Nyland on how-to-do-it. Uh, how's that again?
Posted by John,by accident, from out of the Internet on 05/25/2007 18:25:19
In reply to No surprise finding strawberries here! posted by John on 05/25/2007 17:33:34
(Joe, perhaps only a few pages of "translation" of this might suffice.
This might be a great gift to some of us around here.)
An apparently oral commentary by Willem Nyland:
It is this kind of reason that underlies the idea of having groups, and
talking about work. And for that reason also, it is so necessary that one
understands the quintessence of work and express that what are concepts
into exact language. It will take time, because it’s not easy. It will
take time to learn how to formulate. One has to live for a long time with
these ideas before they become even susceptible to formulation. Because
the formulation is a kind of a word only, that is a certain form in which
the concept of an idea has to be put. And in doing that, one lowers the
quality of that what is the concept in order to make it into the form.
Sometimes it is not entirely clear what we mean by certain terminology.
I remember a few of the statements that were made. You see, there was
for instance, Simultaneity. The answer to that particular question, I
would have said, let’s wait. It is not important as yet. It’s necessary
to think a little bit more particularly about Impartiality. It is no use
to link up Impartiality with Simultaneity. It’s a different kind of
concept. Because
in Simultaneity something is lost which existed before. In Impartiality,
something is substituted of the same quality but with freedom.
Impartiality means the continuation of feeling but in an emotional form
which is free. Simultaneity means the non existence of time. And
because of that, the stopping of associative thinking. And I would not
continue to explain it further.
At the same time, we’ve had so many times in meetings and in different
things talked about that. It would be so useful if you could make a
reference to it. Not necessarily to meetings, or that what we have
talked about, but even ??? and Tuesday will be exactly this kind of ready
information which is then at hand when a question comes up. That a
reference can be made to that what is already known; and could be
repeated or read by the person who asked the question.
I understand very well the desire to say the same thing and to help in
that way by wishing to formulate. But then there is a very great danger
that that formulation is not exact. And then, giving it half way, it
might even do a little damage. At the same time, I have great belief in
the possibility of those groups; that they will gradually uncover certain
ways of how things can be talked about. And then references can be made
and studies can be given. But you see there must the right kind of the
use of a word.
For instance, observation is not a study. It’s not the study of oneself.
It is a state in which observation takes place on the part of I receiving
information which is not the studying but which is in the form of a fact
existing which is not to be judged or even studied about. It is something
that exists as a fact. And that kind of knowledge is helpful because a
study might indicate that there are different interpretations possible
about the fact. Whereas the fact we are looking for is complete in
itself as we sometimes say, absolute. Or which is the truth. So you
must not use the word study. You must say observing--or to see in a
certain way—to gather information in accordance with certain rules.
Now let me try to explain. Observing for me is the existence of an I
which is then looking at an object; and receives from that object certain
information which means the fact of the existence of that object without
any description or classification. The process that we use is simply
that that kind of observation should have within it, made within, built
in as it were, Impartiality and Simultaneity in order to eliminate any
influence from ordinary centers like a feeling into the thought, or like
associations into the thought. Then we use a different word for that
observation and we call it awareness on the part of I. Awareness we
simply say is the existence of the totality of an observation in regard
to both Impartiality and Simultaneity which gives the fact of truth for
one moment. That is an awareness on the part of I.
Now I wish this moment to continue, if I could. Not expressed in the
terminology of a time length or duration, but I say many times as an
expanding. Which of course, in the course of the time we are observing
can be measured by a time length—and therefore one says, I wish we could
extend the moment into the totality of a moment as a sphere enclosing
more of such moments as it were in one line of observation. It’s very
poor language to use it that way. But it indicates more or less what we
are driving at. So that then that what is now linked up with a moment of
existence, and which we call awareness starts to extend as a continued
awareness as the state of I which is observing. And that we say then,
that I is Awake. That is the only difference.
Before the awareness starts to exist, there is nothing else but thoughts,
alertness, aliveness, interest, in an ordinary sense, all of which can
lead up to the possibility of an experience of awareness. I think one
must understand a little bit more about what takes place—an observation
means the creation of an I which in observation as it were, penetrates
more and more, from the surface of oneself, to that what are the
essential values, and ultimately wishes to come to the realization of
life existing within the form. I’ve said we call that making that what is
form, transparent. That is the recognition of the existence of oneself.
That process is followed, by another one, which we call participation.
Participation is the recognition on the part of I that it exists in a
form as life being enclosed. And becoming familiar with the different
kinds of manifestations at the same time remaining completely impartial
to that and in the participation as it were, being present to the
aliveness of it, that is the body, or the personality. Which then
represents life in a certain form. It becomes acquainted with the
existence of the form. Not as yet criticizing it, but only participating
in the existence. That is as it were, the center into which I penetrates
where it recognizes the existence of life in magnetic center. It does not
as yet move away until this participation process has proceeded
sufficiently far enough to give a reality to the existence of I, and
because of that also of it as a representation of life.
And now comes the third step which is the practical application of that
what now has been reached; we have an awareness which continues on its
course within reaching one’s inner life; reaching the essential essence
quality of life itself—becoming acquainted with the process of
manifestation, which of course is unconscious—at the same time, being
aware within itself of the
necessity of not only participating but becoming a guide.
This guide process that we call experimental is the third requirement on
the part of I in telling a person, as he is what actually is taking
place. It is a process as if at the point where this participation takes
place, and you might say, is standing still, where it becomes aware of
the existence of it, the experimental period is the proceeding of this I
in connection with the expressions of it as forms of behavior in which
then a judgment is
formed in accordance with that kind of expression. The judgment is an
impartial criticism. It is necessary to see that is an Objective
Impartiality, otherwise it would not exist in I. But it also has to
serve the personality to find out if such forms, which are used for
manifestations are becoming to a man who wishes to become conscious and
is then already in its beginning conscientious because it is interested
in what form is necessary now for the experience of a man when he is
conscious and conscientious and wishes to become more harmonious.
This is what I call always born from the inside out. From that what is
essential essence again through essential qualities into ordinary forms
of behavior. And that then this process of form is then translucent since
I is present in this experimental period of judgment and that what is
taking place which must then be-coming to a man who is wishing to become
conscious, and hopes that in the effort he is making, he himself changes
to become an
individuality. I call it experimental because it is entirely a new kind
of a concept. With time he is critically under observation of an
objective faculty.
It’s not his mind anymore or it couldn’t even be, it is an I which has an
objective faculty. That is, it has a knowledge which is quite different
from subjectivity. Therefore it has a right to judge. Because now the
aim is that a person becomes more a person as he should be as a complete
man. And that therefore this criticism is allowed to indicate what the
form should be; what the tone of the voice should be; what the posture of
a man should be; how he should walk, what expression on his face should
be, in
accordance with this law which does not belong to the earth anymore and
is no longer subjective.
It would start to study a man’s laziness. It would start to study a
man’s waste, a man’s air responsibility, an admittance that he is not
living up to the requirements which are necessary for the continuation of
an awareness in which then this I on its way out experimenting, in
experience of experience giving then constantly the emphasis to this it,
the body, to behave in a certain way and correspondence with what the
lord would require. You see how in that sense the spiritual value must
immediately enter into the
possibility of any kind of a posture or behavior form Yet more and more
this spiritual free quality of that what he really is or would like to
become, or looks like an indication of already achieving a little bit of
that what is possible as freedom—that should enter into behavior of a man
as he walks on this earth.
You see we are not dying as yet. We are still in that experimental
period; and that what we say is the experience to be gained by that what
is unusual, since it has a coloration now of at least partly of becoming
conscious and conscientious. That is a very long period for a man because
there are many things to be judged; and there are many things when
critically said, critically admitted, that they ought to change, will
take a long time even
to change them.
But the constant presence of I will enable a man to change all his
behavior forms. Simply because that what is I as a representation of
certain conditions from a higher level of being, will because of their
presence, change the form, which is now taken on by an expression of life
on this earth, into expressions belonging to life on a higher level. And
therefore the constancy of the presence of I, on its way from inside out,
gradually seeing all the different things that belong to a man in its
greatest multiplicity of different kinds of behavior, will gradually
change such a person into becoming a more complete harmonious creature.
If we can understand this—a description of work will take on such a
tremendous coloration provided awareness remains. It can never go back
to an ordinary discussion of one’s ordinary mind of judgment, or the
usage of certain terminology which belongs to an unconscious state. It
can never be based on any kind of ordinary ethics or morality which we
are used to in our civilization. It’s for that necessary to find out
what is this objective morality as Gurdjieff talks about. How must a man
be? I’ve said sometimes, “What manner of man am I?” That is the problem
I face. And for that I need
information which is not my own. When I pray I hope that God gives me
that kind of truth. I do not get it, I know that for sure, when I keep
on thinking about myself, when I keep living my life as I have always
have lived it, even with an little bit of an indication of intensifying
certain efforts.
I have to have something that is the truth for me independent of any
subjectivity on my part, either by feelings or by thinking. I think for
that reason what Gurdjieff tells about objective morality is so
tremendously important because it takes it away immediately from that
what belongs to earth. And it is not that one wants to negate one’s
unconscious existence, but one has to justify the existence and use of
energy in any kind of unconscious form when one is responsible for life
as energy given. And that I think is very important because we don’t do
enough of that. We just
continue to live as if we want to spend a little bit of time, like
sometimes on a Sunday, for the consideration of becoming more perfect, or
doing a little effort with work.
Work itself as a method should pervade one—should become so completely
mixed up with your blood that the influence of this I, energy, changes
your blood to Hanbledzoin. That is the problem; the utilization of the
white corpuscles for that purpose, to see that Hanbledzoin can be sent
around through the spiritual, or that what we call, a Kesdjan body for
the maintenance of a particularly … for the feeding of the higher notes—
sol, la, si—at the Kesdjan level. That what belongs to real emotion,
that what belongs to God himself, that what belongs to I, when I is fed
by energy from
above as a result of one’s prayer.
This I feel is the real religion of any form of spirituality, any form of
spirit being, or that what we call simply Kesdjan; and which maybe other
people call by a different name. I don’t care very much, because that
which belongs to me is my feeling which I wish to express to the highest
possible extent. I want to make quite sure that it is pure. And my
struggle is to make it pure.
And I only can do that by eliminating more and more my self love, and
substituting in its place love for mankind, wish to help caring for that
which is alive, in any form, friends and enemies, and ultimately the
admiration and respect and devotion to that what is God as infinity. Not
knowing at all what it means. But simply using it as a symbolic term of
the
ultimate … of infinity in which that what is finite as form has been
dissolved completely. In which life can exist as an entity by itself
without any form. And we talk now about nonsense because we cannot
conceive of that. We use words, we have thought forms, we have
expressions, we have a body, we even say in breathing there is a sigh and
a sigh has a little bit of a sound, and all the time we want to use
something so that someone else can understand it and see what we are
feeling.
If one could be, without determining, what one should be, if one could be
for oneself what one is without desiring to become different; if we could
just exist in relation to the totality of all existence of life; if we
could understand all and everything as belonging to oneself as a
representation of our life in bondage; if we could see human bondage as
the main objection to
that what prevents us from actually seeing, that we know we are third eye
blind, that we do not understand neutralizing force as a force and that
we stare ourselves blind because of that, on positivity and negativity
and become satisfied with expressions of that kind of a high or a low
nature without knowing that an expression of emotion is an entirely
different kind of category.
We use the term neutrality for that. It means simply that that what is
positive and negative have not been combined but where the forces have
influenced each other. And because of the presence of oneself in between
such forces the conversion process is taking place and has formed then
within a man a neutralizing force which force then is pointing towards
heaven. It is a force which enables a man to continue to go on the
circumference of the Enneagram—which Enneagram because of this neutral
force
becomes a spiral. Two things take place, the continuation of the circle
from nine to nine via three and six. The second is at each point of nine
reached the distance of where it came from is you might say heightened—
that is away from it, in the direction of what we call a positive value
towards God--and at the same time, that the circumference becomes smaller
and smaller because a man has become more essential. And that finally in
reaching the
essentiality of essence, the top of the spiral will be reached at which
the neutralizing force makes contact with the totality of life in the
Universe.
Which ever way that symbolism now can be worked out and whatever it may
mean for anybody the fact remains that one wants to become quite clear
about work existing, about the application of work as a possibility,
about the belief that one can actually apply it to oneself. And that one
can expect in such
application certain results which have to do with the possible evolution
of a man along a spiral, along the Enneagram, for sometime maybe, maybe
as an Enneagram representing different reincarnations. But that out of
this law of karma there will come a central point of unity in which the
absolute force exists in that what Gurdjieff calls the center of the
universe as the
Sun Absolute—where His Endlessness is. Again all that is symbolism
because His Endlessness is Everywhere and Always.