Alejandro Jodorowsky’s 82 Commandments For Living

Attributed to G.I. Gurdjieff

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From The Spiritual Journey of Alejandro Jodorowsky. Jodorowsky attributes these sayings to the Russian mystic George Gurdjieff, as told to him by Gurdjieff’s daughter, Reyna d’Assia.

Source: www.openculture.com

  • 1. Ground your attention on yourself. Be conscious at every moment of what you are thinking, sensing, feeling, desiring and doing.
  • 2. Always finish what you have begun.
  • 3. Whatever you are doing, do it as well as possible.
  • 4. Do not become attached to anything that can destroy you in the course of time.
  • 5. Develop your generosity – but secretly.
  • 6. Treat everyone as if he or she was a close relative.
  • 7. Organize what you have disorganized.
  • 8. Learn to receive and give thanks for every gift.
  • 9. Stop defining yourself.
  • 10. Do not lie or steal, for you lie to yourself and steal from yourself.
  • 11. Help your neighbor but do not make him dependent.
  • 12. Do not encourage others to imitate you.
  • 13. Make work plans and accomplish them.
  • 14. Do not take up too much space.
  • 15. Make no useless movements or sounds.
  • 16. If you lack faith, pretend to have it.
  • 17. Do not allow yourself to be impressed by strong personalities.
  • 18. Do not regard anyone or anything as your possession.
  • 19. Share fairly.
  • 20. Do not seduce.
  • 21. Sleep and eat only as much as necessary.
  • 22. Do not speak of your problems.
  • 23. Do not express judgement or criticism when you are ignorant of most of the factors involved.
  • 24. Do not establish useless friendships.
  • 25. Do not follow fashions.
  • 26. Do not sell yourself.
  • 27. Respect contracts you have signed.
  • 28. Be on time.
  • 29. Never envy the luck or success of anyone.
  • 30. Say no more than necessary.
  • 31. Do not think of the profits your work will engender.
  • 32. Never threaten anyone.
  • 33. Keep your promises.
  • 34. In any discussion, put yourself in the other person's place.
  • 35. Admit that someone else may be superior to you.
  • 36. Do not eliminate but transmute.
  • 37. Conquer your fears, for each of them represents a camouflaged desire.
  • 38. Help others to help themselves.
  • 39. Conquer your aversions and come closer to those who inspire rejection in you.
  • 40. Do not react to what others say about you whether praise or blame.
  • 41. Transform your pride into dignity.
  • 42. Transform your anger into creativity.
  • 43. Transform your greed into respect for beauty.
  • 44. Transform your envy into admiration for the values of the other.
  • 45. Transform your hate into charity.
  • 46. Neither praise nor insult yourself.
  • 47. Regard what does not belong to you as if it did belong to you.
  • 48. Do not complain.
  • 49. Develop your imagination.
  • 50. Never give orders to gain the satisfaction of being obeyed.
  • 51. Pay for services performed for you.
  • 52. Do not proselytize your work or ideas.
  • 53. Do not try to make others feel for you emotions such as pity, admiration, sympathy, or complicity.
  • 54. Do not try to distinguish yourself by your appearance.
  • 55. Never contradict; instead, be silent.
  • 56. Do not contract debts; acquire and pay immediately.
  • 57. If you offend someone, ask his or her pardon; if you have offended a person publicly, apologize publicly.
  • 58. When you realize you have said something that is mistaken, do not persist in error through pride; instead, immediately retract it.
  • 59. Never defend your old ideas simply because you are the one who expressed them.
  • 60. Do not keep useless objects.
  • 61. Do not adorn yourself with exotic ideas.
  • 62. Do not have your photograph taken with famous people.
  • 63. Justify yourself to no one and keep your own counsel.
  • 64. Never define yourself by what you possess.
  • 65. Never speak of yourself without considering that you might change.
  • 66. Accept that nothing belongs to you.
  • 67. When someone asks your opinion about something or someone, speak only of his or her qualities.
  • 68. When you become ill, regard your illness as your teacher, not as something to be hated.
  • 69. Look directly and do not hide yourself.
  • 70. Do not forget your dead, but accord them a limited place and do not allow them to invade your life.
  • 71. Wherever you live, always find a space that you devote to the sacred.
  • 72. When you perform a service, make your effort inconspicuous.
  • 73. If you decide to work to help others, do it with pleasure.
  • 74. If you are hesitating between doing and not doing, take the risk of doing.
  • 75. Do not try to be everything to your spouse; accept that there are things that you cannot give him or her but which others can.
  • 76. When someone is speaking to an interested audience, do not contradict that person and steal his or her audience.
  • 77. Live on money you have earned.
  • 78. Never brag about amorous adventures.
  • 79. Never glorify your weaknesses.
  • 80. Never visit someone only to pass the time.
  • 81. Obtain things in order to share them.
  • 82. If you are meditating and a devil appears, make the devil meditate too.

 

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