Votive Motive

The meeting began at 9am with a silence of one minute. Then observations of relevant experiences since the previous Meeting were shared.

BS said [Removed at the request of BS.]

BW had been continuing meditation twice a day and writing as well. These activities are becoming habitual. As for eating and being eaten, he is aware that he can be eaten by a lust for instincts. There is a part of him that can take over in that moment, controlled by an ulterior motive. He can sublimate those instincts into his art.

This reminded D of an occasion when he gave a talk at the library after his book launch; unexpectedly he found himself in a situation where he had to preside over events. He just got on with the talk, and followed it with a question and answer session. The main theme was anxiety and depression, which he was able to talk about easily. It went so well, it was as some natural force took over. Somehow in this circumstance he climbed out of the dark pit, how free he felt! It was like two realities battling within. Emotions overrode any rationality.

RM said that over the past year he had developed the Fourth Way thinking, the practical application of the Fourth Way going back to Ouspensky's teaching. He ran a three hour workshop on this the previous Thursday evening. He was aware of communicating these ideas, and the sense of presence he experienced was unbelievable. He was a worker in that field to help people, and acknowledges that he doesn't do anything, it just happens, the laws of nature work, cause and effect. The cause started some time ago. The effect is on what he does, being present to that flow, which is extraordinary.

L had noticed different states where there has been a growing wakefulness. On one occasion, walking downhill to where he lives, he let the walking happen rather than doing the walking. It felt easier and faster and very freeing. He felt this was self-observation. There was something doing the walking. He let it get on with doing what it was doing. A sub-system that was operating. He had the experience of the multiple functionalities of whatever creature he was. In relation to the reading and the concept of the "law of falling", this experience did feel a bit like falling. By falling into this activity without interfering, he experienced that there is more space in which to observe.

T had looked through a year of sketchbooks, and noticed a difference in the quality of the drawings. The earlier ones are where she used figure/ground for the proportion, without any other frame of reference. Later she began using the floorboards as a way of measuring the picture, and a concertina door with regular intervals at the back of the figure. The framework was found in the actual reality in front of her. She then began to use the classical technique of measuring with the pencil in front of her eye to create a grid on the paper, in order to better see what went where in the drawing. What she saw when looking through the drawings is that by using the figure ground framework that she looked for in what she was seeing in front of her gave rise to a framework that was visible in the figure and made it look wooden or quite artificial as if the structure was embodied in the figure. But by creating a framework that didn't exist in the material reality seen by her eyes but was a measuring tool creating a grid in between her and the figure/ground it gave rise to proportions that were different, and to drawings that seemed to be not by her, but by another agency. This felt like a shift from one habitual behaviour to another habitual behaviour.

Windsor Painted Antique Chair,
by Stephen Kilburn,
Massachusetts, USA.

"R" considered money to be an enabling function. If you are really hungry in your search for something, you should bring your attention to every possible moment that you remember. Inspiration of the moment frees you enough to be open to something, aligning yourself with some kind of energy. The poor rural craftsmen who made their own chairs, put beautiful decorations on those chairs.

RM talked of moving from habit to presence. When the three brains work in harmony, there is a relationship between them, almost like another centre. When all three centres are working together, they have to move very slowly, at the speed of the slowest part.

L suggested as hypothesis the existence of a fourth centre, the artistic or creative centre, which moves at a slower pace still. RM thought this might effectively be the synthesis of the other three. When the three centres are out of balance you can see the dominance of one of the three. There is the demonic and the spiritual in battle with each other. When you are doing the work of self-remembering and you take this with you into the arts it is a truly spiritual pursuit. You have to be real, you have to be here now. Then the process is grounded, self-directed and harmonious. You can ask the same question about art as you can about money. Who is in charge? Are you in charge of your money or is your money in charge of you?

Pablo Picasso

L said that if an artist is open to the Muse, he is not open to the agent. Great art is inspired by the Muse, and does not get in the news. It is reactive and political art which is reported by the media. Art is part of human nature - Picasso said "Every child is an artist". His painting Guernica was a commission from the Spanish Government, but his earlier "blue period" paintings were a freer expression of his spirit with no financial or political motive.

"R" queried in what way early artists doing cave paintings were engaged in self-observation. L suggested that whether cave man or modern artist, the person is translating three dimensions into two, and has to be an observer, and whatever is painted is portrayed through the lens of that observer and in that sense acts like a mirror. T thought that "primitive" peoples might have been more aware than we are now. A said that great artists don't do it for money. There were great artists during the depression. She asked RM how to tell if one is grounded - we are always slaves.

The Meeting then resumed the reading of Beelzebub's Tales. The description of the spacecraft's propulsion system continues...

Striving to find an outlet from this, for them constricted, interior, they naturally press also against the lid of the cylinder-barrel, and thanks to the said hinges the lid opens and, having allowed these expanded substances to escape, immediately closes again. And as in general Nature abhors a vacuum, then simultaneously with the release of the expanded gaseous substances the cylinder-barrel is again filled with fresh substances from outside, with which in their turn the same proceeds as before, and so on without end.

Thus the substances are always being changed, and the lid of the cylinder-barrel alternately opens and shuts.  

To this same lid there is fixed a very simple lever which moves with the movement of the lid and in turn sets in motion certain also very simple 'cogwheels' which again in their turn revolve the fans attached to the sides and stern of the ship itself...

Discussing these passages, the Meeting assumed they pertained to psychological metaphor. L noted that Freud used the metaphor of thermodynamics in his psychodynamics model of the mind, being familiar with the work of the scientist Helmholtz. Similarly we, in our time, see computers as a metaphor for the mind.

Following the reading, it was decided to continue the same exercise as the previous month.