Why is personal and spiritual growth so difficult? Because we must go against instincts that have been extremely useful to us throughout our evolution as a species. These traits represented major evolutionary advantages, especially compared to other hominid species, but if we want to take the next step in our evolution, we must control them and gradually let them go\u2026 It\u2019s hard\u2026 And our greatest advantage, as Harari so elegantly puts it, was the gift of storytelling\u2014it was storytelling that enabled us to unite large masses of people who did not know one another directly under a single banner. Legends, religions, political agendas\u2014all of them, in essence, stories\u2014these gave us an advantage over those who spoke only of things they knew firsthand and trusted only the people they had looked in the eye. People, yes\u2014and Neanderthals were people too, nothing else\u2014but they didn\u2019t know how to tell stories; they lacked fiction\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s just that these stories that bring us together also have a dark side: they contain untruths and are used not only to unite, but also to manipulate\u2026 In other words, it is our ability to lie that has given us an advantage over other human species. We lie to others, we lie to ourselves, we manipulate and allow ourselves to be manipulated, we dream and let others direct our dreams. And now, here\u2019s the story: stop lying to others, treat them as your equals, and if you sense they\u2019re suffering or in trouble, instead of taking advantage of it\u2014as you were taught\u2014try to help them\u2026 But the harsh reality of the last few millennia makes it clear: the one who lies and manipulates wins, as the popular saying goes, \u201cKiss him on the mouth and take everything from him!\u201d; the one who calmly tramples over the dreams and corpses of his fellow humans, unaffected by their suffering, wins; the one who thinks only of himself and his own well-being and considers himself, a priori, to be better and above others, wins. Now go and tell people about compassion, about equality, about empathy, about sincerity, about discernment, about\u2026 The one who has obtained what he has\u2014money, power, recognition\u2014in this way will clearly look at you with surprise and suspicion. He\u2019ll ask himself: what\u2019s the point, if this seems to leave me without any obvious advantage? And until the things he does\u2014just as he was taught\u2014end up weighing him down, embittering his soul, manifesting physically in some way, and frightening him that they\u2019re shortening his life, it will be hard to convince him. But we can\u2019t wait until we become a society of people who are sick in body and soul before we start looking for another way\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Until someone finds a way to explain to people why compassion is preferable right now, why we\u2019ve reached a stage where we can afford to be compassionate\u2014without all the ethical and moral blah-blah\u2014 even those who dabble in spiritual evolution will, in reality, still be chasing money and power\u2014seeking a more efficient way to obtain them, not a more elegant one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Why is personal and spiritual growth so difficult? Because we must go against instincts that have been extremely useful to us throughout our evolution as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2484,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[164],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spirituality-classes-events","has_thumb"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sfat.info.ro\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/pexels-photo-3524537.jpeg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9kw6W-OS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfat.info.ro\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfat.info.ro\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfat.info.ro\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfat.info.ro\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfat.info.ro\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3154"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sfat.info.ro\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3155,"href":"https:\/\/sfat.info.ro\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3154\/revisions\/3155"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfat.info.ro\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfat.info.ro\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfat.info.ro\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfat.info.ro\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}