to the truth, it feeds on the the force and the beauty of the truth, and it is impossible to learn it if not through the power of the Holy Spirit and humility of heart.
To resolve the problems and the heartaches of humanity Jesus never eliminated human beings. Because in part people themselves are, with their psychic and spiritual choices and positions, the cause of their own disorders and problems, and it is natural that they can in part be the solution. Jesus teaches to resolve the problem of disharmony created by unjust wealth by striking at its cause and not at the person. Jesus does not incite revolutions or overthrowing politicians, wars or mass eliminations. The law of cause and effect in this case is that the socially disharmonious effect determined by the unjust distribution of wealth is caused by possession, by the thirst to possess. The spiritual attitude of possessing can infiltrate in every heart, of both the rich and the poor. As this is the triggering cause, Jesus invites us to remove the possession within us, not the persons who are rich or unjust, the victims or torturers.
If anger is an emotion, the state of the soul that destabilizes and renders everything dangerous and violent, Jesus teaches us not to eliminate angry persons, but to use the power of forgiveness with them and with everyone. Jesus teaches us not to eliminate ourselves which is what we do through guilt feelings and lack of trust in ourselves or through violent actions against ourselves when we are irremedialy angry. He teaches us to attack thoughts of fear and of bitterness through the art of forgiveness which we must ask of God and offer to our brothers.
Hunger in the world could be solved in a few minutes’ time if there were a real interest in eliminating the real causes of world hunger. Just as for any other other problematic, difficult situation. If the real desire is to resolve the problem there is no better strategy than to know the causes and to achieve the easiest, most advantageous solution. No one has all the answers, no one sees the totality of reality, but together with the force of the Spirit it is possible to open our horizons and perspectives to solutions that are closer to our real desires and needs.
In order to learn the perceptive system there is no better school than that of humility, humility of the heart and of the mind in the face of reality. Even Jesus, who is truth itself and who knows and sees all, presents himself as the Lord of humanity in a totally humble way.