(NEW) Ekaterina Polukhina (Russia)

I have been participating in the activity of DP groups for two years already. At the moment I am finishing my candidacy to join as a member of DP and as a facilitator. What is the purpose of taking part in such meetings? First of all, it gives you an opportunity to live the text through, it helps to combine the ideas from the text with your own life. Secondly, this meeting let you hear the others in a true and genuine way. Thirdly, this meeting is a unique moment of the revelation of your depth. My first meetings where I was a participant made a big impression on me. The most attractive thing is that you don't need to have a solid philosophical background, the most important thing is your desire to understand yourself through the philosophical text. Before the meeting with philosophy I was highly interested in the topic of true poetry, the poems appeared in my life. I felt my readiness to read the poems very often after such an online-meeting. The meeting with the text is a very important moment in Deep Philosophy. In my personal experience the moment of this acceptance of the text has aroused in some kind of contradiction. If we consider the text as a "mirror", hence, only what we have inside us can be reflected in the text. The aim of the text is to remind us about some aspect of reality, the aim of a facilitator is to help the participants to see the depth of the text and to understand its meaning in a personal way, to hear their own voice and become aware of the personal outlook on life. Then I have realized that a contradiction can be our friend, not enemy, it is the first step on our way of finding the answer. Deep Philosophy gives me the food for reflection, some contradictions awaken me and it inspires me for the search of myself. At the present moment, I see that in some moments of my life I can react calmer on the life difficulties (with some part of stoicism), DP helps me to awake my consciousness and be in a needed state of mind to understand poetry, it helps me to hear other people. It cannot but be surprising that the voices of our realities are practically alike, as if they go from one center. At the same time, it demands my efforts to understand what from all this variety is closer to me. Thus, philosophy is a way to yourself by all possible means, and it is also an everyday practice of these truths.