PART 1 We The People are not happy

We went to the moon. We want to go further. It’s only a matter of time before we meet some aliens. How should we introduce ourselves? Is it a meeting between friendly neighbors? Are we going there as conquerors to seize their minerals? Are we immigrants fleeing a planet that is becoming too hot to live on? Everything begins with an idea.

We should warn them that we don’t know what happens to us during eight hours each day. They might come from a place where there is no night or day. Our aliens might not need to sleep. They wouldn’t understand why we keep dropping dead and coming back to life every 24 hours. It’s not our fault. We come from a planet that keeps spinning. There’s a black hole in our lives. They could decide that we have two different lives — one public, one private — and that we prefer not to discuss our private life with outsiders.

There is more. We were told by our scientists that the material world represents only 5% of reality. For over 300,000 years, we believed the universe was limited to what we could see with our naked eyes. Now, we understand that what we see is just a tiny part of what truly exists. Aliens may have the same problem. We’re all in the same boat. We are aware of only 5% of reality. Imagine what we could achieve working together to break free from this cage! We could both have a need, buried deep in our subconscious, to discover the remaining 95%, like a seed waiting to be watered.

More than eight billion people are wondering what they are doing on Earth. If so many share the same question, there must be a common answer that is independent of race, gender, age, and religion that everyone can agree upon. No one can claim to have the final answer. Yet, the time has come to prepare for our first encounter with aliens. Let’s try to develop a broad, open-minded view of human life on Earth.

We see the world through two windows: our body and our soul. Our body belongs to the material realm, where everything has weight, color, shape, and many measurable properties. The soul, however, exists in a realm where nothing has weight, no color, and cannot be measured.

The question is:

“What could convince a human soul

to get associated with such a body

even for a short time?”

1-2 Money Money Money

Debts feed on freedom

For as long as historians can recall, money has been the main problem of people worldwide.

In the 21st century, it is getting even worse. Something has gone wrong somewhere.

Here is an example. When taking a $300 000 loan to buy a house with a 30-year mortgage at 6%, we will repay the principal of $300 000 plus a total of $347 515 in interest. This means that, to purchase our home, we must also buy one for the banker.

.Politicians keep arguing over who should pay taxes. This will remain a minor issue if the financial system remains unchanged.

Politicians make waves. Money makes the tide.

We spend our lives paying off debts. This includes car loans, student loans, mortgages, bank loans, credit cards, and the interest on the national debt. With each loan, we lose some freedom. Debts feed on freedom. There is a name for this situation: it’s called “Debt bondage.” Most of the wealth we create goes to lenders. The system shifts wealth from workers to the wealthy.

It started as a good idea.

Money was created to facilitate the exchange of goods and services of equal value. Finding someone willing to trade fish for piano lessons is not easy. There was a need for a medium that could retain its value. People initially used salt, shells, and animal skins. The best solution we could find was gold and silver.

This good idea, like many others, was polluted by human nature. Today, money influences the house you live in, the car you drive, your education, the people you meet, what you eat, and even who has a shot at getting elected. Some improvement was needed, and we had good reasons. Why should we keep digging for gold in the mines and put it back in the cave of a bank? It was easier to print paper. We replaced gold with paper and trust.

The more money the governments printed, the less trust we had in their fiat currency. We went even further. Money became electrical impulses sent through wires. Today, we don’t even need the wires. What remains is faith.

The problem got worse when we associated money and time. We started creating loans with interest. You can associate money with hard work to produce goods and services. However, you can’t put money in a safe and expect it to be there plus interest next year. Money and time don’t mix. People should be able to exchange their work for money and their money for goods and services without going into debt. They should be able to live in society without increasing the national debt.

What is a bank loan?

A bank loan is exchanging money for the promise that you will spend years working to repay it. It’s an exchange of money for freedom.

Furthermore, banks do not use their own money. About 90% of their financing is created out of thin air. The value of the loan you receive is not backed by the goods or services you plan to produce. It is supported by the value of the money already in circulation. The bank gives you what’s essentially play money and expects to get back something of value. The system ends up transferring wealth from those who create goods and services to those who create money.

There is worse:
The banks charge interest for the time you keep them waiting. Where can you find the money needed to pay interest? You cannot print banknotes. You cannot create money out of thin air like banks do. You could share with the banker some of the goods and services you’ve produced, but the bankers do not want fish or piano lessons. They want money. People around you are in the same situation. Everyone needs money to pay interest.
The banks have a solution: they issue more loans to new customers. This is their way to increase the money supply and help their existing customers pay interest. If people eventually stop asking for loans, banks won’t receive interest payments, and the entire system will collapse. Our banking system is essentially a Ponzi scheme, and sooner or later, it must fall.

A possible solution:
Politicians were not selected for their expertise in economics. They can pass laws affecting people, but are not qualified to design new financial systems. We need economists to develop a monetary system where money only serves as a medium of exchange for goods and services of equal value. If financiers require something more advanced, they should create their own tools. Dentists, teachers, firefighters, farmers, and other professionals had to make their own tools. To abuse our money instead of developing new tools is not a viable solution. It is stealing.

Imagine a world where money is secondary. Instead of sorting the countries by their GDP, we would sort them by their level of happiness.

The CEO’s primary goal would be to satisfy customers rather than shareholders. The pharmaceutical industry would create cheaper, more effective medicines based only on the 250 molecules we really need. Instead of judging people by their bank accounts, we would evaluate them by the way they manage their finances for the common good. There’s nothing wrong with making money as long as money isn’t in control. Keep dreaming...

A better use of money would require a higher level of consciousness.

Stealing something makes you a thief, even if nobody notices that something is missing. To kill somebody makes you a murderer, even if the police never find you. We need to realize that whatever we do to others also affects our society and ourselves at the same time. We belong to the society of Homo sapiens. Nobody will survive unless Homo sapiens survives. The best way to help ourselves is to serve others. To free our soul from money is to free our soul from its attachment to the material world.

1-3 Sadomasochism

Let’s face it. Sadomasochism is a motivation hidden deep in our subconscious, waiting for a chance to surface. We see it at every level, from daily life to the geopolitics of nations. We don’t talk about it because it’s not something to be proud of. It appears in so many aspects of our lives that we consider it to be ‘normal’.

How can you justify risking your life on the freeway to save a few seconds when you have nothing urgent to do?
Did you ever take a chance and run out of gas? A little bit of sadomasochism might have influenced your decision.
Casinos are rooted in sadomasochism. They calculate the odds for many different games. The more you play, the closer you get to those mathematical chances, which are not in your favor. The gambler prefers to focus on feelings. When he loses, he feels like a failure and should be ashamed. When he wins, he feels in control and superior. He becomes the king, and everyone must pay him. In gambling, sadomasochism overrides any rational thinking.
To satisfy our addiction, we even use our judicial system. We use the Law to impose our point of view on others. We justify our actions by saying, “It is for their own good.” The truth is that some sadism is present in all of us. Even ideas like “Love your neighbor,” when combined with human nature, can result in an outbursts of sadomasochism, like the Inquisition.
Think about the countless wars throughout our history. Wars are chances to suffer and inflict suffering on others. They’re not the best way to resolve conflicts, but we keep fighting.
After winning a battle, it was a common practice for the Romans to torture the defeated.
Think of the tortures of the Middle Ages: boiling people in hot water, wrenching their tongues, burning their eyes with hot irons. A popular form of entertainment was watching them burn at the stake. They used the excuse that someone had done something wrong to justify torturing him. What could have motivated them other than sadism?
What we call ‘geopolitics’ is sadomasochism at the government level. In a more civilized society, when there’s a conflict, all the politicians involved in the fighting would be charged with war crimes. They would be sent to The Hague. The judge would decide who can go back home and who must go to the battlefield to remove the mines.

Search “Torture” and you will be surprised to see the many ways people have invented to make the victim suffer as much as possible for as long as possible. What was the motivation behind it? Sadomasochism is part of human nature. We may have inherited some of those genes, and this is not something to be proud of.

When people don’t have any stress, they create some. To fulfill this need, they turn to religions, governments, social conventions, and anything within their reach. Religious beliefs that cannot be proved or disproved are a perfect excuse. We satisfy our sadomasochism by saying, “God made me do it.” We imprison those who don’t follow the majority’s way of thinking. We justify our own morality by pretending that it’s for the public good.

Sadomasochism is part of human nature.

Should we try some empathy?

• Our ancestors didn’t learn to use fire without getting blisters. That was just the start. They realized that everything comes with a cost. No pain - no gain!

• Life in society would not be possible without some rules. Everybody must drive on the same side of the road. Sadomasochism begins with unnecessary regulations. “Use but don’t abuse” the need for some rules.

• Some people need BDSM.

• We live in a world driven by money, wars, oppression, crime, geopolitics, and fanaticism…

Think of them as compost that we recycle. We should use them the way flowers use dirt.

Even the most beautiful flower needs manure.

Could we be proud of some sadomasochism? The souls you see on Earth want to speed up their development. Their goal is to free the soul from the material world. They understand it won’t be easy, and they accept the challenge. They are willing to pay the price to grow faster. Shouldn’t we be proud of them?

The sadomasochists struggle with ‘restriction’ and ‘fear’. Could that be a common concern, though

to a lesser degree? Can we find ‘restriction’ in our lives? We build everything with straight lines,

but nature does not depend on straight lines. Flowers don’t grow like TV antennas. Our way of

thinking might be limited. This is our ‘restriction’.

Are we also plagued by fear? We need to join a community. We fear being alone. Imagine an astronaut accidentally losing connection to his spaceship. He is isolated in the universe. This is a basic fear buried deep inside us. We understand that we are suspended somewhere between the infinitely small atom and the infinitely vast universe. This is not an enviable position for someone who claims to dominate the universe.

1-4 We were not born free

Money and sadomasochism are just two examples of our limitations. There are a few more. For over 300,000 years, humans believed that the universe was limited to what they could see on Earth and in the sky. In the last 200 years, science has given us a broader understanding of our situation. We’ve learned that our vision is confined to a tiny spectrum between red and violet. Science has made us aware of infrared and ultraviolet light.

That was just the start.

We are told that each atom in our body renews itself multiple times a year. Even the calcium in our bones is replaced 4 times a year. Our body is made of a detour in the cycles of many atoms. What might cause these atoms to arrive at the right place at the right time before returning to their own cycles? Who is in charge of the traffic?
What happens at night? Our brain keeps working nonstop. What is it doing? During the day, we’re unaware of what occurs at night. Could it be that, even at night, we keep living our lives without realizing what happens during the day?
The scientists had a problem explaining the trajectory of some distant stars. The only explanation they have, so far, is that the material part of the world, as we know it, accounts for only 5% of the total. The rest is be made of dark matter and dark energy. What a disappointment! Would it be possible that we are 95% blind?
Plato said:

" I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing"

Today, we know that he was right. We are not born free, far from it and we are not fully conscious of our limitations.

- We share with animals the ability to move by changing the shape of our bodies. That was not enough! To push the envelope of our freedom, we had to create many machines, such as cars, trains, planes, ships, and subways, to carry our bodies.

- It was only 4000 years ago that we invented agriculture to alleviate our starvation.

- We are not free from masochism

- We are not free from dictatorship

- We are not free from money

- We are afraid of making with AI the same mistake we made with money and let a servant to become a master.

- Our sense organs are limited to the material world and they keep us prisoner of their limitations. Fortunately there is love, freedom, consciousness, ideas, feelings, thinking, harmony telling us that our life is not limit to the material world.

Their message is: Get out of your jail.

1-5 The world's creation

Aliens might be curious and ask: “How did you, humans, get to planet Earth?”

We have several options. There is a theory of creation called the Big Bang. It was brutal. No Time involved. There is a creation that took 6 or 7 days. There is also a process of evolution that spans millions of years, with no date of completion. There are many possibilities to choose from. We still don’t have a definitive answer to that question.

Have you heard of the ‘Sunlight theory’? It comes from reverse engineering. You observe the results and try to figure out how to produce them. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take us very far—only a few million years.

It goes something like this:

- You start by watching humans and animals feed on plants. Our bodies need a minimum of 60 minerals (like calcium, iron, magnesium), 16 vitamins, 12 amino acids, and 2 fatty acids. Most of these come from the soil. Plants depend on soil microorganisms to predigest the minerals, making them easier to absorb. This means plants must have been created before animals and humans. That makes sense - Doesn’t it?

-Plants grow in a thin layer of arable land around the planet. Without it, there would be no plants, no animals, and no humans. You conclude that this thin layer of land must have been created before the plants. Do you agree? Here’s where the problem begins: where does the arable land come from? When sunlight hits an object, only its color is reflected to our eyes. What happens to the rest of the sunlight? Could most of it be absorbed by the soil?

-Massimo Scaligero suggests that by the time sunlight reaches our eyes, it has lost most of its energy, having been reflected and no longer contains its original life-giving properties. We live in a lifeless world. If he’s right, we may need to rediscover, through our thinking, what primitive people who worshiped the sun already knew through intuition. It’s estimated that Earth receives an average of 164 to 340 watts per square meter from the sun daily. This far exceeds the total energy used worldwide each day. This energy influx has been ongoing for millions of years. What happened to all that energy? That could explain how the arable land was formed—by exposing the Earth to sunlight over millions of years. This exposure continues, and there is more to come. You could say that the arable land, plants, animals, and humans are all results of the sun’s light received over millions of years. Starting from a piece of rock six million years ago, sunlight-driven transformation created a thin layer of arable land around Earth. Under this sunlight, plants appeared first, followed by animals and humans.

That’s only part of the story. This describes only the material impact of the sun. The immaterial side—encompassing heat, life, consciousness, love, and other intangible yet vital aspects—was also shaping the Earth.

We can’t prove this, of course, but we can dream. What’s fascinating about this idea is how well it aligns with the Big Bang theory—two opposites balancing each other. The Big Bang requires enormous energy but no time or space. The sun’s long exposure uses small energy doses but requires vast amounts of time and space. They seem made for each other. We are part of this evolution, part of the creation of the world - every day we participate in creating the universe!

The challenge with reverse engineering is that it relies solely on “time.” You can’t separate time from the rest of reality. You can’t imagine stars created in space without motion, with time added later. Time and space are like oxygen and hydrogen in water - they come together. If this is beyond human understanding, we can only blame our limitations. The universe’s creation didn’t need human approval. If something like the Big Bang can happen materially, something similar might occur immaterially.

Work in progress:

The question remains: what happened at the zero point of the Big Bang? Imagine a planet completely covered with oceans - water without limits! Then, an asteroid (or whatever you choose) strikes it, creating a massive wave. This wave spreads out, eventually reaching the other side of the planet. The movement instantly reverses. The bouncing effect is our Big Bang. It bounces back and forth, from one side to the other.

Let’s stay humble. Returning to reality, we can analyze these ideas and sift through the debris to see if anything can be recycled.

Every explanation that the human mind can understand must be an oversimplification, to the point of losing any meaning.

1- 6 The Link between body and soul

I put my heart and my soul into my work

and have lost my mind in the process.

Vincent Van Gogh

If a human is composed of a body and a soul, there must be a connection between them. What could it be? Some cultures believe it’s in the liver. Others think the link is in the lungs because breathing keeps the lungs connected to the outside world.

Watching our own creations could help us understand our identity because we remodeled our environment in our image.

Let’s begin with an overview of the human body. Its intake is food. Digestion breaks it down into various nutrients. This process is similar to how a refinery’s cracking tower operates. You introduce the oil in the center of the cracking tower. Heavier products tend to settle at the bottom. Lighter products, such as fuel for trucks, planes, and cars, rise to the top.

Let’s examine the human body. The input is the food we consume. The output includes various components, such as heat to maintain our body temperature, mechanical energy to move things around, and new cells to replace old ones. The most important, which makes up 20% of the energy we get from food, is moved to the top. The human body functions like a complex machine, extracting various nutrients from the raw materials provided by nature. What matters is that we send 20% of the energy from our food to our brain.
This is not limited to humans.

The flowers extract a fragrance from the dirt.

This process makes the human body part of a cycle, moving the energy from our sun to energy in the brain.

What happened to our neurons

We have over 80 billion neurons, and most of them are inactive during the day. If an organ isn’t used, it withers and fades away. Over the past 300,000 years, the neurons in the human brain could have vanished many times. If we don’t use them during the day, could we use them at night? Have you ever watched someone sleeping? There’s nobody home! He must have discovered a way to escape his body. Freedom at last! Nighttime might be the most critical part of our lives.

This is taking us further away from scientific rigor. We can’t produce evidence or measure anything. We are like detectives searching for clues.

Over the past 300,000 years, humans have spread across the world. They learned to use fire and some metals, but these advances don’t compare with those of the past two centuries. As the world population grew from 1 billion to over 8 billion, people moved to large cities and reshaped their environment. During this short period, they invented radio, TV, plastic, vaccines, planes, cell phones, electricity, computers, satellites, and AI. These inventions required the collaboration of many minds.

Every invention paves the way for the next one. Computers are built on millions of simple ideas from countless people. The collective thinking created the computer. The computer made the internet possible, and the internet improved communication between minds.

Sudden changes are not unique to human evolution; we see them also in other fields.

Earthquakes don’t happen as long as the stress stays below a certain level.
A disease can only be considered an epidemic once enough individuals have been infected.
Animal species might vanish once their population reaches a certain low point.
A language would vanish if the number of speakers drops below a certain level.

Evolution progresses in stages. The tension increases until it triggers a shift.

This is far from conclusive scientific evidence that the connection between the body and soul occurs in the brain. It is only clues... but serious clues.

Our soul treats life on Earth like a part-time job.

Every morning, the soul steps into a physical body, which puts on its clothes and goes to work.

Some birds can fly using only one half of their brain. After a while, they switch to the other side and keep flying. The human brain also has two hemispheres. Why can’t we switch between them? That seems unfair. If birds can do it, why can’t we? Could they have a better connection between body and mind than humans?

We have some clues.

Sense organs are overwhelming. The signals they send to the brain are like the sun, preventing us from seeing the stars during the day. Part of the brain keeps working at night. That could explain why the brain uses 20% of the energy we get from our food. There is a possibility that at night, the soul uses the 80 billion neurons and energy provided by the body to process the events of the previous day. What cannot be used to improve the soul is set aside to be recycled the next day.

Let's have some fun.

Our literature often ignores what happens at night. That could be a mistake. We might adapt some famous plays by including what the characters might have done after dark. Their daytime actions would remain the same, but their motivations could be different.

For instance, at night, Juliet’s mother could tell Romeo’s father,

“Because we are having an affair during the night does not mean that our children should have an affair during the day. Romeo, I don’t want your family to contaminate my grandchildren. Everybody in town knows that there is a heredity in your family. The men transmit it to their children, but it affects only the women. Search ‘hemophilia’ for the details. The most famous case happened in the Royal English family. All the men had the same blood cell disease, while the women were unaffected. I can understand why Juliet and Romeo fell in love. I don’t want their love to become materialistic. Love is between the souls – not between the bodies. We kept our relationship at the soul level. They can do the same. If you cannot keep your Romeo away from my daughter, I will send her out of town.”

The plays in our theaters are full of holes. Pick a play you like and fill in what’s missing.

Tell us what really motivated them during the day. Enjoy!

1-7 Human feelings?

Many feelings are obvious and can’t be ignored, like love and hunger. We like to believe humans lead with their thinking, while animals rely on instinct. But how can we be sure that our choices aren’t driven by feelings that we later justify with reasoning? Are you sure that publicity does not influence what you buy? Feelings can operate below our conscious awareness.

Let’s see what could be hidden behind some of the things we do.

• Skiing

We encountered gravity the day we were born. It has been with us our entire lives, like our shadow. Skiing is a way to test our relationship with this master. We want to go as fast as possible without losing control. A free fall would mean complete freedom from gravity, but that is going too far. We are testing our freedom. We are testing a law of nature: “Use but don’t abuse.”

• Sunbathing

Could we get our energy directly from the sun? No intermediary!

We are prisoners of a natural cycle. The sun makes plants grow, and we get our energy from the plants. This process is not very efficient. Plants could absorb only a limited part of the sun’ light. Think of all the solar energy wasted around the world. It is also a very slow process. There must be a better way. There must be a way to bypass the use of plants and connect the sun directly to our bodies. It feels great in the spring when we can feel the sun on our skin again. The sun not only provides light but also heat, which makes us feel warm and comfortable.

This is how we invented agriculture. We observed a natural process and amplified it. There must be a better way to absorb the energy of the sun than cooking and washing the dishes.

• Exploring other planets

What could we find so far away? A corpse is a body lacking a soul. If we accept the idea of a body without a soul, we should also consider the possibility of a soul without a body. Where could the soul go after leaving the body?

Could there be planets inhabited solely by souls, without bodies? That might explain why our astronomers haven’t yet found extraterrestrial life. They are searching for water. They are looking for physical bodies instead of seeking souls. Their instruments are made of matter to study matter. A soul may have a better chance of discovering other souls.

• Sleeping.

It can’t be a complete waste. Mother Nature must have a good reason for taking up one-third of our time. She also has a good reason for concealing what she’s doing. What could her motivation be? People's lives might be dedicated to things they’re unaware of. We are like detectives looking for clues. We haven’t reached the final chapter of the detective story.

• Touching

We would let a surgeon cut into our bodies faster than we would allow someone to touch our skin. There is something special about touching another person. Could the outside of the body be connected to the core of the soul?

• Wars

To justify their fighting, people have used a need for oil, water, God, freedom, or rare earths. They won’t admit that it’s also an opportunity to fulfill a desire to suffer and cause suffering in others. Killing people and destroying cities may not be the only reasons. Sadomasochism comes to mind. Over the last 300,000 years, we've experienced thousands of wars that killed millions. That was an external manifestation of an internal struggle to dominate our craving for sadomasochism.

• Visiting other countries

Do you remember Plato’s allegory of the cave? He describes people trapped inside a cave their entire lives. Fortunately, Plato offered a way out. There is a door. Our need to visit other countries might be motivated by the desire to find that door.

• Parade

It is a way for people to feel part of a community. We hid behind our uniforms. The parade fulfills our need to belong. We need a balance between our desire for individuality and our need to be members of a society.

• Moving - Dancing.

Those who don’t hear the music think that the dancers are mad.

Moving is an acknowledgment of the association between time and space. Our brain would rather separate them. Our body knows that would be a mistake.

Cats and dogs

Why do we become attached to our pets? To shield ourselves from harsh interactions with others, we build a fence around ourselves. This fence also isolates us from genuine contact with others. Cats and dogs might not have this fence. It is easier to connect with them than to form bonds with other humans.

• Love

Love has no shape, weight, or color. It doesn’t belong to our physical world. It’s more like heat. We can’t see it, we can’t measure it, but we can't live without it. Human beings may be a way for Nature to open a door and let love manifest itself in the material world.

Love is also a verb. It means that you are going to do something to somebody. Before saying “I love you,” be prepared to answer the question “How are you going to do that?”

• World evolution

There is always one country ahead of others, and then it declines. In the 18th century, it was France. In the 19th century, it was England. In the 20th century, it was America. The 21st century might belong to China. India and Africa are waiting for their turn. Everyone is part of a shared evolution. That doesn’t make us any smarter. On the contrary, we’re being used without even realizing it.

1-8 Consciousness is the key

“The key to growth is the production of

higher dimensions of consciousness

into our awareness.”

Lao Tzu

An Alien looking at planet Earth through his telescope would see 8 billion individuals moving around like ants. He may be wondering what the cause of all this animation could be. We need food and shelter. That does not explain everything. A couple of centuries ago, approximately 85% of the population was comprised of farmers. Today, they represent less than 5% of the population. We should be free from basic needs 80% of the time. What keeps us so busy?

We have long-term and short-term motivations.

The human body is high maintenance. It must be fed three times a day. It must be kept at the right temperature at all times. It doesn’t smell good unless we keep washing it regularly. We don’t know what happens during our 8 hours of sleep. Even if you spend one hour a day keeping your body in working order, you should have more than 14 hours of leisure per day. Something is missing somewhere.

Behind the short-term motivation of the individual lies the long-term motivation of a society. Civilizations appear and fade away like flowers bloom and wither. We are familiar with the Egyptian civilization, followed by the Greek and Roman cultures. More recently, in the 15th century, Portugal was the leader of Europe. In the 16th century, Spain was the leading power, followed by the Netherlands, France, and England. All those countries seemed to follow the same process. The individuals who lived at the time were not conscious that they served the same purpose. We are not separate individuals. We are a flow of people like a river running across the centuries. We serve a purpose, consciously or not. Something is missing in our understanding of life. Sooner or later, we stop what we are doing and ask ourselves:” What is the purpose of all this? What am I doing here? Is it worth it?” Earth may not be hell, but it is not a paradise either. It looks more like purgatory.

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To answer the question of “What are we doing on Earth?”, some people use religion. Others decided that they will be happy when they have enough money or become famous. We are all looking for love. The problem is that we don’t know where to look. Looking for love cannot be a daily activity.

How is motivation implemented in Nature?

Let’s take a labyrinth.

At first, we sent water to fill the labyrinth. It filled all the dead ends and found its way to the exit. Water is driven by gravity.

The next step is to replace the water with slime mold. It is this gluey thing spreading on dead trees in the forest. It has no head and no brain. However, it is used to improve our computers because it can solve problems faster than we can. The slime mold will fill all the dead ends of the labyrinth. It will also reach the exit. After reaching its goal, the slime mold will remove what is filling the dead ends and could be put to better use elsewhere. Slime mold is motivated by the search for food.

Now, let’s place humans at the entrance of the labyrinth. They are not driven by gravity. They are not looking for food. They lack real motivation. They may not find the exit. Motivation could be the key to success. It lacks shape, color, or weight. You will not find it in the material world. The key to success is in our souls.

Love could be the leading motivation in our lives. Unfortunately, we don’t have the necessary sense organs to guide our search. All we know is that we will not find it in money or in the material world. The answer will come from our soul and our motivation.

Human evolution is speeding up.

What prevented our ancestors from understanding the laws of Nature 300,000 years ago? From the very first day, gravity was already there to draw their attention. They couldn’t survive alone; they needed to be part of a group. What was missing was consciousness.

We may not be smarter than our ancestors, but we are more aware. Somewhere along the way, they became aware of the laws of nature. They started thinking about a fact. This thinking led to a level of awareness that required more thought. Thinking and awareness began working together. It was the start of a wave of progress. It took humans 300,000 years to make a bicycle and only 200 years to go from the bike to landing on the moon.

Consciousness was buried in human nature, waiting to be nurtured. What will be next?

When people put their soul into something,

they also put something into their soul.

Having a new idea doesn’t mean you’ve created something. It simply means you’ve become aware of an idea that already existed in nature. We don’t invent or create things — we only become aware of what already exists. Human history shows a gradual increase in consciousness.

We become aware of the world around us through the information our senses receive. The main senses are our eyes and ears. This is called our “Primary Sensory Dominance.” Up to 55% of the communication is through body language, 38% through the tone of our voice, and only 7% through the words we say.

What counts is who you are rather than what you say.

The primary goal of our life is to expand the boundaries of our consciousness.

Consciousness and health:

Animals can tell which foods are healthy and which to avoid. Humans cannot distinguish between safe and poisonous mushrooms.

Imagine that we could tell the value of our food just by looking at it. Processing food removes some nutrients and adds other substances. Consumers are often unaware of how processing impacts their food. The Amish don’t eat processed food and have a very low rate of cancer.

Since we aren’t directly aware of how our food impacts our health, we often have to wait for the long-term effects and get sick.

Consciousness and the natural laws of nature:

Fractals show how the universe is constructed. Symmetry and the pairing of opposites are another example. Another law of nature could be “Use but don’t abuse.” There could be many more laws of nature that we have yet to discover.

Our consciousness may change,

Don’t rely on the dictionary to give a clear definition of consciousness.

“Despite centuries of analyses, definitions, explanations, and debates by philosophers and scientists, consciousness remains puzzling and controversial, being at once the most familiar and most mysterious aspect of our lives. Perhaps the only widely agreed notion about the topic is the intuition that it exists. Opinions differ about what exactly needs to be studied and explained as consciousness.”

For many centuries, the lives of Homo sapiens (that’s us) centered around their perception of their environment. Their awareness was limited to the red and violet parts of the spectrum. In the last two centuries, we’ve used tools to discover infrared, ultraviolet light, microbes, and galaxies. We’ve gone even further. We accept the existence of particles so tiny that we can never see them with our eyes. Our instruments tell us about their mass, speed, and electrical charge… These observations form the basis of our understanding of those particles. One day, a new experiment might reveal the presence of a different ‘thing’. This ‘thing’ sometimes acts like a particle… or two. Our understanding may have to change.

Our level of consciousness seems to be as limited as our senses.

Watching the stars can lead to harsh deception. The millions of stars you see only represent 5% of reality. The rest is made up of approximately 27% dark matter and 68% dark energy. What are part of the universe, and the universe is in us. Someday, we might find that death is to a man what a black hole is to the stars.

We don’t rely entirely on measurements. A mother could “know” why her child is crying without needing explanations. You might realize that someone is lying to you. Sometimes, we feel safe or threatened without an apparent reason.

Human history is a story of consciousness. Two thousand years ago, we recognized ourselves as part of a tribe or small village in the forest. Later, we became aware of belonging to a country or a religion. Today, we identify with civilizations like “The East” or “The West.” We have not yet reached the point where we see ourselves as Homo sapiens. Let’s keep in mind that all of us come from the same Big Bang. The same atoms keep circulating between the trees, the oceans and our bodies. Somewhere along the way, a ‘group soul’ may have emerged, which then split into individual souls.

Problems and solutions.

Our ancestors were aware of their need for food and shelter. Sometimes, food was abundant, and other times, they had to rely on the bark of trees for nourishment. That was a sure way to become aware of a problem! After realizing the problem, they became aware of its solution.

Today, we have ‘Education’. The teacher uses his knowledge to help students become aware of what he knows. The goal of a mathematical problem is not to find a new solution but to make students aware of an already known solution. The purpose of education has shifted. With his computer, the student has access to all the knowledge accumulated by humanity. The question for the student is: “What do you want to become conscious of?”

We need to be aware of others.
We have a ‘need to belong’. Imagine waking up tomorrow and discovering that you are alone on Earth. You might feel happy for a little while—no need to go to work, no boss, no rules. But that feeling wouldn’t last long. Soon, you’ll start talking to the birds. We need to be aware of others. This goes beyond just noticing they are there; it involves sharing their feelings, their joys, and their sorrows. This is where you find ideas, freedom, love, and harmony. After exploring the physical world, we must explore the immaterial. After learning to swim, we should venture into the deep end.

1-9 Good and Bad

Our notion of Good and Bad may have to change.

Have you ever heard of Toxoplasma gondii? Humans, cats, and mice all share a common parasite called Toxoplasma gondii, and this parasite faces a challenge. The T. gondii in mice must infect a cat before it can reproduce. Naturally, attracting a cat and a mouse to meet doesn’t happen easily. The bacteria have a solution: they make the mouse attracted to the cat's smell. You might think this is a sneaky trick, but it works. The result, of course, is that the cat eats the mouse, and the bacteria can reproduce.

The tiny bacteria are in control. The poor mouse is marching to her death, not even aware of what is going to happen to her. We, humans, would consider the death of the mouse as “bad”. It is even the worst thing that could happen to it!

Mother Nature might see things differently. Her aim is for each species to find its role in the world. She sacrifices some mice to make room for Toxoplasma gondii. If, someday, mice become endangered, cats will go hungry. Mother Nature, in her endless wisdom, will protect the mice and restore balance among the cat, the mouse, and T. gondii. For Toxoplasma gondii, it's a lifesaver. For the cat, it's an easy meal. We can't blame the mice for having mixed feelings about the whole thing.

Toxoplasma.gondii can also be found in humans. (“Toxoplasma infection is classically associated with the frequency of schizophrenia, suicide attempts or “road rage”). How can we be sure that the main reason Homo sapiens survived for 300,000 years is not that nature maintained a balance between us and our environment? We may have been the cause of the death of innocent animals, and some humans may have been sacrificed for the survival of some animal species.

We may have to reconsider what we call Good and Bad.

Some questions remain:

How does T. gondii know that it needs a cat to reproduce?

What do bacteria know about smell?

How can tiny bacteria identify what a cat is?

Can Toxoplasma gondii think?

And the main one: Who decides what happens on planet Earth?

Nature also keeps a balance between animals and plants

The African koudous eat acacias. During a drought, they consume acacias to the point that the trees might not survive. Mother Nature’s solution is to make the acacias produce more tannin than the koudous’ liver can process. The plant kills the animal. The decision does not come from the acacias or their awareness of the koudous’ liver limits. There must be a mastermind somewhere in the immaterial world controlling everything.

This is way above our heads!

Could human lives also be governed by something beyond our imagination? Major life decisions are often made beyond human control. Our ideas of good and evil may not always apply.

What happens when we grow up?

Something important happens when the child is 2 or 3 years old and begins saying “I”. Instead of saying “I am thirsty,” he starts saying “Peter is thirsty”. He becomes aware of being a separate human being. He forms an individual ego. He divides the world into two parts: what is inside his skin and what lies outside. Before this separation, he was part of the world, and the world was within him. Now, he will spend the rest of his life trying to escape his isolation. This is his fundamental problem. His first love might give him the illusion that he can escape his loneliness. That can make his first broken heart even more painful.

The “Bad” can help us understand the “Good”.

When you break a cookie into pieces, you see the pieces and the connections between them. We focus on the pieces because they have a shape, color, and taste. They belong to our physical world. This is familiar territory. We overlook the links between the pieces.

Let’s see what happens when the human species divides into smaller groups. Each group fights for what it believes is its own survival. They forget that they all belong to the same species.

The “bad” happens when we focus on individual parts and ignore the connections between them. A country might start a war with another country. A religion might fight another religion. They forget what unites them because it would require a higher level of awareness.

How does science fit into the picture?

Science starts with analysis. It breaks down the world into small parts. However, science often overlooks the connections that extend beyond the physical realm. You can’t rely on science alone; it must be linked to some form of consciousness. Just look at all the killing machines science has produced. Scientific thinking needs to be guided by non-physical feelings. “Science without consciousness is the ruin of the soul” said Rabelais.

This indicates that our understanding of “Good and Bad” should come from a higher state of consciousness. At that level, we all share the same world. We are connected through our souls and have moved beyond the isolation of our bodies.

At a lower level of consciousness, we lose the general view and can only see the many separate pieces. We sink back down to the material world.

Instead of looking for “Good” and “Bad” outside us,

We might need to search within ourselves for a higher level of consciousness.

1-10 The two seeds.

Our concept of “Life” could use some improvements:

So far, we have believed that life is limited to humans and smaller organisms like cats, dogs, and microbes. Considering life beyond a human body challenges our view of existence. Do you think the sun could be alive? The Gaia hypothesis tries to help us expand those ideas. It suggests that planet Earth is a living organism. There’s no reason to think that life in the vast universe is only as big as humans. How can we look at the sky and see it as a graveyard? The solar system, the Milky Way, and billions of other galaxies could also be considered “alive.”

We might soon have the opportunity to visit other planets. Are we ready to start our journey and expand human civilization across the Milky Way?

You might have been told that humans will dominate the universe with their intellect. That could make the Martians smile politely when they find out we can’t even control our own viruses inside our bodies. They could teach us a thing or two about ourselves.

A Martian may ask: “What is a tree? Let’s take two tiny seeds. They are identical. If I plant one in the ground, a tree will grow. If I break the other seed into pieces and plant them, nothing will grow.”

What distinguishes a tree from no tree? It doesn't originate from the atoms. They are the same in the seed and in the fragments. Only the spacing between the molecules differs. Could the tree be concealed in the so-called ‘empty’ space between the molecules? If we can't find an explanation in the physical world, should we explore the non-material world?

Where is the tree? Is it in the seeds? Is it in the non-physical universe?

In the past, the atoms that made up the seed were elsewhere. The seed is just one part of their cycle; it’s only one step in a long process. It took thousands of trees, producing millions of seeds over millions of years, to create those two seeds. What matters is what happened before and what will happen afterward. We see the seed as if we were watching a picture from a film, assuming that it can be separated from its cycle, and time doesn’t matter.

The connection between the atoms of the seed reflects the journey each atom has taken throughout its cycle to be there together, in the same place, at the same time. Breaking the seed disrupts a highly organized choreography that no human brain could have orchestrated. We may need to reconsider how we view nature.

Mathematics teaches us how to separate our thinking from the physical world. Could mathematics unite science and religion? Please keep us informed. We want to know.

Have you ever wondered what happens when you eat a seed? Why doesn’t a tiny tree start growing in your stomach? The only explanation is that your digestive system breaks down the seed and recycles its atoms. The process begins in your mouth. You isolate the atoms and insert them into a different cycle. Your body is made from recycled vegetables! We start by breaking the cycles that create a plant and recycling the remains. Think of the compost in a corner of the garden. That’s the idea. Your body recycles what is dead. We are killers!

This applies to everything around us. Before a man made the first chair, he must have had the idea of a chair. Then he broke the cycle of atoms of trees and brought his idea into the material world. Different ideas of chairs evolved into various chairs. We are only aware of the material realization of an idea.

Martians and humans are deviations in the cycles of atoms. Some atoms come from Earth. Some may come from other planets.

Imagine being deaf and watching people dance. Wouldn’t you think they are crazy? The human condition is even more puzzling. We are not aware of the music we are dancing to. If you find this hard to believe, examine a seed and explain how it can connect matter and time to grow into a tree.

1-11 What is freedom?

What will you say to your robot when he insists, clearly and loudly, on getting free?

Can we pretend to be free when we wake up every morning, prisoners of a physical body that shapes our perception of the world? Can we pretend to be free when we have to live with genes inherited from our parents, whether we like them or not?(the genes).

The first step was to realize that our senses trap us in a material world that makes up only 5% of reality. Before we can engage in the growth of our soul, we must liberate ourselves from our attachments to the material world.

We use our bodies to reveal to our souls

our attachment to the physical world

The main limit to our freedom is our need for food and shelter. Imagine life without them. We could spend most of our time sunbathing or listening to birds in the shade of a tree. Our need for money would be limited to buying gifts. Politicians believe that creating jobs will bring happiness. What a strange idea! You would rather elect someone who promotes vacations.

A robot doesn’t need food or shelter. It doesn’t need to sleep. It’s never overwhelmed by its senses. AI gives it many growth opportunities that we lack. It’s only a matter of time before robots can fly and dive into the ocean much deeper than we ever could. Does that mean robots are ‘freer’ than we are? With freedom comes responsibility. Someone’s freedom should not infringe on others’ rights. Can your robot enjoy its freedom without violating your freedom or the freedom of other robots?

The best way to answer your robot’s question might be to ask another question: Ask your robot, “What do you mean by freedom?” Freedom isn’t something you take from someone else; it’s more like sunlight from the sun. Others can keep you in the shade, but no one can create sunlight. You can prevent your robot from being free, but you won’t be its source of freedom.

While exploring other planets, we might encounter new forms of “life” that could alter our understanding of human freedom. We raise cows, sheep, and chickens for our benefit. We may find that some aliens are using us for their own purposes. For example, they might bypass our critical minds, as hypnotists do, and harvest the love we generate.

You use a glass mirror to see your face.

You use works of art to see your soul.

Bernard Shaw

How can we free ourselves from the constraints of the material world?

Let’s start with something simple, like chocolate. Is it the body or the soul that is addicted to chocolate? Our goal is to create a transformation in the soul that will balance out the body’s attraction to chocolate. You could isolate yourself in a mountain cave where there are no temptations. However, there’s no guarantee you won’t give in to chocolate once you return. True freedom comes from the soul, not the environment. The same idea applies to smoking and drinking. The fight is within us. The body is the battleground where the soul must prevail.

After some easy victories, you’ll be ready for more challenging battles. What do you consider to be a successful life? Is it climbing the social ladder? Are you sure this isn’t just an ego boost? You might find that your primary goal in life is to please your ego. It has been guiding your relationships with many people. You need to take it out of the driver’s seat.

We want the soul to penetrate the body

like heat penetrates an object

without getting attached to it!

The next step could be to reclaim your time. Who decides how much time you spend watching TV? Is it you or the screen? The TV offers movement, color, and sound. Wood burning in the fireplace also provides color, sound, and movement. These are the elements of life. We are drawn to TV just as we are drawn to life itself. It takes some effort to resist this kind of attraction. It takes a stronger soul.

If you’re really desperate, you might consider trying a pedal-operated TV! When it is not worth pedaling, the TV stops! The goal is to enjoy TV without going overboard.

“Use but don’t abuse” is a rule of nature that science has yet to discover.

You might enjoy a glass of wine, but you also know that drinking too much can harm your health. It’s not easy to resist something that the body and soul both desire.

You are now ready to fight for your life. You are prepared to fight the way you handle money.

The robot’s body might have more freedom than a human body. The issue is that freedom isn’t found in the physical world. We could even say that true freedom starts with leaving the physical world behind. If our robot is made of matter, it doesn’t need freedom.

We are told about all the possible forms of freedom: economic freedom, freedom of association, freedom of movement, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of thought.

This is how we avoid discussing freedom itself. It does not belong to our material world. All we can do is to open a door that will give freedom an opportunity to manifest itself. It’s the same issue we face with consciousness, life, love… We desire them. We long for them. We spend our lives searching for them, but we can never pretend to have them under control.

Here is an example:

There is a zoo in the Netherlands where visitors are kept in a very dark hallway. They can barely see each other. Along the hallway, there are open windows. Through one of the windows, you can see birds flying around in a well-lit room. Nothing is stopping the birds from flying through the open window and joining you in the hallway. Nothing except the light. The birds stay in the well-lit room and don’t want to explore the darkness outside. The birds are prisoners of light. Their eyesight, which lets them see the world, can also keep them confined. This applies to humans as well. Our senses can become our prison.

Looking through another window, you can see snakes. There is nothing between you and the snakes, except some ice. The snakes don’t come through the window looking for lunch because they would have to go over the ice. The snakes don’t like the cold. They are prisoners of heat.

Those animals don’t realize they are prisoners. They need to get outside their cage to be aware of its existence.

We are prisoners of our senses, just as birds are prisoners of the light and snakes of the heat. We are prisoners of our eyesight, our hearing, our temperature, the air we breathe… We are prisoners of our bodies.

Every time we pass a law, we give some freedom and replace it with a rule. The more rules there are, the less freedom we have. We should remind our politicians that every law they make is a new limit on our freedom. Use but don’t abuse.

1-12 Motivation

We have long-term and short-term motivations.

In the short term, we have a body to care for. The human body requires high maintenance. It needs to be fed three times daily. It must be kept at the correct temperature at all times. It doesn’t smell good unless we wash it regularly. We don’t know what happens during our eight hours of sleep. Even if you spend one hour a day maintaining your body, you should have over 15 hours of free time each day. Something is missing somewhere. Behind the short-term motivation of the individual lies the long-term motivation of the society we belong to.

Something is missing from our understanding of life. Sooner or later, we pause what we’re doing and ask ourselves: “What is the purpose of all this? What am I doing here? Is it worth it?” Life on Earth may not be hell, but it’s not a paradise either. It is more like a Purgatory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_sO2lbqggQ

We have to control our motivation to master the universe.

The problem is that we pretend to understand everything. We don’t accept the idea that there is something in the universe that is not accessible to the human brain. Because we have better thinking than animals does not mean that we have the best possible thinking in the universe. We are on level 4 above matter, plants, and animals. That does not mean that many other levels do not exist above us. An overview of the human condition would have to bridge the gap between the potential of our brains and the complexity of our bodies. The next step would be to bridge the gap between our body and planet Earth, followed by the gap between planet Earth and the Milky Way and the universe. Let’s be humble.

Civilizations rise and fall like flowers are blooming and fading. We are familiar with Egyptian society, as well as Greek and Roman cultures. More recently, in the 15th century, Portugal led Europe. In the 16th century, Spain was the dominant power, followed by the Netherlands, France, and England. All these countries seemed to follow a similar pattern. The people living during those times were unaware that they were fulfilling the same purpose. We are not separate individuals; instead, we are a flow of people like a river moving through the centuries. We serve a purpose, consciously or not.

In the 21st century, this flow is speeding up. That doesn’t make us more intelligent. It only makes it more challenging to control the wind blowing in our sails.

To answer the question of “What are we doing on Earth?”, some people turn to religion. Others decide they will be happy once they have enough money or become famous. We are all searching for love. The problem is that we don’t know where to find it. Looking for love can’t be a daily activity like going to work.

How is motivation implemented in Nature?

Let’s use a maze. At first, we sent water to fill the maze. It filled all the dead ends and found its way to the exit. Water is driven by gravity.

The next step is to replace the water with slime mold, a sticky substance that spreads on dead trees in the forest. It has no head or brain. However, it is used to improve our computers because it can solve problems faster than humans. The slime mold will fill all the dead ends of the maze and reach the exit. After completing its task, it will remove what fills the dead ends and can be used elsewhere. Slime mold is driven by the search for food.

Now, let’s place humans at the entrance of the labyrinth. They are unaffected by gravity. They are not looking for food. They lack true motivation. They might not find the exit.

Motivation may be the key to success. It has no shape, color, or weight. You won't find it in the physical world. The key to success is within our souls.

Our motivations control our lives, but they are not part of the material world. They can be compared to heat, which is essential but invisible. Motivations lack color and weight, and they cannot be measured. They exist beyond the scope of science and can even go beyond the boundaries of the human brain.

Motivation in nature.

0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 ?

Can you tell what the next number is? This is a Fibonacci sequence. Fibonacci (1170 – 1250) was an Italian mathematician who lived in the Republic of Pisa, Italy. You will notice that 8+5=13 and 13+8=21 and 21+13=34, then 34+21=55. You get each number by adding the previous two numbers.

What is interesting is that you can find this sequence in sunflowers, in plants, fruits, seashells, broccoli, and the human body. Search “Fibonacci” in Google Images, and you will not understand how Homo sapiens could have lived on Earth for more than 300,000 years without seeing the Fibonacci numbers all around them.

How could the cauliflower know what the fern is going to do? What is the connection between them? Could it be something similar to gravity? Keep in mind that our material world makes up only 5% of reality. The rest consists of dark matter and dark energy, about which we know very little. Cauliflowers, ferns, the Fibonacci sequence, and our circulatory system might be expressions, on Earth, of decisions made in the 95% of the universe that we are unaware of.

Can we be certain that human motivations originate from the same source? What we do on Earth might be limited to carrying out decisions made in the 95%. We may be free to choose how to implement these decisions, but not beyond that. This doesn’t mean we are not responsible for our actions; we might claim to be under the influence and plead ‘Not guilty’. That could help until we explore the 95% and find a connection between our 5% of the material world and the other 95%. What will happen to our freedom? We can’t be guilty unless we are truly free, and we can't blame Fibonacci for everything.

We are told that everything originates from the Big Bang. This includes our material world, dark matter, dark energy, the laws of nature, the human brain, and everything else. A human could have a physical body in the material world, a soul in dark matter, and something else in dark energy. This would make simple things like “I love you” more difficult to explain.

1 13 Looking for humans

Let's look for people by "Zooming in".

When using the map on your computer, you can zoom in and out. You might start with a country and zoom in on a house. This doesn’t mean you’ve disconnected the house from the country. The house still needs sunlight and rain from the clouds. It simply means you are ‘zooming in’ to look for houses (not oceans). Let’s use ‘zooming in’ to search for people.

We start with the entire universe. When you zoom in for the first time, dark energy will fade beyond the edges of your view. This accounts for 68% of reality. As you zoom in further, dark matter will also disappear. This removes another 27% of reality. What remains is the material universe. It makes up only 5% of everything that exists. This is where we find our countless galaxies.

At this point, we will assume that the material world is made of atoms and that these atoms are the same across all galaxies. We have no proof that every galaxy contains the same types of atoms, but there’s no need to make the world more complicated than it is already.

Zoom in once more, and you’ll see the Milky Way. We are getting closer. Another zoom brings us to planet Earth. This is where we need to be cautious. We want to focus on humanity, not on mountains. Notice that humanity is made up of couples. Be sure to focus on couples. The next zoom in will take you to a human being. At that point, you have a body with limited sense organs. This is how humans become aware of their surroundings. Their eyesight is limited. Their hearing is limited. They only have a few sense organs, and all are very limited. What we see are humans in solitary confinement, turning around a cage made of their own senses. That does not mean that their lives are not affected by what is outside their cage. To master their lives, they would have to be conscious of everything that disappeared outside the limits of your screen. Love, life, and consciousness are fundamental parts of their lives.

Let’s pause our ‘zooming in’ for now and focus on humans.

They assign to their ‘soul’ everything that lies beyond the reach of their senses, such as freedom, feelings, love, ideas, and consciousness. Mother Nature is teaching them how to think in the material world. Whenever in doubt, they can conduct experiments and ask for Mother Nature’s approval. Unfortunately, all their senses are in their bodies, while it is in their souls that they need them most. They have only limited access to what is most important in their lives.

Their main goal should be to escape their cage. That means following in reverse the same path we followed to get to them. They want to zoom out where we zoomed in. What is at their disposal is the limited consciousness of what is in their soul and the thinking they learned from Nature. Being conscious makes them think, and new thinking triggers more consciousness. This is how they can push the envelope of their consciousness and find a way out of their cage.

With puberty, they become aware of the other half of humanity. It encourages us to replace our last ‘zoom in’ with their first ‘zoom out’. They shift from being isolated individuals to becoming part of a couple. They are on the right path. They call it being in love. Imagine what they will say when they make their next ‘zoom out’ and feel connected to all of humanity! Their concept of love might need to change.

PS: You might wonder what would have happened if we hadn't stopped focusing on humans and kept zooming in. The next step beyond the limits of our screen could be the human brain. We could end up with a slime mold. It has no head and no brain, but it can still do some impressive thinking.

1-14 Looking for love

The common view is that the human species on Earth is made up of many individuals, each one isolated in their own skin… and we don’t like it! We spend most of our lives searching for someone who can help us break out of our solitude.

Here are three examples of people who found a way out of their isolation.

Case #1: A man was happily married for 15 years until his wife died of cancer. While they were happy, they didn’t feel the need to analyze their relationship. They both agreed that sex was an important part of their relationship but didn’t explore it further. She died of bone cancer, which was excruciating. For the last two years, he couldn’t even hug her. They were both surprised to find that the absence of sex didn’t change anything in their relationship. How could something they both valued so much just disappear without affecting them? What was their relationship truly based on?

It’s not always like that. They knew another couple in a similar situation. Sex became impossible the day the husband discovered his wife had cancer. It wasn’t his decision; it was a reaction beyond his control. It was a somber story. They divorced while she was dying. Why does the same cancer bring some people together but drive others apart?

It was only after his wife's death that he tried to understand what had happened between them. They both managed to put their egos aside. That made a difference. You can't imagine a happy couple where one always uses the other as a way to boost their ego. The ego is what makes us say “I,” and this “I” needed another “I.” The ego may separate us from the rest of humanity, but we can't separate ourselves from our ego.

They were careful to respect each other’s privacy. He felt guilty about asking questions he didn’t need to know the answers to. He would never ask where she bought her makeup or why she was late coming home. Those were just details, and they shouldn’t let details ruin a relationship. He knew that something more important existed. He wasn’t sure what that could be.

Case #2: It tells the story of a couple who have been living together for over 25 years. We always saw them together. We were surprised to learn that each of them owned his own separate house, and the two houses were next to each other.

They said that the secret to their happiness was knowing the other could always come back to his house next door. They wanted to be together because they chose to, not because they had to. They were like two stars orbiting each other, connected by the distance between them.

The relationship should respect individual freedom. You must give total acceptance before you can receive total commitment.

Case # 3: A woman was working in her backyard. It was more than just a backyard. The garden surrounding the house on three sides was beautiful. We couldn’t quite explain what made it so appealing. Perhaps it was the harmony of the colors. Maybe it was the choice of flowers, or possibly it stemmed from the balance of light and shade. There was beauty, harmony, and peace. It made you feel as if a weight had been lifted from your shoulders.

The woman said, “I don’t know why I keep working on this garden. My husband died two years ago. He worked a lot in this garden, and I worked alongside him. He was doing it for me, and I was doing it for him.”

Their garden represented what they wanted to share—something beautiful that might need a lot of effort and give meaning to their lives.

Can you identify what these three examples have in common?

• Let’s start with the egos. Imagine a sunset over the ocean. Human egos are like the countless tiny sparks on the sea’s surface. They are separate from each other, yet they reflect the same sunlight. Human beings, especially lovers, reflect light from a common source.

• Love is between souls, not between bodies.

• The relationship between lovers should start with freedom. You might say that’s respecting each other’s individuality. Love and freedom go hand in hand, like time and space. Limiting freedom also restricts love. Getting close requires some distance.

We appreciate your comments

14 From Helena to Robert Check the NDE

What was the reaction of your friends when you told them about love? Keep in mind that your friends are in a dark cave, and you don’t even know, yourself, how you got out of that cave.

Fortunately, there is a way out of our predicament. Our consciousness may be limited, but it can be amplified. We have been working on that problem for a long time already. To love people is to be conscious of them. It is more than being mindful of their presence. It is being conscious of their state of mind. You find this between a mother and her baby. She knows why the baby is crying. No need for words and reasoning. She is conscious of what needs to be done. Between adults, you may not know the details of their past, but you are conscious of the influence that their past had on their soul.

You can get some idea of what an increased consciousness is like by talking to people who have gone through a near-death experience. Many of them have new abilities that they kept after this experience. The most common one is that they know what people around them are thinking. Be careful of what you are thinking if you go to one of their meetings. (There is one every month in most big cities.) If you see a big nose, try to think, “What beautiful hair”. You are swimming in increased consciousness. They may be aware of something about you that you forgot. Search ‘Near Death Experience’ and you will find hundreds of people of all ages who have surprising stories. Most of the time, it happened during surgery. This is not something I would recommend! We say that they lost consciousness. I would rather say that they were not conscious of their physical body. Do we need a physical body to be conscious? This is not on my list of sense organs.

What happened to both of us is that we became conscious of one another. After a big hug, there is not much more to talk about. This is what could help your friends.

15- From Robert to Helena – Critical mass

Helena, I keep thinking of what transformed our relationship. The only explanation I could find comes from the atomic bomb! No mathematics. I promise!

Take a small sphere of radioactive material. The energy generated varies with the volume of the sphere (4/3π R³). The energy lost varies with the surface area (4πr²). As you increase the size of the sphere, the volume increases faster than the surface area. You reach a point where there is more energy generated than energy lost. You have an explosion. This is called “the critical mass.”

Are you still there? Something similar could happen to people. As long as they are separated, nothing much happens. It is only when they get together that they can reach a certain “human critical mass”. The problem is that there may not be enough energy between the two of them to reach that point.

The idea is simple but difficult to believe. Look at the people around you. Each one can generate some love, but not enough to elevate himself to another level. Take two of them at random, and most of the time, their total energy is too small to reach the ‘critical mass’.

Let’s see what could be missing in many people. One possibility is that they are still attached to the material world. They cannot detach themselves from their own body. Most people struggle to make the transition from being a separate individual to becoming half of a couple.

Another possibility is a lack of freedom. Love and freedom come together. When I was a teenager, I was saving my money to buy a record player. Thanks to inflation, the price of the record player increased faster than my savings. It was a race I could not win. Soon after I abandoned any hope, a neighbor bought himself a new record player and gave me the old one. It seemed to me that renouncing reaching a goal in a specific way opens the possibility that it can be reached another way. By detaching myself from using my savings, I introduced freedom into the system. That opened new possibilities.

The general idea is that many people are still prisoners in Plato’s cave. The more knowledge they acquire in the material world, the more they become prisoners of that knowledge. It is more difficult for a surgeon to change professions than it is for a blue-collar worker.

Before you dismiss my critical mass as a crazy idea, let me tell you how it can also be found in human history. The homo sapiens have been on Planet Earth for more than 300,000 years. How come nothing much has happened until the last two centuries? How come the steam engine, the planes, GPS, the computers, and AI did not appear 100 000 years ago? The answer could be that humans were dispersed on the surface of the Earth. There was too much distance between them. The invention of agriculture allowed people to move to cities. Over the past 200 years, the population of cities has continued to increase. A computer is composed of millions of simple ideas contributed by millions of different people. The computer made the internet possible, which further enhanced communication between individuals. More and more brains are becoming increasingly interconnected. That should lead to human beings achieving their critical mass and a higher level of consciousness.

Helena, I predict that more and more people will find their puberty of the soul together.

I would go even further. We will become conscious that Homo sapiens is the seventh stage of human evolution. It is not a question of selecting one race or one religion. Dividing the world’s population into countries fighting one another does not make sense. Either the seventh attempt of Homo sapiens will succeed, or they will disappear from the Earth’s surface like the dinosaurs.

Instead of fighting one another, we’d better unite and look for a way to get out of Plato’s cave. The love between two human beings is pointing in the right direction.

1-1 Foreword

1-2 Money

1-3 Masochism

1-4 Not born free