Who Watches the Watcher?

RM had continued to do the one minute meditation first thing in the morning and it had become like an internal anchor for him. The memory of the experience surfaced naturally during the day and this resurfacing triggered other moments in the day. He described it as if he had had "surface contact" with being real, as if striving to be really present for one minute was creating "working surfaces" with being real. He considered that if he didn't do this then living in fantasy would get longer and longer. Making the first minute of waking a one minute meditation seemed to kick off a process that he surmised may lead to being totally present all the time. He described seeing the effect of the first meditation on waking as the cause of further meditations through the day. He said the meditation at the beginning of the day seemed important, to be there at the beginning.

L had found GC's exercise quite interesting and he had done the exercise throughout the month from time to time. Firstly, It does help one being awake and alert, but secondly it is hard to give attention to more than two things at a time. He also said it was always good to know that Beelzebub's Tales was there. It is is a book one can keep coming back to. It has some good ideas and it is very timely as well in the subject matter of spacefarers going from Earth to Mars or from Mars to Earth, and that is all coming to fruition soon with the work of Elon Musk who hopes to establish the first colony on Mars by 2026. There has also been recent research suggesting that the collision of an asteroid or planet with the Earth created the moon, which is part of the storyline of Gurdjieff's book.



T had had experiences at times of the exercise, seeing, hearing and feeling a surface at the same time. She was aware of not counting to sixty this time, and had only faint memories of the exercise. For her it was too unstructured and less effective, but it did seem that the month had been very eventful, with weddings but also encounters with very close friends under tragic circumstances. She has been missing studio days because of important events to go to. She seemed to have lost her path and sense of purpose, although the big occasions reminded her of the name of Beelzebub's spaceship, the Ship Occasion, and of the significance of the purposeful planning of people gathering and coming together for an occasion.

Responding to RM, L said it was really interesting that we begin each meeting with a one minute silence, which is congruent with RM's practice of one minute meditations. RM agreed, saying that during the silence we had just had, he was paying attention to the door knob, while listening and feeling his feet on the ground, for one minute, and had felt very present to what was going on since then. He thought it was like homoeopathy just a little bit of the right thing in the right way, and it spreads. He calls it a keystone in the arch of consciousness. If you put it first thing in the morning it is like a keystone of the day, and then each day becomes a keystone of the month, and each month becomes a keystone of the year. T pointed out that it was fractal. RM agreed and had come to the conclusion that this was what Gurdjieff had been aiming for, self-remembering permanently. T said this relates to the question of what is the self, and if you don’t have the experience of it, which maybe what the one-minute gives you, that little drip of the real self, then you are forever remembering something that isn't the real self, and then it gets really confusing. RM recalled a question of one of Gurdjieff''s students, “What is the real self?” In the Vedic teachings, they say that if you could separate the observer and the observed, the observer would be the self. Most of what we think of as the self - we can feel our bodies, experience our thoughts - is actually the observed. The real self, the observer, we cannot sense or find. We know it is there. He mentioned the Buddhist “Path of Discrimination”, a system of long term exercises designed to expand awareness. T said she had been doing her one minute exercise at lunchtime, after eating in local gardens. She found that her tensions slipped away during the exercise and that after the exercise she felt refreshed to go back into the mayhem at work. RM said that associations are the cause of physical tension, and that being present breaks the bond between the past and the future, and as that bond is broken, the body is no longer subject to those tensions resulting from the imagined associations.

Artist William Blake, Untitled (detail)

L was reminded of a recent correspondence he had been having with another composer, who was saying that he always writes with the audience in mind. In contrast L writes the music as it comes into his mind as accurately as possible, and had come to the conclusion that for him, the music itself was the audience, the observer of his efforts. He feels as if the music itself judges or witnesses what he has done and whether he had done it well enough. From this perspective his music is a constant companion and witness during the creative process, as opposed to the usual approach of composers and songwriters who are writing with a view to a future audience. L said that his perspective raises the question of who is the observer and who the observed. Click here for full image.

T said that the word observer has the connotation of one person looking at or seeing another, which means it is a human experience, therefore a subjective experience. The word itself, by its very nature, is subjective. After one has had a one-minute awareness experience, when one has experienced a phenomenon, or perhaps even become a phenomenon, how can it be described? Words failed her.

L thought it interesting to play with the English word observe, which contains serve and the prefix ob, suggesting an element of service, but in a different way, as with a coin there is the obverse side.

RM said this can lead to reflecting on whether the body is in the mind, or the mind in the body. His understanding, after a while, becomes that the body is in the mind, which raises the question, just how big is the mind? To him, trying to describe the observer, is like trying to describe the taste of sugar to someone who has never tasted it. You can't. You have to put it in the mouth to taste it. You have to experience it. T said that to put an experience into words like, "I become the observer" reduces the experience to absurdity - reductio ad absurdum - you can't call it anything when you have had an experience where you go somewhere eternal, infinite, everywhere. But people try, and say: "that's the observer". She elaborated on attempts in the NHS to quantify the value of therapy given to people who are mentally unwell, an absurd measuring of something that is immeasurable. L said it was like trying to get the value of a work of art by putting it on scales, or even harder a piece of music. RM spoke of the challenge he finds with the word I. To him it means where he is on his journey. If Jesus or Buddha were to use the word I, it would mean a very different thing, I, God, everything, the whole universe without discrimination. But when RM uses the word, he is thinking of his body, his legs, his feet, his head, his thoughts, his associations with his body, his thoughts, his name, his history. As he becomes more aware, a lot of the things he associated with his I start to fall away. The Vedic term is neti neti, meaning "not this, not that". Whatever he sees, is not him, including his thoughts. You can only see what you are not, you cannot see what you are. This idea has been wrapped up in a lot of spiritual poetry. Shakespeare had been a master in this respect, and when he wrote about time it was as if from the point of view of the eternal. T said there is something in the Shakespeare Plays that is essentially eternal, as they are still being performed. L said that art is either eternal or transient, rather than new or old, and Shakespeare was obviously eternal. T thought that modern art is being very true to transience, and is very forgettable. She said that Van Gogh had moved to Arles to set up an art colony, and painted 200 canvases in fifteen months but sold none, leading to his psychotic breakdown. Each painting might sell for millions now, but were worthless then. He was attached to the idea of someone buying his art, rather than having the understanding that it would not be of interest to anyone because it was from his essence. People recognise the value now from the safe distance of over a century, people buy them, they can detect the essence, the eternal nature in a Van Goph painting.

At 9:45 the reading of Beelzebub's Tales continued from the point reached the previous month in Chapter 17, The Arch-Absurd.

... although in those three-brained beings ... who breed on the planet Earth, there arise ... up to the time of their complete destruction ... three being-brains, through which separately all the three holy forces of the sacred Triamazikamno ... are transformed and go for further corresponding actualizations ...

i. ... the Holy-Affirming, is localized and found in the head.

2. ... the Holy-Denying, is placed ... along the whole of their back ...

3. ... the Holy-Reconciling ...

Saturn, by Raphael

T was wondering if there was a link between the one-minute awareness exercise and the section just read. Was there a link between seeing, hearing, feeling and these three forces? RM said that in Vedic terms the three principles are Rajas, Tamas and Sattva - positive, negative or neutral. Or Father, Son and Holy Ghost. He thought there may be a connection if you think of the sattvic, or neutralising one. When you have neutralised past attachments or future expectations, you do it by being present, so the Holy-Reconciling would correspond to being present. L noticed that while Gurdjieff gave physical locations for the first two, the affirming and the denying, he doesn't for the reconciling, which suggests he is portraying it as transcendent and the other two as more concrete. This reminded RM of something he had been reading earlier that morning, that up needs down, down needs up, left needs right, and so on, but the centre doesn't need anything. The Reconciling is just there. In Vedic terms there is the metaphor of the chariot, and the hub of the wheels (representing Sattva) does not rotate. It is neutral but without it nothing can run. The Tao is sometimes described as the centre of the hub. T spoke of centring in Aikido, and L listed the four principles of Ki-Aikido. L said that if one works from a list, the list becomes like a hub, something our lives revolve about, but to which we are always linked, and which helps us move in a direction, because in that sense the list gives us wheels. T said that is why people resist lists, because a potent hub outside of themselves would undermine the fantasy that they are at the centre of their worlds. L said another reason is that a list draws us away from things that are more enjoyable and easier to do than real objectives.

The reading continued.

... And so, my boy, the process of Djartklom in the Omnipresent-Okidanokh proceeds in the presence of each of these favorites of yours, and in them also, all its three holy forces are blended independently with other cosmic crystallizations, and go for the corresponding actualizations, but as, chiefly owing to the already mentioned abnormal conditions of being-existence gradually established by them themselves, they have entirely ceased to fulfill being-Partkdolg-duty, then, in consequence of this, none of those holy sources of everything existing, with the exception of the denying source alone, is transubstantiated for their own presences.

T asked for clarification of this last paragraph, which was much harder than the preceding ones. RM suggested that this structural device mirrored the content, which was the reconciling force fails to occur and the only residue is the negative denying force.

Gornahoor Harharkh
(essence-friend of Beelzebub)

... The crystallizations arising in their presences from the first and from the third holy forces go almost entirely for the service only of the common-cosmic Trogoautoegocratic-process, while for the coating of their own presences there are only the crystallizations of the second part of the Omnipresent-Okidanokh, namely, of the 'Holy-Denying'; and hence it is that the majority of them remain with presences consisting of the planetary body alone, and thus are, for themselves, destroyed forever.

... meanwhile I shall tell you about those elucidating experiments concerning this Omnipresent cosmic crystallization ...

... I was an eyewitness ... on the planet Saturn where they were made by ... my real friend, about whom I recently promised to tell you a little more in detail.


L wondered if this implied that the carapace of ossified personality might be permanent in some cases. T thought the essence needs freedom and it can wither and die if the denying lasts for too long. L pointed out that Gurdjieff had used the phrase destroyed forever. T though it was almost like killing off your own bit of God, or like the black hole of the universe. L recalled Picasso's quote: "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." T said they get covered over and over by social pressure. RM said his question has always been, "Are we born realised or does it happen?" and he gets the sense that every child is born a perfect instrument to be learnt to play, and it is like an artist in the making. It has all the tools to become an artist, but it has to become one, a work of art. So you are not born realised, but are in a nascent stage and only become realised once you become the perfect artist that you were born to be, of whatever form. He also thought that the crystalisation takes place in us in the form of ideas we hold particularly dear. A strong political or religious belief can stay fixed in us for a lifetime and inhibit us constantly. So he thinks that the work we should be doing is to find out what we individually hold so dear, and what can we do to help each other to work our way through that. T thought that these beliefs often manifest in a set of underlying principles, which might, for example, be religious. L gave the example of dogmatic scientific beliefs as described by Robert Graves in his poem, Synthetic Such:

Robert Graves

'The sum of all the parts of Such -
Of each laboratory scene -
Is Such.' While science means this much
And means no more, why let it mean!
But were the science-men to find
Some animating principle
Which gave synthetic Such a mind
Vital, though metaphysical -
To Such, such an event, I think
Would cause unscientific pain:
Science, appalled by thought, would shrink
To its component parts again.

Steve Jobs
1955 - 2011

RM said he had just rewritten the whole of the Tao Te Ching, in his own words, in order to understand it better, and it says there that there are two truths that we work with One is a truth that we build up over listening to other people and our opinions and society, and because it is opinion-based, it is called synthetic. All these synthetic things we have, we defend as they are part of us, and they can be very destructive. If you have an opinion about what is good and bad, every time somebody does something which is opposite of what you think is good, you become quite angry at them. But there is another truth called the True Heart. The False Heart, based on the acquiring of ideas, relates to synthetic truth. The True Heart, is universal, it is there all the time. It's not good or bad. If you could find it, it would be like plugging into the rules of chess. They are not written down, all the rules are just there. The whole thing is just playing a game. If you lose, you are not losing anything, all the pieces go back in same box as if things went the other way. It is often described as the laws of nature. If you can plug in to the rules by meditation, you would be able to be an expert player immediately. But we don't do that. We acquire things slowly, build up over time, and are bound by that process of acquiring. Ramana Maharshi was asked "Show me who I am" by a visitor who had travelled to India from Europe. He replied "Go back the way you came." This did not mean go home, but to get rid of all the accumulated associations he had and get back to the basics of just seeing. RM believes this state is what Gurdjieff meant by C influences. T said this is the only way, and is what she had done with painting. She had gone back to using just one colour, and all the variations on that one colour which are very subtle, instead of using all the seductive obviously different colours.

Having finished Chapter 17, there was sufficient time to make a start on Chapter 18, The Arch-Preposterous.

...The cause of my first meeting with that three-centered being who subsequently became my essence-friend and by whom I saw the said experiments with the Omnipresent-Okidanokh, was as follows ...

Princess Irulan

L said he was finding RM's recommendation of Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land very pertinent here, as the concept of essence-friend seems similar to Heinlein's of water-brother. T wondered if Heinlein had known of Gurdjieff and L thought this was quite likely. T observed that correlations often come up in the Meetings between well known works and Beelzebub's Tales, most notably Dr Who. RM added that he often wondered if there was also a link with Frank Herbert's Dune novels, in the spiritual commentaries of Princess Irulan which he found deeply inspiring.


Following the reading, there was a discussion on which exercise to adopt during the coming month. RM said he had spoken about the one-minute meditation to a fighter pilot, who told him he had had similar experiences in the plane, where everything seemed to happen in slow motion. RM tried this out while playing table tennis, and the body took over and was able to move faster.

It was decided that the exercise should be to try to experience, for brief periods, intense awareness, accompanied with slowing down of time, by playing a rapid competitive ball game, attending to the moving ball and body at the same time, or alternatively a fast internet game which requires rapid instinctive responses.

Plumbing the Depths

L said he had noticed resistance, which was the previous month's exercise, although he had not overcome it, and had observed it both in himself and as resistance to what he wants to do coming from other people, as he thinks resistance can take form either internally or externally. Resistance from other people to him as an artist is usually a pressure to conform. He had recently come across Ayn Rand's book, The Fountainhead, again. The experiences he has, and the dialogues with some of his peers, are very similar to the dialogues between Howard Roark and his fellow architects in that book. L said that of course he resolutely proceeds with his art in spite of objections to it, following his own structures, designs and values.

Z said that despite having the concept of resistance in her mind, she realised that when it was happening she didn't experience it as resistance at the time. Someone had lent her a book which contained a list of quotes about time and the use of time. This affected her a lot and helped her to get on. There was a description of resistance as being akin to a negative attitude. The good use of time is the opposite of that. She had been observing her own use of time, and had been using it more positively.

T had experienced resistance strongly, maybe because this Meeting was coming up and she was remembering about the exercise. She potentially got to the studio early at 9, but she watched herself decide that she needed to do some shopping, to get some food for the day, but nevertheless she ended up getting a trolley-load, and when she got to the studio it was about 11. She prepared everything to start her painting but then felt exhausted for an hour or so. Then she felt hungry. These were all distractions and resistance, she believed, to the task that she had set herself. Nobody else was setting it, that was the key. So she was not a very good employer of herself. She ended up starting at 4, because she kept finding all sorts of other things to do, but even though she went in and out of being aware of time going by, it took all those hours to actually sit down and do it, and she managed an hour.

D said he was confused about resistance. He had thought that his exercise for being aware of resistance might be to refrain from making his usual one minute contribution, and not say anything. Was it something he should not do because it felt compulsive behaviour? Having heard L talk about The Fountainhead, he wanted to read it again. He had had the book for a year and couldn't get into it. He recalled a woman saying that she needed to have a plumbing job done at her flat, and wanted it done quickly, telling him she couldn't have it "hanging over" her. He said this described the state he was in, and recognised it as resistance. He had needed to fill in a form for the theatre about his play, which required him to write his reasons for writing it. He said this had felt like the inquisition, and he was resistant to answering the questions. He had had to get out of the flat to do it, and went to the library to work on it, step by step. In the end he had completed the form after being helped by the director.

"R" said that her body was not in great shape, and was interpreting that as resistance. She was aware of her body saying "no" when she had to make physical efforts, like going up hill. More energy was required because resistance was there. It was easier to notice resistance in physical form, but another kind was emotional, which she considered was much harder to overcome. She was aware that fear was another form of resistance, which might inhibit her when speaking to people she would normally want to please.

GC said he had nothing to say about resistance, but had written down something a week ago, a saying quoted in a book he was reading by Alain Forget, "What you allow is what will continue". He also said he had been told by his teacher that Gurdjieff was a very hard taskmaster.

Following the contributions, time was given to responses from the attendees.

Z found the aphorism mentioned by GC to be very apposite. For years she has had clutter in her home which she has been meaning to clear. D asked if she could get in the door. Z said she could, but sideways. T said she did understand this type of situation, for energy is required for things to accumulate (the desire to have something nice, and to buy it and bring it home), but the force to clear is different in nature, and this was a constant problem for her. Perhaps this is the "third force". This force was not there regularly - that extra effort - and GC's quote reminded her of habitual behaviour. It is so much harder to continue a good habit - one beneficial to the task that you want to do - than a bad habit. In her case a habit to be on time, say, for the studio, when no-one else is expecting her to be there except for herself, but she is in the habit of getting there late, or when she is early, doing something else. It is a continual problem for her, but there must be some gain for her in not being there. "R" said that the word "allow" suggests giving in, leaving the status quo as it is. D confessed that he puts magazines on one side of a two-seater settee at home, and suddenly notices it has become a big pile. He clears it up once a year. T said this was a visual representation of a mental state. D suggested that we might be being too hard on our selves, and that it is only a problem if we think it is. He thought the opposite state, assiduous tidiness, was as bad. Z said a consequence of clutter is the time spent looking for things. The to-do list became phoning people and paying bills because of other people being involved. Clearing did not get done, which was only reliant on herself.

The discussion turned to the contributions about the month's exercise, which was to be aware of resistance. "R" said it is easy to start, but not easy to complete, any intention. She makes a list of things to do, and thinks she is done once it is on the list.

T asked Z for positive examples of her use of time following her reading the book on it. Z said that she had not been sleeping properly for weeks. She was now taking responsibility for neglected areas. Prompted by the book on time, she is more aware of how she is using time, for example playing cards on the internet. "R" said that this was using the brain which needs to be exercised. T suggested there was a psychological reward from winning. Z said that the main issue of tackling the clutter was very daunting. L said that piles of books were to be expected in every good bookworm's burrow. "R" sugggested having a party. Z would then know that the clearing would have to be done. Z replied that the party would have to be in five years time! L said that this issue of clearing clutter through personal will power might correspond to the third process called by Gurdjieff "Holy-Reconciling". If books are bought they should be read. He gave Gurdjieff's example of plumbing.  If there was no ventilation system built in to the system, the plumbing stopped working.



D had been standing and staring. He felt that he needs to find an identity. He recounted watching a squirrel, which was endlessly doing things, and needed to be doing things. He had found it easier when he was younger. He was now beginning to think of himself as a writer.

L suggested that D watch the movie of The Fountainhead if he was unable to read the book. The film starred Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal.

Mary Baker Eddy, poet
and founder of Christian Science

Z said that Ayn Rand's philosophy was about taking responsibility for yourself.

Referring to D's play, GC said it is easier to act than to be oneself. D said he knew an actor who told him that it was only on stage that he truly felt himself. D pointed out that when actors acted it was other people's roles. L said that actors can gain the realisation that their entire life is a role. D said that Robert de Niro deliberately put on weight for his role in "Raging Bull". Z found that interesting, as actors can be made up artificially to seem heavier. D said he really admires actors. T said it is hard to be yourself. D said he thinks that he is when he is writing. He mentioned principled mentors who are Christian Scientists. GC commented that Christian Scientists believed that they had to take positive action. He gave Mary Baker Eddy and Joyce Grenfell as examples.

It being after 9:45, the Meeting resumed reading Beelzebub’s Tales.

Here you might as well, I think, be told, by the way, about an interesting fact I noticed, which occurred in the history of their existence concerning the strangeness of the psyche of the ordinary three-brained beings of that planet which has taken your fancy, in respect of what they call their 'scientific-speculations.'

...not once has the thought entered the head of a single one of them there that between these two cosmic phenomena which they call 'emanation' and 'radiation' there is any difference whatever.

Not a single one of those 'sorry-scientists' has ever thought that the difference between these two cosmic processes is just about the same as that which the highly esteemed Mullah Nassr Eddin once expressed in the following words:

'They are as much alike as the beard of the famous English Shakespeare and the no less famous French Armagnac.'

T thought that the strange juxtaposition of Shakespeare with the French brandy might have to do with roughness and smoothness.

For the further clarification of the phenomena taking place in the atmospheres and concerning the 'Omnipresent-Active-Element' in general, you must know and remember this also, that during the periods when, owing to the sacred process 'Aieioiuoa,' 'Djartklom' proceeds in the Okidanokh, then there is temporarily released from it the proportion of the pure - that is, absolutely unblended - Etherokrilno which unfailingly enters into all cosmic formations and there serves, as it were, for connecting all the active elements of these formations; and afterwards when its three fundamental parts reblend, then the said proportion of Etherokrilno is re-established.

Source: wiktionary.org

D said he hadn't understood a single thing of this paragraph. T thought Gurdjieff was labouring the point that scientists cannot see a difference between emanation and radiation. GC asked what the difference was. T said that radiation travels in a straight line. D thought emanation might appear like an aura. T said that scientists act as if science is a religion. GC said that they all have to turn to the metaphysical.

"Know first that, in general, every such cosmic formation called 'brain' receives its formation from those crystallizations the affirming source for whose arising, according to the sacred Triamazikamno, is one or another of the corresponding holy forces of the fundamental sacred Triamazikamno, localized in the Omnipresent-Okidanokh. And the further actualizings of the same holy forces proceed by means of the presences of the beings, just through those localizations.

GC had understood nothing of that, but earlier he had noticed that one word, Aieioiuoa, was made up only of vowels, was there a reason for that? "R" said that it comes up later in connection with remorse. Z said she had totally given up on this section and T that she could not get a handle on this paragraph, despite listening to it numerous times. GC asked what the references to one, two and three-brained beings meant. "R" said they refer to plants, animals and humans. GC said he had read somewhere that dreams mean something, but only the dreamer can work out what. To suggestions that Ouspensky had written an easier explanation of Gurdieff's ideas, "R" recalled reading that Gurdjieff once said, "If Ouspensky had understood everything I had written, then he would be my teacher."

GC asked who wrote "Talks With a Devil".

"R" said that some of Ouspensky's well-known works were published twenty years before Beelzebub's Tales was written, which contains additional material.

The Reading continued.

... Concerning the qualities of being-Impulsakri, there is among the direct commandments of our ALL-EMBRACING ENDLESSNESS even a special commandment, which is very strictly carried out by all three-brained beings of our Great Universe, and which is expressed in the following words: 'Always guard against such perceptions as may soil the purity of your brains.'

... Just in this is the point, that the beings having this three-brained system can, by the conscious and intentional fulfilling of being-Partkdolg-duty, utilize from this process of Djartklom in the Omnipresent-Okidanokh, its three holy forces for their own presences and bring their presences to what is called the 'Sekronoolanzaknian-state'; that is to say, they can become such individuals as have their own sacred law of Triamazikamno and thereby the possibility of consciously taking in and coating in their common presence all that 'Holy' which, incidentally, also aids the actualizing of the functioning in these cosmic units of Objective or Divine Reason.

GC considered that any perception at all soils the purity of the brain, and wondered how it was possible to "always guard" against this. L thought that if this be so, it is still useful to be aware that it is happening.

Following the Reading, a suggestion from GC was adopted as the exercise for the ensuing month: to practice being simultaneously aware of what one is seeing, hearing and physically sensing.

Still Life

A tortoiseshell cat
demonstrates how to
stop in the midst of action

L had been observing how animals, in the middle of moving, will suddenly stop and be utterly still. They are being in the present. We have all seen this with cats, but he had just returned from Lundy Island and observed it with other animals: deer, horses and goats, and insects too. Creatures alternate being attentively still and busily in motion.

D described his experience of life as paradoxical. He felt he had got nothing to say and at the same time he had got a lot to say. He described a lack of drive. He had been trying to find a theatre to stage his play but he hadn't got a passion to support the arts. He found it difficult to motivate himself. He was anxious about forgetfulness. He was younger than M but remembered M had had that difficulty. He reflected that apart from lack of drive, other things in his life were not bad. He was aware of observing more, stopping more and thinking and being where he was. He was aware of the paradoxical and contradictory nature of things.

"R" had decided to make a point of saying something appreciative or complementary to someone she didn't know or hardly knew. She was aware that her habit was to be inwardly critical. The first thing she noticed was how rare it was to have the opportunity to say something that was directly and sincerely appreciative. She gave the example of going into a shop. When shop assistants ask if they can help she usually says no. Her opinion was that it would be more valuable for the business if the assistant were to phrase it differently, for example, "Do let me know if you need any help?" However this time when she went to the dentist, she consciously thanked the nurse, whom she had never met before. From this experience she was aware that her gratitude was not to do with her ego.

Z wanted to talk about the list of words. She didn't observe the list but she felt that there was nothing in her that resonated with them. She asked the Meeting what the purpose was of them. She wondered if the words had an holistic meaning or if they stood for something. To her the words were "long, funny ones" and she couldn't get beyond that.

T described an experience of sitting still in nature for one minute and focusing on what was in her line of sight, which was a blade of grass that was moving in the breeze. She was aware that usually her eye would be naturally roaming to look at everything to try and take in all the beauty. She was aware of the pull to look elsewhere and the effort not to look. By continuing to focus she noticed that she was aware of the general broader landscape around her although she was not directly looking at any of it. Towards the end of the minute she became aware of a strand of her own hair moving in the breeze in front of her eyes and normally she would have pushed this out of the way. By remaining still and not reacting she saw at the same time both the blade of grass and the strand of hair moving in the breeze. She was aware of seeing both from an objective point of view and being detached from both, not having a sense of owning or possessing the strand of hair or the blade of grass but seeing both like a detached witness.

As this completed the contributions, it was time to move on to the responses.

D followed up Z's remarks about the list of words. He thought that Gurdjieff used them to irritate and wake up the reader. Z replied that what she felt they did was block her absorption or understanding. L commented that he liked the sound of them, giving the example of heptaparaparshinokh. He had thought of using them in songs. They sounded rhythmic and melodic and he could set them into verses. He could envisage a musical version of Beelzebub's Tales along the lines of the hit musical, The Book of Mormon, currently showing in London and New York. This could help people remember the words. He thought the words were fun and could stick in the mind. GC experienced the words as having hints of meaning. He thought that experience of the words would be different for different people. For example if somebody knew Latin or Russian, then bits of the long words seemed to be a combination of different languages, roots of words or words that come from the past. "R" said that the words were inventions.

L commented that there was no way he could daydream through Beelzebub's Tales. In contrast he thought he could daydream during Shakespeare or the Bible. He thought the Bible was more complicated and that it had the effect of keeping people "asleep". GC asked how did Beelzebub's Tales wake people up? L thought that Gurdjieff's structure for the book, and the invented words were functional to jog people into waking. "R" remarked that the sentence structure was also to do with breath. The structure forced the reader to do something they were not used to doing. The easy or usual breath rhythm was not possible to maintain. GC believed that if Gurdjieff could have written better, he would have. "R" disagreed, citing the example of Gurdjieff's very well written book, "Meetings with Remarkable Men". She reminded the Meeting that Gurdjieff's father was a professional story teller.

D remarked how powerful it was to put something to music and recalled the video "We are part of the universe" which had impressed him by putting to music scientists speaking theoretically.

L added that he considered The Book of  Mormon to be a very good book. During the Book of  Mormon Show, the Latter Day Saints have been advertising within the programme for the show, which poked fun at their religion. The show has attracted great interest. In Beelzebub's Tales Gurdjieff did the opposite in the preface, dissuading people from reading the book, and in the structure he tried to get people not to be interested. "R" commented that she doesn't believe anything she reads. GC pointed out the irony that "R" reads Beelzebub's Tales which is indecipherable!

L said that each era brings new material. There was no classical music before medieval times, and likewise Gurdjieff has provided new material. GC said that he had tried to read Beelzebub's Tales and then asked in frustration "What's the point of reading this?" He thought that Gurdjieff had played with his audience with this book, but had not with Meetings with Remarkable Men.

L responded that some things are complex and gave the example of how playing the piano was not easy, how it forced people to grapple with the complexity of it. However he also remembered the old Russian proverb, "A man cannot grow taller than himself".

It being after 9:45, the Meeting then resumed reading Beelzebub’s Tales, Chapter 17, The Arch-absurd.

... in every cosmic formation, the said separated sources, both for the perception and for the further utilization of this property of the 'Omnipresent-Active-Element' for the purpose of the corresponding actualizing, exist and continue to have the possibility of functioning as long as the given cosmic unit exists.

And only after the said cosmic unit has been completely destroyed do these holy sources of the sacred Triamazikamno, localized in the 'Omnipresent-Active-Element-Okidanokh,' reblend and they are again transformed into 'Okidanokh,' but having now another quality of Vivifyingness of Vibrations.

Z commented that thus far she did not understand one word. GC said she was not meant to. "R" said this was not the case. GC asked what the phrase vivifyingness of vibrations meant. "R" said it was what we all need: more intensity. Z said she sometimes felt more alive, which relates to vivifyingness. GC asked if that was good. "R" said the purpose was to transform coarse into finer, in terms of vibrations.

... there proceeds within every arising large and small, when in direct touch with the emanations either of the Sun Absolute itself or of any other sun, what is called 'Remorse,' that is, a process when every part that has arisen from the results of any one Holy Source of the Sacred Triamazikamno, as it were, 'revolts' and 'criticizes' the former unbecoming perceptions and the manifestations at the moment of another part of its whole - a part obtained from the results of another Holy Source of the same fundamental sacred Cosmic Law of Triamazikamno.

Unholy Trinity
Anonymous artist

Z suggested Gurdjieff was talking here about the "Law of Three", and L asked for an explanation of what that was. "R" related a story of Gurdjieff once asking a student to do some plumbing. When the student responded he knew nothing of plumbing, Gurdjieff offered to teach him, and explained that in addition to the consideration of the incoming flow and drainage, a third aspect, ventilation, was part of the picture. D proposed an unholy trinity of anxiety, depression and suicide.




Z suggested Reconciliation as the third factor. D said that Despair was a sin according to the bible. L said that could really worry someone who was already in that state.

The Reading continued:

And this sacred process Aieioiuoa or 'Remorse' always proceeds with the 'Omnipresent-Active-Element-Okidanokh' also.

The peculiarity of this latter during this sacred process is that while the direct action either of the sacred Theomertmalogos or the emanation of any ordinary sun is round about the whole of its presence, this Active-Element is dispersed into its three prime parts which then exist almost independently, and when the said direct action ceases, these parts blend again and then continue to exist as a whole.

There was some discussion on the function of remorse. It was to do with being reminded of behaviour, and learning from experience. L said that changing behaviour was more difficult than remorse.

The exercise suggested for May was to notice when you experience resistance and to be aware of it, to recognise it.

Must or Dust

D announced that he had solved the problem of the distracting intercom. It had been taken off the wall. He felt born again. After enduring it for three and a half years, his health was now improved, and he was able to work better. He also wanted to share a very inspiring video, "We Are Star Dust", by Symphony of Science, which had greatly moved him.



L commented that the reading from Beelzebub's Tales to his Grandson was particularly difficult at this stage in the book, and that this may be deliberate. Gurdjieff had not only asserted that the sun is cold, which we know to be untrue, but had also introduced a plethora of long, made-up words which made it very difficult to hold on to any meaning. He wondered if the author had based his structure on the enneagram, which would explain why, at particular parts of the journey, it would require extra energy to persist. He expressed interest in analysing the proportion of the book thus far read, to see if it fitted the expected locations of resistance in the enneagram symbol. With regards to the exercise for the previous month, L said he had been getting limited benefits and favoured doing exercises derived directly from Gurdjieff's thinking rather than those who wrote about him or from other sources.

RM had taken to doing his one-minute meditation exercise at night, and had found it was sometimes leading to lucid dreaming. He used to experience this in his teens, but lost it, perhaps because he was afraid of it. Now it was coming back and he was attributing this to the practice of being present. He described still feeling fear but has consciously continued with self observation.

T said she had recently become exhausted and learned she has a vitamin deficiency which made her aware that health issues can affect the whole person, and of how the intricate the body is and how it all has to be working in order to be present at another level. This had affected her thinking and her memory of the experiences she had been having during the first couple of weeks of the month, and it would take a few months to be righted through the gradual introduction of the vitamin she has been missing.

"R" had not been at the Meeting last time, but had tried to do what RM suggested. As one of her teachers used to advise, "Plunge straight in". But she found it did not work for her. One minute was not enough to elicit an effort. For beginners it was a wonderful introduction because it is possible, for her time was needed for a sense of aim, and to sense the body. She had returned to her morning preparation, a session of fifteen minutes, sensing the body all over, and synchronising with breathing.

The Meeting then moved to responses to the contributions.

T reminded D that he had put a lot of effort into getting the intercom removed. He could have taken the easy way out and moved. It reminded her of "R"'s words on effort. "R" said that people are how they are. They are asleep and cannot change. We can adapt to how they are. T said it was possible to make a conscious choice to try to change the situation. "R" thought that, as in politics, it was impossible to change people. T commented on the news report that George W Bush had taken up painting after his presidency. She remembered his ten year presidency when he was controlling other people and now he was controlling his own actions through learning to paint. She recalled Steven Pressfield's remark that it was easier for Hitler to start World War 2 than to be a painter.



T responded to L's statement that he was now getting limited benefits from the meditation exercise, suggesting that hight have reached a point of resistance where extra force or effort is needed, just as with Gurdjieff's book. For her, likewise, the painting has really come to a halt. She wondered if psychology - resistance to doing the work of painting - had become biology, i.e. physical exhaustion caused by chemical changes in the body. D said that now he had more time, he was putting off writing. He was getting bored with TV, and politics was becoming meaningless. He had been reading about lucid dreaming, and one author had suggested that dreams can be manipulated to change the world. He does not feel the need to do anything. RM said it is good to do nothing, and that he can be in the present. L referred D to the book which Ursula Leguin wrote from inspiration, The Lathe of Heaven, about a man whose dreams become real, and the movie made from it.



RM responded to "R", saying that after a while more than one minute is needed for meditation. He is doing the one minute because he is teaching it - it is an exercise, not the application, it is a trigger. Then he takes a five minute break and does a fifteen minute one like "R". He made an analogy with a fighter pilot, who after much practice gains total awareness with 360 degree vision; everything becomes one. 360 vision. To get anything done needs a trigger - people can get distracted by memories of the past, and should put their dragons on the altar of consciousness. "R" recalled that Gurdjieff said the last thing anyone wants to give up is their suffering. T said she had noticed a change in RM, who had stopped after one minute in his initial comments. RM said that we are half way between being awake and sleep. What most gurus are doing is helping people go to sleep. He wanted to know what the incentive is for waking up? L likened that question to querying the incentive for doing art, which is hard work without apparent benefit. RM said the journey has to be one of slow detachment rather than non-attachment. A doctor who felt his patient's pain would be unable to do his job. D was experiencing some detachment from activities which used to delight him more. He was no longer finding football exciting. He was able to step back and be aware of other choices and options, like writing his play. He sits with pen and and paper, and sometimes the words comes. He exerts will, as if going beyond the enneagram resistance point fa after do re me. "R" quoted Gurdjieff: "Blessed is he who has a soul, blessed is he who has none, but woe and grief to him who has it in embryo." She had been born with a sense of conscience. RM are if she was sure the world needed her. "R" said that beyond looking after ourselves, if we are born to transform course substances to finer substances, there may be people who need us to act. RM said that even your mere presence can help that process. "R" said that that is part of the Work.

L responded to D, asking if he had considered the implications of lucid dreaming? If Gurdjieff was right we are struggling to be awake. We are asleep the whole time, and it is only through will power that we can become aware we are dreaming and to some extent awake, which is analogous to developing the ability to experience lucid dreams during physical sleep.

At 9:45, the reading of Beelzebub’s Tales resumed.

...Although I have promised to explain to you, only later, all the fundamental laws of World-creation and World-maintenance in detail, yet the necessity has here arisen, to touch upon, if only briefly, the questions concerning these cosmic laws, without waiting for that special talk I promised.

T said she felt more identified with Hassein as she did not understand either. RM said it is best not to be attached to not having got it. T said she remains aware that it is fiction.

...Not only is this Etherokrilno the basis for the arising of all cosmic concentrations without exception, both large and small, but also all cosmic phenomena in general proceed during some transformation in this same fundamental cosmic substance as well as during the processes of the involution and evolution of various crystallizations ... which have obtained and still continue to obtain their prime arising from this same fundamental prime-source cosmic substance.

Ayn Rand

D remarked that he was not understanding any of the reading so far. "R" said the terms involution and evolution referred to whether materials were getting finer or not. T said that the text seemed to suggest whatever we do is working for the welfare of the Most Holy Sun Absolute, the microcosm in relation to the macrocosm. RM suggests that it has something missing. "R" said that Work is missing. RM described how in lucid dreaming the quality of his dream changed after realising he was in a dream. He stated that his experience had been that he was everybody. "R" asked RM if she existed, if she was part of him. RM said that for him everything was part of him and would end with him. L considered this an extreme in narcissism which had already been voiced by Ayn Rand, who said "I will not die, it's the world that will end", allegedly quoting a philosopher (who has not been identified).

...In order that you may be able to understand, at least approximately, concerning this Omnipresent-Okidanokh also, I must tell you, first of all, that the second fundamental cosmic law - the Sacred Triamazikamno - consists of three independent forces ...

The first, under the denomination, the 'Holy-Affirming';
The second, the 'Holy-Denying'; and
The third, the 'Holy-Reconciling.'

L commented again on the structure of the book, with the emphasis on three stages. Three levels of transformation (food, air, and emotions), three generations (a grandchild), three parts of the book, the advice to read the book three times, and so on. T was reminded of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost trinity in Gurdjieff's choice of Beelzebub, the Father, skipping the Son, and talking directly to the essential self, the holy ghost or spirit, personified by the young grandson, Hassein.

RM described his image of a mirror, through which self sees image. The mirror represents the holy ghost. Awareness was at the hub of the chariot wheel. T quoted the biblical description of humans being created in the image of God and how she had, in the past, taken this literally, i.e. that because we look how we do, then God would have human form, features and senses too. RM suggested that the original meaning of the phrase was that we were made in the imagination of God; that God has imaged us.

Following the reading it was decided that the exercise for the ensuing month would be to give consideration to and to practice enunciating the invented words thus far used in the current chapter.

Dogged Determination

The Meeting began with a minute's silence, and those who wanted then gave an account of relevant thoughts and events since the previous month.

Yoga tree pose

Z had tried RM's exercise. The main part of the experience for her was a feeling that her feet got roots into the ground. This felt like a wake up call to all other times when she doesn't experience this grounding.

RM described building the one minute meditation into a program for others. His own experience showed him how his mind had been weak and didn't stay in the present. He experienced strong resistance to doing it first thing in the morning and had to battle to keep attention when he did. He has five people he has been coaching in this method. They described trying the meditation whilst playing tennis. They felt they played with the entire body. RM said the one minute felt homoeopathic, a tiny dose with intense effect, the right thing in the right amount. When he remembered to do it he experienced bursts of connection to his whole body throughout the day.

Cyril Scott

GC described having tried it for six or seven days, then his mind didn't want to do it any more and he gave in to his mind. He found the exercise easy to do. He tended to do it whilst driving in the car and got an experience of all of his body. It reminded him of  Cyril Scott, the composer and writer of "A Greater Awareness". He wrote about paying attention to everything that was upstairs in a house when you were upstairs. When you go downstairs you will remember what is there. GC said he read it when he was young and didn't know what Scott was talking about. Since he has got older he has become aware of what Scott meant. He did not know why the one minute meditation exercise triggered this association but it did.

A message from “R” read out. She was abroad at present and unable to attend this meeting.

There was also a message from B, who said he would be unable to attend a Sunday meeting for a while, because of work commitments. He was very grateful to have come over the last couple of years, and when his job situation changes, would like to return.

Statue by Antony Gormley

Although she had not managed the one minute meditation in the mornings, T had done it several times during each day, and had found it a profound experience. While walking, she would stop in the street, while the world carried on, without worrying what people would think. It made her feel like an Antony Gormley statue; it was extraordinary. She stared at wherever her eye fell. Then the wandering mind started. She experienced looking at a distant fence post whilst counting from one to sixty. She was aware of the counting when she was alert to the point in the distance and of her feet on the ground. During the first fifteen seconds the time seemed slow. She then lost concentration and awareness and it was as if time had gone fast not being aware from fifteen to thirty. Aware state and non-aware state affected her sense of time.

D described being hyper-alert through the month. He saw a documentary about psychological testing at a college. Twenty students were set a task to run up a path past a house. They had to use a counting technique whilst they were running. On the route a man was being beaten up by other men. At the end the students were asked if they had seen the man being beaten up. Fifty per cent of the students didn't see it. D said he would have noticed. He had also had to endure a fire alarm going off at his block of flats. He felt a rage against the noise. He felt he wasn't present the last three or four days. He switched it off manually and had to deal with it. He remembered that it was the first of the month and he felt calmer remembering that the Meeting would happen and was aware of the consistency of it which felt important to him.

L said that since the last meeting, he had been contacted by someone in Europe about playing one of his compositions. He had been hearing it recently in his mind, and wondered if this was coincidence. He thought it was being practised at the moment and wondered if there was a connection of some kind between creative people.

Following the contributions, time was given to responses from the attendees.

Z added an addendum to her contribution. She experienced a reluctance to focus on random points, so focused on a picture of angels on a calendar. This had been a good focus and had helped her feel inspired by the exercise. When she picked out a point at random instead, she had a stronger resistance to doing the one minute exercise. D said he found the selection of such an image for the exercise quite inspiring.

D also remembered "R" talking about the importance of the consistency of 'being here', at the Meeting. He had considered the possibility that one day the Meeting might not happen, but so far it had always been there. It had been meeting for several years. People came and went but the Meeting still happened. D asked about M. L mentioned that the monthly exercise had been outlined to him in the care home, and he had tried it, but thought that one minute was too long, and insisted on doing a thirty-second meditation. T outlined the history of the Meetings. She said she had suggested setting meetings up several years ago, knowing M's deep interest in the Work. The first Meeting, in November 2007, was in a private home, but the venue was changed a few months later to a hotel. Initially the focus was on Ouspensky and Nicoll but over time shifted to Gurdjieff.

RM said Gurdjieff is the Work. That was why he was studying all the sources that Gurdjieff got it from. He was studying why people don't want to do things that will change them. He said this was because part of them dies, and the body doesn't want to die. One moment a day plants a seed for the day. T said she experienced a resistance to focusing on a point. Once it was a bit of mould. She counted to sixty during the meditation. The mind was like a horse on a leash, which ran off but could be called back. But a second try didn't work, she felt saturated. It was shocking how long one minute could be. RM said will power was like a spring. It winds down till it is empty. The exercise was like lifting weights. After months it might be possible to do two minutes. The will power can be used for anything. The people he was coaching had reported similar experiences. L commented about the concept of short periods of meditation and said that there was a lot online about it.



Z had come across Sant Mat meditation, which was meant to be for three hours every day. She had found it excessive and extraordinary. GC said he had flirted with a Sufi group for a couple of years, where he had had his deepest experience. They had called it "shedding the accretions". He had noticed that those practicing the meditation had become softer. T had been moving between figurative work and painting from feelings, just working with shapes and colours. Figurative painting is a meditation on what is being looking at. Painting from feeling was responding to intuited colour and form and any ideas that are suggested when looking at these. The maximum she was able to do was thirty minutes. There was so much accretion about art, with selling and exhibiting, but essentially the act of painting for her was a meditation. D said it was a cliche that to be creative an artist had to suffer. He had taken some writing to a director, who wanted changes. D thought the changes would ruin it, but they agreed to differ. He was going to rewrite it.

RM talked about the story of the hundredth monkey. L said that he investigated this claim when it was mentioned in a recent Meeting but the reported results have not been corroborated.

T commented about the Sheldrake's morphic resonance theory.

GC asserted that Gurdjieff had got his teachings from the Egyptians. RM added that Gurdjieff got it from the Sarmoung Brotherhood. L said that although there was a design similar to the enneagram found in Sufi teachings, the enneagram as taught by Gurdjieff appeared to have originated with him. RM said it had an earlier origin, and L said he would be interested to see the historical references.

GC said that concentrating on a point didn't work for him, rather he meditated on feeling every part of the body. He described this as "awareness without definition", with the idea to stop everything and to see everything. He said, paradoxically, that his focus was not to focus. In Zen meditation the meditators are taught to focus and when it becomes visible in their posture that they have lost focus, they get hit to refocus. GC commented that it is easier to keep focus driving in the car because of the obvious consequences of not focusing. He deliberately practiced in the car because of wanting to remain alert to the journey and to avoid the experience of traveling many miles without recall. When not in the car he was aware his mind played games with him all the time. He strived to not have anything in the mind. His mind wanted him to lay down for a bit and his mind wanted him to leave the mind alone.

L commented that one meditation practice was to be there and not focus on anything, and wait for the ego to go away. Another meditation practice, which M had advocated, was to focus on something. This meditation was to develop will power, with the idea that any practice that boosts will power was useful. RM gave a terminology to describe three different meditation practices: attentive meditation, reflective meditation and passive meditation. The one-minute meditation was an attentive meditation practice. GC quoted "discipline is the path to freedom". RM emphasised that it is not the length of the meditation that is important, it is the depth of it. The state of mind of a realised person was one of complete awareness. He said that this is what Gurdjieff termed "Objective consciousness". The Gurdjieff teaching was to learn to remember yourself. Z said that the work was to investigate what the self was that we strive to remember.

It being after 9:45, the Meeting then resumed reading Beelzebub’s Tales, from the beginning of Chapter 17,The Arch-absurd.

... that function called 'the instinctive sensing of reality,' ... is already entirely lacking in the presences of the three-centered beings breeding on the planet Earth ...

All ... are categorically certain that all the said phenomena arrive on their planet completely, so to say, ready-made, 'directly' from their own Sun . . .

... except for certain beings who existed before the second Transapalnian perturbation there, absolutely no doubt whatever concerning this certainty of theirs, has ever, as yet, crept into a single one of them.

Keystone at Gilgal Garden,
Salt Lake city

Z said she had no idea what Gurdjieff was talking about. GC asked what the phrase Transapalnian perturbation meant. D asked if the use of the phrase arch absurd in the title was significant. L thought the title suggested the reaction readers would have on starting the chapter, and was thus artful. It was also interesting that the metaphor of the arch linked to comments from RM in the previous meeting describing short meditations as a key-stone.

To ensure there were regular periods of discussion on the text, D suggested a two-minute limit for reading. This was agreed upon, with the proviso that paragraphs be continued to the end. The reading continued:

Anubis

... not only does nothing like 'light,' 'darkness,' 'heat,' and so on, come to their planet from their Sun itself, but that their supposed 'source of heat and light' is itself almost always freezing cold like the 'hairless-dog' of our highly esteemed Mullah Nassr Eddin.

"In reality, the surface of their 'Source-of-Heat,' like that of all the ordinary suns of our Great Universe, is perhaps more covered with ice than the surface of what they call their 'North Pole.'

GC said the narrative was becoming like Private Eye, just a joke. L said that the physical sun is hot, and just as hell in Dante's Inferno, the description of the sun as cold is to be looked at as a linguistic metaphor. T queried if there was any significance in Gurdjieff's alllusion to a hairless dog.

Following the reading, there was discussion about which exercise to undertake during the coming period, and it was decided to continue with the one-minute attentive meditations.

GC said that if attention is put on the whole body, the whole body, in time, tingles. RM said it is important to focus inside and outside. In the tree metaphor, being aware of the outer branches and treetop while at the same time the roots; the self is where the body meets the roots.

Dreamtime

The Meeting began with a minute's silence, and those who wanted then gave an account of relevant thoughts and events since the previous month.

Z said that she had been absent for a couple of months, feeling a multitude of different challenges, which had been taking her away from being present and she hadn't even been aware of it. So she was glad to be back.

T said it had become more and more obvious to her through the month that everything was repetition. Not having the idea of repetition in the past had meant she had tended to start on new 'spontaneous' work frequently which always felt 'short lived'. More recently she has been returning to the same few paintings and deliberately setting up the same scenarios to bring a painting to completion by staying with it. Resistance is huge, but only thus does she get rid of distraction and let something grow. Also she has been using just one colour and the different shades of it to reduce distraction from the task of investigating subtle tone changes to create the picture.

RM had been away the previous time, on a cruise where he had been teaching a one minute meditation method from a system he has been developing for years. Each daily class was for one and a half hours. His experience of it had been very powerful. The one minute of fully focused meditation seems to be as crucial to the day as the keystone is to an arch. It has changed his life. He has been using triggers to do it at other times, and the intensity was growing each day.

L had observed repetition over the month in many areas and at many levels. For some reason events kept taking him to Wood Green. There were also repeated trips to the care home his father had recently moved to. String quartet music had entered his mind and kept repeating, gradually firming like a crystal. Could it be true that everything was repetition, and movement an illusion? He said he would stop before he repeated himself!

The message from BS was read out. He clarified that his request for his entries to be removed also applies to current and future web reports, but he said he would like time to be given in the Meetings to discussing them.

Following the contributions, time was given to responses from the attendees.

L thought that RM’s one minute meditation system was very congruent with the one minute silence which begins each Meeting. RM said it was a Taoist idea. The meditations are analogous to the roots of a tree, without which the tree would wither. D thought that five minutes would be better, saying that one minute is too short, and that the meditation would be over before it has started. RM repeated it would work and that it was important to do it at least once a day. Every morning when he gets up he sits in a chair with his eyes open and focuses on one thing in his surroundings while at the same time he is aware of his feet on the ground. He said that this is a meditation from the Tao Te Ching. L referred to David Blaine, and asked if he was meditating in some state during his performances, or was he retreating into himself, which was the impression he gave. RM said Blaine demonstrated one dimension of meditation, but in his own system the idea is to increase the intensity of it. D referred to the magician Dynamo whom he said was better than David Blaine. He described a scene in which drinks were swapped between a bottle and a tin can. He didn't know how it could be done. L asked if there were any theories about this from the attendees. He suggested the possibility that actors might have been used. D wanted to know why he couldn’t do it. T asked him to think about the phenomenon of his own writing, which itself, as a phenomenon arising in the world, was extra-ordinary and as inexplicable. RM said it was important to be open minded. GC asked if it was possible to be open minded, as personal experience colours how a person sees the world. He said that scientists were not allowed to be open minded. Z said that she didn't care if a thing was true our false.

In response to L, "R" asked if his composing was in the service of anything. L said that he follows the Muse.

GC suggested to D that he gets caught up in thinking. D said one can change one's thoughts. GC replied that it is the thoughts that are the problem; we are all victims of thinking." D said that he thinks and writes because he wants to attain “knowledge”. That's why he does his writing. He feels something has shifted inside himself through thinking, conversation and doing writing. It is a form of creativity, creating something which wasn't there before. "R" said that there is a level where things can be refined. Her mother used to talk about “the culture”, which didn't sit comfortably with her. She was a textile designer doing things with colour, she was not just doing the basic things of staying alive. D said that creativity is the most important thing we do in our lives. GC said that our opinions might change." "R" replied that the value is that we have different opinions.

There was a discussion of the message from BS. It was agreed that because of the open nature of the Meeting and the notes from it on the Internet, it was inappropriate to withhold significant sections of the Meeting from the monthly report, and that alternatively, if BS wished, he could publish his thoughts anonymously,or otherwise, as comments by clicking the link after each blog entry.

The Meeting then resumed the reading of Beelzebub’s Tales.

You must first be told that there exist in the Universe generally two 'kinds' or two 'principles' of the duration of being-existence.

The first kind or first 'principle' of being-existence which is called 'Foolasnitamnian' is proper to the existence of all three-brained beings arising on any planet of our Great Universe …

As regards the meaning of the principle 'Itoklanos' I shall also specially explain it to you sometime.

Clarification was asked for about the two principles. L said that his understanding was that the first was connected to the development of self-aware life, while the second applied to other life forms.

The reading finished at the close of Chapter 16, and there was a discussion about which exercise to adopt for the ensuing month. GC suggested the Solfeggio meditation based on the frequency mi = 528 Hz.



RM suggested the one-minute daily meditation as described earlier, and it was decided, on a vote, to go with the latter.

Time and Relative Digression

The Meeting began with a minute's silence. Then those who wished spoke for up to two minutes on relevant issues from the previous month.

"R" said that one of her strongest experiences over the Christmas period was when she made and wrote Christmas cards. She experienced resistance because of the hassle, but there was also something satisfying about naming each of the friends she sent to, bringing into mind a sense of being connected, and also a sense of receiving something given in a non-selfish way.The work of looking up addresses - this was nothing to do with the commercial aspect of Christmas. She had been aware of her hands doing the writing, and been aware of her bad posture as she was sitting at her computer.

L had started reading the book RM had mentioned in the last meeting, Stranger in a Strange Land  by Robert Heinlein. It is about a human born on Mars, whose parents die. He is brought up by Martians. Later he is brought back to Earth and the book addresses communication difficulties between different paradigms. It was inspired by The Jungle Book. He had tried the hand exercise. He was still not convinced it came from Gurdjieff, as he had not found any clear attribution. However the exercise did appear to help the development of lucid dreaming.


D wanted to describe an experience he had where the Daemon tried to guide him. Before Christmas he had a bad attack of asthma. He was due to be going away for the New Year. He was using the inhaler too much, and was getting desperate. He remembered that there was a breathing technique created by a Russian about twenty years ago, who had written a book, but he couldn't remember the name of the book or the Russian doctor. He tried to remember the technique and started to feel better enough to go out. He went into a Charity Shop for something. He never get books from Charity Shops, he has got too many books already, but he felt drawn to the books, and did not know why but found himself scouring them from top to bottom. He didn't know what he was looking for. He came across one which he pulled out and, and considered whether to buy it, but then saw a yellow book behind the one he had pulled out. He tugged that one out too and it was the book he had been trying to remember. "Freedom from Asthma" by Dr Alexander Buteyko. He felt that something else was at work to help him. He bought the book, and although the virus came back and he got really ill again, he followed the breathing techniques and recovered well, and was able to go away.

GC had been absent the previous time, but described how for two days, for medicinal purposes, he had been eating a third of a nutmeg three times day. He realised he wasn’t in a bad mood, and eventually connected this observation with the mind-altering properties of nutmeg.

T said she had been aware of her hands while washing up, but also had had an experience in the studio while she was taking a half-hour break. She had started doing a timetable, which alternated a half-hour working with a half-hour resting. It was an experiment. It meant that the time wasn’t as chaotic as usual. Going back to the hands, she had about ten minutes where she paid them complete and utter attention. Her mind became very aware of the specific microcosm of the hands and her in the studio, and then the macrocosm of the universe, which sounded grand, but it was a very powerful experience of being connected to the whole. After emerging from that experience, she wrote down what she remembered of it, and had intended to read it to the Meeting.

Responding to D, L had been reminded of day when, as a student, he was looking at a stack of bookshelves in a bookshop, and asked his hands to pick out a significant book, without him looking. The book picked out was The Glass Bead Game, by Hermann Hesse, which became a very important book to him. D spoke further about the Buteyko method for treating asthma. GC asked D why he was so worried about not existing. D replied that he did not want to die in ignorance. G said that the most important thing is to be conscious of the moment of death, and that non-existence was infinite. L thought that scienctific research might greatly extend the human lifespans in the future. However there would be the same existential issues facing humans as individuals and as a species. G asked what our purpose was in being here. "R" mentioned the Five Strivings

The message from BS was read out, and it was noted that he wished his contributions from the previous two years to be removed from the blog. It was agreed that this be done, where it did not take away too much of the sense of the blog entry. It was unclear whether the request was meant to apply also to the current and future entries, and whether time should be given in the Meetings to messages and ensuing discussion of them which would not be recorded in the blog. As two minutes was often insufficient to read the messages, thus depriving the Meeting of part of the content, it was thought one solution would be for BS to place messages in their entirety as comments to the blog entry. These would be easier to remove at a future time if this was desired. It was also agreed that in future, requests for removal of comments should be made within four weeks of publication.

The Meeting then resumed the reading of Beelzebub’s Tales.

… the average proper normal duration of their existence began gradually to diminish and that it has now already become in the objective sense almost 'nothing.'


L thought that Gurdjieff’s frequent assertion that different groups experience time at different speeds suggested that he might have come across Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity. GC thought this unlikely. L mentioned the title of the chapter, The Relative Understanding of Time, which he thought might be an indication.

To conclude the Meeting, there was some discussion of what exercise to adopt for the coming month. At this point GC commented that the book on lucid dreaming is clearly written and understandable, and wanted to know why Gurdjieff made his book so difficult to read and understand. "R" said that development only comes through making an effort. GC responded that lots of people don't read this book because it is difficult. Each person at the Meeting has a different view of it, and keeps repeating their own interpretation of it. "R" said that Gurdjieff worked closely with Orage on the English, and that Gurdjieff believed people were ruined by their conditioning. GC spoke of encounter groups moaning about the same thing every week. It was decided the exercise would be to observe and be aware of cases of repetition in what happens and what is experienced.