G. I. Gurdieff, "Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson"So-and-so-and-so-must-be; do-not-do-what-must-not-be. Mullah's favorite saying. p. 598

Ever, could I or could I not count the shadows of our being?

The bond between being and non-being can be only internal. It is within being qua being that non-being must arise, and within non-being that being must spring up; and this relation can not be a fact, a natural law, but an upsurge of the being which is its own nothingness of being.

Not many boys like boys; but they like being a boy, showing it, being it together" (22)(rbt: where does this come from? this being a boy, which is also a doing -- this being wrapped in desire? who teaches it? how? when?)

The fundamental problem here is the continued over-identification with doing. By attempting to “do” The Leap, the practitioner is attempting the impossible (as doing and being point to two different realms). Thus far your training has been largely if not entirely immersed in the relative domain. With Being, your training is stepping beyond this domain into the transcendent. Fundamentally, there is nothing you can “do” to “be.

Is it a world in the making that turns as it whistles to the depths of my beingIt is burningSuppose it were to appearA bleeding rosary at the windowa sun setting on the marshlands("Silver Clasp")

But when a man draws a lifeless thing into his passionate longing for dialogue, lending it independence and as it were a soul, then there may dawn in him the presentiment of a world-wide dialogue with the world-happening that steps up to him even in his environment, which consists partially of things. Or do you seriously think that the giving and taking of signs halts on the threshold of that business where an honest and open spirit is found?

Ever, could I or could I not count the shadows of your being?

What destiny is there, but to sense, observe, merge, re-emerge,Empty, yet filled, spreading everywhere, inside, outside, in, Pulsing, fluctuating, breathing as part of one being, Whispering, feeling, reflecting, flowing between hot and cold, Mineral and plant, dark and light, love and fear, new and old.

Since poetry deals with the singular, not the general, it cannot - if it is good poetry - look at things of this earth other than as colorful, variegated, and exciting, and so, it cannot reduce life, with all its pain, horror, suffering, and ecstasy, to a unified tonality of boredom and complaint. By necessity poetry is therefore on the side of being and against nothingness.