The Shining

Reflections on the Challenge

When you notice something shiny, snap your fingers and pause. Ask yourself, ‘Am I following my personal path or external demands?’ Allow yourself to smile.

• Experiences

  L had not taken notes this time but often noticed light reflections - on leaves or car bonnets - which reminded him of the challenge. Snapping his fingers, he questioned whether he was following his own path or external demands. He found that, more often than not, he was engaged in his own pursuits, particularly composing or work related to Gurdjieff. Occasionally, obligations to others arose, such as community projects or invitations, which sometimes carried a sense of duty rather than personal alignment.

  T had managed the challenge several times but felt something was missing. On one occasion, she fully engaged with it and recorded her experience. Walking down a sunlit, rain-wet path, she questioned whether she was following her own path or someone else’s. She realised that everything around her - the pavement, buildings, fences, and even planted trees - was the work of others. Even her own existence had been shaped by others’ choices and influences. The only thing truly hers was her daily walk, which she resolved to continue regardless of the weather. Smiling did not come naturally to her.

  N had engaged with the challenge several times, using the finger snap as a reminder. The question of whether he was following his own path or someone else’s had surfaced repeatedly throughout the month. He reflected on the idea of disruption, seeing Gurdjieff as a disruptive yet healthy force. A lecture on disruptors in marketing reinforced his awareness of how people are conditioned to follow external paths rather than their own. This led him to consider how his life might differ if he fully followed his own path, allowing his essence to flourish rather than conforming to external expectations. Moments of sunlight and encounters with people whose smiles radiated naturally served as triggers for these reflections. He also pondered how, in youth, people often have ideals they rarely realise in adulthood.

  J had engaged with the challenge only once, upon noticing a shiny locker coin at the swimming baths. Remembering the instruction to smile, he struggled with the act itself, questioning whether it should be spontaneous or performed. He realised that, as a child, a shiny object might have brought him joy, but as an adult, the smile felt artificial. Instead, he reflected on the reasoning behind the challenge and thought of L, which prompted a genuine smile. He recognised that his response had been influenced by the instruction itself rather than an intrinsic reaction, leading him to consider how often people follow external directions rather than their own thinking.

• Responses

  L noted that the challenge did not specify smiling but rather allowing it, which could be difficult - smiling usually arose naturally from amusement rather than conscious effort. J responded that he only found it difficult to allow himself to smile in diplomatic situations where reactions must be managed. Otherwise, he saw smiling as either a natural response or a deliberate form of communication. T pointed out the paradox of the challenge: it was about following one’s own path, yet it instructed participants to do something unnatural—smiling on cue. Since they had chosen to take part, the challenge became part of their path, but the act of smiling still felt externally imposed.

Beelzebub’s Tales, Chapter 32

• Passage

  ...they then soon became categorically convinced, firstly, that in almost any one of the three-brained beings without distinction of sex who gazes for a long time at shining and brilliant objects of a certain kind, there begins to proceed a state ... and secondly, they noticed further that the form of manifestation of the subject during the state varies and is found to be dependent on the former being-experiences which chanced to be predominant and on the shining objects with which a connection was accidentally established during such experiences of theirs.

  ... these latter also began wiseacring about it, and finally when by chance, as it usually happens among them, they learned that it is possible in beings similar to them when in this state, to change in an accelerated way the impressions formerly fixed in them to new ones, then certain of them began to use this particular psychic property inherent in them for the purpose of curing.

• Discussion

  N spoke of susceptibility to hypnotism - some people were more easily influenced or persuaded than others.

  T pointed out that this described the replacement of impressions, suggesting that people might seek to free themselves from the influence of past experiences.

• Passage

  Thanks merely to this branch of their science, there was acquired in the psyche of the ordinary beings of this ill-fated planet several still new forms of what are called ‘being-Kalkali,’ that is, ‘essential strivings’ which became cast into forms of definite ‘teachings’ existing there under the names of ‘Anoklinism,’ ‘Darwinism,’ ‘anthroposophism,’ ‘theosophism,’ and many others under names also ending with ‘ism,’ thanks to which even those two data of their presences, which still helped them to be at least a little as it is becoming to three-centered beings to be, finally disappeared in them.

• Discussion

  N observed that Darwinism can take on a dogmatic character, pointing out that figures like Richard Dawkins defend it as rigidly as religious fundamentalists defend their beliefs. T noted that theosophy (Blavatsky) and anthroposophy (Steiner) have also solidified into fixed doctrines, reflecting the process described in the extract.