This is the Moment of Truth right here and nowand there is no room for ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ and ‘maybes’.Unless you are with us, we cannot help you,so get on board while we still have a chance.

At length, however, and that length was measured in more decades than he chose to recall, he began to get sick of all the “Beginning to Begin” and the “Thinking How to Think”. This, even “Seeing How to See” and “Knowing How to Know” were all very well. But surely the path had to be about “Becoming How to Be”, the goal being “Being How to Be”?

I think that this idea, that the materials and self work can take you far enough for other things to kick in, was [Idries] Shah’s innovation, his “big gamble”, to fit a 21st century community of which very few would actually have physical contact with a living teacher.

Is that a banana in your lunch box, or are you just pleased to see me?

Sorcery rules the world. Of course, most don't call it sorcery; indeed, many would be horrified by such a notion.

The worst of all was to be faced with the interrogation technique of Thirty Seconds. The interrogator would say something and you had to respond quickly, without once repeating yourself or using the personal pronoun. Very few dissidents could last the full thirty seconds, and a refusal to comply was taken as equal proof of dissidence.

Their methods were especially crude and most of these former friends were now born again model citizens; lobotomized; or burnt out shells.

All you had to do was crack up and beg to see the Governor; grovel at his feet and admit to being a dissident; heartily repent your sins, and volunteer for elective brain surgery.

More recently, we’ve reached the lowest common denominator, and populism, politics and media have dispensed with old-fashioned values such as truth, honour and chivalry, to the point of arguing, in an Orwellian way, that “up is down”, “wrong is right”, and “truth is fake news”.

Real patience is not the same as waiting impatiently for something for a long time. Patience is having patience with patience.