Where
to start with this process of awakening, awareness,
enlightenment, Cosmic or Christ Consciousness? What do
you want to call your search for personal
transformation? EVOLUTION maybe? "THE WORK" Gurdgieff
called it. 'GROWING UP' I call it. Getting COSMIC my
secretary calls it. OK. Doing that thing. Where do we
start?
HOW
about using the tools at hand, playing this game
called "Life"? Life is a terrific teacher. If we were
just to focus better when we live each day, we'd
discover little pellets of knowledge in every second
of insanity! Little nuggets of wisdom raining on our
heads as we digest the bitter, crave the sweet,
shuttle between the two… betray our loved ones, get
betrayed in turn, the whole damn cosmic drama…..we'll
be discovering or uncovering truth and the Ruthless
Rules of Reality which, for our purpose here, is the
fundamental power of living in JOY, intense interest
(as opposed to boredom,) peace, love and unremitting
ECSTASY!
There
are so many nihilists around. Folks who haven't a clue
who they really are, (GOD!) These dimwits all think
there's no way out of this mess called "Life" except
through death. The Masters of Wisdom say "No, wrong!
Death is no way out. You're just walking through
another door, changing clothes like an actor but you
remain exactly who you are with all of your same
talents, deficiencies, powers, problems,
enlightenment, or 'endarkenment' as your condition
might really be called -- and you gotta run right back
on stage in a hundred years. Only the make-up,
costume, street address, face and props change
minimally from one lifetime to the next. But your feet
start off at the same marks on the stage floor.
Starting from Zero.
So what
about this stuff that we want: the peace, joy and
love? Oh, that's not all you seek? I can hear you
reminding me "what about wealth, happiness,
contentment, power, talents, fame, great lovers and
tons of money. Well believe it or not, you will get
all of that when you have peace joy and love. Do you
think some nervous in the service, unhappy and unloved
stiff gets any of life's goodies? NO, he does not.
Dogs put their heads in their paws when that guy comes
into a room.
But if
you go along on the evolution ride, you're heading
automatically for all the things you want. Your entire
wish list. Believe it or not, I find that most people
are so bummed they actually choose to go without. TO
not have any of these wonderful things. To be losers.
They choose it. Their emotions and words say to me:
"Shit has happened to me from day one. I hate
everybody. I want the end of my story to be realllly
tragic so those malefactors wake up. I am planning a
number of negative and very dramatic things and
working daily on it, as opposed to this context of
well being." See I listen with the third ear, like
Freud did. They're really saying "I believe that it is
impossible to achieve anything other than the way my
life is.
So
they're stuck in hopelessness. But that's not you
because you've read this far. That's certainly not
you. I am heaving a sigh of relief! But that is a
description of someone you know and care for and HOW
in the HELL are we going to get them to read this
far??
If I
knew such a person, I would tell him "If you focus on
what you are targeting, as a desire or a need --- and
use the "ACTUAL ACTION" system described in Chapter
One, you will move quickly to the state of the
ABUNDANT HUMAN who lives LIKE A GOD. Total ecstasy.
Now,
put that on the scales and let me add another weight
next to it. If you also focus on the heart of the
universe, that cosmic mystery, that glowing spot
within you that maybe is God, struggling to live
through you -- just turning your attention to the GLOW
HEART SPOT a few times a day for a minute, via
meditation, yoga, prayer, searching for and communing
with Your SILENT, Higher Self, --- you will move into
PERSONIFYING GOD DOWN HERE. On your street, in your
family. In your community, right there within your own
life.
I am
describing an actual condition where GOD is using YOUR
miserable little LIFE to do some pretty big things
that he needs done. Do NOT fool yourself with that
URBAN RUMOR that He doesn't need stuff done! While one
human suffers, in any corner of the globe, stuff needs
doing!
OK, so
get this. You do actual action and you
FOCUS on the silent glow spot that cares about
the planet…and you will go straight from being a
miserable loser to BEING GOD. That's not some QUACK
claim. That's a WARRENTY FROM THE MANUFACTURER. And
when you're in this GOD state, you will not know
suffering. It will all be ecstasy which as you know
is better than OK. It will all be part of the big
perfect picture. And when the payoff comes, you'll say
'wow, I couldn't have imagined it as this
wonderful.'
While I
don't want to diddle that monstrous, infantile, greedy
part of you, I do want to tell you that you will have
what you REALLY want, really DESERVE, really need and
really CAN USE for your work and have it very quickly.
The only price tag is to do both the ACTUAL ACTION
work and the GRACE STATES each day. Do BOTH because
it's like soil and water, nothing grows without both.
Your
path to ecstasy, abundance and having SUPERMAN talents
(which will be utilized by this suffering world and
which will make you TOTALLY RICH AND FAMOUS) will be
so quick, you won't even believe it! I think that I
proved it with my life. People who use the method
prove it with theirs. They end up with fame, wealth,
and admiring sweethearts. The whole nine yards. But
when they get it, it's fool proof.
Again,
I have to be much more careful when I talk about this
as I DO NOT WANT to stimulate that greedy, hungry,
infantile and monstrous part of you. This whole system
is about SERVICE to the planet. And if you try to use
these methods to SERVE YOURSELF, your fall will be a
real napoleonic kind of pratfall full of hilarious
poetic justice. Only you won't be laughing.
I know
myself and my own ego, remember how I wanted to be
Miles Davis and Andre Previn in one.
(Editor's
note.
Jules got very close to being those two men. His music
group THE FAMILY JULES was working all over L.A.,
great cafes, he'd been asked to do a character part of
a Godfather in a mob movie, and he looked just like an
elegant Terrance Stamp he would have been a hit. His
saxophone music was the best; his piano flawless. Mind
you, he was a multi millionaire and dating Jackie
Bisset and was just doing this band just for fun but
FULL TIME as he loved music. It was not for the money.
He gave the cash to his group. He played every
instrument to perfection, studied with the greats,
went to CUBA for months to study congas and all the
other drums.)
I know
that I HAD big unrealistic dreams and they were
probably ego dreams. I firsthand understand your
indulgence in the projections of your ego self. I
understand your worrying about yourself, who you'll
be, and you're very antsy about how far you are from
the dream of what you want to be. Clocks are ticking
around you all the time. I understand being concerned
about yourself, about your future, about what you're
going to do, what you might get out of it, (or not
get!) how your success is going to be, all this
planning and all this thinking and craving and fearing
at once because I was insane once like you.
The
tragedy is that you have been doing that since you
were born. And everyone has been doing this since they
were born. That's the "thrownness". How you were
thrown into life and what happened by becoming a being
in a third dimensional world, being born to parents
who lived in stupor where grand parents and great
grand parents did the same boring thing habitually.
That's human life down here before The Awakening.
See
what all these people would do if they really knew
what they could have been doing when they were working
a forty hour week for some suppressive who was always
a hair away from firing them. What's sad is that you
have been continuing the same habitual thinking about
'what am I doing here, where am I going, what do I get
out of it, is this really correct for me to do, is
this my purpose, is this the way to live my life. A
constant tyranny of the mind, of the 'I' talking to
itself, tyrannizing you, into complete confusion,
chaos, and eventually unhappiness, dissatisfaction,
frustration and depression. And then as you get older,
the physical disease which probably is a result of
that mental ticker tape.
Instead
just imagine the possibility of being totally quiet,
still, open, needing nothing, wanting nothing, and
doing everything for the pure joy and pleasure of it
because that study or art obsesses you, delights you.
Imagine the focus, the beauty, the making things, and
dancing with whoever or whatever is in front of you at
the dance that your ecstasy attracts that day.
Imagine
the opportunity that every second is, every footstep
is, as pure possibility, not as something that is
etched in stone that gives you $500 or $500,000 but as
dancing over the meadow doing exactly what makes you
happy. Barbra used to just sing in the stairwell,
amazed at her own voice and glad it blocked out the
sounds of the street, which her sensitive ears hated.
The greatest singer of our day. She just loved to go
to auditions and blow their minds with that voice. And
they hired her. How could they not?
Fame
has its downside. Many who have accomplished the great
gift of worldly success still get frustrated and
depressed because they find that FAME, POWER AND MONEY
wasn't everything. So what is? SINGING in the
stairwell. The only thing that REALLY COOKS is THIS.
Having your tire tread firmly, creatively, gripping
the moment. That grimy stairwell. The NOW. Being tuned
in to your ecstasy in what you do and how the singing
blocks out the traffic noise and also, maybe down the
line that singing can SERVE the UNIVERSE. THAT’s IT.
This moment, this artist’s talent, this life, this
opportunity, this song, this poignant melody, this
face, this unique biography, or maybe it’s a study, a
love relationship, ajob,
mate, house, garden, this amount of money, this bank
account, this body, this book you wrote, this wit,
this intelligence, this talent that you are, that you
have, this unique vision that you are existing in, and
it is so bloody exciting and perfect that you are
dazzled that you went from where you used to be in the
grimy stairwell to here in a palace and the world
banging on your door to get more of what you do. Did
Babs think she was going to be one of the leading
lights of the liberals and get peace-embracing
presidents elected in the face of the greatest and
most persuasive fascism? Never for a second. But
that's where she went, one delighted step at a time.
And you
know what? You can go from here to there in a few
years. Maybe in a few seconds. JUST do what you are
passionate about. Trust that the passion road will
take you where you’re meant to be and the polite lie
won’t. Have the discipline not to inflict your
impatience or headachy days on us. Assume the pose of
joy. Just see how your life is perfect, your
interests, your talents, your ambitions, the time you
have left, ALL PERFECT!
And go
on from here. As Confucius said: "Be satisfied with
your lot in life and go from there". And as Buddha
said: "Follow the Middle Way, the path of
non-attachment". And that is Nirvana. And that is what
we want. One foot in front of the other, but EVERY
FOOTSTEP feels so good, you're so solidly entrenched
in the now, down where the rubber meets the road.
EVERY SECOND you're loving the work you do. And if you
don't love it, you kick it OUT and go do what you
love, knowing the money will come.
There
are so many gigantic rewards to being freed from lying
to yourself and others, and freed from materialism,
and freed what others dictate to you -- that the
person who is tied down to another man's schedule and
who, as well, has the curse of being money grubbing --
can never even imagine what the sky looks like because
he is caught up in looking at mud. He mutters 'I hate
this work and all I can think every second is ‘the
money is coming, that’s what I get out of it.’
When
you are in bliss, you don't even care what you are
ever going to get out of it, you don't care if you are
going to get paid a dime. You are in ecstasy down
where the rubber meets the road. Your toes are digging
into the NOW! The now has you totally excited and then
everything comes to you because you are in the
free-est state in the universe – a bliss so big
there’s no self left!
Selflessness
is
very magical. It attracts itself! It attracts the
whole infinite being of God which is selfless! That's
what God is and who God is. Selfless. How did God
create the whole universe and all the galaxies and all
the planets and all the beings? By being a 'not home'
kind of Guy, focused on making birds and flowers and
you. Just ecstatic to create every flower, fish, bug,
animal and giving them just the eye and finger they
needed and the nail on the finger and finally his tour
de force --YOU. The last, flowering bud, bloom and
twig on the tree of a trillion year evolution.
He must
be feeling very rewarded with this planet, this garden
of Eden. Except for the petroleum distillates, but his
creation man will fix that. Everything comes to those
who are creatively excited, selfless, un-selfish and
not chasing some missing element like fame, power, the
dollar, recognition.
BUT
warning? THE CONVERSE is true! Everything BAD happens
to those who are selfish and indulgent in their
self-desires for "me" wanting to be "great" and "me
accepted and ok". "Me with moola. Me with chicks. Me
with a pad. Me Napoleon. Me with a nation. Me with all
nations. Me in Elba.
So the
definition of selflessness is: doing without any need
or reward and doing it because that's all you dig
doing and you think of the planet and everybody else
first and yourself last. That's what Jesus said when
he said: The meek shall inherit the Earth and he who
is last shall be first. And the selfish are those who
think of themselves first and everybody else second.
They always end up in Elba. Being hasbeens who really
never were, going through their scrapbooks, unhappy,
depressed, frustrated, needy and wanting to find the
answer to life. And the answer was right in front of
them all the time. In the Now where the rubber meets
the road where your ecstasy in your favorite games is
bubbling out of you and you're focused on the page
like you're reading the best mystery.
To lose
thyself is to gain the world. Only when you accomplish
the technique of living in the now in ecstasy by
practice, without the nega-yammer, only when you
totally master the trick of focusing that practice
confers, will you have the world by the Ruby Begonias.
When
you practice this little tiny focusing trick over and
over and over again, the involvement in manifesting
your talents, as art, as a world-delivering vision, as
a statement of yourself given in total selflessness,
-- you can become anything, you can accomplish
anything, any talent, form of expression, you will be
the greatest at anything you do and you will not have
any need to be rewarded or appreciated because the
very creative process of becoming a genius IS the
reward.
Everything
is
complete, you are fulfilled within itself. So
fulfillment is the absolute reward of being nothing
and giving everything. Do you think Charles Dickens
knew about that state? He came from an institution,
called a 'poor house', his family locked in it, he
locked in two penny esclavitude at a boot black
factory job yet he took a single class in shorthand,
got a job at age 16 as a note taker in the Chancery
Court, then as a newspaper reporter (hearing all those
court room dramas,) and ended up writing hit novels,
one BLEAK HOUSE about the poorhouse, and OLIVER about
orphanages and all England wept and reformed those
conditions because of him. And GBSHAW.
Do you
think DICKENS planned to be a novelist? Did SHAW plan
to be a playwright? Gandhi planned to be a lawyer to
Hindus in South Africa, not a powerful, world famous
activist who'd return to India & knock England on
its keister. But he did by simply working from one
now to the next like cobblestones on a
path, just guided by his heart and probably a good
dose of righteous wrath at the Brits. See why in the
film GANDHI.
You
have a wonderful battle of your own somewhere. It's
like a rainbow coat hanging in a closet with your name
on it. You have as many lifetimes as you want to grow
tall enough to get that coat off the peg or you can do
it right now, this second. By waking up to what you
love. But remaining the same greedy monster with your
same boring mind yammer, habitually doing the same
thing over again, expecting something new to come from
it, and never really accomplishing bupkis is a sure
path to frustration, sadness and anger and then,
disease.
To move
forward into mastery is not to practice once a week
and remain the same every time you go back to practice
again. To move into mastery is to play your
instrument, or paint your picture, dance your dance
daily. Because only then can you advance. The garden
does not get more beautiful, does not get more
trimmed, pruning once a week. Every week you go back
and trim the same damn things! But if you did it every
day, if you practiced your instrument every day, in a
week you would be a thousand times ahead of where you
were the week before.
I know
about these things because I was stuck hearing the
traffic noise and hating it, like Barbra. And angry.
Then I found my voice in the stairwell was beautiful.
So I was once there and now I'm here.
And here’s what I know. You cannot do the actual
action and the state of grace once a week.
If you only sing in the stairwell on SUNDAYS, each
time you went back, it would be exactly the same. The
advance would be so minimal that you would feel you
were not getting anywhere and you would drop it. The
path to get to this ecstasy of mastery, of enjoyment,
of pleasure, of advancing is doing something daily.
PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT. How do you get to Carnegie
Hall? Practice. And love the practice.
Wake up thirsty to start your work, intoxicated to be
doing it, with a yearning to start again each morning.
To be
able to perform the talents that you are innately born
with, practice every day, every hour, every minute possible, so that
you see the advancement and you feel the ecstasy of
accomplishment and mastery. And you get to be
Streisand not a kid on the lower East Side where the
traffic roars day and night. Or maybe you get to be
Gandhi but certainly, you won’t end up like
Napoleon.
And that's what this
book is all about. FOR
MORE OF HIS LESSONS, go to
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THE MASTER
JULES SITE