Incontro del 13 luglio 1944
Mme de S: Ci sono delle domande?
Dr. Blano: Mentre lavoro ho l'impressione della completa sparizione del mio corpo fisico. Sento due cose distinte; una di proporzioni più grandi del mio solito e della quale non conosco i limiti. L'alta più interna, più limitata capace di dirigermi e che non ha una forma precisa, anche se è comparabile al mio corpo.
Gurdjieff: Quello che spieghi ora, non sembra il nostro lavoro. Se continui, hai una buona possibilità di diventare una candidato per il manicomio. È lo stato che conoscono gli spiritualisti e i teosofi. Fermati immediatamente. Non devi dimenticare che tu sei un corpo. Devi sempre ricordare il tuo corpo. Non hai ancora un "io", nessun "me". Non dimenticarlo. Soltanto così puoi avere un futuro. Più avanti il tuo corpo avrà un vero "io", un vero "me" come dovrebbe averli ogni persona normale. Ora tu senti l'assenza del corpo, no?
Blano: Sì
Gurdjieff: Bene, devi sentire il tuo corpo dieci volte tanto. Non è necessario lasciare il tuo corpo. È necessario rinforzarlo. C'è tanta gente come te; sono degli psicopatici.
Blano: Come posso intensificare la sensazione del mio corpo quando sento che se ne sta andando?
Gurdjieff: Lavati la testa con acqua fredda. Fai una ginnastica difficile. Per esempio, tieni le braccia a croce per quindici, venti minuti, mezz'ora, mentre pensi "io sono", "io voglio essere". Pensa come con il corpo. Senti il tuo corpo. Caccia via tutte le associazioni psicopatiche; queste sono malattia, debolezza.
Yahne: A me sembra di essere sempre più fisico. La mia sola coscienza è quella delle sensazioni. Nella mia vita ordinaria e nei miei esercizi, provo la scomodità di essere incollato alle mie funzioni e di non essere capace di staccarmene. Come posso raggiungere una vita più spirituale?
Gurdjieff: Yahne, quello che chiedi, che vuoi, lo capisco. Non hai lo psichismo interno del sentimento. Lo vuoi rafforzare. Sto per darti due esercizi che sono solo per te, per nessun altro. È necessario separare le tue funzioni organiche dalla tua individualità. Al momento, quando stai lavorando, quando ricordi te stesso, hai un altro stato rispetto al solito. È necessario separare questi due stati. Per questo c'è un esercizio, una serie intera di esercitazioni persino.
Here is the first: you do it, for example, seated, leaning comfortably
installed in an arm-chair or on a couch. There is a spot where the arms are
attached to the body, (region of the shoulders) and a spot where the legs are
attached to the body, (hip-joint); feel and control these four spots all the time. All
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your attention must be concentrated there. Send everything else to the devil.
When you say "I am" imagine that these four spots are like four pillars on which
is supported your "I am". Focus your attention; not on the extremities nor to the
interior of the body. All your concentration is fixed on these four places. Do this
for your future real "me". To begin, learn to know this state; it is like a measure,
a clue. You will self-remember when you can feel well these four places. Leave
all the rest. Live life as before. This is your only exercise, but do it very seriously
so that all of the most concentrated moments of your work be based on those
spots. After, you shall have title to a real individuality. These things could only
serve as a barrier between your individuality and your ex-functions. I say "ex"
because you must have a new quality of functions. The whole world must have a
new quality of functions - because of an abnormal life in the past. It is necessary
to create a barrier. For you, it shall be the result of this exercise. When you feel
and are conscious of this definite barrier, your ground shall be prepared for a
new exercise; then you will be able to have a new interior, independent, and a
new exterior, independent. You shall have a normal body and a normal
psychism, without the abnormal ex-functions. This is solely for her and for no
one else. Do not try to do it out of curiosity. It is a very dangerous thing.
Hignette: I would like to ask how I could be sure that I am self-remembering and that I am
working with my three centers. I have understood, theoretically, the necessity for
this operation, but I would like to know if there exists a criterion for it. (Later) It
was less a question than a doubt; I do not know if it is worth asking.
Gurdjieff: You have understood that it was a naive thing which you asked? Never read
spiritualistic books. This leads to psychopathy, to insane asylums. Who has a
question to ask?
Mme Dubeau: After each time that I work, I have a big revolt and at the same time I am very
. tired in my body. The physical carries along the psychical, and I do not succeed
in emerging from it.
Gurdjieff: It is the scarcity of cold water. You do not like to do this. It is important reason
for bringing up a conflict. The organism does not like it. The head alone,
perhaps, asks it. It is the real reason for your revolt. It does not know it perhaps,
but this is so. The head looks for explanations, for reasons.. The body is very
spoiled, very indolent. Each day now you have a different psychic
state. Continue a week, and now with the coldest water.
Mme Dubeau: I gave up everything two days ago.
Gurdjieff: Forget now that you have not done it for two days. Your body must ask excuses
from your spirit. If it pardons, I shall pardon also. Act as if you had been sick
during these two days. Now I advise a new thing: each day buy, for five francs,
some "flace" and put it in water.
Mme Dubeau: But, Gurdjieff, it seems to me that all this that I am doing, the whole instruction
depends on the will of the head. This grows weaker, and in a moment all
snaps.
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Gurdjieff: Your head cannot will for a long time. When the accumulator is discharged, stop.
Only, you decide; I do not want this animal to dominate me. Pardon, it is your
indolent animal: it is like a cat, a dog, a mouse. Now you know that you cannot
be in yourself along time. All that is dignified in man is submissive to this
animal.
Mme Dubeau: Yet, I find good reasons for being in revolt against the work. I lose all
my illusions and I have nothing tangible in exchange.
Gurdjieff: The whole world submits to it. You are part of your stool, and you are not still
seated on another. We regret it. It is a very bad state to be between two stools.
Believe me. Buy a mirror; after that, another life shall begin and another illusion.
Mme Dubeau: In life, when people do you harm, must one say to oneself, "I don't care; it is
not harmful", or defend oneself against them?
Gurdjieff: A bit of good advice: look at each of these occasions as a way of working in order
to enlarge your will. It is very easy. You know what relations you used to have
earlier, automatically. Today reply consciously, make yourself known
consciously.
Mme Dubeau: But in the same way?
Gurdjieff: As you wish. Bad, Good. This does not exist. The result of this shall be to
charge your accumulator for the next demonstration. The more consciously you
do this, the more energy you shall have; and that which appeared impossible to
you will appear better than expected.
Boussik: Indeed, these last times, I have tried that. I ascertained that at that time I had no
more identifications or negative emotions, that I had closed off impressions of the
other kind and that I was accusing myself.
Gurdjieff: First you must feel clearer and stop your "idiocy". Then you will increase the
energy in your accumulator.
Mme Dupre: Can everybody do this exercise?
Gurdjieff: That is a good object. I am happy that you perceive it. Control each act. If you
remember to do it consciously and not automatically, you shall have a result quite
different.
Aboulker: I would like to ask you a question on remorse. It is very difficult for me to feel
remorse. Example: one imagines that he loves his parents. The work shows you
your egotism and this assists you in stirring up remorse; but for me, I have not
had any illusions about myself for a long time, since the age of 14 or 15 perhaps.
The work has showed me that there were in some things that I believed entirely
egotistical, something other than egotism.
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Gurdjieff: You cannot have the future that you want without retrieving the past. If you
remain as you are, you can have no future. For example, you say that the work
has showed you a part in you that is not absolutely egotistical.
Aboulker: I don't feel, today, a grain of love for my neighbor.
Gurdjieff: Ah, that is another question. Take something other than egotism.
Aboulker: (asks in answer to his question) Having never had illusions about the value of my
sentiments as a son, as a brother, these ascertainings do not give me impulse to
stir up remorse.
Gurdjieff: You have looked here only at big things. It is necessary to look now at the small.
Your worthlessness is related to small things. Certain, positive little things, by
degrees. One must make a beginning; egotism is a big thing.
Aboulker: I do not want to venture out in a hackneyed way. This is why I ask assistance.
Gurdjieff: I understood, doctor, I sincerely understood your need. When you change, when
you become different, you cannot see it. When you say I could not see it; who
cannot, which one? You are many; in you, there are not one but many people.
Try to make some statistics. You are four people. Which can see, which cannot?
When?
Aboulker: In the biggest majority of cases, it is the habitual me that sees the habitual me.
Gurdjieff: The "habitual me" is not always the same; for example, when you have eaten
well .... Usually we speak of the three functions. Today I tell you that you are
four. There are even seven of them in all. In you, there is a function: that of sex.
Take these four functions; thoughts, emotions, instinct, sex. When the one is
boss, when it directs and governs all, how does it see, or does it not see?
Aboulker: I do not understand well
Gurdjieff: Reflect for two days. It is not necessary to reply immediately. Until the present I
had spoken of your three functions, today I speak of the fourth which influences
you even more than your food. Food has less influence for the individual than
this fourth, than sex. Today, your power is below its subordination. You are a
function of this thing.
Aboulker: How does one overcome this thing? Isn't that "to see oneself'?
Gurdjieff: I have given you this principle. Perhaps you have chosen, in order look at your
past life, a line in which this quality of yourself or ego was absent. Now I advise
you to usher it in, to take it into account; also in your observations of your past.
Even in your relations with your father.
Aboulker: Madame, I do not completely understand what is this fourth factor?
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Mme de S: Sex.
Aboulker: My attitude with my patients; absence of love, professional sentiment. One time
last year I felt something else. I would like to discover it.
Gurdjieff: I have given you a key to search your past. You have a sexual state always
different. What result do you have in one state? What results in another?
Observe from this point of view. These results will give you a different value.
Now do you understand?
Aboulker: Yes, Monsieur.
Gurdjieff: He who had initiative in the past was this Monsieur. The observations will unfold
for you a secret and this secret will open up a hole from which will depart the
remorse of conscience.
Aboulker: I apologize but I am always afraid of not being understood.
Gurdjieff: Sometimes I have the appearance of not having understood. It is because I want
to bring you to understand something else.
Aboulker: I fear that I am being laughed at:
Gurdjieff: I haven't dealt a single blow to your body with my feet. Doctor, I want to make
you see in your life two sides; one side, filthy, and one side, filthier. What
interests me is that you see yourself. I would not even desire to give you the
impulsion for that. That must come from you, from you alone. Until the next
time, you shall think about this new idea which I give you. You shall put your
question to me again, later; perhaps I shall reply to you aside.
Mlle de I would like to know from where comes this internal voice which dictates to us
Gaigneron our acts and which is more sure and steady than instinct.
Gurdjieff: Philip, how are you? You have grown again a little bit. Three months of
absence; now you are already all changed. When one does not see children for a
certain time, one notices that they grow. I know many children that have become
young women, men. There are even some who have aged.
