Readings

What is Necessary

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What is necessary, in us and around us, is the creation of a certain level of energy, an attention that resists surrounding influences and does not let itself deteriorate. Then it has to receive a force that is more active, that will allow it not only to resist but to have an action and find a stable place between two currents of different levels. This possibility of equilibrium is the continuing challenge, the interval to be faced at every moment in the work for consciousness.

Yet even though it is in me, this force is not mine. And in affirming it as my own, I do not see that I separate myself from it. In wanting to attribute its power to myself I cut off its action. I create an inner world that is deprived of this life force.

The child wants to have, the adult wants to be. We need to develop an attention in us that would relate the whole of ourselves to a higher force.

Usually I look to the attitude of others in order to be convinced of my being. If they reject or ignore me, I doubt myself, if they accept me, I believe in myself.

My effort to awaken cannot be forced. We are afraid of emptiness, afraid to be nothing, and so we make an effort to be otherwise. But who makes this effort? I must see that this too comes from my ordinary “I”. All forcing comes from the ego. I must no longer be fooled by an image or an ideal that is imposed by my mind. I need to accept emptiness, accept to be nothing, accept “what is.” In this state, the possibility of a new perception of myself appears.

This requires a definite feeling, a feeling of love for being, for being present. We must respond to impressions no longer from the vantage point of personality but from love for being present. This will transform our whole way of thinking and feeling.

In order to wish to be present, I must see that I am asleep. “I” am not here. I am enclosed in a circle of petty interests and avidity in which my “I” is lost. And it will remain so unless I can relate to something higher. The first condition is to know in myself a different quality, higher that what I ordinarily am. Then my life will take on a new meaning. I must remember there is another life and at the same time experience the life that I am leading. This is awakening. I awake to these two realities.

I must feel the need to relate myself to something higher, to open to another quality.

-Jeanne de Salzmann, Reality of Being

The Movement of Energy In Us Is Continuous…

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The movement of energy in us is continuous. It never stops. Rather it passes through phases of intense projection which we call tension, and phases of returning to oneself which we call letting go, relaxing. There cannot be continuous tension and there cannot be continuous relaxation. These two aspects are the very life of the movement of energy, the expression of our life. From its source in us, energy is projected outward through the channel of our functions toward an aim. In this movement the functions create a kind of center that we call “I”, and we believe that this projecting outward is the affirmation of our self. This “I”, around which our thoughts and emotions revolve, cannot let go. It lives in tension, is nourished by tensions.

This ordinary “I”, our ego, is always preoccupied with what pleases or displeases it ­­what “I” like or what “I” dislike ­­in a perpetual closing that becomes fixed. It desires, fights, defends itself, compares and judges all the time. It wants to be the first, to be admired and to make its force, its power, felt. This “I” is a center of possession in which all the experiences inscribed in our memory are accumulated. And it is from this center that I wish “to do” to change, to have more, to improve. I want to become this, to acquire that. This “I” always wants to possess more. With ambition, it always has to become something better. It has a fear of being nothing. Is not identification, at its core, based on fear?

Real security does not come by escaping from this mind or emotion. It is possible only when the mind and emotions are truly quiet, when the accumulating action of ambition and desire comes to an end.

In order to see what is, I have to recognize that my state cannot be permanent. It changes from moment to moment. This state of impermanence is my truth. I must not seek to avoid or place my hope in a rigidity that seems to help. I have to live, to experience this state of impermanence, and proceed from there. For this I have to listen to what whatever appears, and in order to really listen, I must not resist. This act of listening, of being present is a true liberation. I am aware of my reactions to everything that takes place in me. I cannot avoid reacting, but for reactions not to stop me, I must be able to go beyond them. I have to continue until I see that it is everything I know that keeps me from approaching the real, the unknown. I must feel all the conditioning of the known in order to be free of it. Then my search for silence, for tranquility, will be a quest not for security, but for freedom to receive the unknown.

When the mind is freer and truly quiet, there is a sense of insecurity, but with it there is complete security because the ordinary “I” is absent. My mind is no longer moved by the wish ³to do² on the part of my “I”, by its demands, even for my own inner growth. In this tranquility all the responses, reactions and movements of this “I” are left behind. My mind is at rest, stilled by the vision of what is.

From Reality of Being, by Jeanne de Salzmann

Our Work Requires That We Should Be Present

Posted on by denynothing

The work, our work, requires that we should be present. To be present we have to be free from such obstacles as identification, losing ourselves in what we are engaged in. To be present, we have to be relaxed and this brings us to the world of tensions.

Tensions are not something inert, passive, just slowing up our development. We have to observe how they arise. We have to observe  that they arise in us from that which is hostile to the work. They represent in us a great force, our denying force. It is the center of egoism in us which defends itself by means of tensions.

It is essential that there should develop in us an active side which sees and experiences the need to relax. Once again, we need to observe, observe our inner gestures of refusal, our clutching at whatever we are lost in. By relaxation we can become free.

The way is clear. We need to learn to make a gesture of relaxation and to learn to renew it.

Mr. Bennett had a word for this–unhooking. We need to learn the art of unhooking, to make a movement of disengagement, or inwardly letting go. To do this we begin with work on physical tensions, letting go literally a hundred times a day. Later we see that to look for and relax only the superficial tensions does not do very much because under the influence of the underlying tensions they quickly return.

This week, wherever you are in this work, resolve to make some progress in the field of tensions. Superficial tensions can be
affected by a superficial effort of attention, the deeper ones require work of a more subtle kind. This week set yourself to go
deeper, for tensions are the opposition to our work.

Pierre Elliot
Claymont Society, 1976