Thought

Pupil: Even in this Work we must use other men's flowers. Is there much room left to progress by having new ideas?

Abdullah: We are giving you new ideas all the time. There are dozens of things we talk about here that you will not find in books. We use a certain basis of other men's flowers and expand it further. We are using a great deal of the Gurdjieff system and the Sufi teaching, and as these discussions have gone on we have tried to cover many different angles, to give you leads, to take new departures. However, there is nothing new under the Sun. No matter what we might talk about, it has been before.

What we are constantly trying to do here is get people to think for themselves. We give out data on all kinds of things, but we want each person to confirm it and make it his own. The axiom we give you for working on yourself is to make your body obedient, your name strong, then passive, and eventually to destroy your ego. If a person comes head-on at this and really sees how his body runs him, he learns something about making his body obedient – he has taken it a step further, it becomes a reality to him. Though there is nothing original under the Sun, each person has to make it original to himself. What is remarkable about this Work is that every person has to experience it himself. You may have plenty of thoughts, but if they are merely words they will not be any good to you. If you put your thoughts into operation, you will get something out of them.