No consciousness has ever been gained in history without an eye being given for it. All the historical consciousness we possess as a nation has had a price that we have paid, and all the consciousness we have not yet attained also has a price that we will inevitably have to pay in the future. Until its appointed time, that price will remain as our historical debt, waiting for the day we courageously pay it.

If we look at human history, we see that consciousness has been gained only by paying the price of consciousness. Throughout our history we have been at war with our shadows, and every war we see in the outer world is only the consequence of a war that has not yet come to an end within us.
Humanity’s great battle is nowhere but within. Wars, oppression, and injustice will end only when our inner wars come to an end, and that ending cannot be reached except by paying the price of consciousness.

In our Iran, the eyes lost by the courageous young people of our homeland are not only their eyes; they are the eyes we, as a nation, have lost in order to understand our historical shadows and to see the dark side of our own history. It is we who have lost these eyes so that we may, once and for all, become able to see our darkness.

In the world of myths and archetypes, the one-eyed hero is a hero who has attained consciousness, who continually keeps the dark side of the world within the field of vision and never becomes blind to it: like victorious Horus in the myths of Egypt, or Odin, god of the gods among the Scandinavian and Germanic peoples, who attained victory and awareness only by sacrificing one of his eyes.

During the past week, alongside all the news from our homeland bitterer than poison, there was also news of the arrest of several people who had suffered eye injuries in recent years. Instead of receiving help with treatment—the minimum one might expect from a political system with social responsibility—they were arrested.

This short video, prepared by one of our artist compatriots, is an excerpt from one of my recent seminars. It is a tribute to these great heroes of the Iranian lands and to the price they, and we, have paid and continue to pay for consciousness of our historical dark shadows.

Aydin Areta