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A Trace of Eternity
Of course, it is strange to inhabit the earth no longer, to give up customs one barely had time to learn, not to see roses and other promising things in terms of a human future; no longer to be what one was in infinitely anxious hands; to leave even one’s own first name behind, forgetting it as easily as a child abandons a broken toy.
Strange to no longer desire one’s desires. Strange to see meanings that clung together once, floating away in every direction. And being dead is hard work and full of retrieval before one can gradually feel a trace of eternity. — Though the living are wrong to believe in the too-sharp distinctions which they themselves have created.
— excerpt from the First Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke, From Varushka Franceschi
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The crowd neither wants nor seeks knowledge, and the leaders of the crowd, in their own interests, try to strengthen its fear and dislike of everything new and unknown. The slavery in which mankind lives is based upon this fear.
— George Ivanovich Gurdjieff
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REMINDERS FROM THE ELDERS:
Find yourself, by your own means. Do not let others make your path for you. It is your path, and only yours. Others may walk with you, but no one can make your way (or walk your path) for you.
