the Fellowship of Friends Discussion, part 3(3)
April 22, 2008 by the Esoteric Sheik of Inner Confusion
Welcome to the 33rd part of the Fellowship of Friends Discussion. For previous parts of the discussion please visit AnimamRecro or the Main page of this blog. For a more organized reading check out The Fellowship of Friends WikiSpace.
For sites in Russian and Italian, click http://fofway.narod.ru/ and http://laliberastrada.blogspot.com/ respectively.
For more information check Rick Ross and Steven Hassan.
This is where you can find the website of the Fellowship of Friends.
If you decide to interact as well as digest, feel free to start here.
And as always (and above else), enjoy and have fun.
the Esoteric Sheik of Inner Confusion
“Hardtruth: I also have reason to believe that you have been banned in the past, only to return using a different internet connection. Could you please tell me whether that is the case (here or by e-mail). It seems that there have been other people using this particular connection to write here in the past, if I decide to block you, they will be incapable to post here as well.”
Fuck you, you faggot cunt.
Re: post #1/33
A most reasonable and eloquent retort from our greatest advocate of Fouth Way knowledge. All in all, a sparkling example of the intellectual part of the intellectual center controlling the functions of the machine to maintain higher aim.
Hard Truth, 386, previous page, you wrote to Walerider:
“I always had a positive memory of you until …”
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Do you think Robert Earl Burton and/or the Fellowship of Friends would EVER meet with, pray with, and apologize to, the countless victims of their spiritual, sexual, emotional, psychological, and etc., abuse (and mean it)?
Excerpts on:
Pope meets with victims of sex abuse by clergy, apologizes
Pope prays with victims of clergy sex abuse scandal
WASHINGTON (AP) — For 25 remarkable minutes, the shepherd of the world’s 1 billion Catholics met with a handful of victims in the worst scandal to ever tarnish the U.S. church.
One man, abused as an altar boy, said he placed his hand over Pope Benedict XVI’s heart as he pleaded with him to fix the problem of sexual abuse of minors.
The pontiff apologized to his guests for not being perfectly fluent in English, and “for everything,” according to another victim.
Plans for the secret meeting were kept quiet. But two Boston-area victims of abuse shared details of the meeting in interviews late Thursday with The Associated Press.
Though Benedict had been expected to address clergy sexual abuse in his visit to the U.S., the volume and frankness of his remarks over the first half of his six-day pilgrimage have been startling.
Benedict expressed shame and a determination to do better in a talk with U.S. bishops on the plane ride over, and again Thursday at a giant open-air Mass. . .
The pope ultimately asked Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston to invite a small group of victims who were “both open to meeting him and would derive a spiritual benefit,” said the Rev. John Connolly, a special assistant to O’Malley.
“The desire to do this was definitely from the Holy Father,” Connolly said.
He found two good candidates in Bernie McDaid and Olan Horne, who were molested by priests when they were boys growing up in the Boston area. . .
About three weeks ago over dinner, Boston church officials asked McDaid whether he would meet with Benedict if an anticipated meeting with victims came together.
“I said, ‘Of course,’” McDaid said.
On Thursday morning, McDaid did something he never does. He went to Mass.
He went to accompany his mother. But when McDaid heard Benedict apologize for the sex abuse crisis, “It took me totally by surprise. It was so heartfelt and emotional, I cried.”
Afterward, he found himself in a car with a police escort, barreling through Washington red lights to the Vatican residence on Embassy Row, where Benedict was staying.
There, he joined a handful of other victims in pews in the nunciature’s private chapel.
When Benedict arrived, he prayed and blessed the group. . .
“He stood there feet from us, and you could tell he was heavy, heavy with responsibility,” Horne said. “He looked at us deeply. You could see he searched for words, that he was thinking.”
Each victim was invited to spend a few minutes talking with Benedict. McDaid went first.
He shook the pope’s hand and told him that as an altar boy he had been abused by a priest in the sacristy of his parish.
“I said, ‘Holy Father, you need to know you have a cancer in your flock and I hope you will do something for this problem; you have to fix this,‘” McDaid said.
McDaid said that at that moment, he put his hand on the 81-year-old pontiff’s heart.
“He looked down at the floor and back at me, like, ‘I know what you mean,’ McDaid said. “He took it in emotionally. We looked eye to eye.”
Horne went second. Like McDaid, Horne hadn’t been to Mass in many years. None of his children have received the sacraments that define Catholic identity.
He too had seized the opportunity to meet Benedict, but was not convinced it would happen.
“Till I saw his little red shoes,” Horne said, “I knew it could go sideways.”
Horne said he felt a heavy responsibility to other victims, but knew he could only speak for himself.
“There was an opportunity for an unscripted, unfiltered opportunity face to face,” he said.
[Try that with Robert Burton.]
When he headed the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Benedict reviewed the files containing horrific charges against priests in the United States. But Horne said what struck him was Benedict’s sincerity, warmth and sense of understanding that reading reports cannot summon. . .
- - - - - -
WASHINGTON (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI prayed with tearful victims of clergy sex abuse in a chapel Thursday, an extraordinary gesture from a pontiff who has made atoning for the great shame of the U.S. church the cornerstone of his first papal trip to America.
Benedict’s third day in the U.S. began with a packed open-air Mass celebrated in 10 languages at a baseball stadium, and it included a speech to Roman Catholic college and university presidents.
But the real drama happened privately, in the chapel of the papal embassy between events.
The Rev. Federico Lombardi, a papal spokesman, said that Benedict and Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley met with a group of five or six abuse victims for about 25 minutes, offering them encouragement and hope. The group from O’Malley’s archdiocese were all adults, men and women, who had been molested when they were minors. Each spoke privately with the pope and the whole group prayed together.
One of the victims, Bernie McDaid, told The Associated Press, that he shook the pope’s hand, told him he was an altar boy and had been abused by a priest in the sacristy of his parish. The abuse, he told Benedict, was not only sexual but spiritual.
. . .
Well over 4,000 priests have been accused of molesting minors in the U.S. since 1950. The church has paid out more than $2 billion, much of it in just the last six years, after the case of a serial molester in Boston gained national attention and inspired many victims to step forward. Six dioceses have been forced into bankruptcy because of abuse costs.
Expected to address the problem only once during his six-day trip — at a Mass with priests in New York City on Saturday — Benedict has instead returned to the issue repeatedly, beginning in a news conference on the flight from Rome to the U.S.
He has called the crisis a cause of “deep shame,” pledged to keep pedophiles out of the priesthood and decried the “enormous pain” that communities have suffered from such “gravely immoral behavior” by priests.
On Wednesday, he told bishops the problem has sometimes been very “badly handled” and said it was their God-given duty to heal the wounds caused by abuse. He asked each parishioner at Mass on Thursday “to do what you can to foster healing and reconciliation, and to assist those who have been hurt.”
But Thursday afternoon’s session went a step further. Lombardi said it was believed to be the first-ever such session between a pope and abuse victims.
Lombardi said that O’Malley presented the pope with a notebook listing the names of sexual abuse victims from the Boston Archdiocese. There were more than 1,000, he said.
- - - - - -
“I felt he was so sincere. The wonderful thing for me and I’m sure for everyone else, was the fact that he’s been able to see us face-to-face and he’s been able to put a face to the survivors. We’re no longer just victims in the sexual abuse crisis, he’s put faces to us and I think it’s far more personal and I think he understands it at a different level than he probably did before.”
“I told him what it was like as an altar boy,” McDaid said. “How it’s sexual abuse but it’s also spiritual abuse and that’s what I wanted to convey… the trauma is everlasting.”
McDaid said Benedict bowed his head and said “I’m sorry.”
just in case you are having a bad hair day…
http://homepage.mac.com/doubtboy/badhairday.html
F-YOU, YOU-FC,
That woke me up. By the ‘blistering, withering’ King of Diamonds?
Reposted by request: The Ouspensky letter (long), by his secretary:
It is twenty years now since the things I am going to write about happened. They have not been written before and seldom discussed. There was no reason and I felt no desire to expose a person while alive for an inward failure. Who was I to set myself up as a revealing judge? But I did learn a lesson as to what could overcome a guru.
This is written now because the case of P. D. Ouspensky is not an isolated one. It is a situation that may be typical of a man whose fate is to become a successful guru and, then through the force of outside circumstances, find himself unable to cope with his own reactions and hence, for a time at least, lose his way. I have been told, though I do not know it first hand, that during the last year of Ouspensky’s life, he found his way back to control of himself. I hope this is true because by nature Ouspensky was essentially a good man and not a dishonest one.
The case of Ouspensky has, perhaps, a special meaning for India since India has swamis and gurus of every kind, male and female. For many people—Indian and foreign—India is the fountain of ancient or Eastern Wisdom. It is a paradise for those who seek to be gurus, and those who want to find a guru to direct and lead them. The point is, perhaps, that here and there exist true gurus. But as the Tantras recognize, true adepts in spiritual understanding are very rare.
To a lesser degree the West is also prone to what can only be called ‘guruism.’ By no means is all of this search on the level of the Billy Graham kind of evangelism—a popular appeal to the sentimental religiosity of the under educated, or unhappy individuals whose empty lives cry out to be called back to the fold of God whom they ignored while they were reasonably happy. A sense of having strayed, or a feeling of emptiness envelopes such people and they imagine they are being granted a revelation. In such a state any God-image will do. Only God give me something to hold onto! But Gods rarely make their appearance by themselves. Usually they require to be introduced by a guru, one that is within the frame of a particular orthodoxy, or one of those non-conformist fellows, or ladies, who puts in a dramatic magnetic appearance.
The need to find a guru is not restricted to the ill-informed, the romantic, or those with a secretly bubbling well of potential hysteria or delusion. The need is also often lurking in people who in intellect are far above the average. At least three distinguished writers in the English language—T. S. Eliot, Graham Greene, and the clever, if acid, Evelyn Waugh,—found the answer to their spiritual search in orthodox Christian religious faith. And the faith—the act of faith—is identical whether it is devotion to Brahma, Jehovah or Allah.
Then there are intellectuals like Christopher Isherwood, W. H. Auden, Gerald Heard and, the most famous of this group—Aldous Huxley—all four once ardent rationalists with two of them having once shown a left-wing bent. Suddenly they tipped over to one or another form of mysticism as a way out for some sense of frustration. Huxley now writes articles about the marvelous visions he enjoys as a result of experimenting with certain drugs. One wonders whether this is a very morally responsible thing to be advertising to the world as a way to find ecstasy.
Huxley commenced his search for ‘The Perennial Philosophy’ in the mid-1930’s by trying to find the answer for himself in the Know Thyself philosophy and method of Peter D. Ouspensky. Huxley soon went on elsewhere; but that was not Ouspensky’s fault.
At that time in London, Ouspensky was the most likely guru—though he never called himself that—to make an appeal to the educated, reasonably intelligent person who had no place within orthodox religion, nor any special inclination to be. The sort of people who were interested in Ouspensky’s ideas were those who had some interest in the idea of self-knowledge and were seeking a philosophy to live by which was not orthodox materialism. Ouspensky mainly appealed to the rational person who questioned whether it might not be true, as said by Hamlet, that ‘there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in our philosophy.’
Ouspensky, a Russian émigré, who looked infinitely more like a doctor, or science professor, than any conventional image of a mystic, had a far-reaching intellect and an interestingly creative mind. He was someone alive and provocative. Hence his capacity to attract men like the prolific doctor-writer, Kenneth Walker. Ouspensky had the added attraction of sophisticated culture with not a vestige of fakir eccentricity. He was a sensible guru if ever there was one. And extremely well dressed as a middle-aged man verging on sixty.
P. D. Ouspensky made an impressive figure calmly sitting, presiding at his lectures, which were read for him. Today more than fifteen years after his death quite a lot is being written about him in Europe, especially in England.
My attempt to take a relatively short period—a little less than six years altogether of his fairly long life—is not to discredit Ouspensky, and particularly not to discredit his writings. But rather to induce people who are uncritical of themselves in relation to gurus to see that they themselves can unconsciously contribute to their beloved guru slipping, let us say, from ‘grace.’ Hero-worship is not necessarily respect. It can become slavish dependence which ends with an overwhelming temptation to the guru to lose all respect for those who have made themselves his disciples. It should be remembered that since man is not super-human, it is only too easy for the well-intentioned person to either develop delusions of grandeur, or become a dictator provided they are surrounded for long enough by people who say ‘yes, yes’ to them and their ideas irrespective as to whether or not their own conduct merits such awe. The political dictator has been the scourge of modern times as well as ancient. The rise of such dictators, frequently believing themselves to be their nation’s saviour, and their entrenchment, is aided by uncritical passivity and adulation, the very thing that devotees of gurus are most prone to.
If the guru ends in exploiting his disciples, they themselves have contributed to the distortion of his power.
II
The Ouspensky group, or school, in the 1930’s was esoteric. There was considerable secrecy maintained. Nobody could just be brought along to Mr. Ouspensky’s lectures in a casual way. A person had to be introduced by someone who, rightly or wrongly, had gained the impression through their own knowledge of ‘the System’ that such and such a person had what was termed ‘a magnetic centre.’ This was an element of personality which made this person suitable for the Ouspensky method of Self-Knowledge and Self Development.
I can only say what it was in my case which caused someone I met to conclude I had such a magnetic centre: the person—an artist—who introduced me into the group observed almost at the moment of our first meeting that I had certain poses—this was quite true—but when criticised in regard to those poses I did not reject the criticism out of hand. I was responsive because I wanted to know myself better. I was receptive. Presumably, all the people who came to the group were receptive in different ways.
When a person with the so-called magnetic centre was discovered, the discoverer then consulted with Mr. Ouspensky either directly or through one of his secretaries, both of them Russians, as to whether so and so could be invited to the lectures. Both the secretaries as I knew them—one a woman, the other a highly cultured man—were nice people.
The initial intention of this careful selection on the basis of psychological potential was no doubt very valid so long as the head of the group—and this applies to any group—was in a responsible state of mind. The reason given was that if unsuitable people came they would go out and misrepresent ‘the System’ which had come to Ouspensky from the famous Gurgieff [sic. Gurdjieff]—thought by some to be infamous—to whom, for example, the well known writer, Katherine Mansfield, had gone not very long before her death.
The danger in this reasoning about misrepresentation was that if something really went wrong—out of gear—within ‘the System,’ reasonable criticism and questioning could be shunted aside on the grounds that the would-be student and not ‘the System’ was at fault in understanding. I do not know if this ever actually happened in the earlier phases of Ouspensky’s work. I do not know what doubts there may have been in the minds of other people at the time I am going to speak of because I did not discuss my own observations, questions and reactions with anyone except P. D. Ouspensky himself. But if there is excessive secrecy, it is a pitfall to trap the unwary—both the guru, who is protected by it, and the disciple who can be exploited through it.
Madam Ouspensky, a very extraordinary woman older than her husband, had met the Gurgieff system in Russia before her marriage to Ouspensky, and before the Revolution of 1917. It was Madam—then either a widow or divorced—with half grown children, indeed, almost grown, who had followed the writings of Ouspensky who had been attracted for a number of years to philosophic speculation and mysticism. He had traveled far to investigate some of his interesting speculative ideas about the knowledge to be discovered through understanding of certain buildings and works of art. He had visited the Taj Mahal, about which he had some very interesting thoughts, and he had been to Ceylon where one particular Buddha greatly impressed him.
He had expressed some fascinating ideas in his writings published in Russia. Before he came under the influence of Gurgieff he had written the book Tertium Organum, which was the book which enticed Gurgieff to desire Ouspensky as a collaborator. Subsequently, there appeared the impressive book of daring speculations, impressions and experience—The [A] New Model of the Universe.
But ‘the System’ was something in practice outside of Ouspensky’s writings, and ‘the System’ was divided into the theoretical with which P. D. Ouspensky was concerned, and the practical application which was Madam’s province. It is not possible to detail the whole theory, nor even the whole practice. But the intention of this System was that it should be a way towards the unity of personality through self-awareness. It was to be applicable to people living in the world. It was not the religious way of the monk, nor the way of the fakir’s austerity, nor yet the way of the yogi’s contemplation.
The main thesis was that people live in a state of ‘sleep,’ but think themselves aware and awake and master of themselves when they only react to outside stimulation—to what other people think of them—or what in Ouspensky’s terminology was called ‘considering.’ It can hardly be denied that almost everyone is cluttered up with what can be called ‘false personalities.’
But, according to Ouspensky, people with ‘magnetic centres’—that is, the potential to become aware and, perhaps, reach a unified and transformed state of being—have within them a Higher Intellectual Centre and a Higher Emotional Centre, the latter being more important for man’s self-development than the former. There was much additional theory of potential chemical change in response to psychological change through the pursuit of becoming ‘awake’ and overcoming the mechanical aspect of most behaviour.
I met this system of thought and it greatly appealed to me on account of its reasonableness. I was not of a religious turn of mind, nor one who had a drive to pursue mystical experience by artificial means. I thought there was a great difference in levels of consciousness between those moments when any person was in the grip of ‘negative emotions’ and at any moment of detachment; or between the moment of ordinary consciousness and that of the creative moment. It seemed to me quite true that I, and indeed everybody else, was subject to the domination at times of ‘false personalities.’ I am quite sure that the Ouspensky system was of concrete use to me, and that his own loss of way for a period was not from an inherent flaw in the theory of the system.
First I attended the lectures only.
In due course, I was allowed to pass from theory to practice. Practice at becoming aware of one’s thoughts, actions, mannerisms, feelings—of oneself—the false and ‘asleep’ versus what might be one’s state if one was more and more ‘awake.’ Special conditions of physical work and the planning of it—gardening, housework, cooking—were organised in a country house where the Ouspenskys lived. This work was conducted under the eagle eye of Madam.
A cruel critic of Madam might say she was a dominating woman who enacting role of a guru, consciously or unconsciously, lived in very comfortable circumstances with all her housework done on a grand scale by mostly sincere men and women who were under the spell of her magnetic and mystic personality. I don’t know whether she was genuine or a charlatan; or whether she was simply a commanding type of neurotic. It is immaterial. I never really knew her well enough to be able to judge. I never fell under her spell. But I think she had great power over people whose imagination was captured by her.
I am sure I learned a good deal about my own mechanism from what she sometimes had me do by way of ‘work.’ Probably anyone could have learned something useful provided they were more interested in the work of self-knowledge itself than in the commanding personality of Madam.
One ‘test’ has always remained in my mind and it can symbolise the sort of controlled conditions in which anyone could observe something about themselves if they had a mind to: I had always liked my hands and I supposed I could dislike nothing more than picking fish to pieces to feed the cats. Not at all in my line! One day, I got the thoroughly unpleasant job of taking apart fish heads for the cats’ lunch. I observed myself at this nasty job. The truth was that a superficial vanity and not genuine repulsion had me think my hands (and myself) too good to do any such thing. Inside, I noticed I remained unmoved while de-boning the heads with my fingers. Through Madam’s choice of a job for me, I saw I could quite well do a very nasty messy job and not really hate it at all.
This had a kind of liberating effect so that I felt at the time, and still feel, that I benefited from the Ouspensky system. But I never lived in the house for any protracted period—some people did—and so I never became dependent upon Madam in order to feel myself ‘awake.’ There is no doubt that Madam exerted a tremendous influence upon the minds of the people who chose to live constantly within her shadow.
III
I was absolutely nobody in ‘the System’ in England from 1936 to 1938. But for the fact that I was a writer who at one moment was involved in collaborating on a translation from Russian into English of Checkov’s play The Cherry Orchard, and another piece of writing, I might never have come into contact with Mr. Ouspensky outside of the lectures and at the country house. But I did. He asked me to go and see him privately in a house in London, and he read the Chekov translation.
In consequence, he knew something of me, and I of him outside of the framework of the guru-disciple relationship. He was, I think, nearing sixty and I was twenty-six. I knew his homeland—Russia—from which he had exiled himself. He liked me and I liked him. But he did not become enamoured of me, nor I enamoured of him. This was never a factor in our relationship. What happened was that a friendliness developed, principally, I think, because I was not afraid of him, and perhaps there was an attraction in having a ‘system’ person who wanted to learn without being exactly of the foot-touching devotee type. I greatly respected P. D. Ouspensky and I was very willing to learn from him. And I honestly believed I had learned.
I do not think that anyone was ever kinder to me, nor that anyone ever respected me as a person more than P. D. Ouspensky. What happened later never affected my regard for him as a human being. I do not think I was even disillusioned because of an acceptance that men, even saints, have feet of clay. I will always be grateful to Ouspensky for what I believe I learned from his system.
But…well, my one experience with a guru who lost his way has made me sceptical of the wisdom of any man thinking himself fit to be a guru.
I feel quite sure that when P. D. Ouspensky committed himself to follow Gurgieff and married Madam, and left Russia during the Revolution because it boded ill for the pursuit of what he believed in, he was sincere. He was no less sincere, I think, when he broke away from Gurgieff in Paris because, as he told me: “Gurgieff had gone off the rails—become mad—and I wanted to save the system.”
Perhaps, indeed probably, Ouspensky remained in possession of himself throughout his period in England. I was in no position to judge. I don’t know. But in the autumn of 1940 he and Madam, as well as about half a dozen American members of the System and a couple of English ones arrived in New York, where there was a wealthy young couple, students of the Ouspenskys, who paid the major bills.
I, who had been only on the very periphery in England, had gone to America to do a job and was caught there by the outbreak of war. By chance I ran into one of the members and learned that P. D. Ouspensky and his wife had arrived: that already a rather large country house in New Jersey had been obtained for practical work and a studio apartment in an expensive area of New York was being negotiated for.
Because I believed I had gained much from the Ouspensky system, I was very glad they had come. Within a few days I was astounded that he should ask me to act as his secretary to do the arrangements for lectures and look after his living conditions for the days each week he would spend in New York. Why me? When all the people, save the young couple, were much older members of the System than I was. The only reasonable answer to this question was that I was the only person among those who were available to Ouspensky who had ever been in Russia. And P. D. Ouspensky for the second time in his life was now an uprooted man.
This sudden promotion, as it were, did not prevent me from carrying on my own outside work. Perhaps if I had not had a life outside of the System, I would not be writing this today. For some months I greatly enjoyed the work because I had no doubt at all that Ouspensky’s particular system was one of great help to anyone who wished to gain insight into themselves for the purpose of living in the world and being able to cope with the problems of living. I thought it was a means of establishing a fair amount of equilibrium though I did not notice any appreciable expansion of my consciousness. I can only claim that it made me moderately observant of my own reactions and gave me some sense of independence in decision. It did not lead me to mystical experience, real or imagined.
I cannot say there was an exact day when it struck me that P. D. Ouspensky was strangely extravagant considering that the young couple were paying the bulk of the bills. But he would direct me to buy the most lavishly expensive fruit, cheese and delicacies for his personal consumption. I wondered was I a puritan to think this a curious indulgence. It was not that eating and self-awareness were in conflict. But did a person choose the most expensive things when someone else was paying the bill?
One day I noticed that the people who actually paid the bills were not asked to share these expensive foods. But sometimes I had a goodly share of them. I was very appreciative of the good things of this world whether in food, or clothes, or the decorations of a house. I liked luxury and comfort and never held that a hair shirt was the slightest guarantee of spirituality in and of itself. It could too well be exhibitionism. But I did not think, or rather feel for myself, that I had any desire to be a slave to the need for luxury as a sign of anything at all.
When I went to the country house for practical work, I began to notice what I had not noticed in England: that the people who were the ‘old members’ and had been long under Madam’s discipline were drab in clothes, joyless, and strangely close-up people one with another. All were fearful of her displeasure. They were no less in awe of Mr. Ouspensky, though sometimes he seemed to extend a certain kindness towards them. I began to wonder why the pursuit of self-knowledge had to, as it seemed, eliminate an atmosphere of warmth between people and something that might be described as a lack of lovingness.
Again, I cannot pin down the day when I began to speculate about the inner state of P. D. Ouspensky. Increasingly after a lecture he would ask a few of the group, including the young couple and myself, to go out with him to supper at a not very distant restaurant. At first, these suppers seemed to me very pleasant. He would order drinks and something to eat and time would pass. Every evening there was a lecture the party—for that is what it was—would break up later and later. The young couple usually, if not always, paid the bill.
Ouspensky was often sharp with them and they took this, as others did to whom he was no less sharp, as a ‘test’ to ‘awake’ them up to self-awareness. But to me he was not sharp or sarcastic though I was well aware that I was no outstanding example of self-awareness. I deserved just as much ‘ticking off’ as anyone did.
The only, difference between the people Ouspensky increasingly ‘ticked off,’ and ever more harshly, and me, was that while I respected him I was not in awe of him. They lived to gain his approval and the more they hoped for it the less they got it. Sometimes he became furiously angry, particularly with the young couple who paid the bills.
The next stage, if you can call it that, was that Ouspensky began to show a greater disinclination to leave the restaurant where we would all go. The others would leave and he would ask me to stay on. With the others gone he would have another drink and another and yet another, though he never became drunk; or at least, did not show it. One, two, three, four in the morning and still he would urge me to stay longer. And hour after hour he would talk—extremely interestingly—about his homeland which I could discuss with him; about his life, but it was always about things before he ever met the system of Gurgieff.
He did not talk to me night after night because he had become enamoured of me, but because his assumption of the role of guru had cut him off from the normal avenues of friendship because, unfortunately, people who become devotees do not bring with them a sense that human beings, even if they are the most enlightened, are also human enough at bottom to require friends. But if a person, by reason of his greatness in the eyes of others, remains too long in a friendless condition then even when he meets someone who is willing to give of himself in that subtle relationship which is that of friendship, this may come too late to help him overcome the corroding effect within of having lived upon a pinnacle.
Ouspensky was no longer the guru of a system or I any longer a member of his group during those long hours over so many nights that we sat in New York, both of us having come from thousands of miles away. I was a companion for nostalgic memories. I was just someone to talk to and who would talk back. Though he did not say in so many words that he was extremely unhappy, I knew he would not take so many drinks if he were happy. He was fond of me because I was companionable.
One day, a nice middle-aged couple, rich, who had become breathless devotees of P. D. Ouspensky, shocked me by saying: “You must be very highly developed to work so closely with Mr. Ouspensky.”
It came as a shock because I saw I was flying under false colours for I was no more ‘highly developed’ as a result of what I was now doing than I had been when I was in England on the very periphery of the System. I knew it. The danger to myself of being supposed to be ‘developed’ far in advance of what I was, loomed into my mind. Here was a temptation to pose staring me in the face.
Then I became aware that Ouspensky had a certain interest in a man, a businessman, who had money and a girl friend. In short, a very unattractive man who kept an expensive mistress. Suddenly, this woman introduced the presumably rich widow of the long dead film star, Rudolph Valentino, to the lectures. What were such people seeking? Or was I wrong to think that people like this went from sensation to sensation because they had nothing else to do with their time?
One day Ouspensky instructed me to chastise on his behalf one of the people who had come from England with him after many years in the System, someone who in England had been almost as close to the central core as I now was. I could not do it. I would not, because I felt I would be doing something wrong towards this person and no less wrong to myself. Maybe, the person was a fool, but I was not going to be the instrument for chastisement for some minor thing, so minor that I have even forgotten what it was.
This incident, plus the remark of the couple who assumed I must be highly developed, disturbed me because it seemed an invitation to begin exerting power over people. I did not want to believe that Ouspensky had lost insight, and yet I felt that he had, or he would realise that however good or agreeable to him my intelligence might be in matters outside his System, I was not fit to be thought of as being in any way superior. I thought that the very last thing anyone should be encouraged in was arrogant action. I had that potential and I knew it.
Soon after this, Ouspensky mentioned he had heard of an exceptionally good restaurant where he intended to go to dinner some time. Then an afternoon came when he instructed me to cancel the lecture set for that evening because he wanted to go to dinner at this restaurant which had very good food and wine. I cancelled the lecture and informed as many of the people as possible. Ouspensky then asked me to go out to dinner at this restaurant with him. It was a most excellent dinner, but during it I felt the time had come when I must ask him for an explanation as to how he could consider that this dinner justified the sudden cancellation of a lecture. Where did such action fit into the System, and where also did his violent temper towards some people fit in?
The thought went through my mind several times: Is it I who do not understand? Is it I who have lost all sense of proportion? Is it I who am being temperamental in feeling that I have a right to seek an explanation and not to take all this for granted as being in order?
When the coffee came, I asked: “Can you, or will you, explain how it is you could cancel a lecture at a few hours notice for the sake of this dinner? I don’t understand. And I am sorry to feel compelled to ask you; but do you lose your temper with people consciously, or because you have lost control of yourself? You do not lose your temper with me in this way…”
“They are such fools,” he said. “I’ve lost control of my temper.”
“But surely, if we are to try to control our negative emotions, we cannot learn from you, if you can’t control yours,” I said.
Ouspensky answered bluntly: “I took over the leadership to save the System. But I took it over before I had gained enough control over myself. I was not ready. I have lost control over myself. It is a long time since I could control my state of mind.”
“Will you not try to gain control over your temper for everybody thinks you are testing them when you fly at them,” I said, for it never entered my head that Peter Ouspensky was not speaking the truth.
“They are fools!” he said contemptuously.
“But I really feel I have learned something from the System,” I said.
“Then you are the only one who ever has!” said Ouspensky.
“I have really tried.” I said, “tried for myself.”
“The others are deluding themselves. They have never gained anything,” Ouspensky said.
For some strange reason I was not aghast at such revelations. I was not even shocked. I was sorry because I did not feel for a moment that Ouspensky wanted to be in this predicament of disillusion and realisation that he had tried to become a guru when he had not attained the resources in himself to keep control of himself.
“Why don’t you give up the lectures and try to gain control of yourself again?” I asked.
“The System has become a profession with me,” Ouspensky answered.
There could hardly have been a more honest exchange of question and answer and I respected P. D. Ouspensky for admitting his predicament. I did not feel he had defrauded me because I had not built the whole of my existence upon the System and I was not a devotee who would be lost in despair if my guru turned out to have feet of clay. I spoke to no one for I hoped that Peter Ouspensky would decide to bring his lectures to a halt and seek to gain control over himself.
As the days went on I thought of the predicament I was in with the young couple paying not only the rents and the bills for Mr. Ouspensky and Madam, but, that up to that moment, they had handed to me any amount of money that P. D. Ouspensky had told them to. And he had insisted that I take some of it for my own expenses.
“Will you not give up the lectures?” I asked later.
He did not say yes, or no. I waited a week and then another. We often went out and talked a great deal. It was often about the attitude of the people who stayed in the country house. He knew they were afraid to be on their own. He was never indignant or enraged at my questioning him. I feel that he would have liked to halt the situation. But the question was how?
One day he said something that was somehow more revealing than anything else as to the way a man becomes entangled in a role, or a vocation.
“In Russia,” said Ouspensky, “there used to be a thousand or two thousand people at my lectures. Here there are a hundred—too few.”
Was it that a thousand or two thousand ordinary people did not corrupt P. D. Ouspensky? But one hundred rich people ready to enshrine him as a Master of far greater development, as they supposed, than they could ever hope to attain had exerted the power to lead him to abandon his desire for control of himself? Or weakened his will to set about it?
One day he said: “I have become dependent on the comfort, the luxury. I can’t give it up.”
As I said earlier, no one was ever kinder to me in a human sense than P. D. Ouspensky. Fond he was of me, and honest with me, too; but he was prepared for me to continue doing what I had been doing, even though I knew he had lost his way. Evidently he could not feel at the time that he was wronging his followers by continuing his role of guru though convinced—if what he said was true—that no one was deriving any benefit from it.
I said I must leave the System, and I left. He wrote me a letter and from that letter I sensed that he had from affection told me the truth about his predicament. But he accepted that he could not extricate himself from the hold professional ‘guruism’ had gained upon him. It was years before I ever learned anything more about P. D. Ouspensky.
Here was a man who was at heart honest; a man who was not by any means devoid of compassion for people. But adulation and comfort and the dearth of friends and the terror of a period of war had sapped his will to keep theory and practice united. It was only after Ouspensky died that I was told by the person who had first introduced me to Ouspensky’s books and the System, that towards the end of his life he found his direction again and had made a great effort to correct himself and his own system.
If a man of the undeniable qualities of Ouspensky can go off the track and become absorbed in egotism and dependence on easy living, and become callous as to the effects on himself and on others, what of the gurus who are less basically honest?
Being a guru is one of the riskier occupations psychologically, and being a devotee is no less risky. I have sometimes wondered how much damage P. D. Ouspensky did psychologically speaking to the people who were his devotees during the period he lost himself. I have also wondered what it was that shocked him out of his cynical and exploitive state of mind—if it is true, as I have been told, that he found himself again before he died.
One can only conclude that hero-worship under the guise of the guru-devotee relationship is just as often spiritually deadening for both sides as it is spiritually enlightening.
A Poison Tree
I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I watered it in fears
Night and morning with my tears,
And I sunned it with smiles
And with soft deceitful wiles.
And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright,
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine, -
And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning, glad, I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
William Blake
7 ralph b:
“Reposted by request: The Ouspensky letter (long), by his secretary:”
Keep in mind that Miss Seton wrote this piece more than 20 years after the fact, after she had become a card-carrying member of the Gurdjieff Foundation. At the time of the writing the Gurdjieff Foundation was struggling to replace the household name (in the Fourth Way) of Ouspensky with the relatively unknown Madam de Salzmann, Gurdjieff’s main concubine and head mistress. The bait-and-switch never worked out because Ouspensky left behind an amazing legacy of written thought while de Salzmann left behind a cult and a hack-rewrite of Beelzebub’s Tales. No doubt Ouspensky enjoyed the pleasing appearance of this 20 your old woman, Miss Seton, and hauled her around as he relaxed and enjoyed himself, telling the poor dear amazing stories and other tall tales.
Thought I would say Hi to you. Iam not doing well, as I’m sure you know. In fact I’m about ready to check out. I can’t seem to bring myself to crawl from this hole. RB seems to be an emotional coward.
Hardtruth: You have been banned. I am really surprised that you enjoy this place so much, you spread a lot of bad energy around and inside.
Not inner considering?
In my view ‘not inner considering’ does not give anyone a licence to be unaware of the feelings others. Many bullies don’t know that they are bullying… Why should they?
Some writers say a lot. For me personally this can be overbearing, but well bearable; until such a writer attacks someone who dares to interrupt or criticise them, or tells their critic to go to hell, or to get off the blog, or until they attempt to belittle their critic by airing private information; I do not then see this writer’s behaviour as ‘not inner considering’ or ‘using the blog therapeutically’ but as tyranny, and intimidation.
A number of writers have in my view been tyrannising: the same people have wonderful brave and profound things to say and I would not want them to stop.
But calling threatening behaviour ‘brave’ is a mistake…
It’s a type of collaboration with the bully in the class
And supporting it helps make others like myself afraid to contribute… to put in our couple of cents.
#11 Thanks Shiek.
I have felt sad about the direction of the blog. My personal hope is that the Fellowship and Robert Burton will be revealed through this medium as the pathetic charicature that they are. Lately the content of the blog seems to be such that current members and others curious about the Fellowship might just dismiss the blog as a bunch of angry looneys and psychologically needy folks. And this would be unfortunate. There have been many intelligent, sincere and important posts that have helped some people make the decision to leave and I hope those will resume and continue and not get lost among the u-tubes and personal discussions, however interesting those may be.
Hope no one is offended by this. I just feel that keeping the content and tone of things up will help the real issues be seen and understood as well as give a push to those who are on the edge.
Thoughts on a day in which many hope that a certain political candidate finally acknowledges that her time has come and gone, and releases her attachment to being The One. But probably won’t.
____________________________________________________________________
The blog bears almost no resemblance to what it was a year ago, and the circumstances surrounding it, even less. Then, there was an enormous pent-up need to discuss, divulge, and unburden about matters for which many had had no meaningful outlet, in some cases for thirty years or more. There were many former and existing members who knew a lot less than they know now. There were members who knew, but lacked sufficient motivation to leave. There was a public that had no means to learn the truth about an organization they might consider joining.
All of that has changed. The stories have been told; any left untold are unlikely to reveal anything radically different, although they may well be therapeutic for the teller. No one within the Fellowship can any longer claim convincingly he or she doesn’t know. Many then-members who were on the fence have either left, or made their peace. Many former members who had held their pain or outrage inside had an opportunity to get it out and start healing.
Much of this occurred within the first six months, and although there remain people who are just discovering the blog, presumably their numbers have dwindled. There may remain members on the fence, but they are not likely looking to the blog for impetus to leave.
The blog itself morphed from a forum where anyone could learn new information, post a story or impression, stay a while, interact, get their bearings, make things uncomfortable for the Fellowship power structure, and move on, into a social club consisting of a handful of people who seem to read and post almost daily about any subject that appeals to them, recycling the same material like a cow chewing its cud. The transition took place as individuals, one by one, saw the blog as a place where they could satisfy their personal emotional needs, without regard for whether the satisfaction of those needs served any other purpose. Originally, everyone was welcome, since there were no “insiders”—it was a completely open forum. Over time, some were more welcome than others; anyone thought to be spouting the Fellowship party line were indignantly shouted down, and eventually others who weren’t considered one of the gang were given little energy, so they had little reason to stay unless they were willing to make a project out of being accepted.
For those who are now in the blog Inner Circle, the blog appears to fulfill a deep-seated need for validation and company, for an identity as someone who sees the truth and isn’t afraid to express it, or to feel special, exchanging one form of group membership for another. Some see themselves in a new, improved spiritual enterprise—a school without dues, hierarchy, or responsibilities, but informed by a greater understanding of what’s really important. Some seemingly are as yet unable to get on with their lives; as Gurdjieff used to say, some people will give up anything except their suffering. The blog was a halfway house that became much more comfortable than either life in the Fellowship, or life entirely without the Fellowship—an endless limbo of unresolved feelings. Some continue to want to destroy the Fellowship, and for lack of alternatives view the blog as an effort in that direction.
The end result is a fishbowl in which the self-selected residents swim and circle, waiting for the next bit of food, and the rest glance at it every once in a while to relieve the tedium, and occasionally toss in a few morsels just to see what happens.
I have to say that I do appreciate people coming up to discuss something new, even if it’s to say that the blog has had its higher times and is winding down. I feel that too but not unlike my nature I stick with things sometimes too long. I will however contribute when I feel it’s worth it to do so. Thanks for the last day or so of some new material.
It’s quite interesting to note… Oh, crud, excuse me… Must have been reverting there….
Ok, let me start over…
I personally believe that some of the actions we take don’t have any initial, obvious positive impact on anyone, but over time they may. And we may never even know it, or we may know it, but those results may be completely invisible to most others, or even to all others. (which makes our pitiful little egos wonder, “Uh, why did I bother with that? What glory in that?”)
I personally believe that the blog, to this day, continues to be a positive influence overall, and I’m glad it’s been here for as long as it’s been here. Meanwhile, I see the fof as a continued and persistent journey toward the edge of a very high and steep cliff, and eventually all the way over and onto the rocks, and into the ocean. (And I’m not going to insult sheep by using the typical analogy, because at least sheep are true to their nature unlike we pathetic chosen ones… “I think I could turn and live with animals.”)
Whatever the blog is, here it is. It keeps going.
I agree with much of what you wrote JAVOH in 14, but other people keep saying (offline and online) that this blog has “run its course” and doesn’t serve a useful purpose anymore. But I still imagine just one person — just one more person — by chance, taking a glance at this one day, and combined with many other experiences in the fof, finally realizing that it’s time to leave.
Not in good time, not after the full moon, not when they find a new job, not after they get divorced, and not when the triad is right — but right now.
THAT is “divine presence” — to find your “divine presence” within yourself, and not in the approving glances of a very dysfunctional society led by a very sick man.
Barely a word of what’s written here will ever — EVER — be uttered at a Fellowship meeting. That, in and of itself, is something to value about this blog.
Valuation is what you want? (speaking to you Robert)
Well, I have never valued anything you have said, or anything that your former cult members have ever written or said, any more than right here… in this little box, right here on the internet. Imagine that. Not one page of finely printed materials from countless Town Hall meetings, with beautiful four-color printed photos of fine art dazzling us on the cover… Not one “Renaissance Journal” has the “higher hydrogens” that could come even close to the “higher hydrogens” — the finer energy — that you find right here.
Not one candlelight dinner with Puccini playing in the background, accompanied by poetry readings, and fine wine, and fine food, and fine china, and seemingly thoughtful glances across the room. None of that comes even close to this blog. None of it has touched my soul as much as anything written here.
THIS is Love.
———————–
Alright, everyone. Onto another topic, or onto no topic. Have fun. It’s ok. I am very glad that all of you are here. Even you in your lashing out. ALL of this is infinitely better than the finest the Fellowship ever had to offer, or ever will.
The blog is still here
Who will know what purpose it serve?
Remembering the moment I discovered the blog
The juiciness gone
More common and ordinairy
Like the Greater Fellowship
It is still being read
Many still keep silent
Everybody has his/her own time
A matter of time
Many things are changing in OH
This blog helps the changes
Keep it up
Post, keep it alive
For the many purposes
You and me can not (over) see.
My 2 cents
Happy day(s).
just another voice out there:
Hey, despite what you say, even though it is largely true, the blog is better than watching television, that’s for sure! (I am dyslexic, reading is difficult for me.)
As far as chewing cud, well, that’s the process of digestion, isn’t it? For many, sometimes it takes a while. Understanding comes two years after experience, right? And what’s the problem with recycling? Near as I can tell, life is suffering, so to give up on that would be to give up on living. (Keep posting Zoecan1, hang in there sock monkey!!!) Everyone has needs, too, some more than others, but that’s human, just like you have the need to reflect back to us what you perceive about us on the blog, for which I am grateful. Really. I saw a lot of myself in your post. That’s cool. I can work with that.
To me the blog is whatever you need it to be or BEEEE, as the case may be…or not to be….or Auntie Bea…or whatever.
But you are right, the stories have been told…many, many people have posted so much useful and not so useful information, creative insights, quotes, gripes, pain, flames, etc….yet the Fellowship still continues business as usual. That’s an unresolved dilemma for me. I care about my community. You and I have supported (some say pimped for) a sexual predator in the guise of a spiritual leader, and much harm as occurred and is still occurring. So who is responsible? The Pope? We are!
I recommend anyone just tuning in to also spend time reading from the beginning of the blog, too. I can’t see how anyone in their right mind would want to stay a follower after reading all this. But that may not be enough to wake every follower up to the fact that Robert is a cult leader, not a teacher in any real sense of the word. We need to show them that we are just as, if not more evolved than them. How do we do that? Do we crawl under a rock to do that? Or do we accept our humanity as perfectly flawed (like they do) and stand up for ourselves and our community? I don’t plan on going quietly into the night as I did when I was younger and left ranks.
You are not just another voice out there. You are more than that!
People evolve and change for the better by taking a good long honest look at themselves, which is what you, Vena and others are doing for us right now, and what the Fellowship and Robert are unable to do. So rock on, my friend. Sure the blog has changed, because people change…and grow. It’s an inevitable organic process, and thankfully so. I am all for change. Change is good. Even my spell check has a ‘change’ button, for which I am grateful. I am certainly experiencing lots of change in my personal life, and I am beginning to feel better for it, too (thanks to match.com). The sheik tells me that WordPress has changed their overall format which is why this page is all messed up…now that’s synchronicity for you.
Time for change. Let’s do it…together.
33 is the symbolic number for awakening. Try it out in your lives.
To All
from ‘Prologue’ by Dylan Thomas
…………………..
“Cry, Multitudes of arks! Across
The water lidded lands.
Manned with their loves they’ll move.
Like wooden islands, hill to hill.
Huloo, my prowed dove with a flute!
Ahoy, old sea-legged fox.
Tom tit and Dai mouse!
My ark sings in the sun
At God speeded summer’s end
And the flood flowers now.”
To All
from ‘That Sanity be Kept’ by Dylan Thomas
……………….
“I sit at open windows in my shirt,
Observe, like some Jehovah of the west
What passes by, that sanity be kept.”
Should it make one laugh or laugh?
The stingy gloves that judge and moan what they themselves born,
the envy and the snobbery
with which they take no loss.
Bad losers are worse than no players,
the game is yours.
I laugh.
No bitterness left now, but joy.
So much joy that not one word can cut it short.
There they stay, the offerings at bay,
for you, for now, for more, for long.
They sit and watch as if they paid
and criticize as if they’d made
but their hearts remain so vain.
Please laugh and laugh longer
my love,
no pain,
finally no pain in vane.
Please let us all continue dividing our little selves in two or three or seven, it is a magic number, seven little personalities, the inside and outside and bring the authorized judges that will guarantee that we can write here without being afraid of not exposing ourselves but the imaginary picture of our selves. Hasn’t anybody told you that the blog is no longer the blog but the writer’s companion for before you go to bed?
Please don’t laugh dear ladies and gentlemen, this is serious!
Turn on the readers and off the writers!
Keep charging faster over the waves, allons enfant de la patrie!
Change! Charge!
Elena you have been dismissed together with Mr. Hardtruth who for a genius is about as stupid as you! Stop laughing, it is now time to sign the petition and bring down the Fellowship walls with the insurmountable conviction of the concurrence.
Did you say Brave? Who ever said such a word here? You’re not bringing things from the outside world are you Missy? Here we are inside just as we were there, nothing from the outside world dear, just us, or just me is good enough, while you continue serving of course. You are supposed to be the servant, damit, shut up, Oh, but we don’t use that kind of language dear, it is tyranny, we like it with gloves and tea, dear.
That is how it always was and should continue to be! Too bad if it keeps us from experiencing orgasms, PLEASE BE QUIET, such words, for god’s sake, frigidity is what we like. Gold alchemy frigidity packed as a T.V. dinner and posted at noon.
Frigidity, rigidity, stupidity as long as it is ity enough and we can approve it.
It should come to be an honour to get thrown out; no wonder some men take so much pleasure in letting it be done.
The blog was once better, you have ruined it dear, we can’t post, we are too delicate to post aren’t we and besides, all the dogs you have barking at us and not letting us in, make it impossible! You see, I told you, we can’t post!
Remember the no laughing exercise dear, STOP LAUGHING, do you think you are in Church? We’ll have to get you out again! Thank God! thank God! please take me out again!
I personally like to view the blog as a river, and I find that, although trying to define and discuss its flux may be an interesting exercise now and then, generally by the time we are done, it’s already changed once again. IMO the best remedy against pollution and stagnation is pouring fresh water in it, come on rain, come on new feeders!
Just another voice, maybe I am missing something, but I write here quite often, and I am not aware of an inner circle either excluding or including me (or unaware of me?). I see separate people, I can hear their different voices; some over time sound repetitive, others refreshingly unpredictable. I am not happy about the fact that at periods only a handful of people are posting, but that’s when I feel even more compelled to keep writing. IMO this blog still serves a purpose as an interface between “innies” and “outies”, and as an informal meeting ground for us “outies”, and it would be silly to let it dry up until at least one of our common aims is reached. Personally, I am not going to let go until I see the petition off the ground.
The introduction of this concept of “Inner Circle” goes in the direction of creating even more division amongst us, do we really want to do that to ourselves?
This is a sort of a miracle indeed this blog continues to exist.
There is no moderator and hardly any rules, the Sheik has been hosting us without interference.
Regardless of the dissonant voices, the fights, the high and the lows, we do have a common wish, yes?
Thank You Ralph B for 7.
Blogs main theme was FOF. Now main theme is half a dozen active Personalities that have FOF in common. Becoming soap opera of offended people and self indulgence reinforcment network (just look at wirdo poetry ).
Nothing new. This is normal. Few needy and unhealthy people take much space, others keep quiet or go away.
The Greater Fellowship site is always available for chatting or serious discussion. However, it’s not for public viewing, therefore the “Inner Circle” of the Robert Burton Church cannot participate. Or, can they?
Anyway, for me and my kind, one day (all of us-I’s) will sit under a Kopeck, Banyan, Bodhi or whatever tree Buddha sat under, and drink a cup of ayahuasca to celebrate endings and beginnings.
Actually, I think the Buddha sat under a Mesquite tree.
“weird poetry”? Hmm. I’ll take any of this poetry over the most beautifully read Whitman or Shakespeare at the Academy.
Yes, lots of “personality” here as you said. A lot of fighting. A lot of unleashing of anger. Seriously, did you expect anything else given the history of this cult? And is that so bad? Or are you still holding to the notion that any contention or disagreement is “bad for your work”? :)
“Needy and unhealthy”? Remember, you’re talking about people who once languished in the fof prison. This is pretty bad sometimes, but it’s fresh air and powerful healing compared to that. Not always healthy, but even the most abrasive comments here are head-and-shoulders above the poisonous ideas of the fof.
I still find it interesting that people come here and feel the need to defend their past in the FOF, or their past in studying Fourth Way ideas. This is typical of former cult members, myself included, who do not want to face the pain that they made a mistake. It’s a sign that we’re still mired in the same patterns of thinking that we learned in the fof, and that we’re still healing from it. We made a mistake in joining this cult, and remaining in it, and it takes time to see that.
By the way, it’s a cult, it’s a cult, it’s a cult. The extent that we debate this fact, is the extent that we’re not escaping from the “cult think.” It’s not a group. It’s not an organization. It’s a cult. And you and I joined it.
ouspensky question 25
“Few needy and unhealthy people take much space, others keep quiet or go away.”
And the others keep quiet because… ?
bares relistening
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=l48aOXWKx4E
Hail Fellow Travelers,
Interesting stuff from Ouspensky’s secretary. Taking a guru is itself the first test, because you can elevate the guru right out of the context from which you have any possibility to learn. Anyone know where these writings are from?
If I may engage, do posters have any recommendations for books or movies on the greater Gurdjieffian movement? I think the work of William Patterson is great, regardless of what I think of his “people.” I just ordered at Fields Books a collection of Parabola’s (I think!) essays on the Fourth Way, packaged with the first Meetings with Remarkable Men film.
Have folks seen Patterson’s remake of Meetings? What do you think?
Regarding octaves, practically it meant nothing more than:
“When starting something, there will be a lag sometime after starting and again before finishing.”
Like a lot of religious or metaphysical language, it remains vague enough to cover just about anything. The word ‘interval’ can mean so many completely different things (tiredness, friction, changing one’s mind, forgetting, getting-off-track, outside interruptions, etc.) that you could be assured the “law” held for all things.
Associated Press trying to morally elevate the Pope above REB was plain ridiculous. Every good thing Rat-Zinger has said is nothing but window-dressing. Canon law has not changed one jot since they started catching the priests at poke-a-boy–there is still no penalty for pedophile priests, and Cardinal Bernard Law, who sheltered hundreds of pedophiles in the Archdiocese of Boston, enjoys his retirement in the Vatican.
I get the Burton-hating, but if you think he’s a bigger monster than the Pope than you never got the “scale and relativity” thing.
walter.tanner@gmail.com
#27 Rear view mirror. Not to argue the fact that each of us joined the ‘cult’ however, I personally gained a lot from working with the ideas of self remembering and sleep versus waking up. That was also happening in those years, probably for many. Therefore I cannot and will not say it was a total waste of 20 years. I believe that before I ‘woke up’ to the fact it was a cult I quietly worked on becoming an awake person with whatever understanding I had at the time. This to me is not a waste of time. And the fact that I recognized cult activity later on was reason enough for me to leave and continue my personal work of waking up which goes on to this day. And that’s why I am very grateful that there seems to be an awful lot of help out here now to remind me to continue to observe myself and what’s going on in my life. I find it fascinating that our esoteric knowledge is becoming mainstream. It makes me very happy to live at this time in history.
28 “Few needy and unhealthy people take much space, others keep quiet or go away.”
And the others keep quiet because… ?
The others keep quiet because there is no point in participating in an angry fight. I begin to understand that Elena is not interested in healing and may be her staying in FOF is not the reason for her insanity. And she does take too much space with negativity. By the way the discussion stopped on an issue whether or not it is a good idea to call RB a teacher. After that there was pure insanity. Brrr…
Oops! I missed the moment (when the new page started), and there have been a slew of megaposts since then. But here’s the address again anyway. I think within this month, let’s say by the end of May, we should be sending the letters on to the lawyer.
Hope this deadline of sorts galvanizes those of us who respond to deadlines (I’m one, actually) to contribute our letters. Remember, each of us knows or has witnessed something. We are not called upon for legal proof, just witnessing.
Susan Zannos
2520 Madera Circle #106
Port Hueneme, CA 93041
(805) 984-7975
(805) 824-5588
Hi wakeuplittlesuzywakeup (31),
Yes, that’s an honest response, and I appreciate that. And think what you say is at least partly true for me, and for a lot of people. What I will say, though, is that I’m gradually realizing that it was the most serious mistake of my life to 1) join the cult, and 2) to remain in it for as long as I did, and that 3) it was the most important and positive step of my life to leave.
I think it’s fair to not look at anything in our lives as a “waste,” but I think it’s interesting that almost all of us who joined the fof — as well as those who join other cults — have an extremely difficult time using those words WASTE or MISTAKE, as well as many, many other words. The word CULT, for example, fits. No different word describes the nature of the FOF any better. But it’s just plain too painful for us to see it — well, sometimes it is.
Most of the time we see it, but don’t want to admit it to ourselves, or to others, that we joined a cult. And guess what — that’s a huge, huge reason that we had trouble leaving, and a huge reason that it’s hard that our friends to leave.
Some words are powerful. Omitting some words can be even more powerful.
From the waste, and from the serious error that we all made in following this person, maybe something can grow out of it. (And I should probably add a big, fat question mark to that statement.) I do believe in transformation — and I’ve learned about it mostly out here in the real world, and not in the fof.
Are the ideas you refer to really “becoming” mainstream? Or were they always there for us, and we were just unable to see them due to the ramifications of seeing them — the notion that the fof is far off the mark. The Fellowship of Friends is a lost world of imaginary dreams. Ironic isn’t it? Because that is exactly the description that Burton gives for the vast globe, and for the universe itself. His interpretations of poetry and art all point to a hopeless and sad universe filled with no possibilities.
Maybe, without realizing it, he’s simply seeing something about himself.
“Maybe, without realizing it, he’s (robert burton) simply seeing something about himself”.
I think it was Rodney Collin who proposed the theory that (and he found the idea in his research) that when we die everything we encounter comes from us. Ghosts, Goblins, devils, angels, saints, etc.
And, from reading this and that our view of the world comes conjured out from ourselves. Which matches what Collin said.
Robert E. Burton is unconsciously seeing something about himself.
Ayahuasca here (we-I’s) come.
zannos
Can I send you some written material (photocopies) which I think you might appreciate?
Nigel.
Ollie 32-344:
Thanks, I couldn’t resist these fine morsels, and I didn’t buy his book.
Jan 12, 2003
“I feel our good fortune quite deeply this morning. We are at the dawn of another year of working with the Gods. We have been chosen out of six billion people to consciously evolve.”
There are 3 billion women who don’t look like supermodels and about 10 who do. That doesn’t make the 10 supermodels healthy people to be so different from everyone else. That’s just pure elitism to sell something.
Jan 26, 2003:
“I do not think; I am present. Therefore I am—a conscious being.”
I have to agree, he isn’t thinking here. He’s lying.
Jan 26, 2003:
“On my level, I see sleep wherever I go. I cannot see it otherwise. I would have to be asleep to see it as awake.”
The Talmud says: “a man sees the world not as it is, but as he is.” So he sees sleep wherever he goes because he is asleep. The second part is true: one would have to be asleep to see him as awake.
Feb 02, 2003
“One reason there are not more schools is that there are not more teachers who care about their students—and there is nothing I care for more than my students.”
Sure he cares about you, as long as you pay the bill or drop your pants on cue. The reason there aren’t more schools is that as we wise up we really don’t need them.
Feb 02, 2003:
“Only I can love all of my students. What parent does not love all of his children?”
OMG, this one particularly disgusts me. What parent has sex with his children? Guess that makes him an incestuous pedophile. He should be in jail.
Feb 02, 2003
“I find it unique that I am the first man in history who asked for “Presence Please” from his students.”
From the look of things, Feb 02, 2003 must have been a long day with all these quotes. There is typo here. It should read that he asked for “Presents Please” from his students, sorry, followers.
April 6, 2003
“It is within my power to make my students immortal, and it cannot be achieved in any way other than that which the Gods dictate. Immortality is yours—you just have to accept their methods. You cannot expect to have a normal life with Gods in your life, because it is already abnormal to have Gods in one’s life.”
I’d say it’s abnormal to have ‘Gods’ in one’s life, especially when there is only one God, one Absolute. The rest is idolatry. Yes, immortality is yours, but you have to pay him anyway. Why? Because he says so.
April 6, 2003
“I was looking into a fireplace the first time my higher centers appeared. They were aware of themselves, and aware of the fireplace, and it lasted about twenty minutes. That was my first experience with myself. (…) There were two reasons why the Gods had me look into a fireplace. First, the eternal flame of cosmic consciousness had been established by the Gods. Secondly, I was looking into the inferno of hydrogen warfare.”
Hey, mushroom clouds worked as a fear tactic for George Bush, too. I don’t know about the cosmic consciousness part, but he certainly is flaming.
Aug 17, 2003
“Student: Why is it that the soul takes only one female body during the course of its nine lives?
Robert: To strengthen and soften the higher emotional center.”
It’s really because men are wimps and can’t handle being a woman more than once. It ain’t easy being a pimp either.
Nov 2, 2003
“It is such an incredible experience to circulate in life; with immortal vision I observe mortal sleep. In my students, however, I see the Promised Land.”
Yeah, he sees the Promised Land in his followers as he looks between their legs.
June 13, 2004
“As your teacher, I can see Influence C’s plans. I can see the part in you that counts.”
“And you know what, when Influence C commands me to, when I rub that part it gets bigger and harder. Isn’t that amazing?”
June 13, 2004
“I do not have to ask my students to love me more. I never knew such love in my life.”
“Just show me the money.”
October 10, 2004
“The Fellowship of Friends is the birth of conscious democracy for man.”
Yeah, a “demon-cracy” for the male sex slaves in his own little kingdom, all run by little ole’ him. I don’t remember ever voting for him…
36 Nigel
Of course.
32 somebody
28 “Few needy and unhealthy people take much space, others keep quiet or go away.”
And the others keep quiet because… ?
The others keep quiet because there is no point in participating in an angry fight. I begin to understand that Elena is not interested in healing and may be her staying in FOF is not the reason for her insanity. And she does take too much space with negativity.
Dear Somebody,
I am disappointed! I thought you’d have a few followers cheering at your post by tonight and you are all alone! Well of course, not quite alone but the other’s were answered yesterday and many others are keeping quiet so that they can then complain that they cannot speak? Let me share something with you since you are at least decent enough to address me by my name. I hold that in great appreciation. One of the wonderful things about being here for a year is bearing with so much misunderstanding that I cannot feel deeply offended when you call me insane. If you only knew what a delight it is to be this insane then you would not be so afraid of it. Tell me in secret, are you sane? I promise I won’t tell any body! I don’t know what you call healing but I don’t know any other way to heal and I haven’t heard any better suggestions from you! But I am certainly not holding your hands so that you don’t write or locking your computer, so allons nous, give us your discourse, no one is really stopping you but your imagination.
“By the way the discussion stopped on an issue whether or not it is a good idea to call RB a teacher. After that there was pure insanity. Brrr…”
Brrr…… you have so much indignation! Did you ever feel that much indignation with Robert or did it only just surface with me? Have you all of a sudden found a new target to hate or feel alive about saying I can’t bear with this? Or are you just going to try to convince me that the fact that you are only willing to look at about 1/60th percent of the blog is the objective view about it? Or about me?
My dear somebody, you honour me by using my name and talking to me and not dealing with gloves and tea cups to address me. We’ll be totally naked by the time this is over so if you have something to hide, keep putting your clothes on and setting limitations to how we are supposed to communicate in this public square that is not a pubic fair.
I am no longer in a cult, and will therefor not adhere to any word exercises that anyone wishes to impose here. I will speak as I feel I wish to speak and encourage everyone else to do so. As long, as often, as necessary or as joyful as they would like it. You would like it. Do not try to put harnesses and conditions on me, I have not tried to do that to you. I will continue to call The Fellowship of Friends, The Fellowship of Friends because I want the blog to get to the first line of google when it is looked up and understand the more we say it the more that will happen. Is that incorrect Unoanimo? And I’ll call the man I followed for seventeen years MY TEACHER, my so very corrupt teacher, as long as I want. At least I am clear that I sincerely believed in my teacher, the Fellowship of Friends as a School, and each one of you as human beings wishing to find some solutions to the madness of the “unexamined life”. In fact, that is all the blog is, an examination on our life in the Fellowship.
I am so happy to be able to say that I still believe in the System as a legitimate structure for work on one’s self and develop an understanding of the many worlds we happen to live in, and that people, frigid, rigid and often stupid, continue to be the people I love. But then I have loved my husbands and children and I argue tremendously with them. We love each other nevertheless.
What I will not buy is the idea that a few readers who have not written more than ten posts in a year come after a year and say they don’t like the show, they want to change the channel and feel self sattisfied with pointing fingers and showing indignation as if they were paying for the show.
You might be able to condition my writing the day I accept you to pay me for it but in the meantime, I will continue to write all I want, as often as I want for as long as it is possible. You don’t need to read me, you can skip my posts as I often skipped so many others when this was really over loaded with bullshit. And what is most important, you can write whatever you like, whenever you like and as often as you like. Write your word and share yourself without putting conditions on others and you will hear your self when you are questioned, for like me, you too will be questioned. Here is my answer and you can take it or leave it but I’ll still be here probably until you actually throw me out.
I appreciate your questioning the way I question Whalerider or others here but you might at least admit Whalerider got about six posts suggesting he not come looking for what he got. He really wanted it and stopped. Why do you not see that? Is it too subtle? I at least was never the first force in trying to expose him about anything but he finally opened the box! You see, we are now friends enough to be enemies and enemies enough to be friends. But not friends or enemies enough to be lovers! One must come to such place in order to know the people in one’s community.
I often wonder why I keep writing when I’ve said most of what I needed to say. Probably because more than saying anything, I so enjoy hearing others and sharing, refining, sculpting each other with each other’s hands and tools. So don’t worry about me, I’ll get off when you least expect it, don’t think I am not ready or afraid of finding another outlet for my love. An art, a work, for this is work and I am so grateful for the opportunity of working together. You can put it that way or if you prefer, working against each other. Please your self.
Nigel, now that you mention the written material I would also appreciate your sending to me the one you offered if you still wish to do so. My email is ludotekaatsucceed.net so that I can give you my P.O. Box.
Remember that Influence C is watching. It is a
moment-to-moment struggle.
The nine of hearts is the real heroine.
f we make sufficient effort, we do not need to hope
to be present.
I must say that there is something comic about these three last daily(22/23/24 April) ….from Robert
Hey everybody,
Here’s a trick you might try:
Whenever you are conversing with friends or relations that were kept in the dark for years about your involvement in the Fellowship Of Friends, and the conversation turns to philosophical/spiritual matters, you say out loud: “I was in a cult for XX years and this is what I learned.”
It helps me when I hear myself say it out loud. I was in a cult. I’ve had many interesting conversations result from using those simple words. A lot of my friends and acquaintances knew I had joined some strange organization in ‘84 and noted the changes in me over the years, but never really received the whole story because, at a certain point, I stopped talking about it. Now I find therapeutic value in the simple admission of how I spent fifteen years of my life and what that experience taught me, how it changed me, and what that means to me now. All the information doesn’t come out at once and it doesn’t happen every time, but everytime I say it, admit it to myself, and discuss it deeply with people I know, I heal a bit.
Kid Shelleen (42),
When I was still emotionally connected to the 4th way as promoted by Robert Burton and the fellowship of Friends, I actively went about acting the High End Automotive salesman to a group of people. They enjoyed the sales pitch because it was different. I was a little disappointed because they didnt see the light as I did. Thank C Influence they were just lookers and not buyers.
It was not long ago, maybe within the past ten years, I gave a Fellowship Phone number to a prospective sucker. He enjoyed the ‘life-style’ of a Fellowship of Friends Student, including rolling around in a new Mercedes Benz. Nothing came of it.
However, halfway through the Shiek’s blog, it “dawned on me” that I wasnt a High End Automotive salesman, but a representative of a junk yard who reconditioned by any means possible.
I wrote a short note to all my previous customers that Robert Earl Burton “TEACHER” of The Fellowship of Friends was a fraud and that he was selling junk cars with bent frames.
It helped me shake off the dust.
Kid Shelleen 42
Ditto. And now that I more freely admit it, I feel much less defensive about the whole experience. I have to thank the blog for helping me to come out of the ex-cultist closet.
Last night there was a documentary “Inside the cult” on the National Geographic. Very interesting. Doomsday cult leader Michael Travesser prophesied that the world would end October 31, 2007. The camera was allowed inside the cult for some reason, there were amazing interviews and stories about the followers and the dynamics of cult behavior.
I wished all students could see this documentary because it shows how FOF fits perfectly into the definition of a cult.
- Self-proclaimed higher being - son of God, or God
makes people confused about his authority because how one can question the God?
-Voice of God (or Gods) sending special messages to the leader, or commands to do strange things (like sleeping with married women) which often goes against the moral code of the followers and make them sacrifice so much that it bonds them forever.
- donation and devotion
all possessions, social security checks, income go to the “Queen”
- prediction of a doomsday and promising a better life after this life
there is a very strong motivational force in the idea of doomsday just waiting around the corner, because it makes one hope that when everyone else will be fated to die one still can save oneself if one prays well, believes well or self-remembers well…
- alienating from the world and the families
preaching every day that life is empty and goes nowhere makes the followers feel safe and cozy in the cult
- the cult leaders sleep with their followers. This is the way to control and overpower them.
They interviewed the follower who seems to be close to the leader - his secretary perhaps - he told the story about how the God made this horrible thing - he FORCED Michael to sleep with his wife. And when he became angry with Michael, Michael told him: “You can not be angry with me - it’s God’s idea. Go and talk to God if you are angry with Him!” Poor guy, he was standing with his head to the wall in pain, when Michael and his wife told their story in detail about this “forcing” which of coarse occurred repeatedly and with quite a few women. Bad God, Bad God!
It was also interesting to watch how the followers were not disappointed when the prediction did not come true. On the contrary they were dancing in the night and singing “We are free!”
It was said that failed predictions usually don’t make cult members leave the cult, but rather adjust their thinking…
37 WR
“Student: Why is it that the soul takes only one female body during the course of its nine lives?
Robert: To strengthen and soften the higher emotional center.”
~~~
How did I miss this one from mister misogynous? only one female body during the course of nine lives to develop a soul? (lies anyway…)
The “guy” is really confusing, was he a “goddess” in a man’s body at one point?
———————————————————————————–
Kid Shellen 42
I have been fairly open in saying to people that I was in a CULT. It’s a kind of a dirty word really as there are even more terrible examples of cults in the media.
But once I start talking about it I just say it, still is a big reality check to even tell myself I was a victim of this spiritual illusion and have come to accept the “cult experience” in my life as something to be not pushed away as if trying to hide a part of me. I am not holding to the shame. It’s ok.
25/O.Q. Maybe so, but who cares what you think?
To paraphrase Ronald Reagan: “Your Fellowship (Government) is like a big baby -
an alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other.”
What I think is important: Princess Bobby is a big dick with no responsibility at either end.
Thanks for your post somebody. In the fof, we sometimes talked about how we could “see ourselves” in other people. Very true. Not an idea invented by the fof, but still very true. I think a group of people could benefit by that attitude as well; i.e., the fof could “see itself” by looking at other cults, and seeing those striking similarities that you point out in #45.
“Could” is the operative word. One of the most obvious observable characteristics of any cult is the predictable amount of denial in its participants, and even those participants who left the cult a long time ago.
Bit by bit, I’m seeing that even long after leaving the fof, and even after reading several accounts in this blog, there’s a part of me that won’t let go of it, and a part of me that’s in denial about what I experienced, and in denial about Burton, and in denial about what I witnesses and unwittingly contributed to with each payment.
Within this cult, we were quick to recognize “buffers” in ourselves and in others (which is what the rest of the world often refers to as “denial”). But we were very slow to recognizing the “group buffer.”
Examples of this group denial are:
• “I still love Robert, but I had to leave.”
• “I had some of the most wonderful experiences of my life in the Fellowship, but it was just time for me to leave.”
• “Don’t compare the Fellowship to a cult. It’s different. Robert is not violent. That’s extreme thinking to compare us to a cult.”
• “Don’t compare the Fellowship to Nazi Germany. That shows a lack of relativity. Keep the discussion on topic, or you’ll lose people with your extreme thinking.”
Well, it might be that you WILL lose people with such comparisons, but not because it’s extreme thinking. You’ll lose people because comparisons to Nazi Germany are so dramatic that it makes your jaw drop.
See the 1997 BBC documentary series: “The Nazis: A Warning from History.”
No, Burton doesn’t have one of the world’s biggest war machines at his disposal, nor has he exterminated anyone. But the comparison is more about how he’s been skillful at manipulating people’s opinions. And the comparison is more about the group think that allowed the Nazi movement to take hold in Germany.
In this series:
• They present several interviews with former members of the Nazi party and ordinary citizens — each of whom describe their reasons for supporting the Nazis and supporting Hitler. And many of them were still in denial about what occurred even at the time of the interviews.
• They describe Hitler’s goals to build a new civilization following the great war.
• They describe the Nazi goal to “purify” the world, just as the FOF is now being “purified” (Burton’s word) by the recent exit of many followers.
• They showed how the movement took hold, and how anyone objecting to the movement was dealt with.
• They described how the Nazis were the chosen ones who would bring the world to a new era.
• They described how the assistance of huge numbers of ordinary citizens was important for the Gestapo (the secret state police for the Nazis) to accomplish its objectives.
• They described how many people tried to “please” Hitler in order to gain political power and move up the Nazi ladder.
The goal here is not to create fear or hysteria that Burton is the same as Hitler. The goal is to simply point out the fairly predictable responses when anyone points out the similarities between Hitler’s Germany and a cult such as the fof — to scoff, and to say that this isn’t us, and that we’re different, and that we’re above that.
Are we?
————————————
Available on Netflix: “The Nazis: A Warning from History.”
“New light is shed on the rise of the Third Reich in Germany in this comprehensive series through archival footage and interviews with those who survived Hitler’s reign, including unrepentant Nazis. The series reveals how the Nazi state compelled ordinary people to commit atrocities; the order and disorder within the German army; Hitler’s lack of motivation and propensity for getting his minions to do his work; and many other enlightening facts.”
For a simple definition of a cult:
A checklist, made by professor Eileen Barker, in which traits of groups that can evolve to be dangerous are described. Barker stated that her list was based on empirical research. The traits named include:
“A movement that separates itself from society, either geographically or socially;
Adherents who become increasingly dependent on the movement for their view on reality;
Important decisions in the lives of the adherents are made by others;
Making sharp distinctions between us and them, divine and Satanic, good and evil, etc. that are not open for discussion;
Leaders who claim divine authority for their deeds and for their orders to their followers;
Leaders and movements who are unequivocally focused on achieving a certain goal.”
There’s much more here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_checklist#Eileen_Barker
Here’s my favorite quote:
Rob Preece, a psychotherapist and a practicing Buddhist, writes in The Noble Imperfection:
“In its simplest sense transference occurs when unconsciously a person endows another with an attribute that actually is projected from within themselves.”
In developing this concept, Preece writes that, when we transfer an inner quality onto another person, we may be giving that person a power over us as a consequence of the projection, carrying the potential for great insight and inspiration, but also the potential for great danger: “In giving this power over to someone else they have a certain hold and influence over us it is hard to resist, while we become enthralled or spellbound by the power of the archetype”.
31 Wakeuplittlesuzy: “I personally gained a lot from working with the ideas of self remembering and sleep versus waking up. That was also happening in those years, probably for many. Therefore I cannot and will not say it was a total waste of 20 years. I believe that before I ‘woke up’ to the fact it was a cult I quietly worked on becoming an awake person with whatever understanding I had at the time. This to me is not a waste of time.”
Happy to agree with you on this one littlesuzy. In the process of healing it seems very valuable to recognise what was true within my self no matter how false everything else was. Then I can more easily observe what was also false within my self. One of the things that kept me inside for a long time was wishing to be acknowledged by Robert. Wishing his love and attention. There is a tendency to think that this is not good, that this is vanity or self importance but if I go deeper into the question it is beautiful to realize that it comes from perfectly legitimate love. Only love for a Teacher in our times, seems to replace the self valuation that is necessary for one to develop one’s own self trust, or presence. It is interesting that one or I looked for a Teacher or looks for a teacher so that he can interpret the world for one and he can only interpret the world for himself because he, she trusts hsrself enough to be there for it, but when one cannot do that, that is, interpret the world one has been given to live in, one continues to look for “interpretations”. When will we come to the point of understanding that we can each interpret the world through our own subjectivity and still have a developed enough sense of our own self to make it sufficiently objective? Or to be more radical, when will our subjectivity mature enough to be objective because one is present enough to live and die for it? When will be present enough to objectify our subjectivity? Then we’ll honour the world we live in.
It seems that we have come to confuse SHARING with allowing others to INTERPRET the world for us, conditioned by such a hierarchic structure in or out of a Cult culture, that our coexistence depends on them and not on the fact that we are in fact EQUALS in terms of BEING. REAL I cannot be improved, changed, modified,
extinguished, aroused, depressed, coerced. It cannot even be tuned. It is, and all those other phenomena happen to “A WORK IN PROCESS” that is our life. WHY? Perhaps because Real I enjoys struggling with the many forms of itself and observing how we all return to the original state of integrity. Why? Why not? It is as if a master weaver stopped weaving because he is already a master. Wouldn’t he weave for the simple pleasure and beauty of doing so? For the sake of its own creation? Like wise, living can be living for the joy of it! Because we have enough holes to make whole. Because just as being here on Earth can be hell it can also be paradise. It is in fact paradise every time we actualize our love.
Anna, can I be tyrant enough to force you to have tea with me as soon as we don’t have a whole Ocean between our selves? I beg you to write again. You have the most exquisite style and I would love to copy you and learn