Statement by Ruth Oron, Journalist and Translator

As to the family: There are absurd claims on the Internet by a few people that the study of Aesthetic Realism disrupts families. Nothing could be further from the truth. I want people to know my own experience.

For instance, a beautiful change took place in the relation between my mother, Leah Shazar, and me. After many years of being competitive, cold and distant, we came to have true friendship, with ease and depth in our conversations, something I will treasure for the rest of my life. Because of these changes, my mother, who lived in Israel, wanted to have Aesthetic Realism consultations when she visited New York, to learn about herself and understand better the way she saw her husband, friends, children, towards whom she said she felt she had been “too hard and rigid.” After her consultations she felt stronger, also lighter.

What a great pleasure it was for me to be in Israel, with nearly 100 members of the family and our friends (who, by the way, don’t study Aesthetic Realism) to celebrate her 90th birthday in January 2003. Just a few months before my mother’s death, she told me in Hebrew on the telephone from Israel: “I’m so happy that I have a daughter like you and that we met Aesthetic Realism. It opened our eyes.”

This is only part of the story. In 1979, a few years before his death, my father, Zali Shazar, also had consultations when he came to New York to visit. He went through a lot in his life. He had lost a large part of his family in the Holocaust, and had suffered from a serious stroke early in life. He was so affected by the way his consultants wanted to know how he saw his past and his illness. He wanted to speak about his marriage, which he was bitter about, and to learn how to be a kinder husband. He loved what he was learning and it made for an immediate change. He became more interested in his wife, and showed his feelings in a way he never had. I remember how moved I was seeing my mother and father lovingly holding hands—something I’d never expected to see.

At the time I began my study of Aesthetic Realism I had been divorced for a year and was in agony about the separation between myself and my two young sons, who lived with their father. The anger among us made our relationship hellish. It was only when I learned about the importance of having good will—how I needed to see them not only as sons, but with their full dimension—that a big change took place. For the first time I was really interested in who they were, what they felt inside. And I felt knowing them could have me know myself and all people better.

This made for a revolution in our relationship: instead of the fury and punishing between us, we started to enjoy being together. I don’t have words to describe the happiness I feel now as I visit my sons, their wives and children at their respective homes in the Hamptons and in Massachusetts. Though they themselves don’t study Aesthetic Realism, they feel that Aesthetic Realism has had a good effect on their lives because of the way I changed, and also through what they have been learning about themselves in the conversations we have.

To read more about what happened in my family, see my website http://www.ruthoron.net/