A Lunatic, and Sore Vexed

August 14

Yesterday, a discussion with a friend who complained that I seem dismissive of how people understand and approach to their sensation, and how important it is, overall, to the development of inner Being.

I explained to this friend, a close friends of many years, that he and I are not using the same language when we discuss sensation. When I use the word, what I mean has no relationship to the way he understands it. 

He was willing to accept this, but then demanded an explanation of what the difference is.

This is a quite difficult subject, but I will do my best to explain the matter.

One goes through a lifetime in spiritual work hearing about the connection between the mind and body, and, if that spiritual work happens to be the Gurdjieff work, about sensation. One practices many exercises in awakening sensation and having an intention towards it. I won’t go into them, but I have heard many of them are described in some detail in Joseph Azize’s book on Gurdjieff exercises. By all means, buy the book and do them.

The difficulty here is that one develops a very specific, well fleshed out and detailed understanding of sensation with these approaches. One talks about it earnestly; yet all of the talk in groups about sensation is largely intellectual. 

Excuse me for saying, in what will definitely sound like dismissiveness, that all of this intellectual speculation is utterly worthless in the end. Granted, one may have some interesting experiences. Yet none of this actually brings anyone one whit closer to an organic sensation of Being. That sensation is functionally and fundamentally different than the sensation approached in exercise, because it is not mechanical.

Organic sensation of being is the awakened and living force of sensation as a mind within Being. As I’ve explained in other places, this corresponds to the formation of the astral body, which is an actual body. Sensation of this kind does not need to be sought through exercise; I don’t “come back” to it. It is an intelligence of its own that brings "me" back to it; and it never leaves me alone, because it is in fact a body I now inhabit, not a goal I seek or a condition I aspire to. 

It's a separate mind which is also my mind. 

But this is a new mind that does very, very different things than the mind that thinks and speaks these words.

 My friend called it a blessing, which illustrates how profoundly people mistake the nature of this. 

This faculty is not a blessing, it is a function that bestows additional tasks on a person. It would be impossible to describe the trials and the difficulties that it imposes on an already confusing life. The difference is that it reduces the confusion; the organic sensation of Being creates a permanent axis around which Being manifests. I’ve often written about this describing it as an inner center of gravity; and indeed, it also relates to what Gurdjieff called magnetic center.

In order to understand the question of Organic Sensation, it would be good to begin by throwing everything one believes one knows about it out, every single thing that one has learned and relies on to understand it. This is part of what Gurdjieff meant in his comment during the war when he said to one of his followers that they worked with everything they had in them except the part they needed to work with the most, which was their instinct. 

The word instinct derives from Latin roots that mean to be inwardly stung, that is, moved forward by a painful impulse. 

That is to say, it does not mean an automatic, hardwired action: it means being touched by a sensation that is painful and difficult.

Sensation, if it awakens as a mind of its own that fully participates in life, focuses the attention in such a way that one sees more accurately; and every single thing that one sees ends up being an inward prick, an instinct. We don’t really see ourselves with any accuracy unless this faculty of sensation accompanies our intelligence. While the exercises that supposedly “awaken” sensation are purported to develop such ability, in point of fact, they do not. The most common report of remembering oneself through sensation is that one can’t do it; one keeps going away.

 Organic sensation does not go away.

If sensation goes away, it isn’t organic.

Think about it like you think about your breathing. Does your breathing go away? It is like that. Organic sensation is as necessary to the life of the astral body as air is to the survival of the organic one.

Only when sensation is present in the midst of quite ordinary life and its quite ordinary difficulties—not when I’m sitting on the floor or in a chair, moving energy around my body according to esoteric principles — can it have the effect it is truly supposed to have on inner work.

My friend wanted me to tell them how one develops this capacity. I can’t. There is no form to do this, and the belief in a form is already an obstacle. 

The one thing I am sure of is that suffering is essential.

I have a hopeful hypothesis I offered during this conversation, which I will pass on to readership. 

I believe that every life has, within its own context, exactly the right amount of suffering that is needed for that particular individual to develop from within, in such a way that their sensation becomes a living thing. 

The vast majority of people never encounter a work that understands this teaching; and of those that do, the vast majority misinterpret it, sometimes willfully, sometimes at the misdirection of others.

Yet the exact material that is needed for any given individual is already right here, in this moment, proximate to one’s Being and one’s present existence within that given life. The life that is given conforms to the needs that have to be met; it is up to the individual to discover from within themselves and their own initiative the perspective, the suffering — both imparted by conscience — that can help effect the change in one’s center of gravity.

For some reason, here, I am reminded of the demon that Christ casts out of the boy in Matthew 17. 

“Lord have mercy on my son,” the father says. “For he is a lunatic and sore vexed; for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water.” 

This is a description of our ordinary being, of how we are in life.

After Christ drives the demon out, his disciples asked him why they couldn’t drive the demon out. We can logically infer from this one succinct remark that they thought they had methods, formulas, that would work... 

and that they tried them... 

but they didn't.

Christ's answer?

“Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say unto this mountain, remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.”

This advice, as cryptic as it seems, is far better than formulas and exercises. 

It has no form but faith.

On my desk, I have a little handwritten note that reminds me of this. 

I keep it around to remind me of where I am.

Go deep in your heart, and be well-

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.