Hello to the Hedgehog
Comment: There was a storyteller named Sergei Kozlov. He wrote the fairy tale “Hedgehog in the Fog,” from which an animated film by Yuriy Norshteyn was made. It is considered to be one of the best animations of all times.
There are lines like:
Today also the Hedgehog said to the Bear Cub, “How good it is that we have each other.”
The Bear Cub nodded.
“Just imagine I’m not here. You’re sitting alone and there’s no one to talk to.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m nowhere.”
“It doesn’t happen that way,” said the Bear. “I’ll turn everything upside down, and you’ll be found.”
“I’m not here! I’m nowhere!!!”
“Then I’ll run out into the field,” said the Bear Cub, “and shout: ‘He-e-e-dgeh-o-o-o-og!’ And you will hear and shout: ‘Be-e-e-ar!’”
“No,” said the Hedgehog. “I’m not even a bit anywhere. Do you understand?”
“Why are you bothering me?” the Bear Cub said angrily. “If you’re nowhere, then I’m nowhere. Understand?”
Question: See, on the one hand: “If you are nowhere, then I am nowhere.” It is said, as if in a friendly way. How can I be without a friend? On the other hand, there is some depth there!
Tell me, what does it mean for you: “If you are nowhere, then I am nowhere”?
Answer: If a person does not find another in whom he can see himself, then he will not find himself. So, in whom will he see himself? We see ourselves in others. Therefore I need others so that I can see myself, my face, my character, and my qualities.
This is the only way I discover myself, by looking at others. And so it turns out that if there is no you, then there is no me.
Question: And in the perception of reality, if I am not there, then there is nothing. What does “there is nothing” mean? The world exists.
Answer: But this is what Konstantin Balmont wrote: “While I live, the universe shines. If I die, it will die with me.”
Question: But how does one understand that if I am not there and everything that is configured, this world, all these people, that all this also disappears?
Answer: It is all in me.
If I don’t feel the other—in actual fact the other, outside of myself—if I don’t feel myself in him, then I don’t feel the world at all.
Question: So I always have to see myself through someone?
Answer: Through someone, yes.
Question: And why do we see ourselves so ugly now?
Answer: Because we close ourselves, we lock ourselves, we limit ourselves, and we don’t want to see anyone but ourselves.
Meaning, I see mirrors around me, mirrors, solely mirrors. And I see only my single snout in them, such a perverted one with all sorts of grimaces and frowns. And I don’t see anything other than that. This is my world.
Question: So if I don’t let anyone in, and I don’t go anywhere myself, then am I scary? Is this then my world, my ego? Am I alone?
Answer: I see myself.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/7/22
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