Division into two

At the beginning of the meeting, M raised comments from Ouspensky about the distinction between morality and conscience, suggesting that morality was culturally relative. L queried whether this idea actually originated from Gurdjieff, arguing that morality is based logically on values which can be held in any culture.

The meeting continued reading the third lecture of the Eight Meetings in Paris, held on 18 September, 1943. A questioner, Mme Franc, gives a progress report to Gurdjieff on the use of the exercises he had assigned to the group, and says "I did the two exercises that you had given me during the vacation, the exercise on the division into two and on the sensations of hot, cold, and tears. . . . For the division into two, I cannot say that I have succeeded in doing it, but the work has given me a center of gravity in my head. This has changed many things for me and has allowed me to de-identify myself a little from my body and I can see more clearly in my work. I know better what I am doing and how I must do it. This has changed values." Gurdjieff responds "I already understood that you had a personality. Now you feel in yourself something, a separation. The body is one thing and you are another thing."

M said the "division into two" refers to self observation.

T commented on Gurdjieff's response to the woman's description of de-identifying with her body and feeling her centre of gravity in her head. He was optimistic that the woman had started to feel a separation inside her - her body is one thing she is another thing. He was very positive about this small shift in perception of herself and spoke about needing to nurture this change as if it was a young boy needing good nutrition. T thought that it sounded as significant as a new birth and the baby needed good nourishment from the woman continuing to work in this way on her perception of herself, to enable the baby's life to be sustained and to thrive and to grow.

D recalled techniques from Bioenergetics for pain relief. For example, to think again and again of a colour and shape representing the pain, during which process the pain ebbs.

M had used the technique of imagining what a pain looks like, and that it be put on a passing bus, which is then watched till it goes out of sight - in his experience this has helped a pain go away.

D quoted Roberto Assagioli, the founder of psychosynthesis: "I am not my body".

(In contrast, a tenet of Bioenergetics is that a person is their body.)

M said one can think of any part of the body and put attention on it - the blood will begin to go there. The mind controls the body.

D commented that burn out can lead to ME. As this is an example of the body controlling the mind, L queried if what Gurdjieff says is correct - are we a mind with a body attached or a body with a mind attached?

D commented at length about the first reading's content and D and M had a lengthy exchange, about living in the head and or living in the body and which is in charge. M thought it necessary for the mind to be in charge and D spoke up for the body because the mind becomes too caught up with intellect and imagination and there is a risk of cut off, alienation and breakdown. D spoke about how he had to bring himself back into his body because he had become too detached from it. He gave the example of Jack Kerouac being a brilliant writer but dying from alcohol abuse at 47 years. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kerouac)

Continuing the reading, Mechin says "I tried to continue the exercise of division into two and, seeing that I could not succeed in it, I thought that this came about because the 'I' in me was not strong enough. . . . as during the vacation I was rather alone in the role that I had to play, I had to play it with my parents and above all my mother, there is where the difficulty arrived. I ascertained that I was completely incapable of playing a role, that it was impossible."

M noted that Mechin is talking about family problems, which particularly requre self-awareness.

D asked if this individuality is that of Jean-Paul Sartre's thinking, referring to his writing about the tree with roots in Nausea. If you are an individual, how do you create your reality?

L said that from Sartre's existentialist position, one can make art as extension of oneself, in this sense extending reality. An artist also has to observe very closely, for example an painter needs to be aware that the sky is not necessarily blue.

D thought it would be good to be at peace in the face of death.

L quoted the other view, from Dylan Thomas: "Old age should burn and rage at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

D recalled another poem by Dylan Thomas, "And death shall have no dominion".

Concluding the meeting, each participant gave an example of relevant experience from the previous month:

Last week D went to Books Etc in the O2 Centre, and picked out a book on The Secret; love and gratitude can heal - are these the same as self awareness? He left the bookshop with these feelings in his consciousness, and found people were more friendly to him, that there had been a change. M replied that self-remembering is a different thing, but they are linked.

L had been on route to a performance of a piece of his whose subtitle included elephants and water. On emerging from the railway station at the destination, he was confronted with a poster for a new movie called "Water from Elephants". How should one respond to such synchronicities and do they reflect any changes in consciousness? D said this had just reminded him of the Welsh composer Paul Mealor who by chance had just had his piece performed at the royal wedding, but there were dangers in seeing too much in coincidences. He recalled a friend who thought a bird flying across the windscreen of a car had some meaning. L mentioned that the word auspicious derives from the ancient and common practice of divination from a study of the behaviour of birds.

M had realised during the week that he wasn't really interested in various things that he thought he had been interested in - this followed from self-awareness exercises.

T had had difficulty, during the month, in maintaining her practice of yoga, such good habits can slip away. D suggested it might help to do hatha yoga in a group. In fact being alone too much is not good, being used in some cases as a punishment (solitary confinement). L mentioned that some hermits and monks deliberately seek out isolation in caves or on mountain tops. D had heard from a monk that some of these are crazy. L cited Leonard Cohen who retreated to a zen monastery for several years. D quoted Jack Kerouac as saying that his experience alone fire watching had turned him to drink. M asked if Jack Kerouac had a purpose. D said that for Leonard Cohen it was burnout, and likewise for Kerouac.