“A sincere aspirant will not fail to notice to what point he is inhabited by all sorts of futile or harmful inner chatter, as well as by an interminable procession of worthless, negative or even destructive thoughts, aside from all the tricks his mind will think up to divert him from his goal. Hence, … Read the rest >
“By dint of having lived one day at a time without ever having had the strength of character to decide at which moment I would devote myself to something completely, one arrives at the end of one’s life having done nothing.
Jeanne de Salzmann (1889-1990) in her hundredth year in New York
Jeanne de Salzmann was one of the main disciples of G.I. Gurdjieff. She was responsible for transmitting his teaching through the Gurdjieff Institute of Paris, the Gurdjieff Foundation of New York City, the Gurdjieff Society in London and the Fundación Gurdjieff of Caracas, … Read the rest >
One day, when he was outside his bungalow to practice his daily concentration exercises, Salim saw on the ground, not far from him, an enormous eagle holding something in its talons. With his beak the eagle tore off a morsel of the prey that he was perching on, then he lifted his head and, … Read the rest >
ONE MUST LEARN TO PRAY, JUST AS ONE MUST LEARN EVERYTHING ELSE. Whoever knows how to pray and is able to concentrate in the proper way, his prayer can give results. But it must be understood that there are different prayers and that their results are different. This is known even from ordinary divine
The Buddha spoke of two kinds of desire: desire that arises from ignorance and delusion, which is called tanha, craving, and desire that arises from wisdom and intelligence, which is called kusala-chanda, or dhamma-chanda, or most simply chanda. Chanda has a range of meanings, but in this case I’m using it to mean wise … Read the rest >
