The Concentration of Being, Part III: Wrong Concentration of Being

 

There's little difference between the phrase "wrong crystallization" and "wrong concentration of Being." They mean essentially the same thing. The second phrase, which is of my own coinage, gets, I think, a bit closer to the heart of the matter by defining it more exactly. 

Being becomes concentrated in every creature; but when it becomes wrongly concentrated, the results can be quite disastrous. For the most part, it isn't possible for being to become wrongly concentrated in lower animals, because the nature of their psyches and being function at relatively automatic levels. In the case of human beings and other three-brained creatures, however, voluntary actions are necessary in order for crystallization to proceed in the intended manner. The way in this takes place is in extraordinarily complex structures, as those familiar with microbiology will already know. 

Once things begin to go wrong in arrangements this complex, it becomes very hard indeed to put them right again; and this explains the great difficulty of inner work, the “struggle” which is so often spoken about. The greater action of the spiritual psyche itself is attempting to turn its energy inward and work at the microcosmic level. From a certain conceptual point of view, this is much like using a bulldozer to attempt to fix the gears on a watch. The two devices are on completely different scales. The bulldozer has to learn to think in terms of tiny flywheels. Not so easy; bulldozers are bulldozers and they like being bulldozers. Not only that, wrong crystallization produces very powerful bulldozers which are very impressed with their own power. Nothing is ever more determined to prosecute its own opinions and beliefs than such a wrongly crystallized bulldozer. Do not get in its path.

Because of this situation, one needs to learn to take a very careful measure of everything that goes on in oneself. Our struggle is not so much (as we think it is) with the gross psychic features of our minds or the absurd and repetitive habits, desires, urges, lusts and vices we engage in, but with the molecular structure of our bodies, which can only be rearranged by deep contemplation, a retraining of the psyche to be silent for longer periods of time, and the effort to connect with the body in a new way. 

The psychic and spiritual bridge between our ordinary being and the deeper levels we need to have an influence on is the sensation. This force is already properly aligned with cosmic needs; and if we invest in it on a regular basis with the respect that it deserves, with a good attention and with the understanding that we know little or nothing about it to begin with, it already knows how to undertake work that can help to repair broken mechanisms in us. It will even do it itself without the participation of our "conscious" mind; the word “conscious" is in quotation marks simply because most of the part of the mind we refer to by that word is in fact unconscious. 

If the ordinary mind begins to interfere with this process, immediately it ceases to function properly. Folk can fiddle around with the work on sensation for decades without understanding it properly because of this propensity to interfere with it the moment it begins to take place in any meaningful way. Once it awakens, it can be invested in through participation, but it must be strictly left alone to do its own work, because on its own it will rearrange molecular structures in the body in a right way. Attempts to force that process through special exercises are dangerous unless undertaken under the strict supervision of a real master; and there are almost none of those available. 

The beauty of Gurdjieff's method is its subtlety; he knew all along that there would be no masters in later years to guide his pupils, especially those who lived after his lifetime, and he brought a work which would address the issue by creating a foundation that has the capacity for self-repair from within. This is not something, however, to be rushed. And at any point along the path, even during the process of repair, forces that interfere and derail, that block and stop it, can intervene. This is because before the capacity for real feeling and loving forces of sorrow, humility, conscience, and compassion are developed, the ego is always attempting to assert its outer role as the director of these delicate inner processes. It drives the bulldozer; and the bulldozer has great strength, which is — perversely — magnified through the concentration ofB. So the dangers increase along the path instead of decreasing. One must be perpetually on one’s guard. 

To be on guard, in this case, is to be suspicious of one's motives and actions in every case. The good news is that increased concentration of Being and an increase in the capacity to allow the feeling to lead the inner work – as long as it is real feeling and not that which poses as it — enhance the ability to question one’s efforts. This comes about through an acceleration of the impression of one's nothingness. In summary, anything that argues against this impression must be evaluated as false. That action ought to be a natural one that equally develops without impediment.

One way to consider this question of nothingness is to view it from the question of the present moment. 

All of my opinions, thoughts, memories, and beliefs are centered around my ego in the way I am, and each one of them, in this moment, wishes to convince me that I am something. 

Yet every one of them is in a certain sense of product of my imagination, and not of the physically sensible and tangible force of love and compassion that embodies me hear as I sit and read or speak. 

If I’m here, now, in this moment, I am nothing — and that is the single action of freedom that cuts all of the ties to those things that would convince me not to love and not to feel compassion. There is, in other words, an act of liberation in the negation of all that I think there is, as opposed to what there actually is. The concentration of Being turns on this point.

 with warm regards,

Lee