NY 06/10/2016 Yesterday was the inauguration of the first Small Hall of Silo’s Message on the East Coast of the United States. Located in Astoria, Queens, the site will serve the diverse ethnic communities of the area. Initial groups in English and Spanish are already formed and the coordinators are looking to start a Portuguese-speaking group. The hall will be used for meetings of the Communities of Silo’s Message, as well as for ceremonies, study, and special celebrations.
Silo’s Message states that all human beings should have full rights to believe, or not to believe, in immortality and the sacred. The Message gives the utmost importance to the themes of immortality and the sacred because, depending on how a person places him or herself with respect to these themes, so will be his or her orientation in life.
The Message takes on the difficulties of openly examining the fundamental beliefs, clashing with the censorship and self-censorship that inhibit freedom of thought and good conscience. Within the context of freedom of interpretation, immortality for some refers to the actions performed in life continuing in the world despite physical death. For others, the memory that continues in loved ones, or even in societies, guarantees the persistence after physical death. For still others, immortality is accepted as personal persistence in another level of existence.
Continuing with freedom of interpretation, some feel the sacred as one’s deepest affection. For them, their children or other loved ones represent the sacred and possess an utmost value that should not be defiled for any reason. There are some others who consider the human being and his universal rights as sacred. Still others experience the divinity as the essence of the sacred. The different positions taken with respect to the themes of immortality and the sacred should not be simply “tolerated,” but rather genuinely respected.
