fat esoteric post ahead, sorry for multy replying but it is big nice esoteric info worth being digested and shared
After those vids, who obviously need time, I want to share this fragment I read days ago, from the 4th way tradition
"..Can you help me a little more about intentional suffering
Bennet: What have you yourself understood about it?
I seem to have so much involuntary suffering to cope with, that I feel there is not much left over
Bennet: There are two kinds of invouluntary suffering. One kind of involuntary suffering is everything that comes from my self love, my own egoism, when I am offended, when I am worried, when I am jealous. All of that kind of suffering is worthless. It does nothing for me, it does nothing for anyone. it destroys my possibilities. I must have no truck with it. if there is any force in me, I must repudiate such suffering as that. There is also suffering that is of a different kind, the inevitable suffering of life, physical pain, or bereavement, loss; the real troubles of those for whom we care. We have to see that this kind of suffering does not really play such a big part in our lives on the whole, as the first one, that is the suffering which is quite useless. This second kind of suffering we tend very much to aggravate by imagination, by picturing ourselves that things will happen before they happen; by self-pity. If we can be free from those negative aspects of suffering, some unavoidable suffering would still remain, and in our attitude towards it, there would be something of value to ourselves. But this is quite different from intentional suffering. You must understand that intentional suffering is something that must be earned. It is suffering that I must attain. it is something that I must be worthy of. I cannot have suffering by saying that I am prepared to suffer. it is not only being prepared to suffer, I must have the understanding of how this suffering is to come to me.
You have read IN SEARCH OF THE MIRACULOUS? You remember in one of the early chapters there is a conversation about immortality? Someone asked a question of MR. Gurdjieff about immortality and the soul, and he spoke of what in man can become immortal. There is nothing in his physical body, his organism, in his personality generally, all that he calls 'himself' which can survive even the accidental shocks of life, let alone such a big thing as death. Something must hold together very strongly, with great inner intensity, if it is to have the possibility of surviving and existing without a physical body. And that something can only be formed by a process, a gradual process.
You remember how he sopke about ir. He compared it to a crucible of powders, which has nothing to hold it together. When it is poured out, everything is spilled. but by one means only, can it be changed from just a mixture of powders into an ingot, fused into this by heat: that is fire. Only fire can change, and make something of a man with such an intensity of inner togetherness, that will survive anything, either in this life or out of it. And that fire is intentional suffering, nothing else. So what do you want to know? What is it you want to ask me?
I think that has answere the question, at any rate at this stage
Bennet: On the contrary, it should have aroused your curiosity!
Miss R: Couldn't you go on a little more about how it is to be earned?
Bennet: In BEELZEBUB it is illustrated in many ways. Meritorious beings are said to have occupied themselves with such and such an undertaking and achieved it through their concious labour and intentional suffering. Belcultassi or Makary Kronbernkzion, and other types of men who in one way or another worked for the attainment of some great aim. But if we take it in something which is closer to ourselves, there is this difficulty: that if I answer simply that intentional suffering is the result of work, you will not understand because you do not know what work is. But there are some kinds of experience that prhaps you can enter into. you know how it is with an artist. An artist who really lives for one particular perfection of experience and expression, knows that it is unattainable. He approaches the moment of expression with this agony of knowing that it is impossible for him to be what he intends to be. Whatever he achieves, he knows that is nothing in comaprisson with the quality he aspires to. The more he works, the more he refines his art and purifies it, the more he feels the impossibility of achieving what he whises. This is how the intentional suffering comes. He knows that he must suffer if he does this. He knows that the very standard he sets himself must make him suffer. If you understand this, you will understand something of the quality that belongs to intentional suffering, and why it can only come as a result of work on oneself. It cannot come by any other way. The same is true of a saint. If you read the lives of the Saints, you see clearly that the more they work on themselves, the more remote they feel from what they are trying to achieve. Looked at from outside, it seems almost morbid self-accusation; with such a refinement of purity in life, how can there be such a sense of sin? there seems to be something almost pathological about it; but, on the contrary, it is very sane. You see afterwards how, when you see objectively at such lifes, it is nonsense to speak of it as pathological. A few days ago, I was reading by chance an extract from John Bunyan's autobiography. If you read that, you see for yourself that his intense wish to achieve purity of life, and his real struggle day and night to find how he could do it, was accompanied at the same time by terrible inner suffering, although he knew quite well that he was making demands fo himself that were far beyond what externally he might be expected to make. Then you see how little by little this is transformed into an inner assurance that there is a Higher Force, there is a power of Grace that could help him. But that can only come when something if formed which is able to recieve it. Not without that. Intentional suffering is the only way to Conscience.
Can you help me about the struggle against negative emotions, beacuse it seems that just as I think I am getting somewhere about this, the whole thing falls down worse than ever, and this brings such a lot of involuntary suffering, all the way along? it is involuntary suffering for me to struggle, and then again when I fall. I have got it wrong somehow. Can you help me?
Bennet: You do not dig deep enough. There is only one cure for negative emotions. That is, to see oneself. So long as I do not see myself, no force exist that can neutralize my egoism, because it remains untouched by whatever I do. negative emotions have power so long as we do not see from whence they come. As soon as I see from whence they come, this snuff them out. Because something else takes thier place, that is the experience of seeing that it is from that in me that this reaction is coming. It is the only thing that is strong enough to kill the negative emotion. It is a very big thing.
Is that what is meant by 'the watcher at the gate' ?
Bennet: I do not know. I am not a Theosophist. Why do you speak like that? What matters is that you should experience it. It does not matter what it is called. You should try to ask yourself: by what you can you possibly be advanced by asking that question? You start by asking a question which is important, which comes from something in you which has perhaps experienced your helpesness in struggling with negative emotions. I try to show you the way to go to find how you can dig deeper, and then you speak about something very superficial: that is some formula which has happened to come by association into your mind. Why? i could tell you more, but you have shut the gate." ...
Fragment from talk No 11: 9th April, 1951 of "Denison House Talks- Questions and Answers 1950-1. 1954" by J.G. Bennet
Hi everyone, I don't know if sharing charity links may go against the rules or not ( I did not remember the rules since I read them a long time ago, if this is not ok just close the thread. When sharing these type of links check the source of legit campaings and websites of course.). Anyways I have come across some of them lately and though could be nice to bring some of the charity spirit around here, giving a helping hand to people who are in a tough situation. I have just found this campaing and I think this man and his brother are friends of Doug Lussenhop (surely most of you know the guy, he is the creator of the comedy series "Pound House"), because he posted it on facebook https://www.facebook.com/doug.lussenhop/posts/pfbid0qaqosaTTcA453v9kFn5QoJoXXRQ2rVfKfwHnehFeUD7qh8yDQbTC6ZPbuTd3muNzl https://www.gofundme.com/f/4rgwgv-help-my-brother-and-i-from-becoming-homeless Thanks watmmers
