Themes

There is a word, Dukkha in Pali, Duhkha in Sanskrit, that is considered the starting place of the path in Buddhism. It is the condition we find ourselves in, a state of Dissatisfaction. It is so deep we often do not see it. Dissatisfaction with ourselves, others, the world, the way things are going, the future, the weather this day, how others treat us, give us our do, pay attention to us, and so on. The suffering of change and craving. Unease!

Every moment of mindfulness is also a moment of equanimity. It is not a disengagement from the object of awareness but rather a full and complete engagement with it.

Our Theme is Dis-satisfaction. Seeing it within ourselves, its depth. What changes when we recognize it.

Everything in our experience is relative. We can represent the comparative worlds by speaking of attention, energy, detachment, clarity of seeing. In a sense we are describing relative freedom the higher up the worlds we are situated in.

The Collected State is one such relative experience. When we are asleep our experience of the collective state is nonexistent. It literally does not exist.

When we work, as during Morning Exercise, we use our attention to contact each of our three centers, bringing them together into what we call the Collected State. My thought will not take me away, the mind is present. I feel I-am in the feelings. The sensation body is alive, relaxed, present.

Sometimes through our deep intentional work or through Grace, or a combination of the two, we feel a deeper Collected State. We are not separate from ourselves gathering in the parts and trying to hold them together. We are inside. I feel the presence of I-am resonate deeply in my emotional center. I am inside my head, no thoughts taking me away, watching the arising of the thoughts, feeling the presence inside. My body sensation is unmixed and continuous, strong. The three are inside, present, I feel the energy of them now. I am not separate, they are who I am in this moment. I am completely inside, not taken, immersed in the energy of this Presence.

In this Collected State we open to an energy that I cannot by myself muster. The energy of the three together has the potential for another energy to appear. I relax into this Collected State, there is nothing else now, it is both present and receptive, the three are open and acceptive.

How can we remember? We know how much we get caught, fall asleep, daydream, become negative. At times we want to work and sometimes we truly Wish to work. How can we strengthen this, make it real?

It’s good to be sincere with oneself. To see how we truly are and to do so without becoming more negative toward ourselves, even more asleep for our seeing.

There are times when we just need to sit, relax as deeply as we can in the moment, be with ourselves and become as still as we are able. Being truly still is an art. When we work with a sincere intention on becoming more still, empty as we can be, that effort can become by its nature transformative. That is, the active pursuit can turn into a receptive one, perhaps even deeply so. That in itself can bring Wish.

We begin with that a couple of times a day. Can we?

The intention of eating consciously maybe more possible with a thread of wakefulness in our lives. Work begets work. Eating consciously by its nature can form a thread of presence in our life.

There is a need to be very active, intentional and very receptive and open. Both are essential. What reconciles these, what enables these to be genuine?

Seeing our nothingness. Having remorse, understanding that our aim is humility. Not knowing.

Not knowing can bring about openness. Engaging without an expected outcome, being willing to be wrong. Ultimately to open to Conscience within.

Our ego gets in the way of everything. For some folks, this manifests as avoidance, hiding, feeling inadequate.

And of course it’s opposite. I want everyone to know about my high experience, or I have always something to teach everyone, or to show my great understanding of the work, etc.

Self-importance, egoism, pride, can manifest in wildly different ways. Can we manifest from a place that is real, less separate, less hiding or showing me. This is where the reconciling force comes in, has to come in.

If you  feel not up to snuff at times, down, there is the blessing of being nothing. Transform that by letting go of the negative side of it and seeing the favor of it. Self-pity, feeling sorry for oneself, depressed at oneself and all of that, keeps us from connecting to a deeper reality that is a gift. For all of us, be nothing and be ok. As stated, our most difficult emotions can sometimes be our most profound teachers.

We can come to a non-interfering attentiveness.

Coming to meetings on a regular basis enables.

The art of being present is that of having one’s energies in the right place; neither morbidly drawn into intensive inner self concern nor pouring out into external activities and manifestations. But how are these opposing tendencies to be balanced? There is no substitute for constant vigilance. Whoever is too inward must open outward. Whoever is too outward must draw inwards until the balance is found. Constant work on the collected state can help us in this.

Also we have, when we learn to mobilize sensation, an almost miraculous power, able to protect us from all sorts of undesirable conditions in ourselves. Often people find it difficult to work with Mr. A or Mrs. B, or to do certain kinds of things that seem wrongly organized, or find themselves inwardly criticizing others and so on. They don’t know what to do about it. What to do is simple: when your attention goes off into these kinds of negative states, bring it back into your sensation.

Sensation will not remove all your troubles, but it removes an extraordinarily high percentage of them. Anyone who could really use this power of sensing can be free, by his or her own will, from very much that troubles people in ordinary life: all of the slavery to their relationships with other people, with their external activities, their likes and dislikes, all can be neutralized by sensation. But you must have a very great determination that this technique will be mastered.

–JG Bennett

Our theme is working with our anxiety, a major leak of energy and source of identification.

The source of anxiety is fear, which is a natural reaction triggered by danger. After the danger is past, so should the fear response. When fear spreads out into a general condition, it becomes anxiety.

This is all rooted in the body, which has a natural way of dealing with it, as it does with every feeling. The challenge is to bring this under control. Otherwise, anxiety becomes ingrained. The anxious person begins to be afraid of being afraid.

The body knows how to get out of fear, a knowledge it has possessed for millions of years. So why don’t we let it? If we always let our emotions and thoughts rule, our bodies won’t remember to calm down.

When we suffer from anxiety we bypass our bodies and get trapped in panicky thoughts.

We need to get out of our thoughts and back into our bodies. Stay in touch with your body, don’t allow the mind to rule. The body can clear away our anxiety, worry, nervousness and relax, returning to its normal state of balance.

We feel our body; The sensations may not be nice; Cold, contracted, stiff, even trembling. See impartially what is going on in your body, relax the body deeply.

This is unusual for anxious people, who have been sending mental signals of distress, vigilance, tenseness or worried anticipation for years. ‘The disease of tomorrow.’ But, it isn’t hard to do. Your body can be retrained.

Calm the body into its natural state of relaxation. Have patience with your body. Once you train it to let go of negative energies, it will willingly cooperate.

Two other suggestions made last evening:

Watch unnecessary movement and talking.

Don’t eat between meals.

There is something in us that draws us to a finer world—not dependent on us

‘Be grateful for everything and everyone, even those who are foolish and negative.’

All religious holidays have an aspect of separating sacred from secular time. Most have specific value and significance. Today is the Jewish Yom Kippur. Jews on Yom Kippur confess their sins, beat their chests, a sort of spiritual defibrillation, but the holiday demands serious, sustained reflection in trying to change who we are. Some reflections:

How can we cope with offense, foster forgiveness, let grudges go. There will always be things we cannot fully forgive and forgiving someone does not necessarily mean readmitting that person to our life.

In this tradition, first, we apologize to those we’ve hurt, sincerely, as many as three times. The apology should not come weighed down with justification, but rather should acknowledge the other person’s hurt and express sincere regret.

If I forgive someone, truly forgive them, then I must restore moral parity; I am no better than that person. Accepting that steals the satisfactions of resentment, but it is essential: Once someone has been forgiven, you must never remind the person of that fact. To do so is to re-establish a hierarchy that true forgiveness disavows.

All of us seek to be forgiven — for we are imperfect, striving and in need of love.

Our Theme is about reducing our negativity. We work against negative attitudes toward the world, we make sure, as best we can, that we are not adding to the negativity that is about. If I am negative about the state of the world or about what others are doing, I am as much a part of the problem as they are. This takes strong vigilance and intention. A suggestion is to work with body consciousness, that is, reducing tension in the body and strong full body sensation. Remember these all day and particularly when in a state of criticism, worry, anxiety, anger – relax your body and sense.

Our Theme is Impatience. The superficial aspects of impatience are somewhat easy to see. But what is it and why do we have it. 

In part when we are impatient we feel we are missing out, at times a restless desire for change or excitement. Somewhere in our impatience is the passion we have to be served, to be in control, to be obeyed—to be like God. Pride can be our biggest stumbling block to growing in patience.

Efforts to relax can fail because I am impatient. I want a result, I want to get to the end, before I have really begun. I may try to reproduce the sensation of relaxing so I can move on to the next stage. Can I find the movement of impatience in me and release that?

Is there an end to the process of relaxing. The final stage of relaxation is when we are in unity with the source, when the small I Will finally surrenders. 

In JGB’s book Witness he, describes his extraordinary journey … ‘The battle to subdue self-will, arrogance and impatience have to be rigorousl’

We protect the illusion of being a self. How do we come to have that illusion, this artificial-self that is ‘man-made.’

Three places our activity can be in contact with our essence; Through our sense perceptions, eating food and breathing. How are these effected by our impatience. 

A cloudy October day, this time of year often has clear air, color, a time of transition.

We can all feel the stressors in the atmosphere at this time. In our era of digital magnification, our feelings, ideas, perceptions of reality often synchronize without our conscious awareness. We do need to reclaim our attention and presence. We do this by being and substantiating I-Am. When we are not in I-Am, we get taken.

We have it within our power to renew at every moment. This is part of the miracle of human life. A relaxed body, free of worry and anxiety, the sensation of our body, the presence of our breath, food from the air – The reverberation of our being in our solar plexus.

Just finished our 3pm connection. An oasis of relationship. Can we connect with Hope.

Hope is knowing we are receiving help. This is our Aim. To see and experience that we are not alone, on many levels.

Be well.

We are working with transforming our negativity, deeply.
We can experience ourselves impartially, feel our experience physically, abide with it. This is who and how we are. 
We can put the energy of our negativity; worry, inner talk, judgement, inner considering, suffering, fear – into our presence, sensation.
When our reaction is very strong, habitual, feel we can’t control it or it just keeps coming back – We can ask for help. Open to help. For example, the violet light of Rafael, healing us emotionally.
All of this applies to ourselves and our ‘gossip’ about ourselves as well. 

“Our identity does not depend on anything outside of ourselves but arises from the quality of our inner state itself.”
Resistance to unpleasant situations is the root of most suffering. At times we have to surrender to uncertainty. 

A short story from Madeline Gold, previously read:
” Lord Pentland and I are talking before heading over to the Foundation for the evening’s activities.
“What will change the world?” he asks. I complain in false modesty, “I don’t know, I have a narrow mind.” “No,”‘ he says, “you have a broad mind. What will change the world?” He asks again.
“Conscience?” I venture. “No,” he says. “Emanations will change the world.” He wants me to understand the effect that emanations have, that my emanations have. It is a different way of seeing the world, in terms of energy and vibration, rather than actions. Rather than seeing change in terms of action, morality, judgment, or duality, to understand it in terms of the unseen.
Maybe today and tomorrow I can emanate a little more love, a little more joy, a little more finer something or other.
In fact there is a lot of wisdom being spread right now, readily accessible, teachers telling truth. Mr. G. said stopping war, even if it were possible, wouldn’t be the thing. Maybe it’s in the change of vibration.”

We have the sense that we are one, that there is unity within us. The part within that should be in charge of our autonomic functions; the animal, instinctual, survival mechanisms shouldn’t need consciousness in order to breath, digest, circulate blood or sense danger.

But when that part is responsible for our sense of unity, there is a problem. For while it is fully in control, responsible for and in command of our lives and consciousness – it is a debacle, a formula for an animal existence.

And then – As many of us found on the Intensive – that entity becomes passive toward the higher but retains active responsibility for the lower, and the change in us is enormous. The blinders are off. That part leaves our genuinely human parts be, it lets go, creates an absence and we are enabled to see, breath and bear witness. The singular response to this is being in a state of gratitude. Not attempting to have gratitude, just being in gratitude.

In the beginning of our work we swing between the automatic and sensitive energies; being asleep and waking up. Understanding the depth of our sleep is an essential first step, but to stay in the sleep-wake dyad is degeneration. Our work can become stale, crusty, and degrade into a kind of sleep-wake religion.

What many experienced on the Intensive was the sensitive conscious dyad; in JG Bennett’s terms the separation of sensitive and conscious energies. Mr. Gurdjieff’s ‘harnel-miatznel’, describes exactly what occurs when the conscious energy comes in and we begin to be in a more sensitive state – and things feel, (in Buddhist jargon) effortless. The blinders are now really off, there is a natural detachment in the higher regions of world 24 and we are related to community and to humankind.

The entity inside is not in charge, our reactional self is not in control and in its proper place. There is a quietude inside that enables a dispassion and open-mindedness. This is the natural world, not the super-natural, it is a first step, but an essential one.

Much of what people speak about in relation to the work is about the work. We see in this conscious world the difference between ‘about the work’ and living within the being-ness of the work.

The Three Presences become a reality; the feeling inside us of our first presence and of a different attention from the one we experience when we ‘wake up’. We can see that some things only exist in a world where this attention exists.

Secondly, we feel our connection to others and the notable experience of group consciousness. The second Racoo is experienced, not just as ritual, but as a feeling of presence.

Lastly, the blessing at times of a connection with the living presence of the Work itself.

The animal is—We need not reject our personality or animal nature. We do have an animal and an angel within and it is accepting both, living in both worlds together that is key. We tend to grasp at the one and want to destroy the other—but beyond the dyad of sleep-wake we can accept our animal; our lies, negativity, narcissism, pettiness and our self centered egoistic existence.

When the animal is not fully in control and another attention is present and we do remember our inner self, we begin to live and to see why this work is so important; life has meaning, three dimensions – we have Hope.

Things are slower, not forced – the automatic nature is more passive, empty.

What we found was the difference between having an experience and transformation. That is, being titillated by occurrence and the reality of genuine change.

The ‘having an experience’ is ‘about the work’ – finding out what something means, vs. living in meaning. Explaining concepts and having good intentions are not from emptiness. Nor is nostalgia and cult like meanderings. We need to look forward not back all the time.

Hope waters itself. For in this place there are questions – we accept that we don’t know. Questioning is an act, not just something of the mind.

Do I accept the moment or struggle with it?
Who is home now?
Who am I?

Regardless of our experience Wish must focus and be constantly renewed.

The touchstone of gratitude allows a letting go of our dominant center and our identification with our talent and strong suits.

The pattern of ‘being grateful for everyone’ will not stay, but is food for Hope.

There is an inner silence, a quiet inside. Again, there ceases a talking about the work but rather a living within the work.

We feel open-minded. There is a sense of independent thought and social conscience. Gradually we see that seeing itself is what will change us, not just going into states and experiences. This is the opposite of magical thinking where invention substitutes for experience.

The quiet within allows an entering from above and this is key. There is a deep relaxation, an unforced bottomless breath, an inner joy. I am no better than anyone and that is natural. This is the first rung, the beginning of the work of transformation.

I want to write about our Theme on Likes and Dis-likes. Mostly I am going to include a few long passages of what Mr Bennett has said about the subject; but to begin.
 
I sit here to eat and something is presented I truly don’t like. I can avoid it, do without it, but decide in the moment to work and I eat it.
 
I sit down to write this and instead of accepting the position of my body I want to change things; move my body to make myself more comfortable, stretch a bit, do varying habitual things before I settle in. Or I work and just relax deeply into my position and let go of all the neurosis.
 
If I work, some energy is created that creates an opportunity for more work. We struggle in the moment and try not let life go by on automatic. Our choice is in will, in action.
 
We see a dis-like, someone we avoid for example, and we go toward the person, we get a bit of a taste of freedom; some energy is created. We struggle deeper and perhaps get a taste of a something inside of us that is free of likes and dislikes. This can be an important Touchstone.
 
We can know in ourselves a different quality – higher than what I ordinarily am.

From Mr B:

What can be free is that which can occupy a position between like and dislike, so that instead of there being two states of like and dislike, there are three states: Like, dislike and freedom. These form a triangle or a triad. When you really understand what it is that I am now talking about, you understand a great deal that could be achieved with this work. This is why it is not a question of suppressing like and dislike, because if this twofold action–pleasure- pain, or enjoyment and suffering–is strong enough, the third one–the one which is able to be free–can also be strong. In general, people who make progress in this work, and have a possibility of going forward, have strong feelings, strong likes and dislikes, strong urges, strong enjoyment and acute suffering. They know the difference between really making demands on their bodies and indulging their bodies. When they have these kinds of strong forces working on them, the third force, the force of their own “I” where they can be free, also can be strong. It is very far from being a question of suppressing these things. They have to play in us. They have to produce this tension in us. We have to do this particular trick which is described in the chapter on the organization of man’s existence by Ashiata Shiemash, that you have to consciously strengthen the forces of non desires. This is the way to become free. Otherwise one is entirely a slave to one’s desires. It never says that desires must be eliminated or suppressed, but that the strength of non desires must be increased, so that non desires can be stronger than desires. Then there can be freedom.
 
Gurdjieff said the Buddha taught that the best way of freeing oneself from one’s own egoism, from the consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer, is to set oneself to bear the manifestations of others displeasing to oneself. The other side of the same thing is not always give oneself to situations that are pleasing to us. There is a certain science of this. It is not a question of forcing oneself all the time to do things one dislikes, or depriving oneself of the things one likes. That sets up wrong kind of force in us , not the way to freedom. With experience and practice after a certain time, you can come to recognize a situation where it is right to act in a certain way in order to be free. You see that you’re going to be caught in some situation and you realize that here is an opportunity for acting as a free person.
 
 
And one more:
 
When we really come near this question of freedom something in us revolts entirely against it. I remember very well and I’ve been doing work which did bring me to the point where I knew and saw that I had the power. I saw that I knew exactly how to do it, so that I could feel exactly what I chose to feel. If I could do that, then I would be responsible for my life. I could no longer blame anything outside myself, because what was outside me could not touch me. Therefore, I had to be the answer. If I was in a bad state, I was able to change it, and if I did not change it, I could not blame anyone else. But I wanted to be able to blame people, I wanted to say that it was not possible that it could have been different. So I think that anyone who comes to have a real taste of what it is like to be free then also understands how strongly something else in us does not wish for it. Someone who says he’s quite sure he wants to be free, is still very superficial. That person has not yet experienced what is really involved. It is not only that to be free requires a price that one has to pay, but when one is free one has a new trouble and that is that a free man is a responsible man. Beneath it all, we do not want to be responsible.

We are working on sensation, on being present in this moment in our bodies. On first thought, this seems so ‘same old thing’, but lets look at this for real.

How often during the day are we present in our bodies, and more importantly, in two centers; Present in body, present in mind, now.

This is no small thing – pressing our attention to be present during the course of our daily activities, in at least two centers is essential for becoming human.

Make this real, practice in stillness and quiet when you can, and then use your attention to be as fully present as you can be during the course of your day. We need to be in attendance to ourselves.

It is essential to know who we are and how we interact with life and the world around us. Many of us in a moment or in chronic situations face others’ stupidity, fear and ignorance. All of us know this. But what we have to see is our own unceasing negativity, often rationalized or excused because of external conditions or others being the way they are.

This cannot happen in our work. If one is in a situation that is intolerable you can leave the situation or if you can’t, work with it as best you can. Seeing our negativity, not others, is our work. Freeing up our negativity and reactional part is what we have to do.

We need to create in us over time a certain level of energy that can help us resist surrounding influences and external situations. This is essential. And that energy, if present in us, allows us to open to an even higher energy that is more active and intelligent.

Our focus is not on others negativity, but on ourselves – noticing our energy, attention and whether a finer energy and attention is present. A finer attention allows us to relate the whole of ourselves to a higher force. This is the work. We experience in ourselves something higher, finer, a different quality – different from how I ordinarily am.

We have this higher, finer inner life and we have the life we lead and live. Being awake means being awake to both these, not grasping at one over the other, but being awake to both realities – living in two worlds.

Our constant need to affirm our place in the world, control it, to have what we want, creates in us fear and the need to be reassured. We get swept along constantly and will until we create in ourselves and learn to turn to another part in ourselves. A part that for now may be unknown.

Make this real.

Our theme is attention and attempting to come to an attention that can accept. Where we experience our presence inside and things as they are outside. When I accept, I can serve. The attention is there, we need to be touched by it.

Two tasks can help us in this. The first is to eat consciously. In particular, to set ourselves to be present and conscious at the first bite of each meal. This is not easy, but frees us from eating on automatic and allows a higher digestion of energy to take place.

Secondly, to take in the Active Elements from the air during our morning exercise and ideally one other time, for ten minutes, during the day.

To be attentive we need to strive to be quiet inside and to come to the realization that inner quiet comes from above.

The Tragedy in Connecticut and our Responsibility to Work

We usually keep current events separate from our work, that is, events running on linear time from those of our work which are eternal. And the relativity of events – I saw yesterday that a thousand people were murdered in the Congo last week and it is not mentioned in the news – is good to keep in mind.

Never the less, the shootings in Connecticut hit home for many of us, for many reasons. How can we work with such a wrenching event.

We all have an animal and an angelic nature within, as does society as a whole. The shock of the news can remind us of our human and humane side, the part of us that is empathetic and compassionate, our inner life. Being positive about humanity is difficult during these times, but it is what our work consists of.

No matter what is taking place, there needs to be people who can separate from the daily news, and put out positive energy, healing energy for the future and for humanity as a whole. This is our work. Not to be consumed by external events, retain our presence, increase our presence, stay grounded and attempt as best we can to put out affirming energy amidst the negative.

This may seem a tall order, but it is what we are here to do. If there were a critical mass of folks working on themselves as described, things would change, society would be transformed. That may not be the case, but our work is to be positive for the future, so a future of Love and Compassion is in potential. Let us send from our presence, positive healing energy to all beings, to all who suffer and to the future of life on our planet.

Jerry Toporovsky  December 16^th, 2012

We are working with Attention. Attempting to be attentive to our attention.

We have an automatic attention where we get around and do complex things, but aren’t present or aware of our actions. I can get up after writing this, find my way out the door, down the stairs, and go buy a newspaper, all in sleep, on automatic. I can drive my car on a familiar route, completely mechanically and then be amazed I arrived safe and sound without the involvement of my consciousness.

Then there is an attention that involves our being present and aware. As I sit here I can sense my hands, my body, and come into a state of awareness, the beginning of waking up. I am here, aware of my mind being present, mindful of the sensation of my body and alive to my feelings. Collected, here and now, in this moment.

We work with our attention as continuously as we can; being present, alive in three centers; mind, body and feelings. Aware as often as I can be of an inner presence, an energy and aliveness inside me that is present irregardless of my state, level of energy, mood or feelings. To remember myself – my inner life, my wish, and the energetic presence that lives inside me. Being attentive to attention – to be able to separate the present moment from the present situation.

But there is another level of attention, beyond our collected awareness. An attention we have to be open to. An attention we have to allow. The sensitive awareness attention needs to be organized, focused on, made steady – and then we can be in a position of opening to a higher level that can come.

Our search is for consciousness when we are often too concerned with ourselves. There arises over time a preference for consciousness, where we can let things be and open to a deeper attention. An attention that is not from me, but in me. We don’t have to be a certain way to be related to this attention.

When we open and this attention comes, this conscious energy is present, we are less reactive, identified, less concerned with our image and able to externally consider.

Remembering that our work is not about subjective experience, but about service.  Consciousness is contagious.

Jerry Toporovsky  12-11-12

The work is about allowing. Being receptive to higher energies and allowing them to enter our being. For this to occur we have to render our centers passive. Our bodies need to be in an extremely relaxed state, still, no tension. Our minds, the mechanism of our personality has to be passive, immobile, serene, inconsequential. Opinions, thoughts of I, righteous indignation, reactions, need to vanish. Our emotions, so volatile, swinging, need to be passive as well. Calm, non-reactive. We need to have courage and intention to make this happen.

And then…..

We allow. We render our centers passive, still and allow the higher to enter. Conscious energy. It is unmistakable, not subtle. A feeling of effortlessness takes over, an opening to the higher, the blinders taken off, a centered presence now in the solar plexus.

This will blend with automatic energy in us and the result is a non-forced, present, surplus of sensitive energy. At that point it is so important not to confuse what is going on with “I, which is something on a different, and higher level. Just be with yourself. The new person that is you.

The work is about learning how to love. For this we have to get out of the way. Life and the work will provide shocks, tensions, change. Be still, non-reactive in front of them. Accept yourself, both the angel and the animal. Always separate the present moment from the present situation. Trust in the work.

Jerry Toporovsky — September 10th, 2012