Each of you lives your life, and each of you realizes, moment by moment, day after day, how much life and existence can surprise by offering new experiences, new difficulties all the time.
I listen to a choir of voices that rises from the physical world, a choir of voices, very often, only mental ones.
What do these rumors say?
What do they ask of themselves, of life, of God?
What do they complain about, what would they like, what do they express, what unites them?
What they have in common is the fact that the life of each of you is mainly centered not only on yourself, but on your ability to act, to interact with the other people around you; that is, it hinges on your ability to live with others.
How difficult is this coexistence, how difficult it is to meet and not clash with others, how difficult it is to do for others and not expect others to do!
From these difficulties very often arise the daily disturbances that you have, disturbances that affect your families, which manifest themselves in your inability to communicate with others, to create solid and sincere relationships, to find that affection that you sometimes lack. , to be able to collaborate with others, to work with others; to build with others, to create with others, to live, in short, with others.
What is the way, children, to get out of these clashes unscathed, and not only unscathed, but even strengthened? What is the best way to make this coexistence fruitful?
What is the best way not to make mistakes, not to hurt others, not to harm others, to create harmony, peace, serenity, balance, to become, in short, you for others, a source of love, of friendship, of serenity?
The best way, children, is to always remember a phrase said many centuries ago by a Teacher of the past which is also always alive and current and which will continue to remain alive and current as long as man's interior needs an ethical and moral teaching.
These words gave as the norm of life the do not do others what you would not want done to yourself.
This teaching seems so easy, it seems a phrase, now almost taken for granted. Yet, children, all of you one by one, who every day complain about what others have done to you, or about what others do not do for you, or about how others do not gratify you or do not respond to your smile, all of you, actually,
you do not notice that you are doing to others exactly what you charge them to do to you.
If you yourselves, therefore, will always find in you a smile for others, if you yourselves are ready to recognize the value of others, if you are all ready to accept the advice of others, if you are all ready to say "Io I was wrong "and not" You are wrong ", if you all manage, in short, to make room for others and not only for yourselves, be sure, children, that living with others will become a simple and easy thing; and not because you have sacrificed yourself for others, but simply because you have made sure that in the world you live in there is room not only for you, but for everyone; not only for your needs, but for those of all those around you, who are with you in the world and who struggle, live, suffer, cry and rejoice as you do; all those, in short, who are nothing but variations of yourself.
With these words, our children, and with the hope that starting tomorrow you will be able to understand them - and not only mentally, but also to put them into practice, day after day, starting with those closest to you, then plus these actions of yours – I salute you, I leave you my blessing. Weather
Lately there was a message in which it was explained how relationships are lived with other people and said that the best way to build relationships with others is to follow the teaching of Christ, what he says: "do not to the others what you would not have done to you ».
I was in feel like everyone else and I said to myself: I cannot understand why this pessimism of Christ! Why teach in that form? Why say "Don't do to others what you wouldn't want them to do to you"?
To say this, in my opinion, means starting from the concept that the others are there, ready to do anything to you, it seems to me, if you understand what I mean.
So I went to Papa Scifo and I got him to explain why, and Scifo told me what to remember when reading the teachings of antiquity: the teachings of antiquity were aimed at the humanity of that time, and the 'humanity of that era was clearly a humanity that had a'evolution very different from that of this one (apart from certain individuals, this is clear), and it was a humanity that really needed an indication of what it should not do, not what it should do, because it still had to understand what not he had to do. Do you understand the subtlety?
Thus, for example, it could not be said: "Respect life", but it had to be said "Do not kill".
The first phase is that of imposition to get used to; then, when it becomes natural, then we move on to the second phase.
In fact, if the teaching of Christ were to be given to present humanity (to most, at least, of this humanity), instead of: "Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you", one should say: " Do to others what you would like others to do to you! ».
In this way, the teaching would be optimistic: the concepts would always be the same, but the perspective is different, because it assumes that the person you are talking to tends to do good instead of evil. Zifed
Very persuasive. Thank you
On closer inspection, if the link I report is reliable, Jesus already used the positive or optimistic form:
http://www.laparola.net/wiki.php?riferimento=Mt7%2C12%3B+22%2C36-40&formato_rif=vp
Thanks Samuele, a more than pertinent observation.
The site is trusted, a Protestant site that does a great job.
The translation reported by you is common to the old and new CEI translations of the passage, as well as to the various Protestant translations.
Zifed's argument, already fragile enough, is now groundless.
Original that has been enabled.
It is not the first blunder that I encounter, over time, even if always marginal in substance.
Apart from the subtleties, I believe that the value of this sentence, even if placed in its negative meaning, is a starting point for great reflection, with respect to how we translate our capacity to love into everyday life.
There comes a time when "do no harm" can no longer be enough for the evolutionary needs of an individual in his path from ego to love, living your life in peace without hurting anyone becomes an unacceptable convenience. The migratory phenomena of these times question each of us and shake us in our selfishness. Of course up to a certain point in the path of a conscience, stopping killing or stealing is the sign of an important growth, a stage of the long journey that leads to the consciousness of unity, subsequently harmlessness becomes more and more subtle, passing from the field of manifestation of action, to that of emotions and thoughts.
We think how difficult it is still for many of us to truly stop judging. Who among us would like to be judged? Yet to a greater or lesser extent we continue to do so, we do not harm anyone, but if we tried to apply even the negatively formulated phrase "do not judge if you do not want to be judged", we would realize how much the feeling of being judged and the suffering that it follows that they are in close correlation with our own propensity to judge.
The progress of harmlessness cannot remain detached from the growth of interest in others, of care, of service, which testify to the gradual overcoming of the sense of separation and therefore of the sense of a border, of a property to be defended. . In reality there is no border, there is no property, there is nothing to defend, nothing to lose.