What is the Cause of Today's Mental Chaos?

(Lecture given in Montevideo, March 18th, 1939 by Carlos Bernardo Gonzalez Pecotche*)

MORE CONSCIENCE, LESS MENTAL MYOPIA

"Let my initial words go to wish all possible happiness to the spirits that work and strive to dignify life and elevate it to its highest level...

At birth, the human being finds the whole universal life surrounding him, but only as he grows up and develops mentally and physically does he take cognizance of the importance of the things around him through the infinite signs, deeds, facts and words that the individual encounters during his march through the world...

Whatever imbalance man provokes in himself, whether in his psychological, physical or mental complex, or in any other living thing that surrounds him, in fact contradicts the Great Thought, and consequently is liable to bring upon himself serious alterations in the normal rhythm of his life.

This is one of the principal causes, if not the greatest, of the chaotic state in which mankind finds themselves today. But there is still another one which speaks more eloquently to the human understanding: it is the mental myopia whose healing seems to be so difficult to attain by those who want to avoid the continuous stumbles generated by the lack of vision of each step imposed by life in their daily struggle. This circumstance should lead us to think that nothing separates human beings as much as darkness nor unites them more than light; I refer here to the darkness and to the light in their physical and mental aspects. In the first case, human beings who meet in the darkness are unable to see each other through the shadows and, although close, ignore each other while at the same time run the risk of confusing one another; conversely, when there is light, one can see others and feel assured that one is not alone and can even trust those who are near. The same occurs in the mental aspect, since human beings see and understand each other more when there is more light in their comprehensions, as opposed to those dark minds which are orphans of all knowledge or enlightened only by some superficial intellectual reflections.

The majority of human beings pursue a slow evolution, in obedience to fatal laws, while others, who are able to free themselves from the chains of destiny through an admirable heroic deed of inner achievement, follow the precise norms of a conscious process of self elevation and build for themselves the happiness of their future days...

It is indisputable, therefore, that every human being must experience the paramount need to enlighten his spirit with the purifying light of essential cognition in order to put an end to suffering that torment him, resulting from the errors that ignorance forces him to make.

Everything can be obtained with effort and good will without abandoning any of those auxiliary elements that are the fruit of observation and discernment, since they give confidence to the experience and sharpen the reasoning of conscious bases.

*Excerpt from the book "An Introduction to Logosophical Cognition"originally published in Spanish. Official Translation.