A Sensation of Unity

Painting by Hilma af Klint

From the Guggenheim show in NY

Photo by the author

…Then one must change the way of working. Instead of accumulating during one hour, one must try to keep constantly the organic sensation of the body. Sense one's body again, continually without interrupting one's ordinary occupations—to keep a little energy, to take the habit. I thought the exercises would allow you to keep the energy a long time, but I see it is not so…

 The key to everything—remain apart. Our aim is to have constantly a sensation of oneself, of one's  individuality. This sensation cannot be expressed intellectually, because it is organic. It is something which makes you independent, when you are with other people.

—G. I. Gurdjieff, Meetings at 6 rue des Colonels-Renard, Paris (Gurdjieff’s Paris apartment), 1938

with Mme de Salzmann assisting

Dr. Welch often used to open his exchanges with the question, 

Why don’t I work?

This question isn't as touchy-feeling as people would have it. It's actually quite technical, at its heart.

First of all, “work” in its essence consists of returning to myself as often as possible. 

Secondly, this action causes the organism to actively take in impressions at the point where they enter being, depositing finer substances in ever-greater concentrations within being. 

Third, this eventually leads to the deposition of enough material to render the action of sensation “organic.” 

When a function is organic, it means it has become a normal, everyday working part of the organism’s functions. Mankind has, over time, lost a number of what would otherwise be ordinary functions in the course of the deterioration of his psyche and Being; sensation is first among them and must needs be the first organic function that’s restored. If one doesn’t work or can’t work, if one’s wish to work is weak, if one’s work is weak—it all begins with sensation. 

There is no other ground-floor function so important to right the incorrect working of the organism; and if this isn’t righted, all other efforts will ultimately turn out to be in vain, because nothing can become more permanent without sensation. 

Hence the words of Gurdjieff, above. There is no other place to start; everything else takes place in imagination, which is tremendously creative and usually leads the mind in a thousand other directions, every one of which appears to be subjectively profitable—but none of which are worth a penny.

If your work is weak, your sensation is weak. If your sensation is weak, your work is weak. 

We all come to group meetings with different ideas, different opinions. Our intellects differ—our intelligences differ—our emotions and our feelings differ. All this is lawful, and the fact is that these differences are even necessary, since we learn from one another through them.

Sensation, however, is the same—for all of us, presuming we activate an organic sensation, sensation is the exact same function. This is another meaning of organic. Sensation is the same for all of us in the same way that we all have lungs, all have a heart, and so on. It is a sense (see my monograph on The Sixth Sense) and it has an objective quality that doesn’t exist in thought and feeling, at least on this level.

As such, sensation doesn’t just serve, as Gurdjieff remarks above, as a unifying factory for ourselves ; it also serves as a factor that unifies members of a group when they work together. It is the one thing that we can be certain we share in common when we come together, if we work and if we share. 

Organic Sensation serves as the connector to the level below mankind, which is the foundational material upon which our own Being stands and must stand. To live within organic sensation is to live in the house built on stone, rather than the house built on sand. No upward growth of Being is possible without an equal and corresponding downward growth; and sensation is where that begins. It is the faculty whereby we connect with the molecular Being of the level below our consciousness, which is what creates our material body and the functional Being which inhabits it.

Sensation needs to become permanent in such a way that I don’t have sensation. 

Instead, sensation has me. 

Any understanding of the question that falls short of this isn’t enough.

On the question of wish.

I heard someone say recently that they didn’t have a real wish and didn’t know what a wish was. Etc. etc. 

In passing:

The classic tropes in group work are either 

(a) talking about how deep and wonderful working together is (we're so fab/the G. work is so fab)

(b) whining about how I can't work (I'm not fab)

(c) speaking about a magical experience one has had (that was so fab!) 

Don't do these things. They are repetitive, infantile, and obnoxious.

Ahem... back to wish—

as though wish were our own property and under our control.

I can have a wish of my own, to be sure; but it’s subjective and weak, like my work. (I'm not fab.) No wonder I never work, and it never does anything. In reality, I can only prepare for a real wish; real wish descends into Being only through finer energy which penetrates the body. 

Real wish is a three-centered faculty that arises from a conscious source; if I open to the inward flow of the Divine, then and only then does a real wish arise in me. 

Real wish is inexorable and durable and not easily forgotten.

To think that I can have a wish is to believe that I can do. If a person has a real wish, one instilled in them and distilled from contact with a higher source, the taste of it never goes away. 

I’m not able to engender a wish like this on my own; I need help.

I'm not fab.

May your heart be close to God, 

and God close to your heart.

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.