January 29, 2026
Principle 1. The Principle of Adaptation. Fifth Week.
“To Go Against the Evolution of Things is to Go Against Oneself”
Last time: The weight of the future and the game of Explain It.
This time: My Path So Far.
This Week:
Over the previous four weeks we focused on the general structure, and implications of the principle, we also investigated how this principle may have impacted our past, present, and future. We also played the games of Find It, Ask About It, Name It, Explain It!
Every now and then we have the opportunity to add a fifth week to our month of meditations. This allows us to re-synch our meetings with the calendar week and provides us an opportunity to ask ourselves about where we are at in our story.
What if you could transform your daily life into a spiritual path that unites the “external” and the “internal”, “sacred” and the “profane”, the “worldly” and the “transcendental”.
Silo’s teaching makes such a thing possible. Perhaps then the Principles of Valid Action are not just tactics useful for confronting daily life, but the key to the transformation of reality.
How Am I Doing?
Answering that question involves having a direction. Whatever it is and whether it is implicit or explicit. When Silo proposed this kind of monthly reflection he did so in a context where he stressed that one is trying to live in a direction in accord with the declaration we make in the Ceremony of Recognition. As a reminder here’s the central part of that experience:
The pain and suffering that we human beings experience will recede if good knowledge advances, not knowledge at the service of selfishness and oppression.
Good knowledge leads to justice.
Good knowledge leads to reconciliation.
Good knowledge also leads to deciphering the sacred in the depths of the consciousness.
We consider the human being to be the highest value, above money, the State, religion, social systems and models.
We stand for freedom of thought.
We champion equal rights and equal opportunities for all human beings.
We recognize and encourage diversity in customs and cultures.
We oppose all discrimination.
We consider as sacred just resistance against all forms of violence—physical, economic, racial, religious, sexual, psychological, and moral.
Moreover, just as no one has the right to discriminate against others because of their religion or their non-religiousness, we affirm our right to proclaim our spirituality and our belief in immortality and the sacred.
Our spirituality is not the spirituality of superstition; it is not the spirituality of intolerance; it is not the spirituality of dogma; it is not the spirituality of religious violence. It is the spirituality that has awakened from its deep sleep to nurture human beings in their best aspirations.
We want to give coherence to our lives, to bring into agreement what we think, what we feel, and what we do.
We want to overcome bad conscience by recognizing our failures.
We aspire to persuade and to reconcile.
We make a commitment to increasingly fulfill the rule that reminds us to “treat others as we want to be treated.”
We will begin a new life. We will search within ourselves for the signs of the sacred, and we will carry our message to others.
Today, we begin to renew our lives. We will begin by seeking mental peace and the Force that gives us joy and conviction. Afterwards, we will go to the people closest to us and share with them everything great and good that has happened to us.
Peace, Force, and Joy.
Worth Repeating:
“When we are no longer able to change a situation-we are challenged to change ourselves.”
Viktor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning
If there's a remedy when trouble strikes,
What reason is there for dejection?
And if there is no help for it,
What use is there in being glum?
Shantideva in Bodhicharyavatara
Want More:
Join us at our weekly meeting. Every Wednesday at 6:30 PM ET.
Ask me for a Zoom link or find it on our Facebook Page (Community of Silo’s Message Toronto Annex)
Note:
These notes have been posted on Facebook and sent to our email list. You will also find them along with other comments, and reflections on my website: dzuckerbrot.com
