L had got into the CHALLENGE a bit more after a number of days. It had felt very liberating, going through the door and then letting the weight go. It had also made him more aware of posture generally, because if you felt lighter, you tended to stand more upright. It was also generally about how bogged down we were by possessions and by thoughts, and had made him think in a much wider context - about eating less, about having less, desiring less. So he would do it, not just when going through the door, but might do it at any time. He had found it helpful.
For N, it was an interesting injunction to try and become lighter, which had got him thinking about what is lightness, and Kundera's novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
Like L, he had also become aware of his posture, and sometimes his shoulders got a bit rounded and he did not always stand up straight. He had made some associations with the Alexander Technique, whereby you were told to think lighter.
He thought there was a lot to be said for having that concept in one's framework of concepts to live by. He thought it was very easy to start believing you had all this heavy stuff going on, we all tended to do it at some stage or other, but you could say that none of that really mattered, and just try and be in the moment.
The image that came to mind for T whilst she was doing this, was trying to get the bullseye, because it felt a real challenge for her to connect her memory and her everyday life with the exercise and this Meeting, and Gurdjieff Work. She remembered the exercise before going out the door, maybe an hour or so before, that she would have an opportunity to do it, but when she was going through that door it was out of her mind. Also the other extreme happened. She remembered after she had been out of the door, minutes or an hour after, that she had missed the opportunity, and it had started to feel like playing darts. It was honestly once or twice that she hit the bullseye, that she got to the door and remembered, trying to feel light afterwards, and she felt the satisfaction of achieving a goal rather than the exercise of experiencing being in that peaceful moment.
Following what T had said about achieving the target perhaps taking precedence over what the challenge actually was, L thought it was more of a challenge than some of the others which were to be done at a particular time every day, for which you could set an alarm to remind you, and he wondered if that was cheating. Here the trigger was going through a door, for which it did not make sense to set a reminder, so it was question of whether that passing through the door, which happened several times a day, reminded you to feel lighter.
The reading continued from Chapter 23 of Beelzebub's Tales.
‘This emblem of ours constantly reminds and indicates to us that it is possible to attain freedom from what I have mentioned only if we compel our common presence always to think, feel, and act in corresponding circumstances according to that which is expressed in this emblem of ours.
‘And this emblem of ours is understood by all of us, members of the society Akhaldan, in the following way:
‘The trunk of this allegorical being, represented by the trunk of a “Bull,” means that the factors crystallized in us and which engender in our presences the impulses maleficent for us, those we have inherited, as well as those we have personally acquired, can be regenerated only by indefatigable labors, namely, by those labors for which among the beings of our planet, the Bull is particularly fitted.
‘That this trunk rests on the legs of a “Lion” means that the said labors should be performed with that cognizance and feeling of courage and faith in one’s “might,” the property of which “might” is possessed among all the beings of the Earth in the highest degree by the possessor of these legs—the mighty Lion.
‘The wings of the strongest and the highest soaring of all birds, the Eagle, attached to the Bull trunk, constantly remind the members of our society, that during the said labors and with the mentioned inner psychic properties of self-respect, it is necessary to meditate continually on questions not related to the direct manifestations required for ordinary being-existence.
L said it was very interesting that here was one of the very few occasions when Gurdjieff actually mentions meditating.
RM had found the allegorical statements there very useful, because really Gurdjieff was talking about how you could fracture the crystallisation once you became crystallised, and break through it, and you had to do it with persistence, strength, all those symbols of the lion's legs and heart. That said it all to him.
C said Gurdjieff also mentioned indefatigable labors, which really meant how hard this was, because you had to detach yourself from ordinary life to do it, and your mind was always taking you away.
...when they begin to carry out on some part of the surface of their planet the process of reciprocal destruction, then, at the same time, without any deliberate aim, and even without what is called ‘organic need,’ they also destroy everything which chances to come within the sphere of the perception of their organ of sight. During the periods of this ‘phenomenal psychopathic apogee,’ they destroy also all the objects in the given place and at the given time which these same beings themselves, between whom this terrifying process proceeds, have intentionally produced as well as the productions which have chanced to survive and to reach them from the beings of previous epochs.
L said that we had to hope that this did not get reflected in the news.
One of the things that had struck RM was that we have had this tendency through a lot of these teachings that you have to get rid of all your possessions and destroy stuff, and it was not the point. Being not attached was the issue. You could possess everything in the world, but not be attached. If you were dependent on them for your happiness and your wellbeing, then you had a problem.
L said that two of the component animals on that statue represented constellations, Leo and Taurus, which each have a psychological significance.
RM said they were just representations. They used visible examples of things, but they were not any more meaningful than that. There was no substance to them except just as a story.
For N, it was an interesting injunction to try and become lighter, which had got him thinking about what is lightness, and Kundera's novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
 Whenever you open a door, for example coming home, try to feel lighter for five minutes. |
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From the novel Dark Matter by Blake Crouch |
The image that came to mind for T whilst she was doing this, was trying to get the bullseye, because it felt a real challenge for her to connect her memory and her everyday life with the exercise and this Meeting, and Gurdjieff Work. She remembered the exercise before going out the door, maybe an hour or so before, that she would have an opportunity to do it, but when she was going through that door it was out of her mind. Also the other extreme happened. She remembered after she had been out of the door, minutes or an hour after, that she had missed the opportunity, and it had started to feel like playing darts. It was honestly once or twice that she hit the bullseye, that she got to the door and remembered, trying to feel light afterwards, and she felt the satisfaction of achieving a goal rather than the exercise of experiencing being in that peaceful moment.
Following what T had said about achieving the target perhaps taking precedence over what the challenge actually was, L thought it was more of a challenge than some of the others which were to be done at a particular time every day, for which you could set an alarm to remind you, and he wondered if that was cheating. Here the trigger was going through a door, for which it did not make sense to set a reminder, so it was question of whether that passing through the door, which happened several times a day, reminded you to feel lighter.
The reading continued from Chapter 23 of Beelzebub's Tales.
‘This emblem of ours constantly reminds and indicates to us that it is possible to attain freedom from what I have mentioned only if we compel our common presence always to think, feel, and act in corresponding circumstances according to that which is expressed in this emblem of ours.
‘And this emblem of ours is understood by all of us, members of the society Akhaldan, in the following way:
‘The trunk of this allegorical being, represented by the trunk of a “Bull,” means that the factors crystallized in us and which engender in our presences the impulses maleficent for us, those we have inherited, as well as those we have personally acquired, can be regenerated only by indefatigable labors, namely, by those labors for which among the beings of our planet, the Bull is particularly fitted.
‘That this trunk rests on the legs of a “Lion” means that the said labors should be performed with that cognizance and feeling of courage and faith in one’s “might,” the property of which “might” is possessed among all the beings of the Earth in the highest degree by the possessor of these legs—the mighty Lion.
‘The wings of the strongest and the highest soaring of all birds, the Eagle, attached to the Bull trunk, constantly remind the members of our society, that during the said labors and with the mentioned inner psychic properties of self-respect, it is necessary to meditate continually on questions not related to the direct manifestations required for ordinary being-existence.
L said it was very interesting that here was one of the very few occasions when Gurdjieff actually mentions meditating.
RM had found the allegorical statements there very useful, because really Gurdjieff was talking about how you could fracture the crystallisation once you became crystallised, and break through it, and you had to do it with persistence, strength, all those symbols of the lion's legs and heart. That said it all to him.
C said Gurdjieff also mentioned indefatigable labors, which really meant how hard this was, because you had to detach yourself from ordinary life to do it, and your mind was always taking you away.
...when they begin to carry out on some part of the surface of their planet the process of reciprocal destruction, then, at the same time, without any deliberate aim, and even without what is called ‘organic need,’ they also destroy everything which chances to come within the sphere of the perception of their organ of sight. During the periods of this ‘phenomenal psychopathic apogee,’ they destroy also all the objects in the given place and at the given time which these same beings themselves, between whom this terrifying process proceeds, have intentionally produced as well as the productions which have chanced to survive and to reach them from the beings of previous epochs.
L said that we had to hope that this did not get reflected in the news.
Source: Wikipedia |
One of the things that had struck RM was that we have had this tendency through a lot of these teachings that you have to get rid of all your possessions and destroy stuff, and it was not the point. Being not attached was the issue. You could possess everything in the world, but not be attached. If you were dependent on them for your happiness and your wellbeing, then you had a problem.
L said that two of the component animals on that statue represented constellations, Leo and Taurus, which each have a psychological significance.
RM said they were just representations. They used visible examples of things, but they were not any more meaningful than that. There was no substance to them except just as a story.
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