The Mill and the Floss

Mill at Gillingham, Dorset, 1825-26
John Constable 1825-26

GC had found it a chore to do the exercise with the left hand. He felt he was not doing the activity properly. As for awareness, he became aware that he was using his left hand. He had not really got anything from the exercise, as such.

T had disliked it as it was less mechanical and less easy to do - she had felt like a child again. The mind likes to know how to do things well, which she could with the right hand. The exercise enabled her to be slower and, something she wanted to avoid, more present. She had also tried eating with the left hand, which was similar - she had felt clumsy and did not like it.

L had done the exercise using a toothbrush every day. (He had also carried on every day with the previous month's exercise.) It was a good waking exercise but after a number of days had become the new habit. This led him to think that a month is too long for these exercises.

EXERCISE “To take a habit and do it differently, for the purpose of self-remembering. For example, brushing your teeth with the alternate hand.”

RM had stayed with the eating/not eating exercise. The question in his mind was, How is this changing my life? He had flashes for moments of an extraordinary sense of freedom, with problems put aside. but hanging on to the memory of that can itself be a trap. A watermill cannot hold on to its water, it has to let go and let the flow flow. If the bird tried to hang on to the air which provides its lift, it would fall down.

N had found it very awkward and frustrating, he had almost rebelled against it. After a few days he had gained more dexterity with the teeth exercise. Just as with a new language, it got easier with perseverance. He had also tried writing with the left hand, which did not get better. It made him wonder why he was doing it. The exercise brought a number of different emotions.

D had tried to do it a few times then completely forgot about it. He had had to be present the last ten days because asthma had forced him to walk slower, and to back away from doing things. He had to plan what he was going to do very carefully in terms of energy. It felt peaceful and he liked it but wanted his old self back.

"R" said that the use of the hand which isn't skilled demands that the body slows down to a pace that you can watch. There was a possibility to balance the speeds of the energies of observing the body, the actions of it, and the feelings about the wish for the activity to succeed. Bringing those three energies closer together may be closer to what she would expect when being present.

Following the contributions, the Meeting moved on to discussing them.

L responded to N's difficulty in writing with the left hand, suggesting that using mirror script, as used by Da Vinci, might have been easier. D said that the famous snooker player Ronnie O'Sullivan was ambidextrous which was very rare and significantly helped his game. He asked if using both hands affected the mind in some way? N said there were conductors who use either hand, and thought these left/right exercises were important for the Work as it is partly about balance - maybe they had a greater payoff than we realised. However maybe there is some danger in it too and he cited how young children who used to write naturally left handed were at one time told at school to use their right hand. This curtailing of natural tendency at an early age may have caused them psychological damage. N had participated in the Gurdjieff dances which were very compelling from the point of view of having to be present when doing these things. Maybe Gurdjieff was trying to teach us a few things about balancing the centres while doing things which are very difficult for the body to achieve.

T said that N's comment about society forcing children to write with their right hand was almost a macrocosm of the brain wanting her to stop using her left hand and use the right hand instead. Even the language refers to it as "right". L said the etymology of the words left and right was very interesting. T suggested that the left hand was symbolic of doing what one wants and of being the individual, while the right was symbolic of pressures from the tribe. RM said that the right-hand side of the brain is the intuitive side, which is linked to the left hand. For him  the most useful thing about these exercises was to make him do something with which he is unfamiliar because it brings him into the present.

N liked RM's metaphors of the watermill and the bird. He said that we don't often think about the medium we are in as part of our process. Gurdjieff would have said that the medium is impressions. If they stop or we try to hold onto them, the process stops.

D's description of temporarily halting his busy activities reminded L of a stop exercise but over a longer time period. D hadn't been sure the exercises would help and L said they might but perhaps only to a limited extent. The spider cannot swing far from its web. "R" asked which of their eight legs are spiders "handed", as they appear to work with all their legs at the same time. L said that recent research had shown that the brain of the spider extends into each of its legs. T thought the same might be true for humans, as neurons had been found in the stomach. Q said that our autonomic nervous system is a kind of brain.



D said that his intuition tells him that because being awake is an unnatural state the mind can't keep it up and goes back to illusion, otherwise the mind would go mad. L said that research into virtual life forms indicated that knowledge of reality as it is works against evolution. Living in a state of happy delusion was better for the survival of the species.



Q talked of Gurdjieff's concept of kundabuffer which is congruent with this research. To not be asleep is not natural, and requires an unnatural effort on our part if we want to be aware. In the Gurdjieff's story, kundabuffer is put into human beings in order that they will not be able to sense reality as it is, to ensure that life will perpetuate. D said that being present might not be useful for the procreation of the species, but it was very important for the individual to be present as many times during the day as possible.

At 9:45 the Reading continued from Beelzebub's Tales Chapter 19, Beelzebub’s Second Descent To Earth.

His colleagues began delivering addresses in their temples proving exactly the opposite of all that the priest Abdil had preached.

... At last it came to the point that the priesthood began to bribe various beings who had 'Hasnamuss' properties to plan and commit every kind of outrage upon this poor Abdil; and, indeed, these terrestrial nullities with the properties mentioned even tried on several occasions to destroy his existence by sprinkling poison on the various edible offerings brought to him.

In spite of all this, the number of sincere admirers of his preaching daily increased.

Finally, the whole corporation of the priesthood could stand it no longer; and on a sad day for my friend, a general ecumenical trial was held, which lasted four days.

By the sentence of this general ecumenical council, not only was this Earth friend of mine completely excommunicated from the priesthood, but, at the same council, his colleagues also organized means for his further persecution.

All this, of course, had little by little a strong effect on the psyche of the ordinary beings, so that even those around him who had formerly esteemed him also began gradually to avoid him and to repeat every kind of calumny about him.

T was reminded of the trial of Jesus. N said the priesthood were acting out of jealously and also out of fear for their livelihoods. L said that in his experience jealousy and fear for status (which is usually connected with money) go together.  GC expounded his three principles which helped him interpret reality:

1. Big Mind - the energy behind the universe
   
   
2. Consciousness
   
   
3. Thoughts

Thoughts create feelings, feelings create reactions. He found in comparison that the Work was cumbersome. When you cut yourself, the body healed itself without any thinking. The mind wants to think, but the thoughts are mostly no good. L said it was hard to find the reasons for the Work in the book. RM alluded to Gurdjieff's vision for his own life's work which comprised of three ideas. This vision had been read out in a previous meeting and it was in the context of his situation after strife in Russia. N said there have been revolutionary forces within religion, e.g. Martin Luther, and the authorities always try to suppress them. T mentioned the case of Matthew Fox, who believes in original blessing, and was expelled from the Dominican order for disobedience.

... Toward the end there remained with him only one very old being who had been with him quite a long time.

... Going into my friend's room one sad morning, this old man saw that he had been killed and that his planetary body had been hacked to pieces.

Knowing that I was his friend, he at once ran to me to tell me about it.

I have already told you, that I had begun to love him as one of my nearests. So when I learned about this terrible fact, there almost occurred in my whole presence a 'Skinikoonartzino,' that is to say, the connection between my separate being-centers was almost shattered. 

T thought the old man may symbolise the observer. For L the priest's dissident teachings may have represented the conquering of the superego, his murder was the destruction of the naturally rebellious ego, and what was left alive was the older person, the id. Q said this was more than a metaphor for revolution. This was about an individual, Abdil, who had received objective information from an independent source.

Following the reading, there was a discussion on which exercise to adopt for the coming month. A suggestion from "R" based on an exercise described by Ouspensky was adopted, to daily count lampposts while walking and note the maximum count attained.