A Harmonically Distributed Sensation—Part I

If one doesn’t develop a permanent sensation that’s harmonically distributed throughout Being, one can’t begin to work. 

One instead spends one’s life thinking about work and intermittently “waking up” (it isn’t really waking up, but it’s called that, because it’s a marginally heightened state of awareness) to the fact that one is actually doing almost nothing.

There's an irony in this state of doing almost nothing. Gurdjieff said “man cannot do;” yet we still think we can do this and that in regard to work. 

Seeing that we’re doing almost nothing isn’t working. Working consists of having an active awareness between and within the various centers.

Having a  harmonically distributed sensation which isn’t localized or forced is absolutely necessary. It represents the awareness of the physical parts of Being. They’re the anchor of actual awareness. If we don’t develop this capacity, we find ourselves nowhere, doing nothing. We think about doing; we see we’re not doing. That’s about it: a circular mill of self-involvement with no real exit.

We’d rather dwell in the lofty castles we build in our minds than in any ordinary place in the body, so we usually just move up into the clouds and sit around there enjoying the view. It's necessary to focus instead on where this capacity arises and how we can cultivate it, before we do anything else. 

 It’s true—some folk object to attempts to “explain” such matters. The word comes from the Latin explanare,  based on planus, “flat,” or “plain.” To explain something is to make an idea, situation, or problem clear to someone by describing it in more detail or revealing relevant facts or ideas.  

We can't be truly effective in our exchanges by asking endless questions and letting them hang in the air like slowly deflating balloons. Instead, effectiveness is born by making an effort within relationship to do what “explaining" means in the dictionary definition above. 

The word “plain” itself has a lot of interesting meanings, and we can take a look at what it means to “explain”, that is, come or emerge from plainness, if we examine some of them.

As an adjective, it means not decorated or elaborate — simple or ordinary in character. In a single word, unembellished.

Of a person, it means unpretentious.

It can also mean easy to perceive or understand — bestowing clarity.

It can also mean simple.

The point is that to explain means to come from a simple place in oneself and offer one’s Being to the situation at hand. 

To assert that it means figuring everything out or knowing everything and then telling others about it is simply wrong thinking and an incorrect understanding of the word itself. The word does an excellent job, if its meaning is rightly considered, of indicating how we ought to exchange with one another when speaking about our work:

 We should come from a simple place in ourselves and offer observations about our work.

So, my dearest reader. Back to this “explanation” of sensation. 

We work with others attempting to better understand the nature of sensation and how it arises, because this is an essential question that repeatedly comes up. 

The question’s a difficult one, because there’s no textbook that tells us, do this and that, and you'll develop a permanent sensation.  The nearest thing approaching that would probably be, if there is anything, Jeanne de Salzmann’s The Reality of Being. But it can never be the last word on the subject; every new generation has the responsibility to do their own serious work in this area. 

Wishing the best for you on this day,

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.