Daily Quote, Tuesday March 24, 2009
Good morning everyone,
Hope you are ok after the snowfall here in Halifax!
In facing a fact there is a release of energy.
Why should not jealousy, ambition, etc. be immediately brushed aside? Why should there be this postponement, the gradual change, the acceptance of idealistic authority? I hope, sirs, you are thinking it out with me and not merely listening to me. We accept this gradual process of change because it is more easy, and postponement is more pleasurable. The immediate gives you a great deal of excitement, and to see its value is much more difficult and requires much greater attention and energy. I do not know if you have realized that in facing a fact there is a release of energy, and it is this facing the fact, from which energy is derived, which has the quality that brings about mutation. And we cannot face the fact if we are convinced that change through a gradual process, through influence, through fear, through compulsion, is the only way. In the very act of facing it, you will find there is release of energy, psychologically.
Most of our lives are wasted through conflict. We do not face facts but run away from them, seeking various forms of escape. This is dissipated energy, and the result of that dissipation is confusion. If one does not escape, if one does not translate the fact in terms of one's own pleasure and pain, but merely observes, then that act of pure seeing in which there is no resistance is the releasing of energy.
Collected Works, Vol. XII - 288
It really sounds like he is saying that it is simply a matter of accepting what is - facing the facts - and moving on. Simply in the sense that it is this simple. The alternative being postponement, gradualness, etc.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting how pleasure for us must be immediate but not so with change, whereas change must be gradual but not so with pleasure?
We seem to be willing to spend energy for pleasure, but not for change which takes time!
ReplyDeleteSo we should approach change with the same energy as we do pleasure!
ReplyDeleteTrue, and if we approach change through seeing what is, it should actually release energy and not consume it.
ReplyDeleteI think it could be that we like to spend a lot of energy on pleasure, spend a lot of time enjoying it, but want it to arrive immediately.
ReplyDeleteFor example, we might go to watch a movie that lasts nearly 3 hours but won't wait 20 minutes for it to start if we happen to get the time wrong and arrive early.
But if we can see what ii then and there, the fact that we are late, we can let it go, and not waste energy.
It comes back to paying great attention to what is.