To me this describes the 4Th Way work. Meaning how does one gain competentcy? Well through experience. How does one gain experience through living life consciously by being an observer/self remembering learning from how life interacts with you and how you interact with life.
Then you will learn more about yourself and this reality what is important to you and what is not after years and years of the 4Th way work in this reality you can then start to decide accurately what is useful to your aim/goal and what is not then you can make a free will conscious choice to go in this or that direction…. And this creates a conscious path/reality for you and dare I say the larger consciousness system we are in takes notice? Maybe clears the way, you learn from it while it learns from you?
The quote starts with “WE” meaning you and I and every individual must make decisions. This is only done by playing the game, interacting with and rendering this reality. We can only optimize decision making through gaining knowledge AND experience (4th way)
Yes - I think this quote can be appreciated in many ways. That is why I did not want to comment, and to leave people make their own appreciation & take what's good in it, after free reception of the quote!
I personally have a great interest at the level of "to decide", and it reminded me of the signatures of Jgeropoulas & Jacques:
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." – Aristotle
Every time you say "yes" to someone who doesn't deserve it, and go against Yourself and what you value the most, you kill a small part of your essence. LKJ
Adding it to
We must ourselves decide what is useful to us and what is not
The French edition of the book translates by
"In fact, it is up to ourselves than to decide [about the things]"
As in
"Nobody will do this for you" or "That's really something we must take charge of", or even "every bit of data goes through this process".
What interests me is that the process of acquisition of data bits, is very often carried on when a "convincing person" speaks / teaches / lectures:
A person says something, and if I am influencable, or if I find it right (on the moment) - the result is the same - acceptance. This lacks "time", ponderation...
I see this too many times: people building up their world view, according to such interactions. I would first try to get a bit off this road, because it does not really favour "thinking", ponderation. It's all in the immediate.
I appreciate than to tell people : "well, this is an interesting idea, let me think about it". And the goal would be than to
really not let the idea "in", and to think of it (if we feel so). So telling the person "no thanks" must be followed-up, live, in ourselves - with no acceptance. After, with fresh air, we can get a different view, and most of the time the person was just showing off, or spreading useless advices.
That's a mecanism that I have not developped, in the past. Probably due to shyness, oppressive parents etc etc. For decades I felt compelled to
get along with ideas given to me, for example when a "big mouth" would tell me about so-called "various truths". In fact, we don't even have to listen to a person freely giving us "advices", if we did not ask. And people, freely give you advices, teachings on existence in general, how to carry things on, etc.
We believe we are not capable of seeing things as they are. But we are, and this is something that we must build from scratch, at some point or another, I believe. And it must be done with fire.
So everybody telling you "do as I say" would be kind of wrong, if not in a specific STO context (for example). I think the quote says something like "must verify things, by ourselves". "Mandatory". Otherwise, too risky.
Well, that's what I got from the quote! I believe that many people can find an adaptation, depending on themselves.
