The term saving is used here in a more popular and current sense: we are talking about saving ourselves, about the effort one makes, on his own, to avoid falling into a dangerous or deadly situation.
More concretely, we are referring to certain initiatives that any person can take by way of self-therapy to avoid or alleviate suffering. For instance, we speak of saving ourselves from fear, from distress, from anxiety, from loneliness, from suffering… and of saving ourselves from ourselves.
There is no specialist who can save me with his or her analyses or remedies. “Salvation” is the art of living, and this art is learned by living. No one can live for me or take my place. There is no professional or counselor who can instill the necessary courage into a disciple and enable that person to dash off down the slope of salvation. It is the person himself who must draw from his or her ancestral depths the basic energy in order to dare to face the mystery of life with all its challenges, demands and threats.
You are the one who can and must save yourself in order to acquire peace of mind and joy of living. For this, you must, first of all, believe in yourself and be aware that every human being is endowed with enormous possibilities that are usually dormant in one’s inner recesses. But once these talents are awakened and brought to light, one can do much more than he or she had ever imagined. Besides, you have at your disposal the wonder of your mind, filled with positive forces to which you can give free rein.
So you need to start by believing in yourself and in your own capacity for salvation.
There are individuals who manage to function well socially through dissimulation mechanisms or common sense, but who still live in distress and pain. These people are not “sick”, they have no pathological symptoms, yet they suffer a mortal agony and, very often, they do not even know why.
They suffer from depression and insomnia. They point to their marital or professional problems, but those are not their real problems. Their problem is feeling that life is slipping away from them without their having lived it, that the years are going by, that they are going to die without having lived. They have all they need, they enjoy good physical and psychological health, but the feeling that they are missing out on everything overwhelms them. Without being able to explain it, they feel totally empty.
For the one living this situation, saving oneself means to eliminate or alleviate the sources of suffering; it means to shift the frontiers of pain and anxiety, to overcome the obsessive preoccupation with oneself and thus acquire presence of mind, self-control and serenity and, of course, rediscover the joy of life.
No one can accomplish this sacred task for me or take my place. I must be my own “savior”. Friends and relatives can be with me only on certain levels. But at the deepest levels, where
I am myself and distinct from everyone else, I either take on full responsibility for myself, or I lose myself. No help from the outside can reach me at those depths.
There is no other “savior” for me but myself.
We reiterate: Save yourself!
Extracted from the book ´From suffering to peace´ by F. Ignacio Larrañaga
In this book the author presents a few simple, practical and effective mechanisms by means of which anyone, on his own, can eliminate many of his own sufferings or, at least, alleviate them.
