Flash Trance

Manna from Heaven
Maciejowski Bible (13th century)

L had tried the exercise on intentional suffering, choosing a household task he did not like doing. He had found an app "Rewire" which tracks whether you are able to do a task daily. He had succeeded in doing so most days, and had been able to take a back seat and observe body and automatic mind getting on with doing the task. He had also been assisted by a member of his family who was sending him unpleasant emails which he delayed reading, allowing time for intentional suffering and self-observation of his automatic reactions. A new insight had just occurred to him, it being Passover time, as to what manna may represent. As a composer he had to isolate himself from the works of the great masters to leave room for inspiration to come, otherwise all he would be thinking of was Beethoven or Mozart which would fill the mind, and as it happened some music had come to him on waking that very morning, and he had recorded it. In the biblical story the Israelites were in the desert, bereft of food, and sometimes in the morning manna would come. So it appeared to him that this was a more realistic symbolic meaning of that legend.

N had encountered an issue at work which required an enormous amount of looking through years of records. He was able to observe his inner resistance, and after a while was able to stand back and see it as a good discipline, as what the Work was all about, having to contend with things in life which go against our egos and perspective. It had led to him working very late at night and often at weekends, but within it he saw a kind of inner freedom of having to deal with things he did not particularly want to give such a large degree of attention to.

D was interested in the emotional responses invoked in a person when they are slurred by another. His example was an encounter with an evangelistic Christian. They had had an exchange about the election debates. D had wanted to stop the exchange after a while and the Christian continued and started expressing Christian dogma. D was amazed at his own angry response. He thought that emotions generally were very powerful and could override any teachings. He described being emotionally involved with a woman friend and how it had started to get too emotional for D and they decided to have a temporary break from each other. Since then he had experienced tremendous emotional freedom, total relief from not seeing her. D asked how is it possible for ordinary people to search for enlightenment when it is usual for monks to live without a relationship? His question was, is it too much for people to work towards enlightenment and be in an emotional relationship? He requested some time to explore this point later in the meeting.

J was interested in the expression "inner freedom", because for him the exercise brought a feeling of detachment, not only from the daily domestic task, but also from the fact of doing something that he did not want to do. As someone who was brought up Catholic, he had great resistance to doing something that he did not want to do, for a kind of spiritual reason or a reason outside himself. He felt like not doing it because it was like giving something up for Lent. But he stuck with it, and he had found a detachment from it, and he had been able to look at himself not only doing the little job, but also being detached from the little job and being not doing it out of the same spirit of giving something up for Lent, but doing it out of, maybe, a more creative spirit.

"R" had missed the energy with which this exercise was suggested because she hadn't been there for a couple of Sundays, but she was able to relate something which was ongoing which was sufficient to be very disturbing, and that was having to take responsibility for forgetting, losing things, and not being able to summon names quickly enough to be able to say "Hello" addressing people by name. This was not going to improve particularly, and she was considering how she could use this to help her work. She could tell herself to accept it but it still kept her awake because it didn't fit her image. Sometimes she was able to understand that it was resistance that was one of the forces that we needed. She would much rather have chosen something grander and more beautiful, but this was a fact to be accepted.

Although T had thought about the task last Meeting, she had actually failed to do it on a daily basis, so there was a lot of forgetting going on. There had been something at work which she had had to do which was extremely unpleasant, and she had not had the presence of mind to use it as intentional suffering. What she was aware of was her continual habit of trying to paint, and setting aside time, despite everything going on during the week, to do this, and how for her that was the most challenging thing in her week, to sit down and paint from life, because she did not have to do it, and she would wonder why was she doing it, why was she bothering. But after she had actually climbed up a mountain to do it, it was always worth it, but she could never remember that when she was next planning to do it.

Something had happened to GC at the beginning of the month. He was getting involved in an argument with somebody, and suddenly, in a flash, saw the ridiculousness of his reaction to what was going on. An understanding had swept over his body, a warmth and a glow, maybe a rechanneling of the energy into something more positive, but he had nothing to do with it, it just happened. He had no idea why it happened or why it was strong enough to pull him out of the situation. His mind had not been involved anymore. He could not explain it, it just happened.

RM was thinking about successes. He was still doing four minutes a day of present-centred awareness, contact with his feet and so on, and he was also writing a book about the subject which was keeping him focused, and studying Taoism, which was a fascinating thing. All that was coming together. The more he was present, the more he sensed nature around him, as being part of the natural flow, and as he sensed letting go to that flow, being part of it just as a leaf in a river, things seemed to be coming to him. He would get to a platform for a train and the train would just be arriving, it had happened to him all the way to the Meeting. He did not know where there was a link - he was trying to see success as an ego trip and he was just using his ego to keep him going in a way. He realised now with Insight Timer, after 250 consecutive days of meditation, when he said to himself that he was doing well, he realised that he was just brushing his ego, but at least it was keeping him going. And there were synchronicities happening in life which were quite extraordinary. The only thing he could say was that he never got what he expected, but when he got it, it was what he needed at the time. It was quite weird. So in some ways he was trying to face in the right direction without a destination, and was beginning to accept whatever came as right for him at the time, which was very uplifting for him.

Responding to "R", L said that the words she had used were that it was still keeping her awake, so from that point of view, he thought that was the main thing. "R" said that she did not feel that it was an affliction of the physical brain. She thought it was to do with energies. The general pattern was just not accepting the passage of time. T spoke of the individual and the tribe. Giving out to other people (the tribe) includes remembering their names, but perhaps "R" was trying to remember herself, and that was getting more energy or precedence.

Byron Katie

RM's comment that things happening to him were unexpected but right for him at the time reminded L of Byron Katie's saying, "Things don't happen to you, they happen for you". "R" recalled that her teacher would very often finish what he had to say with the words "For myself, for those near to me, and for the Work".

N found GC's account interesting, regarding this other thing that came in, and it appears that something comes in at that stage and restrains us in some way from persisting in an argument or whatever it might be. What T had said was also interesting, about doing her art and having to climb that mountain, but once she was there she would actually to enjoy it. He had found that with his task, having to go to work at the weekend, but whilst doing it he actually got some pleasure along the way, clarity of perception about some things, certain lessons which were being learnt effectively. That is the thing with the other side of suffering - if you go through it in the right way, insights will be given to you. There are lots of things in life where you learn something from the process even though it is exceedingly unpleasant to go through it. Following on D's comments in terms of relationships, he thought that monks might be losing out if anything, there was much to be learnt from intentional suffering which might come from relationships, and as Gurdjieff suggested combining the ways of the monk, the fakir and the yogi might be the fastest way to reach a different level of consciousness rather than separating yourself from the world.

It being 9:45, the Meeting resumed the reading from Beelzebub's Tales.

Gold is no other than the metal we call 'Prtzathalavr,' the specific weight of which, reckoning from the element of the sacred Theomertmalogos, is 1439; that is to say, its element is three and a fraction times less vivifying than the element of the metal red copper.

Why I suddenly decided not to try to explain to you in detail in words all that then took place in the fragment of the said red copper, in view of my suggestion of the possibility of soon actually showing you in definite intraplanetary formations the processes of various combinations of the manifestations of the active parts of Okidanokh, was because I suddenly remembered the all-gracious promise given me by our All-Quarters- Maintainer, the Most Great Archcherub, Peshtvogner.

T thought this suggested how futile materialism is. We put all our energies into getting something that was gold. For N it was alluding to alchemy, with the pursuit for gold a metaphor for a spiritual quest.

... This I had to do on account of the same sins of my youth. And I was obliged to do so, because when I was pardoned by HIS UNI-BEING ENDLESSNESS and allowed to return to my native land, certain Sacred Individuals decided to demand of me, for any eventuality, to have performed over my essence this sacred process in order that I might not manifest myself as in the days of my youth ...

You probably do not know yet what the Sacred- Aliamizoornakalu over an essence means? I shall later explain it to you in detail but meanwhile I shall simply use the words of our dear Mullah Nassr Eddin who explains this process as 'giving-one's-word-of-honor-not-to-pokeone's- nose-into-the-affairs-of-the-authorities.'

L recalled that Beelzebub here is recalling the time in his past when he was sent into exile to our solar system after getting involved in politics on his home world. T said that he had "poked his nose in" at that time. But now he was a lot older, thousands of years old. L thought the inference was that a procedure carried out on us might similarly affect our future behaviour. There was some discussion of Gurdjieff's depiction of our planet as a place of exile. L said Gurdjieff appeared to be against insurrection. D thought the account of Beelzebub's exile evoked Gurdjieff's exile from Russia. L said that for an artist exile was an aim in itself, in terms of shutting her or himself away from the world. D agreed, saying that it can be lonely.

He at once promised to give orders that everything I should indicate should be taken at the first opportunity on the next trip of the space-ship Omnipresent.

T thought the name of the spaceship, Omnipresent, was very apposite. She also remarked on the name of an earlier spaceship mentioned, the Occasion. L thought that the Iain Banks might have taken a cue from Gurdjieff in the naming of spaceships in his Culture books. "R" agreed with GC that the Meeting was going round and round talking about ideas, but for Gurdjieff ideas were a starting point but the Work was not on what we know, memorise or understand, but by the energy or flow in being present. What was not happening in the Meetings was working on our being directly. It was so attractive to get involved with ideas, but the energy and the development that is possible requires physical sensation of the body and acknowledging its presence.

The Meeting had reached the end of Chapter 18:

... And meanwhile, during our traveling here on the space-ship Karnak, I shall, as I have already promised you, tell you in their order about my descents there to your planet and also about the causes of what is called my 'appearances-there-in-person.'

and continued with Chapter 19, Beelzebub's Second Descent to Earth.

... “It appears that a year before the said catastrophe, our, as she is called, ‘Party-Pythoness’ there, when prophesying, asked us all to leave the continent of Atlantis and migrate to another small continent not very far away, where we were to exist on that definite part of its surface she indicated. 

This small continent was then called ‘Grabontzi’ and the part the Pythoness indicated did indeed escape the terrifying perturbation which then occurred to all the other parts of the common presence of that ill-fated planet.

... So, my boy, the Party-Pythoness there was able to warn those beings of our tribe who had been obliged to exist on that planet, and thereby to save them, as I have already told you, from the inevitable ‘Apocalyptic-fate, owing only to one special being-property which, by the way, can be acquired by beings only intentionally, by means of what is called being-Partkdolg-duty, about which I shall tell you later.

D was reminded of Monty Python. N replied that John Cleese had talked about Gurdjieff being an influence on his life. T said that in the Dead Parrot Sketch, after the admission the parrot was dead, a slug was offered, a metaphor of Gurdjieff for human being. L said that this sketch was all about avoiding the acceptance of death, and the shopkeeper would do anything but accept the parrot was dead.



There was a discussion as to what to do as an exercise during the coming month. A suggestion from RM was adopted, to select a daily physical habit, and deliberately to do it in a different way.