01/04/2025
๐ง๐ต๐๐ฟ๐๐ฑ๐ฎ๐, ๐ญ๐ฑ ๐๐๐น๐ ๐ญ๐ต๐ฐ๐ฏ
SR: Before I met the work, I was a lot more anxious, because I felt in myself bad things I thought I would never be able to get rid of. This kept alive a kind of anxiety in me, maybe not constant, but very frequent. I noticed that with the work, this would disappear, and I calmed down inside. I would like to find my state of anxiety again. I miss it. What could I think or do to find it again?
GURDJIEFF: You thought you could get there. But you saw that with these results, you will never be able to do anything. You will only get there if you make a greater effort than usual. But perhaps you donโt even have the desire to do so. You have been here for a long time, you have to understand what effort is. Self-effort. I will tell you a secret: self-effort is never possible all of a sudden, preparation is necessary. It takes a struggle. Until you get there, you forget, you remember, you forget, you remember. But when you are sitting, quiet, collected, you can think and start โdoing.โ Until now, you have not made an effort.
SR: Thatโs why Iโm asking the question. Iโm here and I feel too calm.
GURDJIEFF: You imagine, you believe that you will go straight to paradise. No, here you have to make efforts beyond the ordinary. For example, for this person [๐ช๐ฏ๐ฅ๐ช๐ค๐ข๐ต๐ช๐ฏ๐จ ๐ข ๐ฏ๐ฆ๐ธ๐ค๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ณ] itโs pretty good, but you, you wonโt get far with it. You have to start making an extra effort; and if you donโt do it now, itโs because you donโt have an aim. How can you stay still? With the effort you are making today, you will never arrive. In this situation, a normal person could not be calm.
SR: Thatโs why Iโm concerned.
GURDJIEFF: It is necessary to make real efforts, but you continue to do as before in life. Before it was okay, now itโs not enough. The effort must stretch all your muscles, all your nerves, all your brain even. This effort of concentration must be yours. You should have done it long ago. Instead, you ma******te. In the beginning for a new person it is forgivable. But not for you who have a taste for real work. You have to do it in your ordinary life.
DR A: When I experience a violent negative emotion and I make the effort required, I feel that the negative force is mine. When I get rid of it, I feel a great fullness and I donโt know what to do with it.
GURDJIEFF: Two or three weeks ago we talked about this specifically. We said, โThis force, I wish it to be my force.โ You can gather this force and use it.
DR A: I try, but I donโt know how, and in an instant it runs out.
GURDJIEFF: You have to do it. Today you do it automatically. If you do it consciously, then you transform it with your consciousness. But you do it like a donkey, automatically.
DR A: I am feeling it as a force of my own. I feel that my anger is mine if it does not come out. That alone makes it go away; but when the force is contained, I donโt know what to do with it.
GURDJIEFF: You have to accumulate it with the proper instrument. The instrument we have: โI am focused . . . present,โ and at the same time, no associations. This thing you are talking about, you make it your own force. My weakness, I make it mine. โI amโ . . . always and again โI am.โ Never forget it. Little by little, your โIโ will have a contact with your essence. It is necessary to repeat it many times.
DR A: I have come to prefer violent emotions, rather than the usual passive inertia.
GURDJIEFF: There is no such thing as active or passive for your real โI.โ It all depends on your state. These external things are indifferent . . . Remember yourself . . . Sometimes you may think that it is negative and it may be the opposite. To have real material, donโt think about what your state is. Do not philosophize, just absorb, breathe in your real โI.โ
LD : I have made much the same observation as my comrade. But this has the consequence of inviting the negative emotions to come back stronger. This week was the best because I had a lot of negative emotions. Itโs dangerous, itโs true, damage is possible, but I got a taste of what another life can be.
GURDJIEFF: Continue, but with the understanding that what you accumulate is a substantial thing, not only for the present but for the future. This is very important. Already now you can think of remembering yourself and at the same time represent to yourself in forms, without words, what is happening within you.
LD : Before, I was drained by my negative emotions, even organically. Today, I have never felt so good, so animated.
GURDJIEFF: Never before have you had money at your disposal. You must feel that today you have it.
LD : One feels that the body is under pressure. That it is the scene of such a struggle that it will burst.
GURDJIEFF: Remember this: man is not a pig, he cannot burst no matter what he eats. The pig has a normal stomach, he cannot eat more than his stomach allows, he might burst. Man is a scoundrel, he has a rubber stomach. He is worse than a pig: he can swallow, swallow, without ever bursting. Not only the stomach, all his organs are made of rubber. But little by little he has degenerated. Even rubber, if you donโt use it, shrinks. Only when you can make it a thousand times bigger is it more like it should be. Burst is a ๐ง๐ฐ๐ถ-๐ง๐ฐ๐ถ word, an improper word. Only a pig can burst; a man cannot. Continue without fear; if the pressure is ten times as great, so much the better, you will enter my group ten times faster. Donโt be afraid, you wonโt burst, that is imagination. Only now are you beginning to learn what real eating is, what it means to eat like a man. Continue, continue. Get rid of this feeling that you have every time you expand; you are exactly like a child who has hiccups when he has eaten a lot. Nature enlarges his stomach. A child can have hiccups a thousand times. You are at the first time. Donโt be afraid, you will have them nine hundred and ninety-nine times more.
114 meetings held at 6, rue des Colonels Renard
