A masculine spirituality

Does such a thing even exist? Of course. Yes! But that’s a concession, not a boast. A masculine spirituality has a decidedly yang quality to it, an imbedded bias for action. Thus, some women are more yang than some men just as some men are more yin than some women. Wherever we find it, a bias for action needs to be examined and undone. We are human beings, after all, not human doings. “Know the male,” advises the Tao, “but keep to the female.” Most of what yang-men do is unnecessary. That was Gurdjieff’s definition of sin—whatever is unnecessary.  

Cracked

The personality is a set of conditioned behaviours of which we are mostly unaware. If you doubt this wear your watch on your opposing wrist for a week. These behaviours make us utterly predictable to those who know us best. ‘Here we go again,’ they think or say. Which is why we need to live in community—to be reminded now and then that we are robots. We need the personality in the same way a chick needs its shell—as an adolescent protection, only useful for as long as it takes to peck our way out of it.

Not for beginners

Here it is, the hardest thing: Do what is necessary. Do not do what is not necessary.

Ears to hear

The director calls “Action!” We hear “Activities!”

Just like that

Freedom is always freedom from something, not to something. Freedom from the past, for example. This is accomplished in the realization that there is nothing in my past that I need to remember.