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" Q. Positive means not negative? A. Yes, and much more besides. An emotion that cannot become negative gives enormous understanding, has an enormous cognitive value. It connects things that cannot be connected in an ordinary state. To have positive emotions is advised and recommended in religions, but they do not say how to get them. They say, ‘Have faith, have love’. How? Christ says, ‘Love your enemies’. It is not for us; we cannot even love our friends. It is the same as saying to a blind man, ‘You must see!’ A blind man cannot see, otherwise he would not be a blind man. That is what positive emotion means. Q. How can we learn to love our enemies? A. Learn to love yourself first—you do not love yourself enough; you love your false personality, not yourself. It is difficult to understand the New Testament or Buddhist writings, for they are notes taken in school. One line of these writings refers to one level and another to another level. "
― P.D. Ouspensky , The Fourth Way
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" consists in the study of the Name of God in its manifestation. Jehovah in Hebrew is spelt by four letters, Yod, He, Vau and He--I. H. V. H. To these four letters is given the deepest symbolical meaning. The first letter expresses the active principle, the beginning or first cause, motion, energy, "I"; the second letter expresses the passive element, inertia, quietude, "not I;" the third, the balance of opposites, "form"; and the fourth, the result or latent energy. "
― P.D. Ouspensky , The Symbolism of the Tarot: Philosophy of Occultism in Pictures and Numbers
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" All this and much else besides is merely a form of identification. Such considering is wholly based upon ‘requirements’. A man inwardly ‘requires’ that everyone should see what a remarkable man he is and that they should constantly give expression to their respect, esteem, and admiration for him, for his intellect, his beauty, his cleverness, his wit, his presence of mind, his originality, and all his other qualities. Requirements in their turn are based on a completely fantastic notion about themselves such as very often occurs with people of very modest appearance. Various writers, actors, musicians, artists, and politicians, for instance, are almost without exception sick people. And what are they suffering from? First of all from an extraordinary opinion of themselves, then from requirements, and then from considering, that is, being ready and prepared beforehand to take offence at lack of understanding and lack of appreciation. "
― P.D. Ouspensky , In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching