Our stuck-ness is resistance and what we resist seems to persist. We know and have the experience of how much better we feel after doing inner work and yet our inner opposition continues and may even strengthen. There is a tension within between our two parts – When we stay with ourselves, be with who we are emotionally and go deeper into our character and its flaws; grasping, laziness, fears, pride, needs and so on, we suffer. We see and we suffer – a little bit, sometimes more, and we hang in there with it and just be; Not squirming away, rising above, thinking it through – being present to presence. Still inside, and if needing to go out and do, being ‘alone in the crowd’ – outwardly with our business and inwardly with the Work. This takes courage – to not go outward, hide, or allow the centers and their habitual needs to dominate the moment.
The Fourth ‘Rule’ of the Kwajagan is “Solitude in the Crowd” – that is, being outwardly with people and inwardly with the Work. How possible is this for us, to have steady presence and inner contact while we engage outwardly in life. Doing exercises, attending group meetings, going on retreats are essential, but the essence of our work is when we are engaged in ‘the marketplace’.
For this to be serious we have to have genuine Wish. So the questions before us are; How Do I Increase Wish; How important is this to me? What do I have to sacrifice, how do I become less identified? Do I have the Wish to increase my Wish?
Mr G famously said that people ‘work to avoid the work’.
The Work is to be present to self and not to be obsessed with self. To work in a serious way but to be light. To let go of our knowing – to be in a place of not-knowing and opening.
We are working with breath and have been working on three different exercises. What is your exercise – which exercise resonates in you and allows you to glue your attention to the breath during the day. Done somewhat steady and continuously we move from the outer exercise to the inner exercise and from there to the inner heart.
As JGB said, “It is a matter of knowing how to bring oneself to that place where our attitudes are under our own control, where it is possible for us to say THIS, and not THAT.”
Put another way – Some things only become real when a particular level of attention is available. To be one and whole in the face of life is what matters. When I am conscious of this I can feel an inner life within and a peace that – as Madame states, ’nothing else can give’.
We fall back, see our incapacity, feel bad, want to run away, fall into laziness, automatism and complacency. If I fall into passivity and give in I am lost to the new, to the real, to the inner joy. Again Madame, ” Do I really wish to explore the Unknown? Or am I only an armchair adventurer, a dreamer vicariously gaining the experience from another’s travels?”
I don’t know what people do without inner work. Genuine inner Work is the soul of life. True presence enables everything. True suffering and loss enable Love.