Spiritual Physics, Jerry Brewster
Chapter 11 on Centering
By starting to separate consciousness from thought, and freeing attention from attraction and the path of least resistance, it’s possible to practice a work that allows me to find a new place in myself that is different than any place I’ve ever known. The mind can know about it, the emotions can feel for it, the body yearns for it, but one can’t get there without free attention; it’s only when I’ve disentangled from the magnetism of the contents of my centers that I can have this free attention. I say all this with a warning; you don’t want the mind to take this work, it can never enter this place, and you don’t want to give the search to the mind. Even though I’m speaking about this, it can be dangerous; we don’t usually speak about it until you’re ready for it. It’s not going to come accidentally. Many exercises can help lead you there.
The work on centering is a long practice; it takes a long time to even know it exists, even though you keep trying. The materiality of the new center of gravity is so fine that I can’t perceive it as I am. The finer the vibration, the less perceptible it is, especially with my other centers manifesting individually, un-unified. Let’s say the first note of its octave is silence, void, emptiness. Now, I’m empty so how can I be there, right? This is where the center of gravity of my attention needs to settle and come to rest. This ‘space’ is what needs to be occupied. You need a place from which to participate in your search.
I need to be willing to ‘die’ to the formations of my habitual structures, feelings and postures, in order to shift my attention to this `nothingness’ or ‘void.’ …if you struggle in the right way, drop by drop, you start to accumulate these finer vibrations, this finer materiality, and at a certain point there is a shift and this new center of gravity can exist. There’s no doubt this place exists but nobody can say when the shift will occur. It’s the center, the hub of this new circulation, bringing unity and a new kind of observation that can see what interferes with unity. …
The Reality of Being
52. A school of the Fourth Way
We need to understand how to be awakened and enlivened by the ideas, and how to be responsible for the life that is lost when we let them die in us. We have received a lot of ideas, but we are very poor in ideas.
56. This form
I need to collaborate in a common effort of ascent. If I do not, whether or not I wish it, I am responsible for the stone I do not bring to the edifice. So, we have to reflect deeply on our work together, which little by little must manifest itself in our lives. We must reflect on our relation, on the form of our life together, and, above all, on our exchange.
Meetings With Remarkable Men
Only he will deserve the name of man and can count upon anything prepared for him from Above, who has already acquired corresponding data for being able to preserve intact both the wolf and the sheep confided to his care.
…in the process of his responsible life, owing to his conscious labours and voluntary sufferings, (he) has acquired in his common presence corresponding data for always being able to create conditions for a possible existence together of these two heterogeneous and mutually alien lives…
Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson
“I advise you, my dear Hassein, …Be patient. Only when you reach the corresponding period of your existence for becoming aware of such essence-questions, and reflect actively upon them, will you understand what you must do in return.
“So in the meantime, … bring about a contact between your consciousness and the various unconscious parts of your common presence. …think and convince the unconscious parts—as if they were conscious—that if they hinder your general functioning in the process of ordinary existence, then in the period of your responsible age they will not only be unable to enjoy the good that is proper to them, but also your whole presence, of which they are a part, will not be capable of becoming a good servant of our Common Endless Creator, and will thus be unable to pay honorably for your arising and existence.
In Search of the Miraculous
Chapter 1
A machine, a real machine, does not know itself and cannot know itself. When a machine knows itself it is then no longer a machine, at least, not such a machine as it was before. It already begins to be responsible for its actions.”
“A man” (he emphasized this word) “is responsible. A machine is not responsible.”
Chapter 6
…To be a Christian means to be responsible. Responsibility comes later when a man even partially ceases to be a machine, and begins in fact, and not only in words, to desire to be a Christian.”
Transcripts from Gurdjieff’s Meetings 1941-1946
Meeting 1
…with your conscience you must prepare what is necessary. You owe to nature. The food you eat which nourishes your life. You must pay for these cosmic substances. You have a debt, an obligation, to repay by conscious work. Do not eat like an animal but render to nature for what she has given you, nature, your mother. Work—a drop, a drop, a drop—accumulated during days, months, years, centuries, perhaps will give results.
Reality of Being
49. We say we are “in the Work”
We say that we are “in the Work.” What does it mean? The Work is a special current sustained by a source of energy that can only be touched by a person who is whole. This current consists of a certain energy of thought, of feeling, of action. Its life depends on the individuals entering it, who are each and all together responsible for what gives it quality, lucidity. A work together is necessary, cooperation to produce something—like a chain of beings seeking to be more conscious, whose efforts assist one another. Each person joining the chain has to find his place, a place that is determined by his usefulness. Then, by his attitude and actions, he either maintains and vivifies the chain at the place where he is the link, or he falls away and no longer participates in it.
…To be related to the Work …brings an obligation. The first step is to recognize that there is no conscious relation among us… If we cannot come to relate ourselves consciously, there will be no Work, none at all. …Until today we have received the fruits of the efforts and energy of those who came before. Now the life of the Work depends on us. The Work will not live without us, without our sharing in the responsibility. This requires a total engagement, with all our intelligence, all our willingness.
The Work could play its role in the world if we understood the way, the form that is needed to correspond to the state of things today. …The force and quality of the current we call the Work will depend on what can be lived and what can be received.
94. A cosmic scale
We need to understand the idea of a cosmic scale, that there is a link connecting humanity with a higher influence. Our lives, the purpose of being alive, can only be understood in relation to forces whose scale and grandeur go beyond ourselves. I am here to obey, to obey an authority that I recognize as greater because I am a particle of it. It calls to be recognized, to be served and to shine through me. There is a need to put myself under this higher influence and a need to relate to it in submitting to its service…
We feel that without this relation with a higher energy, life has not much meaning. But by ourselves alone, we will not have the force to achieve it. A certain current, a certain magnetism, needs to be created in which each person finds his place, that is, the place which will permit the current to be better established. Our whole responsibility is here. …This is why Gurdjieff brought the help of a Fourth Way, which excludes nothing and takes account of the development of the different functions in contemporary people. This way is not new. …Today it can renew the weakening link between the two levels of the cosmos. This calls for a great work. …The experience proceeds with ups and downs, with responsibility more or less assumed, in a play of forces through which a certain liberation can emerge. But it still involves only a limited number of people, and this force needs to be felt on a much larger scale of humanity.
104. Obedience and will
…I am sensitive to the attraction of the earth; I obey it. And I am sensitive to the attraction coming from higher spheres, and I also obey it. But I do not realize this; I am too passive. Here are two forces, two currents, two densities without a relation with each other. In order for the higher force to be absorbed and influence the heavier matter, there must be a current of intermediate intensity, another voltage that could galvanize the whole. This would be a purer emotional current in which the material of my usual subjective emotions does not enter. This current appears when I awaken to the vision of these two forces acting at the same time. As soon as I awaken to this vision, I am seized by a will, a wish that is the essence of the feeling of “I” in all its purity. It is the will to be what I am, awakening to my true nature—”I Am.”