Friday, July 16, 2010

The isolated bubble of self-concern: ORFEO ANGELUCCI

New York street scene, busy, concerned man walking along the sidewalk
Image: RodMann.com

One afternoon when I was in downtown Los Angeles
I stood on a street corner and watched the hurrying
throngs of people. All were so earnestly intent
upon personal ambitions, pleasures, frivolities, worries
and personal problems and so completely wrapped up
in their own private worlds.

Few even so much as noticed their fellow-beings on the streets.
It was as though each person lived in a world apart; encased in a
tomb of separateness and living death. Like shadows
they hurried busily on their separate ways lost in dreams
of unreality.

I realized that in truth each went his way alone;
even those nearest and dearest to him never really
touched the deeper core of his aloneness. This is
the tragedy of mortality.

Things seem pleasant enough on the surface.
Earth with its flowers, trees, sunshine;
the cities with their paved streets and fine buildings;
the trim houses with their neat lawns — all
appear fair enough. But it is like a mirage,
for the material world is a prison world where each man is a
bondsman locked in a prison cell. The prison cells
cannot be opened from without.

Remember, love is understanding and understanding is love
throughout the universe. Hence love is the constant of all worlds.
By love I mean only selfless love and not the carnality which is
often mistaken here on Earth for love. Love is infinite freedom.

Orfeo Angelucci, Secret of the Saucers, p.114-5

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