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Meeting of Monday, December 9, 1946
G.: Who wants to say something. How is the exercise going? It interests me to know
what you have ascertained.
Mme de S: Who has ascertained something that might be interesting to the others, concerning
the exercise?
G.: That can show who works, what? Horande?
Mme de S: Then, do you want to say if you have something to ask? One at a time.
G.: Then, if you have ascertained nothing, it is because you have not worked. If you
have not worked, what have you done? (Mme de S repeats) Masturbated. (To
Mme de S) Can one say it? Even over against good taste?
Mme de S: Yes, why not, in this case?
G.: (To Sheaffer) You have just arrived, perhaps you have something to say? Have
you ascertained something?
Shaeffer: I ascertain a result in the first part of the exercise. Something turns up in each
limb. What I don't know how to acquire is the inclination. When I feel
something, it is imaginary. I have renounced all voluntary action. Before, I made
effort with my head. I do it no longer.
G.: Your head must be like a policeman. That is all. It must repeat to you all the time
that you are occupied by this work. It must not go away.
Shaeffer: Then I wait for something to happen.
G.: By means of sensation?
Shaeffer: Yes, rather than to manufacture artificially. Then, for me, "to exhaust", I do not
see very well what that can be. I feel sometimes something which stirs. I feel it
in the place where one pulls something. The second phase is more difficult.
After, I know nothing to do about it.
G.: The importance, at the beginning, is the sensation. Then, if you have contact with
the sensation, if you verify how you feel, then, a second thing is important; it is
the way by which you pour out. Up till now no one has spoken of this important
question this way.
Edith: I have ascertained a greater need to relax in life.
G.: If it is thus, you have the inclination. It is only when you relax consciously, and
when your head retains its role of policeman, that the relaxation has value. If you
relax generally, it is weakness.
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Edith: I am conscious of being rather tense in general.
G.: You must not relax unconsciously. Yet when you are in your state of awakening,
you must relax consciously. When you sleep, everything relaxes without you;
that has no value. It is your bondage.
Zuber: Sir, in this exercise, the difficulty for me is always the turning of the limbs. On
the contrary the (sucage) and the flowing out are easy. I am happy to do it. The
great effort is the beginning of the exercise. In life, I flow out generally much
more vitality and force and I have something of a bent for the exercise and that I
have very often, or else all is, on the contrary, mad, cacophonous, much madder
than before. I made an ascertaining. It is the need, if I am in bed, of closing a
circuit, by putting the right leg against the left, the right arm against the left.
G.: How to close a circuit, how to understand? I tell you the same thing; do not give
your head permission to wander.
Zuber: This is done without any will.
G.: Then, why verify it? Why speak of it? It is an obsession. This can only give you
many chances of entering an insane asylum. You must never do unconsciously.
Even half consciously, I advise you. All or nothing. Between the two is only
psychopathy, obsession. Never believe. Do not have confidence. You are a very
weak person. If, during one moment, your center of gravity is in your head, then
if it moves to you plexus etc., it is masturbation. The conscious effort consists in
giving the initiative to all your centers. That is activity. All the rest, it is material
for being a candidate for insane asylums.
Zuber: In spite of what you have just said, I think that it is bound up with work.
G.: I know not. But I know that that must not happen. Not yet. Expect nothing.
Send the rest to the devil. For you, there exists only your exercise. Do it until
you are entirely content. All these combinations and manipulations can come
after, but not yet.
One must not let himself be carried away. It is a very dangerous moment. On
one side you have the strength to fix and something can enter forever into you.
Then, you would be obliged to become my client and I can never do for less than
three English zeros and there exists only one remedy to rule these things;
hypnotism. And I advise it not.
Godet speaks.
G interrupts Your question costs nothing. Wait. You do not come enough. You come here
once in three months. Collect some material. For you this work is one thing
among others. You disturb with your question. Here there is another degree of
comprehension. What you say interests no one. These people make efforts for
years and work seriously. With your question, you only cause disturbance.
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In this exercise, it is very important to understand the way by which can be made
the inclination. This thing that you suck in with the air that you breathe. How?
What is it? It is not your business. From the lungs you cause to flow this result. It
must go from each side of the navel, without touching it. Then, below, these two
lines unite and from there, that spreads itself throughout all the sphere of the
sexual organs. You must feel the whole sphere.
With your thought, you must journey everywhere as if you were painting quickly.
You circulate everywhere. From there, you go to the solar plexus in exactly the
same way. You go up again from the two sides of the navel to a little forward of
the sternum. (G. Indicates the periphery of the solar plexus.) Like this, under the
skin. Through the back, one cannot transmit to the solar plexus. Then, always in
front, from each side.
Now, in order to nourish the head. You start from the coccyx in leaving the bone
sideways. To the left and to the right of the vertebra column, from two sides, the
path. goes up again to each side of the cerebellum to the brain. (G. Indicates on
Tchekovich the path to travel over (en partant), from each side of the vertebra
column, to mid-buttock).
To cause to flow in the vertebra column, you must first do an exercise in order to
get accustomed to having the sensations of the Kundalini. You know what that
is? We used to have there a tail, formerly. It is necessary to do this only as an
exercise, to have the sensation of this spot.
Do the exercise from two sides, alongside of the vertebra column to the root of
the head (the cervical vertebras). The vertebra column must be felt in the center,
the sensation must be equal from two sides. The density must be equal also.
These things are very important. It is necessary now to train oneself especially to
feel and to establish a contact with this path. After, it will be easy for you to send
something by these paths.
Parallel with this exercise, one thing is necessary. It is possible that someone
obtains a result. But then this result is going to disappear. In order that it may
continue to exist, one must do a special thing with the voluntary thought. At the
beginning and at the end of each exercise, you must pretend, be compelled, to
close again. Think that what you have done stays with you until the next time and
that the next time you will obtain more. You must be certain, that what you have is
not sufficient. Then, consciously, you close again. Instinctively, you can feel it and
already that will help you.
And it is desirable that you would remember to do nothing which might cause you
to emanate a great deal. If you really want to accumulate this thing, you must have
all the time a concentrated state, consciously, unconsciously, instinctively.
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Something can be obtained then disappear. It never accumulates nor settles down.
On the one hand, this comes and on the other this evaporates to the devil. Like the
smoke of a cigarette.
It will even be very useful, in finishing the exercise, for each to pronounce his
subjective prayer and ask his ideal to help him to guard this thing until the
following exercise.
If by chance you remember, between two exercises, you can repeat your prayer.
Then you will be inured. You shall be able to always remember. You shall even be
able to succeed in making appear a factor of recall.
In general, it is necessary to create some automatic factors of recall. It is necessary
for you. to undertake this quality of work. It is very easy. For example, how do
you sit down to the table? You have never ascertained with which foot you sit
down. You observe, that there also, you have automatism. You will connect
something with this automatism, for a reminder of your work. With each time that
you sit down to the table, this thing will be able to act as a factor of recall. Another
example, when you wash, you take a towel. Look to see with which hand. See
how you automatize. You will see that each time, you do the something. Do it
consciously, take it with the left hand, instead of the right. In this manner you
make a contact with your work, in order to self-remember.
Another example: you dress in the morning. Which sock do you put on first? The
right or the left? You have not noticed? Observe now. You find out that you begin
with the left, always. Set a task: begin with the right. And connect this new way of
doing with the recall of your work. Whether you wanted it or not, you are obliged
to put on your socks. If you change the way of doing it, you self remember. Then
you find something else etc ....
Then, you will be able, perhaps, to self-remember five minutes. Now, you can only
do it one second. We try to arrive at five minutes. When you can do it, perhaps
you, will be capable of sending back this instrument.
- Silence -
Speak. Talk about something. Speak of it. Fasten there. With Tchekhovitch, I have
something to do.
Shaeffer: I understand well everything that concerns the conservation of concentrated state.
-- But Mr. G. would he want to explain more than that which is fixed in a limb?
Mme de S: For the moment the necessary thing is to feel the path along which something
must move and that you grow familiar with the sensation of this path.
Lemaitre: There is no flowing in the different centers? Only the leg and the sexual organ?
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Gurdjieff: It is the same thing. Tomorrow you shall do this exercise to the end. Gradually
as you have need of it, you shall use this path.
Mme de S: It is for training, for exercising in feeling these passages. You must know how
you can flow.
Gurdjieff: It is important to know these paths. Later we shall speak of stations and of forks.
From here to there, there are three stations. From each station, one must go in one
direction and not in another. If you go to the left, instead of going to the right,
you can crush a dog or breathe the stink of a sewer.
Godet: Does the way of the solar plexus compromise the lungs and the interior of the
chest? Or must one feel this passage?
Gurdjieff: The plexus is a sphere. We do not meddle with the organs. In the plexus there
are many nerves of which the total constitutes a brain. Previously, all the
collection was here. (G. shows the approximate height of the diaphragm.) But we
have degenerated. It is not quite dispersed. This is distributed in different places.
(G. shows the circumference of the chest from the beginning of the neck, in back
of the clavicle to a little above the sternum.) Then we shall be able to study
details. For example, one point is your appetite, another your love, another still,
all your impulses. Like in an electric station. The commanding post of your
internal life is there. It is like machinery.
Shaeffer: Gurdjieff speaks of ways for flowing. And in order to suck in, how does one do it?
G.: Imagine that you take in air. Consciously, if you do it consciously, you feel that
you suck in. It is the same occasion. Good breathing leads to better sucking in.
Good sucking in leads to better breathing.
Mme de S: This is done all alone.
Shaeffer: All that one sucks in is concentrated in the lungs?
Mme de S: That mingles.
G.: It is transformed at the same time. There are millions of thins. Many details. It
is much more complicated than your car. Feel the sphere only. Do not
manipulate. Do nothing in the sphere. Concern yourself only with the way of one
sphere in the other.
Plaidge: (Asks for details on breathing)
Gurdjieff: You take in air. In expiring, pay attention only to the process of flowing
Respiration becomes automatic. Only the inhaling is conscious. I repeat again:
get used to this; when I say consciously, this means that all initiative comes from
the three centers. In the beginning, in order to do it better, feel the site of the
three spheres and mobilize, feel that everything comes from there. Train yourself.
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Then, if you ascertain that you work only with one or two centers, know that this
is not consciousness. There is only real consciousness with the same intensity in
three places.
Per esempio, ecco un esercizio: io sono - Quando dici "io" senti i tre centri. Quando dici "sono", senti anche i tre centri ma diversamente. "Io", è come se qualcosa stood up. "Sono", è come se, nei tre centri (posti) qualcosa si fosse seduto. Questa è una spiegazione originale. Hai capito?
Horande: (Chiede spiegazioni sulla circonferenza della sfera del plesso solare)
Gurdjieff: È come in chirurgia. (Gurdjieff mostra la circonferenza dei lati. All'altezza del diaframma, la linea discende sullo stomaco e rimonta loro per ricongiungere i lati)
Horande: Le due linee rimangono nella sfera?
Gurdjieff: No. Solo la sfera. Ho mostrato la circonferenza della sfera. Quando è inserita non importa molto.
Lebeau: I due tracciati si uniscono l'un l'altro prima di entrare nel plesso solare?
Gurdjieff: No. Entrano indipendentemente. Poi se ne vanno altrettanto separatamente. Come in una città. Due vie per entrare, due vie per andarsene.
Zuber: Se c'è qualcosa come una brutta contrazione su uno dei due percorsi, ci si deve astenere di dominare la contrazione?
Gurdjieff: Non fare a caso a questo. Fa l'esercizio. Non fare niente di particolare per questo.
Mechin: Le spalle devono essere lasciate all'esterno?
Gurdjieff: Passa solo da qui (Mostra il tracciato situato vicino al collo, un poco sopra la clavicola.) Per le spalle, è la colonna vertebrale. C'è il posto di comando.
Tracol: Posso avere la sensazione del plesso solare e sentire che il mio sentimento non è lì. A quel momento mi piacerebbe capire cosa dice Gurdjieff.
Gurdjieff: È normale. Se tu hai la sensazione del tuo plesso solare, hai già mobilitato il posto del sentimento. È occupato. Non puoi sentirlo. Non devi sentirlo tranne che per avere la sensazione. Se, da questo posto, vuoi sentire la tua colonna vertebrale, puoi ri-esperire l'iniziativa da lì, ma non puoi esperirla. Per esperirla, è necessario che la cosa sentita sia calma e non funzioni.
Tracol: Quindi, non è possibile che i tre centri possano essere presenti quando ho la sensazione delle tre localizzazioni?
Gurdjieff: No.
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Tracol: Allora come posso essere attento?
Gurdjieff: Si deve avere la sensazione di tre cose. O li vedi o li senti. La cosa importante è un contatto. In ogni momento. Tu osservi diverse forme di contatto. Una volta, tu senti. Un'altra volta hai la sensazione.
O puoi vederli, or you might guess at them. È necessario che tu sia occupato tutto il tempo, che ti occupi con questa obbligazione. Se tu lo vuoi, se lo decidi, la parte di te che stimi è obbligata a farlo. Altrimenti, punisci te stesso. Se non lo fai, è colpa della tua individualità. Devi educare la tua individualità. Rifiutale quel che le piace. Non darle nulla. Opponiti in tutte le cose. Per esempio, quel che fai alla destra, fai alla sinistra. Ogni cosa per opporlo. E la tua individualità può trovarsi in una situazione molto brutta. Peggio che in prigione.
Mme de S: Non c'è peggior sofferenza.
Gurdjieff: È difficile ma utile.
FINE PRIMA PARTE
