Drawing life into Being, Part I

 I said before how life serves itself, because life is God and God serves God. Every iota of life, no matter what it arises in, springs directly from the energy of God’s own Being. So already, as I sit here writing this and as you sit here reading it, I am within God’s own Being and so are you.  

If I accept this, the energy helps me. As Michelle de Salzmann said, “acceptance is energetic.” 

Along the way, let me remind readers about the book The Next Attention by Fran Shaw, which can provide essential support available in no other text about the Gurdjieff practice. This book has been largely forgotten by the Gurdjieff community—it was barely even acknowledged in the first place—, yet the practice recorded in it is a platinum standard.

I’m always struggling to be something. This is a terrible practice in the end, even though Gurdjieff and Jeanne de Salzmann talked about struggle all the time. 

Everything that I turn into combat becomes a war, even if I pretend that it’s about seeking inner peace. Can I see this?  

I am done with the combat. 

Instead I wish to come to a very still and silent place within myself where this fine vibration of life arises. 

In the root of that silence and that love, there’s a possibility for Being that is much greater than my own desire, my narcissistic impressions of myself as a hero in the struggle for Being. Whenever I reside there and manifest from there, I begin from within Being first. In this way I both embody life and honor it, and I understand my service for God as the first task in front of me.

 Don’t get caught up in self-involvement and some imaginary struggle which pretends to be self remembering but is actually just self-importance dressed up with a lot of fancy ideas.  I remember myself first and always by remembering God and others. It is the relationship that matters, not my own inner nature. My inner nature is the birthright of God’s own life and energy, which I ought to trust and move from gracefully, using it as the center of gravity for my Being. My Being is here to help serve life and to serve God and others. 

  This doesn’t mean I do nothing at all for myself. And I need to keep a very close eye on my ego, which wants to do everything and keep everything. Yet all that watching needs to take place from the center of Being, and not just exist theoretically as a formulation I apply according to ideas I read somewhere. My practice needs to be organic and alive, and it needs to accept the conditions with intelligence and sensitivity.

Wishing the best for you on this day,

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.