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In complete control,
Pretending control,
With dignified authority,
We are charlatans…
(Or maybe just a goat's-hair brush in a painter's hand.)
We have no idea what we are.
In order to understand what is truly essential in another person that ought to be loved in him or her, one has to be able to dismiss authoritatively and wisely all that that person himself or herself in delusion IMAGINES to be essential to him or her. As rare as any form of sobriety may be in politics or society, it is of course rarest of all in love-relations. "Love" that has no such counterforce against the delusions of Self and World will merely get drawn into the pathos of the unenlightened, by retail methods if not by wholesale. Sharing in others' pathos is not at all the same thing as love; it is merely one finite and obtuse psyche getting digested into the churning life of another finite and obtuse psyche.
I do not hesitate to maintain, that what we are conscious of is constructed out of what we are not conscious of,-that our whole knowledge, in fact, is made up of the unknown and the incognisable.
Nobody needs to go anywhere else. We are all, if we only knew it, already there. If I only know who in fact I am, I should cease to behave as what I think I am; and if I stopped behaving as what I think I am, I should know who I am.
What in fact I am, if only Manichee I think I am would allow me to know it, is the reconciliation of yes and no lived out in total acceptance and the blessed experience of Not-Two.
In religion all words are dirty words. Anybody who gets eloquent about Buddha, or God, or Christ, ought to have his mouth washed out with carbolic soup. Because his aspiration to perpetuate only the "yes" in every pair of opposites can never, in the nature of things, be realized, the insulated Manichee I think I am condemns himself to endlessly repeated frustration, endlessly repeated conflicts with other sspiring and frustrated Manichees.
Conflicts and frustrations--the theme of all history and almost all biography. "I show you sorrow," said the Buddha realistically. But he also showed the ending of sorrow--self-knowledge, total acceptance, the blessed experience of Not-Two
To know all, it is necessary to know very little; but to know that very little, one must first know pretty much.
- Georges I. Gurdjieff
"If we truly want to create a life that is grounded in basic well-being, we must decide to commit ourselves to learning what it takes to thrive instead of merely survive."
At the root of human wisdom is an understanding that we are, at once, both gods and primates.
Without self-knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave.
Let the river flow and you will be liberated. Let yourself go with current and you will find yourself. Let the wind so blow and you will be able to break yourself free very much like a ripened fruit of self-respect that sheds itself away from the tree of dependence. Let yourself be blown away humbling as a fallen petal and you will find yourself above the lowly dust of ground, to finally discover the truth of your existence for yourself.
"It seems that I know that I know. What I would like to see is the 'I' that knows me when I know that I know that I know."
Of the four kinds of being,
From Brahma to a blade of grass,
Only the wise man is strong enough
To give up desire and aversion.
How rare he is!
Knowing he is the Self,
He acts accordingly
And is never fearful.
For he knows he is the Self,
One without two,
The Lord of all creation.
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
Say not, “I have found the truth,” but rather, ”I have found a truth.”
Say not, ” I have found the path of the soul.” Say rather, ” I have met the soul walking upon my path.”
For the soul walks upon all paths. The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.
Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,- These three alone lead life to sovereign power.
Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men.
Without self-knowledge, without understand the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave . . . .
Without self knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave.
The one self-knowledge worth having is to know one's own mind.
