UN Special N° 647 Janviere · January 2006 

M eet! A simple word, an action by definition even simpler. But in our libertarian societies filled with taboos, filters and things left unsaid, the individual withdraws within himself to better forget himself. In this way, he projects himself into his imagination and extrapolates his own acts. He plays out his own scenario, where he always ends up the winner even when he loses the game. When all is said and done, he dreams life instead of living it. Yet, as Paul Fort wrote: “Love is the only dream that is not dreamed.” A person can therefore continue to lark about in his well-ordered daily life without asking himself any questions, insensitive to the solicitations of nature and the synchronicity of signs. Hence, the individual exists with lightness and superficiality in a soap bubble where the “Self” first and always on the forefront, gives new meaning to “egocentricity”.
And yet, what we read in our fashionable magazines on the desire for relationships and the will to live as a couple is often paradoxical. On one hand, there is the fear of being caught off guard or of suffering from an impossible or vain relationship, the fear of being mistaken, the fear of losing one’s self control, the fear of losing one’s freedom or the fear of losing what one has just discovered. On the other hand, there is a dream of existing through another person that one would cherish with all one’s heart and soul. The dream of finding the ideal partner for one’s whole life. A person that would be a friend, a lover, loving and loved. A love that would understand us without having to talk. A person who would understand us better than we understand our-self…
But the fact is that these fears build solid protections around the individual that are far too thick to receive the resonance of love. The individual hides behind himself. What’s more, why take the risk of feeling alive when our societies offer all the possible means and tools to escape and distract ourselves (Travel, virtual worlds, fitness classes, yoga, evenings out, games, recreational activities, alcohol, luxuries, sex…) The individual no longer acts or thinks for himself because everything in his universe allows him to forget and moves him far away from his true inner self. The frantic race for individualism gives rise to the chasing of strong sensations through the breakdown of the values of listening and self respect, morals, relational and civic behaviours. Is the real fear and main brake behind this search for external excitement and urges not simply the fear of making a human commitment? Which, in other terms, would mean making concessions both in terms of one’s leisure and the management of one’s personal space …
Swami Prajnânpad said: “Man is subject to the game of desire and this desire can never be satisfied. Each person always feels a fundamental dissatisfaction deep down because desire is infinite.” However, by waiting too long for the perfect person and by putting off until tomorrow what life is offering us here and now, we end up missing ourselves. In a society of the beautiful, the perfect and the urgent, the individual searches for esthetical and physical perfection. A word, a look, an exchange, 1 hour, 5 minutes, 20 years – what does is matter?
The intensity of the moment and the authenticity of the gift of self are more important than the length of time. It remains that the illusion of living everything and the belief in existing through non-commitment and nonresponsibility towards oneself and others only reflect a tiny part of who we really are.
Yet, when despair and suffering are greater than the dream itself, another day awakens. The individual chooses to go beyond himself. This is when daily life and routine take on another shade. Time and days go by within him with a different feeling. Because for those who dare, there are no fears, no limits or obligations, just opportunities to stand tall in front of oneself and look oneself straight in the eye. A trigger, a realization and the meeting so long awaited occurs in the world of a man and a woman.
So, in this land of eternity, neither culture, nor religion, nationality, race, colour, just the possibility and the choice to give and exchange the best of oneself the unknown. Regardless of age, the last part of the story, consisting in taking the first step faced with the Other, is the most difficult and the most important of challenges to meet. Because indeed, to create our life, we must dare go beyond ourselves and leave the “comfort zone”. And how difficult and painful it is to dare, to go see, to reveal ourselves as we are and go beyond ourselves.
And yet, it is wonderful to exist, to tremble, to be stirred, to be afraid of falling, and even sometimes to give the illusion of existing oneself when we do not yet exist; the gift of self generates the gift of the other and life, in one of its forms, gives back the gift of the beautiful and the true. Let us never forget that what comes from the heart always returns to the heart and what is given from the heart is always received by the heart.