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Creative Consciousness
A considerable percentage of the people we meet on the street are people who are empty inside, that is, they are already dead. It is fortunate for us that we do not see and do not know it. If we knew that a number of people are actually dead and that a number of these dead people govern our lives, we should go mad with horror.
— Gurdjieff
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When I was sixteen I was awakened by reading a simple Zen koan, “the wild geese do not intend to cast their reflection, the water has no mind to receive their image.” This saying opened a door I did not even know existed, and instead of the grey world of my boarding school, I found myself in a place of color and light and laughter, sunlight sparkling off the water in the river. I also started to meditate, sitting present in emptiness. I had come home, found the place I belonged, and I have stayed there ever since.
Underneath all the complexities of today I believe we all long for a simplicity of self that is full of wonder and magic. It can be tending a piece of ground, growing flowers or vegetables, or playing music, or sitting in silence. It is the lost garden of the soul, a walled garden waiting for its doorway to be found, the scent of roses and honeysuckle beckoning us.
— LLewelyn Vaughan-Lee
