Is Egoism the End of Liberty?

Café-Salon Philosophique #7

Saturday, February 7, 1998

The evening's Topic: "Is Egoism the end of freedom and liberty? What is the most powerful possibility given to us that we take for granted?"

Samuel began the evening's discussion by welcoming new members to the group and once again defining the purpose of Café Salon Philosophique - "a place where men and women can gather to explore topics without fear, realize freedom of speech and dare to think the impossible."

Discussion began with participants making the effort to define egoism by making reference to and quoting from various sources such as, Webster's Dictionary, Ayn Rand, Newton's theory of relativity, objectivity and Freud's description of the ego.

The group was unable to establish its own concrete definition of Egoism. Conversation began with participants bouncing around ideas about Egoism and Egotism in which no well-defined understanding of egoism was reached.

The assumption in Western culture is that the ego is bad and that it means selfishness. Samuel then asked if we felt selfishness was good or bad? David felt that "selfishness can be good when one is honest with one's self and what you do comes from the heart for the good of all." He gave the example, that one can be selfish when tending to responsibilities, but if a person is really honest with one's self and works with good intentions from the heart, then selfishness can be good."

If one tends to only the "I", the "me" and sees only petty little things in life as important, then selfishness is bad. Selfishness can also be daring to act from free will with no coercion.

Discussion then moved to talking about social systems, and how we learn conditioned responses (auto-mechanical) in relating to ourselves and the world. This prompted Victor to mention how smaller societies, such as tribal villages do not become polluted by words and ideas. They tend to live life very simply and naturally, harmonizing with nature. He gave the example of tribal women who carry full baskets on the top of their heads while at the same time walking and spinning yarn. In order to do this, these women learn to establish an internal rhythm with their bodies in order to perform many movements at once without conscious thought.

Samuel gave an example when performing on stage. If for one second he were to stop and think about what he was doing, the connection between him and the audience would be lost, and he no longer would know what he was doing. He would go blank. The performance would be interrupted and unfocused.

We also discussed once again how people learn to live through the structure of authority, sleepwalk through space, follow along with mass unconscious thinking, that allow them to be lead by the nose by supposed authority figures. He calls this "sheep consciousness" and the "herd mentality of followers."

This brought us to our second point of, what is the most powerful possibility given to us that we take for granted and fail to use? The answer is The Power of Choice. People fail to use the power of choice because of fears, doubts, inhibitions and low self-esteem. Most of our choices are done unconsciously, when one uses The Power of Choice consciously, we have a genuine sense of the pleasure of living, and a sense of responsibility is achieved.

Samuel then, revealed one of the purposes of Café Salon Philosophique - How we, as a verbal society constantly abuse words, the use of our languages, and resort to "petty small talk", with the pretext of politeness and social manners.

He then posed the question, What would we do if we didn't have words? He went on to explain that if people continue to talk endlessly, aimlessly and automatically, one comes to an impasse - an exhausted space-time, where one is drained of all of one's life juices. Samuel asked us to think about what would happen if we were to arrive at the edge of our words? What do we do when we come to the end of words? The natural way is first to become silent, astonished and then discover the Freedom of Movement. One then, shifts from words to action, and expresses oneself with a movement appropriate to that specific situation.

The body has an innate intelligence for movement. People aren't taught to express themselves with the whole body in an organized, natural and systematic way. Western civilization teaches people to respond to the world using only one-half of the brain; the left, logical, analytical side. Very little right brain (the creative, intuitive and the artistic) stimulation is nurtured and encouraged by Society. This means that most people only know how to communicate from the neck up through cerebral, linear, and limited-closed system thinking.

Next question was: How one must shift from thinking to doing, without loosing the precious "time" difference between your thinking and the manifestation of your thought. What Samuel calls "The Journey from Thought to Action", a whole learning process studied in his workshops.

He conveyed to us how languages used to describe reality are inadequate for expressing the essence of being. It is done beyond words and through silence and movement.

He stated that, "most people "think" in words, not images", because at this time of our human evolution, we are so far from our true nature of being. When one is able to shift to "think" images, one becomes fully conscious of his/her own existence and their meaning in life.

One can learn to interpret one's life events, one's motives, to write one's own script, and choose the roles for playing out inner images in real life. Life doesn't have to be boring, stagnant and stifled by words only. One can learn to enjoy who "one is" and learn to appreciate "what is."

There were mixed responses from participants as to what Samuel had to say. David understood and believed that "we do need to transcend words by way of freedom of movement." Group members then identified ways of self-expression through music, painting, artwork, dance and poetry as creative ways, to express oneself without words or with very few words.

Some people were recognizably offended by the possibility of a world without words, a world with points of reference in a conditioned way of thinking and being. Few didn't care to hear the truth or accept the fact that we "over-abuse language," and arrive at "The Edge" or "Impasse of Words". Some people even left the Salon space early and did not participate in concluding the evening's topic.

This response to escape from the "what now is" is sadly rampant in our Society today. One person felt that the conversation was very "cerebral" and that "a lot of mental masturbation was going on." Another participant realized how "the effort of thinking can be (is) painful, instead of just being." Marta shared how she "enjoyed the conversation, but felt it was very male dominated." A couple of women said, that they had the desire to speak, but felt they didn't have an opening into the conversation.

(Editor's note: Samuel always encourages the women to enter into the arena of the discussion without fear).

It appeared though, that the women of the group were more comfortable speaking when specifically asked to share by the moderator, rather than taking the initiative to speak for themselves.

Let us again clarify one of the most important aspects of Café-Philosophique gatherings. Our premise is clearly stated: In today's society, there is an underlying fear to speak in a society where the worshipped Idol is "Freedom of Speech". Samuel initiated the existence of Café Philosophique from this premise in mind and heart.

So in conclusion, this time, Café-Philosophique was a miniature "Babylon" (babble blah, blah!) People were unable to define or describe egoism, and Samuel once again reminded us how words are so inadequate for expressing the true essence of our being.

The next meeting for Café Salon Philosophique will be Sat, February 21, 1998 at 7:00 p.m. The topic of the evening's discussion, you guessed it, will be, "The Emotion of Fear and the Value of Fearlessness." Do come and express your fearlessness!

Reported by Alessandra