Soul

No name. No gender. No beliefs. No possessions. No job. No culture. NoBody.

Swift and sudden

We do not change ourselves by adding to ourselves. More money? More possessions? More experiences? Accumulation prevents what we imagine it facilitates. Real change is radical subtraction, a letting go, swift and sudden.

Desire

One by one, dump your desires. Yes, all of them. Start small—say, with a desire for potato chips—and then move up from there, even as far as sugar and sex and possessions. After a couple of successful relinquishments, you’ll find it gets easier and easier to let go of these mind-made confinements. And even, strange to say, a bit thrilling. Because ultimately you arrive at your heart’s desire, the one that necessitated the sweeping away of all the others.

Ready, set, accumulate (2)

Gurdjieff: “Sin? Sin is what is unnecessary.” Nisargadatta: “Only the necessary is good. There is peace only in the essential.”

What we possess, we are possessed by.

The mind’s gymnasium

Sex is not bad. It’s the desire for sex that creates a howling host of problems. It’s the same with possessions. We have them because we want them, not because we need them.