January 26

100%.

I have to give myself 100% to where I am and what I’m doing.

There is a wish to advance. To “get somewhere” in my spiritual work, in my condition. But where is there to go except here?

Can I get here?

As to concerns about drifting off, going away from myself and then coming back. This is going to happen no matter what I do. Even Gurdjieff had problems with it. The whole point is to bring the different parts, the feelings, the mind, into alignment with the anchor of the body. If the mind and the feelings are well trained, if the body is also obedient, each one of them is like a dog. If a dog is well-trained, I can let it go away and know that it will come home. I can trust it. 

There's a mutual trust available in the service. So if the mind wanders, and it has been well trained, it will come back to me. It may even bring something home for me.

I'm ruled by the impulses that say to me, “I’ve gotta do this. I’ve gotta do that.” These imperatives turned me into a victim of my external circumstances. 

A small change in my attitude makes everything different: “I will do this. I will do that.” Already, now, the center of gravity is different. The experience of mind is a little more objective.

I make a choice between morbidity and brilliance. One goes down, the other goes up.

We so often use descriptions that are tactile and involve the hands when we speak of the self and its action.

Get a grip. Get a handle. Hold it. I’ve lost touch with myself. I can’t handle it.

All of these phrases are subtle reminders that the contact with my psyche and my soul are intimate, that they don’t just involve thinking, but a physical contact with something real, something I can feel. 

The famous refrain from The Who’s Tommy is “see me, feel me, touch me, heal me.” Seeing is of the mind; feeling is emotional; touching is physical: the three actions together heal, that is, they help to make me whole.

It's reported that Gurdjieff once said, "If a man knows how to make a good cup of coffee, I can talk to him."

What he meant is that 99% of us is BS. We are full of all kinds of garbage. It is the difference between an endless pile of bullshit and a cup of coffee. Making the cup of coffee is a simple, tactile act that involves doing something with the attention and the hands. It simplifies everything. One need not put one’s attention or concern anywhere other than that task. Then something real has happened. Almost everything else is in the imagination.

May you be well within today.

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.