Knock! Knock! Who's There?

As the minute's silence which opens the Meetings was about to start, there was a distinct knocking at the door, but there was no one there. More knocks and sounds from the door ensued throughout the silence, after which D locked it shut, to prevent it being rattled by the wind. The date happened to coincide with the anniversary of the Meeting's late Founder Member, M, who passed away the previous December. Moments later there was a further knocking at the door, which D unlocked, and RM entered.

The cause of the initial knocking was ascribed, as is usual in such circumstances, to the wind, and the initial contributions from the attendees began.

EXERCISE “To daily count lampposts while walking, and note the maximum count attained.”

L had read the account by Ouspensky of his exercise counting lampposts, and hadn't taken it too seriously at the time as he assumed it would be quite easy to count lampposts, but in practice he found it very hard. On one auspicious occasion he got to 35 but rarely made it to double figures. Again, it was a demonstration that our perception of being free-willed, conscious and awake can be an illusion. He had also carried on with some previous exercises - doing three things every day which were planned at the beginning of the day, and the alternation of minutes eating or not eating.

D said that he had his phone switched on and if it rang he would have to answer it and would go out of the room. His friend was due to travel overseas that morning, and he didn't know for sure if she was going or not, so he would have to take the call and go if it came. It was really a challenge to be a friend of hers, and he was a very good friend. Over the last 18 months he had really had to be present. Even that morning walking up the street he had really had to be present because he had so wanted to come - but if the phone rang he would have to go.

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N had likewise found it a difficult exercise. He had started off with great enthusiasm and lost it fairly quickly. On one occasion he got up to the thirties. He got a bit bored with it. He had to use quite a lot of resources of his will-power to count like that. It was not the sort of thing he could do without being consciously there and because it was not the most exciting exercise in the world he got bored with it and resisted it. One of the things that did happen in the month was an increase in consciousness at some level; he went to a jazz concert in a church, and had to wait beforehand, sitting in the garden of the church, and the church bell was ringing. Every time it rang it was as if the gong was sounding within him and he felt his whole body resonating. He wondered if it was because he had done the exercise earlier that day, and whether there might be some pay-off  in that he might have experienced something internally more strongly as a result of having done the exercise.

T had tried the exercise throughout the month. The first couple of weeks she remembered it, but in the following weeks it faded away. The most difficult part was between the lampposts, because that was when she got distracted. It reminded her of the alternate one-minute eating and not eating exercise. Each time there was a lamppost it was as if she could eat something, there was something she could relate to. She experienced the time between the lampposts as her mind trying to find something to eat. She had often gone some way down the street before she remembered the exercise in the first place. She often looked back, and saw that she had passed 2 or 3 without registering them so the score was always something like 5 out of 8, or 6 out of 8. It was difficult to be aware of what did trigger the memory to do what seemed a mundane, banal exercise.

It was one of RM's favourite exercises which he had been doing for years. He found that the most important part was in between the lampposts. It made him so much more aware of the presence of the self as opposed to the monkey-mind of attachments and things and where he was going and what was happening. If he didn't hang on to these things they flowed through him, just as a watermill did not hang on to the water. Occasionally as  he reached the next lamppost he forgot he was doing it, and the lamppost reminded him. and it was the in-between bit that was the real meditation and had given him a real sense of the difference between being mindful and being stuck with past ideas and expectations, two very clear separations, and he had found that extremely helpful for years and had used the lampposts often when walking from home to the station, maybe thirty lampposts, and it was rewarding when he had got to the station and he had managed to hold a sense of being present in between the lampposts.

J said it was not a unique experiment, it was an example of a type of experiment, and recounted a related experience from his schooldays when he was preparing for A-level in Ancient History. He had gone through Suetonius looking for the word crown as a way of remembering all the other stories. If the word crown appeared, he remembered the story. It paid off, especially when one of the  questions in the A-level exam when he actually came to be doing it was: Explain the significance of crowns in Suetonious. There were really two levels of consciousness. The exercise was also a way of being able to concentrate on two things at the same time, two equally important totems or goals, and may be a good mind training anyway. Looking for the word crown was rather boring, like looking for lampposts, but if you had another purpose in mind, if you were concentrating on something else as well, it was a mental training.

"R" said that she did not do a lot of walking because she had a bad back, and she did not need to in her daily life. When preparing in the mornings, she chose moments in the day (though she did not always remember those moments) to be aware of the flow of life energy. It was easy to immediately forget, but sometimes she could catch the flow of life energy through the body and through the feelings, and not try to grasp it but to let it continue to flow. Another thing she had noticed and made a point of looking at, was that with each breath we tended to think that the work lay in breathing in, but in fact the muscles relaxed when she breathed in to make more space. When she breathed out the diaphragm was working, and that was a sort of contradiction, in a way being caught in the middle of two different directions of energies, and to notice it as a kind of signpost. Not to interfere, with this natural process, was even more difficult.

Baruch Spinoza
1632 - 1677

Following the contributions, the Meeting moved on to responses.

J wondered if a lot of what had been discussed goes along with Spinoza's analysis of happiness, being not just about happiness but also awareness of being happy. What we seemed to be doing with the lampposts was being conscious of what was going on around us, highlighting that thinking as well as reacting in the flow.

D followed up RM's comments about attachments, and asked him how they applied to emotional attachments. RM said that these can be tested - if you were dependent on a person for your happiness, then that was attachment. If you emotionally warmed towards somebody regardless of whether they were with you or not, that was not attachment. Q said if you were interested in self-study, a relationship could be an opportunity, as best as you could, to accept yourself, and everything that went on within you, simply to see if you could have an attitude of interest and self-acceptance of yourself.

L was wondering how N had remembered to start the lamppost counting exercise. In other exercises there had been a trigger, for example opening a door with a different hand would be triggered on getting home. RM said that the idea of the lamppost itself was the trigger, because your mind was subconsciously thinking about it, even though you were not aware of it. This would often happen to him while walking, and the minute he realised he would start the exercise. T had the experience of it linking with the Meeting as well - it reinforced the Work, and was a support for it. N said it was a very good exercise as we were never without lampposts somewhere; in a sense it was a permanent exercise so as to see your level of awakeness or awareness at any particular time. T had been trying to wring some meaning from it, and the metaphor of it being a light in the darkness helped, though that was harder during the day when the lamps were not on. RM said we must not lose sight of the point that it was the level of awareness we were looking for, not the counting of lampposts which help to trigger it and remind us - it was about what you did in between the lampposts, and as people have mentioned, it's boring.

N talked of one thing that came out of this for him  He had gone to a lot of concerts in November, and had written down what people were playing. Remembering the songs that were being played helped him concentrate on the music and gave him a record of what he had listened to, so he actually enjoyed the concert again afterwards by looking over his notes. So sometimes bringing things into the intellectual centre and not just experiencing them as events could help. Memory could help, appreciation could help, a lot of other things as well, so having some direction and some extra intention when you do certain things makes a massive difference to your appreciation of them. J wondered if there was a difference between lampposts and appreciation of jazz. Was there a danger of diminishing returns because the more you did it, the more it became a habit and therefore the less impact it had, whereas with jazz, when taking notes, you were constantly being brought into the present, which was what the lamppost exercise was supposed to be about. L said that it would appear that the exercises had to keep changing lest they became new habits.

Following the responses, the Meeting continued with reading from Chapter 19, Beelzebub’s Second Descent To Earth.

But during the day I feared that the same or other unconscionable beings might commit further outrages on my friend's planetary body, so I decided at least to prevent the possible actualization of what I feared.

I therefore immediately hired several suitable beings for a great sum of money and, unbeknown to anybody else, had his planetary body removed and temporarily placed in my Selchan, that is, on my raft which was moored not far away on the river Oksoseria, and which I had not disposed of because I had intended to sail on it from there to the sea Kolhidious to our ship Occasion.

This sad end of my friend's existence did not prevent his preachings and persuasions about the cessation of Sacrificial-Offerings having a strong effect on many, even on a great many.

And indeed, the quantity of slaughterings for Sacrificial-Offerings began very perceptibly to diminish and one could see that even if the custom were not abolished completely with time, it would at least be considerably mitigated.

...I learned afterwards that this story reached His All- Quarters-Maintainer, the Most Great Archangel 'Setrenotzinarco,' the All-Quarters-Maintainer of that part of the Universe to which that system Ors belongs, and that He manifested his pleasure by giving to whom it was proper, a command concerning the soul of this terrestrial friend of mine.

On the planet Mars I was indeed expected by several beings of our tribe who had newly arrived from the planet Karatas. Among them, by the way, was also your grandmother who, according to the indications of the chief Zirlikners of the planet Karatas, had been assigned to me as the passive half for the continuance of my line.

T said there seemed to be a resonance with Jesus being taken from the tomb, going up to "The Father". She found it amusing. The passage seemed to parody the Resurrection. "R" disagreed in that this character's message was only to tell people not to kill animals, and his was not a universal movement but a private one. L pointed out that the issue was of sacrificing animals. From the animals' point of view it didn't matter whether they were killed for sacrifice or slaughtered for food. The passage seemed to resonate with the present age and highlight the dichotomy still in our culture, that abuse of animals was wrong, but killing of animals for food was seen as right. The person was martyred for preaching that animals should not be killed. Even after death there was a question of safety of the planetary body depending on the beliefs of the society.

There followed a discussion about the lengthy words, names and nouns that are frequently used. GC commented on how some of the lengthy nouns sounded mocking or satirical. N considered they were like a play on words, and seemed to call for detective processes to search for their hidden meaning. The words seemed to be a code for something e.g., Kolhidious. "R" commented that in relation to the name of the river Oksoseria, that there is a real river the Oxus, and that Kolhidious is the fictional name for the actual Caspian Sea into which the Oxus used to flow.

D wondered what Setrenotzinarco meant? T speculated that the wordplay was a nudge to wake up and GC questioned, "Wake up to what?" J remarked that names in novels, for example in Dickens, were often designed to create an impression by the sound, not the reference. For instance Setrenotzinarco seemed to hint at the word narcotic. "R" said that the books were originally written in Russian and Gurdjieff was helped with the English version by Orage and that reams had been written about the names and words. T described how the words added an extra dynamic to the text, uncomfortably provoking the question in the reader, 'what does that mean?' Q reminded the meeting that the writer's advice to the reader was to read the book three times, once straight through to oneself, a second reading to read aloud to another and a third to study it carefully and she considered that it was definitely a process. G felt cynical about this and he was reminded that in the 50's and 60's the population was told not to use soap and to use hair shampoo, probably because the companies that made the hair shampoo wanted to sell a lot of the new product. Maybe Gurdjieff wanted people to read his book?

The Reading continued.

CHAPTER 20 The Third Flight of Beelzebub to the Planet Earth

After a brief pause Beelzebub continued to speak further as follows:

...“On this third descent of mine to the planet Earth our ship Occasion did not alight on the sea Kolhidious, which is now called there Caspian Sea, but on the sea called at that period the 'Sea of Beneficence.'

"We decided to alight on this sea because I wished this time to go to the capital of the beings of the second group of the continent Ashhark, then named the City Gob, which was situated on the southeastern shore of that sea.

..."The City Gob was situated on both banks of the mouth of a large river called the 'Keria-chi' which flowed into the Sea of Beneficence and which had its rise in the eastern heights of this country.

"Into this Sea of Beneficence, on its western side, another large river flowed called the 'Naria-chi.'

"And it was in the valleys of these two large rivers that the beings of the second group of the continent Ashhark chiefly existed.

N and L wondered about the reference to actual countries, and whether Gurdjieff was talking about China and Japan, or if anyone had tried to produce a map with all the book's place names in relation to real places. This was not known.

... while the continent Atlantis was still existing and at the height of its splendor, one of the ordinary three-centered beings of that continent 'invented' ,,, that the powdered horn of a being of that particular exterior form then called a 'Pirmaral' was very effective against what they call 'diseases' of every kind. His 'invention' was afterwards widely spread by various 'freaks' on your planet, and also there was gradually crystallized in the Reason of the ordinary beings there an illusory directing factor, from which, by the way, there is formed in the whole of the presence of each of your favorites, especially of the contemporary ones, the Reason of what is called their 'waking-existence,' which factor is the chief cause of the frequent change in convictions accumulated in them.

GC wondered about the passage referring to "frequent change ... accumulated in them." There was a discussion about the meaning of freaks as used in the book and as used conventionally through the ages. GC considered that the use of the term freak referred to mad people and criminals. RM described the natural world and unnatural world, and how a freak was someone who didn't follow convention or conform to the natural world. L experienced Beelzebub's use of the word freak as affectionate, when referring to people.

J considered that the book was a folie à deux of multitudes writ large, with the writer deliberately standing apart from the planet in order to look at it from a different perspective. L agreed and recalled similar in Gulliver's Travels. R was reminded of the novel, Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. N said that by using philosophy and anthropology, Gurdjieff forced the reader to question everything; he took what we knew as familiar, and made it seem unfamiliar. The phrase crystallising in the reason and illusory directing factor seemed to be significant.

N pointed out that animals with horns are in myths and legends, the unicorn was a symbol of mythology. The nearest humans have to horns are our nails, we certainly don't have horns in our heads. L recalled reading an article by a journalist who came across a unicorn late one night in Pimlico. GC said that horned animals were the most dangerous animals to humans. T observed that in the book, Beelzebub has a horn.

For my further tales concerning these three-brained beings who have taken your fancy, it will be very useful for you, I think, if I emphasize here that on account of various disturbances during the second terrestrial catastrophe, several parts of the continent Iranan entered within the planet, and other terra firmas emerged in their place and attached themselves to this continent, which in consequence became considerably changed and became in size almost what the continent Atlantis had been for the planet Earth before the catastrophe.

...On that 'terra firma part of the surface of your planet, not only did there exist at that period multitudes of twobrained beings of the said exterior form, namely, Pirmarals, but around this water-space were also multitudes of various kinds of 'fruit trees,' whose fruit then still served for your favorites as the principal product for their 'first being-food.'

There were then also so many of the one-brained and two-brained beings which your favorites call 'birds' that when they flew in droves it became, as your favorites say, 'quite dark.' ...

L clarified that one brained life-forms - like fruit trees - were rooted to the ground, two brained had mobility and three-brained higher mental faculties.

Sir John Collings Squire (1884 – 1958) worked for a while with Alfred Orage. To Alexander Pope's couplet: Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night: God said, “Let Newton be!” — and all was light. Squire famously appended: It did not last: the Devil, shouting "Ho. Let Einstein be!" restored the status quo. Acknowledgements and thanks to "R"

GC asked the Meeting "What is objective reality?". He had been a believer of objective reality but that had now changed. In response J asked if there might not be several objective realities. "R" attempted to define objective as actual and gave the examples of pure mathematics and pure physics, with fundamental laws. L recalled how scientists used to believe that there was an ether, a medium, a substance of space, that filled the universe and the space between the planets. Einstein then came along with the theory that the speed of light was constant and that people of different viewpoints had different experiences of reality. GC said that people were now challenging Einstein. D said that the choice for him was heaven or hell. Some days he was free of it, some days he was in it, but it was by choice. Protons and electrons were true.

Following the reading, there was a discussion on which exercise to adopt for the coming month. It was decided it would be to action and observe the experience of deliberate slowness, defined further as to do something every day at half the usual speed.