READINGS and SUGGESTED TASKS
Fall/Winter 2022
Note: Titles in this color are hyperlinks
October 26, 2022
Internal and External Considering
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October 19, 2022
The more requirements you make, the more internal considering you will have. You will always be disappointed and feel that somebody else is to blame. People who make many requirements make life very difficult for themselves. Nothing is right: they are not surrounded by the right people, they are not treated properly, and so on. In this Work we must gradually feel our own nothingness by observation.
The opposite to internal considering is external considering. External considering is thinking of others. It is one of the few things in the Work that we are actually told to do. We are told not to internally consider and not to have negative emotions, and so on, but we are told to externally consider just as we are told to remember ourselves. When we are in a state of internal considering (and this is our usual state) we are really thinking only of ourselves. We regard ourselves as the centre of the Universe. Like Copernicus, we have to realize that we are not the centre of the Universe. To internally consider gives us only self-emotions and as these increase the character becomes more shut in. You all know people, surely, to whom you cannot speak for a moment without their beginning to tell you what troubles they have, what a hard life they lead, and so on. Such people are ruined. They are dead. You know that the Work says that it is negative emotions that govern the world, and not sex or power. Just think how many people are completely ruined by constantly indulging in negative emotions. Internal considering is a branch of identifying. It is closely connected with negative states in us. You must not think that the opposite to internal considering consists in a hearty, optimistic manner and loud laughter. This is not external considering.
(Maurice Nicoll; Pychological Commentaries Volume One; p 257)
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October 12, 2022
Impartiality is a characteristic of that which is higher. It knows nothing of our petty, ingrained notions of storing up merits which will one day be rewarded, of our credit and debt systems. “The rain falls on the just and the unjust alike,” as the proverb says. The credit and debt systems, if you can use the analogy, of the world above is built on a totally different system of values. Sometimes we catch a glimpse of this, and many scriptures spell it out for us. Even then it is only with luck we can see what is meant, and for a brief moment only. This is because we are partial. It takes a moment of impartiality to be able to sense how partial one is, and how that partiality is the basis of my sense of superiority, my feeling that my children, my taste, my virtues, my family, my politics, etc. are forever superior to all others. If I can even approach the fringes of impartiality I can sometimes apprehend the fact that, for instance, childhood is a universal experience of mankind. There is no intrinsic superiority that my child has over others. All human beings were once children and become adults. Instead of being immersed in my identification with my child and my conviction that he is in himself something very special and better then others, the thought may occur to me that he is a trust, not mine, that he needs to be prepared for the life of an adult. When I see this I am, in short, closer to reality.
There is a great deal that could be said about impartiality and the practical ways one can begin to work on this. Some of them we have already encountered, such as external considering. But since this a new direction of thinking for most of us, perhaps it would be better today to try to observe the evidences of partiality – not in any mood of self-criticism and faultfinding, but just in order to see what I’m up against in my work. But I might ask myself in what direction would I have to go if I wished to attain an impartial attitude?
(A.L. Stavely; Themes; p 86)
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October 5, 2022
Yesterday I asked myself: What is my work – my work in general and this week in particular? Each one of us will have a task which is his alone, but we also have the general technique of the work that belongs to us all.
Today I will ask myself a new question: Do I make the best use of the techniques of the work?
Let me begin with self-observation. I know that nothing remains in one place. Everything is either ascending or descending. What about my conception and practice of self-observation? Has it progressed? Have I at all mastered any of the difficulties of this most difficult skill? Or do I still try (if I try) in the same half-hearted, naïve way as when I first began?
I see I need to think about this. We are told we must be clever and intelligent in our work. From the most ancient times we have the command: Man, know thyself. There is not much time. Besides, I do not stay the same. Time alters me. It changes the experiences I can have. It is now too late for any of us here to have consciously the experiences of an infant, a small child, an adolescent. If I do not experience myself here, now, today, tomorrow it will be too late.
I must observe myself in this experience. Now. But is very difficult. I try to observe my anger and at once anger is not there. The same occurs with other states. Either I forget or it seems there is nothing to observe. Still, I know self-observation is possible. Occasionally, unexpectedly, all at once, I see something about myself. It is like a revelation. It has something authentic and vivifying about it, even when it is not very flattering to my self-esteem.
How is it that this is only possible sometimes? Does something in me interfere with my self-observation? Censor, disapprove or approve of my behavior? It seems so.
Today I will try to be clever. I will let ‘it’ do as it always does, but I will observe from further back. Mostly it will be necessary to remember sneakily, quietly – not trying too hard. My whole effort will be not to interfere, not to judge, just to see. I will have to find some way to help myself remember. That is the hardest part. Each one will have to find this for himself.
There are many questions. How to remember? What is observation? Have I progressed – at least in understanding what I am attempting – in the way of self-observation? What is the self I wish to observe? I cannot answer these questions – certainly not all at once. It is too much. I must choose one at a time and study it. But I can’t afford to waste time either. “Our dear time,” as Gurdjieff called it.
(A.L. Staveley; Themes)
September 28, 2022
ARCHIVES BELOW ARE COMPLETE BUT COLORS ARE OFF
Posted April 24, 2022
There was a weekend when Lord Pentland did not attend our Sunday workday at the Firehouse, and I arrived at the office on Monday morning desperate to ‘confess’ what I’d done in his absence.
The ‘sin’ that was weighing on me so heavily was how I’d left the team I was supposed to be leading – literally walked away and joined a different team – because I couldn’t bear the assault on my vanity that had taken place.
I had spent Saturday preparing as well as I could, even though I knew nothing about the craft of picture-matting we’d been asked to undertake; nonetheless, I’d been given the task and there was a team to lead. However, when I arrived at the Firehouse, I discovered that someone had been put on the team who was, in fact, an expert.
She simply took over, and everyone deferred to her authority. Her assumption was understandable – and useful, in light of the holiday sale we were working toward – but it was too much for my poor ego. After an excruciating hour, I pushed out my chair, got up, and walked away.
Even as it occurred, my behavior felt entirely counter to the values of the Work. My only hope was in confessing how vanity had triumphed over the openness – or at the very least, the stoic acceptance – that I felt certain was required.
Lord Pentland listened carefully to my story. Then he said, “Good observation. Keep it up.”
His words stunned me. That was it? I’d done something so antithetical to everything Gurdjieff had taught. It couldn’t be brushed aside! Without penance and absolution, the sin would remain.
Then his message penetrated. What matters, he was telling me, is the act of observation, not the thing observed.
And further, if vanity and running away weren’t ‘sins,’ then endurance wasn’t a ‘virtue” – not in itself, not without seeing.
My behavior at the Firehouse was simply that: behavior. Observed, it might nourish me. Unobserved, it was of no interest.
(Barbara Probst; Line of Sight: Work with Lord Pentland; p 40)
TASK SUGGESTION:
I begin with a wish to see myself...my thoughts, my feelings, my body. I try whenever I find myself talking to someone I don't know.
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Posted April 20, 2022
Those who heard lectures must have already heard of, thought about and tried the so-called “self-remembering.” Those who have tried have probably found that, in spite of great efforts and desire, this self-remembering, so understandable to the mind, intellectually so easily possible and admissible, is, in actual practice, impossible. And indeed it is impossible.
When we say “remember yourself,” we mean yourself. But we ourselves, my “I,” are - my feelings, my body, my sensations. I myself am not my mind, not my thought. Our mind is not us - it is merely a small part of us.
...I wish to remember myself as long as possible. But I have proved to myself that I very quickly forget the task I set myself, because my mind has very few associations connected with it.
I have noticed that other associations engulf the associations connected with self-remembering. Our associations take place in our formatory apparatus owing to shocks which the formatory apparatus receives from the centers. Each shock has associations of its own particular character; their strength depends on the material which produces them. If the thinking center produces associations of self-remembering, incoming associations of another character, which come from other parts and have nothing to do with self-remembering, absorb these desirable associations, since they come from many different places and so are more numerous.
(G.I. Gurdjieff; Views From the Real World; excerpts from pp 232-235)
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Posted April 17, 2022
FOUR PASSAGES ON AIM:
"...What is too often missing is knowing what I want. Without knowing what I want, I will not make any effort. I will sleep.
I must always, again and again, come back to this question. What do I wish? It must become the most important question of my life…
[But] it must be free from the desire for a result. I wish to be, to live in a certain way."
(Jeanne de Salzmann; The Reality of Being; p 19)
The teaching by itself cannot pursue any definite aim. It can only show the best way for men to attain whatever aims they may have.
(G.I. Gurdjieff; In Search of the Miraculous; p 99)
One of the great illusions…is that the pursuit of happiness as an aim in itself is good; if we have a real aim, then we may attain happiness as a by-product.
(A. R. Orage, Teachings of Gurdjieff: C.S. Nott; p. 145)
Bear in mind that your sight has the property of presenting distant objects as though they were near. Do not forget to concentrate all your attention on the nearest sector of the way—do not concern yourself about far aims if you do not wish to fall over the precipice.
(G.I. Gurdjieff; Views From the Real World; p 57)
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Posted April 11, 2022
The Rope had a table in the Café Flore, our assembly point where we often met, an hour or so before the trek to Gurdjieff’s apartment, to discuss the exercises performed in the privacy of our rooms, what we thought we had observed going on within ourselves as we had striven to achieve even the first step of them – to “make all quiet inside” – and to rehearse the reports to be made to the master, which at first were mainly confessions of chaos within. Associations were the thieves, vandals and wreckers of our efforts toward total concentration. Gurdjieff had told us not to try to shut them off.
“You can never stop association,” he had said. “As long as you breathe, there are associations. These are automatic. Therefore, in this task, you must not try to stop them; let associations flow but not be active. With the other part of your mind you work at this new task, and this is active. Pretty soon you find you have the beginnings of a new kind of brain – a new one for this kind of mentation. And then, that other one becomes entirely passive. Very important that you know the body as a whole, for this work, very important.
(Kathryn Hulme; Undiscovered Country: In Search of Gurdjieff; p 93)
TASK SUGGESTION:
When engaged in a short, non-vigorous activity like taking a shower, preparing coffee, sweeping the floor, etc., I move inward to find the tempo of my breathing and then do the activity at a much faster tempo.
Try this several times during the day.
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Posted April 4, 2022
TASK SUGGESTION:
When I begin my sitting, I begin with the suggested words by Gurdjieff: “good-wishing-for-all.”
Gurdjieff had given us a pledge to say each time before beginning the new exercise--that we would not use this for the self, but for all humanity. This "good-wishing-for-all" vow, so deeply moving in intent, had a tremendous effect upon me. For the first time in my life, I felt that I was truly doing something for humanity as I strove to make my own molecule of it more perfect. The meaning of this Work, which at first had seemed quite egotistical and self-centered, suddenly blossomed out like a tree of life encompassing in its myriad branches the entire human family. The implications of it were staggering. By my single efforts towards Being, I could help sleeping humanity one hairsbreadth nearer to God. I believed this. Every time I said the pledge before beginning my exercise I believed that if I made something for my own inner world, I would be making it for "all humanity." It was my first experiencing of the Mystical Body of Christ of which I knew nothing then but would encounter many years later like a familiar concept though always shrouded in its immense mystery.
(Kathryn Hulme; Undiscovered Country; p 112)
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Posted March 27, 2022
The moment I die to myself, the moment I throw myself away, joy – even ecstasy – bursts through me. At this moment, I can say yes to everything I affirm as my existence. All the world is fine just as it is. Ecstasy is an experience that is beyond verbal and intellectual comprehension, a glimpse of another existence and completely different from ordinary attitudes and viewpoints. The onset of the ecstatic moment does not depend on, nor does it come from, outside oneself. It is a call from the ‘purity in oneself,’ in St. Gregory’s words; it is present everywhere and fills all vacuity. It is the same force which animates one’s instinctive drives, one’s associative thoughts. But it is a force which now takes another form.
How can one experience ecstasy without transcending oneself, without freeing oneself from the incessant domination of one’s instinctive life? To go out of oneself, to be in touch with one’s essential reality, is to hold in abeyance those forces which dominate one’s existence.
Sometimes a sudden shock will bring a cessation of the associative processes, will intervene to free one from imprisonment by oneself. But too often man is unable to disengage himself from himself. He is unable to move outside of the two-dimensional bondage of this twenty-four hour conditioning by society into a free world of joy and ecstasy. From the moment of his birth, an ersatz culture has chipped away at whatever spiritual dimension he may have possessed.
(William Segal, “Beyond Words;” Parabola, Summer, 1988)
TASK SUGGESTION:
When I’m at the beginning, midway and end of a daily task, I explore what it is to disengage myself from myself.”
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Posted March 20, 2022
Question: What is a higher state of being?
Gurdjieff: There are several states of consciousness:
1) sleep, in which our machine still functions but at very low pressure.
2) waking state, as we are at this moment. These two are all that the average man knows.
3) what is called self-consciousness. It is the moment when a man is aware both of himself and of his machine. We have it in flashes, but only in flashes. There are moments when you become aware not only of what you are doing but also of yourself doing it. You see both ‘I’ and the 'here' of 'I am here' - both the anger and the 'I' that is angry. Call this self-remembering, if you like.
Now when you are fully and always aware of the ‘I’ and what it is doing and which 'I' it is—you become conscious of yourself. Self-consciousness is the third state.
(G.I. Gurdjieff; Views From the Real World; London 1922)
Just as there are many gradations, with no sharp line, between being sound asleep and being, as we think, wide awake, so there is no sharp line between our ordinary waking condition and the next higher state, self-consciousness, in which for the first time we see ourselves as we are. Nor between this state and objective consciousness, in which for the first time we see the world as it is. If there is to be any further evolution for mankind, it can only be an evolution of consciousness. The phrase sounds perhaps, pompous, but it has a quite specific meaning, that is, the extension of our experience from the ordinary waking state into the state of self-consciousness and, eventually, into that of objective consciousness.
These higher states are not just words. Most of us, in fact, under the shock of deep grief, or faced with death, or aware for a split second of the presence of life in nature – a starry sky seen from a mountain top or a crocus pushing up through the snow – have known a quite different sense of self, free momentarily from all egoistic torment. And it is precisely this difference in the sense of self that distinguishes the state of self-consciousness from our ordinary waking state. Ordinarily, I’m concerned with the functioning of my organism. If I am hot or angry or am thinking about something, I cannot separate the “I” from the heat or the anger or the thought. In the state of self-consciousness, though the anger or the thought is still there, my awareness, now at a higher level in the spectrum of consciousness, sees it simply as one fact among others taking place in the organism. I am no longer lost in the anger or the thought. It is this inner freedom alone that makes a different outer life possible.
(Lawrence Morris; Is There a Way in Life?)
TASK SUGGESTION:
When I find myself washing my hands I slow down and allow for a moment of simply witnessing what is taking place in myself.
Is there a particular taste to these moments?
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Posted March 13, 2022
TASK SUGGESTION:
What is my experience right now? Repeat throughout the day.
“It is my belief that every one of us is a vessel that contains a very great energy which goes unattended. Right now as we sit here, there is something in us that is waiting to be called. And if we attend to it, if we acknowledge it, we will then be in touch with a force that can illuminate. It can transform and shape each one of us and can help to change the world. When one is still and one listens, then one begins to be in touch with this mysterious element which is within each one of us.”
— William Segal, A Voice at the Borders of Silence
“I serve as a channel for a flow of energy. I serve so that energy can be transmitted to other forms of beings, to other places, to other levels unknown to me.”
— G.I. Gurdjieff, Views from the Real World
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Posted March 6, 2022
Real “I” comes from essence. Its development depends on the wish of Essence — a wish to be and then a wish to become able to be. Essence is formed from impressions that are assimilated in early childhood, usually up to the age of five or six when a fissure appears between essence and personality. In order to develop further, essence must become active in spite of resistance from the pressure of personality. We need to “remember ourselves” for our essence to receive impressions. Only in a conscious state can we see the difference between essence and personality.
Ordinarily impressions are received in a mechanical way. They are received by our personality, which reacts with automatic thoughts and feelings that depend on its conditioning. We do not assimilate impressions because personality itself cannot be alive— it is dead. In order to be assimilated and transformed, impressions have to be received by essence. This requires a conscious effort at the moment of the impression. And it requires a definite feeling, a feeling of love for being, for being present. We must respond to impressions no longer from the vantage point of personality but from love for being present. This will transform our whole way of thinking and feeling.
The first necessity is to have an impression of myself. This begins with a shock when the question “Who am I?” arises. For an instant there is a stop, an interval that allows my energy, my attention, to change direction. It turns back toward me, and the question now touches me. This energy brings a vibration, a note that did not sound until now. It is subtle, very fine, but nevertheless communicates. I feel it. It is an impression I receive, an impression of a life in me. All my possibilities are here. What follows— whether I will open to the experience of Presence — depends on the way I receive this impression.
We do not understand the moment of receiving an impression and why it is so important. We need to be present because it is the shock of the impression that drives us. If there is nobody here at the moment an impression is received, I react automatically, blindly, passively, and I am lost in the reaction. I refuse the impression of myself as I am. In thinking, in reacting, in interposing my ordinary “I” in the reception of this impression, I close myself. I am imagining what “I” am. I do not know the reality. I am the prisoner of this imagination, the lie of my false “I.”
(Jeanne de Salzmann; The Reality of Being; p 13)
TASK SUGGESTION:
When I notice I'm aware of a moment of impression, I pause and ask, "who am I now."
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Posted February 21, 2022
Sometimes it takes many years before you suddenly understand that a word you have used for a very long time doesn’t mean exactly what you thought it meant. It is different.
For example, the notion of effort. This word at first means something you strive for. But you understand at a certain point that the kind of effort you need to comprehend is different; that what is meant by effort is letting go. It is an effort because I have to struggle against what is ingrained in me about the idea of effort. I want to get something, to do something. Finally, after years of trying, I begin to understand that the nature of effort is to allow something to appear. This new meaning of effort has to do with relaxation. And it is really an effort to understand relaxation when all my training was to strive, to battle against, to chastise some aspect of myself.
…I have been taught how to do, not how to let go. It is something you learn in the end not through words but when you try. You meditate, for example, and at the beginning I try to force: “I’m here, I’m here.” I’m here in my mind, my head, but I’m not here. And one day suddenly a different sensation comes, in my arm, in another part. I discover something new.
Q: It has been said that effort is really joining with something that is already offered, and this statement brings the wish to let go…
PR: That too needs to be questioned. To let go is not to collapse, to passively let go. I let go of a way of mind and body directing things but there is something that remains that is in relation with another energy. Otherwise, there is nothing if you just let go.
(Paul Reynard; “Another Axis Within;” The Inner Journey; excerpts from pp 104-108)
TASK SUGGESTION:
When stepping outside from my house/car/building, I turn inward to an awareness of my posture as I walk.
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Posted February 13, 2022
Task suggestion:
Today I attempt to be present in this very moment - and in the next moment and in the next moment again.
What do I observe?
What is the world? What is this world in which we live? It’s an inquiry, a perennial question. One is tempted to say, it is the question God asks Himself; it is His way of thinking.
This world…I am in it and I am asleep! But I bear within me the possibility of awakening to the question itself. I am born of this question and I am part of it. To the extent that I open myself to this question, I come closer to primordial Thought – call it divine if you wish. But if I abandon the fruits of this labor to intellect, I move away from a possibility, and I become once again a series of phenomena, a succession of events. There is a possibility of return in finally realizing I am part of this great question.
We must learn not to keep falling back into our ordinary way – which is our downfall – our way of receiving the question with the intellect. There is a great risk in that. Is your intellect that important? Do you want to give it that much room? There is hope as long as the question continues to be, and always remains a question. But take care that it does not become debased. That is the only possibility – to make sure that the question does not become debased. In moments of vigilance, there is no debasement. As soon as I stop being vigilant, the law of mechanicality takes over, and one thing follows another in a downward succession.
You don’t realize that every time you are able to be open to the question within you, it is as if you were learning to unite with that which is the Cause of all causes. There is no other possibility.
(Michel Conge; Inner Octaves; p 134)
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Posted February 6, 2022
TASK SUGGESTION
At the beginning of each waking hour I return to the body and experience the impression.
READING
In quiet, tension-free moments, man’s structure is open to energy flows which are ordinarily blocked. In turn, these energies blend with previously received materials, to serve the higher in a wordless, nameless exchange.
Attention is not only mediating; it is transmitting. Giving and receiving, God speaks to man. Receiving and giving, man speaks to God. Just as a man’s structure needs to be vivified by the infusion of finer vibrations, those very same vibrations require the mixing of coarse material for their maintenance. Without the upward transmission of energies through the intermediary of conscious attention, the universe would give in to entropy.
In man, the smallest deformation of a balanced attention closes down this two-way communication. Alone, the mind cannot maintain it. A relaxed body, too, is needed.
Mid-way between the micro and macrososmos, man has his part to play. Returning to the body is a gesture of opening to the attention which, beckoned, is ready to serve its cosmological function.
(William Segal; excerpted from Opening, p 52 and “The Force of Attention” Parabola Summer 1990)
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Posted January 30, 2022
Task Suggestion:
I set aside roughly five to ten minutes when eating to observe myself inwardly as I eat, breath, think, feel...
What is this experience of receiving an impression of myself?
“In order to wish to be present, I must see that I am asleep. "I” am not here. I am enclosed in a circle of petty interests and avidity in which my "I” is lost. And it will remain lost unless I can relate to something higher. The first condition is to know in myself a different quality, higher than what I ordinarily am. Then my life will take on new meaning. Without this condition there can be no work. I must remember there is another life and at the same time experience the life that I am leading. This is awakening. I awake to these two realities.”
(Jeanne de Salzmann; The Reality of Being; p 14)
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Posted January 29, 2022
Saturday Workday:
…For the most part the body—as a living being—rarely comes into the field of our consciousness.
We are for the most part simply oblivious of its presence as an existential reality—as a living entity having its own intelligence and sphere of awareness. Except of course when it is hungry, in need of rest or sex, or when it is sending out signals of euphoric pleasure or intense pain.
It cannot be disputed that a remarkable upsurge of enthusiasm has appeared for books and training seminars that offer a wide variety of sensory awareness techniques [that address] the dilemma of the modern era—the mind/body split—[but] we see once again that it turns into the same old song. It is still the mind at work.
For it is the mind that conceptualizes the problem in the first place. And it is the mind that then proceeds to orchestrate one or another program to alleviate this problem.
Once again then, we find that even with such subtle techniques as “listening to the body,” or “following the breath,” or coming to a more “global sensation” of the body, that the implementation of these techniques is undertaken by permission of the mind. And oddly enough, this continues to escape our notice. It is the mind that still holds the baton.
Very rarely do we come upon a truly reciprocal relation, in which there is a sharing of awareness between body and mind—as co-partners. Yet it is precisely this state of rapport with our earthly companion that provides an indispensable foundation for the real work of self-study and self-awakening. And as we become more practiced in this way of relating to the body, something interesting occurs. We find that the living presence of this being begins to make itself known to us through its emanations—which we experience as sensation or sensory awareness—and that this enables us to partake of the body’s own field of awareness. Not as object to the mind, but as subject within its own sphere of influence and awareness.
We realize then that we are no longer associated with a “body.” Rather, that we are in the presence of a living being, a being with whom we share the journey towards spiritual awakening.
What is extraordinary about this way of approaching the body is that the experience of it seems so natural. It is also pragmatic in that it has the effect of freeing the attention from its usual deep identification with the tensions (and thus from the physical, mental and emotional habits that are supported by these tensions).
We discover then that this dynamic state of rapport with our living partner grounds us; it grounds our work. Instead of dreaming of the work of spiritual transformation, we live the work. And because we are thus grounded, we become thereby more receptive to the help from above that is always available to transform us—whenever the inner conditions allow this lawfully to take place.
(Don Hoyt, a student of Lord Pentland beginning 1955, date of reading unknown)
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Posted January 27, 2022
What is our understanding of Aphorism 33:
One of the best means for arousing the wish to work on yourself is to realize that you may die at any moment. But first you must learn how to keep it in mind.
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Posted December 19, 2021
“In order to know and observe ourselves and to study our body and later to support our work, we need to have this sensation. This calls for a new relationship to come into existence in me: I - conscious of - my sensation.” (Jean Vaysse)
SUGGESTION OF A PRACTICE DURING THE HOLIDAY:
Each evening, when in bed and ready to go to sleep, I take a few minutes to explore my body for sensation.
Again in the morning I renew this exploration before getting out of bed…
…on each occasion pondering Mme de Salzmann’s description of sensing as an “inner touch,” a wordless receiving of impressions of my body.
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Posted December 13, 2021
It is through the body that all the exchanges of life take place and through which we receive all the energies we need…It may be wise to begin our work with it… If we wish to study our body, or at least to begin with, its moving function, its movement, we must first of all be related to it. What relates us to the body is the sensation we have of it - the inner perception of my physical being, the physical sensation of myself… It is the most concrete and easily controlled part.
We always have some sensation of our body; otherwise our postures could not be maintained, our movements would be made haphazardly, or not at all. But we are not conscious of this sensation, we are unaware of it, except in extreme situations when an unusual effort is required or when something suddenly goes badly or goes wrong. The rest of the time we forget about it. In order to know and observe ourselves and to study our body and later to support our work, we need to have this sensation. This calls for a new relationship to come into existence in me:
I - conscious of - my sensation….
What we need immediately is a stable sensation; that is, we need to develop a more steady and longer lasting consciousness of our body and its situation. The first idea which then comes to mind, of course, is to try to follow this awareness of our body in the midst of the movements and activities of our life. We can try; but we soon see, on the one hand, that the sensation never remains the same so that it is extremely difficult to stay in touch with it and, on the other hand, that our activities distract us and cause us to lose all possibility of following our situation…
As regards the sensation of ourselves, before being able to follow how it changes as we move about and live, we need to know it in a basic condition where we can immediately return to it, always the same, whenever it is needed for our inner work. Just as a zero or a norm is needed in all measurement, in the same way we need a point of reference in evaluating ourselves, a yardstick, the measure of a situation that is always the same. And for the sensation of oneself, we can find this base only in complete relaxation.
In fact, if we wish to experience sensation of ourselves and to develop the possibility of remaining aware of it, we must work in much less difficult conditions. We must put ourselves in specially favorable circumstances which correspond to what is possible for us…
We must therefore put ourselves in conditions where complete relaxation is possible. Having realized this is necessary, we must promise ourselves to try it every day, so far as this is honestly possible, at least once, if not twice, and perhaps even, more.
(Jean Vaysse; Toward Awakening; p 161 paperback editions)
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Posted December 12, 2021
Task for week: When I notice I’m feeling a certain way about a person or a situation, I try to take in these impressions of how I am in this moment.
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Posted December 6, 2021
"The human organism receives three kinds of food:
1. The ordinary food we eat
2. The air we breathe
3. Our impressions
"It is not difficult to agree that air is a kind of food for the organism. But in what way impressions can be food may appear at first difficult to understand. We must however remember that, with every external impression, whether it takes the form of sound, or vision, or smell, we receive from outside a certain amount of energy, a certain number of vibrations, this energy which enters the organism from outside is food. Moreover, as has been said before, energy cannot be transmitted without matter. If an external impression brings external energy with it into the organism it means that external matter also enters which feeds the organism in the full meaning of the term.
"For its normal existence the organism must receive all three kinds of food, that is, physical food, air, and impressions. The organism cannot exist on one or even on two kinds of food, all three are required. But the relation of these foods to one another and their significance for the organism is not the same. The organism can exist for a comparatively long time without a supply of fresh physical food. Cases of starvation are known lasting for over sixty days, when the organism lost none of its vitality and recovered very quickly as soon as it began to take food. Of course starvation of this kind cannot be considered as complete, since in all cases of such artificial starvation people have taken water. Nevertheless, even without water a man can live without food for several days. Without air he can exist only for a few minutes, not more than two or three, as a rule a man dies after being four minutes without air. Without impressions a man cannot live a single moment. If the flow of impressions were to be stopped in some way or if the organism were deprived of its capacity for receiving impressions, it would immediately die. The flow of impressions coming to us from outside is like a driving belt communicating motion to us. The principal motor for us is nature, the surrounding world. Nature transmits to us through our impressions the energy by which we live and move and have our being. If the inflow of this energy is arrested, our machine will immediately stop working Thus, of the three kinds of food the most important for us is impressions, although it stands to reason that a man cannot exist for long on impressions alone. Impressions and air enable a man to exist a little longer. Impressions, air, and physical food enable the organism to live to the end of its normal term of life and to produce the substances necessary not only for the maintenance of life, but also for the creation and growth of higher bodies.”
(G.I. Gurdjieff; In Search of the Miraculous; p 181)
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Posted December 5, 2021
Task for the week: How do I listen?
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Posted November 29, 2021
"I have already said before that sacrifice is necessary," said G. "Without sacrifice nothing can be attained. But if there is anything in the world that people do not understand it is the idea of sacrifice. They think they have to sacrifice something that they have. For example, I once said that they must sacrifice 'faith,' 'tranquility,' 'health.' They understand this literally. But then the point is that they have not got either faith, or tranquility, or health. All these words must be taken in quotation marks. In actual fact they have to sacrifice only what they imagine they have and which in reality they do not have. They must sacrifice their fantasies. But this is difficult for them, very difficult. It is much easier to sacrifice real things.
"Another thing that people must sacrifice is their suffering. It is very difficult also to sacrifice one's suffering. A man will renounce any pleasures you like but he will not give up his suffering. Man is made in such a way that he is never so much attached to anything as he is to his suffering. And it is necessary to be free from suffering. No one who is not free from suffering, who has not sacrificed his suffering, can work. Later on a great deal must be said about suffering. Nothing can be attained without suffering but at the same time one must begin by sacrificing suffering. Now, decipher what this means."
(G.I. Gurdjieff; In Search of the Miraculous; p 274)
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Posted November 22, 2021
Task:
Can I be open to the active and passive forces flowing through me? As I am, in my ordinary state, it is a great mystery. However, my ordinary state is a place to begin. What is it that I sense as passive? As active?
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Posted November 15, 2021
"A very important moment in the work on oneself is when a man begins to distinguish between his personality and his essence. A man's real I, his individuality, can grow only from his essence. It can be said that a man's individuality is his essence, grown up, mature. But in order to enable essence to grow up, it is first of all necessary to weaken the constant pressure of personality upon it, because the obstacles to the growth of essence are contained in personality.
'If we take an average cultured man, we shall see that in the vast majority of cases his personality is the active element in him while his essence is the passive element. The inner growth of a man cannot begin so long as this order of things remains unchanged. Personality must become passive and essence must become active. This can happen only if 'buffers' are removed or weakened, because 'buffers' are the chief weapon by the help of which personality holds essence in subjection.
"As has been said earlier, in the case of less cultured people essence is often more highly developed than it is in cultured man. It would seem that they ought to be nearer the possibility of growth, but in reality it is not so because their personality proves to be insufficiently developed. For inner growth, for work on oneself, a certain development of personality as well as a certain strength of essence are necessary. Personality consists of 'rolls,' and of 'buffers' resulting from a certain work of the centers. An insufficiently developed personality means a lack of 'rolls,' that is, a lack of knowledge, a lack of information, a lack of the material upon which work on oneself must be based. Without some store of knowledge, without a certain amount of material 'not his own,' a man cannot begin to work on himself, he cannot begin to study himself, he cannot begin to struggle with his mechanical habits, simply because there will be no reason or motive for undertaking such work.
(G.I. Gurdjieff; In Search of the Miraculous; p 163)
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Posted November 15, 2021
MANY I’s
Very often, almost at every talk, G. returned to the absence of unity in man…
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Posted November 8, 2021
I return again and again to receiving impressions of my facial expression, my posture, my breathing.
Suggestion: begin early in the day during simple morning activities like taking a shower, getting dressed, making coffee...
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Posted November 1, 2021
"We want to 'do,' but in everything we do we are tied and limited by the amount of energy produced by our organism. Every function, every state, every action, every thought, every emotion, requires a certain definite energy, a certain definite substance.
"We come to the conclusion that we must 'remember ourselves.' But we can 'remember ourselves' only if we have in us the energy for 'self-remembering.' We can study something, understand or feel something, only if we have the energy for understanding, feeling, or studying.
"What then is a man to do when he begins to realize that he has not enough energy to attain the aims he has set before himself?
"The answer to this is that every normal man has quite enough energy to begin work on himself. It is only necessary to learn how to save the greater part of the energy we possess for useful work instead of wasting it unproductively.
"Energy is spent chiefly on unnecessary and unpleasant emotions, on the expectation of unpleasant things, possible and impossible, on bad moods, on unnecessary haste, nervousness, irritability, imagination, daydreaming, and so on. Energy is wasted on the wrong work of centers; on unnecessary tension of the muscles out of all proportion to the work produced; on perpetual chatter which absorbs an enormous amount of energy; on the 'interest' continually taken in things happening around us or to other people and having in fact no interest whatever; on the constant waste of the force of 'attention'; and so on, and so on.
"In beginning to struggle with all these habitual sides of his life a man saves an enormous amount of energy, and with the help of this energy he can easily begin the work of self-study and self-perfection.”
(G.I. Gurdjieff; In Search of the Miraculous; p. 178)
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Posted October 30, 2021
Task:
In moments when I notice that I'm in imagination or daydreaming I try to include an awareness of the muscles of my face and head.
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Posted October 25, 2021
“‘Imagination’ is one of the principal sources of the wrong work of centers. Each center has its own form of imagination and daydreaming, but as a rule both the moving and the emotional centers make use of the thinking center which very readily places itself at their disposal for this purpose, because daydreaming corresponds to its own inclinations. Daydreaming is absolutely the opposite of “useful” mental activity. “Useful” in this case means activity directed towards a definite aim and undertaken for the sake of obtaining a definite result. Daydreaming does not pursue any aim, does not strive after any result. The motive for daydreaming always lies in the emotional or in the moving center. The actual process is carried on by the thinking center. The inclination to daydream is due partly to the laziness of the thinking center, that is, its attempts to avoid the efforts connected with work directed towards a definite aim and going in a definite direction, and partly to the tendency of the emotional and the moving centers to repeat to themselves, to keep alive or to recreate experiences, both pleasant and unpleasant, that have been previously lived through or ‘imagined’…”
Observation of the activity of imagination and daydreaming forms a very important part of self-study.
(G.I. Gurdjieff; In Search of the Miraculous; page 111)
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Posted October 22, 2021
Task:
During the week, I will intentionally plan to carry out a helping deed for someone else. What are my observations?
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Posted October 18, 2021
Internal & External Considering "After general forms of identification attention must be given to a particular form of identifying, namely identifying with people, which takes the form of 'considering' them....
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Posted October 17, 2021
Task:
Can I do a simple task using only the energy necessary for that task?
For example, can I hold my phone without clinging to it? Can I do my work without leaning into it?
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Posted October 10, 2021
"'Identification' is so common a quality that for purposes of observation it is difficult to separate it from everything else. Man is always in a state of identification, only the object of identification changes.
"A man identifies with a small problem which confronts him and he completely forgets the great aims with which he began his work. He identifies with one thought and forgets other thoughts; he is identified with one feeling, with one mood, and forgets his own wider thoughts, emotions, and moods. In work on themselves people are so much identified with separate aims that they fail to see the wood for the trees. Two or three trees nearest to them represent for them the whole wood.
"'Identifying' is one of our most terrible foes because it penetrates everywhere and deceives a man at the moment when it seems to him that he is struggling with it. It is especially difficult to free oneself from identifying because a man naturally becomes more easily identified with the things that interest him most, to which he gives his time, his work, and his attention. In order to free himself from identifying a man must be constantly on guard and be merciless with himself, that is, he must not be afraid of seeing all the subtle and hidden forms which identifying takes.
"It is necessary to see and to study identifying to its very roots in oneself. The difficulty of struggling with identifying is still further increased by the fact that when people observe it in themselves they consider it a very good trait and call it 'enthusiasm,' 'zeal,' 'passion,' 'spontaneity,' 'inspiration,' and names of that kind, and they consider that only in a state of identifying can a man really produce good work, no matter in what sphere. In reality of course this is illusion. Man cannot do anything sensible when he is in a state of identifying. If people could see what the state of identifying means they would alter their opinion. A man becomes a thing, a piece of flesh; he loses even the small semblance of a human being that he has. In the East where people smoke hashish and other drugs it often happens that a man becomes so identified with his pipe that he begins to consider he is a pipe himself. This is not a joke but a fact. He actually becomes a pipe. This is identifying. And for this, hashish or opium are entirely unnecessary. Look at people in shops, in theaters, in restaurants; or see how they identify with words when they argue about something or try to prove something, particularly something they do not know themselves. They become greediness, desires, or words; of themselves nothing remains.
"Identifying is the chief obstacle to self-remembering. A man who identifies with anything is unable to remember himself. In order to remember oneself it is necessary first of all not to identify. But in order to learn not to identify man must first of all not be identified with himself, must not call himself 'I' always and on all occasions. He must remember that there are two in him, that there is himself, that is 'I' in him, and there is another with whom he must struggle and whom he must conquer if he wishes at any time to attain anything. So long as a man identifies or can be identified, he is the slave of everything that can happen to him. Freedom is first of all freedom from identification.
(G.I. Gurdjieff; In Search of the Miraculous; p 150-1)
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Posted October 8, 2021
Task: In moments when I find myself waiting, I take in impressions of my posture...how am I sitting? standing?
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Posted October 4 , 2021
"Man's possibilities are very great. You cannot conceive even a shadow of what man is capable of attaining. But nothing can be attained in sleep. In the consciousness of a sleeping man, his illusions, his 'dreams' are mixed with reality. He lives in a subjective world and he can never escape from it. And this is the reason why he can never make use of all the powers he possesses and why he always lives in only a small part of himself.
"It has been said before that self-study and self-observation, if rightly conducted, bring man to the realization of the fact that something is wrong with his machine and with his functions in their ordinary state. A man realizes that it is precisely because he is asleep that he lives and works in a small part of himself. It is precisely for this reason that the vast majority of his possibilities remain unrealized, the vast majority of his powers are left unused. A man feels that he does not get out of life all that it can give him, that he fails to do so owing to definite functional defects in his machine, in his receiving apparatus. The idea of self-study acquires in his eyes a new meaning. He feels that possibly it may not even be worth while studying himself as he is now. He sees every function as it is now and as it could be or ought to be. Self-observation brings man to the realization of the necessity for self-change. And in observing himself a man notices that self-observation itself brings about certain changes in his inner processes. He begins to understand that self-observation is an instrument of self-change, a means of awakening. By observing himself he throws, as it were, a ray of light onto his inner processes which have hitherto worked in complete darkness. And under the influence of this light the processes themselves begin to change. There are a great many chemical processes that can take place only in the absence of light. Exactly in the same way many psychic processes can take place only in the dark. Even a feeble light of consciousness is enough to change completely the character of a process, while it makes many of them altogether impossible. Our inner psychic processes (our inner alchemy) have much in common with those chemical processes in which light changes the character of the process and they are subject to analogous laws."
"When a man comes to realize the necessity not only for self-study and self-observation but also for work on himself with the object of changing himself, the character of his self-observation must change. He has so far studied the details of the work of the centers, trying only to register this or that phenomenon, to be an impartial witness. He has studied the work of the machine. Now he must begin to see himself, that is to say, to see, not separate details, not the work of small wheels and levers, but to see everything taken together as a whole—the whole of himself such as others see him.”
(G.I. Gurdjieff; In Search of the Miraculous; p 145-6)
Task Suggestion:
When I catch myself hurrying, I come back to my body and relax.
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Posted September 23, 2021
Task Suggestion:
Throughout the day to ask myself the question:
How am I breathing now?
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Posted September 22, 2021
The next lecture began precisely with the words: “Know Thyself.”
“These words,” said G., “which are generally ascribed to Socrates, actually lie at the basis of many systems and schools far more ancient that the Socratic. But although modern thought is aware of the existence of this principle it has only a very vague idea of its meaning and significance. The ordinary man of our times, even a man with philosophic or scientific interests, does not realize that the principle “know thyself” speaks of the necessity of knowing one’s machine, the “human machine.” Machines are made more or less the same way in all men: therefore, before anything else man must study the structure, the functions, and the laws of his organism. In the human machine everything is so interconnected; one thing is so dependent upon another, that it is quite impossible to study any one function without studying all the others. In order to know one thing, one must know everything. To know everything in man is possible, but it requires much time and labor and above all, the application of the right method and, what is equally necessary, right guidance.
“The principle “know thyself” embraces a very rich content. It demands, in the first place, that a man who wants to know himself should understand what this means, with what it is connected, what it necessarily depends upon.
“Knowledge of oneself is a very big, but a very vague and distant, aim. Man in his present state is very far from self-knowledge. Therefore, strictly speaking, his aim cannot even be defined as self-knowledge. Self-study must be his big aim. It is quite enough if a man understand that he must study himself. It must be man’s aim to begin to study himself, to know himself, in the right way.
“Self-study is the work or the way which leads to self-knowledge.
“But in order to study oneself one must first learn how to study, where to begin, what methods to use. A man must learn how to study himself, and he must study the methods of self-study.
“The chief method of self-study is self-observation. Without properly applied self-observation a man will never understand the connection and the correlation between the various functions of his machine, will never understand how and why on each separate occasion everything in him “happens.”
“But to learn the methods of self-observation and of right self-study requires a certain understanding of the functions and the characteristics of the human machine. Thus in observing the functions of the human machine it is necessary to understand the correct division of the functions observed and to be able to define them exactly and at once; and the definition must not be a verbal but an inner definition; by taste, by sensation, in the same way as we define inner experiences.
(G.I. Gurdjieff; In Search of the Miraculous; pp 104-105)
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Posted August 25, 2021
“…you can know consciousness only in yourself. Observe that I say you can know, for you can know it only when you have it. And when you have not got it, you can know that you have not got it, not at that very moment, but afterwards. I mean that when it comes again you can see that it has been absent a long time, and you can find or remember the moment when it disappeared and when it reappeared. You can also define the moments when you are nearer to consciousness and further away from consciousness. But by observing in yourself the appearance and the disappearance of consciousness you will inevitably see one fact which you neither see nor acknowledge now, and that is that moments of consciousness are very short and are separated by long intervals of completely unconscious, mechanical working of the machine. You will then see that you can think, feel, act, speak, work, without being conscious of it. And if you learn to see in yourselves the moments of consciousness and the long periods of mechanicalness, you will as infallibly see in other people when they are conscious of what they are doing and when they are not.
"Your principal mistake consists in thinking that you always have consciousness, and in general, either that consciousness is always present or that it is never present. In reality consciousness is a property which is continually changing. Now it is present, now it is not present. And there are different degrees and different levels of consciousness. Both consciousness and the different degrees of consciousness must be understood in oneself by sensation, by taste. No definitions can help you in this case and no definitions are possible so long as you do not understand what you have to define. And science and philosophy cannot define consciousness because they want to define it where it does not exist. It is necessary to distinguish consciousness from the possibility of consciousness. We have only the possibility of consciousness and rare flashes of it. Therefore, we cannot define what consciousness is."
(G.I. Gurdjieff; In Search of the Miraculous; p. 116)
Task Suggestion:
In the morning, while sitting comfortably in a position I associate with ‘working,’ with eyes open and for the duration of drinking a cup of coffee, tea, cold drink…
I come back repeatedly to an awareness of the breathing, noticing the sensation and taste of returning again and again.
Throughout the day, when I remember, I return to this awareness of the breathing.
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Posted August 18, 2021
I asked G. ('Man Cannot do' reading) from In Search of the Miraculous; pp 20-22)
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Posted January 14, 2021
First Initiation
"You will see that in this life..."
SUGGESTION: Print out the reading if you can; read it each day under quiet conditions.
QUESTIONS: What parts of me are touched by this reading? My feeling, my thinking, my body...
What questions begin to arise?
ALL AND EVERYTHING by G.I. Gurdjieff
Ten Books in Three Series
FIRST SERIES: Three books under the title of “An Objectively Impartial Criticism of the Life of Man,” or, “Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson.”
FIRST SERIES: To destroy mercilessly, without any compromises whatsoever, in the mentation and feelings of the reader, the beliefs and views, by centuries rooted in him, about everything existing in the world.
"The moment of receiving an impression
is the moment of becoming conscious.
It is the act of seeing." (Jeanne de Salzmann)
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"If I work more often I'll see more clearly
what my work should be." (Sylvia March)
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Nothing can change of itself." (G.I. Gurdjieff)
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“The cultivation of a capacity for attention is probably the most important thing a human being can do, because with developed attention one can come closer to knowing who one is, to knowing the truth about the fantasy of life around us. With attention, a world uncovers itself.” (William Segal)
During the week, I will intentionally plan to carry out a helping deed for someone else. What are my observations?