An exercise in exercise

The subject of exercises has been floating around for a number of months now. It began, I suppose, with Joseph Azize’s new book on the subject of Gurdjieff exercises, which provoked ire on the part of some people I know, and either interest, mild interest or indifference in others. 

That particular book has now been the subject of a review in Parabola, which speaks for itself. I will mention that a number of my friends solicited opinions on it; I have nothing against the book myself.

On the other hand, I pointed out to them, I don’t have much interest in exercises in the first place. 

I see people around me doing them all the time. Some of them have done them for years. It hasn’t magically transformed them. I did many exercises for many years, some of which were taught to me by Gurdjieff’s own pupils, and others by higher-than-mortal authorities. I eventually quit doing exercises almost entirely. I don’t think they will do anyone much good, despite all the glib talking and sage nodding-to-oneself-and-others that takes place around them.

The simple fact is that life is the exercise. This is why Gurdjieff called it a work in life. 

My friend Paul recently passed on a quote from Michel de Salzmann published in Parabola (volume V. No. 3 – August 1980.): 

“The increasing spate of books about Gurdjieff should not blind us to their almost unfailing and therefore tragic irrelevance to what is essential.”

This quote, although entirely and delightfully new to me, is precisely why I dubbed the book of Mme. de Salzmann's notes “The Be-ality of Reading” when it first came out.

So what is essential? 

Are exercises essential?

The word comes from the Latin exercere, which means to keep busy. To be busy means to be occupied with or concentrating on a particular action; or—and here is a most disturbing thought—it also means that something is excessively detailed or decorated — fussy.

I feel and fear from here in this place and this time that exercises decorate our inner work with fussy ideas about how to do this or that, how to become a magical creature, how to get results. 

Equally, they occupy our time with tiny obsessions about how one ought to be and what one ought to do to be. 

OMG.

There is no doubt that certain exercises can open powerful energy centers; and I never teach those exercises because if one isn't prepared to receive that energy (almost no one is) and can’t digest it properly, it will damn well mess them up. ("bad results," as cited by de Salzmann to Bennett.)  

This, as well, is 100% in keeping with my declared aim in life, which I announced to my mother on February 20, 1962 (I was six years old at the time) that I intended not to be an astronaut or some flashy, important person, but to just be a regulyar (sic) man.

There are reasons for knowing exactly what date that took place. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure them out. 

The point is that my aim has always been, since I was what my father called a "wee tiner," to become a human being and not some special magical creature. I didn’t know it at the age of six, but it turns out the only person in us who wants to be a special magical creature is the ego, and behold! It is born thinking it already is one. This monkey on the inside of our back rides us for a lifetime; and if one thinks about it, we get more than enough exercise carrying it without taking on additional exercises to get rid of it.

When Michel de Salzmann refers to “what is essential”, he speaks of our work now, in this present moment, our own effort to be. 

Not Gurdjieff’s effort to be. 

Not his pupil's efforts to be. 

The effort to be must belong to the individual who undertakes it; and they must acquire full ownership of that effort, not outsourcing it to other people’s ideas, other people’s efforts, other people’s exercises. One must learn, in the end, to make one’s life one’s own — and this means to take ownership of both the good and the bad and live within them mercilessly, knowing both the joy and the remorse of their contradiction.

Today, in keeping with the absolute law that one must both have contradictions and fearlessly (difficult!) embody them, I wrote a bit of a lunchtimey piece about what an exercise in life might consist of. It isn’t one of these inner things where one repeats phrases and senses one’s sphincter or moves energy from one chakra to another. 

It’s a metaphysical, rather than a physical, exercise – a search with the spirit and the soul, which in concept at least integrates all of the parts. 

This particular exercise assuredly won’t open any dangerous energy centers or lead to Nirvana, so I consider it safe to pass on to others.

An exercise in life, # 1

It’s my task to use my awareness creatively. I cannot just be passive in the midst of my centered being, no matter what centers are active and how many centers participate. 

I must make an effort to seek the goodness in this day. Each day has an essential goodness to it, it’s true; yet my task as an idiot is to discover the idiosyncratic goodness of this day—the goodness that belongs to my own impressions and participation.

I first try to understand goodness; I understand that it can be found within my awareness as it participates. That it exists organically. 

Then I seek to be open and sensitive to it. I search for it within Being and through the participation of my centers. It’s my task to embody the grace, the sweetness of life, the opportunity for what is good. To be there for it. 

I can formulate this aim with multiple parts of my being.

As I proceed, I give thanks for each good thing I encounter, according to its manifestation. 

At the same time, I curse the bad, because it deserves to be cursed. 

The good is selfless; the bad is selfish. This law applies in all cases. One is pure; the other, impure.

I can know the difference organically. This is what my faculty of discrimination is for. 

Go deep in your heart, and be well-

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.