Beelzebub’s Tales
Chapter 27 – The order of existence …Ashiata Shiemash
“‘Only he will be called and become the son of God who acquires in himself Conscience.’
“…’The factors for the being-impulse of Objective Conscience arise in three-brained beings from the localization in their presence of particles of the “emanations of the sorrow” of our … Creator, that is why the source of …genuine Conscience in three-centered beings is sometimes called the “Representative of the Creator.’
“‘ …And this sorrow is formed in our All-Maintaining Common Father from the struggle constantly proceeding in the Universe between joy and sorrow.’
…”‘In all the three-centered beings of our entire Universe… including us men, owing to the data crystallized in our common presence for engendering in us the divine impulse of Conscience, “all of us” and the whole of our essence in its very foundation are, and must be, only suffering.
‘And we must be suffering, because this being-impulse can come to its full manifestation in us only through the constant struggle between two quite opposite ‘complexes of functioning’ … namely between the processes …of our planetary body and the parallel processes …arising progressively from the coating and perfecting of our higher being-bodies within this planetary body… which processes in their totality actualize every kind of Reason in three-centered beings.
“‘Consequently, …we men existing on the Earth, owing to the presence in us also of the factors for engendering the divine impulse of Objective Conscience, must always inevitably struggle with the two quite opposite functionings arising and proceeding in our common presence, the results of which are always sensed by us either as “desires” or as “nondesires.”
“‘And so, only he who consciously assists …this inner struggle, and consciously assists the “nondesires” to prevail over the “desires,” behaves in accordance with the Being of our Common Father Creator Himself, whereas he who consciously assists the contrary only increases His sorrow.”
In Search of the Miraculous
Chapter 2
“Fusion, inner unity, is obtained by means of ‘friction,’ by the struggle between ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in man. If a man lives without inner struggle, if everything happens in him without opposition, if he goes wherever he is drawn or wherever the wind blows, he will remain such as he is. But if a struggle begins in him, and particularly if there is a definite line in this struggle, then, gradually, permanent traits begin to form themselves, he begins to ‘crystallize.’
…If a man gives way to all his desires, or panders to them, there will be no inner struggle in him, no ‘friction,’ no fire. But if, for the sake of attaining a definite aim, he struggles with desires that hinder him, he will then create a fire which will gradually transform his inner world into a single whole.
The Reality of Being
#47. The struggle for being
We need to remember that …particularly in relation to what we call “desire”—the wish for pleasure or some other satisfaction. …(I)t is not getting satisfaction that is bad but the fact that I am absent, unable really to satisfy or not to satisfy it. …The desire is life itself in me, extraordinarily beautiful, but because I do not know it, and do not understand it, I experience frustration, a certain pain, in giving in or in repressing it. So, the struggle is to live with the desire, not refusing it or losing myself in it, until the mechanism of the thinking no longer has an action on me, and the attention is free.
In this struggle, everything is in the attention.
Inside a Question, Henriette Lannes
Do I Wish to Work?
I put myself in front of myself. Do I wish to Work? No I do not. I remain in my armchair. I do not wish. Then I stop working and see what happens. See if that is the true answer from the whole of me; or do I accept that the passive part of me blocks the door? There comes a moment when it is like that. Then do I really not want to work any more for the rest of my life? Don’t I see I am fooled by myself? Of course the refusal is there. Very simply I put myself in front of that.
I try to discriminate better. Who is there? …Do I see the immense benefit of acquiring a little more discrimination? Only that quality of attention can open doors. It demands a struggle which feels true.
There is a chance to disentangle something from all the rest. I wish to disentangle a little real attention from all the pull of the mechanism, and only at that moment I begin to work, otherwise there is no real participation of my own. …how much am I involved in everything which happens around me, …Far from having any authority over it, it overwhelms me, it has full authority.
In the measure where we are able not to give way all the time, there is a little something ready to receive that impression, there is perhaps a glimpse of somebody else, perhaps not very clever in many ways but real and wishing to be true. I prefer that to any clever man in the world involved in dreams.
The Reality of Being
#6. The first initiation
…In order to observe, I have to struggle. My ordinary nature refuses self-observation. I need to prepare, to organize a struggle against the obstacle, to withdraw a little from my identification—speaking, imagining, expressing negative emotions. Conscious struggle requires choice and acceptance. It must not be my state that dictates the choice. I must choose the struggle to be present, and accept that suffering will appear. There is no struggle without suffering. Struggle is unacceptable to our lower nature; struggle upsets it. This is why it is so important always to remember what we wish—the meaning of our work, and our Presence. In going against a habit, for example, like eating or sitting in a certain way, we are not struggling to change the habit. Or in trying not to express negative emotions, we are not struggling against the emotions themselves, or struggling to do away with their expression. It is a struggle with our identification, to allow the energy otherwise wasted to serve the work. We struggle not against something, we struggle for something.