Ex Pluribus Unum

L had tried the exercise, which was to find something done regularly, and to do it in a different way. He had chosen to turn on taps with a different hand than usual. This had not worked so well. It had taken him a while to remember the exercise, and then it turned out that he quite often turned on taps with the alternate hand anyway, when he was already holding something with the primary hand. But one interesting thing had occupied his mind quite a lot during the month. In the previous Meeting he had mentioned a quotation, Things don’t happen to you, they happen for you, and D had questioned him a few times about it, so he had researched its origin online. It was attributed to many people, but appeared to have originated with Byron Katie. He had done some research about her. She had a website called, coincidentally, thework.com. There was quite a lot in her writing he did not like: a kind of guru fixation, a glib use of karmic ideas - from her logic the holocaust happened for the victims, so there are limitations to her logic, but her concept that people’s thoughts are not really their thoughts, but rather that the thoughts happen to them, was interesting.

RM had been continuing the one minute or four minutes of remembering himself, and had noticed that he worked better under pressure, realised that the reason was that the pressure put him absolutely in the present, and when in the present he was in touch with his intuition and was more effective. This was also why he preferred to work late rather than in the morning, as at night he felt it was time to go to bed, which put him in the present and thereby more creative. Also the moment he would wake up in the morning he was absolutely in the present. It was such a joyful moment that he did not want to get up.

The habit that T had been aware of doing for a while but done nothing about, was of chewing her tongue. She noticed during the month that it had been associated with chores like washing up. She hadn’t realised but the whole psychology was to do with wanting to get something done before she had done it. She had discovered it too in walking, when she had in mind that she had to get there, and she tried to slow down to mindful walking, and it was quite an extraordinary change in pace - you still got to where you are going but a different psychology was happening. She did not try to stop the tongue chewing, but tried to be aware of it, and that was what helped her associate it with times when she was trying do something practical, with hand-eye coordination. It also happened when she was painting, trying to get somewhere in it - it was wanting to be there before she was there.

N had been changing the way he went to work, which created some interesting experiences. One was that you could appreciate the journey which became more of an adventure. You could observe and see things which you hadn’t seen on previous occasions when you were on automatic. He had been thinking about how that could apply to other things in his life, wondering if things would become more interesting, more of an adventure, if there would be more discovery resulting from that process, so from that perspective he was experiencing those things and seeing what I’s were involved in that process, and why he was doing quite a lot of things most probably on automatic, and that led to him thinking about maybe changing other things to see what effect that might have, things we could easily change and reprogram.

“R”’s ongoing complication was laziness and impatience, and there were physical exercises which she tried to do each morning which were physically necessary, and her understanding of her aim was not to improve things but to be in what was. So she was trying a different exercise in the mornings at the moment, and it was not more pleasant, but it was more reminding, and it was very hard to stay with not wishing to improve and have more fun. Trying to use this physical exercise which did not take very many minutes, but enabled her to have the opportunity and be reminded to sense and to feel, and not just look for a label. The very first time, when she was a child, that somebody mentioned to her the idea of consciousness, she remembered having a taste of what it might be as a hundred percent state, and in a way that has also returned from time to time to remind her what she is really hoping or working towards.

A message received from BS of India was read out, and then the Meeting turned to responses.

In response to N’s description of doing routines differently, L said he had been experimenting with an opposite approach, trying to do things in exactly the same sequence each time. There was a concept called habit stacks, which a few people had written about, and in contrast to our attempts to wake up and avoid automatic behaviour, this was a deliberate attempt to preserve energy by making some our behaviour automatic so that it required no energy whatsoever. He had found that interesting as some of the energy saved could be useful. RM said that one of the first principles of organisational development was to get people into a state of regularity as quickly as possible, because while they were unfamiliar with what was going on around them it was very inefficient.

RM also picked up on the saying L had quoted in his contribution, Things don’t happen to you, they happen for you. In one of the chapters of a book he had been working on for twenty years, he had considered the idea that things happen through you. We were not an individual being. Things happened for us and through us. Because we were not individuals, it was more like rivers, they all flowed, but along different paths. They don’t have choice, but everything that happens, happens for the river, and happens for its own learning and so on but is part of something much much bigger, and what L had been saying made a lot of sense, that things just happen. L said that as a composer, he had the experience where musical tunes had an external reality. They came in to the mind, and then the composer wrote them down and formed them into structures, so it was as if they had an external reality. And Byron Katie’s comments about thoughts reminded him of that. It was as if thoughts had an external existence, and were swimming around reality, and latched on to people, and stayed there, and then possibly influenced the people and took them over. He was not sure where this fitted into the Gurdjieff Work, but thought it did help in waking up, if one became aware that our thoughts might not be our own.


Coming back to the earlier subject, N said that when we do things continuously in the same way, there can be some merit in it because it saves energy. He remembered reading the book by Arnold Bennett, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day, where the author automated so many things in his life that he had more time for his writing and creativity. When we learnt any new physical skill, like driving, it first of all started with mental centres, and then eventually went down to the mechanical centre and the body took it over, so that we drive, and we just continue to do these skills automatically. At times he had tried to improve his playing of some guitar pieces, and experienced issues because of habitual skills. The same thing once happened to Julian Bream; who became dissatisfied with his guitar playing and went back and painstakingly retaught himself so as to improve mastery of his technique. So there was sometimes some unlearning that had to take place. Some of the habits may be optimal to our situation, but what happens is that the machine takes over and we don’t even think about our behaviour once it gets to a certain standard of practical usefulness, but it was important that we actually observed what was happening, because it was often happening in unconscious parts of our being which we were not aware. Everything was interconnected, so sleep in one part of the machine was going to cause problems somewhere else in your life, if it wasn’t revealed, looked at, and considered at some level.



L said that paradoxically, if you were going through a sequence of things which form a habit stack, and if you were aware that you were doing that, you could just sit back and watch your body do those actions. So you could be on automatic and self-observing at the same time.

RM said that for Gurdjieff it was more the consciousness of what you were doing which was important, whether or not you were on automatic. He also thought Gurdjieff’s point was that changing the way you did things made you more aware of what you were doing. In RM’s experience, if he was aware of doing something and saw that there was a better way of doing it, he found it effective to slowly shift to the better way while visualising it.

Returning to L’s remarks about Byron Katie’s suggestion that the holocaust happened on some level for the victims, N thought that this was an extremely dangerous way of using the concept of karma. He did not deny that sometimes things happened to us which we are meant to have happen to us, and sometimes we were used, and in a very positive way, although we may not have seen it that way at the time. We were also used in writing music or poetry - when things came through us in that context, the work is considerably better. In a sense, being used at some level, could be very positive, but he did not think that could be talked about in a more generalised view of karma in history.

At 9:45 the Meeting resumed the reading of Beelzebub’s Tales, continuing Chapter 19, Beelzebub’s Second Descent to Earth.

Among these Most High Sacred Individuals there was again His Conformity, the Angel—now already an Archangel—Looisos, of whom, do you remember, I recently told you that during the first great catastrophe to the planet Earth he had been one of the chief regulators in the matter of averting the consequences of that general cosmic misfortune.

So, my boy! The day following this second appearance of the mentioned Sacred Individuals, His Conformity, escorted by one of the Seraphim, his second assistant, made His appearance at my house.


After Te Deums with me, and after certain inquiries of mine concerning the Great Center, His Conformity then condescended to tell me, among other things, that after the collision of the comet Kondoor with the planet Earth, he, or other responsible cosmic Individuals, superintending the affairs of ‘Harmonious-World-Existence,’ had frequently descended to this solar system to observe the actualizing of those measures they had taken in order to avert the consequences of that general cosmic accident.

L found it interesting that this person was called "His Conformity". T noticed the reference to "the Great Centre".

‘And we descended,’ His Conformity continued, ‘because although we had then taken every possible measure and had assured everybody that everything would be quite all right, we ourselves were nevertheless not categorically convinced that no unexpectedness might occur there unforeseen.

...‘But now,’ added His Conformity with a shade of self-satisfaction, ‘the existence of this planet will be quite normal in respect of the common-cosmic harmony. This second catastrophe to the planet Earth has finally quite pacified and convinced us also that a catastrophe on a great scale cannot again occur on account of this planet.

‘Not only has this planet itself now again acquired a normal movement in the general cosmic equilibrium, but its two detached fragments’—which, as I have already told you, are now called Moon and Anoolios—’have also acquired a normal movement and have become, although small, yet independent “Kofensharnian,” that is, additional, planets of that solar system Ors.’

Annulus Platonis

T wondered if some of the words, like Looisos and Anoolios, might be significant. L said they were almost anagrams. "R" said that Anoolios could be seen as "Sol" and "Luna". T was reminded also of the pair of words from an earlier chapter, Cathodnatious and Anodnatious, which compare to this new pair, Looisos and Anoolios. L thought Anoolios was like "annulus", a ring formed from two concentric circles. T thought Anoolios might refer to "annual", or pertain to the Sun.

RM had gathered from his reading the catastrophe might have been to do with moving from unity to duality. A great shock splits everything up into separate parts. L said he was also talking about descending, which suggests giving up a level of consciousness.

...‘Although these Havatvernoni or Religions have nothing in common,’ continued His Conformity, ‘yet nevertheless in these peculiar religions of theirs there is very widely spread among the beings of all three groups the same custom called among them “Sacrificial-Offerings. And this custom of theirs is based on the notion, which can be cognized only by their strange Reason alone, that if they destroy the existence of beings of other forms in honor of their gods and idols, then these imaginary gods and idols of theirs would find it very, very agreeable, and always and in everything unfailingly help and assist them in the actualization of all their fantastic and wild fancies. This custom is at present so widespread there, and the destruction of the existence of beings of various forms for this maleficent purpose has reached such dimensions, that there is already a surplus of the “Sacred Askokin” required from the planet Earth for its former parts, that is to say, a surplus of those vibrations which arise during the sacred process of “Rascooarno” of beings of every exterior form arising and existing on that planet from which the said sacred cosmic arising is required.'

The Sacrifice of Isaac, by Pedro Orrente.

"R" said that the meaning of Rascooarno is death. L asked what was the Sacred Askokin. "R" said that was possibly the result of personal work of transformation of courser substances into finer ones. T wondered if it was to do with questioning, as it contains the word "ask". L said it was talking about vibrations which occur during the process of dying, and those who were being sacrificed would experience fear and distress, and he wondered if that was the surplus sacred askokin. "R" said that Gurdjieff was writing this before the holocaust, but he may have sensed the growing ferment in Europe. N noted that Gurdjieff was Armenian, and there had also been the Turkish massacre of his own people, so he was aware of what mankind could do to mankind, and that sort of destruction which could take place in the name of religion or other doctrines. T said that the text appears to describe sacrifice of animals, but originally there were human sacrifices. N said that changed to sacrifices of goats, and even today there is still much in the newspapers about how animals are killed, and people still want very much to hold on to those systems, even though they are not very humane. L said that the fact that animal sacrifice is still a religious practice in Islam, and referenced symbolically in Jewish practice at Passover, and practiced by some Christians in villages outside Jerusalem, in Palestine. RM said that all the mystical readings he had come across refer to sacrifice purely as sacrificing your attachment to things. N said that in Christianity there was very strongly the sacrifice of Christ - the whole essence of the religion is that God sacrificed His Son. T said they called him the Lamb. RM said the biblical quote "I and my Father are one" was symbolic of the sacrifice of attachment, of "two becomes one". "R" mentioned a 'grace before meals' which was sometimes said by people in the Gurdjieff Work, following its use by J G Bennett and Mrs Staveley, who were pupils of George Gurdjieff.

All life is one

And everything that lives is holy,

Plants, animals and man.

All must eat to live and nourish one another.

We bless the lives that have died to give us food.

Let us eat consciously,

resolving by our work to pay the debt of our existence.

Amen

N mentioned the story of Abraham being asked to sacrifice his son. RM said that having proved he was willing to give up what he was attached to, he no longer needed to, he had passed a test. L said that the story could be looked at the other way, that by agreeing to do this terrible thing he had failed a test.

Following the Reading, there was a discussion on what to do for an exercise. A suggestion for a more extended meditation, from "R", was adopted. These words by Gurdjieff from Beelzebub's Tales may be helpful:

... every day, at sunrise, while watching the reflection of its splendor, you bring about a contact between your consciousness and the various unconscious parts of your general presence. Try to make this state last and to convince the unconscious parts--not as if they were conscious--that if they hinder your general functioning, they, in the period of your responsible age, not only cannot fulfill the good that befits them, but your general presence of which they are part, will not be able to be a good servant of our Common Endless Creator, and by that will not even be worthy to pay for your arising and existence.

An additional suggestion from N (linked to what had been discussed) was also adopted: before and while eating, to be thankful and aware of the work that has gone into its preparation, perhaps entailing the sacrifice of a creature or vegetable.

Flash Trance

Manna from Heaven
Maciejowski Bible (13th century)

L had tried the exercise on intentional suffering, choosing a household task he did not like doing. He had found an app "Rewire" which tracks whether you are able to do a task daily. He had succeeded in doing so most days, and had been able to take a back seat and observe body and automatic mind getting on with doing the task. He had also been assisted by a member of his family who was sending him unpleasant emails which he delayed reading, allowing time for intentional suffering and self-observation of his automatic reactions. A new insight had just occurred to him, it being Passover time, as to what manna may represent. As a composer he had to isolate himself from the works of the great masters to leave room for inspiration to come, otherwise all he would be thinking of was Beethoven or Mozart which would fill the mind, and as it happened some music had come to him on waking that very morning, and he had recorded it. In the biblical story the Israelites were in the desert, bereft of food, and sometimes in the morning manna would come. So it appeared to him that this was a more realistic symbolic meaning of that legend.

N had encountered an issue at work which required an enormous amount of looking through years of records. He was able to observe his inner resistance, and after a while was able to stand back and see it as a good discipline, as what the Work was all about, having to contend with things in life which go against our egos and perspective. It had led to him working very late at night and often at weekends, but within it he saw a kind of inner freedom of having to deal with things he did not particularly want to give such a large degree of attention to.

D was interested in the emotional responses invoked in a person when they are slurred by another. His example was an encounter with an evangelistic Christian. They had had an exchange about the election debates. D had wanted to stop the exchange after a while and the Christian continued and started expressing Christian dogma. D was amazed at his own angry response. He thought that emotions generally were very powerful and could override any teachings. He described being emotionally involved with a woman friend and how it had started to get too emotional for D and they decided to have a temporary break from each other. Since then he had experienced tremendous emotional freedom, total relief from not seeing her. D asked how is it possible for ordinary people to search for enlightenment when it is usual for monks to live without a relationship? His question was, is it too much for people to work towards enlightenment and be in an emotional relationship? He requested some time to explore this point later in the meeting.

J was interested in the expression "inner freedom", because for him the exercise brought a feeling of detachment, not only from the daily domestic task, but also from the fact of doing something that he did not want to do. As someone who was brought up Catholic, he had great resistance to doing something that he did not want to do, for a kind of spiritual reason or a reason outside himself. He felt like not doing it because it was like giving something up for Lent. But he stuck with it, and he had found a detachment from it, and he had been able to look at himself not only doing the little job, but also being detached from the little job and being not doing it out of the same spirit of giving something up for Lent, but doing it out of, maybe, a more creative spirit.

"R" had missed the energy with which this exercise was suggested because she hadn't been there for a couple of Sundays, but she was able to relate something which was ongoing which was sufficient to be very disturbing, and that was having to take responsibility for forgetting, losing things, and not being able to summon names quickly enough to be able to say "Hello" addressing people by name. This was not going to improve particularly, and she was considering how she could use this to help her work. She could tell herself to accept it but it still kept her awake because it didn't fit her image. Sometimes she was able to understand that it was resistance that was one of the forces that we needed. She would much rather have chosen something grander and more beautiful, but this was a fact to be accepted.

Although T had thought about the task last Meeting, she had actually failed to do it on a daily basis, so there was a lot of forgetting going on. There had been something at work which she had had to do which was extremely unpleasant, and she had not had the presence of mind to use it as intentional suffering. What she was aware of was her continual habit of trying to paint, and setting aside time, despite everything going on during the week, to do this, and how for her that was the most challenging thing in her week, to sit down and paint from life, because she did not have to do it, and she would wonder why was she doing it, why was she bothering. But after she had actually climbed up a mountain to do it, it was always worth it, but she could never remember that when she was next planning to do it.

Something had happened to GC at the beginning of the month. He was getting involved in an argument with somebody, and suddenly, in a flash, saw the ridiculousness of his reaction to what was going on. An understanding had swept over his body, a warmth and a glow, maybe a rechanneling of the energy into something more positive, but he had nothing to do with it, it just happened. He had no idea why it happened or why it was strong enough to pull him out of the situation. His mind had not been involved anymore. He could not explain it, it just happened.

RM was thinking about successes. He was still doing four minutes a day of present-centred awareness, contact with his feet and so on, and he was also writing a book about the subject which was keeping him focused, and studying Taoism, which was a fascinating thing. All that was coming together. The more he was present, the more he sensed nature around him, as being part of the natural flow, and as he sensed letting go to that flow, being part of it just as a leaf in a river, things seemed to be coming to him. He would get to a platform for a train and the train would just be arriving, it had happened to him all the way to the Meeting. He did not know where there was a link - he was trying to see success as an ego trip and he was just using his ego to keep him going in a way. He realised now with Insight Timer, after 250 consecutive days of meditation, when he said to himself that he was doing well, he realised that he was just brushing his ego, but at least it was keeping him going. And there were synchronicities happening in life which were quite extraordinary. The only thing he could say was that he never got what he expected, but when he got it, it was what he needed at the time. It was quite weird. So in some ways he was trying to face in the right direction without a destination, and was beginning to accept whatever came as right for him at the time, which was very uplifting for him.

Responding to "R", L said that the words she had used were that it was still keeping her awake, so from that point of view, he thought that was the main thing. "R" said that she did not feel that it was an affliction of the physical brain. She thought it was to do with energies. The general pattern was just not accepting the passage of time. T spoke of the individual and the tribe. Giving out to other people (the tribe) includes remembering their names, but perhaps "R" was trying to remember herself, and that was getting more energy or precedence.

Byron Katie

RM's comment that things happening to him were unexpected but right for him at the time reminded L of Byron Katie's saying, "Things don't happen to you, they happen for you". "R" recalled that her teacher would very often finish what he had to say with the words "For myself, for those near to me, and for the Work".

N found GC's account interesting, regarding this other thing that came in, and it appears that something comes in at that stage and restrains us in some way from persisting in an argument or whatever it might be. What T had said was also interesting, about doing her art and having to climb that mountain, but once she was there she would actually to enjoy it. He had found that with his task, having to go to work at the weekend, but whilst doing it he actually got some pleasure along the way, clarity of perception about some things, certain lessons which were being learnt effectively. That is the thing with the other side of suffering - if you go through it in the right way, insights will be given to you. There are lots of things in life where you learn something from the process even though it is exceedingly unpleasant to go through it. Following on D's comments in terms of relationships, he thought that monks might be losing out if anything, there was much to be learnt from intentional suffering which might come from relationships, and as Gurdjieff suggested combining the ways of the monk, the fakir and the yogi might be the fastest way to reach a different level of consciousness rather than separating yourself from the world.

It being 9:45, the Meeting resumed the reading from Beelzebub's Tales.

Gold is no other than the metal we call 'Prtzathalavr,' the specific weight of which, reckoning from the element of the sacred Theomertmalogos, is 1439; that is to say, its element is three and a fraction times less vivifying than the element of the metal red copper.

Why I suddenly decided not to try to explain to you in detail in words all that then took place in the fragment of the said red copper, in view of my suggestion of the possibility of soon actually showing you in definite intraplanetary formations the processes of various combinations of the manifestations of the active parts of Okidanokh, was because I suddenly remembered the all-gracious promise given me by our All-Quarters- Maintainer, the Most Great Archcherub, Peshtvogner.

T thought this suggested how futile materialism is. We put all our energies into getting something that was gold. For N it was alluding to alchemy, with the pursuit for gold a metaphor for a spiritual quest.

... This I had to do on account of the same sins of my youth. And I was obliged to do so, because when I was pardoned by HIS UNI-BEING ENDLESSNESS and allowed to return to my native land, certain Sacred Individuals decided to demand of me, for any eventuality, to have performed over my essence this sacred process in order that I might not manifest myself as in the days of my youth ...

You probably do not know yet what the Sacred- Aliamizoornakalu over an essence means? I shall later explain it to you in detail but meanwhile I shall simply use the words of our dear Mullah Nassr Eddin who explains this process as 'giving-one's-word-of-honor-not-to-pokeone's- nose-into-the-affairs-of-the-authorities.'

L recalled that Beelzebub here is recalling the time in his past when he was sent into exile to our solar system after getting involved in politics on his home world. T said that he had "poked his nose in" at that time. But now he was a lot older, thousands of years old. L thought the inference was that a procedure carried out on us might similarly affect our future behaviour. There was some discussion of Gurdjieff's depiction of our planet as a place of exile. L said Gurdjieff appeared to be against insurrection. D thought the account of Beelzebub's exile evoked Gurdjieff's exile from Russia. L said that for an artist exile was an aim in itself, in terms of shutting her or himself away from the world. D agreed, saying that it can be lonely.

He at once promised to give orders that everything I should indicate should be taken at the first opportunity on the next trip of the space-ship Omnipresent.

T thought the name of the spaceship, Omnipresent, was very apposite. She also remarked on the name of an earlier spaceship mentioned, the Occasion. L thought that the Iain Banks might have taken a cue from Gurdjieff in the naming of spaceships in his Culture books. "R" agreed with GC that the Meeting was going round and round talking about ideas, but for Gurdjieff ideas were a starting point but the Work was not on what we know, memorise or understand, but by the energy or flow in being present. What was not happening in the Meetings was working on our being directly. It was so attractive to get involved with ideas, but the energy and the development that is possible requires physical sensation of the body and acknowledging its presence.

The Meeting had reached the end of Chapter 18:

... And meanwhile, during our traveling here on the space-ship Karnak, I shall, as I have already promised you, tell you in their order about my descents there to your planet and also about the causes of what is called my 'appearances-there-in-person.'

and continued with Chapter 19, Beelzebub's Second Descent to Earth.

... “It appears that a year before the said catastrophe, our, as she is called, ‘Party-Pythoness’ there, when prophesying, asked us all to leave the continent of Atlantis and migrate to another small continent not very far away, where we were to exist on that definite part of its surface she indicated. 

This small continent was then called ‘Grabontzi’ and the part the Pythoness indicated did indeed escape the terrifying perturbation which then occurred to all the other parts of the common presence of that ill-fated planet.

... So, my boy, the Party-Pythoness there was able to warn those beings of our tribe who had been obliged to exist on that planet, and thereby to save them, as I have already told you, from the inevitable ‘Apocalyptic-fate, owing only to one special being-property which, by the way, can be acquired by beings only intentionally, by means of what is called being-Partkdolg-duty, about which I shall tell you later.

D was reminded of Monty Python. N replied that John Cleese had talked about Gurdjieff being an influence on his life. T said that in the Dead Parrot Sketch, after the admission the parrot was dead, a slug was offered, a metaphor of Gurdjieff for human being. L said that this sketch was all about avoiding the acceptance of death, and the shopkeeper would do anything but accept the parrot was dead.



There was a discussion as to what to do as an exercise during the coming month. A suggestion from RM was adopted, to select a daily physical habit, and deliberately to do it in a different way.

Alchemy and Evolution

T said that she had been trying the exercise of making a note of any small achievements during the month. She had experienced a few but had not written them down even though this was the intention. The exercise had enabled her to see how plans are easier to make than making plans happen and how untrained her own will power was.

Young Flautist, by Manet.

RM had noticed that by paying attention with all senses: touch, taste, breathing, sight, sound and smell - bringing them all together - his ability to learn music had been enhanced and he was able to retain the ability to remember and play notes and tunes. He had been learning the Irish whistle.

GC had tried the exercise of congratulating himself and had kept it up for three days. However on one occasion, in the kitchen, he had knocked something off the shelf, and instinctively caught it before it reached the floor. He had immediately congratulated himself and experienced a warm glow of achievement.

DM had succeeded in improving his health from the state of dizziness he was experiencing the previous month. His doctor had not been able to resolve the condition, but DM himself had found approaches from researching the internet which reduced his symptoms by 90%.

What colour is the dress?

L found it was hard to write down the triumphs. It was true, as GC had observed, that there is a resistance to acknowledging our successes and achievements and that the mind likes to dwell and wrap itself round the negative. He had found an app online called CoachMe, which sets up peer groups in areas where they perceive a need for improvement - within the groups people record their achievements and congratulate each other. There had also been a news item about a photograph of a dress, which different people see, persistently, as either white and gold, or blue and black. This suggests that reality may not be as we perceive it.

J had read the previous web report and he was trying to be present to himself. He had noticed how often he thought the same thing - the same thought came into his head and it was not original and was not "now", was not present.

Following the contributions, it was time to feed back on them. Responding to RM's remarks about being in the present whilst practicing the Irish whistle, L was reminded of the piano technique he had studied which was originally developed by Theodor Leschetizky. This entailed playing each note not just with a finger or hand, but with the whole body. He had been astonished to find the relaxation exercises set by the piano teacher were identical to several exercises he had come across elsewhere in the martial art, ki aikido. In the "Leschetizky method" there was a focus on presence in body more than presence in mind.

At 9:45 it was time to continue the reading of Beelzebub's Tales. RM requested a brief period to read his interpretation of terms Gurdjieff used in the book. After his summary, it was suggested that his descriptions could be mentioned where the words came up during the reading. The Meeting then continued with the book.

When the said masses of different densities that have thus arisen in planets under normal surrounding conditions radiate from their common presences the vibrations required for the said World-law of Reciprocal-feeding-of- everything-existing, then, among these vibrations of various properties there is established, owing to the fundamental World-law "Troemedekhfe," a reciprocally acting contact.

And the result of this contact is the chief factor in the gradual change of the various densities in planets.

...Now see in what order its artificially accelerated transformations will proceed.

Melanie Klein

J thought Gurdjieff here was describing the creation of the world. L had that image too, but said he also thought the description might also be of psychological changes, of the development of awareness and consciousness. T said that Gurdjieff thought of the human being as a planetary body, and used the term in that sense several times. RM said that Gurdjieff's writing in this book, by design, works on multiple levels simultaneously, "as above, so below". T talked of Melanie Klein's analysis of the development of awareness in babies, which begins with the realisation that there is something other than themselves, and also mentioned Winnicott's work with children.

Having said this, he first fixed before my organ of sight the automatically moving Teskooano and then turned on and off various switches in a certain sequence; and as I looked through the Teskooano he explained to me as follows:

'At this moment I admit the "influx" of all three parts of Okidanokh into the sphere containing this metal; and as all three parts have the same "density" and, hence, the same "force-of-striving," they reblend into a whole in this sphere without changing anything in the presence of the metal; and the Omnipresent-Okidanokh thus obtained flows in its usual state through a special connection out of the Hrhaharhtzaha and is reconcentrated in the first container which you have already seen.

'Now look!

'I deliberately increase the force-of-striving of only one of the active parts of the Okidanokh; for example, I increase the force called Cathodnatious. In consequence of this, you see that the elements composing the presence of that red copper begin to involve towards the quality of the substances that compose the ordinary presences of planets.'

As he explained this, he at the same time turned on and off various switches in a certain sequence.

Although, my boy, I then looked very attentively at everything proceeding, and everything I saw was impressed in my essence 'Pestolnootiarly,' that is, forever, 

This reminded D of RM's technique in learning a musical note. T said the use of the new word Pestolnootiarly forced people to give this very sentence extra attention. GC thought this use of complex words to functionally affect awareness, like a Zen koan, to go beyond thinking rather than convey a specific meaning, was at odds with RM's project to compile a set of definitions of Gurdjieff's invented words. L remarked upon the term Cathodnatious and said he thought it meant negativity, or friction to deter action. By increasing the input of that force the operator of the apparatus can bring consciousness down to earth. D thought that the friction was described as crystallisation. RM talked of the concept of intentional suffering. This was being aware of the friction, and intentionally going with it.

... But I will tell you meanwhile that there proceeded in that fragment of red copper something rather like those terrifying pictures which I occasionally observed among your favorites on the planet Earth through my Teskooano from Mars.

... A rough parallel can be drawn between the occasional proceedings on your planet and the proceedings then in that small fragment of copper, if you imagine yourself high up and looking down upon a large public square, where thousands of your favorites, seized with the most intense form of their chief psychosis, are destroying each other's existence by all kinds of means invented by them themselves, and that in their places there immediately appear what are called their 'corpses,' which owing to the outrages done to them by the beings who are not yet destroyed, change color very perceptibly, as a result of which the general visibility of the surface of the said large square is gradually changed.


... I noticed very clearly that this metal was transformed once upon the said plate into just that same definite metal about which the sorry-savants of your planet have been wiseacring during nearly the whole of their arising and existing, in the hope of transforming other metals into this metal, and thus constantly leading astray their already sufficiently erring brethren.

This metal is called there—'gold.'


T thought that the description of violence in the public square where the colour of live human beings changed to the green of corpses was similar to the way copper changes colour from red to green during oxidation. L thought it was a dispassionate, scientific account of mad warfare between human beings - Gurdjieff did not go in to detail of what was happening in the war, but just said that some of the bodies changed colour (after they died, they would have gone from pink to white), and that from a distance this affected the colouration of the square. This stripped away all the emotion of warfare and depicted it, by metaphor, as a mechanical process. Whether applying negative inclination - Cathodnatious - to humans, or heat to copper carbonate, the result in either case would be a change of colour. For RM the fighting was a description of intolerance between religions leading to war. D said that the Quakers have no creed. RM said this was also true of the Vedic masters.

GC thought in general the passage, and mention of gold, was a reference to alchemy. L said it was reiterating the concept which had come up before that there was a mechanism with three inputs which the operator was calibrating, and by which he was able to make various degrees and levels of consciousness result.

Following the reading, there was a discussion on what to choose as an exercise in the ensuing month. T suggested intentional suffering, to select an activity that the person does not want to do, and to do it daily, making a note every day whether or not it was done.

The Hunt for Red Copper

T spoke of the exercise for the previous month, which was to think about achievements and to write them down as they were done. She had felt there were a few things she had achieved, but hadn't written anything down, so she had failed in that respect. She intended to try it again in the coming month and would try to be present enough to write them down. She had really liked the exercise.

L had also found it a good exercise. He said that people tend to think about the negative, but do achieve quite a lot too. He did not record very much - he did notice his little triumphs every day. He said that becoming aware of our achievements also makes us more positive in our attitude and more likely to try and accomplish them.

GC had tried the exercise and it lasted about three days. What became apparent to him was that his mind didn't want to be reminded of the successes. It identified with the negative too easily, and there was some kind of war going on in the mind, so anything which emphasised the positive was helpful and endorsed the exercise.

For D it was an achievement to come as he had been experiencing dizziness, which was induced whenever he used his iPad. He had been researching all the possible causes. He had changed his glasses and been walking slower. It was a huge contrast to how he had been feeling the previous month. He was pleased to be present and glad he had made it to the Meeting.

RM said that by now he had done over a hundred consecutive days with one-minute meditations, and the effect on him had been dramatic. He was present generally to what he was doing. If he put something down, he sensed the entire body, and remembered where he had put it. He had been thinking about the next steps for him, and had been considering Gurdjieff and the many I's, and his reading had suggested that each of the the I's was associated with different senses. Accordingly he had been trying a longer meditation to build more of an awareness of the different senses, so instead of just touch and sight, he was now using the order touch, taste, breathing, sight, sound and smell, and as he repeated each one he was sensing the depth of that sense. His sessions had increased to about fifteen minutes, and so far it seemed to give him a more rounded, whole sense; there were not as many things pulling him in different directions.

During the course of the month N had become aware that various things going on in the world were playing on his mind, and had also become aware of how he felt affected by that. The Charlie Hebdo massacre, and all the things around that, had created a lot of friction within him, which he had had to come to terms with, and consider his attitudes and the influence of the media on him. Observations could, in themselves, be achievements, he said, and it was part of the Work that we do things.
In terms of setting goals and actually achieving things, he had an app on his phone which counted his steps, with a daily target of ten thousand, and each day he reached it he felt a sense of achievement. On days when he was falling short, he would sometimes go out for a late walk to increase the total. He was considering using a lot more technology to set and achieve goals, major and minor. When there was a device to record as well as measure, it was very supportive, and luckily we lived in an age of technology where such things were possible.

Messages from BS in India were read out, and then the Meeting continued with responses to the initial contributions.

T followed on N's comments about the Charlie Hebdo massacre, and how it now seemed a long time ago. The bombardment of news from the media had shifted to other stories, while at the time it had felt pervasive, in both the broadcast and social media. N said it was as if something in the brain shuts these things off and life continues. GC asked if people allow themselves to become puppets of the media. As an example of media influence, L pointed out that at about the same time two thousand people had been killed in Nigeria, but the media gave this much less attention. T remembered the dictum Eat or be eaten, and though she felt only compassion at the time, wondered now if she had been consuming something. She remembered the huge demonstration in Paris, attended by millions, yet it already seemed a remote event now.

D said that he had been considering the notion that the world might be heading for a nervous breakdown, unable to cope with the unstoppable flood of information. GC suggested that D was expressing negative thoughts because he was disappointed to be feeling less well. T thought it might be an example of GC's idea that people find it easier to recognise their failures than their achievements, and recalled that D was extremely positive the previous month.

Responding to RM, D asked RM what he hoped to achieve with his determination to be present on every issue. RM said that in the spiritual journey achievement and goals were not a feature at all. A goal was simply a pointer, like the North Pole, it pointed you in the right direction. This was more important than the speed you were going at. It was also helpful to ask the question in the mind whether what you were doing or reading was helping you to stay in that direction, or was it a distraction. Success was to do with peace of mind. This relieved a lot of the pressure of growing older or infirm, because it was the direction that matters, not the speed, in the evolution of conscious awareness. The problem with goals was that if we are so intensely involved in a goal, everything that was between where you were and the goal was literally in the way, like a necessary evil - it could be the staff in a company helping you achieve that goal - and that caused a huge amount of stress in organisations. This related to D's reference to stress in society.

T returned to the aftermath of the shootings in France, and asked whether the crowds coming out in support of free speech were awake or asleep? Were they mechanical or had they been awakened? GC asked what she thought and she replied she thought they were probably mechanical.

At 10:30, the Meeting resumed the reading of Beelzebub's Tales.

I wish to aid artificially the evolution and involution of its elements towards a greater density, or, on the contrary, towards their transformation back to a primal state.

N thought this suggested intervention in the process of change, with the terms evolution and involution referring to either raising or lowering consciousness.

Red copper

And from that moment, the given parts of the Omnipresent-Okidanokh begin, together with the said elements of the said medium, to represent the corresponding densities required in planets, that is to say, various kinds of metalloids or even metals, as for instance, the metal I have placed in this sphere, and in which there will proceed artificially at this moment, at my wish, the action of striving-to-reblend-into-a-whole of the parts of the Okidanokh, and which metal, as I have already said, exists under the name of red-copper.

The only thing that sang out for T was the reference to red copper, and everything else was a mush. The difficulty of extracting a unique metal from mined ore symbolised for her the difficulty of extracting meaning from Gurdjieff's writing in this part of the narrative.

And further, having arisen in the planets in this way, the said various metalloids and metals then begin according to the common-universal-law called "Reciprocal-feeding-of-everything-existing"—as it is generally proper to arisings of every kind in which Okidanokh or any of its active parts participates—to radiate from their presences the results of their inner "Interchange-of-substances." And as is proper to radiations of every kind issuing from sur- and intraplanetary formations that have acquired in their vibrations the property of Okidanokh or of its active parts, and which are in what is called the "center-of-gravity" of every such said formation, the radiations of these metalloids and metals possess properties almost similar to the properties of Okidanokh itself or of one or another of its active parts.

D thought there was some friction involved, and in his mind there was an image of the creation or crystallisation of a diamond at the centre of a cyclone. The text was about the creation of some element in the body. It was as if this process had occurred within Gurdjieff himself, who seemed not to be rocked by inner emotional turmoil or surrounding events.

L said that scientifically we think life evolved by chance on this planet. But in the text Gurdjieff suggests an external intervention, twice using the word "artificially". He is talking about the evolution of life and consciousness from raw materials. GC asked how consciousness could evolve. L thought that was a key question.

RM considered the distinction between consciousness and awareness. He described awareness as universal, and consciousness as sitting in a field of awareness. When consciousness blends with awareness, things start to change. His own understanding had come from the book I Am That by Nisargadatta, he makes the clear distinction throughout the book about the distinction between consiousness and awareness. For RM the sequence was ego, body, mind, consciousness, awareness, these can be stripped away in that order. GC asked for the definition of the word. L checked online the etymology of the word, and its origin was in Middle English and pertained to a sense a danger, as in wariness. N said that it was a semantic issue. T said that she was aware that the Meeting might be straying from the Reading. GC said that the Reading so far this time had not been understood by anyone. T said that the discussion had also been confusing.

Following the Reading, there was discussion on an exercise for the coming month. It was decided to continue with the exercise from the previous month, noting down achievements. GC remarked that it was very interesting that the mind did not like to do this, whereas it was content to dwell on failings.

Be More Dog

D had been reading Meetings With Remarkable People by Osho, who rated Gurdjieff very highly, but seemed to admire most of all Bodhidharma. In the book, Osho also talks about the language of All and Everything, which he described as incomprehensible, and wrote a paragraph detailing his interpretation. D thought it would be useful for this to be read out in the Meeting before attention is focused on Beelzebub's Tales.

L had continued noting synchronicities, and odd things had continued to happen. He had wondered if M had been speaking through people. On one occasion, a Caribbean man had joined him on the top deck of a bus and insisted L repeated several things he said, which included among other things strong encouragement to go to the Bar Linda cafe in Golders Green. L duly did that a few days later, and somebody L had met once several months before joined the table and there was a good conversation. On another occasion, with friends over Christmas, somebody almost in a state of sleep kept repeating in uncharacteristic fashion that it would be good to go away on holiday. L said he was working on a piece of music to depict the process of transition or dying.

Image from BBC production,
"Snow Wolf Family and Me".

RM had been continuing the attentive meditations in which you remember yourself intensely for one minute, though he had been doing four minute sessions so that he could have four goes at it. He has also been working with the Tao Te Ching because he had rewritten the book last year, and he goes through his notes after he meditates. After meditating he seems much closer to his intuitive centre, which might be called C influence, and the message he seems to have been getting is that we are born in this world, with the only duty we have being to learn how to play, and that our duty is to learn what our craft is and to play with it. After he had that intuition. he watched a programme about wolves on the ice, and how the wolf pups love to play, and there is nothing more delightful than seeing young animals playing.

T said that reflecting back over the last few months, it had been a bit of a maelstrom and it had been very difficult to have a sense of linear time, and all her routines had been disturbed, including work, and she had realised that her memory was often associated with routine and knowing where she is in time and place and person, and when that changed, it really affected her sense of memory and whether she can remember things. It had felt a bit earth-shattering, with her critical illness and M's departure.

"R" had found something which worked as a reminder for her, and which did not seem to have associations. One day after her morning preparation, it occurred to her to use something visual as a reminder, and she picked a colour - turquoise blue - which is not common during the day - there are not many things which are that colour and when they are there, for her it stood out, it struck a chord, and that was surprisingly helpful because she had tried every one of the exercises over the years, and they get tired, but this was surprisingly fresh and rewarding, because the moments were free enough to be reminded without distracting associations. The colour turquoise is not found much in nature, but in decorations, window displays, in garments and Christmas cards, and all the things which happen at this time - there were plenty of joyful expressions of the colour that directly touched her solar plexus.

GC had been flirting with his negative states, for the last couple of months. He thought it was just ill discipline on his part, when he felt them coming up, he just allowed them to come and then they went. Usually he was attentive to these encroaching states but he had been a bit undisciplined in this area recently. Sometimes he felt he was not lost in a negative state, but when he did get into this negative state, this 'zone', it was only after the zone disappeared that he had become aware that he had been at one with the total thing and 'lost' in it. He had also allowed himself not to be diverted into awareness. He had described this as weakness, but really it was laziness and he recognised that laziness was in him. For example if he started over-eating, he realised when he took the first thing - what are you doing? - and then just did it. Thankfully, there was still a bit of discipline left, but it had definitely disappeared a little, over the last couple of months. He had been reading on the Gurdjieff web site about synchronicity, and had listened to the lecture there, which had been good. His experience of being in India, whether or not it was a smaller community and they were mentally more in touch with what's going on or had more mental freedom, he had experienced more synchronicities in India and he knew other people who had recognized this increased phenomena too.

Following the contributions, the Meeting turned to responses.

GC said that T had complained about loss of focus before - he knew there were valid reasons for it this time, but it had been a recurrent theme (though not every time) since he had been coming to the Meetings, and he wondered if she were perhaps looking for reasons to be diverted. T said that rang fairly true, about looking for things to be diverted by, from just doing the work. D said he called this "swaying from the path", but the interesting thing about it was that he always came back again, and that was the nature of the progress. The Osho book had greatly helped him, showing different versions of the ways to the path and different people who were on this path. The book was a Christmas present found by a synchronicity, from a friend who had been unable to find it, but then came across it by accident in a sale. He expounded at some length on this tale, how he had considered the likelihood of receiving a pair of slippers, how the price tag of £3.50 had been left on the book, and so on. After some time he reflected that the synchronicities had brought him back to being aware of his path.

L responded to GC, saying that if a person has downcast feelings, it may be a manifestation of their heart - everyone has a heart which can sometimes be sad. Anyone feeling that way might be lighter of spirit if they remember they are not alone on these journeys. In Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist, the main character, the boy Santiago, gets to know his heart. GC recommended listening to the BBC interview with Paulo Coelho on Desert Island Disks, which was quite revealing. L recalled that as a young man he had been put into a mental institution because of his intention to be a writer.

L liked "R" 's choice of a colour as trigger. Turquoise was an interesting choice, because it is one of the colours which does not appear often in nature, so if seen it is probably something man-made. "R" said it might also be a precious stone. "L" said that would often be after it has been dug up and fashioned by a jeweler, so there would be an element of human artifice. "R" said that after the trigger, she experiences an intentional centering, and life continues immediately. Having listened to people so far in the Meeting, L thought that "R" 's use of centering linked to a trigger was a good alternative to doing a brief meditation as RM had suggested, as it attracts no attention in public.

RM observed from everyone's contributions that people were noticing things more, and it is the act of non-judgmental noticing that makes the change happen - that's the transformation. He finds that if he notices the cause after, for example, observing an unquiet mind, the cause starts to eliminate itself, and then the outcome also eliminates once the cause is gone. GC asked that if paying attention and noticing as things happen (we usually notice bad things), mean that there is going to be a moment of choice? RM thought that the choice happens by itself, you notice what's good and what isn't, what you'd prefer. GC thought that there is a moment of choice, where you decide to carry on like that - allow an activity to continue, or reverse from the situation and go down a different road. RM gave an example where he had become aware that he reacted instantly in a negative way to certain things that people said that he didn't like. He found that by noticing that he was reacting in a negative way, the next time it happened (although he still reacted - he had no choice to stop it at that moment because it was still a strong feeling and he was reacting to his feelings), he reacted less violently than before, and eventually the behaviour faded and he no longer did it. GC said that if a feeling has strength that means you are allowing it to have the strength. "R" queried who was doing the allowing. GC could not answer that, but said that there was an allowing going on. You were realising something and allowing the situation you had become aware of to continue. GC said there was noticing, judgement and correction. D thought it was to do with feeling. In the case of over-eating, a person could get used to the hunger, and observe it. Rather than choice as GC had said, D thought in terms of options. Once we are aware we have options, we are freer. RM said his greatest freedom was that he had no option. He had never made a choice in his life to do anything himself. All his actions had been automatic. He was part of nature like a leaf blowing in the wind. L said that this could be overcome by making a list of possible things to do, throwing a dice and acting on the result. So there were techniques for breaking free of that kind of reactive behaviour. RM thought the only technique was to pay attention, to remember yourself, and the mere act of remembering yourself changes your state at that moment, and your state is a part of nature, and as it's a part of nature the state changes because you've paid attention, and so your action changes to be more wholeful, or whatever it is; it's still nature. The only thing you can do is wake up.


D responded to RM's contribution. He too had seen and marveled at the programme about the wolves. The book by Osho also talks about playing, and coming back to being a child. D mentioned he had noticed a wood pigeon staring at him intently through the window from its perch on a tree. T was reminded of the dog Eddie in the sitcom Frasier.


                  Eddie demonstrates a one minute attentive meditation.

D thought that feeling was a stronger driving force than thinking. Most of the self-realised or enlightened people say you should go into your feelings, even with depression, although there it can be dangerous. We escape feeling with distractions like eating. He had experienced that desire to eat recently but was aware of it and resisted it, which he realised later had been an achievement. RM said it seemed to him that thinking and feeling come together. The feeling comes first, then we think about why we feel that way, finding the cause (which may be long ago), is an objective of psychotherapy. Seeing the truth of it can set you free. It was vitally important that we go into the feeling and observe and use the thinking in a positive way. This reminded D of CBT, which deals with thoughts, feelings and situations.



GC recalled the saying that the mind is a good servant but a bad master. and it was too much thinking that was the problem. The brain is an organ and the mind is an extension of that organ. The problem is if the mind uses you. RM agreed that it was a good observation to ask if the mind is using you or if you are using the mind.  DM thought it was our history that drives us. GC thought that in any given situation, usually what the mind is doing is superfluous. As regards feelings, we might even be influenced by experiences of our ancestors, in which case we may be unable to follow up the cause of those feelings. "R" said that the only thing we had was the physical sensation of the body here now, being present. We can be free enough to put our attention on it, sense it, and hold that attention for as long as we can. Memories, explanations and fantasising about what may or not be the cause of something is secondary. GC said that recent experiences were once "now", and are in that sense worth considering also.

Before the Meeting moved on to Beelzebub's Tales, D read the extract (which can be found in Osho's book From Personality to Individuality), about Gurdjieff's use of language in All and Everything, which he thought linked to the discussion, and sums up comments that had been made in the Meetings for months:

Gurdjieff makes strange words, mixing many languages. He knew many languages, nomadic languages which don't have alphabets even. You cannot find dictionaries of them because those languages don't have any dictionary, they don't have any alphabet. They are only dialect, not languages; they are only spoken. And one word does not mean one language: one word means two or three languages joined together. And a long word may run a full sentence -- one word! He is really taxing you as much as he can -- your patience, your intelligence -- but if you can go through the whole book it is really paying: slowly you start getting the knack of his almost impossible words.

When you come across them again and again in different places you can start feeling a certain meaning. You may not be able to say what it is but you start having a sense of it. And if you go through the whole book you are absolutely certain what it is about although you cannot say, because it is only a feeling that it has left within you. His whole effort is somehow to bypass your intellect. Intellectually, you cannot move even one paragraph into it. your intellect will say, "Stop! This is nonsense." And it is nonsense as far as intellect is concerned.

The Meeting then moved to the Reading from Beelzebub's Tales, Chapter 18, "The Arch-Preposterous".

"Having said this, he first closed that part of the surface of the Hrhaharhtzaha, the composition of which had the property of allowing 'rays' to pass through it; then he pulled two switches and pressed a certain button, ... and then having again drawn my attention to the Ammeter and the Voltmeter, he added: '"I have again admitted the influx of parts of the Okidanokh, namely, the Anodnatious and the Cathodnatious of equal force of "striving-to-reblend."'

"When I looked at the Ammeter and the Voltmeter and indeed saw that their needles moved and stopped on the same figures I had noticed the first time we were still outside the Hrhaharhtzaha, I was greatly surprised, because in spite of the indications of the needles and the intimation of Gornahoor Harharkh himself, I had neither noticed nor sensed any change in the degree of my perception of the visibility of the surrounding objects...

T said she thought the word Hrhaharhtzaha might allude, by its rhythm, to a heartbeat. L recalled "R" thinking it was like laughter. D said that Gurdjieff used to go to a cafe to write, with people around him. He would write a paragraph and read it out to the people he was with. If they understood it, he would rewrite it. He repeated this process until it was incomprehensible. This, said D, was what we were dealing with. To L, this procedure seemed a kind of calibration. GC recalled being in a coffee shop with three other people. The four of them divined four different images from patterns of coffee grains, and he suggested the interpretations of Gurdjieff's text might be similarly subjective. "R" thought that there may sometimes be an element of synchronicity involved where elicited interpretations were relevant. GC thought we might need synchronities to make sense of existence, when mathematically, with so many things happening every instant, the chances of synchronicity are high. RM said that the more he is closer to nature (and the more he is paying attention), nature comes to meet him, and that is where the synchronicity seems to come.

"'Furthermore, according to the law called "Heteratogetar," the "Salnichizinooarnian-momentum-vibrations" or "rays" acquire the property of acting on the organs of perception of beings only after they have passed a limit defined by science in the following formula: "the-result-of-the-manifestation-is-proportionate-to-the-force-of-striving-received-from-the-shock."

GC wondered if this was a reference to Newton's Second Law, Force = Mass times Acceleration

"'And so, as the given process of the clash of the two parts of the Okidanokh has the strength of great power, the result of the clash is manifested much further than the place of its arising.

"'Now look!'

"Having said this, he pressed some other button, and suddenly the whole interior of the Hrhaharhtzaha was filled with the same blinding light which, as I have already told you, I experienced when I was outside the Hrhaharhtzaha.

"It appeared that the said light was obtained because by pressing this button, Gornahoor Harharkh had again opened that part of the wall of the Hrhaharhtzaha which had the property of permitting 'rays' to pass through it. " ...

This reminded L of his procedure for composing music, in that he had generally avoided listening to anything good which might drown out his own inspiration, in the same manner that opening part of the wall of the Hrhaharhtzaha produced a blinding light.

A Satori

GC mentioned the Japanese concept of the satori, a mythical creature which can read minds and speaks the thoughts within them, and the only defence against one is to empty the mind.

... "Then with the aid of various appliances which were at one side of the table, he first of all, with complicated manipulation, took out from the box some what is called 'red copper' and placed it on the mentioned plate, and then said: '"This metal is a definite planetary crystallization and is one of the densities required for the said stability in the process called the Common-system-harmonious-movement. It is a formation from preceding processes of the action of the parts of the Omnipresent-Okidanokh; and at the present moment I wish to allow the subsequent transformation of this metal to proceed artificially and acceleratedly by means of the peculiarities of the same factors.

L thought this suggested an active intervention to develop the mind (represented by the metal).

Following the reading, there was discussion of what to do for the exercise in the ensuing month, and a suggestion from GC was adopted, to note successes through the day, however minute, and keep a journal of them.

The Spirit Free'd

Hanging on ere winter comes.
(photo by L)

L said that he had done the first exercise throughout the month, keeping a journal of synchronicities. He read out several, there were so many that there was insufficient time to list many. In the park following the previous Meeting, which spoke much of a raven, passers by rescued a similar bird, an injured crow, which was being attacked by its fellows. That evening he was approached in a restaurant by a man who said he remembered him from the Royal Society hundreds of years ago. Later in the month he heard a newsreader on the radio with exactly the same name. One cold evening he had taken a photograph of a bee clinging to the petal of a solitary flower. He was subsequently "followed" on Twitter by someone with a near identical picture used as her avatar. The date of M's funeral itself was a synchronicity, delayed unpredictably to the date of the monthly Gurdjieff Meeting of which he was a founder member and regular attendee from inception until last year. M's funeral synchronistically occurred shortly after the Meeting time always ends.

D recounted how he had first met M at the U3A and been drawn to him, and eventually learned of the Gurdjieff Meetings. D had also been doing meditations with the Insight Timer app. He had been using the mantra om mani padme hum, and had found music for it online which was absolutely beautiful, but since then his app had crashed and he had been unable to use it. He did not know whether that was a synchronicity. There was so much going on, he had so much to say, but he felt he couldn't say anything. He was confused. His relationship had not worked out, and now M had passed away.



For T it was two months since her last Meeting. She had had an extraordinary experience of very sudden ill health. She had been reviewing her records from the peak flow chart, which comprised a page for each month. Her period of critical illness, which had prevented her from attending the previous Meeting, had been exactly a month before M's severe stroke and death, each occurring over five days. She wondered if there was some link with what had happened to her exactly a month before, a kind of reverse causality. It felt so connected. "R" said that when you are working on yourself you are more sensitive, it is not necessarily explainable. T spoke about how years before, she had met M when L introduced him to her. M came to live in London from Harare, and the conversation always turned to speaking passionately and consistently about the ideas of Gurdjieff. Setting up the North London Gurdjieff Meetings came about to enable a focus and outlet for M's intense interest in the philosophical works of Gurdjieff, Nicoll and Ouspensky.

L said that on the day of M's death, while at the hospital, L had been looking at Meetings with Remarkable Men, following up a reference suggested by "R". He had come across the paragraph describing the Yezidi boy trapped in a chalk circle drawn on the ground, and curious about this phenomenon, searched Google on Yezidi and circle. The first word in the first article which came up started with the word "synchronicity", which seemed connected with the exercise for the month, to keep a record of synchronicities - it was in fact a meta-synchroniticity - a synchronicity about synchronicity. He mentioned Paulo Coelho's view that they are, in the form of omens, the common language of the world, which is a theme in his novel, The Alchemist.

The Terreskane Hotel

RM spoke about his experience with M and how that it has been relevant to the Work. He arrived in Rhodesia about the same time as M, in the seventies. RM was staying in a small rented room, and went to a nearby hotel for evening meals. One evening M walked past and asked if he could join him. M started talking and was excited to discover that RM too was interested in mystical stuff, and introduced him to a group, the Brotherhood of Mystics. M came with him once and never came again, though RM was inspired by this group, where he met extraordinary people, and he felt that it changed his life. Every so often M would call him to have a chat. When M began to take an interest in Gurdjieff, they looked at the writings together. M's introductions led to RM getting involved in the Gurdjieff Society, meeting a particularly influential person called Maria Sullivan, who ran a Sufi group which taught a particular type of dance and way of meditating, which was highly inspirational. M and RM used to meet up once every two or three months until M started a Gurdjieff discussion group. They met in RM's house once a month. In later years after RM came to London he was introduced to Paul Koralek, of the Gurdjieff Society, which led to him attending twice a week. Every Friday morning, before work, there would be reading from Beelzebubs Tales, which was tiring but deeply inspiring. If not for M, RM would not have got involved in dance, nor had such an intense training. M had been a cornerstone in his life, and had helped him step by step through his influence and spiritual connection. He didn't think M knew how powerful a spiritual connection he had had. He had loved him for that.

Poem by M

T said that when M spoke it felt like he was channelling and that it was as if RM was a living legacy of M's life. The poem that M wrote about the divine nature of music, which was hoped to be read out at the funeral also sounded as if it was M channelling. A relative had changed M's secular funeral arrangements to a religious one. However there were two beautiful quirks of fate. The funeral and the burial were in a cemetery an hour and a half from London but ten minutes from RM's home, and the funeral, originally meant to be on Friday, had been delayed until Sunday at 11:00, which was the first Sunday of the month when the Gurdjieff Meeting happens. This enabled the Meeting to take place near the funeral and near to RM, who usually travels the same long distance into London each month to attend the Meetings.

"R" read out some quotations. From the beginning of Beelzebub's Tales:

Any prayer may be heard by the Higher Powers and a corresponding answer obtained only if it is uttered thrice:

Firstly—for the welfare or the peace of the souls of one’s parents.
Secondly—for the welfare of one’s neighbor.

And only thirdly—for oneself personally.

From the last part of The Third Series:


What they call the "soul" does really exist, but not everybody necessarily has one.

A soul is not born with man and can neither unfold nor take form in him so long as his body is not fully developed.

It is a luxury that can only appear and attain completion in the period of "responsible age," that is to say, in a man's maturity.

The soul, like the physical body, is also matter—only, it consists of "finer" matter.

The matter from which the soul is formed and from which it later nourishes and perfects itself is, in general, elaborated during the processes that take place between the two essential forces upon which the entire Universe is founded.

The matter in which the soul is coated can be produced exclusively by the action of these two forces, which are called "good" and "evil" by ancient science, or "affirmation" and "negation," while contemporary science calls them "attraction" and "repulsion."

In the common presence of a man, these two forces have their source in two of the totalities of general psychic functioning, which have already been mentioned.

One of them coincides with that function whose factors proceed from
the results of impressions received from outside, and the other appears as a function whose factors issue chiefly from the results of the specific functioning of the organs, as determined by heredity. 


and in Meetings with Remarkable Men, Gurdjieff's father tells him:

In that soul which a man supposedly has, as people believe, and of which they say that it exists independently after death and transmigrates, I do not believe; and yet, in the course of a man’s life “something” does form itself in him: this is for me beyond all doubt.

‘As I explain it to myself, a man is born with a certain property and, thanks to this property, in the course of his life certain of his experiencing elaborate in him a certain substance, and from this substance there is gradually formed in him “something or other” which can acquire a life almost independent of the physical body.

‘When a man dies, this “something” does not disintegrate at the same time as the physical body, but only much later, after its separation from the physical body.

T said that when M was unconscious, before he died, his forehead was completely, utterly, smooth.

The Meeting finished early and all present went to the nearby cemetery to attend the funeral.