T had realised that for most of the time during her life she had been a follower. There was massive resistance to acknowledging that, so that was why the CHALLENGE was so difficult to get started on. Then she realised who she might be following at the moment. She managed to give attention to the hands twice. They were trembling, vibrating. She could feel the blood vessels moving.
Once a day, when you become aware that you are being a follower, sense your allegiance and consider what emotion is attached. Do I know it to be so, or is it just because it sounds good? Give attention to your hands and wait till you feel them tingle.
L had attended a meeting of followers, and although he was not a follower himself, it was interesting being in the presence of followers. He did the exercise with his hands and felt very strong tingling.
During the period allocated to responses, there was much discussion about following, and whether it mattered or applied to appreciation of art, but nothing was said about particular experiences of doing the challenge.
The reading then continued from Chapter 28 of Beelzebub's Tales. This led to much discussion on civil wars and revolutions in France, Spain and Russia, and the meanings of ego and waking up, but not on anything related to the specific parts of the text.
L had done the CHALLENGE a number of times. In addition, he thought he had sometimes been pompous, and while that might be too short-lived to count as wiseacring, he sometimes stood on one leg anyway. A few times, he also responded in the same way after becoming aware of his thoughts wandering.
Once a day, when you become aware that you have been wiseacring, stand on one leg, and purposefully manufacture a feeling of elation.
N said he found himself speaking in a context, like work, and then realised that perhaps he was overextending himself.
T said she had experienced through the month many instances of wiseacring and needing to stand on one leg. This was shocking for her, because it was her usual pattern to forget the challenge, then try to remember it during the last two weeks and have to go back to find out what it was, but this time it was there very frequently. The thing that got her was manufacturing a sense of elation. It was so far removed from anything she had done before, or tried to do for herself - to make up a feeling - so that was really difficult. She realised there were great swathes of time when she was at work when she had been unaware of the challenge, but she retrospectively knew that she wiseacred there a lot. This was getting involved in long, drawn out conversations about things she knew nothing about, particularly the politics of the workplace which were toxic. She was not privy to why people in management made decisions, but she had all sorts of speculations.
LR was aware that she had not had much wiseacring this month, and the reason was because in the last few months she had become more internally quiet, but she had spent many years wiseacring, and trying to come up with intellectual claptrap - things she knew nothing about. So now she was letting that go and being much more natural and not trying to look for the right answers either, and admitting if she did not know something, or if she did not like something, she would say it. She used to try and draw on anything to give an answer. So that was insightful for her to see that she did not have any this month - she had been aware of it.
During the period allocated to responses, there was much wiseacring about wiseacring, but nothing was said about particular instances of doing the challenge.
The reading continued from Chapter 28 of Beelzebub's Tales.
But meanwhile, as this is not so, we ourselves must struggle and we ourselves must strive hard for our real happiness and for our real freedom and also to free ourselves from the need of having to sweat.
It is true that for eight months of the year we now have no trouble in obtaining our daily bread; but then, how we must labour those four summer months and exhaust ourselves getting the barley we need!
Only he who sows and mows that barley knows the hard labour required.
True, for eight months we are free, but only from physical labours, and for this, our consciousness, namely, our dearest and highest part, must remain day and night in slavery to these illusory ideas which are always being dinned into us by our chiefs and counsellors.
L said he thought the description of physical labours was a metaphor for the Gurdjieff Work. RM said he had a sense that what Gurdjieff was saying here, was that for so many months of the year when we were working, were grafting, that was real, but the time when we were sitting around talking about it was not real. The only time it was real was when we were actively doing stuff. But then we speculate and then you get all the bosses telling people how to be, and so on, and that was the problem. T said that getting the barley was hard work, but thinking there was going to be any free time or liberation from work was untrue.
...And we can only obtain real freedom and real happiness if we all act as one, that is to say, all for one and one for all. But for this, we must first destroy all that is old.
And we must do so to make room for the new life we shall ourselves create that will give us real freedom and real happiness.
O said we were all dependent on each other. She had to take public transport, she was dependent on someone running it. She thought dependency was everywhere. The only freedom we had was to make decisions in a given circumstance, so she did not know what he was talking about. D said this was exactly what the problem was. The only way to be really free was to become a sadhu, and they have to rely on external things. LR said it was taking responsibility for your own thoughts and actions and feelings, and that was a hard thing as we all knew. She gave the example of the film Playing for Time with Vanessa Redgrave. It was set in the war and she was a prisoner. While she was being raped, in her mind she was playing music. LR thought this was incredible, because she wasn't filled with fear and loathing, she was connected to something higher - she went beyond the body into the mind and higher feelings. J quoted Dale Carnegie: "Two men looked out from prison bars, one saw the mud, the other saw stars."
We ourselves will be masters of our own circumstances and no longer they, who rule our lives and do so without our knowledge and without our consent.
D said it was saying, give up your family script. Give up all the things that you know, and change your mind and do the work to be free. That's what we were here for. GC asked if this did not sound like a cult? J asked, why give up everything? Why not just give up what was wrong?
Our lives must be governed and guided by those whom we ourselves shall elect from our midst, that is by men only from amongst those who themselves struggle for our daily barley.
And we must elect these governors and counsellors on the basis of equal rights, without distinction of sex or age, by universal, direct, equal, and open ballot.’
O said he was saying that the people who ruled were people who had to be themselves awoken, and struggle, not just people who were elected by other people. RM said it was describing to him what true democracy could be. L said it sounded to him very similar to the genesis of the Russian revolution. J agreed, saying that he was describing a system which apparently made sense, but was inherently and internally contradictory, and then when you thought this was absolute nonsense - Down with dependence on others - we must all be one together! - then he says, somehow, this was actually the placard for a particular philosophy about which he was sceptical. So what seemed to be ridiculous turned out to be as ridiculous as the people he is describing. O said that the system in India started like that, with the governments being the wisest people to rule, and it became very oppressive.
Listen, and all of you be aware that we, the representatives of terrestrial beings assembled here who have thanks to our great learning already attained independent individuality, have the happiness to be the first to behold with our own eyes the creation of a Messiah of Divine consciousness sent from Above to reveal World-truths to us.
Elliot Alderson expresses his views Source: YouTube
RM said that the problem is that people change their allegiances to whichever has the greatest power.
Thereupon began that usual maleficent what is called ‘mutual inflation,’ which had already long been practised among the learned beings of new formation and chiefly on account of which no true knowledge which has chanced to reach them ever evolves there as it does everywhere else in the Universe, even merely from the passage of time itself; but, on the contrary, even the knowledge once already attained there is destroyed, and its possessors always become shallower and shallower.
D said that was the dilemma we had.
And the rest of the learned beings then began shouting and pushing each other in order to get near Lentrohamsanin; and addressing him as their ‘long-awaited-Messiah’ they conveyed to him by their admiring glances what is called their ‘high-titillation.’ ... if anybody becomes a follower of an already well-known and important being, he thereby seems to be to all other beings almost as well known and important himself.
J said this described basking in reflected glory. If you followed someone, and other people believed in the teachings of the person you were following, then they looked to you as an exponent. Is it so wrong? is the question, but it happens as a normal way of the order of life. It reminded O of Eichmann. When he was brought to trial in Israel, what he really said in his defence was, I followed, I followed. People gave their authority to other people that got a halo around them. That is something that Hannah Arendt talked a lot about in her book on the Holocaust, These were ordinary people that gave their authority to other people in order for the sun to reflect on them.
With people at work, the arguments in T's mind were connected with energy whirling round in the solar plexus. She had not been able to remember the pause. With people that she knew well, she had been aware of it at the time; her thinking processes became more scattered, her voice became raised, and it was a more biological response. She had been able to pause afterwards, which was an interesting experience, because it was as if everything was whirling round in her body, so there wasn't equilibrium and poise.
Once a day, when something you say is disagreed with, observe how you are feeling emotionally, and then where you feel it in your body. Pause for a moment.
On one occasion, a lady who cares for J disagreed with something he wanted to do, and his reaction to that was entirely cerebral, he knew where she was coming from, and the location in the body was decidedly up top. On another occasion, a friend disagreed with him in an acerbic tone of voice, and the locus of the reaction was in the solar plexus.
Having been quite reactive most of her life, LR had been mindful this last month of her response to disagreement, aware that she needed and wanted to become responsible, looking in to herself and seeing how she wanted to be in terms of being calm and neutral, and not arguing back or even accusing. At the point when someone disagreed with her, she was aware of what was going on, and considered how she wanted to be. She realised she had a choice. Did she want to get involved, or did she want to try and stay in something she was constantly trying to form up in herself, which was an inner calm and stability, out of which she could come in a positive way when she dealt with another. LR's reaction was in the solar plexus, which is a seat of will, and another brain. She was also aware of her blood getting heated up, and her nerves could jangle. On one occasion she observed she had used an accusatory tone of voice.
N had met with a client during the month, who became very defensive when asked for more information. N explained further that the information was needed to pursue the matter further, and the client became very difficult about the whole situation. N could sense the tension in the room.
People disagreed with L quite a lot, partly because he was quite focused, and he knew what he wanted to do and tried to do it. Or people disagreed with him because they might plain just not like him, but whether people agreed or disagreed, he thought OK, he did not tend to react emotionally any more, or feel it anywhere, but occasionally, if there was anger associated with the other person, then he did feel it. He supposed that was being empathetic. L was part of a group of artists, and one recently sent a letter of resignation by email, to other members of the committee. L could see, just from the subject line, anger leaking out, and so it proved to be when he read the email. On this occasion he felt it around the heart, and then he paused.
Responses then followed. Responding to N, T asked if there was a point when he was aware of the pause happening in the context of the CHALLENGE, and if there was a period when he had paused. N said he was aware, and wondered What was really going on here?, and there was confusion and anxiety within him. He had sensed all kinds of feelings running through his body at the time that it was going on. He sensed it as well in the body, in the solar plexus, which was where you felt these things. Also, if he got angry, he sometimes felt blood coursing through his head, and he had to then calm himself down and meditate, otherwise it could have a strong physical effect on him. He was aware of the fact that the disagreements could lead to anger, which could lead to all kinds of things. So it was an ongoing process which you could see in your machine. It was purely a mechanical process, and if you could stop it, which you sometimes could, you had gone to a higher stage. He had realised during the process that he was not going to change this person's attitude in the meeting, and so they did pause it and moved on to something else. T asked if the pausing had been for the meeting or had it been for himself. N said it had been for both. GC said that N was the only one who had felt the energy in his head.
LR had watched the film Meetings with Remarkable Men again, and on this occasion she caught something new from it, that she'd never seen before, and it was to do with the depiction of pauses. They did not waste language. In the film, the young Gurdjieff would ask a question to his father. There would be a long pause. Then his father would give a brief answer. They were coming from a place of respect and value and honesty, and being precise, rather than the waffle we all have, and there was a feeling of substance or content. For her there was something significant about the pause before she reacted with people.
The reading continued from Chapter 28 of Beelzebub's Tales.
... Already by the time this terrestrial what is called ‘Papa’s-and-Mama’s-darling’ was approaching the age of a responsible being, he was, as it is said there, very well ‘instructed’ and ‘educated,’ that is, he had in his presence a great deal of data for all kinds of being ‘egoplastikoori,’ consisting, as it is usual there according to the abnormally established conditions of their existence, of various fantastic and dubious information; and later, when he became a responsible being he manifested himself automatically through all kinds of corresponding accidental shocks.
LR said the significant word here was responsible. It was as if he had created himself. She had the feeling responses in him became automatic, having worked through, overcome or faced the accidental shocks, because we all had accidental shocks, and a shock was a move up.
RM said that a lot of education was instruction, and it became instinct. Education gets people to become automatic machines. How do you make money? How do you do this? How do you do that? RM had a sense that this was what Gurdjieff was talking about, and that the parents were channelling him into that way of thinking, becoming a machine, as most of us did become.
When this later great learned being there reached the age of a responsible being, and although he had indeed a great deal of information or, as it is called there, ‘knowledge,’ nevertheless, he had absolutely no Being in regard to this information or knowledge which he had acquired.
T said he was not being allowed to have his own experience of anything, he was just being filled from books and other people's words. J said it was the difference between pure and applied mathematics, You could learn information that was not of emotional importance, and you could apply it, but to deliberately cut yourself off from one or the other was a mistake. N said this was very different to the education that Gurdjieff himself got, as described in Meetings With Remarkable Men, where his father would get him to do all kinds of trades, and when he was about to master one, his father would move him to the next thing for him to learn, so he acquired all this practical knowledge.
Well, when this unprecedented Kashireitleer was ready, the subsequently great Lentrohamsanin inscribed upon it his invention concerning a topic which, indeed, it had occurred to nobody to discuss before, and for which, in truth, there was no reason why it should have been. Namely, in those wiseacrings of his, he then criticised in every way the existing order of collective existence. This Kashireitleer began thus:
Man’s greatest happiness consists in not being dependent on any other personality whatsoever, and in being free from the influence of any other person, whoever he may be!
...Undeniably, life under the present state-organisation is now far better for us than it used to be before; but where then is that real freedom of ours upon which our happiness must depend?
Don’t we work and labour as much now as during all other former state-organisations?
Haven’t we to labour and sweat to get the barley indispensable to us to live and not to starve to death like chained dogs?
J said there was one thing he could not see. What he was discussing was the state of society. We did all this. This was bad. What we have got now may be an improvement but is it good enough? How come nobody had thought to discuss that before, and why wasn't there any point in it? L said that somebody had to be the first. J said that the text was saying he was on an entirely false trail, but it seemed a reasonable thing that he was doing, even if he was wrong about what he suspected should be the case.
L thought he usually listened when he was talking to people, so the trigger did not occur much. Also he worked alone, and did not have much conversation. When it did happen, he found the CHALLENGE very salutary. Because the world was quite absurd, and our position in it, as mortals and fitting within society. It could be looked at as a ridiculous, and absurd thing, full of fantasy and imagination, which was the main thing, but it was good to be aware that things were not as rigid, predictable and sensible as might be thought.
Once a day, when you observe that you are not listening to somebody you are in conversation with, notice the absurdity of everything, take a conscious breath, hold your breath for a moment, and then take a slightly longer outbreath.
O had read the Challenge several times, but never caught herself not listening.
Z was like L, he tended to listen. Even without that aspect, it was good to have a reason to breath. He had not been able to understand the reference to absurdity, apart from a general sense of absurdity, so he had not been able to pick out what was behind the association between that and coming to find yourself not listening.
N said that, like most people, he was listening a lot of the time, and part of his professional life was very much listening, but he had been in a few meetings during the month with a lot of Israelis, and he did not speak Hebrew. They were all talking amongst themselves, and they veered off into talking in Hebrew. That was a time when he experienced the absurdity situation because he had not even been able to follow the language, and some of the things that were being said were absurd, when he did understand what they were saying. There was then a kind of disconnection with the people there when that happened, so he supposed there had been some absurdity inherent in the situation, but he had not sensed any philosophical absurdity per se.
When T was totally focused on something, she sometimes became aware, suddenly, that someone was talking to her. She had not thought deeply about the absurdity of it, though it may have wandered in and wandered out of her mind. When she remembered to breath after becoming aware of not listening, it was a huge relief, so she had enjoyed that bit of it. She found it difficult connecting up all the bits of the challenge at the same moment, and that was the challenge.
During the time allocated for responses, there was discussion on a wide variety of subjects, but none on specific instances of doing the challenge.
The reading continued from Chapter 28 of Beelzebub's Tales.
The mentioned maleficent "invention", or as they themselves, that is, the contemporary terrestrial learned beings, name such an invention of a learned being there of "new formation", a "composition", or even a "creation", was actualized, as I have already told you, two or more centuries before the time when, during my fifth sojourn there, I first reached the city of Babylon, where partly by coercion and partly voluntarily, learned beings had been assembled from the surface of almost the whole of the planet.
O said this paragraph expresses a link to Babylon, and implies that the particular psychological state was devoid of objective conscience, though they were very learned. L thought Gurdjieff linked the text to the legend of the Tower of Babylon.
... For his elderly and very rich parents he was what is called a "first-born", for although the blending of their Exioëharies had been many times actualized between them before him, yet, as I found out, they, being deeply engaged in the business of acquiring riches and not wishing to have any hindrance for this, had recourse at each actualizing of this sacred blending to what is called ‘Toosy,’ or, as your contemporary favorites express themselves, ‘abortion.’
T asked if this were about the priorities of people who choose to get wealth, not acknowledging the significance of human life, that they kill it before it has arrived on the planet. Z asked if the text were not describing the conditions which could produce someone of great influence but undesirable qualities.
J said it was a difficult CHALLENGE, because it implied that you had to be doing something creative before you could start the challenge, and that was not something that came to order.
Once a day, if you become aware that you are doing something creative, observe whether you are calm and in the flow, or else making an effort and stressed or impatient. Stop what you are doing, and go outside and breathe in deeply.
The one time T had managed to be in a creative space and remember the challenge, there was a knock on the door just as she was about to finish. This was very unusual in that environment, which was usually a deserted place. This dissipated the remembering of going out into the fresh air, which was the physical part of the challenge.
RM said that one of his misfortunes in life was to be extremely impatient about things. If he was being really patient, there was no stress involved, and creation occurred. But his natural impatience would sometimes cause stress. If he meditated, the stress seemed to disappear, and the creation just happened.
On one occasion, L had not been in the flow when he became aware that he was doing something creative, but felt he had to continue, and just carried on, but the next day, he became aware that he was in the flow, and stopped and went outside and breathed the air. Another day the same thing happened, but he forgot to do the breathing in. The air was not good - it was a polluted day, and he experienced the air. These challenges had a number of steps, and he frequently forgot some of them even if he remembered to do the challenge. On another occasion he did it properly - he was in the flow but he stopped, and went outside and breathed in. There was another time that he was busy working and realised he was in the flow, and he just carried on, because it was counter-productive to stop. If you wanted to get something done, sometimes you had to get on with it, and press forward and use will power. He thought that was what the Gurdjieff Work was partly about, building up that centre which could apply will power, and to apply that until the job was done.
Responding to T, J said that this idea that her creative inspiration could have been shattered and sent to the four winds, rather like the gentleman from Porlock who ruined Coleridge's inspiration, assumed that she had a fix on the source of the creative impulse, whereas the creative impulse which comes in a moment of stress might be the more authentic. That brought him back to his point, which was that it was important to get the result down first, and that took priority. T said that the tension, resistance and stress for her, was not getting down to being available to have the time for being creative. D said that T should not have answered the door. That was the problem. According to Gurdjieff's teachings, you have to break through. That was the point. Will power. To have that extra energy to create the will not to be distracted. To have that inner strength, inner will. Do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do! Enlightenment! T said it was also important to be able to take an enforced break. Maybe it doesn't feel natural, but otherwise the activity is driving you rather than the will driving it.
The reading continued from Chapter 28 of Beelzebub's Tales. This led to much discussion on whether or not there was free will, and the purpose of existence, but none related to the paragraphs read.
Becoming aware of something from nature outside, had seemed very important to L. The artefacts we made were more recent additions to the world, but the fundamental, essential reality was that of nature. He had done this CHALLENGE when his mind was drifting, or if something was upsetting him. Sometimes he would do it at an arbitrary time, as a meditation to get back to base.
When you realise that you are going down an avenue where the mind is taking over, breath in deeply, become aware of nature with your senses, and take a slow outbreath whilst humming, so as to cause a vibration in your head.
N worked in an environment very removed from nature, a basement with artificial lighting. He did not know what the weather was like outside, and there were some days when he was working so hard, he did not even think about that. He was thinking of bringing a plant into the office, or something which reflected nature to him. If he was feeling continuous thoughts about something, to do this process before the emotional centre clocked in and made him go wild with those thoughts (or put him into a different state of mind), he could self-remember enough to be able to see those thoughts which led to a different emotion. By doing this, he found he connected much more with a deeper self which was able to stop the runaway horses of emotion taking root.
In the first part of the month, T had remembered the challenge when she was late, or at work, or rushing to something. She had remembered to do the deep breath and the humming, but it was just on a few occasions when she remembered about connecting with nature, and it had tended not to be the natural world, but seeing her hand, or feeling her face. So it had come at points of stress. In the second part of the month, there had been some intense life events.- two funerals in a week, and it was more connected with intense emotion, and thoughts racing. So it was a relief when she was doing the humming. For her the vibration in the head was difficult to sense.
During the time allocated for responses, there was much discussion on the benefits of nature, but none on instances of doing the challenge.
The reading continued from Chapter 27 of Beelzebub's Tales.
Of course, these objective attainments then, as it is said, ‘attracted-the-attention’ of all around them, who thereupon made those who had attained stand out from their midst and paid them every kind of respect; they also strove with joy to merit the attention of these outstanding beings and to have for themselves their counsel and advice how they themselves could attain the same perfecting. And these outstanding beings of that period began in their turn to make the most attained among themselves stand out and this outstanding being thereby automatically became, without either hereditary or other right, the chief of them all, and recognising him as chief, his directings were spread correspondingly, and this recognition included not only the separate neighbouring parts of the surface of your planet, but also even the neighbouring continents and islands. J said this described how people take authority by degrees, and what starts off as an impetus for freedom, becomes stuck in glue. RM said that we liked the glue. I want my glue instead of yours. O said the teachings were incompletely transferred because they were only listened to with one of the three centres. L said that from the moment Ashiata Shiemash appointed deputies to spread his philosophy, he had already divided society between those whom he favoured and those he did not. Once the latter wanted to join the select group, there would be the seeds for conflict.. The results of the Very Saintly Labours of Ashiata Shiemash were then also very definitely reflected in respect of that terrible peculiarity of the manifestation of the psyche of your favourites, namely, in their ‘irresistible-urge-for-the-periodic-destruction-of-each-other’s-existence.’ The process of reciprocal destruction established there and ensuing from that terrible particularity of their psyche entirely ceased on the continent Asia, and only proceeded occasionally on those large and small parts of the surface of that planet of yours, which were far from the continent Asia. And this continued there only because owing to their distance the influence of the initiates and priests could not reach and be transubstantiated in the presence of the beings breeding on these parts of the surface of your planet. ...The said decline in both their death rate and their birth rate proceeded because, as they approximated to an existence normal for the three-centred beings, they also began to radiate from themselves vibrations responding more closely to the requirements of Great Nature, thanks to which Nature needed less of those vibrations which are in general obtained from the destruction of the existence of beings. N said there was a cosmic reflection in Gurdjieff's philosophy between organic life on Earth and the whole planetary system - reciprocal maintenance - and if things got out of balance there were wars, destruction and famine.
O had been at a meeting about legal aspects of her profession. There were about twenty people there, and she knew more about the subject than anybody else, because of previous work she had done. They were all attacking her and she felt shame. After that she sent them a document that she had already written on the legalities, to inform them, and she got no response. She thought it was an ego thing. Her ego was being hurt, but she still couldn't get rid of the feeling, but today she felt better. Although she had been completely right, she could still feel hurt. This knowledge did not take the feeling away, and it seemed she needed to go on personal development courses in order to eliminate reactive feelings to unjust attacks.
If you notice you are suppressing remorse of conscience, ask yourself if it relates to ego. If there is any accompanying sensation in the body, give space to it.
Where L had primarily felt remorse of conscience was in connection with using his time badly, because he felt he should be doing something more important. He had felt that remorse of conscience just above the chest. It had not bothered him a lot, he had just let it be. As we get older we can become more conscious of time passing, and the importance of using it well. He had been treated badly by various people, and he had felt a kind of remorse of conscience for them, because he knew they were doing bad deeds, and it was because of their egos, not his. When it happened he felt a kind of projected shame, as if it was his own fault that somebody else was doing wrong things.
T had observed that it was a minefield of egos in the workplace. To survive she tried to receive and listen, to keep everyone sweet, but it was an impossible thing to do. It was a big issue about honesty, and being honest with herself, but it was very difficult not to get into cliques and have allies and collude, and she felt regret, she felt guilt about that. It did resonate in the body when it was happening. The solar plexus got tangled up, and it was just a horrible feeling. That was why she said it was like a minefield, because she was treading on eggshells, but sometimes she had to take a stance.
N occasionally became aware that he was beating himself up over certain things not having got done over the course of the day. If he had ticked most things off his to-do list at work, he felt reasonably happy, but even if he had done all the tasks of his profession, he was also aware of the fact that he had not done a great deal of spiritual work. There was part of him that sometimes came down hard on himself, saying You must find some time to do that sort of work for yourself. If he did feel that, he felt it in the solar plexus, or the heart chakra. He was not always living his life according to some of the things he felt he should be doing.
Something similar had happened to J. It wasn't actually remorse, it was the impact of a sudden realisation of what he had done, and that realisation had a very strong physical effect in his case. He thought there was a natural physical result, but it came not by degrees, it came instantaneously, and wherever was the source, whether it was the brain as it felt in that case, or whether it was something closer to the region of the heart, which it might be for another case, the transmission of that bolt was instantaneous, so it was throughout the body.
Responding to T, O said she tried to go the opposite way, which was not to be drawn to cliques, not not to be herself. She had gone on a group holiday, where they all wanted to meet each other every evening. She had decided not to participate, and had been quite friendly to everyone, but after all was left with a residual feeling as if she was in the wrong. The group placed her somewhere, and it was very difficult not to identify with it. She suddenly assumed a persona which was not her. What did it mean to be true to herself? T said that if she was in conflict with people in the team, it ruffled her feathers, and made her feel uncomfortable, and she sometimes compromised to avoid that.
The reading continued from Chapter 27 of Beelzebub's Tales.
... furthermore, in consequence of the total absence of the participation of the impulse of sacred conscience in their waking-consciousness - then these three-brained beings ... still continue to strive to arrange their welfare during the process of their ordinary existence, exclusively for them themselves. And as in general, on none of the planets of our great Universe does there or can there exist enough of everything required for everybody’s equal external welfare, irrespective of what are called ‘objective-merits’, the result there is that the prosperity of one is always built on the adversity of many.
J questioned the assumptions that nobody had sacred conscience, and that many should suffer so that others have plenty. All the beings of this planet then began to work in order to have in their consciousness this Divine function of genuine conscience, and for this purpose, as everywhere in the Universe, they transubstantiated in themselves what are called the ‘being-obligolnian-strivings’. ... The fourth: the striving from the beginning of their existence to pay for their arising and their individuality as quickly as possible, in order afterwards to be free to lighten as much as possible the Sorrow of our COMMON FATHER. J said this great law of morality, that was earlier stated only for human beings and not animals, was now described for the entire cosmos! GC asked, if there was a common father, what did he have to be sorry about? Where was this Christian guilt trip coming from? N said there were different interpretations of what Gurdjieff was, and in the case of the Christian interpretation he cited Prof Jacob Needleman.
One morning during the month L had been engaged in complex work, and the phone rang. He did not take the call, and picked up his messages in the evening. No voicemail had been left, but there was an email asking if L was able to meet for coffee that afternoon. After sending a friendly email back hoping to meet another time, an email came back which was quite nasty. It complained that L didn't have time to see him, and dwelt at length on what a bad person L was. L thought this was strange, and felt pain at that time, having received an abusive email from someone whom he had thought liked him. He thought that this pain was connected to ego, because he thought he was of some worth, and that it was not right that somebody should belittle him.
If you experience suffering during the day, see if that relates to ego, rather than the apparent cause, and cross your fingers.
M2 observed he had a feeling of dizziness before he got into his job every day. It was helpful in that moment to be aware to cross the fingers, to get him out from the mind and back to physical sensation and the present. He was worried, at the present. He was in a situation that was just a projection of his mind, that something bad would happen at the workplace. In the present moment we are our body, and outside is what we have in front of us. It is like an opportunity to discover a side of ourselves. He asked himself why he felt better. Maybe it was because he was not confident about himself, and perhaps he should do more to learn better, to become a better person, to try to overcome this experience.
N said there had been one experience during the month which had brought his ego out in its full flavour. He had had to work with an awkward and complaining customer. Part of his ego had been rising up in rebellion, and he had found himself pulling it back, but he had been able to sense that his sense of vanity, his ego, was bristling under this scenario. He had also tried to work with a concept he had found in Taoism, that we should be like water, highly adaptable and flexible, and let these things flow through us.
T had experienced pain during the month in association with family and with work. It was difficult to know whether it was ego or essence which was really upset, particularly with family. The easier to explain, and less painful, was the work one. She had been finding herself staying late practically every day, because of having to write copious notes on a computer system which was new and fallible and lost data. There were all sorts of excuses to show it was not her that was at fault but she had come to the conclusion that it was ego, because what would people think if she did not do great notes. The essential part of her believed the essential work was with the patients, and nothing else really mattered but her ego functioned differently. During the CHALLENGE, she had been remembering to think about what it was that was in pain, but then she forgot to cross the fingers.
During the time allocated for responses, there was much discussion on philosophy and a forthcoming event organised by one of the attendees, but nobody said anything which pertained to instances of doing the challenge.
The reading continued from Chapter 27 of Beelzebub's Tales.
... when the data arose in the common presences of your favourites for engendering this ‘Unique-particular’ being-impulse egoism and when gradually evolving and giving rise to factors ensuing from it for other also particular but now secondary strange being-impulses, this said ‘Unique-property’ egoism usurped the place of the ‘Unique-All-Autocratic-Ruler’ in their general organisation; then, not only every manifestation but even what is called the ‘desire-for-the-arising’ of such a Divine being-impulse became a hindrance to the actions of this ‘All-Autocratic-Ruler.’
"R" asked what was the 'Unique-property' egoism that usurped the 'Unique-All-Autocratic-Ruler'. My later detailed researches and investigations very definitely and clearly showed me that, in that consciousness of theirs, which they call their subconsciousness, even in the beings of the present time, the said data for the acquisition in their presences of this fundamental Divine impulse conscience does indeed still continue to be crystallised and, hence, to be present during the whole of their existence. N asked if he was also saying that the divine was never completely eliminated, even from people who were so autocratic. From time to time they had these feelings of remorse or conscience, despite all the lies they had told themselves.
T had cheated and set an alarm every morning to do the CHALLENGE.
The issues she had considered included Brexit, and she had had to question, question, question, trying to weigh up the alternate objective consciences.
Every morning, when you read the news, and you come across something where there is a conflict, try to be aware of the two alternative "objective consciences" at work. When you are thinking of one, look in one direction, and when you are thinking of the other, look in the other direction, physically moving your head.
N had noticed that sometimes the news was reported only in one way. It was not often conflicted. This month there had been a massive amount of Brexit news, there had been a huge conflict which had been acted out in the world. What it said to him was that it was all illusion. It was a merry-go-round - somehow we get pulled into the world by these issues and conflicts which seem to have become of supreme importance, and feel that we have to take opinions and sides, but really they are not that important to us in terms of our souls and our development on this world. It was like a very low level of debate.
L had found an app called Perspecs news, and that gave every day a few topics from the news, and gives both sides of each story. So he was able to consider an issue, look in one direction, read, look in the other direction, read the other side - he had done it a number of times. Over time, he had a similar feeling to what Nigel described, and came to the conclusion that it didn't really matter. In the end, it was people arguing about things which weren't that important. For example, whether we remained in the EU or not, Britain was an island off the coast of mainland Europe. During the month, we had witnessed something very similar in Parliament. Two points of view represented literally by the two directions, which the Speaker puts to a vote, saying ayes to the right, noes to the left. It was also analogous to the general effort to stay awake - we are planning to do one thing and get distracted by another, and that is a like a dialogue - do we do what we want, and stay awake, or do we succumb to gravity and do something different instead?
Stiletto shoe Source: Adobe
T responded to L's conclusions that the debates over issues did not really matter. One of the things that she had looked at was on the surface frivolous, a conflict between whether women should wear high heels or not. It caused spine problems and difficulty walking, which affected the whole body and how people felt about themselves and their place in the world. The thesis / antithesis did matter. What people decided in their minds as a group to do, had consequences in people's lives. She thought that related to the violence in human communication. O said she thought N was speaking on a different level. On a different scale, maybe it didn't matter, but on this scale, where we lived in the world, it did matter. T said that when the community were acting and living together, individually we could take a step back. N said that he meant we must not get too identified with a historic process that was going on. He was not saying that the matters to do with Brexit were not important at some level.
The reading continued from Chapter 27 of Beelzebub's Tales.
I began ... to investigate the causes in which way and why the crystallisation of the mentioned factors obtained from the particles of the emanation of the Sorrow of OUR COMMON FATHER CREATOR for the actualising of the Divine being-impulse of objective conscience, proceeded in their presences, that is to say, just in their said subconsciousness, and thus avoided that final degeneration ... and I was convinced that this strange anomaly there fully justifies one of the numerous wise sentences of our highly esteemed, irreplaceable, and honourable Mullah Nassr Eddin which states: ‘Every-real-happiness-for-man-can-arise-exclusively-only-from-some-unhappiness-also-real-which-he-has-already-experienced.’ O said this meant that happiness, then, was only alleviating suffering. That was what he was saying, there was nothing else. L said, in other words, no pain, no gain. RM said that pain wakes us up. N asked how long it wakes us up for. T said not for very long. RM said for as long as it takes to be comfortable again. M said he thought pain did not necessarily mean that you evolved, because a lot of people could resist the pain and become quite tolerant to what they felt, without transmuting the pain and being with it, and coming to a place of peace. He felt that it definitely affected the way we wanted to control things when we were in pain. We tried to manipulate situations because that made us feel empowered, but in fact there were solutions from which we were able to make peace with it, and the action followed naturally after that, which was more to do with being, rather than doing. D asked M if he was saying that the pain should not be avoided, because if you put it down it could manifest in other ways. M said he was saying that there was a natural mechanism in us, that rejected pain. It just wanted good experiences. The mentioned duality of their general psyche proceeded because on the one hand various what are called ‘individual-initiatives’ began to issue from that localization arising in their presences, which is always predominant during their waking existence, and which localization is nothing else but only the result of the accidental perceptions of impressions coming from without, and engendered by their abnormal environment, which perceptions in totality are called by them their ‘consciousness’; and on the other hand, similar individual-initiatives also began to issue in them, as it is proper to them, from that normal localization existing in the presences of every kind of being and which they call their subconsciousness.
M asked what was meant by the text: localization is nothing else but only the result of the accidental perceptions of impressions coming from without. RM said it was an interpretation, an accidental perception or conception. M said he thought that was exactly what he was pointing to, that your perceptions were not yours. There was no reference point that was you in that. It was all coming in, and you made something fixed of it which gave a sense of you, and that was where the problems started. T said that when you tried to draw, then all the questions started. It was extremely challenging to ask what you were looking at. What was it that you were trying to draw? She thought the arts helped people use their perceptions and learn the limitations of what your perceptions were at that moment, so it took tremendous work to change your perception.
J gave an example of what he tried. Do I or do I not put an extra sweetener in the drink? Do I or do I not go for exercise afterwards?
Once a day, after having a hot drink, do something kind to yourself, governed directly by conscience, and then stand on one leg for three seconds.
And then of course comes the question: Which is actually being kinder to myself?
T remembered the CHALLENGE after having a hot drink about half the time, and would then do something kind to herself, which was usually something to do with food, or a nice exercise that she liked doing, but she would often forget the third part, which was standing on one leg. She had managed to do the three together probably half a dozen times, which was an improvement on two the month before. In retrospect, she remembered that she had forgotten, and that felt like not getting the target.
N had succeeded in being prompted by the trigger of having a hot drink, but found it hard to think what he could do to himself which was in kindness and also directly governed by his conscience, other than sitting down and doing a meditation or something for a minute or so, so he did various things which were out of the ordinary, like reading some poetry. He sometimes he did not do the standing on one leg for three seconds, it somehow got lost along in the process.
For L, it had highlighted the question even more about What is kindness? If you were being kind to somebody else, you might possibly be doing them some harm, because you were taking away some empowerment. If you were being kind to yourself after a hot drink, you might think, Ah, I am going to have a slice of cake, and be kind to myself! - but that cake will contain the poisonous substance sugar, so are you being kind to yourself? This kindness concept was elusive, and he was not sure how meaningful it was. The final part of the Challenge was that it should be directed by conscience, so being kind to yourself, and then doing some physical exercise which you knew would be good for the body, and was pleasurable - he thought that qualified, and he had done that a few times, and if it was not physical, he generally remembered the standing on one leg, which brought back attention to the physical. In these Meetings, because we did not do things like the Gurdjieff Movements, we did tend to get lost in intellectual diversion. He had found it more interesting than useful, because it made him reconsider what kindness was, and what he was doing to help himself.
During the time allocated for responses, there was much discussion on Hermann Hesse, James Joyce, and Popeye, the extent to which hypnosis could control pain, and the influence of violent computer games on children nowadays. However nobody said anything which pertained to instances of doing the challenge.
The reading continued from Chapter 27 of Beelzebub's Tales.
In consequence of this, every three-centered being of our Great Universe, and also we men existing on the Earth, must, owing to the presence in us also of the factors for engendering the Divine impulse of "Objective Conscience", always inevitably struggle with the arising and the proceeding within our common presences of two quite opposite functionings giving results always sensed by us either as "desires” or as "nondesires".
And so, only he, who consciously assists the process of this inner struggle and consciously assists the "nondesires" to predominate over the desires, behaves just in accordance with the essence of our COMMON FATHER CREATOR HIMSELF; whereas he who with his consciousness assists the contrary, only increases HIS sorrow.
Owing to all I have just said, my boy, at that period scarcely three years had passed when, on the one hand, all the ordinary beings of the town Djoolfapal and its environs and also of many other countries of the continent Asia, not only already knew that this Divine being-impulse of ‘genuine conscience’ was in them, ... but furthermore, nearly everybody even began to strive and to exert himself to become priests of the brotherhood Heechtvori ...
L said it all hinged on the concept of genuine conscience, and whether there is such a thing or not, and Gurdjieff, or Ashiata Shiemash, was saying there is. "R" asked if nondesire was the same as suffering. J said it was about mistrusting urges, it was not so much suffering. L said that if you saw a slice of chocolate cheese cake which looked really nice, that might engender a desire to eat it, but genuine conscience - if there is such a thing, or your knowledge of what was in it, might tell you not to. J said that you should have the nondesire to have it in the first place, that was the point. O asked if he was saying that the less pleasure you had, the better off you were. L thought that that might be what he was saying - the more you gave in to that desire, the more you would suffer.
N said that genuine conscience and objective knowledge were very related. One was just the counterpart of the other. L said it should be remembered that it was the character in the book, Ashiata Shiemash, who was saying all this, rather than Gurdjieff. We could take it as gospel, but it would be the gospel according to Ashiata Shiemash.
L had started theCHALLENGEby responding to messages and emails, and communicating. Generally this had led to a very positive response from the people he had contacted, and after they replied, he was able to respond, thereby doing the same kindness another time.
Once a day, after having a hot drink, do something kind, governed directly by conscience, and then stand on one leg for three seconds.
One could not send a message every single day as an act of kindness, that would be cheating, and would lead to the question, what was the motivation for doing a kindness. Was it an essential kindness, or was it for winning points in doing the challenge. One morning during the month, he had used a loo in Starbucks. and there was no loo-paper. There was a tap on the door, so someone wanted to come in. So L thought - OK! A kindness opportunity, and left some tissues there, and stood on one leg for three seconds. As he had already had a hot drink, this met all the criteria. It had been a struggle for him working out how to be kind, and that had made him reflect on whether he was a kind person, generally. It had also made him reflect on whether people were doing kindnesses for essential reasons, or because it was an expectation they felt upon them. Part of the challenge was to do it direct from conscience - that was a dimension which was quite hard.
O described a recent incident where she did something kind. A friend had shown her her new mobile, and she replied, "Oh, I have a new mobile too". The friend said she would not talk about such things, as it was materialistic. For O it was just a bit of fun, but for her friend, she was struggling so much whether to be materialistic or not, that any mention of any materialism annoyed her. O considered whether to say something or not. It annoyed her. She decided not to say something, and thought that this had, in a way, been an act of kindness. It was a dilemma. If you did not say something, there was a poison going on not saying what you need to say, but there was the other side that you had to take into consideration that the person had a particular issue, and it was better not to say.
Very soon after T started doing the Challenge, she was tripped up by the question of whether her kind act was truly kind, as there was the ulterior motive of doing the challenge, and this acted as a resistance to doing the challenge during the month, because that question kept arising. On one occasion, she had a hot drink, and offered to make a colleague one. However the colleague declined, so T felt she could not stand on one leg as she had been unable to complete it. On another occasion, she had held open a heavy fire door to help a colleague leave the kitchen at work, but she had not had a hot drink, so it had not fulfilled the three criteria. She had felt it was extremely difficult to calibrate the three parts of the challenge.
There were no other contributions which mentioned a specific instance of doing the challenge during the month.
During the time allocated for responses, nobody said anything which pertained to instances of doing the challenge, although there was much talk about whether or not there was such a thing as altruism, and varying opinions were exchanged about Florence Nightingale.
The reading continued from Chapter 27 of Beelzebub's Tales.
It was those who became worthy ... who were first called by the name of ‘priest.’ ... when all the results of the Very Saintly Labours of the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash were destroyed, both this word priest there and also the word initiate about which I have already told you, were used and still continue to be used by your favourites down to the present time in two quite different senses. In one sense this word priest was since then and now still is commonly used, but only in certain places and for unimportant separate groups of those professionals existing there whom everybody now calls there ‘confessors’ or ‘clergymen.’ And in the other sense, those beings were called and are still called by this word priest who by their pious existence and by the merits of their acts performed for the good of those around them, stand out so much from the rank and file of the ordinary three-brained beings there, that whenever these ordinary beings there have occasion to remember them, there arises and proceeds in their presences the process called ‘gratitude.’
Already during that same period while the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash was enlightening the Reason of the brethren of the former brotherhood Tchaftantouri as well as of the newly collected thirty-five novices, there began to spread, among ordinary beings of the city Djoolfapal and its environs, the true idea that in the common presences of men-beings all the data exist for the manifestation of the Divine impulse conscience, but that this Divine impulse does not take part in their general consciousness; and that it takes no part because, although their manifestations bring them, certain what are called ‘quite-late-repaying-satisfactions’ and considerable material advantage, nevertheless they thereby gradually atrophy the data put into their presences by Nature for evoking in other beings around them, without distinction of brain system, the objective impulse of Divine-Love.
L thought one had to question whether he was introducing Ashiata Shiemash as a model human being, or as a potentially dangerous demagogue, because he was describing how the people who were doing acts of kindness (and this related to the challenge we had done), were appreciated by the people they were helping, and those doing the kindness gained status and were called priests, and then gained power. This might be a dynamic that over the passage of time was not very healthy, as it means there would be one group of people having power, status and material possessions, and another set of people who were dependent on their munificence for survival. "R" said he was talking about the Divine impulse conscience which he does not put in inverted commas, which means it is something real. J said this could atrophy through simple repetition. T said that at the beginning it was made clear that the saintly activities of Ashiata Shiemash were destroyed, and what was left were the words priest and initiate, at times in name only, at other times used to describe those doing good works who naturally stood out as priest and initiate. J said what mattered was not what the ritual contained, but the fact of the ritual itself - the priest, the initiate - that was what counted, rather than the specific teaching. T said she thought the opposite.
This true information began to spread, thanks chiefly to the superlatively wise provision of the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash which obliged everyone striving to become an All-the-rights-possessing brother of the brotherhood Heechtvori to ... know how to convince all the three separate spiritualized and associating parts of a further hundred three-brained beings there, concerning the Divine impulse conscience. ... those who had sensed and become aware of this Divine conscience, and who were called ‘first-degree-initiates,’ he set apart, and he began to enlighten their Reason separately ...
L said that as those who accepted the promoted philosophy were promoted above those who did not, it seemed to him a recipe for conflict a few years later.
After the Meeting, L had been on the lookout for use of the ideas of subjective and objective. There had been a programme about Brexit which referred to objective and subjective interpretations, and he thought this was a good example because it was an objective fact that there was a vote, and a result, but then there were so many interpretations.
Observe through the month when something arises in your life about which can be asked - is it an objective truth or is it a subjective truth?
He had come to the conclusion that nearly everything is subjective. If you looked at a particle at the quantum level, then its reality changed. That was subjectivity - reality might be different for everybody. He had a musical idea that morning which he had made a note of. It was subjective, and would remain so until somebody else heard it. The 'celeste', a musical instrument, which came to the mind of Victor Mustel, was subjective until he made it real, naming it after its celestial sound. It became particularly objective after Tchaikovsky brought one to Russia and, most famously, used it in The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.
Lauren Cuthbertson performs the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy
at the Royal Opera House in 2017 - Source YouTube
There were no other contributions which mentioned a specific instance of doing the challenge during the month. A message from BS of India, who has been following these Meetings for many years, was read out. Following that was the time allocated for the 'responses to contributions', however none pertained to doing the challenge. The reading continued from Chapter 27 of Beelzebub's Tales.
... And so, after arriving in the town Djoolfapal, the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash established corresponding relations with these brethren of the mentioned brotherhood who were working upon that abnormally proceeding functioning of their psyche which they themselves had constated, and he began enlightening their Reason by means of objectively true information, and guiding their being-impulses in such a way that they could sense these truths without the participation either of the abnormally crystallized factors already within their presences, or of the factors which might newly arise from the results of the external perceptions they obtained from the abnormally established form of ordinary being-existence.
J said that the critical phrase here was "the abnormally crystallized factors". What he seemed to be saying was that there was a tendency, even a likelihood, both in the organisation of society, and in our own thinking, for stupid, or silly, or somehow suspect, or odd, abnormally crystallised ideas, to take root, unless we were vigilant. That was just a human problem that we ought to recognise, and we had within ourselves, or the society had within itself, the data by means of which we could combat this tendency. L said that the crystallisation means inflexibility - they get in a fixed form, where they stay. T said that then they get followers, who were gullible because they could not think for themselves. "R" asked if we - at the Meeting - could think for ourselves. N asked where the place itself, Djoolfapal, might be. L said it was in Asia, as was recounted a little earlier in the chapter: "Ashiata Shiemash ... did not again return to the city of Babylon but went straight to the capital city Djoolfapal of the country then called Kurlandtech, which was situated in the middle of the continent Asia."
... the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash sent these same brethren to various places and commissioned them under his general guidance to spread the information that in the subconsciousness of people there are crystallized and are always present the data manifested from Above for engendering in them the Divine impulse of genuine conscience, and that only he who acquires the ‘ableness’ that the actions of these data participate in the functioning of that consciousness of theirs in which they pass their everyday existence, has in the objective sense the honest right to be called and really to be a genuine son of our COMMON FATHER CREATOR of all that exists.
Referring to the assertion above of who would have "the honest right to be called and really to be a genuine son of our COMMON FATHER CREATOR of all that exists", GC asked why should we believe that, why should we give that any credence at all, whatsoever. J said that as he understood the passage, the critical facet of any over-arching universal being, was conscience - the way you allocated the natural law, the justified law, the good feeling - that was paramount. "R" said it was a metaphor for something which is common to all of us, which is almost all the time suppressed, negated and asleep. L said it was also indicating that it was an objective truth, that within us, is conscience. RM said that it was neither social conditioning, nor spiritual, religious conditioning. The conscience Gurdjieff was talking about was, he thought, a much higher level, higher order of conscience. It was not a social conscience. J quoted Shakespeare: Conscience does make cowards of us all.
According to the statutes drawn up by the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash, any brother could become an All-the-rights-possessing brother of the brotherhood Heechtvori, only when in addition to the other also foreseen definite objective attainments, he could bring himself—in the sense of ‘ableness-of-conscious-direction-of-the-functioning-of-his-own-psyche’—to be able to know how to convince to perfection a hundred other beings and to prove to them that the impulse of being-objective-conscience exists in man, and secondly how it must be manifested in order that a man may respond to the real sense and aim of his existence, and moreover so to convince them that each of these others, in their turn, should acquire in themselves what is called the ‘Required-intensity-of-ableness,’ to be able to convince and persuade not less than a hundred others also.
L said that it seemed to him that what was being described here was a dangerous pyramid scheme, where each person proselytises to a hundred others, and tries to get them to do the same, and before you knew where you were, you had a big religion. GC asked what was meant by the Required-intensity-of-ableness? L said they were being trained up to be salesmen. J said that Gurdjieff was not necessarily being cynical about this, because there may be, in his way of looking at it, a genuine conscience that could be informing the whole process. It seemed to him that Gurdjieff was looking at the process whereby all religions and cults come in to being, and he was holding up that process for us to look at. RM said that what he found interesting here was the phrase: to prove to them that the impulse of being-objective-conscience exists in man. RM took that to mean that there is a common understanding that does actually exist in man fundamentally.
