A concrete wisdom, touching body as much as spirit. A disciplined life, refusing fragmentation and haste. A search for truth and unity which meets the expectations of today’s man.
Lanza del Vasto was never satisfied with abstract ideas. His message is a call to change life. Many books reflect his desire to “follow into the steps of his thought”, starting with Principes et préceptes du retour à l’évidence, a collection of aphorisms which is often a shock therapy for the reader.
How to get away from impediments, spirals, bounds which ruin our lives? How to reach a minimum balance and serenity? Approches de la vie intérieure offers practical answers with common sense. A whole wisdom is here condensed.
Without behaving as if he were a master, Lanza del Vasto proves to be a good guide for the one who wants to begin a spiritual path, or just set his life in order and give it meaning. Attention, return to oneself, vertical, breathing, relaxation can all be used to know oneself better in order to give oneself to others.
So, L'Homme libre et les ânes sauvages, which was written in the days following May 68, shows the real freedom does not lie in rejection of rules but in the authority we have over ourselves and our disorderly desires.
Lanza recorded this teaching for almost thirty years in Nouvelles de l’Arche, a magazine which circulated in only a few hundred copies but includes authentic treasures. So, after he died, three collections of articles were printed: Les Quatre Piliers de la paix (1992), Le Grand Retour (1993), Pages d’enseignement (1993).
Other books should be published or republished, taken from the vast collection of the written and oral teaching of the man whose friends named Shantidas, servant of peace. In this way, Douze conférences de Lanza del Vasto, given in Belgium from 1975 to 1979, have just been gathered in an audiobook with both text and records of his conversations. Extracts can be heard here:
The range of the topics covered by the author over the years is a wonder: music, asceticism, war, non-violence, freedom, society, but also theater, clothes, prayer, work, sincerity, meditation, resurrection: what did not Lanza talk about?
But the main feature of this teaching is certainly its deep, both intellectual and spiritual coherence. Far away from syncretistic fashions and pop psychology which flood supermarkets, this word can really help everyone grow up.
