Nothing has changed

Pond Slider, Sparkill creek.

April 14

There has been a lot of talk around me about how "everything is different now." I suppose this is true of outside circumstances; some are struggling on the front lines against this new virus; others are out of work, stuck at home, isolating from one another.

Yet this is only the measurement of human affairs. Animals are going about their business as they always have; plants are growing as they always have. The weather is still the weather. Only way humans are consumed in this paroxysm of fear and uncertainty. The virus, like the rest of nature, is unconcerned with us except as hosts; it's merely going about its business.

Perhaps it seems peculiar for me to say that everything is the same from an inner point of view. I still get up every morning with the same sense of my Being; I still begin with it as my primary interest. What is this life? I ask myself. How am I from within?

This approach may seem excessively self-centered; yet if I don't know myself and how I am, how can I bring anything meaningful, sensitive, caring — good – to anyone else? If everything of my being that I bring to others is accidental, well, some of it will work out, but there are going to be a lot of stubbed toes, hurt feelings, balls dropped, and offenses taken. Without right Being and right understanding, there can be no right action. I need to begin by being responsible to myself. This is where all of the problems start.

So there is a continuity in my life, something that hasn't changed, and it’s this inner question related to my sensation of being and the active nature of my intelligence that is still exactly as it has been. It stands up right like a pole firmly planted in the ground. Lots of other stuff happens, but the pole remains erect and attentive. 

First of all, I need to be here. I don't need to be here with attitudes or slogans, plans or explanations. I just need to be here. In a certain sense, I ought to be here quite stupidly and stubbornly, without any other purpose or intention. If I plant myself firmly in the nature of this relationship, everything else flows in and can be dealt with accordingly.

If I have an inner wish to live and to Be, life is always the same. It begins there. The rest of life becomes subordinate to it. This is a model of authority: my wish has authority over my life, it inscribes the parameters. If life inscribes the parameters on my wish, then life dictates what I am. When Gurdjieff spoke about the fact that human beings are either slaves or masters, this is one of the meanings he alluded to. A slave has the terms of his life dictated to him; a master is obedient to life, but not ruled by it.

So actually, nothing is different. Outer circumstances are definitely other than they were; but a need for presence of Being and obedience to God are constants. 

They don't go away just because a virus comes along. 

Be well this day,

Lee