INTRODUCTION TO “THE RUTHLESS RULES” or

"I INVENTED THE EGO BECAUSE I FORGOT I WAS GOD"

Where to start with this process of awakening, awareness, enlightenment, Cosmic or Christ Consciousness? What do you want to call your search for personal transformation? EVOLUTION maybe? "THE WORK" Gurdgieff called it. 'GROWING UP' I call it. Getting COSMIC my secretary calls it. OK. Doing that thing. Where do we start? 

HOW about using the tools at hand, playing this game called "Life"? Life is a terrific teacher. If we were just to focus better when we live each day, we'd discover little pellets of knowledge in every second of insanity! Little nuggets of wisdom raining on our heads as we digest the bitter, crave the sweet, shuttle between the two… betray our loved ones, get betrayed in turn, the whole damn cosmic drama…..we'll be discovering or uncovering truth and the Ruthless Rules of Reality which, for our purpose here, is the fundamental power of living in JOY, intense interest (as opposed to boredom,) peace, love and unremitting ECSTASY! 

There are so many nihilists around. Folks who haven't a clue who they really are, (GOD!) These dimwits all think there's no way out of this mess called "Life" except through death. The Masters of Wisdom say "No, wrong! Death is no way out. You're just walking through another door, changing clothes like an actor but you remain exactly who you are with all of your same talents, deficiencies, powers, problems, enlightenment, or 'endarkenment' as your condition might really be called -- and you gotta run right back on stage in a hundred years. Only the make-up, costume, street address, face and props change minimally from one lifetime to the next. But your feet start off at the same marks on the stage floor. Starting from Zero.

So what about this stuff that we want: the peace, joy and love? Oh, that's not all you seek? I can hear you reminding me "what about wealth, happiness, contentment, power, talents, fame, great lovers and tons of money. Well believe it or not, you will get all of that when you have peace joy and love. Do you think some nervous in the service, unhappy and unloved stiff gets any of life's goodies? NO, he does not. Dogs put their heads in their paws when that guy comes into a room.

But if you go along on the evolution ride, you're heading automatically for all the things you want. Your entire wish list. Believe it or not, I find that most people are so bummed they actually choose to go without. TO not have any of these wonderful things. To be losers. They choose it. Their emotions and words say to me: "Shit has happened to me from day one. I hate everybody. I want the end of my story to be realllly tragic so those malefactors wake up. I am planning a number of negative and very dramatic things and working daily on it, as opposed to this context of well being." See I listen with the third ear, like Freud did. They're really saying "I believe that it is impossible to achieve anything other than the way my life is. 

So they're stuck in hopelessness. But that's not you because you've read this far. That's certainly not you. I am heaving a sigh of relief! But that is a description of someone you know and care for and HOW in the HELL are we going to get them to read this far?? 

If I knew such a person, I would tell him "If you focus on what you are targeting, as a desire or a need --- and use the "ACTUAL ACTION" system described in Chapter One, you will move quickly to the state of the ABUNDANT HUMAN who lives LIKE A GOD. Total ecstasy.

Now, put that on the scales and let me add another weight next to it. If you also focus on the heart of the universe, that cosmic mystery, that glowing spot within you that maybe is God, struggling to live through you -- just turning your attention to the GLOW HEART SPOT a few times a day for a minute, via meditation, yoga, prayer, searching for and communing with Your SILENT, Higher Self, --- you will move into PERSONIFYING GOD DOWN HERE. On your street, in your family. In your community, right there within your own life. 

I am describing an actual condition where GOD is using YOUR miserable little LIFE to do some pretty big things that he needs done. Do NOT fool yourself with that URBAN RUMOR that He doesn't need stuff done! While one human suffers, in any corner of the globe, stuff needs doing! 

OK, so get this. You do actual action and you FOCUS on the silent glow spot that cares about the planet…and you will go straight from being a miserable loser to BEING GOD. That's not some QUACK claim. That's a WARRENTY FROM THE MANUFACTURER. And when you're in this GOD state, you will not know suffering. It will all be ecstasy which as you know is better than OK. It will all be part of the big perfect picture. And when the payoff comes, you'll say 'wow, I couldn't have imagined it as this wonderful.'

While I don't want to diddle that monstrous, infantile, greedy part of you, I do want to tell you that you will have what you REALLY want, really DESERVE, really need and really CAN USE for your work and have it very quickly. The only price tag is to do both the ACTUAL ACTION work and the GRACE STATES each day. Do BOTH because it's like soil and water, nothing grows without both.

Your path to ecstasy, abundance and having SUPERMAN talents (which will be utilized by this suffering world and which will make you TOTALLY RICH AND FAMOUS) will be so quick, you won't even believe it! I think that I proved it with my life. People who use the method prove it with theirs. They end up with fame, wealth, and admiring sweethearts. The whole nine yards. But when they get it, it's fool proof. 

Again, I have to be much more careful when I talk about this as I DO NOT WANT to stimulate that greedy, hungry, infantile and monstrous part of you. This whole system is about SERVICE to the planet. And if you try to use these methods to SERVE YOURSELF, your fall will be a real napoleonic kind of pratfall full of hilarious poetic justice. Only you won't be laughing. 

I know myself and my own ego, remember how I wanted to be Miles Davis and Andre Previn in one. 

(Editor's note. Jules got very close to being those two men. His music group THE FAMILY JULES was working all over L.A., great cafes, he'd been asked to do a character part of a Godfather in a mob movie, and he looked just like an elegant Terrance Stamp he would have been a hit. His saxophone music was the best; his piano flawless. Mind you, he was a multi millionaire and dating Jackie Bisset and was just doing this band just for fun but FULL TIME as he loved music. It was not for the money. He gave the cash to his group. He played every instrument to perfection, studied with the greats, went to CUBA for months to study congas and all the other drums.) 

I know that I HAD big unrealistic dreams and they were probably ego dreams. I firsthand understand your indulgence in the projections of your ego self. I understand your worrying about yourself, who you'll be, and you're very antsy about how far you are from the dream of what you want to be. Clocks are ticking around you all the time. I understand being concerned about yourself, about your future, about what you're going to do, what you might get out of it, (or not get!) how your success is going to be, all this planning and all this thinking and craving and fearing at once because I was insane once like you.

The tragedy is that you have been doing that since you were born. And everyone has been doing this since they were born. That's the "thrownness". How you were thrown into life and what happened by becoming a being in a third dimensional world, being born to parents who lived in stupor where grand parents and great grand parents did the same boring thing habitually. That's human life down here before The Awakening.

See what all these people would do if they really knew what they could have been doing when they were working a forty hour week for some suppressive who was always a hair away from firing them. What's sad is that you have been continuing the same habitual thinking about 'what am I doing here, where am I going, what do I get out of it, is this really correct for me to do, is this my purpose, is this the way to live my life. A constant tyranny of the mind, of the 'I' talking to itself, tyrannizing you, into complete confusion, chaos, and eventually unhappiness, dissatisfaction, frustration and depression. And then as you get older, the physical disease which probably is a result of that mental ticker tape.

Instead just imagine the possibility of being totally quiet, still, open, needing nothing, wanting nothing, and doing everything for the pure joy and pleasure of it because that study or art obsesses you, delights you. Imagine the focus, the beauty, the making things, and dancing with whoever or whatever is in front of you at the dance that your ecstasy attracts that day. 

Imagine the opportunity that every second is, every footstep is, as pure possibility, not as something that is etched in stone that gives you $500 or $500,000 but as dancing over the meadow doing exactly what makes you happy. Barbra used to just sing in the stairwell, amazed at her own voice and glad it blocked out the sounds of the street, which her sensitive ears hated. The greatest singer of our day. She just loved to go to auditions and blow their minds with that voice. And they hired her. How could they not?

Fame has its downside. Many who have accomplished the great gift of worldly success still get frustrated and depressed because they find that FAME, POWER AND MONEY wasn't everything. So what is? SINGING in the stairwell. The only thing that REALLY COOKS is THIS. Having your tire tread firmly, creatively, gripping the moment. That grimy stairwell. The NOW. Being tuned in to your ecstasy in what you do and how the singing blocks out the traffic noise and also, maybe down the line that singing can SERVE the UNIVERSE. THAT’s IT. This moment, this artist’s talent, this life, this opportunity, this song, this poignant melody, this face, this unique biography, or maybe it’s a study, a love relationship, ajob, mate, house, garden, this amount of money, this bank account, this body, this book you wrote, this wit, this intelligence, this talent that you are, that you have, this unique vision that you are existing in, and it is so bloody exciting and perfect that you are dazzled that you went from where you used to be in the grimy stairwell to here in a palace and the world banging on your door to get more of what you do. Did Babs think she was going to be one of the leading lights of the liberals and get peace-embracing presidents elected in the face of the greatest and most persuasive fascism? Never for a second. But that's where she went, one delighted step at a time.

And you know what? You can go from here to there in a few years. Maybe in a few seconds. JUST do what you are passionate about. Trust that the passion road will take you where you’re meant to be and the polite lie won’t. Have the discipline not to inflict your impatience or headachy days on us. Assume the pose of joy. Just see how your life is perfect, your interests, your talents, your ambitions, the time you have left, ALL PERFECT!

And go on from here. As Confucius said: "Be satisfied with your lot in life and go from there". And as Buddha said: "Follow the Middle Way, the path of non-attachment". And that is Nirvana. And that is what we want. One foot in front of the other, but EVERY FOOTSTEP feels so good, you're so solidly entrenched in the now, down where the rubber meets the road. EVERY SECOND you're loving the work you do. And if you don't love it, you kick it OUT and go do what you love, knowing the money will come.

There are so many gigantic rewards to being freed from lying to yourself and others, and freed from materialism, and freed what others dictate to you -- that the person who is tied down to another man's schedule and who, as well, has the curse of being money grubbing -- can never even imagine what the sky looks like because he is caught up in looking at mud. He mutters 'I hate this work and all I can think every second is ‘the money is coming, that’s what I get out of it.’

When you are in bliss, you don't even care what you are ever going to get out of it, you don't care if you are going to get paid a dime. You are in ecstasy down where the rubber meets the road. Your toes are digging into the NOW! The now has you totally excited and then everything comes to you because you are in the free-est state in the universe – a bliss so big there’s no self left!

Selflessness is very magical. It attracts itself! It attracts the whole infinite being of God which is selfless! That's what God is and who God is. Selfless. How did God create the whole universe and all the galaxies and all the planets and all the beings? By being a 'not home' kind of Guy, focused on making birds and flowers and you. Just ecstatic to create every flower, fish, bug, animal and giving them just the eye and finger they needed and the nail on the finger and finally his tour de force --YOU. The last, flowering bud, bloom and twig on the tree of a trillion year evolution.

He must be feeling very rewarded with this planet, this garden of Eden. Except for the petroleum distillates, but his creation man will fix that. Everything comes to those who are creatively excited, selfless, un-selfish and not chasing some missing element like fame, power, the dollar, recognition. 

BUT warning? THE CONVERSE is true! Everything BAD happens to those who are selfish and indulgent in their self-desires for "me" wanting to be "great" and "me accepted and ok". "Me with moola. Me with chicks. Me with a pad. Me Napoleon. Me with a nation. Me with all nations. Me in Elba.

So the definition of selflessness is: doing without any need or reward and doing it because that's all you dig doing and you think of the planet and everybody else first and yourself last. That's what Jesus said when he said: The meek shall inherit the Earth and he who is last shall be first. And the selfish are those who think of themselves first and everybody else second. They always end up in Elba. Being hasbeens who really never were, going through their scrapbooks, unhappy, depressed, frustrated, needy and wanting to find the answer to life. And the answer was right in front of them all the time. In the Now where the rubber meets the road where your ecstasy in your favorite games is bubbling out of you and you're focused on the page like you're reading the best mystery.

To lose thyself is to gain the world. Only when you accomplish the technique of living in the now in ecstasy by practice, without the nega-yammer, only when you totally master the trick of focusing that practice confers, will you have the world by the Ruby Begonias.

When you practice this little tiny focusing trick over and over and over again, the involvement in manifesting your talents, as art, as a world-delivering vision, as a statement of yourself given in total selflessness, -- you can become anything, you can accomplish anything, any talent, form of expression, you will be the greatest at anything you do and you will not have any need to be rewarded or appreciated because the very creative process of becoming a genius IS the reward. 

Everything is complete, you are fullfilled within itself. So fullfillment is the absolute reward of being nothing and giving everything. Do you think Charles Dickens knew about that state? He came from an institution, called a 'poor house', his family locked in it yet he ended up writing about the poorhouse, and orphanages and all England wept and reformed those conditions because of him. 

Do you think Gandhi planned to be powerful, world famous, planned to knock England on its keister? No, he was working from one now to the next like cobblestones on a path, just guided by his heart and probably a good dose of righteous wrath at the Brits. 

You have a wonderful battle of your own somewhere. It's like a rainbow coat hanging in a closet with your name on it. You have as many lifetimes as you want to grow tall enough to get that coat off the peg or you can do it right now, this second. By waking up to what you love. But remaining the same greedy monster with your same boring mind yammer, habitually doing the same thing over again, expecting something new to come from it, and never really accomplishing bupkis is a sure path to frustration, sadness and anger and then, disease. 

To move forward into mastery is not to practice once a week and remain the same every time you go back to practice again. To move into mastery is to play your instrument, or paint your picture, dance your dance daily. Because only then can you advance. The garden does not get more beautiful, does not get more trimmed, pruning once a week. Every week you go back and trim the same damn things! But if you did it every day, if you practiced your instrument every day, in a week you would be a thousand times ahead of where you were the week before. 

I know about these things because I was stuck hearing the traffic noise and hating it, like Barbra. And angry. Then I found my voice in the stairwell was beautiful. So I was once there and now I'm here. And here’s what I know. You cannot do the actual action and the state of grace once a week. If you only sing in the stairwell on SUNDAYS, each time you went back, it would be exactly the same. The advance would be so minimal that you would feel you were not getting anywhere and you would drop it. The path to get to this ecstasy of mastery, of enjoyment, of pleasure, of advancing is doing something daily. PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice. And love the practice. Wake up thirsty to start your work, intoxicated to be doing it, with a yearning to start again each morning.

To be able to perform the talents that you are innately born with, practice every day, every hour, every minutepossible, so that you see the advancement and you feel the ecstasy of accomplishment and mastery. And you get to be Streisand not a kid on the lower East Side where the traffic roars day and night. Or maybe you get to be Gandhi but certainly, you won’t end up like Napoleon. 

And that's what this book is all about. 

FOR MORE OF HIS LESSONS, go toTHE MASTER JULES SITE