Communion
_AM: One of the fundamental pillars of society is communion. It has been shaped through appearances, and that's why they often fail as free societies. The great challenge is to find true Communion.
_I: What is Communion?
_AM: It's a linguistic construct formed by the words "common" and "union". It defines a common Union, that is, equitable unity among diverse and different individuals.
_I: Whenever I've heard the word communion, it reminds me of the Church.
_AM: Because you were born in a Catholic society even though you were never a practitioner.
_I: My neighbors were very Catholic, and their aunt, Estela, was even a catechist and sang in the church choir. The only time I went to mass in my life was when I was 10, invited by her. I went because my friends were going. I think that's how most people enter a religion, through friends and family.
_AM: To fit in with the group.
_I: I was curious, although while I was there I didn't understand anything, and I went out to play with the plants. Nothing that happened resonated with me. But my friends were very excited about the word "Communion".
_AM: Why do you think they were excited?
_I: Because of the gifts. It was known among Christian children that making communion was almost like a birthday, where you dressed in white and received money or gifts like at Christmas. As I got older, I really understood what Communion was.
_AM: A vow of union with Christ.
_I: Being an active part of the Christian community. My brother Juan, on my father's side, also made his communion shortly after we met. I love giving gifts, but not on that occasion. I knew well that he did it for the gifts and money, and he knew well that I gave good gifts, so when he made his communion, he eagerly awaited my gift. Which never arrived. I just shook his hand, and he said, "Where's the gift?" to which I whispered back, "The greatest of your gifts today is the Love of Christ." I think that day he understood what communion meant, something he clearly never practiced. They did it for their grandmother, and I think it's great, it's a way of sharing love through tradition.
_AM: ...However...
_I: ...Well... However, it bothers me a little. It's something I don't understand because they force children who still don't know who they are to perform acts that are meaningless to them, bribed with material objects.
_AM: Initially, baptism and communion, as well as marriage, were Christian vows chosen by the person themselves at an adult age. An individual had to feel the call of God and ask others to help them become part of their Christian community. Thus, one must be reborn into the Christian faith, cleansing all previous paths, to start a new life, and to do so, the Bath of Faith is given.
_I: Baptism...
_AM: Named so only because John the Baptist performed this act on Jesus, although this Essene tradition was much older, relating God to the waters. Once all your history was purged to be reborn from the divine waters into a new life, the community welcomed you with open arms, giving you their bread and wine, a symbolism of giving the foundations of life and celebration in community, sharing among brothers. Thus, fraternity is born, the community of brothers and sisters of Christianity.
_I: Ah, so that's why priests and nuns are called "brother," "sister."
_AM: Although those who have not taken a direct vow to dedicate their lives to God must call them "father" and "mother" because they took the third sacrament, marriage, not with another person but with God himself, thus having others as their sons and daughters. In this way, the cultural concepts of the clan were translated into religious language. The ancients made brothers and sisters of those who joined their customs. All religions have their ceremonies of entry into the religion, such as the Bar Mitzvah for Jews, anointing in Islam, and all the trials of various cultures for their young people, such as walks in the Australian Outback, the ant test in certain Amazonian tribes, Vedic rituals, the loss of virginity in ancient Celtic rites.
_I: What is the real purpose of these ceremonies?
_AM: To belong. They are initiatory rites that mark certain boundaries of belonging. From the first families, clans, rather: packs, being part of the clan is fundamental to survival, but the clan cannot sustain individuals who do not contribute anything; they must show themselves fit and willing to be and collaborate with others. When clans grow larger and families become extensive, certain codes of belonging are necessary: symbols, traditions, words, colors, ideas, clothing... These kinds of tools are useful for identifying the parts of a group. These shared qualities make up what we call "common quality" or "mode attributes," which in Latin is summed up in "community." This groups individuals, and forming communities provides stability and security.
_I: "Unity is Strength."
_AM: There is a strong tendency for humans to want to belong, and immediately upon seeing a symbol, they identify it with their patterns.
_I: Like when you start wearing a little medal or pendant of something and several people wear it for its meaning, others think it's a religion.
_AM: Exactly.
_I: I also had comments about the need to belong to my close circle of friends. Last month, I posted many things with them, calling them "Idilien" (the Elementals, in the saytu language from 12,000 years ago), and the fact that we were always together sometimes generated that sense of being a part, of giving a name too, of how to belong. For me, it's a common name, easy to call each other, and sooner or later we'll stop using it when this task is no longer necessary. I once commented that in 2012, when I did the Harwitum Path, many Harwitum groups started to be created with the name of each city or region. The intention was to meet, discuss, share... And in many cases, it only generated more territorial fights, egos. When Harwitum ended in 2013, I changed everything, and the name disappeared for the next task, this made many people angry and even stopped following me because they considered it a lack of respect for everything they had done for me by sustaining that name and what they had built as groups. I saw a huge need to belong, and for that reason, I tried to make my activities more erratic, impossible to follow linearly, impossible to identify with just one symbol or philosophical line.
_AM: The need to belong to a community is the search for security. Many have felt displaced, lost, abandoned, and alone in cultural, family, and religious paths. In their moments of awakening, they have had no one to rely on, and this leads them to seek spaces of containment.
_I: That's why many people fall back on religions like Evangelism, for example, since they have great containing strength and great social value, as many damaged people are contained by evangelists, something that other religions do not do, and therefore they have more and more followers, due to the number of damaged people seeking security, and evangelical manuals are easy to follow, point by point.
_AM: Faith is something that must awaken in the heart itself, and it arises from trust in the other, in the invisible, in the hope of finding peace and love. Unstable territories like yours are not spaces for it, and that's why they will always fail as religion or communities.
_I: This leads me to think about the path we are currently on, it is the path where I have found myself most connected in the same symbol, it had never happened to me for so long, and yet, it is a path so that each one can later do their own... So I wonder, how to maintain unity without being part?
_AM: Knowing what each one contributes without depending on the other.
_I: We're back to Ontocracy.
_AM: There lies the individual who, instead of investing his energies in a community, surrenders to the world freely, without dependence on symbols or manuals. This does not mean that having them is wrong; quite the contrary, as they help as a guide, the problem arises when they become the only thing to follow. For there to be ontocracy, there cannot be a philosophical manual, but a pragmatic one.
_I: What would be the difference?
_AM: In a community seen as in ancient times, what brings people together is the same philosophical vision, and that's why Communities do not prosper. The pragmatic manual is the one that proposes development, work, and not philosophy, and thus, it does prosper.
_I: This reminds me of the idea of the Communities I have visited. I have gone to some and talked with several directors of Communities who have come together for the same idea of founding self-sufficient spaces. But they all agree on the same thing: there is no progress. The people are always the same, and in many cases they share the philosophy, but they lack practicality, and a few work for many. The loss of the sense of one's own merit, in a more communist vision, causes inequality in being, since the only equality achieved is that of appearances.
_AM: Apparently, everyone lives equally and has the same things, but internally they fail to have balanced developments or equitable wills or dispositions. That is the great communal failure. Communities strengthen ideas but weaken the individual. Communism empowers a philosophy but takes power away from social actors. Communities strengthen bonds between individuals but distance them from reality and development in networks.
_I: That's why most of them fail as transformative social actions and end up being experiences of groups that end up being families.
_AM: This does not mean that they are useless, they are useful for many cases and for specific personalities, although they are not practical for a globalized society. The interaction of Communities with other communities and technological society is fundamental if they do not want to be destined to be forgotten.
_I: Many have asked me when I will create a community to practice Ontocracy... Should I do it?
_AM: No. It's not your mission. Your mission is the development of networks and communication of individuals and their education from Being. Communities are tasks for others, arising from what you develop. Your mission is not to create communities, but to provide tools to existing peoples, and to make those who have knowledge of communities serve those peoples. Creating a community today is creating a new problem. Taking existing ones and finding ways to articulate them is the real challenge. Communities often end up becoming spaces where broken individuals group together to escape reality by creating a new and in many cases fictitious one that ends up becoming paternalistic, either patriarchal or matriarchal.
_I: So the spaces I generate must be flexible, where individuals come and go, preparing themselves to prepare their own towns and communities, collaborating in networks.
_AM: The ideas of communities emerged in the Aries era (from 4000 years ago to 2000 years ago), where minority groups created their own identity trying to overcome others. The Pisces era provided another vision for communities, which went beyond the search for ego survival, towards transcendence to the divine. Communities became a kind of paradise of containment and dreams where individuals could feel loved with the hope of reaching a shared Heaven together. But this era ended, and no matter how many people continue to try to achieve those Arian-Piscean communities, the energy of the Aquarian era invites us to transcend the communities of clans and philosophies, to go to the practicality of innovation in networks, where communities are interwoven virtually, sharing tools, not ideas, sharing in online communities, outside of a specific physical space. Networks in which individuals contribute, not groups. Where nations are concepts of the past, where symbols are mere decorations, and the sense of belonging transcends to the belonging of a sense.
_I: I liked that... "From the sense of belonging to the belonging of a sense."
_AM: This year you have grown a huge online community that calls itself "I Am," now it remains to be seen whether everyone has understood that when they say "I Am," they are really talking about themselves, or if they do it talking about you and me. Therein lies the big difference. At the moment you start your real journey, will all the others do it in turn?
_I: The big challenge...
_AM: The Manifestation of a great networked community, the Network of Networks, transcends the content of your mission and philosophy, goes beyond what they share as a whole.
_I: I put my energy into manifesting a network of networks based on the potential of each "I am."
_AM: And for that, I invite you to carry out the greatest of Communions.
_I: Which one?
_AM: That between the Ego and the Essence. Between personality and divinity. Between I and Am. That is the greatest Communion, and in achieving it, you will become pillars that sustain the great Planetary Community.
_I: I accept this Communion in me. I Am the Common Union of the Universe, the unity between Time and Space, Female and Male, Here and Now.
_AM: And in accepting it, you will be able to create the true Community.