Sayings of Substance
I am Beelzebub traveling the solar system, telling my grandson the history of all the countries we pass. We begin with Atlantis and end with a picture of the America of the future.
I must discover, at all costs, some manner or means for destroying in people the predilection for suggestibility which causes them to fall easily under the influence of “mass hypnosis.”
Every real thought from a conscious being remains in the atmosphere of the planet as long as that planet survives and can be picked up in later ages by other conscious beings.
The present period of culture…in the whole process of the perfecting of humanity, is, as it were, an empty and abortive interval.… Unless the ‘wisdom’ of the East and the ‘energy’ of the West were harnessed and used harmoniously the world would be destroyed.
America is now a baby; as far as I can see cannot grow old. Canned food very bad for stomach and psyche. Sexual foundation wrong. No shame.
Find some means by which the two sides of man, and, therefore, the two sides of the earth, could live together in peace and harmony…. Time is short—it is necessary to achieve this harmony as soon as possible to avoid complete disaster.
Man is man. He cannot be otherwise. He is such that he can never change his body. He can only be as he is because he is the result of heredity. But his mind he can educate and with this control his animal body and not be its slave. He must at all times struggle and as his mind grows stronger, so will his weakness grow stronger. This is a good thing, it makes for more struggle.
One needs fire. Without fire, there will never be anything. This fire is suffering, intentional suffering, without which is impossible to create anything.
Before man can have a soul, he must have an I. Only when he achieves an I can he develop a soul.
Real love is the basis of all, the foundations, the Source. All accumulated vibrations create a current. This current brings the force of love. Real love is a cosmic force which goes through us. If we crystallize it, it becomes a power—the greatest power in the world.
Before I return I hope with all my being that everyone here will have learned the difference between sensation and feeling.
—From Georgi Ivanovitch Gurdjieff: The Man, The Teaching, His Mission