Alejandro Jodorowsky, Spiritual Journey, Commandments
Gurdjieffs daughter Reyna D'Assia relayed these “commandments” given to her by her father to Alejandro Jodorowsky. Mentioned in his book “the spiritual journey of alejandro jodorowsky” P 174-175.
Music:
- 1. Hymn from a great temple
- 2. Hymn for Easter Thursday
- 3. Prayer number 2.
Voiceover by Harold.
this is from [The Spiritual Journey of Alejandro Jodorowsky: The Creator of El Topo By Alejandro Jodorowsky. At http://www.amazon.com/dp/1594771731/?tag=xahh-20 , accessed on 2013-02-16 ]
Alejandro Jodorowsky (born 1929) is a film maker.
here's Amazon's description of the book:
Jodorowsky's memoirs of his experiences with Master Takata and the group of wisewomen -- magiciennes -- who influenced his spiritual growth
• Reveals Jodorowsky turning the same unsparing spiritual vision seen in El Topo to his own spiritual quest
• Shows how the author's spiritual insight and progress was catalyzed repeatedly by wisewoman shamans and healers
In 1970, John Lennon introduced to the world Alejandro Jodorowsky and the movie, El Topo, that he wrote, starred in, and directed. The movie and its author instantly became a counterculture icon. The New York Times said the film “demands to be seen,” and Newsweek called it “An Extraordinary Movie!” But that was only the beginning of the story and the controversy of El Topo, and the journey of its brilliant creator. His spiritual quest began with the Japanese master Ejo Takata, the man who introduced him to the practice of meditation, Zen Buddhism, and the wisdom of the koans. Yet in this autobiographical account of his spiritual journey, Jodorowsky reveals that it was a small group of wisewomen, far removed from the world of Buddhism, who initiated him and taught him how to put the wisdom he had learned from his master into practice.
At the direction of Takata, Jodorowsky became a student of the surrealist painter Leonora Carrington, thus beginning a journey in which vital spiritual lessons were transmitted to him by various women who were masters of their particular crafts. These women included Doña Magdalena, who taught him “initiatic” or spiritual massage; the powerful Mexican actress known as La Tigresa (the “tigress”); and Reyna D’Assia, daughter of the famed spiritual teacher G. I. Gurdjieff. Other important wisewomen on Jodorowsky's spiritual path include María Sabina, the priestess of the sacred mushrooms; the healer Pachita; and the Chilean singer Violeta Parra. The teachings of these women enabled him to discard the emotional armor that was hindering his advancement on the path of spiritual awareness and enlightenment.
Here's the excerpt from the book:
“Reyna, you are telling me fairy tales! Such goal are 100 percent utopian -- and even if they were true, what is the first step on this path?”
“Whoever wishes to attain the supreme goal must first change his habits, conquer laziness, and become a morally sound human being. To be strong in the great things, we must also be strong in the small ones.”
“How?”
“We have been badly educated. We live in a world of competition in which honesty is synonymous with naivete. We must first develop good habits. Some of them many seem simple, but they are very difficult to reali-e. Believing them to be obvious, we fail to see that they are the key to immortal consciousness. Now I shall offer you a dictation of the commandments that my blessed father taught me:”
[in the book, the following are not numbered. They are in one paragraph.]
- 1. Ground your attention on yourself. Be conscious at every moment of what you are thinking, sensing, feeling, desiring, and doing.
- 2. Always finish what you have begun.
- 3. Whatever you are doing, do it as well as possible.
- 4. Do not become attached to anything that can destroy you in the course of time.
- 5. Develop your generosity - but secretly.
- 6. Treat everyone as if he or she was a close relative.
- 7. Organize what you have disorganized.
- 8. Learn to receive and give thanks for every gift.
- 9. Stop defining yourself.
- 10. Do not lie or steal, for you lie to yourself and steal from yourself.
- 11. Help your neighbor, but do not make him dependent.
- 12. Do not encourage others to imitate you.
- 13. Make work plans and accomplish them.
- 14. Do not take up too much space.
- 15. Make no useless movements or sounds.
- 16. If you lack faith, pretend to have it.
- 17. Do not allow yourself to be impressed by strong personalities.
- 18. Do not regard anyone or anything as your possession.
- 19. Share fairly.
- 20. Do not seduce.
- 21. Sleep and eat only as much as necessary.
- 22. Do not speak of your personal problems.
- 23. Do not express judgement or criticism when you are ignorant of most of the factors involved.
- 24. Do not establish useless friendships.
- 25. Do not follow fashions.
- 26. Do not sell yourself.
- 27. Respect contracts you have signed.
- 28. Be on time.
- 29. Never envy the luck or success of anyone.
- 30. Say no more than necessary.
- 31. Do not think of the profits your work will engender.
- 32. Never threaten anyone.
- 33. Keep your promises.
- 34. In any discussion, put yourself in the other person's place.
- 35. Admit that someone else may be superior to you.
- 36. Do not eliminate, but transmute.
- 37. Conquer your fears, for each of them represents a camouflaged desire.
- 38. Help others to help themselves.
- 39. Conquer your aversions and come closer to those who inspire rejection in you.
- 40. Do not react to what others say about you, whether praise or blame.
- 41. Transform your pride into dignity.
- 42. Transform your anger into creativity.
- 43. Transform your greed into respect for beauty.
- 44. Transform your envy into admiration for the values of the other.
- 45. Transform your hate into charity.
- 46. Neither praise nor insult yourself.
- 47. Regard what does not belong to you as if it did belong to you.
- 48. Do not complain.
- 49. Develop your imagination.
- 50. Never give orders to gain the satisfaction of being obeyed.
- 51. Pay for services performed for you.
- 52. Do not proselytize your work or ideas.
- 53. Do not try to make others feel for you emotions such as pity, admiration, sympathy, or complicity.
- 54. Do not try to distinguish yourself by your appearance.
- 55. Never contradict; instead, be silent.
- 56. Do not contract debts; acquire and pay immediately.
- 57. If you offend someone, ask his or her pardon; if you have offended a person publicly, apologize publicly.
- 58. When you realize you have said something that is mistaken, do not persist in error through pride; instead, immediately retract it.
- 59. Never defend your old ideas simply because you are the one who expressed them.
- 60. Do not keep useless objects.
- 61. Do not adorn yourself with exotic ideas.
- 62. Do not have your photograph taken with famous people.
- 63. Justify yourself to no one, and keep your own counsel.
- 64. Never define yourself by what you possess.
- 65. Never speak of yourself without considering that you might change.
- 66. Accept that nothing belongs to you.
- 67. When someone asks your opinion about something or someone, speak only of his or her qualities.
- 68. When you become ill, regard your illness as your teacher, not as something to be hated.
- 69. Look directly, and do not hide yourself.
- 70. Do not forget your dead, but accord them a limited place and do not allow them to invade your life.
- 71. Wherever you live, always find a space that you devote to the sacred.
- 72. When you perform a service, make your effort inconspicuous.
- 73. If you decide to work to help others, do it with pleasure.
- 74. If you are hesitating between doing and not doing, take the risk of doing.
- 75. Do not try to be everything to your spouse; accept that there are things that you cannot give him or her but which others can.
- 76. When someone is speaking to an interested audience, do not contradict that person and steal his or her audience.
- 77. Live on money you have earned.
- 78. Never brag about amorous adventures.
- 79. Never glorify your weaknesses.
- 80. Never visit someone only to pass the time.
- 81. Obtain things in order to share them.
- 82. If you are meditating and a devil appears, make the devil meditate too.
Most of the transcript are copied from http://archive.org/details/82Commandmentsspoken.Video. On that site, you can also download the video.
The producer of the video seems to be WITW Team. Who is WITW Team? According to their website http://www.wednesdayintheword.com/about/witwteam/, they are “Wednesday in the word: WITW is serious bible study applied to real life”.
thx to [Rat Xue https://plus.google.com/103507041778961513108/posts]