The Netherlands.



Means and meaning.



In line with the European motto 'the bigger, the stronger' many small European countries, throw overboard what has made them essentially big: their social institutions and their social understanding.

In a city like Amsterdam, where the idealism of the 1960's had survived so far, we can see the effects of a new (dis)- orientation most clearly, to appease dissattisfied taxpayers supposedly.

Not only the City Council and the Dutch Government, but the University of Amsterdam have moved towards deeper commercialism in a confusion of who is who. This can be observed in small things, and is a result not of choice, but destiny, it was proposed by European policy-makers.

'The train is moving and can not be stopped', said German Chancellor Helmut Kohl at the time, referring to the Euro. We have many fearful associations with trains that cannot be stopped. And public transportation, as well as all other public services have become a subject of constant controversy and dispute.

Everybody has to 'think big', and students are conditioned in an early stage by the decree that they have to be delivered as good products (worth the investment) to society, and be useful to the State, the latter though which has been basically supplanted by European ideology, an abstraction.

Years ago, just after theTreaty of Amsterdam was signed, we could already see changes take place in small communities like that of the University of Amsterdam.

A boy was expulsed from the University after having spoken about the World-teacher Maitreya, the Mahatma Koot Hoomi and the Master Djhwal Khul, also called 'the Tibetan'. The latter became well-known by his many books that were telepathically dictated to his disciple Alice Ann Bailey, in preparation of a new world order in which a better consensus would be achieved between material ideology and spiritual science, between means and meaning.

The boy who thus spoke was arrested, interrogated and thrown out of the University Mensa by nearly ten policemen, who had been invited by the manager to that effect. The manager had received an anonymous message, he said, in which the person in question (no longer a student, but still a creative member of the intellectual environment of the University) was suspected of psychic instability, say insanity, and terrorist plans, indeed. The boy was shocked, but anything he said in his defence was useless and only enhanced suspicion against him in other ways. A few days earlier he had been already approached by two Surinam security guards. These, then recent employees of the University had nothing to do, and were just looking for trouble and intrigue, and some distraction, to legitimate their presence, the boy had thought. This was long before international terrorism became a global conditioner of human affairs.

Meanwhile a new, ambitious subway was planned in Amsterdam, with much glass in its design, suggesting a transparency, lacking everywhere else above the ground, and many mirrorlike effects, presumably to make it seem inviting to its engineers as well.

The boy had his lesson in psychology, call it economy, and what is cause and effect. His personal experience was later interpreted as part of a development on a wider scale, and a clear guideline in understanding the twins of not imaginary terrorism and war on terror. For the not very transparent structures that were globally developed as part of a new world order, not only conceived in Europe, but elsewhere, have alienated many people, not only from an organic society like that of Amsterdam was, but the world at large, also many who were (to be) intelligent leaders.

The new world order, so called, which was introduced by George Bush Senior, was only a concept, an ideology, working out more abstractly than the Supermundane to most people.

It would be useful to consider wisdom in small matters, in being part of any order. But our messengers are frequently maltreated, and confusion and terror are the result. The boy,at least has learnt, in his own way, why Pythagoras already stressed the ever persistent analogy between microcosm and macrocosm to be basic to all life, and how this can

be a real science, as well as a form of prevision.

Yet, many people like to steal and falsify knowledge when it is in the right hands. But also thieves help to constitute evidence by what they can not properly use. A culture of blame and shame, of waste and bad taste may be the result, and of search, but also still: scientific proof.

When we apply this knowledge to society, and recognise the difference as well as the corrrespondence between private and public responsablity, we understand why alienated people seek tranparancy under the ground and obscurity above the ground, and still call themselves realistic.

Simple people are needed to create a balance between means and meaning, between freedom and justice. Simple structures will be the result of their solidarity, not dogmatic or oppressive, but resilient and reliable.

JMH.