Looking at the world we live in, we notice the disorder and the rushing transformations in an unknown direction. This results in the loss of an orientation, while we are prey to innumerable dazzles, in every field and above all in ourselves.

A fracture has been created between the original force that unites the universe, nature and man in a harmonious whole, and the activity of a mind that ignores this living unity, fragmenting it into science, alienating it into increasingly invasive technology, and orienting man towards abstract values, goods and consumption with no limits, amusements that move him away from himself; without mentioning the profit, which has become the one and highest value to subordinate everything. It's a real delusion that drives us to an alien future. The dominance of a materialistic reason, which began with the denial of God and soul, ends with denying man himself, causing a fundamental imbalance and the probable catastrophe to which it is leading us.

Today we live in one of the fundamental periods of history, where a civilization ends and begins a new one. Something like what was happening at the end of the Roman empire, with the decadence of a opulent and skeptical society as ours, while, at the same time, the need for a new spirituality was born in the hearts of men. It was like finding a source of life and truth, in the midst of the world's old age.
Will we also find it in ours?
The new spirituality that will change the world will follow the same fundamental impetus ever rooted in man - that of integrating his mortal condition into a broader perspective that gives it a sense - but will no longer want to limit it to imprison and extinguish it in religious representations and in the many philosophical elaborations of the past. Instead, we want to realize it through the experience of today's world, to participate intensively while seeking guidance that helps to avoid the probable catastrophe that his tensions lead him or, if it can not be avoided, that can guide us on the path to a better world.

Man-centered orientation, his true being, and his fulfillment, which we call "the Self”, the end and archetype of man, to look at despite the mistakes and abysses we are capable of. It will be found with such a centering, certainly not an anthropocentric hybris but a new awareness that will reach the unity and harmony between the heart and mind, feminine and male, nature and civilization, Yin and Yang, the fundamental polarities with which life proceeds in its incessant evolution; and with which it will assert a mature secularism capable of finding again a religious sense, now lost. These will be crucial aspects:
- a constant reference to the values of spirit and life, instead of an economy, a power, and a self-absorbed culture;
- a true knowledge, which can no longer be separated from consciousness;
- a new ethics, adapted to the emerging problems of today's world;
- laws and actions as realistic as enlightened, to conform to the spirit, knowledge-conscience and ethics;
- education of young people, inspired by these principles, so as to form the foundation of a renewed humanity.

Even the biggest social, economic, environmental, and political problems can be solved in the light of that orientation, without which they will only get worse. But who will be the legislator? Who will be the educator? Each one of us will begin by educating himself, looking at his inner center instead of the superficiality and delirium of the present world. By acknowledging our true and spiritual essence in this center, we will nourish our feelings, thoughts and actions, transforming our image to ourselves, to the city and to the world.

In the face of that task, my little books or even the whole of my work are really one minimum thing, but also a seed is small compared to a tree or any other creature that will be born from it. Others can act while I can only offer the modest contribution of a long meditation, repeated as a mantra. It can join in their contribution and in so many signs that prepare the birth of a new world. In the face of the catastrophe to which humanity is approaching, let us remember that it will ultimately lead to a higher level of conscience, and that a new and higher civilization will arise.

"Orientation" towards that conscience is not just the title of a small series of books: it's a necessity!
It's the cry that warns you of the urgency!

Vittorio Mazzucconi                                                                                                                                     December 21, 2015