1 result for (book:ecs2 AND heading:"esp class session decemb 29 1970" AND stemmed:joy)
[... 17 paragraphs ...]
Violence, in your level, is the other face of creativity, but you do not realize it and it is you who have set up the separation. All life, in certain respects, involves what you call violence. Breath is a violence, it is simply where you draw the line. All living is a thrusting out toward, and joyful thrusting out toward, the energy that you have not learned, as yet, to use creatively, you call violence. It has great potentials for creativity, and it is up to you now to learn how to use it creatively for it is another face of creativity.
[... 10 paragraphs ...]
The cannibals, in one way, were far more discerning, far more religious, and far more sacred in their attitude than many of you here in this room. They ate, for example, both human beings and animals, but they did not eat indiscriminately, nor did they eat without a knowledge of what they did. They realized that their life was a portion of all this life. They were at one level, and you are at another level. But at their level, and in their level of experience, they partook of the sacrament of life as they ate those things that they slayed. They gave thanks to the body that they consumed. They hastened the spirit that had been in the body on its way with thanks. They prayed that their hearts would be as strong and brave as the hearts that they devoured. Many of them, in their own environment, knew that those who were not eaten by them, for example other warriors, would die of hunger in any case. They ate them, therefore, also with thanksgiving and joy.
[... 18 paragraphs ...]
If you will forgive me for the analogy, imagine that your present self is like a suit of clothing that you have put on, and when you are looking for the nature of reality, imagine that you take this suit of clothing off in the same way that a child discards its clothing before playing in the water in the springtime. The self that you put by will be there when you return, no one will steal it. Then let yourselves go and be joyful.
[... 7 paragraphs ...]