#j.g.bennett

“For one who stands by the seashore on a stormy day, it is not easy to discern the moment when the tide turns. So in the historical process it is hard for the contemporary student to recognise the signs of a new age. At periods of transition the attention of mankind is diverted by the ebb and flow of the waves of culture and decay from an almost imperceptible change of direction which may be occurring in the course of human destiny. That which will be significant in the perspective of millennia is hidden from those who fix their gaze only upon the fluctuations of current events. The time span of immediate interest is very short for the average man, and the historian, whose profession is to see the process objectively, is usually dominated by the modes of thought that are fashionable in his own time.”

horacio coppola : buenos aires (1929)

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“Since we tend to see ourselves primarily in the light of our intentions, which are invisible to others, while we see others mainly in the light of their actions, which are all that’s visible to us, we have a situation in which misunderstanding and injustice are the order of the day.”

You Must Start With Yes :: Milton Rogovin (United States, born 1909) - storefront churches, 1958-60

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"The ability to perceive the relationship of our own personal existence to the greater needs of the world to which we belong is called by Gurdjieff the 'Sacred Impulse of Divine Conscience', and I have no doubt that a right understanding of the rôle of Conscience in human life will be the master-idea that will regenerate the spiritual existence of mankind."

~ J.G.Bennett, Preface to "The Crisis in Human Affairs" (1946)

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“When one is still and listens, one begins to be in touch with a mysterious element that is within each of us, which can transform and shape us and can help to transform the world.”

~ William Segal

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"As a wise orthodox put it, we have to make a volitional response to a divine initiative."

Painting by Victor Vaznetsov

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Never Give Up. "Ouspensky told me a story: “There is a Russian fairy story of a knight who sets out on a great adventure. He arrives at a place where the road divides into three. Unable to decide which to choose, he asks an old man, who tells him that if he goes to the right he will lose his horse; to the left he will lose himself; while if he takes the road in the centre he will lose both himself and his horse. He reasons with himself that a knight without a horse is helpless, and a horse without a knight is useless, so he might as well risk losing both. He chooses the middle path, and after desperate adventures, in which the old man’s prophecy is fulfilled, he reaches his goal.” O. added, “You are now in that position. But I may as well tell you that if the knight had chosen either of the two other paths, it would have been the same in the end. Only it was necessary that he should persist and never give up. That is the only condition. ~ J.G. Bennett, 'Witness'

Ex Nihilo (Out of Nothing) by Frederick Hart (1978-84), Washington National Cathedral, Washington, D.C.

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“Every self has a power of understanding that, in the truest sense, determines who and what he is. Our understanding does not fluctuate like our states of consciousness. Our powers are the measure of our will, and our will is the ability possessed by each one of us to participate in the Will that is our Source.”

~ J.G. Bennett, ‘The Dramatic Universe’

"We can have two contradictory states in us - a state of 'I must' and a state of 'I cannot'. If we lose one of these then some compromise arises. We either do what we can, or we do something different and pretend it is what we must do. But if we don't compromise then this can bring us to that moment when something else emerges that is neither affirming that we must, nor denying that we can. It is just the action. The action appears. The big thing for us is when this comes to us about Work. We realise that we must and that we cannot. Then from nowhere there comes something else and we find that things have happened to us that we cannot understand. There are three phases. There is the phase of I cannot - I know, but I cannot. Then there is the phase when nothing of this sort is present at all. Then comes the phase when one says 'I can' and then it's all lost.

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There is another element in doing that has always to be remembered. We can't do unless there is an ideal or a pattern. This presents itself to us. You can have the memory of previous occasions when something similar didn't work. If something has failed for us and we haven't been paralysed by the failure, but on the contrary we remain sure that it can be done, then it brings us again to this 'I must, but I cannot' (even if you're not aware of it in that clear way). But in some cues the pattern itself has power. This is perhaps true in all cases, but in some cases the power of the pattern is the most important thing, as in certain exercises we do."

~ J.G. Bennett, 'The Image of God in Work: Talks at Sherborne House 1973-4' (The Collected Works of J.G. Bennett Book 33)

(Photo: Long Meg and her Daughters, Cumbria, England)

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“It is almost impossible to have an idea of the circle except by being at the centre, because we are so used to relating ourselves to everything as fi we were the centre of it. It is very interesting to try and be aware of the circle from the circumference, for then there is no privileged point, no place in which I can isolate myself - for being the centre is special, therefore separated or isolated from the whole. It is a totally different experience for us when we are not obsessed by being at the centre. Then the centre is everywhere and we see differently.”

~ J.G. Bennett

| Artwork by Arnaldo Mirasol]

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"Paradoxically, the moment of utter defeat can be the traditional turning point in the journey. It is the moment when all conscious strategems have failed, the ego abdicates, and deeper forces of life may make their appearance."

Marc Ian Barasch

According to J.G. Bennett, The Sufi "Masters of Wisdom" used humiliation as a way of turning the ego and its defensive walls and identities to rubble, the way that what is happening in Gaza can annihilate, and turn to rubble, the edges of our heart, until there are no edges left.