This essay is intended as a general introduction to the main themes to which this publication is dedicated. For some of you, the particular condensation made here of those themes may be a bit difficult to decipher at first, perhaps. But I trust that this introductory piece in conjunction with some of the others, will give you a good sense of what is at the heart of Antidote. Needless to say, if the themes discussed here are of interest to you and feel you have some contribution to make in a spirit of constructive dialogue, please write to us.

1

Not just to try and catch your attention by sounding an early provocative note, I will begin by saying that progress is far from being what we're told it is. I easily grant the fact of great scientific and technical advance over the centuries and of the capacity of this form of progress to improve the quality of life—albeit, of still only a relatively small portion of humanity. But I find no evidence of truly significant psychological or social progress.

It is fairly evident that despite the enormous amount of knowledge and experience we have managed to accumulate over the centuries, suffering is still very much with us: certainly physical suffering, but specially, unnecessary psychological suffering. And if pain and sorrow are still with us after thousands of years of "progress", why should I (or anyone else, for that matter, trust the propaganda of different cultural groups all claiming to be effective sources of social, psychological, and even spiritual development or transformation?

I would much rather stay with the actual facts of our daily existence, than seek refuge in the empty promises and vain hopes of religious, political, and scientific ideology. The permanent facts of our lives—the facts of hurt, greed, hatred, insensitivity, violence, and fear, (leading, in turn, to the facts of war, injustice, exploitation, hunger, interpersonal violence, and the sheer destruction of human and other forms of life)—are for me living proof of the failure of traditional and esoteric faiths and disciplines claiming to overcome or transcend suffering.

Far from solving our problems, these divisive and necessarily conflicted pseudo-solutions are integral part of the fragmentation of the human psyche and an important contributing factor to our general incapacity to face, let alone put an end to the misery we've been heaping over ourselves through countless generations.

True, human beings are also capable of occasional acts of generosity as well as of a certain level of creativity and happiness, but the intensity of our intermittent light is hardly a match to the persistent darkness of our far more prodigal selfishness. Nor is there any reason to believe that this radical disparity will somehow reverse itself in the near or distant future through our traditional means of gradually pursuing social and psychological change.

Given the character and magnitude of the problem of conditioned and atomized self-centeredness and the suffering it creates, it is naïve to assume that a meaningful and permanent change could come from merely developing one's capacity for charity, pity, technical ingenuity, or revolutionary fervor. Humanity is stuck in a vicious cycle of separative egotism offering egotistical solutions to the symptoms and consequences of egotism.

Thus, it is safe to assume that only a veritable mutation at the very core of our being could break this cycle and lead directly and immediately to an entirely different mode of being human. It is difficult to talk about what the specific outcome of this necessary and profound change would be, since whatever we may say about it is nothing but speculation. But perhaps we could agree to use the words goodness or wisdom to characterize the outcome of a largely unprecedented psychological change; the advent the manifestation of an unprecedented quality of supremely loving intelligence acting in daily life through a human psyche emptied of all traces of selfishness.

2

Since the emptying of the psyche must be at the heart of this profound transformation, no one could possibly claim—least of all I—to know or posses access to it. Regardless of how much we would like that to be the case, selflessness cannot possibly be the attribute of the separate and preprogrammed psyche we all call "myself". And yet, since I strongly feel that nothing will really ever change unless such extraordinary event comes to pass, I freely opt to give such possibility center stage in my life and care.

But I do not do this lightly, because I realize—among other difficulties—that this preferential interest placed on the possibility of a truly radical change, grows in part from the dumbfounding paradox that nothing we humans have done in the past has managed to significantly change human behavior—the brutal way we treat one another, ourselves, and this beautiful Earth we inhabit.

So, while I begin by presuming the possibility of a mutation in the human brain and psyche, I do so full of healthy skepticism. More precisely, I begin my inquiry with the clear understanding that any path (new or traditional) trodden in pursuit of just a fanciful image of what I would like to become implies a relapse, a falling back into the same old rut of history and biography whereby individuals mechanically attempt to realize idealizations of the individual and tribal self.

This means that the "I" who wants to improve itself and its circumstances according to particular imags and ideas is, itself, the mental straight-jacket that needs to be irreversibly untied and thrown away, and not merely traded in for a newer model.

Now, to negate the validity of all forms of self projection based on idealized images of the self, means that this radical change can only be approached in a negative manner. That is, only by discerning what is not radical change through the unflinching observation of the actual, everyday facts of my life (and of the life of others and of humanity as a whole), does the nature of the total problem comes to light.

To see the source, nature, and full impact of suffering in myself and in others without attempting to fix it or escape from it in any manner, is to see why a total change is necessary in the very structure and function of the human brain. And this realization of total necessity of a radical change in the psyche is in itself the insight that demands our total attention.

Again, because it must be unprecedented—that is, because it must be something beyond the realm of experience and knowledge—no one can possibly have any clues as to what the outcome of such veritable mutation would be, other than sensing that—were such a change to occur in "my" brain—I could not possibly stick around as the subject claiming to have experienced it.

This passive and unknowing observation of the self and of our suffering world seems to flow naturally and effortlessly from certain vital questions that, at a given point, seem to pose themselves:
—Why is it that our best intentioned efforts and projects to become good and wise have failed in such systematic manner?
—Why is it that after thousands and thousands of years of evolution and "progress" are we still not totally free of malice, violence, addiction, fear, and sorrow?
—Is there a radically different mode of human existence; one not based on previous experience and on the desires determined by previous experience?
—Can a human mind be totally free of the patterned behavior, the egotistical alienation, the anguish and heartache we all suffer from?

Clearly, the tragedy of uninterrupted human suffering doesn't appear as an obvious fact if we remain trapped in the diverse anesthetic delusions of political and religious ideology, entertainment, consumerism, and endless occupation. And unless our dialogue is the fundamental base camp where we meet to uncover the depths of the ancient and pervasive sorrow of humanity, joint exploration of possible heights can hardly be expected to occur.

What generally happens is that, even when we manage to regard together the central issues of human existence, including the possibility of its very demise, deeper communication is often blocked by disagreement regarding the nature of the problem, the extent to which we are willing to assume responsibility, and fixed opinions regarding the form responsible action should take. This is why people from different political and religious convictions usually find it impossible to jointly assess the nature of the problem human suffering as it manifests in each one of them, and search for what would bring a definitive end to it.

Not seeing any truly significant moral, intellectual, or "spiritual" distinction that I can make between myself and persons belonging to different cultural groups, I refuse to stand far enough from any of them to safely point a blaming finger in their direction. Since we're all cause and effect of the same pain and sorrow, ethical and other comparisons seem to me, not only hypocritical, but also perversely functional. Functional in that they tend to whitewash the one making the comparison, while simultaneously blurring and obscuring the all-encompassing, chronic, and impersonal character of the problem of suffering.

Since I don't want to be either blind or a hypocrite, I am inclined to assume responsibility for the totality of the human condition. Thus, with the great Spanish philosopher, Ortega y Gassett, I say: "Nada de lo humano me es ajeno" (Nothing human is foreign to me). Adding that—because that is so—nothing can possibly change unless there is, somehow, a radical change in me.

However, if the essential problem of being human lies so deep that it is common to us all, then it must also be well beyond the reach of our personal and collective will and capacity to find a fix for it. More specifically, if the separation between human beings and between the particular human being and the society to which she belongs is negated, along with the division between her and the illness afflicting her (she is the suffering world as well as what she (and the world) suffers from), all present or future capacity to be our own healers must be negated as well. Being the problem we suffer from, we can hardly imagine ourselves as the agents of its solution or its transcendence. This is an extraordinary paradox; one that we must, nevertheless, confront in order to fully understand who we are and why we suffer.

To assume total responsibility for what ails humanity while simultaneously rejecting all forms of action designed to ameliorate or eliminate this condition, appears as impossibly contradictory. It is, indeed, a situation truly unnerving to a psyche conditioned to think that it can succesfully meet all possible challenges. Yet it is perfectly logical to take such position.

The fact is that the entire chronic problem of humanity lives in me as it does in you—and since egotistic self-centeredness is a chronic and impersonal problem projecting itself indefinitely onto the future through the multiple, contradictory, and utterly ineffectual means invented to solve it—responsibility begins by declining participation in any present or future scheme promising exclusive progress or transcendence.

New questions arise here: Can such a position—total responsibility without any projection of hope and action—be communicated? More to the point: —Why do I dare assume that those who may be inclined to shoulder less responsibility, but who may be actively engaged in one or more projects contributing to human development or salvation, would want to lend an ear to this seeming nonsense about uncommitted and passive observation possibly leading to radical selflessness?

Mature and concerned people engaged in diverse social ventures or religious practices embodying their particular personal and cultural hope for the future, may well realize that their beliefs, actions, or hopes do not constitute a total or direct solution to the horrors of the human condition; but what alternative is there to doing what they do? Shouldn't I pick my own heavy boulder and be once again Sisyphus condemned to the unending, impossible task of rolling it up the hill?

3

My answer is: no! And insolent as it may appear, it makes my point. For if we realize that what we are doing (and have been doing for century upon century) doesn't bring a definitive end to suffering—and is not likely to ever do it—then why not stop being so stubbornly set in our ways, and take a fresh and sustained look at why nothing seems to work. If I don't know or can't bear to accept that there is a very serious problem with the engine of my car, it will not help any to continue tinkering like a madman with the transmission or the electrical system.

Similarly, if it so happens that the central problem we face is that we are socially and individually incapable of relating with one another in a totally intelligent and caring manner, we had better pay attention to that first. And we can hardly look with any seriousness at this overarching incompetence of ours if still bent on proving that our mutually exclusive remedies to the pain of being human, will eventually (and only perhaps) provide us with the better life and the healthy and harmonious society that our particular bias and ambition may happen to imagine.

Unknowing passivity is, of course, a tremendously difficult challenge. Who, after all, wants to admit to being wrong, let alone to not knowing what to do or, even worse, to the terrifying possibility that humanity as a whole is caught in a dead end. But when you take an honest look at what is happening around you and within yourself, it is only reasonable to want to stop everything and deeply question the myriad conflictive paths of human action determining our separate identities and their exclusive and antagonistic future projections.

It is simply a matter of refusing to adopt any given or projected solution to the problem of being human, if one is not totally clear about its nature, or if there is the sense that the alternative solutions proposed and assiduously practiced do not come even close to matching its true character and magnitude.

Do it and you will see if to take a fresh, independent, and non-active look at oneself and at the world of which we are all cause and effect (if there is any distinction to be made between the self and the world), does not impliy a paradoxical undoing of the self. For how would this perception of our most immediate truth be truly immediate, holistic, and clear, if still mediated by the tinted optics of who we say we are, including what we each desire to achieve and become in the future?

After all, doesn't our blindness stem in great meaure from the fact that the world of humanity endlessly recreates itself as a battlefield in which different and clashing cultural points of view and projects violently fight one another in a common quest for supremacy that when achieved by some group, any group, is always totally insensitive to even the basic physical needs of the majority?

Indeed, different versions of "normality" and the consensual traditions that define them, prescribe that to be human is to be born a soldier of a given camp destined to die a soldier of this same or, perhaps if the tribe is liberal enough, of another, adopted camp. ("Progress" can surely be understood as the proliferation of opposing tribes allowing, some of them allowing at least some of us, to chose what camp(s) we fight on at any given point of our lives). Thus, within the cultural world into which we've all been socialized it seems utterly antisocial, if not downright insane, to pose the possibility of not living and dying as a warrior wounding and killing others till our collective and personal bitter end may happen to come.

And that is precisely what I'm doing here: trying to confront the lunacy of "normality" with the possibility of an end to self-centered and tribal existence. This is attempt that more often than not gets quickly disregarded as irrational or "impractical". More than merely insane, not to be aligned with a given cultural alternative inscribed within a world of conflicted fragmentation, seems largely like death. For how else do we know how to be in the world, if not by identifying with those who think more like us and by, together, resisting those with opposing versions of life and of what is "the right thing to do"?

How can one's keep be earned while sincerely doubting most of what others value in the traditions, thoughts and actions defining their present and future psychological and tribal existence? To step out of the cultural beehive of human culture may indeed be death to some aspects of the psyche but, I ask myself and now ask you as well: How else can the opportunity—indeed, the responsibility—of seeing the true nature of human reality and, hence, the true cause of our common suffering, be accessed if not by rejecting traditional blinfolds, blinders and aberrant optics?

The rejection of all previous or future commitments or affiliations to predetermined solutions comes, as mentioned before, with the realization that the possibility of seeing totally and with total clarity is effectively blocked by seeing with the consensual eyes of tribal perception, as prescribed by particular authorities, and rationalized by particular creeds, disciplines, and particular economic and power interests.

I'm primarily interested in the possibility of eliminating conflict within myself and with others, so that I may see what is there to be seen without distortion and directly, with clear, free, eyes. Thus, all hope is abandoned as one finally confronts—in oneself—the essential human being, the essence of the species. Alone, naked, and without any further pretense or delusion, the drama of humanity reveals itself in all its unmitigated horror—past, present, and future horror. I discover that I am, indeed, the quintessential human being. I am the incarnation of the totality of the human condition and, therefore, there is absolutely nothing I can do to escape from its grip without tightening it further.

The physical world is still extraordinarily beautiful and mysterious, perhaps even more so now than before, now that it is seen as indifferently containing the many struggles of human beings largely indifferent to it themselves. The possibility of a wholly different way of being in the world is left open but, as pointed out before, only under the strict guard of an irrevocable conviction in the impossibility of bringing it about as the fulfillment of desire and, hence, through the exclusiveness and graduality of a particular faith or method. It may or may not come to pass, but it is clear that there is nothing one can do in one's mind or through one's willful action to move towards it.

Again, the same seemingly impossible question arises: Is there a paradoxical form of human existence in which the egotistical entity we all call "myself" plays no significant role? More accurately: Is there a mode of human existence in which the process of thought has been strictly relegated to finding solutions to the practical problems of physical security, and totally barred from remembering and projecting the self-serving ego that is the corrupting factor in all relationship?

4

Let's consider if it is true that only the dissolution of exclusive social and psychological identity (and its perennially self-reforming projection onto the future), may remove the intra-psychic and interpersonal conflict in which we live. We have always lived under the impression that we are entities separate from one another and also somehow standing over and above our negative traits and our suffering. This conception of ourselves allows, naturally, for the further delusion that we are also capable of changing and improving ourselves—and others—through the exercise of will and desire.However, we may have reached a point in which awareness of the very stubborn continuity of our problems and sorrows, reveals that such interpersonal separations and intra-psychic divisions may not be real.

Aren't you and I fundamentally the same? Don't we both suffer essentially in the same ways and for fundamentally the same reasons? Aren't we what we suffer from? Aren't we isolation, violence, insensitivity, frustration, self-pity, and fear. Aren't we both the horrifyingly common desire for pleasure/power and personal escape from pain that typifies humanity as a whole? In seeing who I truly am from moment to moment, I clearly sense that I would be lying to myself if I were to engage in any cultural, political, or spiritual project promising to, at some determined or undetermined point, liberate me from the dark and fixed behavioral prison in which I live.

Thus, I now fully realize that what I would very much like to think of as the fully replaceable or "upgradeable" attributes of my self and my life, are really the essence of "my" psychological being; the psychological being we all share. Realizing that I am the closed-in habitat of my past, present, and future experience, I no longer trust that merely decorative efforts to turn the prison cell into an open-ended field of possibilities. I'm no longer interested in indefinitely projecting onto the future reformed fantasies of myself. All I care about is the possibility that this prison: our common, egotistical, self-perpetuating old self may, somehow, come to an end.

Not to escape one's responsibility and not to lose oneself in inoperative solutions to pseudo-problems is absolutely necessary but, still, clearly insufficient to bring about the end of egotism—the root problem of a mind conditioned by pre-personal and personal experience. It is true that this very difficulty determines that there is no sense in taking this central issue of self-centeredness personally, since humanity as a whole suffers from the pettiness and the conflictive alienation of the "me." But still one wanders about what to do about this terrible situation.

Where does the realization of unassailable incompetence leave one? -Terminal depression? Some sick form of nihilism? What happens to one's psyche after seeing that any possible action merely constitutes yet another modified repetition of previous experience/knowledge seeking to bring about a predetermined idealization of the self? The very fact that these questions continue to arise reveals that the conditioned urge to act, to control, to fix, is still in operation. This, even after it has become clear that such impulses are but new manifestations of the habitual machinery of self-centered thought extending itself into a future rigidly determined by selfish desires and fears.

Life challenges continue, as do all of one's fixed drives and behaviors, but there is now something radically new: a clear sense of the possibility of a different mode of existence characterized by a sharp, immediate, and—most of all—passive observation of events occurring within and outside the psyche. Since it's now clear that the personal past is, not only useless, but non-actual (only images and ideas), and the future only a superficially modified reenactment of the past —there must come an instant in which the whole edifice of psychological time collapses just by being seen for what it is.

An irrevocable instant of death, this, reducing the psychic field to the apparently narrow ledge of the present and, hence, leaving no mental space standing in which predetermined reactions may feed the unquenchable thirst for continuity of the self through endless new instances of conflict and resistance.

5

A final word about spirituality. Before throwing oneself into one of the many spiritual paths available, it is wise to inquire what motives and fears animate the search, who is it that is searching and, most importantly, whether there is any distinction that can be drawn between the searcher and the search itself. Is the spiritual seeker, the "me", different from his or her chosen path? Isn't the faith or method chosen simply the most recent disguise of the self projecting itself into the future as an imaginary, idealized version of itself?

Skepticism of one's own motives, also makes it easier to critically examine the actual lives of beckoning proselytizers to see if we find in them credible evidence of the efficacy of the dogma or practice they would have us adopt. The appearance of sainthood is more often than not just that, appearance. It is also good to keep in mind that the chaos of the world today is—in great part—the result of all the contradictory religious, political, artistic and scientific attempts made throughout history in the hope of overcoming the conflictive fragmentation of humanity and the strife and sorrow it inevitably engenders.

This self doubt and general skepticism about so-called "spiritual" paths, enables one to see the unbridgeable chasm separating our desire for transcendence from what may be truly transcendent. And, in bringing to an end the self-serving and ultimately futile attempt to find worldly or otherworldly salvation, this perception may well open the vital and impersonal space paradoxically needed to allow the manifestation of whatever it is that we are all in different ways seeking and that our very psychological presence with all its labors, obscures.

We are the contradictory and fearful ways in which we seek what may lie beyond the puny reach of our desperate and suffering minds. To search for what is only imagined to be the sacred may well be the obfuscation of the real thing. It is reasonable then to see the absurdity and danger of wanting to reach what we may only imagine and, thus, be silent, cognizant only of the facts of our lives and the chronic barrenness of our craving. In that silence, something else may happen.

Do you not sense too that only the end of self-centeredness, could make possible the manifestation of something unprecedented? Something entirely unrelated to the entire experience of humanity everlastingly journeying—as an open and eternally self-inflicted wound— from its memorized past to its imagined future. The total perception that would melt the many layers of frozen memories and habitual projections of the psychological iceberg of "your" and "my" self, may well mark the irruption of impersonal intelligence into the human psyche. But, evidently, we shall never know. This, simply because this silence, this emptiness, necessarily implies the end of the alienated being who's very act of self-centered existence is a permanent act of separation trapped in a vain struggle to become what it is not.