(The price of self-occupation and the need to see)
How does one pay for her generous gifts of time, attention and energy? I asked how to hear and to see. I said I do not see others or even myself as really human and alive. I seem to be isolated from everyone and blind to everything. The reason for this seemed to me to be self-occupation, which strikes me as almost the essence of being satanic.
“Movements will help you. In the Movements, the important thing is not the positions, but the impulse, the energy, from one posture to another. And nobody can teach that; you have to watch it within yourself.”
She said, “I cannot do it, but I have to try. If a connection is not made, stay in front of the lack of connection. It is necessary to know this lack. I cannot do it, but it can be done in me; and I have a part to play. “The Earth is in exchange with higher levels of existence. For this an apparatus is needed. Mankind is that apparatus. This exchange is not automatic; it requires work.”
She advised against torturing the body; that would produce a wrong relationship. If one notices something which is bad or harmful for the body or the mind—something which makes one dull or less sensitive—one naturally stops, as one naturally refrains from eating poisonous substances.
(Thought versus association, and the demand on oneself)
Madame de Salzmann makes a clear distinction between ‘thought’ and ‘associations’. Thought has direction and action; associations merely turn in reaction, but have no action. What I ordinarily call thoughts are only accidental associations. In response to a question of mine, Madame de Salzmann said, “Watching the breathing can help in deepening and maintaining sensation. That is how one becomes aware of the energy of the body. “Make a demand on yourself. If you do not succeed in making a connection, deprive the body of what it likes.”
I felt that my body was too heavy and that I was not sensitive enough to see the harm done by the wrong placing of the foot. I suppose the body is like a musical instrument. A sensitive and accomplished musician is likely to be more aware of the various subtleties of the instrument than a novice. It seemed so clear that one needs to see a little before one can even realize the fact of one’s blindness. Those who suffer for their fragmentation are already in purgatory; they may possibly hope for wholeness, for it is said that His Endlessness occasionally visits the aspiring souls in purgatory.
It is absurd but true: it is difficult to accept that if my eyes were open, I would see what I do not ordinarily see. I see neither the terror of my present situation nor the wonder of what it could be. It is plain and obvious that as long as one is asleep, all progress is a dream.
(The human being as conduit for higher energy)
Both in the morning at home and in the evening at the Maison, I made a special effort to prolong my cross-legged sitting for meditation. I experienced interesting sensations in the body and an unusual deepening of breathing. I can now sit for forty-five minutes. It is interesting that Dogen Zenzi thought that Zen is nothing but sitting rightly (zazen). I should work at extending my meditation to one hour. I can make at least this effort since I do not really understand what Madame de Salzmann means by bringing the mind and the body to the same strength in a relationship with one another. Madame de Salzmann makes it clear that the function and purpose of a human being is to become a link, a conduit, for higher energy to come down to the Earth—to bring Heaven down to Earth. Our Father who is in Heaven may do His will here on Earth as He does in Heaven, but this is possible only if the
River Ganga which flows in Heaven—above the head or on top of it—may flow down to the Earth, the body, and irrigate her.
Endless doubting is an escape from working. But one cannot be parochial about the Work.
You must suffer for your inadequacy. It is not easy. You have to stay in front of it. Without that, nothing is possible. One can use big words, read a hundred books and write a hundred books. It means nothing.”
(Staying in front of the lack as the whole work)
She said, “Stay in front of your inability; that will change something. This relationship is the most important thing for you, of all the things you want. In the midst of everything else, come back to it. This is the most important thing: to stay in front of the lack, the inability. “The whole work is about energies. One must understand the relationship of energies, inside oneself and outside in the groups. There is an exchange possible. That is what the work is about. You must work often during the day, with others and by yourself.”
He seems to be so focused on the pure white light that he does not come through as permitting or enjoying the whole spectrum of colour of human experience. She agreed that that was partly true.
I see clearly how low-level reactive emotions and thoughts produce tensions in the body, and that particular tensions correspond to specific negative emotions.
“It is not wise for a person to think ‘This alone is Truth and none other.’ ”
The mind needs to be occupied; otherwise it engages itself with the fluctuation of the price of cotton in Egypt, or some other thing. One cannot stay long inside the temple where the mysteries are played.
(Ideas, music, and Movements as a complete teaching)
All traditions say that the mind has to be quieted so that something higher can be received. Perhaps informing the mind with the right ideas is a way of quieting it. Are not the ideas a part of the science of being which was brought by Gurdjieff? I remember Madame de Salzmann saying in New York many years ago, “Ideas, music and Movements in Gurdjieff’s teaching supplement each other. One is not complete or whole without the other two.” On the other hand, she also said to me recently, “Now you don’t need ideas. You need facts. What you know directly is a fact.”
A group of people is needed for a certain level of energy to appear. You must work alone and also with other people—often.
As she often has, she emphasized the importance of the right posture so that there is no tension at all. Then the energy from the higher part of the mind can enter into the body.
I should be careful not to lose contact with the body. Perhaps I have a mystical tendency to fly away and leave the ground. To fly away from the Earth is certainly a deep inclination of the Indian spiritual traditions and I could hardly have escaped it.
“You must always be conscience. Even if a little, always try something. Do not be in reaction. When you speak, walk or do anything, keep a little sensation. This area [pointing to the belly] is especially important. It is important to have no tension there.”
She also spoke about “the need to work and move in life after working quietly and trying to keep some connection. Not to speak s-l-o-w-l-y, but to find a way by which the connection can be maintained while working at a normal tempo.
Then the Kingdom—which is in Heaven, above the head—can come down to the Earth, in the body, and His will can be done on Earth as it is done in Heaven. But we are tempted and we are not delivered from evil. We remain in sin, and the Earth, at least our Earth in this body, falls down and is not nourished by the Christ, the Bread from Heaven. Indeed, Lord have mercy. Maranatha!
I wondered if those who had worked with her intensely on the Movements had understood something real about the Movements. She said, “They don’t realize how difficult it is to do the Movements rightly.” I wondered if she was satisfied with the Movements in the latest film. “I cannot say I am satisfied.” Then she was quiet and pensive for a while. I asked if there is anything that continues after death. “That depends. Not for everyone. But if one works one can develop something that does not die at the death of the body.” Again, she was quiet, in-drawn. After a little while she asked me, “What do you do? How do you work? What interests you?”
In an unusually strong meditation sitting at the Maison, I experienced such a sense of substantial connection above the head, almost a pressure of presence and yet a lightness.
“What you know directly is a fact.”
(Self-initiation and the sacrifice of the personal)
All true initiation is Self-initiation, from the Source. Teachers simply point the way. In the presence of the vibration of Truth, there is no difference between a teacher and a student. Even as great a teacher as Jesus Christ did not wish to claim any special status for himself and said, “Why call me good? No one is good but God.” The Gospels say it, and it must be true, that from those to whom much is given much is demanded. Without doubt, I have been given much, and sometimes I clearly understand the need for payment.
She had said, “The real fear is the fear of ‘not being able to’. ” I wish to pay for my existence; not to be able to pay is terrifying. But a recognition of the terror of the situation is necessary in order to work for being and for being able to. Like everyone else, I must at some stage give an account of my life. For me the clear objective conscience, the look from above, is personified by Madame de Salzmann.
She is likely to ask, “Did you help?”
The heart of the work is a continual sacrificing of the merely personal for the sake of the Real. Only that sacrifice permits an exchange with higher levels. Also, of course, an exchange with higher levels makes the sacrifice of the personal meaningful. A sage in the Rig Veda has truly said that “yajña (‘sacrifice’ as well as ‘exchange between levels’) is the navel of the cosmos.” The whole cosmos is engaged in a ceaseless yajña. Sacred work, which in alchemical language, as in the Gurdjieff teaching, is simply spoken of as the work, is necessary in order to be able to receive energy from above for the maintenance of the cosmos, both on the scale of an individual human being and on the large scale. But it is constantly threatened by the forces of forgetfulness and destruction.
There is a part in him which is unsatisfied by his life. Through religious or spiritual traditions he may become aware of what this part needs.” How do we play our part in fulfilling the special human function in the cosmos?