Belief

During the time of the major earthquakes in Guatemala in 1976, the Catholic bishop at Lake Atitlan befriended me and allowed me to stay in his garden for a while.

A few months passed and after-shock tremors were still common. At that time I discovered that a beautiful house on a hillside was for rent for very little money. The reason was that a large boulder ominously overhung the house and people were afraid. I felt the vibes and it seemed okay to me -- so I rented the place.

When I told the bishop, he reacted with nervous dismay and swung his arms about, saying, "Aren't you worried about that rock tumbling down on the house?"

I replied, "If the Lord wants to take me, he will."

The bishop shrugged his shoulders and said, "You don't believe that, do you?"

Different interpretations

A man picked up by a prostitute in a bar is amazed by the college pennants and diplomas ornamenting the walls of her room.

"Are these your diplomas?" he asks.

"Sure," she says airily. "I have my Master of Arts from Columbia, and took my Ph.D. in Shakespeare at Oxford."

The man is incredulous. "But how did a girl like you get into a profession like this?"

"I don't know," she says. "Just lucky, I guess."

Conversion!

A beautiful young woman came home from London. She belonged to a small village, was from a Catholic family. After three or four years of living in London she had become very rich; she came back to see her parents. The mother could not believe her eyes. She asked, "How did you manage? You have become so rich -- such beautiful clothes, a diamond ring, a beautiful car!"

And the girl said, "Mother, I have become a prostitute."

Just hearing this the mother fainted, became unconscious. When she came back she asked again, "What did you say?"

The girl said, "Mother, I said I have become a prostitute."

And the mother started laughing and she said, "I misunderstood you -- I thought you said you had become a Protestant."

Quarreling religions are not religions

A Catholic is trying to convert a Jew and tells him that if he becomes a Catholic his prayers will certainly be answered -- because the priest will give them to the bishop, who will give them to the cardinal, who will give them to the pope, who will shove them up into heaven through a hole at the top of the Vatican, which just matches a hole in the floor of heaven, where Saint Peter will take them to the Virgin Mary, who will intercede on their behalf with Jesus, who will say a good word for them to God.

The Jew repeats this whole itinerary with an astonished air, ending, "You know it must be true, because I have always wondered what they do with all the shit in heaven. They must throw it down that little hole in the Vatican, where the pope gives it to the cardinal, who gives it to the bishop, who gives it to the priest, who gives it to you -- and you are trying to hand it to me?"

Trust becomes a transforming force

Once George Gurdjieff asked P.D. Ouspensky, his chief disciple of those days, to come from London to a faraway place somewhere in the Caucasus. It was very difficult. Financially Ouspensky was bankrupt. He had no money, no house to live in, nobody to support him. And such a long journey! And the times were very dangerous. In those parts of the world it was dangerous to move, because the Russian revolution was happening. People were being massacred, killed, murdered. There was no peace. Even Gurdjieff had to leave Russia, and he was hiding in the mountains of the Caucasus.

It was not a right time to go there; it was very dangerous. The journey was not easy: all the trains were unsettled, roads were cut, bridges were broken. It was chaos! But when the master calls, the disciple has to follow. Whatever belongings he had, he sold. He borrowed money from people, and traveled thousands of miles. It took him almost thirty days to reach Gurdjieff. Tired, tattered, thinking many times, "What am I doing? People are escaping from Russia, and I am going there!" And he was on the blacklist of the communists, because he was a well-known figure -- chief disciple of George Gurdjieff, a well-known, world-famous mathematician, a great author, one of the greatest the world has ever known. His books were translated into almost all the languages of the world. Going back to Russia was dangerous. He could be caught, imprisoned, killed. He was anticommunist! -- no sensible person can be a communist, because the whole idea is nonsense. But he traveled...and when he reached Gurdjieff, Gurdjieff looked at him and the first thing that he said was, "Go back to London and start work again."

Now that was too much. Ouspensky failed. He could not trust this man. Now what kind of a joke is this? Playing with somebody's life in such a way...and immediately he said, "Go back right now! I have nothing else to say."

Ouspensky went back -- turned against Gurdjieff, became an enemy. That was a great device of a great master. If he had trusted, he would have become enlightened. He missed the opportunity. He died an unenlightened person.

Fantastic

Two women are talking in a tea room at four o'clock, over large gooey ice-cream sundaes and little sugary cakes. They have not seen each other since high-school days, and one is bragging about her very advantageous marriage.

"My husband buys me whole new sets of diamonds when the ones I have get dirty," she says. "I never even bother to clean them."

"Fantastic!" says the other women.

"Yes," says the first, "we get a new car every two months. None of this hire-purchase stuff! My husband buys them outright, and we give them to the Negro gardener and houseman and like that for presents."

"Fantastic!" says the other.

"And our house," pursues the first, "well, what's the use of talking about it? It's just...."

"Fantastic!" finishes the other.

"Yes, and tell me, what are you doing nowadays?" says the first woman.

"I go to Charm School," says the other.

"Charm School? Why, how quaint! What do you learn there?"

"Well, we learn to say 'Fantastic' instead of 'Bullshit'!"

Don't waste time with words!

A naive farmer's wife arrived at Paddington Station to catch a train, and having some time to spare before the train arrived, she thought she would check out her weight on a nearby weighing machine.

She got on, put in a penny and out popped a card which read, "You weigh one hundred and fifty pounds and in five minutes from now you will fart." Red with embarrassment and feeling a little outraged, she got off the scale and hurried away. Five minutes later, to her total amazement, she farted loud and long.

Very embarrassed, but intrigued, she made her way back to the machine to see what it had to say this time. In went the penny -- out came the card: "You still weigh one hundred and fifty pounds and in five minutes from now you will be raped." She jumped off the machine in disgust and walked firmly away.

A newspaper salesman, who was having a particularly slack morning, saw this country bumpkin and thought to have some fun, so before she knew what was happening, she was pulled behind the counter and raped. Emerging a few minutes later in a terrible state, with her hat on one side, the heel of her shoe broken, and in a total state of shock, she staggered back to the machine and blindly put in a penny. Out came the card: "You still weigh one hundred and fifty pounds, and with all this farting and fucking, you've missed the train!"