Forgiving Freiburg 2007

Forgiving-Freiburg 2007 THE 9th EUROTAS CONFERENCE - AN INTRODUCTION

Dear friends worldwide,

we are preparing our next EUROTAS Conference, with the theme of "Forgiving and Reconciliation: Towards an Enlightened World Culture; a Transpersonal View of Conflict, Terror and Love". A very nice group of people coordinated by Ingo Benjamin Jahrsetz will be welcoming us all in Freiburg, Germany, 20-23 September, for another great time of sharing and joint experience. We will be reflecting on the violence of today's world and how to deal with it. World-renowned speakers will be lecturing and leading us in experiential workshops. Topics will be far-reaching and challenging, but for now I only would like to point some directions.

We know we still live in a violent world. It could be said that pollution represents humanities worst aggression against Nature - and ourselves as part of that nature - but might we not also consider the way millions of animals are slaughtered each day, even inside our cities, in inhuman silence. We are not happy with our human past as "homo homini lupus" (man, wolf of man) but the extreme suffering we keep imposing on Earth and it's beings goes un noticed. In a way, our big cities rest on terror of animals - and for somebody familiar with some research in parapsychology this is not to be ignored since animal psyche is psyche and therefore collectively linked to our psyche and unconscious daily suffering. Even when we think we are civilized. We can dig inside for violence and its origins and we will find deep roots in our own personal histories of aggression, humiliation and love deprivation (not to forget our past-life history) but also our collective history and our present Culture. If we turn on our radios, TV sets, our Internet connections, if we read some newspapers, if we take a look at the methods and the messages of our schools syllabuses, we will find violence. If we consider the way industry profits from a violent world, we will sense dark interests making their own contribution. We can also blame our past History and the leadership of predatory "tribes" for milennia - only to find out that the evolutionary advantage of the past is our doom. We have such great means of destruction - and, at the same time such magnificent, enlightened achievements in Philosophy, Spirituality, Science, the Art and we can still resort to it.

So we must change our ways. To do so, we must change our cultural mood and learn how to deal with the violence we feel, the violence we cultivate, the violence that has been cultivated in us, the violence we keep and nurture as we refuse to forgive both what has been done to us and what we did to others. The pioneers, the cultivators and the researchers in the Transpersonal field do know about an old answer coming from visionaries and prophets of all times and the answer is Love. Biologically mature love, to be scientifically and experientially cultivated within each person through nurturing and education, right from the time of conception and pregnancy, enriching our brain development with the possibilities of empathy, sympathy and pro-social behavior; Transpersonal Love, to be also scientifically and experientially cultivated as each one of us grows to be a consciously living soul in touch with the Soul everywhere. Facing terror, resentment and hatred is therefore in line with asserting Love and compassion; and forgiving of ourselves and others is essential for this. How do we forgive and how do we assert love? Let this Conference come with some answers. For now I would only say that my clinical experience taught me that finding inside me the little Attila and the little Hitler that could have grown to lead my ways does help me forgive Attila and Hitler. So please come and share with the rest of us. This Conference is meant to be another great moment of Love and Knowledge as the previous ones were, as we try to live among us in accordance with the best Humankind has to offer.

Now for something rather practical: if you belong to a Western Association and you have some difficulty finding the resources to come to the conference, please contact me and/or Rumold Mol (from the Netherlands Association). Perhaps we will find a way we can help.

Vitor Rodrigues, PhD
President of EUROTAS