Thursday, January 25, 2007

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Aim, meaning, prayer

Less lumberjacks- more logs to jockey. I have had little time to post, and now that I do, I have a somewhat rambling collection of musings rather than elegantly organized thoughts. So please bear with me while I kind of think out loud and touch on a number of things that have been milling around in me over the past four days.

Today at about noon, as is my habit, I took a cup of coffee and sat down in the cafeteria room at work. I pulled up a chair and looked out the window at the faint ghost of the sun, partially obscured by clouds, but nonetheless overpowering.

As soon as we leave the atmosphere of this planet, I thought to myself, we are dealing with cosmological forces on scales that humans merely pretend to comprehend. The universe is vast- as my web home page, the astronomy picture of the day site, continually reminds me- but even this solar system is vast.

This ever-shining sun of today, and the planets, do their work without regard for the intense dramas being played out in Iraq, Afghanistan, and so on. In fact, taken all at once together as a single entity, the frenzied activity of all mankind is a small force. It only seems large to us. As Gurdjieff mentioned to Ouspensky, man is a "microcosmos" (In Search Of The Miraculous, P. 329.)

We're tiny. Yet we assign ourselves tremendous importance. It is certainly true of me, anyway- I am arrogant and competitive and don't see how beholden I am to forces greater than myself. It's only as I have grown older that I begin to acknowledge this, and accept the fact that I am in service to something greater than this small thing called self. I'm merely one infinitesimal (yet functional) part of this massive engine called the cosmos.

I perceive myself as separated and intact, but I am, in a grand paradox, both connected and fragmented.

Why do I say that? I'm connected because I am a particle of this vast ocean of matter, and I am fragmented because I fail to see or sense my connection to the whole.

As usual, I have it backwards.

This may sound theoretical, but to me it is not. In the midst of this confusion, where do I seek my own meaning and where do I find it?

Another way of saying this might be, what is my aim?

In life, everything just happens. No matter what we do our how we organize it, the unexpected arrives. How do we get our bearings in a sandstorm like this?

As Gurdjieff puts it, a man must have an aim. And I think every aim consists in a way of an attempt to acquire not just knowledge, but also understanding.

Ha! You say. That's utter nonsense. And you're probably right.

So let us say just this: in any event, in my opinion every aim should consist of just such a thing. That is, to acquire the raw metals of knowledge through the organism, test them in the forge of experience, and hammer them into understanding on the anvil of being. It's a physical act, this thing: not the way of thinking myself into meaning, but of digging into the earthy ore of meaning with my bare hands.

An ore found without prejudice both inside and outside the vessel of this organism.

Perhaps my efforts are too organically based. I don't know. Whether that is true or not I can't say. I only know that it's strictly through the direct experience of sensation, living within this organism, that I seem to be able to acquire anything approaching meaning. And what is acquired by that means does not lend itself readily to definitions.

I read a lot of spiritual literature, but don't find much said about the efforts to grow a root of being down into the deep mud of the body. Where are the comments about this effort? Where are the texts about developing the shimmering sensation of being, the organic vibration of the marrow that verifies we are alive?

Perhaps this type of experience is too ordinary--or even too obscure-- to be considered transcendental. For myself, I don't think so. The heart of the ordinary beats with the most extraordinary of forces. The vibration from which we arise penetrates every instance of reality. Our Father can be sensed with the body.

I use the Lord's prayer every morning at the beginning of meditation. Over time, its meaning keeps changing for me. This week I see that the whole of the Lord's Prayer is a call to relationship.

My study of this prayer has, over time, helped to provide me with both aim and understanding.

It reveals its treasures slowly, but they are glorious.

Friday, January 26, 2007

Working towards inner unity

In the meditation I practice, I make a specific daily effort to knit the inner parts of my being together.

I begin with the understanding that I am partial- that is, my inner parts or centers do not work in concert. One does the work of another. So I make an effort to sense them consciously and to bring them into relationship with one another first thing in the morning.

Often there is no result- that is, specific aims I have set for myself at this stage of my work don't materialize. I walk away from the sitting with the impression that it was kind of "dry,"
unsatisfying.

This belies the truth of the situation. It's very common for the energy I am seeking to cultivate to show up unexpectedly, later in the day. That's because the action of knitting the inner centers together is a generative one. First thing in the morning, they need to be re-introduced to one another, reminded of one another's existence, and the lawful relationships of energy exchange that exist between them need to be reinforced by a gentle, attentive form of reminding. It's later in the day that the benefits of this morning meeting show themselves- when I most need them, in daily life.

A careful long term study of Gurdjieff's enneagram can lead to a much better understanding of what these lawful relationships are. It's not within the scope of this blog to explain that in detail. However it is worthwhile to note that if I cultivate a right relationship between the inner parts, they remember that they are part of a system and they begin to become more interested in working together.

At that point, having found a (heretofore forgotten) common ground, they do a certain kind of work without the need for my conscious supervision and that work produces much more of what is needed to sustain an effort through the rest of the day.

This doesn't happen without my active participation in the initiation of the process. That's what the morning meditation is all about. My individual centers, you see, are entirely used to working on their own and each one of them rather likes being in charge. All of them have to give something up in order to work together. At first it's very hard to help them see that the sacrifice confers a greater value that what is being given up.

Gurdjieff pointed out that there are many potential states of consciousness:

“Your principal mistake consists in thinking that you always have consciousness, and in general, either that consciousness is always present or that it is never present. In reality consciousness is a property which is continually changing." (In Search Of The Miraculous, P. 117)

A study of the diagram of the human chemical factory (same book, p.190) depicts the wide range of higher substances which can act in man. The action of each one can result in a different level of consciousness. Let's just say the subject is even more complex than the diagram, and it's easy to achieve something very remarkable indeed, and yet not realize it's just a small part of the whole. This is the reason the world breeds a wide variety of Yogis with varying talents, displaying extraordinary strengths combined with puzzling- and even unfortunate- foibles.

Putting it a good deal more simply than the diagram, the different states we experience are a consequence of how partial we are. The more unity we can help foster within the inner system, the greater the possibilities. That effort to establish more inner unity is a critical part of the process of awakening. The whole organism has to awaken.

I see that when my centers operate more collectively, I become a very different kind of person. Compassion and inner peace are no longer psychological states: they are substances.

In order to experience this, I have to become a bit more of an inner mechanic and a bit less of a psychologist. If the machine doesn't work right, its byproducts- my conscious manifestations- are faulty.

That's the way I usually am. Getting up early and meditating helps change that over time.

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