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GURDJIEFF, G.I. – Life is real only then, when I am - Integral Book

GURDJIEFF, G.I. – Life is real only then, when I am - Integral Book

GURDJIEFF, G.I. – Life is real only then, when I am - Integral Book

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citizenship in the general psyche of modern man—"to expresssympathy."It has just occurred to me that the thoughts which I expressed to asmall group of people at a meeting in a suburb, in connection with thedeath of Mr. Orage, might serve as a better clarification of the meaningand significance of the whole contents of th<strong>is</strong> chapter, and I havetherefore decided to recollect these thoughts in my memory and to addthem here.At th<strong>is</strong> meeting, while drinking coffee, we were speaking of thedifferent habits which take possession of us in our childhood, andwhich enslave us also after the attainment of mature years.At th<strong>is</strong> moment there arrived one of their comrades, with a jolly,flushed face. Being late, he had probably been walking quicker thanusual, and he had not reckoned on running into me. But as soon as hecaught sight of me, the expression of h<strong>is</strong> face changed and, coming upto me, he "burst" out at once with h<strong>is</strong> sentence, learned by heart fromthe l<strong>is</strong>t of "sympathies."At th<strong>is</strong> point I could no longer contain myself and, turning to themall, said:"Have you heard the peculiar intonation, not proper to him, withwhich your comrade who has just come has delivered h<strong>is</strong> bombasticspeech?"Did you? . . . Good. Now <strong>then</strong>, ask him, that <strong>is</strong>, beg him, please, foronce in h<strong>is</strong> life to make an exception and to say honestly whether h<strong>is</strong>'inside,' that <strong>is</strong>, h<strong>is</strong> <strong>real</strong> being, had any connection whatever with h<strong>is</strong>spoken words."Of course it had none, and how could it be otherw<strong>is</strong>e, for, in thefirst place, the deceased person concerned in th<strong>is</strong> case

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