An Offer and an Offering: Join me on retreat at the White Lotus Foundation, in the magic hills of Santa Barbara, April 10-13. Special Sale Price of $575 includes: Four days and three nights lodging in beautifully appointed yurts on sacred land. Delicious, healthy meals prepared by the legendary chef Beatrix Rohlson. Intro to Resistance stretching with elite trainers Luther Cowden and Nick Ware. Also, assisted resistance stretching which will safely open your body in vectors and directions you didnt think possible. Yoga Classes with yours truly. Ecstatic chanting with the inimitable Steve Ross. Ecstatic Breathing. Hiking and swimming in the water holes nourished by the rain. Hot tubs and sauna. Daily sitting Meditation. The highlight: After your startling a-ha moment, after a veil you didnt know was there is lifted, instead of resuming the life demanded of you by a busy and active mind, you have time to rest into your new understanding before it evaporates into anecdote. The greatest gift you could give yourself: time to listen. If you cant make it consider gifting the retreat to a friend. This will be an amazing weekend full of practical and immeasurable treasures those attending will appreciate forever. contact Justineyogasoup@gmail Heres the offering part, courtesy of Mr. Gurdjieff by way of Nick Ware. Not to dwell on the negative (#79) but I have some work to do. Much love, Eddie The Commandments of Gurdjieff 1. Ground your attention on yourself. Be conscious at every moment of what you are thinking, sensing, feeling, desiring, and doing. 2. Always finish what you have begun. 3. Whatever you are doing, do it as well as possible. 4. Do not become attached to anything that can destroy you in the course of time. 5. Develop your generosity - but secretly. 6. Treat everyone as if he or she was a close relative. 7. Organize what you have disorganized. 8. Learn to receive and give thanks for every gift. 9. Stop defining yourself. 10. Do not lie or steal, for you lie to yourself and steal from yourself. 11. Help your neighbor, but do not make him dependent. 12. Do not encourage others to imitate you. 13. Make work plans and accomplish them. 14. Do not take up too much space. 15. Make no useless movements or sounds. 16. If you lack faith, pretend to have it. 17. Do not allow yourself to be impressed by strong personalities. 18. Do not regard anyone or anything as your possession. 19. Share fairly. 20. Do not seduce. 21. Sleep and eat only as much as necessary. 22. Do not speak of your personal problems. 23. Do not express judgement or criticism when you are ignorant of most of the factors involved. 24. Do not establish useless friendships. 25. Do not follow fashions. 26. Do not sell yourself. 27. Respect contracts you have signed. 28. Be on time. 29. Never envy the luck or success of anyone. 30. Say no more than necessary. 31. Do not think of the profits your work will engender. 32. Never threaten anyone. 33. Keep your promises. 34. In any discussion, put yourself in the other persons place. 35. Admit that someone else may be superior to you. 36. Do not eliminate, but transmute. 37. Conquer your fears, for each of them represents a camouflaged desire. 38. Help others to help themselves. 39. Conquer your aversions and come closer to those who inspire rejection in you. 40. Do not react to what others say about you, whether praise or blame. 41. Transform your pride into dignity. 42. Transform your anger into creativity. 43. Transform your greed into respect for beauty. 44. Transform your envy into admiration for the values of the other. 45. Transform your hate into charity. 46. Neither praise nor insult yourself. 47. Regard what does not belong to you as if it did belong to you. 48. Do not complain. 49. Develop your imagination. 50. Never give orders to gain the satisfaction of being obeyed. 51. Pay for services performed for you. 52. Do not proselytize your work or ideas. 53. Do not try to make others feel for you emotions such as pity, admiration, sympathy, or complicity. 54. Do not try to distinguish yourself by your appearance. 55. Never contradict; instead, be silent. 56. Do not contract debts; acquire and pay immediately. 57. If you offend someone, ask his or her pardon; if you have offended a person publicly, apologize publicly. 58. When you realize you have said something that is mistaken, do not persist in error through pride; instead, immediately retract it. 59. Never defend your old ideas simply because you are the one who expressed them. 60. Do not keep useless objects. 61. Do not adorn yourself with exotic ideas. 62. Do not have your photograph taken with famous people. 63. Justify yourself to no one, and keep your own counsel. 64. Never define yourself by what you possess. 65. Never speak of yourself without considering that you might change. 66. Accept that nothing belongs to you. 67. When someone asks your opinion about something or someone, speak only of his or her qualities. 68. When you become ill, regard your illness as your teacher, not as something to be hated. 69. Look directly, and do not hide yourself. 70. Do not forget your dead, but accord them a limited place and do not allow them to invade your life. 71. Wherever you live, always find a space that you devote to the sacred. 72. When you perform a service, make your effort inconspicuous. 73. If you decide to work to help others, do it with pleasure. 74. If you are hesitating between doing and not doing, take the risk of doing. 75. Do not try to be everything to your spouse; accept that there are things that you cannot give him or her but which others can. 76. When someone is speaking to an interested audience, do not contradict that person and steal his or her audience. 77. Live on money you have earned. 78. Never brag about amorous adventures. 79. Never glorify your weaknesses. 80. Never visit someone only to pass the time. 81. Obtain things in order to share them. 82. If you are meditating and a devil appears, make the devil meditate too. Like what “it” does not like. The highest that a man can attain is to be able to do. The worse the conditions of life the more productive the work, always provided you remember the work. Remember yourself always and everywhere. Remember you come here having already understood the necessity of struggling with yourself—only with yourself. Therefore thank everyone who gives you the opportunity. Here we can only direct and create conditions, but not help. Know that this house can be useful only to those who have recognized their nothingness and who believe in the possibility of changing. If you already know it is bad and do it, you commit a sin difficult to redress. The chief means of happiness in this life is the ability to consider externally always, internally never. Do not love art with your feelings. A true sign of a good man is if he loves his father and mother. Judge others by yourself and you will rarely be mistaken. Only help him who is not an idler. Respect every religion. I love him who loves work. We can only strive to be able to be Christians. Dont judge a man by the tales of others. Consider what people think of you—not what they say. Take the understanding of the East and the knowledge of the West—and then seek. Only he who can take care of what belongs to others may have his own. Only conscious suffering has any sense. It is better to be temporarily an egoist than never to be just. Practice love first on animals, they are more sensitive. By teaching others you will learn yourself. Remember that here work is not for work’s sake but is only a means. Only he can be just who is able to put himself in the position of others. If you have not by nature a critical mind your staying here is useless. He who has freed himself of the disease of “tomorrow” has a chance to attain what he came here for. Blessed is he who has a soul, blessed is he who has none, but woe and grief to him who has it in embryo. Rest comes not from the quantity but from the quality of sleep. Sleep little without regret. The energy spent on active inner work is then and there transformed into a fresh supply, but that spent on passive work is lost for ever. One of the best means for arousing the wish to work on yourself is to realize that you may die at any moment. But first you must learn how to keep it in mind. Conscious love evokes the same in response. Emotional love evokes the opposite. Physical love depends on type and polarity. Conscious faith is freedom. Emotional faith is slavery. Mechanical faith is foolishness. Hope, when bold, is strength. Hope, with doubt, is cowardice. Hope, with fear, is weakness. Man is given a definite number of experiences—economizing them, he prolongs his life. Here there are neither Russians nor English, Jews nor Christians, but only those who pursue one aim—to be able to be.
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 19:16:07 +0000
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