Thursday, March 14, 2019
4.40 a.m. Woke up anxious to put my blog post on Hanging in the Air onto Facebook. How pathetic is that? Kind of fun, though. And there was an old conversation with Joseph the Egyptian, also ready to move over, pre-loaded before I left. Tomorrow makes two weeks since my last day in Egypt. I knew it would seem like a dream.
So, being up, I thought we’d chat. I’m a little worried about coming down and being unable to obtain lasting benefit from what starts to look like a momentary acquisition.
That is a form of doubting us and doubting yourself.
I suppose it is. A matter of sustained intent rather than sustained emotion, or even sustained idea.
That’s right. If higher consciousness depended upon a given state of mind not fluctuating, there could be no hope, for consciousness is fluctuation; it is alternation and lack of continuity. What is sleep, after all, but an interruption of conscious processes and moods, etc.? Nor can anything permanent depend upon uninterrupted maintenance of a given emotional state. Emotions succeed each other, and are in the nature of things. But intent can be cultivated, and sustained, and renewed. It can become your pole-star. And if it do not (or does not, as your time says), your pole-star is likely to be unconscious intent. Not that this is necessarily good or bad, but it is so.
Live toward our ideals.
That’s what ideals are, pole-stars.
Slightly different topic. I think I’ll cite the two Brunton quotes I copied last night from notebook eight, “Reflections on My Life and Writing.” He’s talking about himself, but he’s talking about my life.
“It is the business of my books to act as awakeners rather than as teachers, to make people aware of their higher possibilities, and of the obstacles or limitations within themselves which hinder their realization.” [#86, p. 34]
“I do not wish to clothe men in a new faith but rather to get them to stand as giants and shake off the ropes which keep them imprisoned. I want to get them to depend on a fourth dimensional life now that the old existence has utterly failed them.” [#114, p. 38]
Like notebook twelve, “The Religious Urge and Reverential Life,” that I am still reading here and there, I could quote nearly every page, if there were reason to.
I was about to ask if you did not have something in particular for us to talk about, and the thought struck me, you’re looking for me to put together my own books, as we discussed, rather than accumulate material for new transcripts of conversations.
It isn’t an either/or, but you have enough on your plate at the moment. Maybe it is time for more expression and less absorption. That is, express what you know, to acquire room to absorb more. Teaching is how one learns. Expressing is how one assimilates.
I still have quite a few things to clear away first.
So you don’t need another! You can stay in touch without pen in hand.
I suppose so. All right. And there is the Nathaniel material to re-read.
“Teaching is how one learns. Expressing is how one assimilates.” So true.