L had started the CHALLENGE by responding to messages and emails, and communicating. Generally this had led to a very positive response from the people he had contacted, and after they replied, he was able to respond, thereby doing the same kindness another time.
One could not send a message every single day as an act of kindness, that would be cheating, and would lead to the question, what was the motivation for doing a kindness. Was it an essential kindness, or was it for winning points in doing the challenge. One morning during the month, he had used a loo in Starbucks. and there was no loo-paper. There was a tap on the door, so someone wanted to come in. So L thought - OK! A kindness opportunity, and left some tissues there, and stood on one leg for three seconds. As he had already had a hot drink, this met all the criteria. It had been a struggle for him working out how to be kind, and that had made him reflect on whether he was a kind person, generally. It had also made him reflect on whether people were doing kindnesses for essential reasons, or because it was an expectation they felt upon them. Part of the challenge was to do it direct from conscience - that was a dimension which was quite hard.
O described a recent incident where she did something kind. A friend had shown her her new mobile, and she replied, "Oh, I have a new mobile too". The friend said she would not talk about such things, as it was materialistic. For O it was just a bit of fun, but for her friend, she was struggling so much whether to be materialistic or not, that any mention of any materialism annoyed her. O considered whether to say something or not. It annoyed her. She decided not to say something, and thought that this had, in a way, been an act of kindness. It was a dilemma. If you did not say something, there was a poison going on not saying what you need to say, but there was the other side that you had to take into consideration that the person had a particular issue, and it was better not to say.
Very soon after T started doing the Challenge, she was tripped up by the question of whether her kind act was truly kind, as there was the ulterior motive of doing the challenge, and this acted as a resistance to doing the challenge during the month, because that question kept arising. On one occasion, she had a hot drink, and offered to make a colleague one. However the colleague declined, so T felt she could not stand on one leg as she had been unable to complete it. On another occasion, she had held open a heavy fire door to help a colleague leave the kitchen at work, but she had not had a hot drink, so it had not fulfilled the three criteria. She had felt it was extremely difficult to calibrate the three parts of the challenge.
It was those who became worthy ... who were first called by the name of ‘priest.’
... when all the results of the Very Saintly Labours of the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash were destroyed, both this word priest there and also the word initiate about which I have already told you, were used and still continue to be used by your favourites down to the present time in two quite different senses. In one sense this word priest was since then and now still is commonly used, but only in certain places and for unimportant separate groups of those professionals existing there whom everybody now calls there ‘confessors’ or ‘clergymen.’
And in the other sense, those beings were called and are still called by this word priest who by their pious existence and by the merits of their acts performed for the good of those around them, stand out so much from the rank and file of the ordinary three-brained beings there, that whenever these ordinary beings there have occasion to remember them, there arises and proceeds in their presences the process called ‘gratitude.’
Already during that same period while the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash was enlightening the Reason of the brethren of the former brotherhood Tchaftantouri as well as of the newly collected thirty-five novices, there began to spread, among ordinary beings of the city Djoolfapal and its environs, the true idea that in the common presences of men-beings all the data exist for the manifestation of the Divine impulse conscience, but that this Divine impulse does not take part in their general consciousness; and that it takes no part because, although their manifestations bring them, certain what are called ‘quite-late-repaying-satisfactions’ and considerable material advantage, nevertheless they thereby gradually atrophy the data put into their presences by Nature for evoking in other beings around them, without distinction of brain system, the objective impulse of Divine-Love.
L thought one had to question whether he was introducing Ashiata Shiemash as a model human being, or as a potentially dangerous demagogue, because he was describing how the people who were doing acts of kindness (and this related to the challenge we had done), were appreciated by the people they were helping, and those doing the kindness gained status and were called priests, and then gained power. This might be a dynamic that over the passage of time was not very healthy, as it means there would be one group of people having power, status and material possessions, and another set of people who were dependent on their munificence for survival. "R" said he was talking about the Divine impulse conscience which he does not put in inverted commas, which means it is something real. J said this could atrophy through simple repetition. T said that at the beginning it was made clear that the saintly activities of Ashiata Shiemash were destroyed, and what was left were the words priest and initiate, at times in name only, at other times used to describe those doing good works who naturally stood out as priest and initiate. J said what mattered was not what the ritual contained, but the fact of the ritual itself - the priest, the initiate - that was what counted, rather than the specific teaching. T said she thought the opposite.
This true information began to spread, thanks chiefly to the superlatively wise provision of the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash which obliged everyone striving to become an All-the-rights-possessing brother of the brotherhood Heechtvori to ... know how to convince all the three separate spiritualized and associating parts of a further hundred three-brained beings there, concerning the Divine impulse conscience.
... those who had sensed and become aware of this Divine conscience, and who were called ‘first-degree-initiates,’ he set apart, and he began to enlighten their Reason separately ...
L said that as those who accepted the promoted philosophy were promoted above those who did not, it seemed to him a recipe for conflict a few years later.
| Once a day, after having a hot drink, do something kind, governed directly by conscience, and then stand on one leg for three seconds. |
O described a recent incident where she did something kind. A friend had shown her her new mobile, and she replied, "Oh, I have a new mobile too". The friend said she would not talk about such things, as it was materialistic. For O it was just a bit of fun, but for her friend, she was struggling so much whether to be materialistic or not, that any mention of any materialism annoyed her. O considered whether to say something or not. It annoyed her. She decided not to say something, and thought that this had, in a way, been an act of kindness. It was a dilemma. If you did not say something, there was a poison going on not saying what you need to say, but there was the other side that you had to take into consideration that the person had a particular issue, and it was better not to say.
Very soon after T started doing the Challenge, she was tripped up by the question of whether her kind act was truly kind, as there was the ulterior motive of doing the challenge, and this acted as a resistance to doing the challenge during the month, because that question kept arising. On one occasion, she had a hot drink, and offered to make a colleague one. However the colleague declined, so T felt she could not stand on one leg as she had been unable to complete it. On another occasion, she had held open a heavy fire door to help a colleague leave the kitchen at work, but she had not had a hot drink, so it had not fulfilled the three criteria. She had felt it was extremely difficult to calibrate the three parts of the challenge.
There were no other contributions which mentioned a specific instance of doing the challenge during the month.
During the time allocated for responses, nobody said anything which pertained to instances of doing the challenge, although there was much talk about whether or not there was such a thing as altruism, and varying opinions were exchanged about Florence Nightingale.
The reading continued from Chapter 27 of Beelzebub's Tales.
... when all the results of the Very Saintly Labours of the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash were destroyed, both this word priest there and also the word initiate about which I have already told you, were used and still continue to be used by your favourites down to the present time in two quite different senses. In one sense this word priest was since then and now still is commonly used, but only in certain places and for unimportant separate groups of those professionals existing there whom everybody now calls there ‘confessors’ or ‘clergymen.’
And in the other sense, those beings were called and are still called by this word priest who by their pious existence and by the merits of their acts performed for the good of those around them, stand out so much from the rank and file of the ordinary three-brained beings there, that whenever these ordinary beings there have occasion to remember them, there arises and proceeds in their presences the process called ‘gratitude.’
Already during that same period while the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash was enlightening the Reason of the brethren of the former brotherhood Tchaftantouri as well as of the newly collected thirty-five novices, there began to spread, among ordinary beings of the city Djoolfapal and its environs, the true idea that in the common presences of men-beings all the data exist for the manifestation of the Divine impulse conscience, but that this Divine impulse does not take part in their general consciousness; and that it takes no part because, although their manifestations bring them, certain what are called ‘quite-late-repaying-satisfactions’ and considerable material advantage, nevertheless they thereby gradually atrophy the data put into their presences by Nature for evoking in other beings around them, without distinction of brain system, the objective impulse of Divine-Love.
L thought one had to question whether he was introducing Ashiata Shiemash as a model human being, or as a potentially dangerous demagogue, because he was describing how the people who were doing acts of kindness (and this related to the challenge we had done), were appreciated by the people they were helping, and those doing the kindness gained status and were called priests, and then gained power. This might be a dynamic that over the passage of time was not very healthy, as it means there would be one group of people having power, status and material possessions, and another set of people who were dependent on their munificence for survival. "R" said he was talking about the Divine impulse conscience which he does not put in inverted commas, which means it is something real. J said this could atrophy through simple repetition. T said that at the beginning it was made clear that the saintly activities of Ashiata Shiemash were destroyed, and what was left were the words priest and initiate, at times in name only, at other times used to describe those doing good works who naturally stood out as priest and initiate. J said what mattered was not what the ritual contained, but the fact of the ritual itself - the priest, the initiate - that was what counted, rather than the specific teaching. T said she thought the opposite.
This true information began to spread, thanks chiefly to the superlatively wise provision of the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash which obliged everyone striving to become an All-the-rights-possessing brother of the brotherhood Heechtvori to ... know how to convince all the three separate spiritualized and associating parts of a further hundred three-brained beings there, concerning the Divine impulse conscience.
... those who had sensed and become aware of this Divine conscience, and who were called ‘first-degree-initiates,’ he set apart, and he began to enlighten their Reason separately ...
L said that as those who accepted the promoted philosophy were promoted above those who did not, it seemed to him a recipe for conflict a few years later.
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