The Spirit Free'd

Hanging on ere winter comes.
(photo by L)

L said that he had done the first exercise throughout the month, keeping a journal of synchronicities. He read out several, there were so many that there was insufficient time to list many. In the park following the previous Meeting, which spoke much of a raven, passers by rescued a similar bird, an injured crow, which was being attacked by its fellows. That evening he was approached in a restaurant by a man who said he remembered him from the Royal Society hundreds of years ago. Later in the month he heard a newsreader on the radio with exactly the same name. One cold evening he had taken a photograph of a bee clinging to the petal of a solitary flower. He was subsequently "followed" on Twitter by someone with a near identical picture used as her avatar. The date of M's funeral itself was a synchronicity, delayed unpredictably to the date of the monthly Gurdjieff Meeting of which he was a founder member and regular attendee from inception until last year. M's funeral synchronistically occurred shortly after the Meeting time always ends.

D recounted how he had first met M at the U3A and been drawn to him, and eventually learned of the Gurdjieff Meetings. D had also been doing meditations with the Insight Timer app. He had been using the mantra om mani padme hum, and had found music for it online which was absolutely beautiful, but since then his app had crashed and he had been unable to use it. He did not know whether that was a synchronicity. There was so much going on, he had so much to say, but he felt he couldn't say anything. He was confused. His relationship had not worked out, and now M had passed away.



For T it was two months since her last Meeting. She had had an extraordinary experience of very sudden ill health. She had been reviewing her records from the peak flow chart, which comprised a page for each month. Her period of critical illness, which had prevented her from attending the previous Meeting, had been exactly a month before M's severe stroke and death, each occurring over five days. She wondered if there was some link with what had happened to her exactly a month before, a kind of reverse causality. It felt so connected. "R" said that when you are working on yourself you are more sensitive, it is not necessarily explainable. T spoke about how years before, she had met M when L introduced him to her. M came to live in London from Harare, and the conversation always turned to speaking passionately and consistently about the ideas of Gurdjieff. Setting up the North London Gurdjieff Meetings came about to enable a focus and outlet for M's intense interest in the philosophical works of Gurdjieff, Nicoll and Ouspensky.

L said that on the day of M's death, while at the hospital, L had been looking at Meetings with Remarkable Men, following up a reference suggested by "R". He had come across the paragraph describing the Yezidi boy trapped in a chalk circle drawn on the ground, and curious about this phenomenon, searched Google on Yezidi and circle. The first word in the first article which came up started with the word "synchronicity", which seemed connected with the exercise for the month, to keep a record of synchronicities - it was in fact a meta-synchroniticity - a synchronicity about synchronicity. He mentioned Paulo Coelho's view that they are, in the form of omens, the common language of the world, which is a theme in his novel, The Alchemist.

The Terreskane Hotel

RM spoke about his experience with M and how that it has been relevant to the Work. He arrived in Rhodesia about the same time as M, in the seventies. RM was staying in a small rented room, and went to a nearby hotel for evening meals. One evening M walked past and asked if he could join him. M started talking and was excited to discover that RM too was interested in mystical stuff, and introduced him to a group, the Brotherhood of Mystics. M came with him once and never came again, though RM was inspired by this group, where he met extraordinary people, and he felt that it changed his life. Every so often M would call him to have a chat. When M began to take an interest in Gurdjieff, they looked at the writings together. M's introductions led to RM getting involved in the Gurdjieff Society, meeting a particularly influential person called Maria Sullivan, who ran a Sufi group which taught a particular type of dance and way of meditating, which was highly inspirational. M and RM used to meet up once every two or three months until M started a Gurdjieff discussion group. They met in RM's house once a month. In later years after RM came to London he was introduced to Paul Koralek, of the Gurdjieff Society, which led to him attending twice a week. Every Friday morning, before work, there would be reading from Beelzebubs Tales, which was tiring but deeply inspiring. If not for M, RM would not have got involved in dance, nor had such an intense training. M had been a cornerstone in his life, and had helped him step by step through his influence and spiritual connection. He didn't think M knew how powerful a spiritual connection he had had. He had loved him for that.

Poem by M

T said that when M spoke it felt like he was channelling and that it was as if RM was a living legacy of M's life. The poem that M wrote about the divine nature of music, which was hoped to be read out at the funeral also sounded as if it was M channelling. A relative had changed M's secular funeral arrangements to a religious one. However there were two beautiful quirks of fate. The funeral and the burial were in a cemetery an hour and a half from London but ten minutes from RM's home, and the funeral, originally meant to be on Friday, had been delayed until Sunday at 11:00, which was the first Sunday of the month when the Gurdjieff Meeting happens. This enabled the Meeting to take place near the funeral and near to RM, who usually travels the same long distance into London each month to attend the Meetings.

"R" read out some quotations. From the beginning of Beelzebub's Tales:

Any prayer may be heard by the Higher Powers and a corresponding answer obtained only if it is uttered thrice:

Firstly—for the welfare or the peace of the souls of one’s parents.
Secondly—for the welfare of one’s neighbor.

And only thirdly—for oneself personally.

From the last part of The Third Series:


What they call the "soul" does really exist, but not everybody necessarily has one.

A soul is not born with man and can neither unfold nor take form in him so long as his body is not fully developed.

It is a luxury that can only appear and attain completion in the period of "responsible age," that is to say, in a man's maturity.

The soul, like the physical body, is also matter—only, it consists of "finer" matter.

The matter from which the soul is formed and from which it later nourishes and perfects itself is, in general, elaborated during the processes that take place between the two essential forces upon which the entire Universe is founded.

The matter in which the soul is coated can be produced exclusively by the action of these two forces, which are called "good" and "evil" by ancient science, or "affirmation" and "negation," while contemporary science calls them "attraction" and "repulsion."

In the common presence of a man, these two forces have their source in two of the totalities of general psychic functioning, which have already been mentioned.

One of them coincides with that function whose factors proceed from
the results of impressions received from outside, and the other appears as a function whose factors issue chiefly from the results of the specific functioning of the organs, as determined by heredity. 


and in Meetings with Remarkable Men, Gurdjieff's father tells him:

In that soul which a man supposedly has, as people believe, and of which they say that it exists independently after death and transmigrates, I do not believe; and yet, in the course of a man’s life “something” does form itself in him: this is for me beyond all doubt.

‘As I explain it to myself, a man is born with a certain property and, thanks to this property, in the course of his life certain of his experiencing elaborate in him a certain substance, and from this substance there is gradually formed in him “something or other” which can acquire a life almost independent of the physical body.

‘When a man dies, this “something” does not disintegrate at the same time as the physical body, but only much later, after its separation from the physical body.

T said that when M was unconscious, before he died, his forehead was completely, utterly, smooth.

The Meeting finished early and all present went to the nearby cemetery to attend the funeral.

Blended

L had tried the exercise of the previous month, selecting fork-bending as he believed it was, in reality, impossible. On the first occasion he did not think anything had happened, but the person he was with pointed out that one of the prongs was slightly out of true alignment, and there was no recollection of one of the forks being askew before. He had tried bending forks and spoons on several subsequent occasions, much to the concern of restaurant managers, but to no avail. He had read up a little about it. It seemed that where it had been witnessed was normally in a group setting, where several people were willing the cutlery to bend. The other thing he had been doing lately was a kind of conscious walking, like an extension of lucid dreaming ideas while walking, looking for symbols that appear, especially in nature, or they might be words on a sign, looking for coincidences. It made him much more aware while walking, and he experienced a different kind of consciousness, and possibly magical thinking too. He had walked to the Meeting across the Heath and there were lots of crows going "harr-harr", and a similar bird, a raven, was a significant friend of Beelzebub in the chapter of Beelzebub's Tales currently being read.



After observing that L's contribution had been recorded to an audio computer file, everyone else present agreed they were happy to have their contributions thus recorded, to help a more accurate report on the website. "R" noted that Gurdjieff did not allow note taking in his groups, which meant he was putting the demand for listeners to pay attention. L said he could well understand that, but thankfully a few people did report what had transpired. "R" said they had reported from what they remembered, and that is what Views From The Real World is.



L said that he usually does not make available live recordings of his performed music, preferring to encourage people to actually attend the performances. Conversely accurate computer rendering, of all the instruments in his orchestral compositions, is freely available on the Internet at all times.

The next person to give an account of his thoughts about the previous month was D. He goes down to the community room where he lives to use his iPad because that is the only place he can get wifi, and he's noticed that he is more occupied in doing things and finds it harder to sit still and do nothing. This used to be easy for him but something in his mind or psyche had shifted. He had been considering a quote from Osho, "Be realistic: plan for a miracle." Now there is the constant pressure to check for email, he feels he has lost some peace that he used to have.

N had tried the exercise and had neither experienced success in bending the spoons. He had tried generating heat from his hands and various other things which he had thought might help. He had only had success with this sort of thing in group settings (walking on hot coals) and in the context of hypnosis (putting a needle through his hand), without any ill effects and without any pain. He doesn't know what triggers those things. Obviously there is an ability within us at some level to do extraordinary things - there are cases of people lifting cars to rescue someone trapped below. But we cannot call upon this ability at will, there sometimes  has to be a trigger event of some kind which compels it, and he did not know what would trigger the event of being able to bend spoons or forks.

The contributions completed, the Meeting moved on to the responses.

D spoke of Uri Geller whom he had met once. He asked if the spoon bending was genuine or just a trick. L said it certainly looked genuine but unless we personally witness it we could not know. He had seen an illusionist imitate it, by bending the items, but Geller just seemed to touch them. L pointed out that he does tend to do it on television. D remembered the radio show where Geller said he would start people's watches. It worked for one of his watches which hadn't been working (it stopped again after two hours.) For D it came back to what Osho says, Be realistic: plan for a miracle. He had been sad following the end of a relationship. Osho had said that a person who is sad has depth. Happiness is the leaves and branches of the tree, and sadness the roots. L said the human condition is basically sad, as we are all born and we know we are going to die. But that is very hard to live with, and we have all manner of religions promising eternal life, or reincarnation, or some other way out of it, and that is definitely linked to the warfare that goes on, as it has done for a long time, so it would be better just to accept the condition or state that we are all in, and make the best of it, because the world is beautiful and we can make some great things while we are here. He thought that the sadness was the root of a lot of art. He said that even if technology made life extension feasible, the human condition would still be lonely should it transpire that we are the only self-aware species. This does not mean we have to be personally sad. Even at the speed of light it would take dozens of years or centuries to explore nearby star systems. D thought we have not evolved emotionally. L agreed there would be no evidence of this until we see wars stop. D recalled Freud's thoughts on human nature in a 1915 essay, " ... our fellow-citizens have not sunk so low as we feared, because they had never risen so high as we believed". "R" said that sadness is very necessary, and is probably the main presence for us of the denying force, and we are three forces, not two. D said that sadness and melancholy is looked on in Japan and China as beautiful, but here it is a negative thing. N said that is true of quite a few cultures, for example in Brazilian music they often talk about melancholy, and in England itself, Richard Burton published The Anatomy of Melancholy in 1621. D again commented on the persistent media exhortations to think positive. "R" said Gurdjeff had not said "be positive". N said Gurdjieff had advised not to express negative emotions (which is often mechanical behaviour, which we should observe if we notice ourselves doing it), and that is an important step forward. L's take on the notion of being positive in popular media, is that it comes down to being resolute. N spoke of Gurdjieff's concepts of internal and external considerations. L said that the pressure in the UK and America for people to get on the property ladder instils a sense of fear, which feeds external consideration, and the pressure is less in mainland Europe. "R" said that considerings happen from a different perspective for the person who is trying to wake up.

N responded to L about synchronicities, which also interest him. He had an extraordinary one during the last month. He had joined a new firm, and was talking to someone who turned out to be from the same university and college. That was the first coincidence. This person was an expert Japanese speaker, and N thought it would be good for him to meet an old friend who was at a Japanese bank, whom he had not been in touch with for a long time. He had been intending to get in touch with an old friend to introduce him to a new work colleague. He thought about this person during the week, and had to go into the office one Sunday. At four he was hungry and went out to get a sandwich. On Sundays that area is very quiet, but as he was coming back across the road, someone shouted out his name, and it turned out to be this very person that he wanted to see. L said he had recently had a conversation about his ideas that the techniques of dream analysis can be applied to real life, which can have many of the qualities of a dream, possibly because it might be a dream. In dreams there are lots of synchronicities - in a dream everything is there for a purpose. With his patients Freud would look for the reason for every symbol in a dream. The same can happen in life - why did that person appear as N was going for the sandwich? If it had been a dream, then it would be easy to explain. That was partly why the conscious walking was interesting, because symbols may arise en route and possibly be subject to analysis. L had experienced many synchronicities, and had also found they tend to cluster in time. D asked if L was saying it was not coincidence. L thought there was no scientific way to validate the phenomenon of synchronicity, so scientifically we should assume there was no significance. "R" thought synchronicities might however have personal significance. N said that Jung talked about synchronicities as being acausal, outside the laws of cause and effect, and so tend to be outside the scientific community's interest from that perspective, but that is not to say that there is not a deeper reality that the synchronicities reflect.



At 9;45 the reading of Beelzebub's Tales continued, Chapter 18, The Arch-Preposterous.

...Between Gornahoor Harharkh and myself there was also a special connector, through which we could easily communicate with each other while we were inside the Hrhaharhtzaha, from which the atmosphere was pumped out to make a vacuum.

One end of this connector also, by means of appliances that were on the helmets, was fitted in a certain way to what are called my organs of 'hearing' and 'speech,' and the other end was fitted to the same organs of Gornahoor Harharkh.

Thus, by means of this connector between my subsequent essence-friend and myself, there was set up, as again your favorites would say, a peculiar 'telephone.'

D queried where the people being described were. L said they were on Saturn, and that Gornahoor Harharkh was the raven friend of Beelzebub.

It is very interesting to notice here that to each end of that appliance ... two independent connectors, also of wire, were led, and through them, what are called special magnetic currents flowed from outside.

As it was afterwards explained to me in detail, these connectors and the said special 'magnetic-currents' had, it seems, been created by that truly great scientist Gornahoor Harharkh in order that the presences of learned three-centered beings—even those not perfected to the Sacred Inkozarno—might, owing to one property of the 'magnetic current,' be 'reflected' for their own essences and that, owing to another property of this current, the presence of the mentioned objects might also be 'reflected,' so that thereby the perception of the reality of the said objects might be actualized by their imperfect organs of being-sight in a vacuum containing none of these factors or those results of various cosmic concentrations which have received such vibrations ...

"R" said that the name of the contraption was an onomatopoeic depiction of laughter - Hrhaharhtzaha - and might be poking fun at this earnest experiment to get rid of all the external impressions we do not want by pumping them out, which is not a wholesome environment for us to maintain life in, as if it would be possible to live without the random impressions which come in all the time, and only intentionally communicate, which is rather a joke. L said that the described procedure seemed to be getting rid of not only ego, but also anything familiar at all, including memory and any presumptions.

N had found the references to magnetism in these passages interesting as there is talk of having a magnetic centre in the Work. "R" thought it may connect with the idea of synchronicity. L said it was also quite Platonic, because it suggests the physical form is something which grows around a form which isn't physical, but has three centres, and in terms of evolution may have grown over a very long time.

From the moment that my essence began to perceive impressions directly and to constate independently that, from what was proceeding, there was being entirely destroyed, as it were, in my common presence, firstly, the parts of my planetary body, and then, little by little, also the localizations of the 'second' and 'third' being-centers. At the same time, a constatation was definitely made that the functioning of these latter centers passed gradually to my 'thinking-center' and became proper to it, with the consequence that the 'thinking-center,' with the increasing intensity of its functioning, became the 'uniquepowerful- perceiver' of everything actualized outside of itself and the autonomous initiator of the constating of everything proceeding in the whole of my presence as well as outside of it.

L thought he was describing a transformative experience when he was experiencing not only himself but everything else too. "R" said the head later took over. D was reminded of Mark Williams the snooker player, who defeated Ronnie O'Sullivan recently for the first time after many years, after being on a diet and becoming very fit, which seemed to have demonstrated a synthesis of the physical and the mental. In cases like this, the physical affects the mental. L said that Gurdjieff had written in complex paragraphs which were very hard to understand. "R" added that this was also not in his native language, and that he had written mostly in Armenian and had a whole team of people helping him to put it into readable English. L said we could read Beelzebub and think this doesn't make sense and ask why we were doing it. He was reminded of the coming world chess championship, which was to start the following Saturday. There would be two experts on the broadcast trying to explain what was going on. It is very hard to understand what the experts are saying, as their understanding is so much more developed than their audience. The champions try to put it across, but it can be in a very complicated way. When one of the contending players makes a move, that neither of the experts has anticipated, even these experts will be unable to fully understand. At the end there is usually a news conference in which the players will try to explain what happened, in some cases to journalists who don't know the moves.


But actually the champions can't communicate an explanation, because they are so far ahead of the experts who were interpreting it, who in their turn were ahead of those who were trying to understand the game from watching the screen. That is what Beelzebub's Tales might be like - how can Gurdjieff put it over when he is coming from such a remote place. N thought that masters such as Gurdjieff are for spiritual development like coaches for a sport, and any great performer has strong mental, physical and emotional components in their skills. L commented that when sports champions age physically too much to compete at peak levels, they often teach what they have learnt about psychological discipline in presentations for businesses.

...I have adapted these three independent apparatuses in such a way that, there in this absolutely empty space, we can obtain from those secondary containers for the required experiment as much as we wish of every active part of Okidanokh in a pure state, and also we can at will change the force of the "striving-to-reblend-into-a-whole," which is acquired in them and which is proper to them according to the degree of density of the concentration of the mass.

And here, within this absolutely empty space, I shall first of all show you that same non-law-conformable phenomenon which we recently observed while we were out-side the place where it proceeded. And namely, I shall again demonstrate to you this World-phenomenon which occurs when, after a law-conformable Djartklom, the separate parts of the whole Okidanokh meet in a space outside of a law-conformable arising and, without the participation of one part, "strive-to-reblend-into-a-whole."

Having said this, he first closed that part of the surface of the Hrhaharhtzaha, the composition of which had the property of allowing 'rays' to pass through it; then he pulled two switches and pressed a certain button, as a result of which the small plate lying on that table, composed of a certain special mastic, automatically moved toward the mentioned carbon-candles; and then having again drawn my attention to the Ammeter and the Voltmeter, he added: "I have again admitted the influx of parts of the Okidanokh, namely, the Anodnatious and the Cathodnatious of equal force of "striving-to-reblend."

L's interpretation of this was that three parts of consciousness had been separated and distilled, purified, and then there had been some sort of calibration of the potency of each, and then they had been brought together. This was a theme that had come up a few times. "R" recalled Gurdjieff's expression "striving to re-blend". N said that after the re-blending perception was from a new perspective.



There was a discussion on an exercise for the coming month. Two were decided. Recording synchronicities over the next month, and to put hand-cream on the hands, sensing the hands while putting it on, being a physical sensation as well as a symbol of care for the body. N suggested the idea of having three exercises per month, one that concentrates on the head, one on the body, and one on the emotions, and to see if they could be blended into one.

The Virtual Fork

Z had tried the exercise given for the previous month, but when faced with resistance the rebel within had always refused. So instead she had been working on patience with mundane tasks. Instead of trying to rush through them because she really did not want to do them, she had been using them as an exercise, because the conscious self only wants to do what is necessary. That was something she had been finding helpful.

T had also come to value doing mundane tasks. A colleague of hers had described how she becomes angry while doing mundane tasks, for instance when throwing clothes into the washing machine. This description at work helped T to see the work that is being done at the Meetings. She suggested to her colleague that she could use the mundane work as a meditation, instead of rebelling against doing it, so that tasks thrust upon us become opportunities for self development. In Gurdjieff terms to use the task to wake up to the silent witness observing the task, or failing that to observe dispassionately the anger, irritation or boredom that wells up when doing the task.

Taking the example from last month's exercise literally, N had taken to eating apples in place of an alternative which he might hitherto have chosen. Over the month he had lost four kilograms, and come to quite like the taste of apples. It had helped having a goal that he desired, which made it not too much of a hardship. So in terms of acting against resistance, it was perhaps a waste of time, but in terms of achieving a goal, it was successful.

RM's practice of using the act of putting things down as a trigger for being present, meant he was no longer forgetting where he had put things. He had a network of people around the world who were in his one-minute meditation group. One member was using blinking as her trigger. She was having amazing results and sending him personal comments about that. The results of being present were just extraordinary and he was bowled over by the way it was affecting him now, and by the revelations he was getting daily. He had chatted to someone the day before, who was not normally interested in this sort of thing, but she recognised its value right away.

L had found the exercise helpful in fostering awareness, but he had also found one-minute meditations helpful. It was an active experience. Keeping it to one minute seems to strengthen it, because during the minute it gets stronger, but if it were over a long time it would weaken and he might go to sleep. He had noticed that in the Insight Timer community there were people who were meditating for sixty minutes, and he was not sure how well that worked, and whether they did it more than once a day. Other people were doing guided meditation, which he thought was a passive experience. He had come across a video on YouTube in which Gurdjieff was talking about the difference between awareness and consciousness. The dog typified awareness through its sharp senses, while for the meditator it was different, the consciousness growing like ripples in a pool, getting stronger and stronger, which reflected the experience L had been having during the one-minute meditations.




D had also been doing the meditation. He had become emotionally involved with a woman, but had not realised how unwell she was. She was bipolar and now in a recovery centre. He had thought he could help her, but realised he couldn't. He had seen a BBC broadcast about eyes, which included a suggestion that men and women are wired to use their eyes differently. He took the Sex-ID test described in the programme, and was shocked to discover his score was 8 out of 10, which indicated a degree of empathy more typical of female than male brains. Formerly he had been more balanced. He said a male to a male can be more different than a male to a female, and likewise a female to a female.

The Meeting moved on to responses.

Following on L's remarks about meditation, Z said that she thought guided meditation can lead to some insights. T wondered what people were doing when they reported on Insight Timer that they were doing 30 minutes meditation. She recalled Gurdjieff's phrase The evil inner god of self-calming, and wondered if people were switching off instead of switching on to being aware of their own reality, as perhaps had been the case with her for twenty years of daily mediations. RM likened these two forms of meditation to the concepts from the Tao Te Ching of the True heart and the False heart. He thought the passive form was another form of sleep, and asked why anyone would want to come out of meditation if it were a state of being present. T likened the passive meditative state as akin to a chrysalis, a protection from the world rather than an engagement with it. RM added that there is a third form of meditation, reflective meditation, for example becoming absorbed in a philosophical book, or listening to a sermon from a pulpit.

Following on what Z and T had said, D spoke of boredom as a way to get back to himself. Often people were, in contrast, beside themselves. People were more disturbed than they used to be. What had helped him was a tablet computer with the internet on it. He used to be apart from the world, but has come back into it stronger. Where he lives, there is  a woman upstairs who doesn't see anybody. He only meets her in the laundry room. She had told him she does not want any help from social workers, and she pays for a cleaner to come twice a week. He could not understand how she manages to be on her own, and found it fascinating. He had asked her if she would consider writing about her experience of being alone, and she had replied "No".

At 9:45 the reading of Beelzebub's Tales resumed, from the point reached in Chapter 18, The Arch-Preposterous, where Beelzebub's friend on Saturn was in the midst of an explanation of his invention.

'... And in order that the beings who are outside of this part of my invention may nevertheless also have the possibility of elucidating the force of the given process, I intentionally made the composition of the material of the wall in one place such that it has the property of permitting the passage through it of the said "Salnichizinooarnianmomentum- vibrations" or "rays."'


There was some discussion of what this might mean. L thought that the description was of an apparatus to filter out distraction from consciousness. When he experienced something like this tunes came into his mind but not much else.

D thought that Gurdjieff's teaching was about doing, not being. Z thought that Gurdjieff was saying that we all have our own doctrines. GC said the problem lay in following other people's doctrines, not one's own. L said that Gurdjieff had neatly expressed the tendency for people to follow the doctrines of others by his concept of kundabuffer.

Having said this, he approached nearer to the Hrahaharhtzaha and pressed a certain button. The result was that the whole of the enormous Khrh or 'workshop' was suddenly so strongly lit up that our organs of sight temporarily ceased to function, and only after a considerable time had passed could we with great difficulty raise our eyelids and look around.


RM queried the emphasis on the organs of sight. After discussion, the consensus was that the removal of illusion and exposure to reality could be so overwhelming it might effectively be blinding for a while.

... he first, with his customary angel-voice, again drew our attention to the Voltmeter,' the needle of which constantly indicated the same figure, and then continued:

'You see that, although the process of the clash of two opposite component parts of the Omnipresent-Okidanokh, of the same power of "force-of-striving" still continues, ... yet in spite of all this there is no longer the phenomenon which ordinary beings define by the phrase "the-causes-of-artificial-light" ... by my last pulling of a certain lever, I introduced into the process of the clash of two component parts of Okidanokh, a current of the third independent component part of Okidanokh, which began to blend proportionally with its other two parts, owing to which the result derived from this kind of blending of the three component parts of the Omnipresent-Okidanokh—unlike the process of the non-lawconformable blending of its two parts—cannot be perceived by beings with any of their being-functions.' 


There was some discussion of this complex paragraph. T thought that the machine being demonstrated maybe symbolic of the creation of a human being.

RM suggested that "artificial light" produced by a simpler machine might denote normal understanding.

Z queried why the term "angel-voice" had been used. L said Beelzebub had held his raven friend in very high regard. He also commented that recent scientific research had demonstrated high intelligence in ravens and crows, as discussed the previous month.

First of all his assistants put on Gornahoor Harharkh and myself some special, very heavy suits, resembling those which your favorites call 'diving suits' but with many small heads of what are called 'bolts' projecting, and when these extremely peculiar suits had been put on us, his assistants screwed up the heads of these bolts in a certain order.

On the inner side of these diving suits, at the ends of the bolts, there were, it appeared, special plates which pressed against parts of our planetary body in a certain way.

It later also became quite clear to me that this was necessary, in order that there might not occur to our planetary bodies what is called 'Taranooranura,' or, as it might otherwise be said, in order that our planetary bodies should not fall to pieces as usually occurs to sur- and intraplanetary formations of every kind when they happen to come into an entirely atmosphereless space.

In addition to these special suits, they placed on our heads a 'something' resembling what is called a 'diver's helmet,' but with very complicated, what are called 'connectors' projecting from them.

T remarked that this appeared to be an early description of immersive virtual reality body suits. She said it is as if we might fall apart if exposed to reality. RM said that time did not exist and there was only the eternal present. GC asked what that was. RM said that the future already existed. L said that chaos theory had shown that the weather, for example, was not predetermined because of the butterfly effect. L said there was may be a sea of quantum possibilities at every moment. N said that there are different interpretations of reality. RM remembered how a lady of 75, who had little self confidence, sliced through a block of wood with the side of her hand at a martial arts event. Everyone who watched had thought the wood split before she touched it. He had kept part of that block for a long time. N asked what people had been saying before trying to split the wood. RM said there had been prior intense thought, and everyone had been shouting: "Break! Break! Break!". The story reminded L of Uri Geller and fork bending. Z said these activities bring up group abilities and the dangers of them. GC said these activities took you away from who you were. N spoke of the Brazilian healer John of God about whom some claims suggest the existence of different subjective realities.

Following the reading there was a discussion on which exercise to adopt for the coming month. It was decided to try an activity which challenged our views about reality, for example fork bending.

Maven Raven, Tripping the Light Fantastic.

RM had been staying with one minute meditations, which he referred to as intended presence. He had contacts around the world working with his methods. He did the practice as often as he could remember during the day. His general level of awareness had increased.

DM had read or heard on the radio that the subconscious only operates in the present. He wondered about flashbacks and memory, and how that related to the subconscious. He had been studying Osho's thinking. Osho had done Buddha-like stuff. He would go into a state of boredom, and that is a good state to be in, a transition state between doing and being.

L had been doing one-minute meditation with the Insight Timer app, and had also come across the Vipassana system, and a number of videos about it on YouTube by S. N. Goenka.



He found it increased a sense of identity, and objective awareness. He had liked the non-sectarian approach. He had also tried to enter a meditative state of mind while walking, while being fully aware of the body physically. It felt like watching "it" (or id) walk. Perhaps a case of ego versus id.

E said that, regarding the exercise, he had not done it too much. He had just started a new job, and gone into something completely different, and was stressed by this.

N had been trying to become more conscious of his feet when things were stressful. He spoke of the machinery in his system, and not identifying with the gears, and this had helped him pull back from particular emotional currents.

"R" said had been with two of her grand children. One was in distress and she consoled him with touch. There was more meaning to sense. The touch was more important than words, and children understand this. You can't wipe out what is distressing the child.

GC had been trying to stay with states of unease. He also recalled  an experience when he visited an ashram years ago.  A young person whom he assumed was in charge told him he couldn't sit down when the bell went and that it was a ceremony. Later he asked one of the teachers about the rule not to sit down and he asked him who told him that. When GC explained the teacher asked him why he had listened to the child?

T said that she had found it very hard to be aware of the exercise and link it up with the Work. When her emotions were running high the drama blotted everything else out. She recalled the exercise only in hindsight of the emotional state.

The attendees then turned to responding to the contributions.

T had found N's comments about gears relevant, as gears and machinery were consistent with the current part of the reading. His description of gears and machinery helped her to think about her own machinations.

E had also found N's description of gears and cogs helpful. L said he had found it interesting too, as it linked with the way Freud had likewise used thermodynamics and hydrodynamics in his day to conceptualise psychodynamics, whereas the metaphor of choice was now computers, as in the artificial intelligence field, which posits the questions Can machines be aware? alongside Can we be aware? There are scientists trying to emulate the human brain in the belief it is possible to upload a mind into a computer. GC said to L that he seemed to prefer Freud over Jung. L said that he found Freud's approach more scientific, and he had found Jung's judgement more woolly, in that one of his friends was the extremist Miguel Serrano, who was also a friend of Hermann Hesse, and wrote a book about them. N made the point that a person's choice of friends does not necessarily impact on the quality of their thinking in other areas. GC raised questions about Gurdjieff's behaviour during his lifetime, and "R" recommended a book by Tcheslaw Tchekhovitch, Gurdjieff: A Master in Life.

RM commented on N's description of gears and machinery. He said he himself had been an engineer. From this experience he learned that the whole thing doesn't work if one bit doesn't work. He was aware during the exercise that he had a need to evaluate which seemed a huge barrier. When the evaluating stopped he was aware that he was seeing what was happening. He was aware of an attachment created by evaluating. When he was not evaluating he was not attaching.

At 9:45 the reading from Beelzebub's Tales resumed, continuing with Chapter 18, The Arch-Preposterous.

The part of Gornahoor Harharkh's new invention which he himself called the Hrhaharht/aha and regarded as the most important was in appearance very much like the 'Tirzikiano' or, as your favorites would say, a 'huge electric lamp.' ...

The walls of this original construction were made of a certain transparent material ... the chief particularity of this said transparent material was that, although by means of the organ of sight beings could perceive through it the visibility of every kind of cosmic concentration, yet no rays of any kind, whatever the causes they may have arisen from, could pass through it, either from within out or from without in.

T said she found the depiction of this dignitary as a small bird, a raven, very funny. L said that this was likely to be a considered choice by Gurdjieff, as ravens are in fact particularly intelligent birds.



E asked for an explanation of the section just read. L said it was to be taken as a small part of a description of Gurdjieff's structure of the mind, being an electrical metaphor.  It relates to the particular chapter of Beelzebub's Tales that the Meetings were currently reading, as Gurdjieff, several decades after Freud, in his turn uses a model which also draws upon electronics. L thought the description of the transparent material which allowed sight without any other influences alluded to thinking freely with no distractions.

There was ... a 'Soloohnorahoona' of special construction, or ... a 'pump-of-complex-construction-forexhausting- atmosphere-to-the-point-of-absolute-vacuum.'

... Gornahoor Harharkh himself approached the said pump ... and with his left wing moved one of its parts, owing to which a certain mechanism began to work in the pump. He then approached us again and, pointing with the same special feather of his right wing to the largest Lifechakan, or Krhrrhihirhi, or dynamo, further continued his explanations.

He said, 'By means of this special appliance, there are first "sucked-in" ... all the three independent parts of the Omnipresent-Active-Element- Okidanokh present in it, and only afterwards when in a certain way these separate independent parts are artificially reblended in the Krhrrhihirhi into a single whole, does the Okidanokh, now in its usual state, flow and is it concentrated there, in that "container"'—saying which, he again with the same special feather pointed to something very much like what is called a 'generator.'

'And then from there,' he said, 'Okidanokh flows here into another Krhrrhihirhi or dynamo where it undergoes the process of Djartklom, and each of its separate parts is concentrated there in those other containers' ...

E queried the allusion to a vacuum. L thought it was connected to the clearing of thoughts from the mind, whereas for T the reference to a pump brought the thought of a beating heart. T said that each of us is a pump.

... he pulled another lever and again continued:

... 'But since, intentionally by an "able-Reason"—in the present case myself—the participation of that third part of Okidanokh existing under the name of "Parijrahatnatioose" is artificially excluded from the said process, then this process proceeds there just now between only two of its parts, namely, between those two independent parts which science names "Anodnatious" and "Cathodnatious." And in consequence, instead of the obligatory law-conformable results of the said process, that non-law-conformable result is now actualized which exists under the denomination of "theresult- of-the-process-of-the-reciprocal-destructionof- two-opposite-forces," or as ordinary beings express it, "the-cause-of-artificial-light."

"R" said that in this vacuum there are only two forces acting. She also raised the question as to how ravens could have built this machinery as they do not have hands. T suggested that they might have built it in their imaginations.

The lack of a third force, or resolution, reminded GC of a woman who would eat a doughnut every day, and for the sake of her health, agreed to place an apple each time beside the doughnut to help her wean herself away from the excess sugar. She continued, however, to choose the doughnut each day. He said it is very important to succeed, as it props you up mentally. RM said that if you are playing a game and trying to win, then you have got a problem. GC disagreed with this.

Following the reading, there was some discussion about what exercise to adopt during the coming month. It was decided (based on GC's anecdote) that it should be to think of something done daily that is tempting but not good, be aware each time of a better alternative, and attempt to take the better action (observing which action is in fact taken).

Phantom Quantum

L had addressed the exercise by playing a version of chess which allows a maximum of one minute in total for each opponent. He thought this fitted well with recent exercises in one-minute meditation and awareness. He discovered it worked best if there was no thinking,  and indeed time did slow down for him. Sometimes a mere fraction of a second was the margin of victory or defeat. The games were measured by a rating system, and while his rating was still low it had advanced by reducing thinking.

E had been reading the new book by Gil Friedman which advises not identifying with feelings of anxiety when things like misplacing keys happen. In fact, this happened to him a week after reading the book. One morning, he couldn't find his work keys. He remembered himself, and reasoned that he could get into work without them as someone else had keys. That evening he found the keys behind a bedside table. He had observed his feelings and negative emotions, was aware how he was reacting, and did not get too involved.

RM has introduced a system of four minutes of meditation to his Insight Timer group. A bell sounds after each minute and he had observed that some minutes go quicker than others

The most significant meeting for "R" during the month was with the new partner of one of her children, who was brought to visit her. It entailed an arrangement, and waiting for the lift to come up to her floor, during which time, having had no previous meeting, she had the feeling that she could influence who it could be. She sensed herself waiting, aware of how necessary it is to be open and not prejudiced in advance. She was aware of her posture, her straightened spine. Then the lift came. The most important thing has been sensing her physical presence. Without that it was just a dream.

For T, her whole studio day had been a complete distraction. She had felt an urge to write about something extremely important, which she did for four hours without looking up. This had been her biggest avoidance for many months, but she had completely believed in it. Had she really intended to do the art, she would immediately have picked up the brush and set paint on the canvas.

DM was trying to adapt following the high he had felt after the performance of his new play. People liked it and wanted more. He couldn't continue for now as he had been because the others involved were going on tour. After his previous play he had had no idea for a year, but this time he did have an idea. He found he could be creative with his mind through meditating and observing. He said he was not sorry or down, but down and up. He was pleased to be coming to the group and not affected by anything.

GC spoke of how it was possible to leave a bad area if it felt unsafe. The same thing happens in the mind. If you feel unsafe you can leave that area of the mind. When experiencing something, you can step aside.

N thought this was very true. Years ago he had a boss who was very dominating, which used to reach him internally. On one occasion he did not respond. The boss's attitude was different the rest of that day, and he came back to apologise three times.

Z responded to E and GC, with the idea "use what you can". Recently she had been reading a book by Eckhart Tolle expounding his thoughts on the painbody, which resonated with her experience.

T responded to D, saying it is easy to be high, but hard, like the labour of Sisyphus, to get working. It would be nice to be able to do both. D replied that he was enjoying it, and actually had some ideas. 

Responding to "R" and her thoughts whilst waiting for the lift to arrive, L mentioned the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. There are those who take it seriously. The idea is that each moment the universe divides into myriad others in which alternative possibilities happen, and that a person might be able to steer through the sea of possibilities towards appropriate universes. GC said that there was a negative aspect to most people, who generally expect things to go wrong. L said that fits with the assertion in Beelzebub's Tales that the "Holy-Denying" is what prevails on Earth.

GC brought up the issue of whether the mind-expanding, awakening effects of drugs were overlooked by our society. L said he had recently read an article putting trance music events in the context of the Gurdjieff work. RM spoke of C influence. He suggested also that a person might ask, instead of What would I do now?, the modified question, What would a wise man do now?

After 9:45 the reading of Beelzebub's Tales continued, from the point early in Chapter 18, The Arch-Preposterous, which had been reached the previous month.

... The only difference is that while everywhere else, even on all the other planets of the same system, there is one such king for the whole of the given planet, on your peculiar planet Earth there is a separate king for every accidentally segregated group of these favourites of yours and sometimes even several.

GC interpreted the talk of separate kings as a metaphor for separate I's. In view of the large number of invented words in the book, it was decided to put a link to a glossary on the website, if possible.

... Strictly speaking, it was owing to just this Teskooano that my observatory was afterwards considered one of the best constructions of its kind in the whole Universe; and, most important of all, it was by means of this Teskooano that I myself thereafter could, even while staying at home on the planet Mars, relatively easily see and observe the processes of the existence occurring on the surfaces of those parts of the other planets of that solar system …

… I think it not inadvisable to warn you once and for all that all my conversations with various three-centred beings arising and existing on various planets of that system … all proceeded in dialects still quite unknown to you, and sometimes even, by the way, in such dialects the consonances of which were quite 'indigestible' for perception by normal beingfunctions assigned for this purpose.

It was queried what a teskooano was, and "R" said it was a type of telescope. Z raised the issue of the different dialects mentioned in this paragraph. For D it brought again to mind GC's comment about moving to a different area, in this case a different area of language, of communication. If one person were angry, another might not even be aware of it.

Following the reading, there was a discussion on what the exercise for the coming month should be. A suggestion by DM and "R" was adopted, that when experiencing an emotional response to a situation, to observe the reaction, step back from it and physically experience feeling the feet on the ground.

Who Watches the Watcher?

RM had continued to do the one minute meditation first thing in the morning and it had become like an internal anchor for him. The memory of the experience surfaced naturally during the day and this resurfacing triggered other moments in the day. He described it as if he had had "surface contact" with being real, as if striving to be really present for one minute was creating "working surfaces" with being real. He considered that if he didn't do this then living in fantasy would get longer and longer. Making the first minute of waking a one minute meditation seemed to kick off a process that he surmised may lead to being totally present all the time. He described seeing the effect of the first meditation on waking as the cause of further meditations through the day. He said the meditation at the beginning of the day seemed important, to be there at the beginning.

L had found GC's exercise quite interesting and he had done the exercise throughout the month from time to time. Firstly, It does help one being awake and alert, but secondly it is hard to give attention to more than two things at a time. He also said it was always good to know that Beelzebub's Tales was there. It is is a book one can keep coming back to. It has some good ideas and it is very timely as well in the subject matter of spacefarers going from Earth to Mars or from Mars to Earth, and that is all coming to fruition soon with the work of Elon Musk who hopes to establish the first colony on Mars by 2026. There has also been recent research suggesting that the collision of an asteroid or planet with the Earth created the moon, which is part of the storyline of Gurdjieff's book.



T had had experiences at times of the exercise, seeing, hearing and feeling a surface at the same time. She was aware of not counting to sixty this time, and had only faint memories of the exercise. For her it was too unstructured and less effective, but it did seem that the month had been very eventful, with weddings but also encounters with very close friends under tragic circumstances. She has been missing studio days because of important events to go to. She seemed to have lost her path and sense of purpose, although the big occasions reminded her of the name of Beelzebub's spaceship, the Ship Occasion, and of the significance of the purposeful planning of people gathering and coming together for an occasion.

Responding to RM, L said it was really interesting that we begin each meeting with a one minute silence, which is congruent with RM's practice of one minute meditations. RM agreed, saying that during the silence we had just had, he was paying attention to the door knob, while listening and feeling his feet on the ground, for one minute, and had felt very present to what was going on since then. He thought it was like homoeopathy just a little bit of the right thing in the right way, and it spreads. He calls it a keystone in the arch of consciousness. If you put it first thing in the morning it is like a keystone of the day, and then each day becomes a keystone of the month, and each month becomes a keystone of the year. T pointed out that it was fractal. RM agreed and had come to the conclusion that this was what Gurdjieff had been aiming for, self-remembering permanently. T said this relates to the question of what is the self, and if you don’t have the experience of it, which maybe what the one-minute gives you, that little drip of the real self, then you are forever remembering something that isn't the real self, and then it gets really confusing. RM recalled a question of one of Gurdjieff''s students, “What is the real self?” In the Vedic teachings, they say that if you could separate the observer and the observed, the observer would be the self. Most of what we think of as the self - we can feel our bodies, experience our thoughts - is actually the observed. The real self, the observer, we cannot sense or find. We know it is there. He mentioned the Buddhist “Path of Discrimination”, a system of long term exercises designed to expand awareness. T said she had been doing her one minute exercise at lunchtime, after eating in local gardens. She found that her tensions slipped away during the exercise and that after the exercise she felt refreshed to go back into the mayhem at work. RM said that associations are the cause of physical tension, and that being present breaks the bond between the past and the future, and as that bond is broken, the body is no longer subject to those tensions resulting from the imagined associations.

Artist William Blake, Untitled (detail)

L was reminded of a recent correspondence he had been having with another composer, who was saying that he always writes with the audience in mind. In contrast L writes the music as it comes into his mind as accurately as possible, and had come to the conclusion that for him, the music itself was the audience, the observer of his efforts. He feels as if the music itself judges or witnesses what he has done and whether he had done it well enough. From this perspective his music is a constant companion and witness during the creative process, as opposed to the usual approach of composers and songwriters who are writing with a view to a future audience. L said that his perspective raises the question of who is the observer and who the observed. Click here for full image.

T said that the word observer has the connotation of one person looking at or seeing another, which means it is a human experience, therefore a subjective experience. The word itself, by its very nature, is subjective. After one has had a one-minute awareness experience, when one has experienced a phenomenon, or perhaps even become a phenomenon, how can it be described? Words failed her.

L thought it interesting to play with the English word observe, which contains serve and the prefix ob, suggesting an element of service, but in a different way, as with a coin there is the obverse side.

RM said this can lead to reflecting on whether the body is in the mind, or the mind in the body. His understanding, after a while, becomes that the body is in the mind, which raises the question, just how big is the mind? To him, trying to describe the observer, is like trying to describe the taste of sugar to someone who has never tasted it. You can't. You have to put it in the mouth to taste it. You have to experience it. T said that to put an experience into words like, "I become the observer" reduces the experience to absurdity - reductio ad absurdum - you can't call it anything when you have had an experience where you go somewhere eternal, infinite, everywhere. But people try, and say: "that's the observer". She elaborated on attempts in the NHS to quantify the value of therapy given to people who are mentally unwell, an absurd measuring of something that is immeasurable. L said it was like trying to get the value of a work of art by putting it on scales, or even harder a piece of music. RM spoke of the challenge he finds with the word I. To him it means where he is on his journey. If Jesus or Buddha were to use the word I, it would mean a very different thing, I, God, everything, the whole universe without discrimination. But when RM uses the word, he is thinking of his body, his legs, his feet, his head, his thoughts, his associations with his body, his thoughts, his name, his history. As he becomes more aware, a lot of the things he associated with his I start to fall away. The Vedic term is neti neti, meaning "not this, not that". Whatever he sees, is not him, including his thoughts. You can only see what you are not, you cannot see what you are. This idea has been wrapped up in a lot of spiritual poetry. Shakespeare had been a master in this respect, and when he wrote about time it was as if from the point of view of the eternal. T said there is something in the Shakespeare Plays that is essentially eternal, as they are still being performed. L said that art is either eternal or transient, rather than new or old, and Shakespeare was obviously eternal. T thought that modern art is being very true to transience, and is very forgettable. She said that Van Gogh had moved to Arles to set up an art colony, and painted 200 canvases in fifteen months but sold none, leading to his psychotic breakdown. Each painting might sell for millions now, but were worthless then. He was attached to the idea of someone buying his art, rather than having the understanding that it would not be of interest to anyone because it was from his essence. People recognise the value now from the safe distance of over a century, people buy them, they can detect the essence, the eternal nature in a Van Goph painting.

At 9:45 the reading of Beelzebub's Tales continued from the point reached the previous month in Chapter 17, The Arch-Absurd.

... although in those three-brained beings ... who breed on the planet Earth, there arise ... up to the time of their complete destruction ... three being-brains, through which separately all the three holy forces of the sacred Triamazikamno ... are transformed and go for further corresponding actualizations ...

i. ... the Holy-Affirming, is localized and found in the head.

2. ... the Holy-Denying, is placed ... along the whole of their back ...

3. ... the Holy-Reconciling ...

Saturn, by Raphael

T was wondering if there was a link between the one-minute awareness exercise and the section just read. Was there a link between seeing, hearing, feeling and these three forces? RM said that in Vedic terms the three principles are Rajas, Tamas and Sattva - positive, negative or neutral. Or Father, Son and Holy Ghost. He thought there may be a connection if you think of the sattvic, or neutralising one. When you have neutralised past attachments or future expectations, you do it by being present, so the Holy-Reconciling would correspond to being present. L noticed that while Gurdjieff gave physical locations for the first two, the affirming and the denying, he doesn't for the reconciling, which suggests he is portraying it as transcendent and the other two as more concrete. This reminded RM of something he had been reading earlier that morning, that up needs down, down needs up, left needs right, and so on, but the centre doesn't need anything. The Reconciling is just there. In Vedic terms there is the metaphor of the chariot, and the hub of the wheels (representing Sattva) does not rotate. It is neutral but without it nothing can run. The Tao is sometimes described as the centre of the hub. T spoke of centring in Aikido, and L listed the four principles of Ki-Aikido. L said that if one works from a list, the list becomes like a hub, something our lives revolve about, but to which we are always linked, and which helps us move in a direction, because in that sense the list gives us wheels. T said that is why people resist lists, because a potent hub outside of themselves would undermine the fantasy that they are at the centre of their worlds. L said another reason is that a list draws us away from things that are more enjoyable and easier to do than real objectives.

The reading continued.

... And so, my boy, the process of Djartklom in the Omnipresent-Okidanokh proceeds in the presence of each of these favorites of yours, and in them also, all its three holy forces are blended independently with other cosmic crystallizations, and go for the corresponding actualizations, but as, chiefly owing to the already mentioned abnormal conditions of being-existence gradually established by them themselves, they have entirely ceased to fulfill being-Partkdolg-duty, then, in consequence of this, none of those holy sources of everything existing, with the exception of the denying source alone, is transubstantiated for their own presences.

T asked for clarification of this last paragraph, which was much harder than the preceding ones. RM suggested that this structural device mirrored the content, which was the reconciling force fails to occur and the only residue is the negative denying force.

Gornahoor Harharkh
(essence-friend of Beelzebub)

... The crystallizations arising in their presences from the first and from the third holy forces go almost entirely for the service only of the common-cosmic Trogoautoegocratic-process, while for the coating of their own presences there are only the crystallizations of the second part of the Omnipresent-Okidanokh, namely, of the 'Holy-Denying'; and hence it is that the majority of them remain with presences consisting of the planetary body alone, and thus are, for themselves, destroyed forever.

... meanwhile I shall tell you about those elucidating experiments concerning this Omnipresent cosmic crystallization ...

... I was an eyewitness ... on the planet Saturn where they were made by ... my real friend, about whom I recently promised to tell you a little more in detail.


L wondered if this implied that the carapace of ossified personality might be permanent in some cases. T thought the essence needs freedom and it can wither and die if the denying lasts for too long. L pointed out that Gurdjieff had used the phrase destroyed forever. T though it was almost like killing off your own bit of God, or like the black hole of the universe. L recalled Picasso's quote: "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." T said they get covered over and over by social pressure. RM said his question has always been, "Are we born realised or does it happen?" and he gets the sense that every child is born a perfect instrument to be learnt to play, and it is like an artist in the making. It has all the tools to become an artist, but it has to become one, a work of art. So you are not born realised, but are in a nascent stage and only become realised once you become the perfect artist that you were born to be, of whatever form. He also thought that the crystalisation takes place in us in the form of ideas we hold particularly dear. A strong political or religious belief can stay fixed in us for a lifetime and inhibit us constantly. So he thinks that the work we should be doing is to find out what we individually hold so dear, and what can we do to help each other to work our way through that. T thought that these beliefs often manifest in a set of underlying principles, which might, for example, be religious. L gave the example of dogmatic scientific beliefs as described by Robert Graves in his poem, Synthetic Such:

Robert Graves

'The sum of all the parts of Such -
Of each laboratory scene -
Is Such.' While science means this much
And means no more, why let it mean!
But were the science-men to find
Some animating principle
Which gave synthetic Such a mind
Vital, though metaphysical -
To Such, such an event, I think
Would cause unscientific pain:
Science, appalled by thought, would shrink
To its component parts again.

Steve Jobs
1955 - 2011

RM said he had just rewritten the whole of the Tao Te Ching, in his own words, in order to understand it better, and it says there that there are two truths that we work with One is a truth that we build up over listening to other people and our opinions and society, and because it is opinion-based, it is called synthetic. All these synthetic things we have, we defend as they are part of us, and they can be very destructive. If you have an opinion about what is good and bad, every time somebody does something which is opposite of what you think is good, you become quite angry at them. But there is another truth called the True Heart. The False Heart, based on the acquiring of ideas, relates to synthetic truth. The True Heart, is universal, it is there all the time. It's not good or bad. If you could find it, it would be like plugging into the rules of chess. They are not written down, all the rules are just there. The whole thing is just playing a game. If you lose, you are not losing anything, all the pieces go back in same box as if things went the other way. It is often described as the laws of nature. If you can plug in to the rules by meditation, you would be able to be an expert player immediately. But we don't do that. We acquire things slowly, build up over time, and are bound by that process of acquiring. Ramana Maharshi was asked "Show me who I am" by a visitor who had travelled to India from Europe. He replied "Go back the way you came." This did not mean go home, but to get rid of all the accumulated associations he had and get back to the basics of just seeing. RM believes this state is what Gurdjieff meant by C influences. T said this is the only way, and is what she had done with painting. She had gone back to using just one colour, and all the variations on that one colour which are very subtle, instead of using all the seductive obviously different colours.

Having finished Chapter 17, there was sufficient time to make a start on Chapter 18, The Arch-Preposterous.

...The cause of my first meeting with that three-centered being who subsequently became my essence-friend and by whom I saw the said experiments with the Omnipresent-Okidanokh, was as follows ...

Princess Irulan

L said he was finding RM's recommendation of Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land very pertinent here, as the concept of essence-friend seems similar to Heinlein's of water-brother. T wondered if Heinlein had known of Gurdjieff and L thought this was quite likely. T observed that correlations often come up in the Meetings between well known works and Beelzebub's Tales, most notably Dr Who. RM added that he often wondered if there was also a link with Frank Herbert's Dune novels, in the spiritual commentaries of Princess Irulan which he found deeply inspiring.


Following the reading, there was a discussion on which exercise to adopt during the coming month. RM said he had spoken about the one-minute meditation to a fighter pilot, who told him he had had similar experiences in the plane, where everything seemed to happen in slow motion. RM tried this out while playing table tennis, and the body took over and was able to move faster.

It was decided that the exercise should be to try to experience, for brief periods, intense awareness, accompanied with slowing down of time, by playing a rapid competitive ball game, attending to the moving ball and body at the same time, or alternatively a fast internet game which requires rapid instinctive responses.

Plumbing the Depths

L said he had noticed resistance, which was the previous month's exercise, although he had not overcome it, and had observed it both in himself and as resistance to what he wants to do coming from other people, as he thinks resistance can take form either internally or externally. Resistance from other people to him as an artist is usually a pressure to conform. He had recently come across Ayn Rand's book, The Fountainhead, again. The experiences he has, and the dialogues with some of his peers, are very similar to the dialogues between Howard Roark and his fellow architects in that book. L said that of course he resolutely proceeds with his art in spite of objections to it, following his own structures, designs and values.

Z said that despite having the concept of resistance in her mind, she realised that when it was happening she didn't experience it as resistance at the time. Someone had lent her a book which contained a list of quotes about time and the use of time. This affected her a lot and helped her to get on. There was a description of resistance as being akin to a negative attitude. The good use of time is the opposite of that. She had been observing her own use of time, and had been using it more positively.

T had experienced resistance strongly, maybe because this Meeting was coming up and she was remembering about the exercise. She potentially got to the studio early at 9, but she watched herself decide that she needed to do some shopping, to get some food for the day, but nevertheless she ended up getting a trolley-load, and when she got to the studio it was about 11. She prepared everything to start her painting but then felt exhausted for an hour or so. Then she felt hungry. These were all distractions and resistance, she believed, to the task that she had set herself. Nobody else was setting it, that was the key. So she was not a very good employer of herself. She ended up starting at 4, because she kept finding all sorts of other things to do, but even though she went in and out of being aware of time going by, it took all those hours to actually sit down and do it, and she managed an hour.

D said he was confused about resistance. He had thought that his exercise for being aware of resistance might be to refrain from making his usual one minute contribution, and not say anything. Was it something he should not do because it felt compulsive behaviour? Having heard L talk about The Fountainhead, he wanted to read it again. He had had the book for a year and couldn't get into it. He recalled a woman saying that she needed to have a plumbing job done at her flat, and wanted it done quickly, telling him she couldn't have it "hanging over" her. He said this described the state he was in, and recognised it as resistance. He had needed to fill in a form for the theatre about his play, which required him to write his reasons for writing it. He said this had felt like the inquisition, and he was resistant to answering the questions. He had had to get out of the flat to do it, and went to the library to work on it, step by step. In the end he had completed the form after being helped by the director.

"R" said that her body was not in great shape, and was interpreting that as resistance. She was aware of her body saying "no" when she had to make physical efforts, like going up hill. More energy was required because resistance was there. It was easier to notice resistance in physical form, but another kind was emotional, which she considered was much harder to overcome. She was aware that fear was another form of resistance, which might inhibit her when speaking to people she would normally want to please.

GC said he had nothing to say about resistance, but had written down something a week ago, a saying quoted in a book he was reading by Alain Forget, "What you allow is what will continue". He also said he had been told by his teacher that Gurdjieff was a very hard taskmaster.

Following the contributions, time was given to responses from the attendees.

Z found the aphorism mentioned by GC to be very apposite. For years she has had clutter in her home which she has been meaning to clear. D asked if she could get in the door. Z said she could, but sideways. T said she did understand this type of situation, for energy is required for things to accumulate (the desire to have something nice, and to buy it and bring it home), but the force to clear is different in nature, and this was a constant problem for her. Perhaps this is the "third force". This force was not there regularly - that extra effort - and GC's quote reminded her of habitual behaviour. It is so much harder to continue a good habit - one beneficial to the task that you want to do - than a bad habit. In her case a habit to be on time, say, for the studio, when no-one else is expecting her to be there except for herself, but she is in the habit of getting there late, or when she is early, doing something else. It is a continual problem for her, but there must be some gain for her in not being there. "R" said that the word "allow" suggests giving in, leaving the status quo as it is. D confessed that he puts magazines on one side of a two-seater settee at home, and suddenly notices it has become a big pile. He clears it up once a year. T said this was a visual representation of a mental state. D suggested that we might be being too hard on our selves, and that it is only a problem if we think it is. He thought the opposite state, assiduous tidiness, was as bad. Z said a consequence of clutter is the time spent looking for things. The to-do list became phoning people and paying bills because of other people being involved. Clearing did not get done, which was only reliant on herself.

The discussion turned to the contributions about the month's exercise, which was to be aware of resistance. "R" said it is easy to start, but not easy to complete, any intention. She makes a list of things to do, and thinks she is done once it is on the list.

T asked Z for positive examples of her use of time following her reading the book on it. Z said that she had not been sleeping properly for weeks. She was now taking responsibility for neglected areas. Prompted by the book on time, she is more aware of how she is using time, for example playing cards on the internet. "R" said that this was using the brain which needs to be exercised. T suggested there was a psychological reward from winning. Z said that the main issue of tackling the clutter was very daunting. L said that piles of books were to be expected in every good bookworm's burrow. "R" sugggested having a party. Z would then know that the clearing would have to be done. Z replied that the party would have to be in five years time! L said that this issue of clearing clutter through personal will power might correspond to the third process called by Gurdjieff "Holy-Reconciling". If books are bought they should be read. He gave Gurdjieff's example of plumbing.  If there was no ventilation system built in to the system, the plumbing stopped working.



D had been standing and staring. He felt that he needs to find an identity. He recounted watching a squirrel, which was endlessly doing things, and needed to be doing things. He had found it easier when he was younger. He was now beginning to think of himself as a writer.

L suggested that D watch the movie of The Fountainhead if he was unable to read the book. The film starred Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal.

Mary Baker Eddy, poet
and founder of Christian Science

Z said that Ayn Rand's philosophy was about taking responsibility for yourself.

Referring to D's play, GC said it is easier to act than to be oneself. D said he knew an actor who told him that it was only on stage that he truly felt himself. D pointed out that when actors acted it was other people's roles. L said that actors can gain the realisation that their entire life is a role. D said that Robert de Niro deliberately put on weight for his role in "Raging Bull". Z found that interesting, as actors can be made up artificially to seem heavier. D said he really admires actors. T said it is hard to be yourself. D said he thinks that he is when he is writing. He mentioned principled mentors who are Christian Scientists. GC commented that Christian Scientists believed that they had to take positive action. He gave Mary Baker Eddy and Joyce Grenfell as examples.

It being after 9:45, the Meeting resumed reading Beelzebub’s Tales.

Here you might as well, I think, be told, by the way, about an interesting fact I noticed, which occurred in the history of their existence concerning the strangeness of the psyche of the ordinary three-brained beings of that planet which has taken your fancy, in respect of what they call their 'scientific-speculations.'

...not once has the thought entered the head of a single one of them there that between these two cosmic phenomena which they call 'emanation' and 'radiation' there is any difference whatever.

Not a single one of those 'sorry-scientists' has ever thought that the difference between these two cosmic processes is just about the same as that which the highly esteemed Mullah Nassr Eddin once expressed in the following words:

'They are as much alike as the beard of the famous English Shakespeare and the no less famous French Armagnac.'

T thought that the strange juxtaposition of Shakespeare with the French brandy might have to do with roughness and smoothness.

For the further clarification of the phenomena taking place in the atmospheres and concerning the 'Omnipresent-Active-Element' in general, you must know and remember this also, that during the periods when, owing to the sacred process 'Aieioiuoa,' 'Djartklom' proceeds in the Okidanokh, then there is temporarily released from it the proportion of the pure - that is, absolutely unblended - Etherokrilno which unfailingly enters into all cosmic formations and there serves, as it were, for connecting all the active elements of these formations; and afterwards when its three fundamental parts reblend, then the said proportion of Etherokrilno is re-established.

Source: wiktionary.org

D said he hadn't understood a single thing of this paragraph. T thought Gurdjieff was labouring the point that scientists cannot see a difference between emanation and radiation. GC asked what the difference was. T said that radiation travels in a straight line. D thought emanation might appear like an aura. T said that scientists act as if science is a religion. GC said that they all have to turn to the metaphysical.

"Know first that, in general, every such cosmic formation called 'brain' receives its formation from those crystallizations the affirming source for whose arising, according to the sacred Triamazikamno, is one or another of the corresponding holy forces of the fundamental sacred Triamazikamno, localized in the Omnipresent-Okidanokh. And the further actualizings of the same holy forces proceed by means of the presences of the beings, just through those localizations.

GC had understood nothing of that, but earlier he had noticed that one word, Aieioiuoa, was made up only of vowels, was there a reason for that? "R" said that it comes up later in connection with remorse. Z said she had totally given up on this section and T that she could not get a handle on this paragraph, despite listening to it numerous times. GC asked what the references to one, two and three-brained beings meant. "R" said they refer to plants, animals and humans. GC said he had read somewhere that dreams mean something, but only the dreamer can work out what. To suggestions that Ouspensky had written an easier explanation of Gurdieff's ideas, "R" recalled reading that Gurdjieff once said, "If Ouspensky had understood everything I had written, then he would be my teacher."

GC asked who wrote "Talks With a Devil".

"R" said that some of Ouspensky's well-known works were published twenty years before Beelzebub's Tales was written, which contains additional material.

The Reading continued.

... Concerning the qualities of being-Impulsakri, there is among the direct commandments of our ALL-EMBRACING ENDLESSNESS even a special commandment, which is very strictly carried out by all three-brained beings of our Great Universe, and which is expressed in the following words: 'Always guard against such perceptions as may soil the purity of your brains.'

... Just in this is the point, that the beings having this three-brained system can, by the conscious and intentional fulfilling of being-Partkdolg-duty, utilize from this process of Djartklom in the Omnipresent-Okidanokh, its three holy forces for their own presences and bring their presences to what is called the 'Sekronoolanzaknian-state'; that is to say, they can become such individuals as have their own sacred law of Triamazikamno and thereby the possibility of consciously taking in and coating in their common presence all that 'Holy' which, incidentally, also aids the actualizing of the functioning in these cosmic units of Objective or Divine Reason.

GC considered that any perception at all soils the purity of the brain, and wondered how it was possible to "always guard" against this. L thought that if this be so, it is still useful to be aware that it is happening.

Following the Reading, a suggestion from GC was adopted as the exercise for the ensuing month: to practice being simultaneously aware of what one is seeing, hearing and physically sensing.