High Fidelity

N had initially found there were lots of I's, sometimes different ones would appear on different days. By doing this exercise he got to a more coherent I, and got to a more governing I which took charge over the series of I's. The exercise gave more stability, and together with having a "Work I", was a very beneficial way of taking away the peripheral I's which are often around and affect our lives, even though there was part of him which wondered whether there was such a thing as an identity.

EXERCISE “ On rising every morning, say "I am". When pronouncing the words "I am," imagine that a reverberation is proceeding in the solar plexus.”

T's experience was often triggered by a state of pain. She would be reminded of the exercise and said "I am" to herself. The words came from language and the intellect, but it had a function which said that something else was in existence apart from the pain. On one occasion she was anxious because she was late, and put the "I am" into the rush. It was like another entity which was usually forgotten or not in mind. It added another ingredient and felt like a vital experiment to try.

The first thing RG realised upon trying the exercise was how forgotten she was. Then she realised as well how mechanical we are, because everything she had done so far and knew so far was without thinking What am I doing? Where am I?   where she was, who she was. She was now thinking of what she had been doing before, and hoped not to do it any more, as it had been so mechanical.

C thought the exercise had to include the reverberation to the solar plexus as Gurdjieff had stated. He found that not much happened the first few times, but after a month had gone by he felt he was more his real self than normally. He expressed interest in a second exercise which Gurdjieff had mentioned in the source text for this one, in his book Life Is Only Real Then, When I Am.

L did the exercise but focused on the part about reverberations in the solar plexus. That didn't happen for him, and that was a little demotivating. He had continued his practice of composing music every morning, which reinforced a sense of identity because he could say I am a composer, in the sense of every morning.

J thought I am was a dangerous phrase. The people who say I am, who think I am, are very often those who want to obtrude their ego on others. To repeat the words to oneself was a sort of brainwashing. What he wanted was to accentuate or obtrude those qualities he thought were worth obtruding, both to himself and to others - to put a gift wrapper around the I, that way danger lay.

The Meeting moved on to responses.

C said it was not a promotion of the ego as J was suggesting. It was about saying I am as you were, for instance, looking at the road. It was to uplift consciousness. J said he was not suggesting it was Gurdjieff's intention with this exercise to go in the direction of promoting the ego. It was an unseen rock beneath, a danger, to repeat a phrase to yourself, and in particular that phrase. There could be an unintended consequence. RM said that when he used to do the exercise with the Gurdjeiff Society, instead of saying I am, they used to say I, here, now. He thought this helped to do away with getting caught up in the ego issue. L said it became particularly dangerous when you have a group of people saying the same phrases together, and then you were in a cult situation.

Following the responses, the reading resumed the Reading from Chapter 22 of Beelzebub's Tales.

 

With acknowledgments to Harold Good
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In the middle of this enormous walled enclosure stood a large structure, also strongly built, which constituted the main part of the monastery.

... Around the outside wall, on its inner side, stood a row of small, strongly built, closely adjoining compartments, like cells.

... These sentry-box structures were entirely walled in on all sides, except that near the bottom they had a small aperture through which, with great difficulty, a hand could be thrust.

These strong sentry-box structures were for the perpetual immurement of the already ‘deserving’ beings of that sect—and they were to occupy themselves with their famous manipulation of what they call their ‘emotions’ and ‘thoughts’—until the total destruction of their planetary existence.

And so, it was when the wives of these ‘self-tamer-sectarians’ learned of just this that they made the said great outcry.

... At that time when we came within the walls of that terrible monastery, all these monstrous cells were already occupied; and the care of the immured ... was carried out with great reverence by those sectarians who were candidates for that immurement ...

T thought this section illustrated the danger of going to extremes. N was reminded of an old Monty Python sketch where people compete to claim ever greater experience of hardship. L said it might reflect Gurdjieff's concerns about too much adulation from his followers.

When the companions of the immured learned of the cessation of the existence of any one of them ... the ranks of these unfortunate ‘fanatic monks’ were being filled up by other members of that peculiar sect, constantly coming from Pearl-land.

 ...Having rested and fed our biped and quadruped workers, we left that melancholy place of sacrifice ...

N said there were extremists in every group, including in the Gurdjieff work. C said they were all doing their best but pushed it to the extreme, though some groups like Quakers did not have these branches. D said it was also true for Quakers. T said it was sad that the travellers, having fed the biped and quadruped workers, were unable to help them further and had to leave them to their fate. L said he thought the answer was for individuals to pursue art, using inspiration, and this kind of activity did not impose on anybody else, there did not have to be an audience for an artist. But it was much easier to believe in an outside agency, start to worship it, join a group, than to go somewhere on your own and paint. RM thought it was because we needed somebody else to blame, be it the devil or god. C asked if culture and art were not a sublimation of our primitive instincts. D said that if people of different faiths were to meet, they would see no difference. N agreed that they would show tolerance to each other. L said that popular gurus can make aggressive remarks. N said that what he liked about the Gurdjieff Work was that emotions did not take over.

... For instance, the chief range of that elevated region through which we had then passed, namely, the range of elevations which the beings there call a ‘mountain-range,’ had in the interval projected so far from the planet that some of its peaks are now the loftiest among all the abnormal projections of that vainly-long-suffering-planet. And if you climbed them, you could possibly with the aid of a Teskooano ‘see clearly’ the center of the opposite side of that peculiar planet.

When I first constated that strange phenomenon occurring on that remarkably peculiar planet of yours, I at once thought that in all probability it contained the germ for the arising of some subsequent misfortune on a great common cosmic scale, and when I afterwards collected statistics concerning that abnormal phenomenon, this first apprehension of mine very soon more and more grew in me.

Illustration for the Little Prince by Saint-Exupery
From a mountain as high as this one ...
I shall be able to see the whole planet ..

D asked what it could possibly mean. T thought the mountains might be the lofty heights they felt they had reached through their spiritual practice. L said it might be a reference to lofty peaks reached by the techniques of the monks, but also dangers associated with getting there. T said that Gurdjieff talked of the planetary bodies of human beings, and that the described use of a tescooano might be a metaphor for seeing the other side of yourself. For L, the use of a tescooano (telescope) to see the other side of the planet reminded him of the illustration by Saint-Exupery from The Little Prince.

... Be that as it may, if this abnormal growth of the Tibetan mountains continues thus in the future, a great catastrophe on a general cosmic scale is sooner or later inevitable.

However, when the menace I see becomes already evident, no doubt the Most High, Most Sacred Cosmic Individuals will at the proper time take the proper precautions.

N recalled that when there was a tsunami in December 2004, humans didn't pick it up in advance, but the birds and the animals were tuned into the planet and most of them survived. L said that when he last took compost down to the recycling container, although the container was empty, there were slugs on the underside of the lid, as if they were aware food was about to arrive.