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.