Community Living - Survival Into Happiness? BeiYin interviewed By Bomoon

Bomoon: What is the motivation that brings people together with the intention to live in a community like FalconBlanco? Is it the dream to live in a different world than what is presented in this society? With different goals and wanting to find values that make more sense? Are people looking for conditions and a place that can make them happier than what is offered in a normal set up of average citizenship?

BeiYin: Yes, this can be one reason, although it is very rare that some one can abandon ones established life style, leaving every thing behind and live under totally different conditions. So it will not be enough that one is tired of the rat race, the usual life with working hard earning money to be able to have a life style that includes all that are part of the consumer society. It is not enough to be tired of all this, one will need to have reached a state in which nothing makes sense anymore, maybe one has passed a deep depression and feels desperate and then has the urge to find something that is more essential and when they are not able to live their old concepts and not being able to grab a new one, then their self-image and so their feeling of existence is disturbed. The usual behavior is that they find the fault for their uncomfortable feelings in the outside. Then even being told that the reason can be found in their own unconscious background structure, they don’t want to listen and they don’t want to look at themselves and consequently they leave. There have been many people coming and going over the years here at Falcon Blanco...

Bomoon: So then wouldn’t it have been better to give them a satisfying belief from that they could find the strength to continue instead of leaving disappointed?

BeiYin: Yes, this would have been possible, there are many very convincing and beautiful spiritual concepts available that have been developed over centuries and especially during the last few decades these concepts became very sophisticated. But I see any kind of concept as a trap and as a kind of personality game and I reject any trick just to hold people here and that they are content. If they are not willing and ready to question themselves and to look at themselves, then this is not the right place... And as a consequence I prefer to withdraw myself and live alone some where in the mountains, instead of joining common games.

Bomoon: I understand, you are talking about self-knowledge. Philosophers are talking about this since several thousand years, but obviously very few people live this. So then how can you find enough people to keep the Intentional Community going?

BeiYin: Indeed, this is one of the difficulties we are confronting. Too many people are coming and going and it wasn’t possible yet to form a stable team that could hold a group energy and then could support also short time visitors.

Bomoon: Let’s come back to the here and now and let me ask you what is happening at the moment at FalconBlanco?

BeiYin: There isn’t happening much, we had some disturbance from that we could survive and now we are living quietly and taking care of the place, the animals, the plants and ourselves. We have various new projects like expanding our Internet presence with audio and videos, but this must wait, because we need a few people more. At this moment we have enough work maintaining the place and the ongoing work with our recycling project.

Bomoon: What are you doing with recycling?

BeiYin: Watch the video at http://thestoryofstuff.com then you will understand what’s all about. We try to do something about becoming aware of our consumer attitude and recycling is part of this. Even though it might look senseless to visitors, what we are doing, mostly because money interests do not motivate it. But at least we try to do something. People are so much caught in their consumer attitude that it seems impossible to change attitudes and habits. People don’t care at all about the destructive results. Of course this shows peoples state of being unconscious, they are just not aware what they are doing and that their life style is not at all creative but destroying themselves and the planet. The administration has organized since several years a recycling system with different container for paper, plastic, metal, glass and garbage. But it doesn’t work; people mix all and don’t separate their waste. The same happens with big companies like super markets. They don’t know what to do for example with all the wooden pallets. So these go together with all the garbage into the landfill.
I thought this is just ridiculous cutting trees, making pallets out of them, using them maybe only once and then they go into the garbage. So we are saving trees by collecting those pallets and sending them back to the mainland that they can be used again. This is a free service we are giving to various companies and they are all content. It is a lot of work but it makes sense. Apart of this it keeps us connected with the real world outside of FalconBlanco and keeps us moving. Not just with the real world but it also and this is even more important, it keeps us connected with the earth, the ground on which we are standing and moving. It is a challenge to deal with a lot of material, to organize all and to recycle material that otherwise would be wasted. The most significant is that by dealing with in parts ridiculous things one is reacting out of ones old conditioning and so one has the opportunity to observe this and then get to know oneself...

Bomoon: You mean one is doing a kind of therapy by relating to absurd and provoking situations?

BeiYin: Exactly, outside conditions and happenings that doesn’t fit into ones self image let us react and this helps to get to know ones unconscious structure and also one understands how ones system functions, as part of human nature. Indeed one can learn and gain self-knowledge, although one needs to be ready for it. If the defense, to hold on ones established structure is still too strong, then this person will find the fault always on the outside and in others and then nothing can change. That’s the same with all systems on all levels. I have written about it in my article about ‘Transformational Change’.

Bomoon: Yes, we can observe it at the political scene, the solution always will be seen in the outside but never within the system. But let’s stay with what happens at FalconBlanco. What do you see as the most effective work you are doing?

BeiYin: What we are doing outside probably has little effect and also our work in the Internet, we can only represent ourselves, be present and express ourselves. This has very little effect; at least the response or the lack of response let me think so.
Bomoon: But you told me that there are positive responses and people are thankful for the support from your Web site.

BeiYin: Yes, there are a few good feedback, but when there are about 5.000 visitors daily at the FalconBlanco Web site and there is one response in one or two weeks, that means one out of 50.000 gets something positive out of what I’m writing and tells about it. Maybe that’s because I’m not famous. A football player or film star has thousand times more response and friends.

Bomoon: Yes, but these people are on another boat. About responses I can tell you that at the television stations it is seen as positive if one out of 100.000 gives a feedback and so yours is pretty good...

BeiYin: Indeed, those people who are excited about their hero are identified with these and so feel confirmed. The hero is a kind of authority and they try to copy their behavior and outlook. People who came to FalconBlanco are also trying to get confirmation for their concepts, mostly of spiritual nature, because they belief we are spiritual and so we must understand them. But then they are disappointed because we don’t support any kind of concept. Then they try to convince us to adapt their beautiful spiritual concept and are very upset if we are not interested. Then often happens the other game that they want to see me as a kind of authority. This is not possible with me and I am rejecting any kind of role as a leader or guru figure. If people don’t understand something, then of course they can ask. I don’t want to talk anymore without being asked. I told people here that they should watch the video about ‘the story of stuff’ and I said that this would be important, to understand what we are doing here. So one or the other watched the video, but there was no comment... I see why: There is still this image present that it is desirable to be able to buy what one wants and throw it away if one wants something else and then of course ‘recycling’ doesn’t fit into such a picture.

Bomoon: What else are you doing together as a group besides the recycling?

BeiYin: The daily work to maintain the place with all people, animals and plants is enough to keep us busy, but there is enough time and space for each person to find a way to express oneself in an artistic way. One is making music, another one is writing and also poetry, another one is investigating about alternative ways of self healing, one person is searching for ways to train and educate dogs, another one is rising four baby cats we found in a rubbish container, - a bit absurd because we have about twenty cats we are taking care of. And then, it’s not really a ‘doing’, but we are doing meditation together.

Bomoon: You told me that you are doing nothing for money, all what you do is because you like to do it and it makes sense and seems the best you can do. But what about the needs every body has? People need a shelter; they need food and many other things that one can only get with money buying it.

BeiYin: That’s not the case for us, we have plenty shelter and every one here has his/her own room and there is plenty of food, we could feed three times more people... About what you say that people need: Let me give an example. If one is thirsty then one can drink water, one doesn’t need all those color sugar drinks. If one has fallen into the trap of advertisements that you will only feel great if you drink this stuff, then you will need to buy it and you will not be satisfy just drinking water. Businessmen introduced the established concept that one needs to buy things to be happy and of course they are interested to keep it that way. This is false, the sense of life is not consuming fake... Moneymakers are investing good part of the money they make to convince their customer that they need these dubious products and so they keep the fake ball rolling. It is absolutely impossible for me to do something about this. We only can act in our surrounding and do what feels right, not depending and being influenced from others. We have no possibility to make advertisements to influence people that they change their attitude and behavior. This will need to happen when they are sick and desperate enough to then start to question themselves and then also ask what they might have done wrong…

Bomoon: What is your main interest in that you invest your energy?

BeiYin: My interest is to distribute information about the ‘StressReleaseExercise’ because I’m convinced that this is the most effective one can do to find a way out of ones personal cage to realize the freedom to get to know oneself and explore spaces beyond ones personality. Then being able to enjoy ones existence without fear entering into unknown fields. One can find the space for this wherever one lives, although it is not an easy thing to do because of the pressure from ones surrounding and society. That’s one reason why I have created FalconBlanco and I believe here it is much easier to find the way to connect with oneself and so to survive into a newly grown state of happiness that is more stable and permanent and doesn’t depend on outside circumstances and conditions.
Your questions make me think that indeed it would be good to write done a kind of working concept, so that people can understand better what we are doing and why we are doing this. I will make a kind of step-by-step program. We can talk about this later on...