Valuation of the Work

The first bloom on Helen's Tree after a frosty winter's rest ~ 26 April 2012, LL

"Nearly two years later, in November, 1917, a small party of us consisting of six people, among whom was G., was living on the Black Sea shore twenty-five miles north of Tuapse, in a small country house more than a mile from the nearest habitation. One evening we sat and talked. It was already late and the weather was very bad, a northeast wind was blowing which brought now rain, now snow, in squalls. 

I was thinking just of certain deductions from the 'table of hydrogens,' chiefly about one inconsistency in this diagram as compared with another of which we heard later. My question referred to hydrogens below the normal level. Later on I will explain exactly what it was I asked and what, long afterwards, G. answered This time he did not give me a direct answer. 

"You ought to know that," he said, "it was spoken of in the lectures in St. Petersburg. You could not have listened. Do you remember a lecture that you did not want to hear, saying you knew it already? But what was said then is precisely what you ask about now." After a short silence he said: "Well, if you now heard that somebody was giving the same lecture at Tuapse, would you go there on foot?" 

"I would," I said. 

And indeed, though I felt very strongly how long, difficult, and cold the road could be, at the same time I knew that this would not stop me. 

G. laughed.

"Would you really go?" he asked. "Think—twenty-five miles, darkness, snow, rain, wind." 

"What is there to think about?" I said. "You know I have walked the whole way more than once, when there were no horses or when there was no room for me in the cart, and for no reward, simply because there was nothing else to be done. Of course I would go without a word if somebody were going to give a lecture on these things at Tuapse." 

"Yes," said G., "if only people really reasoned in this way. But in reality they reason in exactly the opposite way. Without any particular necessity they would face any difficulties you like. But on a matter of importance that can really bring them something they will not move a finger. Such is human nature. Man never on any account wants to pay for anything; and above all he does not want to pay for what is most important for him. You now know that everything must be paid for and that it must be paid for in proportion to what is received. But usually a man thinks to the contrary. For trifles, for things that are perfectly useless to him, he will pay anything. But for something important, never. This must come to him of itself. 

"And as to the lecture, what you ask was actually spoken of in St. Petersburg. If you had listened then, you would now understand that there is no contradiction whatever between the diagrams and that there cannot be any."

~from: In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of An Unknown Teaching, P.D. Ouspensky

“From time to time separate streams break through to the surface, showing that somewhere deep down in the interior, even in our day, there flows the powerful ancient stream of true knowledge of being. To break through to this stream, to find it — this is the task and the aim of the search; for, having found it, a man can entrust himself boldly to the way by which he intends to go; then there only remains ‘to know’ in order ‘to be’ and ‘to do.’ On this way a man will not be entirely alone; at difficult moments he will receive support and guidance, for all who follow this way are connected by an uninterrupted chain.”

 ~ G.I. Gurdjieff

Magnetic Attraction

“One night, the evening of Holy Thursday, having finished my work, I had gone to play billiards, when suddenly during the game I heard noise and shouting in the next room. Throwing down my cue, I ran in and saw four men beating up another one.

Although I did not know these people at all or what the trouble was about, I ran to the rescue of the one who was being attacked. In my youth I used to be enthusiastic about Japanese ju-jutsu and Hivintzian fiz-les-loo and was always glad of an opportunity to apply my knowledge of these methods. So now also, just for the sport of it, I joined hotly in the fight, with the result that the two of us, the stranger and I, gave our opponents a good licking and soon forced them to retire.

At that time New Bukhara was still quite a new town. The population was made up of haphazard elements, including many exiles from Russia living under the surveillance of the police on what were called 'wolf tickets'.

They were a motley crowd of people of all nationalities, some with a past, and some perhaps with a future. Among them were criminals who had already served their terms, and also many political exiles either sent there by the courts or by the administrative orders widely used at that time in Russia.

The surroundings and conditions of life of these exiles were so wretched that all of them without exception gradually became drunkards; even those who formerly never drank and had no hereditary predisposition to drink fell quite naturally and easily into this common tendency.

The company in whose fight I had got mixed up belonged to this category. After the fight I wished to take my companion-in-arms to his home, fearing that if he went alone something unpleasant might happen to him on the way, but it turned out that he lived in the same place as the other four, in repair cars on the railroad tracks. As it was already night, there was nothing to be done but suggest that he come home with me, to which he agreed.

My new acquaintance—and this was Soloviev—turned out to be still a young man, but it was clear that he had already taken to drink. He had come out of the fight rather damaged; his face was all bruised and one eye badly blackened. The next morning his eye was swollen almost shut, and I persuaded him not to leave but to stay with me until it was better, the more so since the Easter Holidays had begun and he had finished work the day before. On Good Friday he went off somewhere, but came back to spend the night with me.

The next day I had to run about almost all day long. I had to deliver the flowers ordered for Easter. I was not free until evening, and as I had no Christian acquaintances and nowhere to go to celebrate, I bought a khoulitch, paskha, some painted eggs and everything else customary for this feast, as well as a small bottle of vodka, and brought them home.

I did not find Soloviev in, and so, after washing and making myself tidy—I had no other clothes to change into—I went off  alone to the evening service at the church. When I returned, I found Soloviev already asleep. As there was no table in my room, I quietly, so as not to disturb him, brought in from the court outside a large empty case, covered it with a clean sheet and placed on it all the things I had bought for the feast, and only then woke Soloviev. 

He was very surprised at everything he saw, and gladly consented to participate in this solemn repast. He got up and we sat down together at the 'table', he on my books and I on a pail turned upside down.

First of all I poured out a glass of vodka for each of us, but to my astonishment he thanked me and refused to drink. I drank alone, and Soloviev began to eat. Philos, who was present at this celebration, received a double portion, two sheep's heads. We sat in silence and ate. It was not a happy Easter either for me or for Soloviev. Picturing to myself the familiar scene of the family feast, I began to think of my family far away. Soloviev also was thinking about something, and we sat a rather long time without speaking.

All of a sudden, as if to himself, Soloviev exclaimed: 'Help me, 0 Lord, in memory of this night, to be able never again to drink this poison which has brought me to such a life!' He fell silent, and then with a disconsolate gesture murmured, 'Ah... me!' and began telling me about his life. …”

 ~ From:MEETINGS WITH REMARKABLE MEN by G.I. Gurdjieff, Chapter VII Prince Yuri Lobovedsky: SOLOVIEV

Used Books and DVD's

For more about magnetic attraction read: ISOTM, Chapter Ten

Relationships and Friendships and the Work

The problematic nature of engaging in this kind of work with people on the telephone and the internet, and of friendships in the work in relation to the work itself have come to the forefront again over the past month and a half. 

It is crystal clear that too many people have forgotten that the type of inner work we are engaged in is not in the least bit ordinary. 

You have forgotten why we work.  

You have been imagining that you are working and have become too complacent and too comfortable and have fallen back to sleep.

Remembering the aim of our work and the tasks has fallen by the wayside much too often. Having fallen into the trap of the illusion that you are working when you are not, it is impossible to see you have been taken. Once so thoroughly taken only others who are more awake can help you to wake up. This can only happen if you trust. 

How you behave toward others who can help you and your attitudes toward the work itself during this time shows how you value what you've been given so far.
If you are too far gone and can no longer see and believe you know better what tasks and exercises you should or should not do, or believe you know better than your mentors or group leaders at this point, no one can help you. You will fall away from the work until you (literally) return to your senses, if you ever do. If and when you do wish to return to inner work it will be very hard; for some it will be impossible.

Take care, remember what you want, remember why you study and work. 

~ LL, April 2012

This week's reading

This week's task

Correction: Updated Intro to Weekly Readings & Work

..page is now operative. Sorry about the glitch.

Updated Intro to Weekly Work

Updated Introduction to weekly work. Please read and watch video.  Thank you

Reading & Task

 13 March 2012

13 March 2012

More about narcissism

http://survivingnarcissism.com/

A Humor Break

from Jean Houston's facebook page today:

• Kids say the darndest things!
  
  Some grade school teachers must agree with that, because they keep journals of amusing things their students have written in papers. Here are a few examples:
  
  - The future of "I give" is "I take."
  
  - The parts of speech are lungs and air.
  
  - The inhabitants of Moscow are called Mosquitoes.
  
  - A census taker is man who goes from house to house increasing the population.
  
  - The general direction of the Alps is straight up.
  
  - A city purifies its water supply by filtering the water then forcing it through an aviator.
  
  - Most of the houses in France are made of plaster of Paris.
  
  
  - We do not raise silk worms in the United States, because we get our silk from rayon. He is a larger worm and gives more silk.
  
  - One of the main causes of dust is janitors.
  
  -
  - To prevent head colds, use an agonizer to spray into the nose until it drips into the throat.
  
  - The four seasons are salt, pepper, mustard and vinegar.
  
  - The climate is hottest next to the Creator.
  
  - Oliver Cromwell had a large red nose, but under it were deeply religious feelings.
  
  - The word trousers is an uncommon noun because it is singular at the top and plural at the bottom.
  
  - Syntax is all the money collected at the church from sinners.
  
  - The blood circulates through the body by flowing down one leg and up the other.
  
  - In spring, the salmon swim upstream to spoon.
  
  - Iron was discovered because someone smelt it.
  
  - In the middle of the 18th century, all the morons moved to Utah.

   

   

The Gift of Easter

"By far the strongest poison to the human spirit is the inability to forgive oneself or another person."  - Caroline Myss

~~~

Luke 23:34 KJV:
 "Then said Jesus: Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do ..."

~~*~~

You cannot know what being forgiving is until you are able to do.

For your own well being and that of others, practice forgiving.

To practice forgiving is to practice unconditional love.

To practice unconditional love is to practice Being.

To practice Being is to Work.

Know that to forgive is not to allow those you forgive to continue to abuse you.

Know yourself
Know your boundaries,
Honor value, cherish and respect yourself - not from ego but from Being in an awakened, and conscious state.

To Know yourself is to Be present.

To Be, you must practice the Work every day, in every way.

Nothing is more important. 

The "Jesus Prayer" or "Prayer of the Heart" (Greek: Η Προσευχή του Ιησού, i prosefchí tou iisoú) or "The Prayer" (Greek: Η Ευχή, i efchí̱ – literally "The Wish") is a short, formulaic prayer esteemed and advocated within the Eastern Orthodox church:

“

Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, Υἱὲ τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἐλέησόν με τὸν ἁμαρτωλόν.

”

“

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner.[1]

”

The prayer has been widely taught and discussed throughout the history of the Eastern Churches. It is often repeated continually as a part of personal ascetic practice, its use being an integral part of the eremitic tradition of prayer known as Hesychasm (Greek: ἡσυχάζω, hesychazo, "to keep stillness"). The prayer is particularly esteemed by the spiritual fathers of this tradition (see Philokalia) as a method of opening up the heart (kardia) and bringing about the Prayer of the Heart (Καρδιακή Προσευχή). The Prayer of The Heart is considered to be the Unceasing Prayer that the apostle Paul advocates in the New Testament.^[2] St. Theophan the Recluse regarded the Jesus Prayer stronger than all other prayers by virtue of the power of the Holy Name of Jesus.^[3]
While its tradition, on historical grounds, also belongs to the Eastern Catholics,^[4][5] and there have been a number of Roman Catholic texts on the Jesus Prayer, its practice has never achieved the same popularity in the Western Church as in the Eastern Orthodox Church, although it is said on the Anglican Rosary. Moreover, the Eastern Orthodox theology of the Jesus Prayer enunciated in the fourteenth century by St. Gregory Palamas has never been fully accepted by the Roman Catholic Church.^[6] Nonetheless, in the Jesus Prayer there can be seen the Eastern counterpart of the Roman Catholic Rosary, which has developed to hold a similar place in the Christian West.

Easter

Stations of the Cross ~ la via Dolorosa

Judas played his part well

Gethsemane - an angel came to keep Jesus company while he waited for what he knew was to come

Arrested in Gethsemane

On trial

Mocked, taunted, tortured and beaten, and crowned with thorns

He dedicated himself to doing and enduring all this for all of us for all of eternity

Crucified

La Pieta ~ the pity

Resurrection

Women at the tomb

Ascension

LOVE

“I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.” ~ Mother Teresa

Spiritual Materialism

"Enlightenment is the highest thing that we could ever achieve ... We all know that... But at the same time we have a lot of problems with that. So presenting the teaching of spirituality properly, [...] you have to have very good understanding of basic sanity. And also you have to have a good understanding of basic materialism - spiritually. ..." ~ Chogyam Trungpa Rimpoche

Part I

 

Part II

Part III

Part IV