According to the biblical story, Egypt was a land where the Hebrews resided until the Egyptians began to enslave them. Only at that point, did the Hebrews awaken to the realization that they needed to leave Egypt.
Like the biblical Egypt, ‘internal’ Egypt feels initially as the most natural place to be in, for it provides the security and “ground” elements one needs.
The need to leave it arise only after the realization of being enslaved by the same aspects which initially provided security and “ground”.
In the context of this document, “Egypt” represents a stage in the developmental process that characterizes human beings’ inner evolution.
Those who are unaware of it (their internal Egypt) remain in it for their entire lives, believing they are in the ‘promised land’, and those who recognize it have already begun leaving it.
“Egypt” in this paper context represents a state in which a human finds comfort in the principles and concepts that were taught to him since childhood, without ever questioning them or checking their actual relevance to him. In this situation a human extracts comfort from premises that are external to him and were taught to him throughout his whole life, as opposed to comfort that is being drawn from one “initial inner center”.
If we wish to avoid falling into the trap of “individual” perception (the common gap found between different interpretations of different people to the same concept), we need to come to a mutual understanding (Operational definition) regarding the meaning of “premise” and “initial inner center” in the context of this document.
Premise
A premise in the context of this doc is an absolute determination upon which human thought processes are based.
Let’s take the sentence “I am angry at Ran for not inviting me to the party” as an example and on the basis of it try to demonstrate and explain what a “premise” is:
What is the premise that lay at the base of the sentence: “I am angry at Ran for not inviting me to the party”? In other words, which cognitive template must exist so that this sentence can be expressed?
Maybe -“Ran was supposed to invite me to the party.”
If I didn’t hold a premise regarding what Ran should have done, there would have been no disappointments happening if these expectations hadn’t been met.
If I didn’t think that Ran was supposed to invite me, I wouldn’t be angry that he didn’t invite me.
This leads to the next question in our inquiry- Which premise sits at the base of the premise that Ran was supposed to invite me?
Maybe- “If I do something for someone, I expect them to do the same for me” (I always invite Ran to parties)
The above is only an example to illustrate how premises are part of human thinking, which means it cannot exist without them, and therefore can (and “should) be investigated until their root if one wants to peel off anything external to one’s “initial inner center”.
We have defined what is a “premise”, now let’s try to define “initial inner center”. This attempt to define this “initial inner center” is done only for the purpose of this discussion, for in a broader perspective, it can never be expressed in words.
The term “initial inner center” refers to the initial condition of existence, the one that is the same for all human existential experience, when it is at its initial stage (usually until the age of 3-4). This ‘place’, ‘center’ still exists, in fact, it has not changed one bit since these early stages of one existence journey as a ‘human’, but unlike it was at the early stages of life, now it’s covered with layers of concepts which hold various names such as “laws”, “premise”, written and unwritten, which were created for various reasons throughout the evolution of ‘human’ ‘society’, all in the purpose to meet different needs that were invented by the same spicy (humans).
Since early childhood, so many layers were added to this “initial inner center”, and it seems we forgot to create a path of breadcrumbs for ourselves to find our way back home to it. But no need to worry, for unlike all these concepts we’ve invented throughout the years, and all laws and behaviors we’ve imposed upon ourselves, which all carry the basic nature of ‘change’, this “initial inner center” hasn’t changed, not even a bit. Moreover, if we investigate it in more depth, we will find that it cannot be affected by any concept that was invented after it.
Tower of Babel
In the Tower of Babel biblical story, God did not look favorably upon the act of building a tower with the intention to reach him and therefore struck the people of Bable in the ‘soft belly’ by taking away their ability to bring ideas from potential to action, i.e., to manifest, (or at least made it much more difficult).
Any act of cooperation between (at least) two human organisms is dependent on the ability to conduct clear communication, without it, many of the ideas in a person’s mind will remain in it.
If this is a major characteristic of the human language- to enable humans to manifest in action their ideas, it might hold an answer to the reason language was invented in the first place. Under this premise, spoken language was invented so that humans could communicate with each other and through it manifest their mental ideas.
The next step, after constructing such a tool (language), was to use it to construct various laws. Laws were initially constructed with the intention to allow ‘humans’ to manifest as many of their ideas as possible, with as little friction as possible.
An example of “laws”/premise, that were constructed for the purpose of maintaining order that would allow our society to be ‘productive’ (whatever that means…), and hence to function efficiently with as little friction as possible can be found in the human norm that defines as “good” and “right” the act of helping another human who is at need. An additional example is the definition as “wrong” and “bad” the act of eating any other human, while it is considered mostly as completely “ok” when it is done to any other living organism.
In order to understand the connection between the above two examples (the social norms regarding ‘helping’ or ‘eating’ another human being) and the need to strengthen the existence of an industrial “productive”, “efficient” society, one can just imagine a world in which people could satisfy their hunger by eating each other, and in which there was no social expectation from anyone to help any other in need.
Would it be possible to create cooperation between humans? It would be much harder, that’s for sure, for so much energy would need to be directed to protect ourselves from being eaten, energy that now can be directed to manifesting our ideas together. The two “laws” mentioned above are just two examples of behaviors humans are adopting without questioning and when examined closely can be tracked to their source as tools that provide humans with the environment they need in order to cooperate with as little friction as possible.
At this point, I believe that some readers might feel uncomfortable. A voice within them will scream- “Obviously the act of a human eating another human is something abhorrent and therefore should be condemned! Assisting a person in need is obviously a basic obligation of every individual”.
The discomfort these individuals are experiencing and the rationalizations their minds use to explain it are a living example of the Golem, who although created by the rabbi of Prague, eventually enslaved him.
To illustrate the need for “another” and the ability to communicate with that “other” for the purpose of translating mental ideas into action, imagine a person born alone on a deserted island, we’ll refer to him as ‘Person A’. He has no one to teach him language or what are the rules that have been accepted as “legit behavior”, which means that these two concepts – “language” and “legit behavior” – do not exist in his world.
‘Person A’ grows up alone on the island. After a few years during which he suffers from rain and sun that sometimes disrupt his sleep, an idea arises in his mind – he can take the trees that have fallen over the years and place them side by side above him so that they will shield him from the weather.
Person A has an idea (to take the fallen trees and create a shelter), and he tries to carry out the idea alone, but he realizes that he can’t bring his mental idea into action (for example, he might not have enough strength).
And then, ‘Person B’ arrives on the island. Person B also grew up alone on a deserted island, which means in his world, as well as person A’s world, the concepts – “language” and “legit behavior” – do not exist.
For Person A, the presence of Person B represents the possibility to fulfill his ideas (if he hasn’t been eaten by him already). He approaches Person B but finds that he has no way to convey the idea that is perfectly clear in his mind to him. The idea is composed of many concepts, i.e., words including “wood,” “lifting,” “weather,” “cover,” and more. However, Person A and Person B have no shared cognitive patterns and therefore have a much harder way to make their ideas manifested.
The moment the first idea occurred in the space of existence, the birth of language began and since then countless ideas have passed in the river of humanity, billions of words were invented, countless collaborations took place, and accordingly ideas wove into existence and got manifested.
Somehow, somewhere along the road, ‘humans’ began to fall in love with their own creation – the one that allowed them to extract ideas from their minds into “reality”. And as commonly happens in any phenomenon of infatuation, they began to be blind to its various countless outcomes.
‘Humanity’ named its object of infatuation “action”. Can it be blamed for its infatuation and all that has resulted as an outcome? The amazing sensation of witnessing that magic wherein mental elements (ideas) are manifested into independent entities that serve the needs of those who think about them is a very exciting feeling that can easily become intoxicating.
From that point forward, the way was paved to tag any productive activity as one that holds supreme value. Any behavior that did not conform to this was deemed frivolous and a waste of time, time that should be dedicated to society as expected from any productive body that takes part in it.
At some point, we ‘humans’ forgot that we were the ones who created language, laws, and the various mental elements that were essential for us.
What happens when one forgets he is the creator of something?
To answer this question, I take us back to the paragraph from which we started:
Like the biblical Egypt, ‘internal’ Egypt feels initially as the most natural place to be in, for it provides the security and “ground” elements one needs. The need to leave it arose only after the realization of being enslaved by the same aspects which provided security and “ground”.
This notion can be illustrated to a person who builds a room for himself, enters it, locks the door behind him, places the key in his pocket, and then screams “Someone, please help me out!”
