Quest For Knowledge Flashcards
The four enemies that must be conquered to become a man of knowledge.
- Fear
To overcome fear you must not run away. You must defy fear over and over again at every step of learning. You must be fully afraid and not stop. One day fear retreats and learning is no longer a terrifying task. This is when you meet your second enemy: clarity.
A man goes to knowledge as he goes to war…
wide-awake, with fear, with respect, and with absolute assurance. Going to knowledge or going to war in any other manner is a mistake, and whoever makes it will live to regret his steps.
The four enemies that must be conquered to become a man of knowledge.
- Clarity
Clarity gives a man the false assurance that he can do anything he pleases, for he sees clearly into everything. He’s given false courage because he’s clear and stops at nothing because he is clear. In order to vanquish this enemy he must defy his clarity and use it only to see, and wait patiently and measure carefully for taking new steps; he must think above all that his clarity is almost a mistake. At that point he will understand that clarity was only a point before his eyes. This leads him to his third enemy: power.
The four enemies that must be conquered to become a man of knowledge.
- Power
Power allows a man to do whatever he pleases. His Ally is at his command. Power is the strongest of all enemies and naturally the easiest thing to do is give in; after all, the man is truly invincible. He commands; he begins taking calculated risks, and ends in making rules, because he is a master. Suddenly, without knowing, he will certainly have lost the battle. His enemy will have turned him into a cruel, capricious man. In order to defeat power, he has to defy it deliberately. He has to come to realize the power he has seemingly conquered was in reality never his. He must keep himself in line at all times, handling carefully and faithfully all that he has learned. He must get to the point where he can see that clarity and power, without his control over himself, are worse than mistakes. When he reaches the point where everything is held in check, then he will know how to use his power and thus he will have defeated his third enemy.
The four enemies that must be conquered to become a man of knowledge.
- Old Age
This enemy is the cruelest of all, the one he won’t be able to defeat completely, but only fight away. This is the time when a man has no more fears, no more impatient clarity of mind, a time when all his power is in check, but also the time when he has an unyielding desire to rest. If he gives in totally to his desire to lie down and forget, if he soothes himself in tiredness, he will have lost his last round, and his enemy will cut him down into a feeble old creature. His desire to retreat will overrule all his clarity, his power, and his knowledge. But if the man sloughs off his tiredness, and lives his fate through, he can then be called a man of knowledge, if only for the brief moment when he succeeds in fighting off his last invincible enemy.
What is a truthful life?
A life lived with deliberateness, a good, strong life.
Anything is one of a million paths.
Therefore you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow it, you must not stay with it under any conditions. To have such clarity you must lead a disciplined life. Only then will you know that a path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or two others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you to do. But your decision to keep on that path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. I warn you. Look at every path closely and deliberately. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn’t. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you. A path without heart is never enjoyable. You have to work hard even to take it. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy; it does not make you work hard at liking it.
There are lots of things that can drive a man mad, especially if he did not have the resolution, the purpose required for learning.
But when a man had a clear, unbending intent, feelings were in no way a hindrance, for he was capable of controlling them.
The true self cannot be unlovable, helpless, lost, abandoned, insecure, powerless, or unworthy.
From the perspective of the true self there is zero truth in these beliefs. They are the false self (ego). The true self is perfect, radiant, complete, and limitless.
