You might find this useful in introducing THEDOG to those who express interest in our school. You can just use the first part (down to your signature) or both parts, if you want to offer them more.

Russ

Hello_________

As you have shown interest in this teaching, in Cosmic Secrets, and in the work of THEDOG.  I shall do my best to give you a bit of insight concerning our school and its founder.

Our founder’s name is Russell A. Smith.  He discovered the Gurdjieff work in the late 1970’s… and in 1980 he awoke.

He had no idea what the results of his awakening would bring.  He had been on a personal quest to discover himself – and, through Gurdjieff’s work, he found a way.

He was not out to attract students, or to become a teacher, or to start a school. 

He told us how, before he awoke, he was eager to share his beliefs with others, to let everybody know what he was doing, what he had found, or what he liked, "You should read this book, watch this movie, come to my church, or be interested in such and such" he would tell them… and if they did read that book, watched that movie, attended his church, or became interested in such and such – it would validate his beliefs. And the more people he could persuade to like what he liked, the more valuable what he liked became.

But, after he awoke, he no longer felt compelled to share with others what he had found.  He no longer needed his beliefs to be accepted by others in order for them to be valuable.  They were valuable.  Being awake was valuable.  Being able to stop thoughts was valuable.  Having reason, impartiality, and inner silence was valuable. His awake state needed no validation. For the first time in his life he was silent and did not need to convince anybody to do what he was doing.

Then, after this, when people came into his life and questioned him about higher things (because they sensed something higher in him), he resisted talking to them about this work… or his inner state, because he did not want to proselytize the work. It was to precious. It needed to be protected, not diluted.

However, some of the folks with whom he had frequent contact, kept approaching him and asking him questions. Questions about who he was, why he seemed so different, what he studied… and, if he was studying something, could they study it too?

Eventually, a persistent few drew a response out of him and he gave them "The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution" – by Ouspensky – to read.  Those who read it and wanted more, he gave "The Fourth Way" – also by Ouspensky – a book he had read a hundred times.  Finally, he began to answer their questions.

So, like it or not, he was forced to become a teacher.  Soon a group of students gathered at his home whenever he was in town (his employment required extensive travel).  These students became serious about their work and the teachings of Gurdjieff.  Over the next several years they continued to ask questions and to make exceptional efforts.

During that time Russ made many discoveries about the inner-world of man and about the laws of World-creation and World-maintenance; discoveries that would ultimately lead to an Objective Exercise which allowed the parts of man to unify… and the man, himself, to awaken.

It happened thus, Russ was in New Orleans training a salesman… and that night, when he went back to his room, he put this question to his higher center, "Why are my students not awake?  They read the books I read.  They do the exercises I do.  They are honorable folks.  They are sincere, hard workers.  Why are they not awake like me?" 

The answer illuminated his inner world like the sun!  The higher center answered, "You awoke subjectively.  All teachers awake subjectively.  All schools die when their teachers die.  You, or they, will never be able to pass ‘a subjective way’ on to others." 

The higher then told Russ the story of the man who was desperately trying to awaken.  Wishing.  Praying.  Seeking.  The man was walking through the forest.  His eyes were on the heavens.  His thoughts on his God.  He was not watching where he was walking and, in sandal-ed feet, his foot struck a root.  His toe hit it with such force that the pain was excruciating.  He was hopping around on one foot, grabbing his toe.  

At that moment, that event – coupled with his search, his quest, his wish, and his prayer – caused his machine to align… and the man to awaken.  It was glorious.  He became enlightened.

After that, everyone who came in contact with this man recognized his being.  They quizzed him as to who he was and what he was studying.  He eventually told them of his quest, his wish, his prayers, and how he had kicked the root and awoke.

Soon a school was formed around this man – based on his quest, his wish, and his prayers – with hundreds of students all walking through the forest and trying to kick a root… just like he had, in hopes that they, too, would awake.

But… no one ever did.

And when the man died, his school died.

I Repeat. You can not pass on a subjective way!

The higher revealed that all enlightened men had failed to show others how to awake, because they could not pass on the subjective way in which they, themselves, had awakened.  It showed Russ that he could not pass on to his students (no matter how sincere or hard they worked) the subjective way in which he had awakened.

Russ has told us many times how this truth was terrifying to him… how it caused anger to arise in him, to where, he looked back at his higher center and yelled, "Then give me an objective way!"

And it did.

It said, "You already have figured out all the rules and laws.  If you teach those rules and laws to another man and then give him this exercise, he will awaken."

The moment the exercise was revealed, he knew it was infallible.  He knew his school would not die when he died.  He knew that he had discovered an objective way.

It was April 1st, 1990, when he first shared this exercise – which is now called the ‘April Fools’ exercise – with his students.  When he did, they awoke… and, needless to say, they were ecstatic.

After this event, it became collectively understood that the awakened state, which they were experiencing, was truly remarkable… and prompted several students to make the following demand of him, "We want you to be here full time, so quit your job and stay home.  We will support you."  They further suggested that he should write a book and share his discoveries… saying, "There must be others like us out there, who also wish to awaken, so let’s buy some land… and have a place – a school – where people, who are seeking an objective way, can come and study."

So they did; and Russ wrote a book, Gurdjieff: Cosmic Secrets.  It is self-published by THEDOG, his school, which is located just outside of Sanger, Texas – 45 miles north of Dallas.

After Cosmic Secrets was published, it drew interest from the Fourth Way community and in 1996 an international conference was held in Bognor, England to discuss his book.

In 1997 a second conference was convened.  At that conference, Russ informed the assembled audience that there was an objective way to awaken higher centers.  It required ten days studying Cosmic Secrets – one on one – with him.  He explained that he would teach and awaken anyone who wished to come to Texas… for free.  That there was no charge.  No fee.  Stating, "How can I put a price tag on consciousness?" But many students, who found their way to Texas, often expressed their desire to support the school. When they did, Russ would always tell them that contributions were never required nor expected, but would always be graciously received and appreciated.

Immediately, after the second conference, students – from all over the world – began to find their way to Texas.  Since then, hundreds have awoke.  But more importantly, several of them obtained the objectivity required to duplicate this process and are now showing others how to awaken… not only allowing Russ’ work to be replicated across America but also in several other countries.

All his teachers function out of the lime light.  They, like Russ, are not interested in fame or fortune.  However, in the course of their normal lives, they help those – who find them… and pursue them – in the same manner in which Russ helped the first students who found and pursued him.

Now, after 30 years, Russ seldom takes new students through the process but, fortunately, he has many teachers out there who are capable of showing others how to awaken. However, if one of their students asks, "Can I come to Texas and go through Cosmic Secrets with you?" Russ usually, graciously accommodates them.

So, that is the story of Mr. Smith’s awakening, how he became a teacher, how he found an objective exercise to awaken others, why he wrote Cosmic Secrets, and why he does it all for free.

I hope this gives you some insight into our teacher and into our school. 

To finish up, here is a general synopsis of what has transpired in Texas since the 1997 conference:

Less than half-a-dozen folks, who came to Texas, came with the agenda of teaching us what they had acquired during their lives… and were not really there seeking anything that the school had to offer.  They did not make it thru April Fools and they did not awake, but they were happy that they came… they bought some books and thus they were at least able to add Cosmic Secrets to their storehouse of, “Look at one of the things I found, which I think is of great value… and hey, I even got to meet the author”.

A dozen or so other sojourners came to Texas wanting to learn everything they could about the "law of octaves" because they were all following the ideals of a man who said that the secret of making a fortune in the stock market was predicated on having an understanding of the law of octaves and of oscillations (cycles) – and since Russ’ book seemed to reek of such things… they found their way to Texas.

Most of them made it through April Fools (some did not), but all were extremely pleased to learn about the rules and the laws, which they could take home and happily apply to their professions.

Some of them called Russ or emailed him to ask if he would be willing to take one or more of their colleagues through the process, also… He declined.

Why?  Because when Russ shows a man, who has been trying for years and years to awaken, that man is far more appreciative.  For he knows that he has acquired something more precious than gold.  Whereas, men who just want gold… are usually not so inclined.

At least it is nice to know that there are a few conscious traders out there that will not go bonkers, if the market goes belly up.

The next measure of seekers came to Texas to awaken and to change their inner worlds.  They went through Cosmic Secrets and April Fools.  They awoke and became Fool-beings of the First Magnitude.  They departed with inner peace, clarity, and the ability to stop thoughts.  Back in life, they (having contact with their Higher Emotional Center, their Steward, the state of self consciousness, and the property of conscience) were all able to improve their employment, improve their marriages, improve their interactions with their families… and their interactions with the world.

To this day Russ is still receiving random e-mails, letters, Christmas cards, phone calls, contributions, and pictures from them… of them and their happily growing families.

They got what they went for, i.e., the ability to maneuver outwardly through life with greater freedom and, inwardly, to have in their own thoughts a certain immunity… even from themselves.

Other seekers – were those – who, after awakening and experiencing this inner taste of freedom and immunity, demanded more.  They pursued Mr. Smith, in order to cull additional information about the functioning of the Higher Mental Center and to learn how they, themselves, might attain it.

They strove to acquire the Master Exercises and became Fool-beings of the Second Magnitude… and, thereafter, they established channels of regular communications with the school and sojourned there often, wherein they could seek Russ’ council and advice (concerning the furtherance of their journey ‘after awakening’ towards the aim of dying… with the hopes of acquiring the possibility that they might, someday, be born again and enter the world of reason and impartiality).

A second major discovery occurred 12 years after being given the April Fools Exercise. Russ had been seeking the cause behind his attaining objective reason and the functioning of his Higher Mental Center, but for 12 years it alluded him. Then in 2,002, after sharing a bit of objective reason with a student… followed by a lengthy study of one of his diagrams on oscillations… and then remembering an event that had happened in his past, his higher center had the final piece of data that it needed to formulate the two part Double or Nothing Exercise. An exercise even more significant than April Fools, which shows an awakened man – who has the function of his Higher Emotional Center, how to acquire the functioning of his Higher Mental Center – wherein reason and impartiality reside. This provides a guaranteed way for students, who have become beings of the Second Magnitude, to attain true freedom.

Thus, at that time, many students, who were well practiced in the Master Exercises, were given the first part of the Double or Nothing Exercise and quickly became Fool-beings of the Third Magnitude, i.e., they acquired the functioning of their Higher Mental Centers, Master, the state of objective consciousness, and the properties of reason and impartiality. It was a glorious time.

Some of these beings of the Third Magnitude, after much “practice, practice, practice” were ultimately ready to go beyond just dying… and ultimately they qualified to receive part two of the Double or Nothing Exercise, i.e., they became Fool-beings of the Fourth Magnitude… and then they, themselves, became capable of objectively showing others how to awaken, just as Russ was doing.

Law-conformably, these are the students, who really understood the value and significance of the teaching, and because of such, they were the ones who kept it pure and have gone on to duplicate this school, ensuring that this Objective Way would not disappear from reality.  This has made it possible to establish schools of THEDOG on three continents… and there are other students, just as well qualified – spattered across various countries and in various states – around which future schools will surely arise.

The rules are, "You don’t start a school… it evolves around you."  First, an objective teacher appears – he does not seek for students…  Instead, and second, as he moves through life, he will encounter many people.  Some of these people will begin to recognize his objectivity, his reason, and his impartiality… and they will be curious about him, “Who are you?”  They will then approach him and begin to ask him questions and eventually, pursue him, because they will sense that he has something that they would like to have. 

They will want to become his students, hoping that he will be able to show them how to attain what they have observed in him.  Third, he must then be able to take these students through Cosmic Secrets (the same way that Russ does) and be able show them how to awaken.  And fourth, when enough students have sought the teaching and have been successfully taken through the objective process of Cosmic Secrets and have received the April Fools exercise and awoke… then another school of THEDOG will come in to existence.

Mr. Smith often reminds us that this is the greatest calling for a man, i.e., not to just "be able to show others how to awaken" but to "be able to show others, how to be able to show others how to awaken"… but to do this we must, unselfishly, cast the seeds of truth (which we had been fortunate enough to learn) into the winds of mankind… overcoming the birds… overcoming the shallow, rocky soil… overcoming the thorns… and by so doing, to finally have the seeds of truth fall on good ground (which they will).  Some will yield Fool-beings of the First Magnitude; some Fool-beings of the Second Magnitude; some Fool-beings of the Third Magnitude; and some will yield “Future Sowers of Objective Truth".

So, that is story of THEDOG.

Russ always says, "If you have good seeds and you keep on sowing (even on the hot days) you will find good ground.

"Unfortunately, you can never know what the good ground will yield before you sow, i.e., there is no dipstick that can measure the motives of a student.  However, a survey of the ground on which you are about to sow may indicate (before you sow), which ground has the potential to be ‘the good ground.’"

Hopefully teachers of THEDOG will be able keep on surveying and sowing for a long time.  That is, until they have found enough good ground, to where, when they finally stop and look around, they will see schools of THEDOG growing everywhere… schools filled with conscious, awake people, who are also able to objectively share their reason and impartiality with others.

When it is all said and done, THEDOG just might change the world. 

Imagine a world of objectively conscious men where everyone understands and acts in accordance with the same conscious truths.

Sincerely,

______________

PS: May you prove to be good ground.
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I will also share this "back and forth" email between a student and Mr. Smith, concerning the typical Fourth Way Schools, i.e., Pseudo-Schools.
———————————————————

Russ’ answers to the student’s questions are in Red.

Hi Russ,

Wonderful Ventrilo session. Thanks. (Ventrilo is a voice server used to conduct classes with students).

At the end of our conversation the topic of my involvement in several pseudo-esoteric organizations came up. For myself after April Fools I have no interest nor need for the practices and ideas of these organizations. I go because they enable me to stay in relationship to longtime friends who are former members of an earlier 4th Way Pre-School. I do not wish to deceive them or to enable them to pursue futile paths. After talking with you I remembered the passage below. I have added comments and questions in blue:

4th Way Schools and Pseudo-Schools:
P.D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, pages 312-315
(Hereafter in Green)

"Besides these three ways yet a fourth way exists by which can go those who cannot go by any of the first three ways.

"The fundamental difference between the first three ways, that is, the way of the fakir, the way of the monk, and the way of the yogi, and the fourth way consists in the fact that they are tied to permanent forms which have existed throughout long periods of history almost without change. At the basis of these institutions is religion. Where schools of yogis exist, they differ little outwardly from religious schools. And in different periods of history various societies or orders of fakirs have existed in different countries and they still exist. These three traditional ways are permanent ways within the limits of our historical period.

"Two or three thousand years ago, there were yet other ways which no longer exist and the ways now in existence were not so divided, they stood much closer to one another.

"The fourth way differs from the old and the new ways by the fact that it is never a permanent way. It has no definite forms and there are no institutions connected with it. It appears and disappears governed by some particular laws of its own.

"The fourth way is never without some work of a definite significance, is never without some undertaking around which and in connection with which it can alone exist.

(Am I accurate in believing the “work of definite significance” of the Sanger School is to master Cosmic Secrets in order to awaken and to enable other to do so also?) 

Hard to say. Until THEDOG there hasn’t been any permanent schools of the Fourth Way. Until THEDOG, there was only the idea that there might be a "fourth way" (outside the ways of the Fakier, Yogi, and Monk). But without an Objective Way, these "fourth way" schools were destined to appear around some individual, who woke up subjectively, and then attracted followers (who practiced the "definite significance" of that subjective way) and then disappeared when that individual died. No one has ever shown anyone how to awake by following their subjective way (there were no Gurdjieff 2.0’s). But all these ways keep the possibility of hope, alive, in those who seek to awaken.

The work of THEDOG does not follow a "definite significance", i.e., it is not a subjective way….  Why me?  I do not know. But I found an Objective Way to go from asleep to impartiality. And my work has been duplicated, "It’s alive, it’s alive". Students of THEDOG are awaking other students. No Fourth Way or – to my knowledge – any way has ever done that. This school will not die when the teachers die.

The Laws of World-Creation and World-Maintenance were there before THEDOG. I just figured them out and, in so doing, it provided an accelerated path to awakening. Cosmic Secrets is the instruction manual for understanding these Laws. He, who understands the laws, will understand everything about The Fourth Way… or any way.

"When this work is finished, that is to say, when the aim set before it has been accomplished, the fourth way disappears, that is, it disappears from the given place, disappears in its given form, continuing perhaps in another place in another form. Schools of the fourth way exist for the needs of the work which is being carried out in connection with the proposed undertaking. They never exist by themselves as schools for the purpose of education and instruction.

(You say you are “a guide not a policeman” but if a student wishes to further the aims of the school, he is welcome to do so? And for me currently that entails allowing myself to be trained. Yes?)

Yes.

Policemen enforce the rules and laws. I teach them to anyone who asks. As long as you be a asking, I be a teaching. But, you will never hear me ask, "Why were you not in class?"  If you are there, I will teach you. If you are not, you are not.

I am a guide. I show people everything they wish to know. Every student I have guided has had one or more teachers before me. They were all policemen (which they had to be in order to keep their followers following their subjective ways)… #63. A school is like a compass; it doesn’t claim to make you go anywhere, it just keeps pointing in the same direction (#63 is a Dog Tale – one of the many sayings uttered by me over the last 30 years – that students wish to remember).

"Mechanical help cannot be required in any work of the fourth way. Only conscious work can be useful in all the undertakings of the fourth way. Mechanical man cannot give conscious work so that the first task of the people who begin such a work is to create conscious assistants.

"The work itself of schools of the fourth way can have very many forms and many meanings.

(Is it accurate to say the essential form of the Sanger School is to develop the 3rd Oblogonian Striving as a gateway to the realization of all five?) 

Yes. See above.

"In the midst of the ordinary conditions of life the only chance a man has of finding a ‘way’ is in the possibility of meeting with the beginning of work of this kind. But the chance of meeting with such work as well as the possibility of profiting by this chance depends upon many circumstances and conditions.

"The quicker a man grasps the aim of the work which is being executed, the quicker can he become useful to it and the more will he be able to get from it for himself.

(Comments?)

Applies to Subjective Ways. See above.

"But no matter what the fundamental aim of the work is, the schools continue to exist only while this work is going on. When the work is done the schools close. (when the teacher dies) The people who began the work leave the stage. Those who have learned from them what was possible to learn and have reached the possibility of continuing on the way independently begin in one form or another their own personal work.

"But it happens sometimes that when the school closes a number of people are left who were round about the work, who saw the outward aspect of it, and saw the whole of the work in this outward aspect.

"Having no doubts whatever of themselves or in the correctness of their conclusions and understanding they decide to continue the work. To continue this work, they form new schools, teach people what they have themselves learned, and give them the same promises that they themselves received. All this naturally can only be outward imitation. But when we look back on history it is almost impossible for us to distinguish where the real ends and where the imitation begins. Strictly speaking almost everything we know about various kinds of occult, masonic, and alchemical schools refers to such imitation.

"We know practically nothing about real schools (because there have not been any) excepting the results of their work and even that only if we are able to distinguish the results of real work from counterfeits and imitations. 

(Since the Sanger School arose by your discovery of an objective way, the only possible counterfeiters are … gulp.)

Of all my students, there have been only three that I know of who have tried to use this objective way to either get laid, make a profit, or for their own self-aggrandizement. One, who’s initials are KSR, I wrote about in a disguised way in Beelzebub’s Last Wish. You can read about him there. All his students left and he is now raising chickens. Another is south of the border and charges a fee, up front, to take others through Cosmic Secrets and April Fools… and then requires monthly dues to attend his classes (he was sending payment reminders and late fee bills and was even periodically gathering donations that he said, "THEDOG in Sanger requested"… NOT). Last time I was down there, I found out what was going on and I freed everyone who had been shackled. I started the school of THEDOG Mexico, under my guidance. No set fee to do Cosmic Secrets and no set dues to participate in the school (unless someone wished to contribute of their own volition). All the students quit him and joined the new school. Good folks (I think James and Alexandra, who now run the school in Mexico, have 3 or 4 weekly Ventrilo classes with various groups. You can check out the old "chats" we used to have, before we started Ventrilo, in the web site archive if you wish). Lastly, a teacher in Europe gave some students an ultimatum to choose either him or me as their teacher, as he wanted them to follow his agenda and not the agenda of THEDOG.  They chose me and left him… I think he now is down to his wife and daughter as being his only students.

Other than these three, all my other students have held true to my teaching methods and philosophy. Listening to them teach, sounds like a mini me.

Fortunately, the overwhelming majority, of those who have come here, have kept the teaching pure. Perhaps it is according to law that he who finds real truth senses the need to protect it and keep it in its original form so that others can find it as unblemished as they did.

Page v from Cosmic Secrets:
"This book is offered, not as a recapitulation of ‘the Gurdjieff Question’, which it has subsequently come to be called, but rather, as an exposition on what we call ‘the Gurdjieff Answers.’”

"ANSWERS SO POWERFUL THAT THEIR KNOWLEDGE CAN NOT ONLY EFFECTUATE A SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION IN MAN, BUT POSSIBLY, A SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION IN MANKIND."

"But such pseudo-esoteric systems also play their part in the work and activities of esoteric circles. Namely, they are the intermediaries between humanity which is entirely immersed in the materialistic life and schools which are interested in the education of a certain number of people, as much for the purposes of their own existences as for the purposes of the work of a cosmic character which they may be carrying out.

(Here is the crux of the matter for me. It is interesting to speculate how my life would be had I encountered the Sanger School as a young adult. I think Cheetah would probably have chased me back to Dallas. The school I did find raises me from False Personality to “Salty Householder.” I learn some 4th Way Basics as there are some needles of Truth in the humungous haystack I explore. I leave after 15 years and pick up some useful bits and pieces here and there. Then I find a real school. Yee-Haw!) 

Indeed. I got a ton from the Methodist Church, from the Moody Blues, from some books I read, etc. The ideas that feed a man’s soul are not dead… but are woven into religion, art, poetry, music, etc.

"The very idea of esotericism, the idea of initiation, reaches people in most cases through pseudo-esoteric systems and schools; and if there were not these pseudo-esoteric schools the vast majority of humanity would have no possibility whatever of hearing and learning of the existence of anything greater than life because the truth in its pure form would be inaccessible for them. 

(Until last November I am a Pseudo-School bumblebee. I’ll try anything. I live on crumbs. Most of my friends live on crumbs. All my friends know I went to Texas and have a teacher. By continuing to stay engaged in some of their activities, it seems to me a moment may arise where I can show them my tattoo “Made in Sanger” and say, “Go to Texas”.)

G.I. Gurdjieff, Views From the Real World, page 57
(Hereafter in Orange)

"Perhaps the only positive result of all wanderings in the winding paths and tracks of occult research will be that, if a man preserves the capacity for sound judgment and thought, he will evolve that special faculty of discrimination which can be called flair. He will discard the ways of psychopathy and error and will persistently search for true ways. And here, as in self-knowledge, the principle which I have already quoted holds good: “In order to do, it is necessary to know; but in order to know, it is necessary to find out how to know."

"To a man who is searching with all his being, with all his inner self, comes the unfailing conviction that to find out how to know in order to do is possible only by finding a guide with experience and knowledge, who will take on his spiritual guidance and become his teacher."

"And it is here that a man’s flair is more important than anywhere else. He chooses a guide for himself. It is of course an indispensable condition that he choose as a guide a man who knows, or else all meaning of choice is lost. Who can tell where a guide who does not know may lead a man?"

"By reason of the many characteristics of man’s being, particularly of the contemporary being, truth can only come to people in the form of a lie — only in this form are they able to accept it; only in this form are they able to digest and assimilate it. Truth undefiled would be, for them, indigestible food.

(I see continuing my participation as a possible opportunity to know a variety of languages and audiences.)

I am not a policeman. Students of the Gurdjieff Foundation are immediately thrown out of that school if they look at, attend, or consider any other way – other than that of the Gudrjieff Foundation. I have had several of these outcast students find me. Boy, were they happy.

I tell all my students, if there is another teaching out there that they wish to check out, "Go for it", that way they can eliminate the subjective ways and better appreciate an objective way (not because I will benefit – I am a guide, not a policeman – but because they will benefit, i.e., the sooner they eliminate what is not real the sooner they can apply great force towards what is real).

Again, the only down side I see – in you participating in one of these pseudo ways – is that, if you attend the Blood Letting Ritual, your attendance will strengthen the false belief structures of others, whom also attend… making it harder for them to "discard the ways of psychopathy and error".

Funny story. If I and a band of friends were looking for gold, and we were all trying to squeeze it out of oranges (cause they kinda looked goldish)… but then, if I found a gold mine, with an unlimited amount of gold, would I keep it from my friends? Would I still go to the orange squeezing, weekend retreats with them? Or would I tell them, "Hey, I found a gold mine and I will be getting my gold from there from now on. You can, too, if you like. There is plenty. But I am done squeezing oranges, so you need not save me a seat at the weekly orange squeezing class".

"Besides, a grain of truth in an unaltered form is sometimes found in pseudo esoteric movements, in church religions, in occult and theosophical schools. It may be preserved in their writings, their rituals, their traditions, their conceptions of the hierarchy, their dogmas, and their rules.

"Esoteric schools, that is, not pseudo-esoteric schools, which perhaps exist in some countries of the East, are difficult to find because they exist there in the guise of ordinary monasteries and temples. 

(Not! If they had the gold, they would say they had the gold. If they did not have the gold, they would say that maybe someday you can make it to the inner place where they keep the gold, but only initiates of the 32nd degree can get there)

"Tibetan monasteries are usually built in the form of four concentric circles or four concentric courts divided by high walls. Indian temples, especially those in Southern India, are built on the same plan but in the form of squares, one contained within the other. Worshipers usually have access to the first outer court, and sometimes, as an exception, persons of another religion and Europeans; access to the second court is for people of a certain caste only or for those having special permission; access to the third court is only for persons belonging to the temple; and access to the fourth is only for Brahmins and priests. Organizations of this kind which, with minor variations, are everywhere in existence, enable esoteric schools to exist without being recognized. Out of dozens of monasteries one is a school. But how is it to be recognized? If you get inside it you will only be inside the first court; to the second court only pupils have access. But this you do not know, you are told they belong to a special caste. As regards the third and fourth courts you cannot even know anything about them. And you can, in fact, observe the same order in all temples and until you are told you cannot distinguish an esoteric temple or monastery from an ordinary one.

"The idea of initiation, which reaches us through pseudo-esoteric systems, is also transmitted to us in a completely wrong form. The legends concerning the outward rites of initiation have been created out of the scraps of information we possess in regard to the ancient Mysteries. The Mysteries represented a special kind of way in which, side by side with a difficult and prolonged period of study, theatrical representations of a special kind were given which depicted in allegorical forms the whole path of the evolution of man and the world.

"Transitions from one level of being to another were marked by ceremonies of presentation of a special kind, that is, initiation. But a change of being cannot be brought about by any rites. Rites can only mark an accomplished transition. And it is only in pseudo-esoteric systems in which there is nothing else except these rites, that they begin to attribute to the rites an independent meaning. It is supposed that a rite, in being transformed into a sacrament, transmits or communicates certain forces to the initiate. This again relates to the psychology of an imitation way. There is not, nor can there be, any outward initiation. 

"In reality only self-initiation, self-presentation exists. Systems and schools can indicate methods and ways but no system or school whatever can do for a man the work that he must do himself. Inner growth, a change of being, depend entirely upon the work which a man must do on himself."

(So, time is precious. I need to train. I need to decide what is most important. For now, I believe I need to train! Damn, I feel better already. Thanks Russ.)

"Do not be over-curious nor waste time on things that attract your attention but are not worth it. Time is precious and should not be wasted on things which have no direct relation to your aim".

You are welcome.

Sincerely, I Am,

Russell A Smith
THEDOG