quotes

showing 8 Observations
taken from: Reason to Live

How long is anyone in a state of satisfaction? That’s one thing that is so interesting about sex, at least on the male side. Orgasm is the biggest want. You need a big want for a big pain. A big ’out’! It’s a change, more than anything else, out of the usual displeasures. Usually that exhausts a person. Some it can exhaust for a month, others it exhausts for only ten minutes before they’re ready to try that trick again. Normally speaking at least a half an hour of not wanting! They become aware of the Grace of Now. Their body got a good juicing up. So the body is relaxed, the emotions are relaxed too because there are no wants, and mind is also quiet. One becomes conscious of energy. A little bit depleted, but the room takes on a soft quietness, ah, they see the sun coming in through the window. They are sensitive to themselves, to their surroundings. No ’want’ - beautiful! Such an immense subject but it’s just a branch of this conversation so we won’t get into it too much. But maybe we just, in a way, touched the essence of the matter.
Someone might say: ”What’s all this sex thing about?” Well, it has more to do with displeasure than it has to do with love, generally speaking. But then again, you can ’love’ anything. You can love ice-cream if it gets rid of your displeasure for a few minutes. You’d love anything that gives you a little relief. ”I’d love an aspirin!” Without an understanding of energy, doesn’t matter what energy, life is nothing but a see-saw of pleasure and displeasure. When you begin to understand that your little pleasures don’t answer the question of your displeasure, they begin to fade out. Not much hope is left in the imagination. For instance, a junkie taking heroin. It ’helps’ him but after a while he becomes aware that it’s not working anymore. Then the displeasure really screams. He gets really depressed and tries to kill himself. As we get older we begin to see that all those wonderful things that the world offers, that are meant to make us ’feel good’ - don’t work very well, or for very long.

Related Subjects: Sex - pleasure and displeasure
taken from: Reason to Live

But it’s a very big question: is a human being worth anything, really? That’s really a question. Is he worth anything, or are we ’just here’? Because otherwise it’s just as much pleasure as possible and little pain as possible. That’s about it. That’s a life? What are we struggling for all the time, just to keep moving? Just to have a little bit less pain and a little bit more pleasure? For me the swing from the pleasure to the pain is not interesting anymore, not interesting.
You see, these questions about ’why’ and ’value’ have a particular urgency in the days we’re living in. They’re not new questions, these are what is called Existential Questions. They can be more or less conscious but they’re always there. Everyone justifies their life in some way. The mechanical forces in the world now are so strong and so supported by governments, industry, high-tech, media. The demonic, selfish, self-serving, self-stimulating! What Gurdjieff used to call: ’the evil god self-calming.’ It’s such a dynamic devil - squeezing the humanity out of humanity. Humanity is now so dry.

Related Subjects: Existential Questions

When you praise something - you're saying it's true, it's better, it's 'beyond' the usual. And what would be an effective way of praising something 'better'? You would listen, pay attention, heed the example or indications, no? I think 'Praise of God', here, is more like that.

Related Subjects: Praise

The issue
is not
the issue'

What is the issue? Well, you would first have to have some idea about 'issues'. This is not for 'the man on the street', so to speak. You see, your issue might be 'getting some money'. But what's behind that? What is the assumption behind the motivation? The basic motivation is the real issue!

Related Subjects: Motivation, The issue
taken from: Decision to work

Now, to this issue of ‘need and want’. It’s like the difference between ‘freedom and license’. We have to develop the freedom to act in accordance with what we need. Freedom must be relative to essential need! ‘License’ is relative to want, whatever one wants: ‘I want ice cream, I want, want, want!’ The heart wants this, the body wants that, the mind wants this and two minutes later it wants the opposite.

Related Subjects: Liscence
taken from: Survival

One of the new cards coming out says: ’Competition and Comparison are Ugly things!’ You have no idea of what freedom there could be if we were just to stop measuring ourselves against other people.
Competition and comparison are like the outer walls of a prison. We’re in prison - psychologically! There are all kinds of corridors, locks on the doors etc., and it’s not simple just getting from your own cell into the outer courtyard. Then, the courtyard is surrounded by a wall! I’m inclined to say that that outer wall is made of ’bricks’ - and those bricks are made from competition and comparison!

Related Subjects: Freedom, Prison
taken from: Suicide & After words

There is a thin veil between the experienced and the un-experienced. But it all exists - and it all exists now. Whatever ‘is’ exists now. Whatever is after death, is also now. Whatever an individual can experience now, and whatever they might experience after the body drops - all exists now.

Related Subjects: Is
taken from: Decision to work

“Everything in the world is connected, so there’s no such thing as a small thing!” That almost sounds scary. But in this intense period of history it should be obvious. I don’t think it becomes obvious to people because for something to become obvious, you have to be paying attention! Things happen and change - without it being obvious - because you didn’t noticewhat was before and you don’t notice what was after. You, maybe, just feel an increased awkwardness or an increase of pressure, or whatever. You feel the chang

Related Subjects: Everything is connected