The following piece was read, among other things, at a memorial service for James George on Feb. 7, 2021 in Boulder, Colorado.



I must begin by asking myself, “What do I want?”

What do I want, really - not because of my background and education, self-image and vanity, but what does this “I” that I am actually want from this short life?

Indeed. What, or who am I? And what for?

That stops me. And I begin, in silence, to listen - to look up to what I can see and know about the great Universe in which, and thanks to which, I can see and sense and feel and breathe what I instinctively call life.

What is the relationship between this life in me and the great Life I am beginning to understand when my automatic associations are not flooding me with “answers”?

How can I find a way to separate all the automatic in me from that which simply knows that I am and have some purpose for being?

Only with struggle, and suffering to see my pretensions and self-love revealed to my chagrin.

I see that I must engage in that struggle, accepting to suffer for a time, in order to be pure enough for Life to reveal itself to my life and tell me how I can serve that Greatness that is the Source of my being.

I know that in the instant that I am actually feeling and sensing - not just “thinking” that I am present, here, now – I am filled with joy. But in the next moment I have lost that vivifying awareness, and am again just “thinking about it.”

But the real struggle, the very hope of consciousness, has begun to act, and I, if I wish, can continue and deepen the relation, until I truly love others, love consciousness and all that it has manifested. What greater creativity, inner or outer, could I ever want?

And I also know that by myself I cannot go far. I need the energy of other companions, searching together with something of this common vision. For that is what has made possible the insights that have created Masters who have, for thousands of years, helped humanity to serve, rather than obstruct, great Nature.
Lafayette, CO, July 22, 2015. 
 
If Not Now, When? is a w&c interview from 2004 with James George. "The Spiritual Diplomat" is a beautiful video about him.