We May Encounter...

We may encounter many defeats

but we must not be defeated.

~Maya Angelou

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Understanding the Concepts of the Work...

Understanding the concepts of the Work 

and using our verifications creates space within. 

But, I don't believe that it is an external Plan, per se, 

but rather an internal evolution 

that awakens and enlightens our true self 

to what is and has always been present.

~J

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Many Times I heard...

Many times I heard this phrase “ man cannot do”. 

The mere mention would make me feel willfull! 

Without the work and it’s ideas, 

it’s opportunity for transformation 

and the many mirrors of different students, 

it would be difficult to “See oneself” 

and this it seems is where we have to keep going - 

Into the inner world. 

Into our own beings (with self-remembering) 

on AIM which is linked very much to our will and desire. 

Ouspensky said we “need to have things in the right order” 

so that means starting with our own space, 

our own inner landscape. 

It makes sense that we cannot DO. 

It is the soul in conjunction with proper understanding

that may begin moving us in new directions.

~C

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I Know The Way You Can Get...

Edward Burnes

I Know The Way You Can Get

I know the way you can get

When you have not had a drink of Love:

Your face hardens,

Your sweet muscles cramp.

Children become concerned

About a strange look that appears in your eyes

Which even begins to worry your own mirror

And nose.

Squirrels and birds sense your sadness

And call an important conference in a tall tree.

They decide which secret code to chant

To help your mind and soul.

Even angels fear that brand of madness

That arrays itself against the world

And throws sharp stones and spears into

The innocent

And into one's self.

O I know the way you can get

If you have not been drinking Love:

You might rip apart

Every sentence your friends and teachers say,

Looking for hidden clauses.

You might weigh every word on a scale

Like a dead fish.

You might pull out a ruler to measure

From every angle in your darkness

The beautiful dimensions of a heart you once

Trusted.

I know the way you can get

If you have not had a drink from Love's

Hands.

That is why all the Great Ones speak of

The vital need

To keep remembering God,

So you will come to know and see Him

As being so Playful

And Wanting,

Just Wanting to help.

That is why Hafiz says:

Bring your cup near me.

For all I care about

Is quenching your thirst for freedom!

All a Sane man can ever care about

Is giving Love! 

~Hafiz

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The Scale of Our Work...

The scale of our Work is so vast! 

When I remember my large scale aim of awakening, 

the smaller frictions in life bare less weight. 

My identifications don’t root in

and can wash away more quickly. 

What a gift to lift my eyes to the immense sky

and realize I am looking at the past! 

I am so small! 

And yet, the energy and love we put out into the Universe

can make all the difference. 

This Work we are doing together, 

of Living more Consciously, is timeless. 

How we live today is creating the future for the collective consciousness. 

Our future incarnations. 

We are all bound together by One Ray of Creation. 

~E

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The Soul Knows Things...

 The soul knows things from a higher perspective. 

And when we are present in our machines we then KNOW. 

The knowing of just being present gives us access to all.  

~K

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I Was Reminded...

 I was reminded of the Indian tale of the Blind Men and the Elephant. 

Each man touches a part of this large animal, 

and thinks they have the whole of it, 

calling it in turn a tree, a snake, a fan, etc.  

How easy it is to grab a first impression, 

and think we have the whole of it. 

How important it is to go deeper, 

to look from a broader perspective. 

We can so easily be these blind men.  

And yet, Gurdjieff goes on to say 

that there is a quintessential "little" bit that implies the whole thing.  

This is what I feel so often, 

in reading and studying Conscious Beings in the work; 

that we have the gift of this distilled knowledge, 

given to us with different accents, or settings, 

and yet the truth, the heart of it all is there in each. 

This is what sustains me in the Work, 

this ability to learn, bit by bit, 

with grace, how to get to the heart of matter.

~J

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I Beg You...

John William Godward

“I beg you, to have patience with everything 
unresolved in your heart 
and to try to love the questions themselves 
as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. 
Don’t search for the answers, 
which could not be given to you now, 
because you would not be able to live them. 
And the point is to live everything. 
Live the questions now. 
Perhaps then, someday far in the future, 
you will gradually, without even noticing it, 
live your way into the answer.” 

~Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

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To Awaken...

George Hillyard Swinstead

To ‘awaken’ is to BE here. 

That is, the Soul is present to the machine or ‘in’ the machine always. 

To achieve such a state 

not only requires huge understanding 

and experience in the ‘play’ that is life, 

but one also needs to learn how to build up 

a supply of H12 large enough to keep the Soul present.

This state of ‘permanent love’ is the goal

that many of the philosophers and teachers throughout

history have referred to as a requisite to being ‘born’ or ‘awakening’. 

It’s kind of like we need to learn

how to become refined enough internally 

to not only recognize the higher 

but for the higher to make a home within us.

~O

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As I Try to Learn...

As I try to learn to live more in the movements of the heart, 

I am often surprised by the creative way my machine blocks me. 

As I take baby steps to stay present longer, 

I am often overwhelmed by the immensity of feelings

which my machine would rather control, 

and dole out bit by bit with lots of practical solutions. 

But when I am able to hold through the initial shock, 

and progress into the heart of the moment, 

(always with the gift of self-remembering close at hand, 

to allow me safe passage) 

I am surprised time and time again 

by the beauty of the terrain, 

the newness of realizations, 

the absence of anything false, the certainty of what I need to do. 

I guess this is what Rodney means 

when he says that really the emotional center is PURE; 

we do not need to make it so, 

it just IS, if we enter into it fully. 

~J

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The Quality of Emotional Attention...

Sandro Botticelli

The quality of emotional attention

is what characterizes the King of Hearts.  

Attention here is controlled, deep, perceptive and quiet; 

it tends to penetrate

by feeling its way to the hidden meanings in a situation.  

It is the attention we must bring to a great poet or artist.  

That quality of attention 

was needed to create those works 

and when we ‘read’ them with the same attention, 

the power locked in them seems to radiate back to us. 

~J

It is the Rule...

A New Rule

It is the rule with drunkards to fall upon each other,

to quarrel, become violent, and make a scene.

The lover is even worse than a drunkard.

I will tell you what love is: to enter a mine of gold.

And what is that gold?

The lover is a king above all kings,

unafraid of death, not at all interested in a golden crown.

The dervish has a pearl concealed under his patched cloak.

Why should he go begging door to door?

Last night that moon came along, 

drunk, dropping clothes in the street.

"Get up," I told my heart, "Give the soul a glass of wine.

The moment has come to join the nightingale in the garden,

to taste sugar with the soul-parrot."

I have fallen, with my heart shattered -

where else but on your path? And I

broke your bowl, drunk, my idol, so drunk,

don't let me be harmed, take my hand.

A new rule, a new law has been born:

break all the glasses and fall toward the glassblower.

 ~Jelaluddin Rumi

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