B had missed the previous meeting to go to a wedding. He had found the exercise from the Meeting two months before (of opening doors with the least familiar hand) the most useful since he started attending, but in fact he found it engendered more self-awareness when he failed to remember to do it and realised subsequently, compared to successfully using the alternative hand.
D had been reading Kierkegaard, whom he said wrote that it is impossible to be present but that one can get glimpses. He recalled a saying attributed to Plutarch: “What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.” This was why he keeps coming to the Meetings. D also observed that there was no longer a clock on the wall of the Meeting room, and that he was finding that disturbing.
RM had observed during the month that the way in which we acquire objects is comparable to the way ideas become crystallised, in the way described by Gurdjieff in Beelzebub’s Tales.
Z had found the exercise quite good personally; it gave her a sense of achievement. She had also been to Glastonbury, which had energised her as always, but the effect waned afterwards, which she had found interesting.
L had attempted the exercise, with limited success. This suggested that free will is an illusion. He had achieved the exercise before, then increasing the quota of tasks to a day, then three, and so on. This eventually had led to late nights finishing the tasks.
[Removed at the request of BS.]
The Meeting then turned to responses to these contributions.
Addressing D, GC asked him what do we mean by being present. To him it is being without thoughts, and as soon as he realises he is in the state, the state finishes. He has heard advice from others about being consciously aware of a part of the body but was not sure this had any benefit. D said he had found standing on one leg a useful exercise. Z agreed, saying it made her feel more whole, and alive. D wondered if being present was a different experience for everyone? B said that he felt he had more options to do things when he feels he is being present.
GC then asked what does the phrase eat or be eaten mean? L said that this could be interpreted on an emotional energy level, in the sense that people watching a TV show were having their energy sapped, literally eaten away, by it. Z said she would rather live her life than watch TV. L talked of the distinction between consumers and content creators in the media.At 10:30 the reading of Beelzebub’s Tales continued.
Referring to an appeal from Earth for help resolving a crisis there, Gurdjieff has Beelzebub tell his grandson:
At first I tried to help them while remaining on the planet Mars, but when I became certain that it would be impossible to do anything effective from the planet Mars, I decided to descend to the planet Earth and there, on the spot, to find some way out.
GC suggested there may be some symbolism to the plotline of going from Mars to Earth, which might represent going from a finer state of consciousness to one less fine.
Later the author brings in his concept of kundabuffer again:
It is necessary to premise just here that at the period of my first descent in person on to this planet, the organ Kundabuffer was no longer in the three-brained beings who interest you.
And it was only in some of the three-brained beings there that various consequences of the properties of that for them maleficent organ had already begun to be crystallized.
In the period to which this tale of mine refers, one of the consequences of the properties of this organ which had already become thoroughly crystallized in a number of beings there, was that consequence of the property which, while the organ Kundabuffer itself was still functioning in them had enabled them very easily and without any 'remorse-of-conscience' not to carry out voluntarily any duties taken upon themselves or given them by a superior. But every duty they fulfilled was fulfilled only from the fear and apprehension of 'threats' and 'menaces' from outside.
GC and D discussed what the term kundabuffer meant, and whether there is any link with kundalini. L said that as far as he recalled, it was mentioned in Beelzebub’s Tales in connection with the collision of a meteor with the Earth. As there was no consensus among the attendees on what it meant, L said that he would add a link at the top of the blog to a webpage listing in detail the chronology of Gurdjieff’s usage of the term kundabuffer within Beelzebub’s Tales.
At 10:30 the attendees discussed what exercise to adopt during the coming month, and it was agreed to repeat the exercise of the previous month, but to attempt two tasks daily instead of one.
