/similar_quotes/1389

Showing 16 similar quotes for quote #1389 from Ride the Tiger by Julius Evola

Publisher: Inner Traditions International (2003)

Naturally, we are not dealing here with normal existence, but with those possible forms of it that are already differentiated, that have a certain intensity, while still being defined in a chaotic ambiance, in the domain of pure contingency. They are not infrequent today, and in the times to come they will surely proliferate. The state in question is that of the man who is self-confident through having as the essential center of his personality not life, but Being. He can encounter everything, abandon himself to everything, and open himself to everything without losing himself. He accepts every experience, no longer in order to prove and know himself, but to unfold all his possibilities in view of the transformations that they can work in him, and of the new contents that offer and reveal themselves on this path.\n

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Hence we recall the line already mentioned, to be understood now as the search for, or the acceptance of, those situations or alternatives in which the prevailing force, one's own 'true nature,' is compelled to manifest and make itself known. \n \n The only actions that can be valid for this purpose are those that arise from the depths. Peripheral or emotional reactions do not qualify, for those are like reflex movements provoked by a stimulus, arising 'long before the depth of one's own being has been touched or questioned,' as Nietzsche himself said, seeing in this very incapacity for deep impressions and engagement, and in this skin-deep reactivity at the mercy of every sensation, a deplorable characteristic of modern man. For many people it is as though they have to relearn how to act in the true sense, actively, as one might say, and also typically. Even for the man whom we have in mind, taken in his worldly aspect, this is an essential requirement today. We might note the corresponding discipline that is so important in traditional 'inner teachings': that of self-remembering or self- awareness. G. I Gurdjieff, who has taught similar things in our time, describes the contrary state as that of being 'breathed' or 'sucked' into ordinary existence without any awareness of the fact, without noticing the automatic or 'somnambulistic' character that this existence has from a higher point of view. 'I am sucked in by my thoughts, my memories, my desires, my sensations, by the steak I eat, the cigarette I smoke, the love I make, by the sunshine, the rain, by this tree, by that passing car, by this book.' Thus one is a shadow of oneself. Life in a state of being, the 'active act,' 'active sensation,' and so on are unknown states.

The Pauline and Faustian lament, 'two souls, alas, live in my breast,' is already an optimistic assumption; all too many have to admit, like a typical character in Hesse, that they have a multitude of souls! Nietzsche himself admitted this state of affairs when he wrote: 'One should not assume that many men are 'persons.' There are also men composed of several persons, but the majority possess none at all.' And again: 'Become yourself: an injunction addressed only to a few, and which to an even smaller number appears redundant.' One can see now how problematic is the very point that has hitherto seemed fixed: fidelity to oneself, the absolute, autonomous law based on one's own 'being,' when it is formulated in general and abstract terms. Everything is subject to debate - a situation accurately exemplified by characters in Dostoyevsky, like Rasholnikov or Stavrogin. At the moment when they are thrown back on their own naked will, trying to prove it to themselves with an absolute action, they collapse; they collapse precisely because they are divided beings, because they are deluded concerning their true nature and their true strength. Their freedom is turned against them and destroys them; they fail at the very point at which they should have reaffirmed themselves - in their depths they find nothing to sustain them and carry them forward. We recall the words of Stavrogin's testament: 'I have tested my strength everywhere, as you advised me to do in order to know myself...What I have never seen, and still do not see, is what I should apply my strength to. My desires lack the energy; they cannot drive me. One can cross a river on a log, but not on a splinter.

The Denial of Death

Author: Ernest Becker

Publisher: Free Press (1975)

Myths to live by

Author: Joseph Campbell

Publisher: Joseph Campbell Foundation (2011)

150

In the religious lore of India there is a formulation of five degrees of love through which a worshiper is increased in the service and knowledge of his God -- which is to say, in the Indian sense, in the realization of his own identity with that Being of all beings who in the beginning said 'I' and then realized, 'I am all this world!' The first degree of such love is of servant to master: 'O Lord, you are the Master; I am thy servant. Command, and I shall obey!' This, according to the Indian teaching, is the appropriate spiritual attitude for most worshipers of divinities, no matter where in the world. The second order of love, then, is that of friend to friend, which in the Christian tradition is typified in the relationship of Jesus and his apostles. They were friends. They could discuss and even argue questions. But such a love implies a deeper readiness of understanding, a higher spiritual development than the first. In the Hindu scriptures it is represented in the great conversation of the Bhagavad Gita between the Pandava prince Arjuna and his divine charioteer, the Lord Krishna. The next, or third, degree of love is that of parent for child, which in the Christian world is represented in the image of the Christmas Crib. One is here cultivating in one's heart the inward divine child of one's own awakened spiritual life -- in the sense of the mystic Meister Eckhart's words when he said to his congregation: 'It is more worth to God his being brought forth spiritually in the individual virgin or good soul than that he was born of Mary bodily.' And again: 'God's ultimate purpose is birth. He is not content until he brings his Son to birth in us.' In Hinduism, it is in the popular worship of the naughty little 'butter thief,' Krishna the infant among the cowherds by whom he was reared, that this theme is most charmingly illustrated. And in the modern period there is the instance of the troubled woman already mentioned, who came to the Indian saint and sage Ramakrishna, saying, 'O Master, I do not find that I love God.' And he asked, 'Is there nothing, then, that you love?' To which she answered, 'My little nephew.' And he said to her, 'There is your love and service to God, in your love and service to that child.' \r\n \r\nThe fourth degree of love is that of spouses for each other. The Catholic nun wears the wedding ring of her spiritual marriage to Christ. So too is every marriage in love spiritual. In the words attributed to Jesus, 'The two shall be one flesh.' For the 'precious thing' then is no longer oneself, one's individual life, but the duad of each as both and the living of life, self-transcended in that knowledge. In India the wife is to worship her husband as her lord; her service to him is the measure of her religion. (However, we do not hear there anything like as much of the duties of a husband to his wife.) \r\n \r\nAnd so now, finally, what is the fifth, the highest order of love, according to this Indian series? It is passionate, illicit love. In marriage, it is declared, one is still possessed of reason. One still enjoys the goods of this world and one's place in the world, wealth, social position, and the rest. Moreover, marriage in the Orient is a family-made arrangement, having nothing whatsoever to do with what in the West we now think of as love. The seizure of passionate love can be, in such a context, only illicit, breaking in upon the order of one's dutiful life in virtue as a devastating storm. And the aim of such a love can be only that of the moth in the image of Hallaj: to be annihilated in love's fire. In the legend of the Lord Krishna, the model is given of the passionate yearning of the young incarnate god for his mortal married mistress, Radha, and of her reciprocal yearning for him. To quote once again the mystic Ramakrishna, who in his devotion to the goddess Kali was himself, all his life, such a lover: when one has loved God in this way, sacrificing all for the vision of his face, 'O my Lord,' one can say, 'now reveal thyself!' and he will have to respond. \r\n \r\nThere is the figure also, in India, of the Lord Krishna playing his flute at night in the forest of Vrindavan, at the sound of whose irresistible strains young wives would slip from their husbands' beds and, stealing to the moonlit wood, dance the night through with their beautiful young god in transcendent bliss. \r\n \r\nThe underlying thought here is that in the rapture of love one is transported beyond temporal laws and relationships,

The Fourth Way

Author: P.D. Ouspensky

Publisher: Vintage (1971)

271

There is an expression in the system, 'to create moon in oneself. Let us talk about what it may mean. It is a symbolical expression, and symbols in the form of diagrams or symbolical expressions are used for very definite purposes. A symbol expresses many ideas at once. If it meant only one idea, the answer would be simple; but a symbol is used to avoid long descriptions and to put many ideas into one sentence. How to decipher a diagram or symbolical expression? In order to decipher a symbol, it is necessary to know the order of ideas included in it. \r\n\r\nNow, if we ask what it may mean to create moon in oneself, we must first ask ourselves, what is the moon's function in relation to organic life? The moon balances organic life—all external movements are balanced by the moon. What will happen if this function of the moon disappears? Will it be beneficial to an individual man or the opposite? We must realize that all this refers to being. What are the features of our being? The chief feature of our being is that we are many. If we want to work on our being, make it correspond more to our aim, we must try to become one. But this is a very far aim. \r\n\r\nWhat does it mean to become one? The first step, which is still very far, is to create a permanent centre of gravity. This is what creating moon in oneself means. The moon is a permanent centre of gravity which balances our physical life, but in ourselves we do not have such a balance, so, when we create this balance or centre of gravity in ourselves we do not need the moon. But first we must decide what the absence of permanent 'I' means. We have been told about many features of this, but they must be established definitely by observation, and in order to come nearer to the idea of creating moon in oneself we must distinguish what is important and what is unimportant. Then we must begin to struggle against the features which prevent us becoming one. We must struggle with imagination, negative emotions and self-will. Before this struggle can be successful, we must realize that the worst possible kind of imagination, from the point of view of obtaining a centre of gravity, is the belief that one can do anything by oneself. After that, we must find the negative emotions which prevent us doing what is suggested in connection with the system. For it is necessary to realize that self-will can only be broken by doing what one is told. It cannot be broken by what one decides oneself, for then it will still be self-will. \r\n\r\nLet me repeat. Work on being is always struggle—against what you like doing or dislike doing. Say you like roller-skating and you are told to remember yourself. Then you must struggle against your desire to go roller-skating. What is there more innocent than roller-skating? But you must struggle against it all the same. Every day and every hour there are things we cannot do, but there are also things we can do. So we must look at a day and see what we can do but do not do. There can be no rule 'You must remember yourself'. If you are told to do or not to do something, and you do not try, it means you do not want anything, you do not want to work. You have sufficient knowledge. Now it is necessary to push work on being. We always try to escape from doing what is suggested.

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We can 'do' some inner actions, for we have a certain control. For instance, we have a certain control of our thoughts: we can think about one thing or another. This is the beginning of the possibility. If we continue to keep our interests directed in a certain line, our thinking process acquires a certain power and, after some time, it can create at least moments of self-awareness which, when it comes more often and stays longer, can begin to change other things. So there are ways out of this absolute mechanicalness. But if one is in conditions of ordinary life, without knowing that everything happens, one can do nothing. The real possibility of changing these conditions begins with control of thoughts and control as far as possible of consciousness, that is, with inner work on ourselves. By doing this inner work, by trying to acquire control of oneself, one learns how to 'do'. It does not mean one can 'do', for one cannot; but if one begins, then, little by little, one learns how to 'do

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Q. Are vast amounts of internal friction and discomfort always a necessary preliminary to new development? \r\n \r\nA. That depends on people. For some people more may be necessary, for some less. Again, it depends on what you want. If you just want to study, it is enough to see, but if you want to change something it is not enough to look at it. Looking at a thing will not change it. Work means friction, conflict between 'yes' and 'no', between the part that wishes to work and the part that does not wish to work. There are many parts of us that do not wish to work, so the moment you begin to work friction starts. If I decide to do something and a part of me does not wish to do it, I must insist as much as I am able, on carrying out my decision. But as soon as work stops, friction stops. \r\n \r\nQ. How can one create useful friction? \r\n \r\nA. You must start with some concrete idea. If you produce no resistance, everything happens. But if you have certain ideas, you can already resist identification and struggle with imagination, negative emotions and things like that. Try to find what really prevents you from being active in the work. It is necessary to be active in the work; one can get nothing by being passive. We forget the beginning, where and why we started, and most of the time we never think about aim, but only about small details. No details are of any use without aim. Self-remembering is of no use without remembering the aims of the work and your original fundamental aim. If these aims are not remembered emotionally, years may pass and one will remain in the same state. It is not enough to educate the mind; it is necessary to educate the will. We are never the same for two days in succession. On some days we shall be more successful, on others less. All we can do is to control what we can. We can never control more difficult things if we do not control the easy things. Every day and hour there are things that we could control and do not; so we cannot have new things to control. We are surrounded by neglected things. Chiefly, we do not control our thinking. We think in a vague way about what we want, but if we do not formulate what we want, nothing will happen. This is the first condition but there are many obstacles. Effort is our money. If we want something, we must pay with effort. According to the strength of effort and the time of effort—in the sense of whether it is the right time for effort or not—we obtain results. Effort needs knowledge, knowledge of the moments when effort is useful. It is necessary to learn by long practice how to produce and apply effort. The efforts we can make are efforts of self-observation and self remembering. When people ask about effort, they think about an effort of 'doing'. That would be lost effort or wrong effort, but effort of self-observation and self remembering is right effort because it can give right results. Self-remembering has an element of will in it. If it were just dreaming, 'I am, I am, I am', it would not be anything. You can invent many different ways of remembering yourselves, for self remembering is not an intellectual or abstract thing; it is moments of will. It is not thought; it is action. It means having increased control; otherwise of what use would it be? You can only control yourselves in moments of self-remembering. The mechanical control which is acquired by training and education—when one is taught how to behave in certain circumstances—is not real control.

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Q. Is blaming other people a feature? A. It may be a feature. But what is it based on? On lack of understanding. If you begin to study psychology, you find that all causes are in yourself; there can be no causes outside yourself. You do not remind yourself of this often enough. One little part understands that causes are in you, but the larger part continues to accuse other people. At the bottom of every favourite negative emotion you will find self-justification which feeds it. You must stop it in your mind first, and then after some time you will be able to stop it in the emotion too. Lack of understanding is the first cause, lack of effort the second

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All our life, all our habitual ways of thinking, have only one aim—to avoid shocks, unpleasant feelings, unpleasant realizations about ourselves. And this is the chief thing that keeps us asleep, because in order to awake we must not be afraid; we must be brave enough to see the contradictions. Even quite apart from the question of conscience, it is important to find in yourself that, when you have strong emotions (it does not refer to small emotions), when you feel strongly about some particular thing, you may be practically certain that at another moment you will have a different emotion about the same thing. If you cannot see it in yourself, see it in other people. When you realize the existence of these contradictory emotions, it will help you to understand your mechanicalness and your lack of understanding of yourself—lack of self-knowledge. So long as we feel different emotions at different times, what are we like? One moment we trust, another moment we are suspicious; one moment we like, another moment we dislike. So the aim is to bring those different emotions together, otherwise we will never know ourselves. If we always feel only one emotion at a time and do not remember other emotions, we are identified with it. When we have another emotion we forget the first; when we have a third, we forget the first and the second. Very early in life, by imitation and in different other ways, we learn to live in a kind of imaginary state to save ourselves from unpleasantness, so people develop in themselves this capacity to see only one emotion at a time. Remember to work. Remember yourself in one mood, then remember yourself in another mood. Try to connect them together and you will see

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Q. I think I have not got the right idea about identification. Does it mean that things control us and not that we control things? \nA. Identification is a very difficult thing to describe, because no definitions are possible. Such as we are we are never free from identifying. If we believe that we do not identify with something, we are identified with the idea that we are not identified. You cannot describe identification in logical terms. You have to find a moment of identification, catch it, and then compare things with that moment. Identification is everywhere, at every moment of ordinary life. When you begin self-observation, some forms of identification already become impossible. But in ordinary life almost everything is identification. It is a very important psychological feature that permeates the whole of our life, and we do not notice it because we are in it. The best way to understand it is to find some examples. For instance, if you see a cat with a rabbit or a mouse — this is identification. Then find analogies to this picture in yourself. Only, you must understand that it is there every moment, not only at exceptional moments. Identification is an almost permanent state in us. You must be able to see this state apart from yourself, separate it from yourself, and that can only be done by trying to become more conscious, trying to remember yourself, to be aware of yourself. Only when you become more aware of yourself are you able to struggle with manifestations like identification. \n\nQ. I find when I am identified it is nearly always with things inside me. \nA. Perhaps you are right; perhaps you are not right. You may think you are identified with one thing when in reality you are identified with quite a different thing. This does not matter at all; what matters is the state of identification. In the state of identification you cannot feel right, see right, judge right. But the subject of identification is not important: the result is the same. \n\nQ. So what is the way to overcome identification? \nA. That is another thing. It is different in different cases. First it is necessary to see; then it is necessary to put something against it. \n\nQ. What do you mean by 'put something against it'? \nA. Just turn your attention to something more important. You must learn to distinguish the important from the less important, and if you turn your attention to more important things you become less identified with unimportant things. You must realize that identification can never help you; it only makes things more confused and more difficult. If you realize even that—that alone may help in some cases. People think that to be identified helps them, they do not see that it only makes things more difficult. It has no useful energy at all, only destructive energy. \n\nQ. Is identification mainly emotion? \nA. It always has an emotional element—a kind of emotional disturbance, but sometimes it becomes a habit, so that one does not even notice the emotion. \n\nQ. I realize that it is important to be emotional in the right way, but when I feel something emotionally in the work, I soon destroy the whole thing. \nA. Only identification is destructive. Emotion can only give new energy, new understanding. You take identification for emotion. You do not know emotion without identification, so, in the beginning, you cannot visualize an emotion free from it. People often think they speak about an emotional function when in reality they speak about identification. \n\nQ. Is it possible for us, as we are now, to have any feeling at all without identifying? \nA. Very difficult, unless we begin to watch ourselves. Then easy kinds of identification—I mean easy individually—will respond to treatment. But everyone has his own specialties in identification. For instance, it is easy for me not to identify with music, for another it may be very difficult. \n\nQ. Is love without identification possible? \nA. I would say love is impossible with identification. Identification kills all emotions, except negative emotions. With identification only the unpleasant side remains. \n\nQ. Non-identifying does not mean aloofness? \nA. On the contrary, aloofness needs identification. Non-identifying is quite a different thing. \n\nQ. If you are identified with an idea, how can you stop it? \nA. First by understanding what identification means and then by trying to remember yourself. Begin with simple cases, then later you can deal with the more difficult. \n\nQ. As you develop self-remembering do you acquire a sort of detached attitude, more free from identification? \nA. Detached attitude in the sense that you know your attitudes better; you know what is useful to you and what is not useful. If you do not remember yourself it is easy to make a mistake about it. For instance, one can undertake some kind of study that is really quite useless. Self-remembering helps understanding, and understanding always means bringing everything to a certain centre. You must have a central point in all your work, in all your attitudes, and self-remembering is a necessary condition for that. We must talk more about identifying if it is not clear. It will become more clear when you find two or three good examples. It is a certain state in which you are in the power of things. \n\nQ. If I look closely and think deeply, does it mean I have become identified? \nA. No, identifying is a special thing, it means losing oneself. As I said, it is not so much a question of what one is identified with. Identification is a state. You must understand that many things you ascribe to things outside you are really in you. Take for instance fear. Fear is independent of things. If you are in a state of fear, you can be afraid of an ash-tray. This often happens in pathological states, and a pathological state is only an intensified ordinary state. You are afraid, and then you choose what to be afraid of. This fact makes it possible to struggle with these things, because they are in you. \n\nQ. Can we have any understanding with identification? \nA. How much can you understand in deep sleep, which is what identification is? If you remember your aim, realize your position and see the danger of sleep, it will help you to sleep less. \n\nQ. What is the difference between sympathy and identification? \nA. It is quite another thing; it is a normal and legitimate emotion and can exist without identification. There may be sympathy without identification and sympathy with identification. When sympathy is mixed with identification, it often ends in anger or another negative emotion. \n\nQ. You spoke of losing oneself in identification. Which self? \nA. All, everything. Identifying is a very interesting idea. There are two stages in the process of identifying. The first stage denotes the process of becoming identified, the second a state when identification is complete. \n\nQ. The first stage is quite harmless? \nA. If it attracts too much attention and occupies too much time, it leads to the second. \n\nQ. When you desire something, can you desire it without identification? \nA. Identification is not obligatory. But if you desire to hit someone, you cannot do it without identification; if identification disappears, you do not want to any longer. It is possible not to lose oneself; losing oneself is not a necessary element at all. \n\nQ. Is it possible to identify with two things at once? \nA With ten thousand! It is necessary to observe and observe. From one point of view struggling with identification is not so difficult, because, if we can see it, it becomes so ridiculous that we cannot remain identified. Other people's identification always seems ridiculous and ours may become so too. Laughter may be useful in this respect if we can turn it on ourselves. \n\nQ. I cannot see why identification is a bad thing. \nA. Identification is a bad thing if you want to awake, but if you want to sleep, then it is a good thing. \n\nQ. Would not everything we do suffer if we kept our minds on keeping awake instead of attending to what we are doing? \nA. I have already explained that it is quite the opposite. We can do well whatever we are doing only as much as we are awake. The more we are asleep, the worse we do the thing we are doing—there are no exceptions. You take it academically, simply as a word, but between deep sleep and complete awakening there are different degrees, and you pass from one degree to another. \n\nQ. If we feel more awake, we should not overtax these moments, should we? \nA. How can we overtax them? These moments are too short even if we have glimpses. We can only try not to forget them and act in accordance with these moments. This is all we can do. \n\nQ. Can you say that identification is being in the grip of something, not being able to shake off some idea in mind? \nA. Being in the grip of things is an extreme case. There are many small identifications which are very difficult to observe, and these are the most important because they keep us mechanical. We must realize that we always pass from one identification to another. If a man looks at a wall, he is identified with the wall. \n\nQ. How does identification diner from associations? \nA. Associations are quite another thing; they can be more controlled or less controlled, but they have nothing to do with identification. Different associations are a necessary part of thinking; we define things by associations and we do everything with the help of associations. \n\nQ. I cannot see why an 'I' changes. Can the cause always be seen in some identification? \nA. It is always by associations. A certain number of 'I's try to push their way to the front, so as soon as one loses oneself in one of them it is replaced by another. We think that 'I's are just passive, indifferent things, but emotions, associations, memories, always work. That is why it is useful to stop thinking, even occasionally, as an exercise. Then you will begin to see how difficult it is to do it. Your question simply shows that you have never tried, otherwise you would know. \n\nQ. Is concentration identification? \nA. Concentration is controlled action; identification controls you. \n\nQ. Is concentration possible for us? \nA. There are degrees. Intentional concentration for half an hour is impossible. If we could concentrate without external help, we would be conscious. But everything has degrees. \n\nQ. Is the beginning of a new observation identification with the object you observe? \nA. Identification happens when you are repelled or attracted by something. Study or observation does not necessarily produce identification, but attraction and repulsion always does. Also, we use too strong a language, and this automatically produces identification. We have many automatic appliances of this sort. \n\nQ. What can I do about identification? I feel that I always lose myself in whatever I do. It does not seem possible to be different. \nA. No, it is possible. If you have to do something, you have to do it, but you may identify more or identify less. There is nothing hopeless in it so long as you remember about it. Try to observe; you do not always identify to the same extent; sometimes you identify so that you can see nothing else, at other times you can see something. If things were always the same, there would be no chance for us, but they always vary in degree of intensity, and that gives a possibility of change. Everything we do, we have to learn in advance. If you want to drive a car, you have to learn beforehand. If you work now, in time you will have more control. \n\nQ. Why is it wrong to be completely absorbed in one's work? \nA. It will be bad work. If you are identified, you can never get good results. It is one of our illusions to think that we must lose ourselves to get good results, for in this way we only get poor results. When one is identified, one does not exist; only the thing exists with which one is identified. \n\nQ. Is the aim of non-identifying to free the mind from the object? \nA. The aim is to awake. Identifying is a feature of sleep; identified mind is asleep. Freedom from identifying is one of the sides of awakening. A state where identifying does not exist is quite possible, but we do not observe it in life and we do not notice that we are constantly identified. Identifying cannot disappear by itself; struggle is necessary. \n\nQ. How can anyone awake if identification is universal? \nA. One can only awake as a result of effort, of struggle against it. But first one must understand what to identify means. As in everything else, so in identification there are degrees. In observing oneself one finds when one is more identified, less identified or not identified at all. If one wants to awake, one must and can get free from identification. As we are, every moment of our life we are lost, we are never free, because we identify. \n\nQ. Can you give an example of identification? \nA. We identify all the time, that is why it is difficult to give an example. For instance, take likes and dislikes, they all mean identification, especially dislikes. They cannot exist without identification and generally they are nothing but identification. Usually people imagine that they have many more dislikes than they actually have. If they investigate and analyse them, they will probably find that they only dislike one or two things. When I studied it, there was only one real dislike that I could find in myself. But you must find your own examples; it must be verified by personal experience. If at a moment of a strong identification you try to stop it, you will see the idea. \n\nQ. But I still do not understand what it is! \nA. Let us try from the intellectual side. You realize that you do not remember yourself? Try to see why you cannot and you will find that identification prevents you. Then you will see what it is. All these things are connected. \n\nQ. Is non-identifying the only way to know what identifying is? \nA. No, as I explained, by observing it, because it is not always the same. We do not notice the temperature of our body except when it becomes a little higher or lower than normal. In the same way we can notice identification when it is stronger or weaker than usual. By comparing these degrees we can see what it is. \n\nQ. In struggling with identification is it necessary to know why one is identified? \nA. One is identified not for any particular reason or purpose, but in all cases because one cannot help it. How can you know why you identify? But you must know why you struggle. This is the thing. If you do not forget the reason why, you will be ten times more successful. Very often we begin struggling and then forget why. There are many forms of identification, but the first step is to see it; the second step is to struggle with it in order to become free from it. As I said, it is a process, not a moment; we are in it all the time. We spend our energy in the wrong way on identification and negative emotions; they are open taps from which our energy flows out. \n\nQ. Can one suddenly change the energy of anger into something else? One has tremendous energy at these moments. \nA. One has tremendous energy, and it works by itself, without control, and makes one act in a certain way. Why? What is the connecting link? Identification is the link. Stop identification and you will have this energy at your disposal. How can you do this? Not at once; it needs practice at easier moments. When emotion is very strong you cannot do it. It is necessary to know more, to be prepared. If you know how not to identify at the right moment, you will have great energy at your disposal. What you do with it is another thing; you may lose it again on something quite useless. But it needs practice. You cannot learn to swim when you fall into the sea during a storm— you must learn in calm water. Then, if you fall in, you may perhaps be able to swim. I repeat again: it is impossible to be conscious if you are identified. This is one of the difficulties that comes later, because people have some favourite identifications which they do not want to give up, and at the same time they say they want to be conscious. The two things cannot go together. There are many incompatible things in life, and identification and consciousness are two of the most incompatible. \n\nQ. How can one avoid the reaction which comes after feeling very enthusiastic? Is it due to identification? \nA. Yes, this reaction comes as a result of identification. Struggle with identification will prevent it from happening. It is not what you call enthusiasm that produces the reaction, but the identification. Identification is always followed by this reaction. \n\nQ. Is a bored man identified with nothing? \nA. Boredom is also identification—one of the biggest. It is identification with oneself, with something in oneself. \n\nQ. It seems to me I cannot study a person without losing myself in him or her, yet I understand that this is wrong? \nA. It is a wrong idea that one cannot study a person or anything else without losing oneself. If you lose yourself in anything, you cannot study it. Identifying is always a weakening element: the more you identify the worse your study is and the smaller the results. You may remember that in the first lecture I said that identifying with people takes the form of considering. There are two kinds of considering: internal and external. Internal considering is the same as identifying. External considering needs a certain amount of self-remembering; it means taking into account other people's weaknesses, putting oneself in their place. Often in life it is described by the word 'tact'; only tact may be educated or accidental. External considering means control. If we learn to use it consciously, it will give us a possibility of control. Internal considering is when we feel that people do not give us enough, do not appreciate us enough. If one considers internally one misses moments of external considering. External considering must be cultivated, internal considering must be eliminated. But first observe and see how often you miss moments of external considering and what an enormous role internal considering plays in life. Study of internal considering, of mechanicalness, of lying, of imagination, of identification shows that they all belong to us, that we are always in these states. When you see this, you realize the difficulty of work on oneself. Such as you are you cannot begin to get something new; you will see that first you must scrub the machine clean; it is too covered with rust. We think we are what we are. Unfortunately we are not what we are but what we have become; we are not natural beings. We are too asleep, we lie too much, we live too much in imagination, we identify too much. We think we have to do with real beings, but in reality we have to do with imaginary beings. Almost all we know about ourselves is imaginary. Beneath all this agglomeration man is quite different. We have many imaginary things we must throw off before we can come to real things. So long as we live in imaginary things, we cannot see the value of the real; and only when we come to real things in ourselves can we see what is real outside us. We have too much accidental growth in us. \n\nQ. If one retired from the world, surely one would overcome identification, considering and negative emotion? \nA. This question is often asked, but one cannot be at all sure that it would be easier. Besides you can find descriptions in literature of how people attained a very high degree of development in seclusion, but when they came in contact with other people they at once lost all they had gained. In schools of the Fourth Way it was found that the best conditions for study and work on oneself are a man's ordinary conditions of life, because from one point of view these conditions are easier and from another they are the most difficult. So if a man gets something in these conditions he will keep it in all conditions, whereas if he gets it in special conditions he will lose it in other conditions.

Mere Christianity

Author: C.S. Lewis

Publisher: HarperOne (2001)

The Origins and History of Consciousness

Author: Erich Neumann

Publisher: Princeton University Press (1954)

What Do You Say After You Say Hello?

Author: Eric Berne

Publisher: Grove Press (1972)

This Is It

Author: Alan Watts

Publisher: Vintage (1973)

Now it is of great interest that we cannot effectively think about self-control without making a separation between the controller and the controlled, even when - as the word 'self-control' implies - the two are one and the same. This lies behind the widespread conception of man as a double or divided being composed of a higher self and a lower, of reason and instinct, mind and body, spirit and matter, voluntary and involuntary, angel and animal. So conceived , man is never actually self-controlling...The problem is well illustrated in the Christian theory of virtue, which for centuries has put an immense double-bind on Western man. The greatest commandment is that 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God' - and, note the addition - 'with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and all thy mind.' How can such a commandment be obeyed? The addition implies that it is not enough to think and act as if I loved God. I am not asked to pretend that I love. I am asked really to mean it, to be completely sincere. Jesus' whole condemnation of the Pharisees was that they obeyed with their lips and hands, but not with their hearts.

The problem is this: man is a self-conscious and therefore self-controlling organism, but how is he to control the aspect of himself which does the controlling? All attempts to solve this problem seem to end in a snarl, whether at the individual level or at the social. At the individual level the snarl manifest itself in what we call acute self-consciousness, as when a public speaker frustrates himself by his very effort to speak well. At the social level it manifests itself as a loss in freedom of movement increasing with every attempt to regulate action by law. In other words, there is a point beyond which self-control becomes a form of paralysis - as if I wanted simultaneously to throw a ball and hold it to its course with my hand.