FALLEN LEAVES
Fourth Issue
Collected From
 J.G. Bennett's Writings,
Lectures and Letters.
 
prepared for his
Fifth Memorial
Service, December 1979
 
 
 A Message

Many of us have been influenced in our developing years by a teacher, or an older person whom we
respected, and who helped us to form attitudes and opinions which have persisted into our adult lives.
Sometimes in our later years we meet old friends who have passed through our early experiences with
us. Then very often we talk about our friend, and say, "Do you remember…. ?", "Were you there when
he... ?", "He often used to say... .", and we exchange reminiscences, with nostalgia and affection. 

With J.G.B. it is not like this. He would never consent to be called a "teacher", but during his life many
hundreds of people were influenced by his work and his example, and many who did not meet him in
life have been influenced by his writings. But there are no anecdotes, no characteristic stories, no
sharing of "Do you remember…?" 

Now that we are approaching the fourth anniversary of his death, it is clear that his memory can only
live in the work of those who studied with him; that only by patient persistence in our own personal
work can we repay our debt to him and his teachers and encourage others to attempt the same path.
Anyone who works on himself benefits the whole of our universe, but in a narrower sense the only way
in which we can benefit personally from J.G.B.'s labours is in working on ourselves and stretching out a
hand to others, as he never failed to do. 

No one can do our work for us, but J.G.B. left us with all the materials that we need, and with his own
quiet example of service to direct us to the freedom that he himself achieved before he left this world. 

Let us use this anniversary of his death to bring new life to our work and go forward again with
confidence and trust, ready to make in this world the sacrifices required to prepare us for our service in
the next. 

Elizabeth Bennett

  
 FALLEN LEAVES

 Try to learn to come to everything as if it were quite new, and as if it had no connection with what you
have heard before.

 * * * * *

 We require to be much more sensitive than we are now in order to recognize what comes from a deeper
consciousness.

 * * * * *

 You have too many nows in the day - there are something like 57,000 nows in your day, which reflects
the period of time which is the present for you. And if in half-a-dozen of these you exist and the rest you
do not exist, that is too little.

 * * * * *

 We are very much too weak, very much too small, to do things alone. We need to look for every bit of
help that we can get and not bargain about it. If we really begin to see our position, we must understand
that we are not placed so that we can bargain. It is really unbelievable that we should be able to get help
at all.

 * * * * *

 Because we will not admit our own helplessness, we arrive at a state of tension and conflict in our
relations with other people.

 * * * * *

 There is a general lack of faith among people that transformation is possible. If we have no faith, we
have no force, and therefore we have to recognize that we have to begin without force, because faith
only comes in the course of the process of transformation.

 * * * * *

 It does not very often happen during the day that we come to a point where our attention is strong
enough for it to become a power of choice.

 * * * * *

Do you understand the difference between keeping your attention and trying to make your attention
finer?

 * * * * *

 The connection between the will and the mind can be reached through attention and it becomes
permanent with the acquisition of a soul.
  * * * * *

 Whatever we wish to attain, always attention is involved. Without attention, nothing can be attained.
Nothing comes to the inattentive man.

 * * * * *

 If we observe how much we talk, how nearly all people talk unnecessarily, either inwardly or
outwardly, it would be a great change that would come over the world if people were only to say what
was necessary. There would be such a release of energy, perhaps the wl1ole human situation would be
transformed, if such a thing could happen.

 * * * * *

 Speech is one of the harmful activities of man that prevent his spiritual progress.

 * * * * *

 It is difficult to observe mental activities unless we struggle with them. Struggle brings conscious
energy that makes "inner being" possible.

 * * * * *

 Everything is possible providing nothing is wasted. And everything that is wasted makes something or
other impossible.

 * * * * *

 A very great part of work on oneself consists in putting a stop to the waste of energy, and withdrawing
the energy that is saved to enable us to be conscious, to enable us to be present, to prepare a place in
which "I" can be. This is a gradual process and there is nothing to replace it. There is no shortcut to this.

 * * * * *

 You have to see what it really means that tomorrow will be determined by yesterday because today was
determined by the day before yesterday. You have to see what that means. 

* * * * * 

The words death and resurrection seem to mean something to you, but I must tell you that you cannot
understand the nature of this process until you have passed through it. 

* * * * * 

When you begin watching what you are doing, you very nearly always lose the contact with your own
body. 

* * * * * 

There is one means that can help us to keep the balance between our outer and our inner life and that is
 by becoming aware of our bodies as bodies. 

* * * * * 

   Tensions form a very great part of the whole unfortunate condition of man which prevents him from
being what he wishes to be. When we are tense, there cannot be a free flow of energy, there is constant
wastage of energy at every point in our body where we are tense. 

* * * * * 

If you do not keep your body quiet, it is almost impossible to keep your head quiet. It needs very great
experience before you can allow the body to move automatically and at the same time to keep a clear
condition in the head. 

* * * * * 

Very often people ask me the question, how can we learn to think? And I am sure that the right answer
is by not thinking. By refusing to think. What we call thinking is an automatic association; the only real
way to think is through refusing to let this happen. 

* * * * * 

It is not so important to observe what you are feeling as to be able to recognize how you are feeling. 

* * * * * 

It is not that feeling can control emotion. It is that consciousness can control energy. People think they
can control thoughts, emotions or the body. It is not functions that we can control, it is the energy
behind them. The secret of control is over energy, not over manifestations. 

* * * * * 

It is too much to say that feeling is love. Feeling is a step towards it. Love is a cosmic force which is
beyond individuality. Whereas feeling is still confined within individuality. 

* * * * * 

Feeling is that power which enables us to have contact with a higher level. 

* * * * * 

If you really wish to get something, all the initiative must come from you. What you as it were borrow,
you will only have to repay. 

* * * * * 

Little by little, we can learn to use the present to prepare the future. We have to prepare something in
advance which perhaps will in some tender spot wake us up when we need to be awakened. 
 * * * * * 

Exercises can only approximately be adapted to the need of individuals. Therefore, it is necessary to
adjust them all the time so that when changes take place in a person as a result of the exercise, the
necessary changes are made in the exercise also, so as not to disturb the general balance. 

* * * * * 

The truth is that we exist to serve. If we serve, there is a reward that comes from our service. This is the
possibility of Being. 

* * * * * 

If I want to be, I must begin to collect being inside me, which is possible only if I am constantly
struggling to rescue myself from slavery to the external world and from my slavery to chance
associations that rise inside me. 

* * * * * 

With the power to choose comes the possibility of being responsible. Responsibility is a God-like
quality. To be responsible, is to be God-like. 

* * * * * 

I say this to you: If you have attained something, you have attained it because you have worked hard for
it. If you have not worked hard, you have not attained it. 

* * * * * 

Respect the act of eating. Reflect on the simple obvious fact that life has to be given for life…. When
you eat with respect for the life which has been given, you can receive from it energy corresponding to
all the three parts of your nature. 

* * * * * 

When there begins to be understanding, then there begins to be freedom, because what a man
understands he can do. But until he understands, he cannot do anything. Until then he has simply to
follow what he knows, which is very different from doing what he understands. 

* * * * * 

If you continue to work together, if you wish to come to something, you have to watch all the time
whether it is towards understanding that you are going. 

* * * * * 

The possibility of realizing our destiny depends upon a force that is not our own and that has its origin
on a much higher level than the human. Therefore, everything for us really depends upon the possibility
to come into contact with that great force. 
 * * * * * 

We are now in a period of transition to a New Epoch; and new illusions are arising to replace the old
ones. 

* * * * * 

If this new World is going to be based on communities, as I believe it will, the first requirement is that
people shouldn't be slaves to their likes and dislikes. If you can get rid of that slavery, a community will
always work. 

* * * * * 

Don't demand from other's what they cannot possibly give: responsible consistent behaviour. 

* * * * * 

There will be a great change where the feeling will come of the importance of the community - not or
the state, nothing like that, not of power, but of brotherhood, of small communities where there is real
brotherhood and mutual acceptance. That is where re of the world lies.                        

* * * * * 

It is hard for us to grasp that we can learn something without being taught-that we can receive
something without it having been given to us. 

* * * * * 

Everyone has an inner teacher, but we have not yet learned to go to that school. 

* * * * * 

"... the working of Providence keeps the freedom to guide without compelling, and to protect without
destroying the freedom. I think that this happens also in our own human life. It is true that the
potentialities of human actions are very great, so that it is never possible to calculate this X-factor that
there is in all human events. It is within that unknown possibility that the protection and guidance can
work; and yet, with it all, at no time are the laws of nature upset, nor is there anything which takes away
the freedom of man. Among other things, this means that there must be the relationship between cause
and effect; we must continue to reap what we sow. Out of that harvest, which may be bitter for us, there
can enter the seeds of great good for the future of mankind." 

Copyright belongs to
the Estate of JB and Elizabeth Bennett