Focus and centeredness in a storm.

I know that, in times of mental and emotional stress, it is more important than ever to be able to retain a sense of self, to be able to detach and observe what is happening in real time, as opposed to getting swallowed up and becoming my sadness and distress.

But god damn, is it hard.

To be able to think and act lucidly right now is the only wish I can conjure up, right now.

Processes

I have barely posted on this blog for some time, now. Strangely still feels open, though. This is fitting, I think: the informing idea of this blog was to have a place to work out thought processes and theories, especially as they relate to inner work. What I neglected to think about was that this work is primarily experiential in nature and often best worked on orally, in the context of a group. So, having found myself a work group (one that is not GCNE), I've been able to do just that. I still have a notebook that gets plenty of ideas written down, but I just haven't gotten around to posting them. At the end of the day, I'm still quite prone to navel-gazing.

There is also the issue of writing about some of these things in a public forum. I am no Bennett, or Blake, or anyone that is able to easily distill extremely nuanced ideas--ideas that are traditionally presented and transmitted orally--into text. When I write or present an idea, if it is presented incorrectly, then the effort was for naught. Or, put simply, putting a flawed product out is going to cause some problems.

But wait! The point of this blog is exploration! The whole idea is to throw spaghetti at the wall. If I'm not experimenting, I'm not even trying. The real challenge is to see how this stuff works in real life. I should be able to see concepts and ideas in action, if I can conceive them. (Or, 'conception necessarily leads to perception', if it is a right concept.) As long as I can let ideas develop, instead of trying to actualize the goal that I want to see from the word 'go', then all should be well.

Fittingly, I have been quite wary, in recent days, of end-gaining. My experience with the circle's season of Sundays was that of good work finished that produced a much better result than what we had initially signed up for. One thing that did not arrive along with the extremely positive response was any sort of monetary or material gain. In fact, the total donation that we received was barely enough to cover renting the space that we used for one hour. I can count at least six other people that would not have changed that, either: that work, and all this work, was meant for our being, not for our gain.

Ayn Rand actually said something that was very true to this idea: contrary to the popular picture of Rand (which seemed to be in love with money for money's sake), she actually pointed out that money can be nothing more than a barometer. If you do what is right, then money and profit will flow. Her actual application of this idea did eventually get twisted out of shape, but the original sentiment is very much in line with the work that we did and continue to do: right action leads to right results. The true creative approach, however, is acknowledging that the right result may in fact be completely antithetical to any immediate sense of logic. But that's for another time.

Supposedly, the Rapture has happened.

Perhaps the beginnings of eternal torture begin with constant disappointment from within?

Or maybe this is simply another example of who not to believe.

A quick scribble.

Is absurdity inversely proportional to meaningfulness? Is an absurd life two-dimensional?

Can
/---\
/-----\
Is---Is Not

A recent e-mail exchange. . .

A. - My friend M., the icon painter I may have mentioned to you, just returned one of my books, and later asked to send her a quote she had bookmarked. I found it, and thought you might be equally... galvanized? Sending you my translation and the original.

The relation of the Creator to the creation (or, the Not-created to the created) is called the Father, the relation of the created to the Creator is called the Son, and their shared essence, the Holy Ghost.

This is from Yakov Druskin's Diaries.

How does this strike you? It really impressed me, since we tend to, it seems, assume that if something is an essence it must, then, be a substance; so we then tend to mistake relations for substances, and that's how we get our overly personal Western God... I have the feeling that we generally have a preference for substances in the West, while Eastern philosophies may overemphasize relations at the expense of substances... But, without going too far afield, I think this is the first interpretation of the Trinity that makes even remote sense to me.

B. - Kind of weird that you sent that yesterday; completely blew the top of my head off, last night. Seemed to be exceptionally appropriate with regards to a subject that came up last night at a Bennett group meeting, i.e. the subject of "what is I" and "what is not I".

The idea of this, in pretty straightforward 4th Way work, is that if one takes one's feelings, thoughts, and body (the emotional, intellectual, and moving centers) and then asks where "I" is in this, it's seemingly impossible to say "I" is here, or there, or anywhere. "I" is not one's feelings, or thoughts, or any part of one's body, even though one might be completely in that part (for instance, getting into an argument and essentially being one's frustration at losing the argument, such as what happened to me a couple of weeks ago). When one is able to separate from that, one is able to observe that thing not being "I". (Making sense so far?)

But then who am I? It becomes increasingly difficult to say who "I" am, or what "I" am. Eventually one might see that "I" can not be seen or found. But one might be able to see action from "I".

So, how does this relate? Well, maybe it's that sort of thing where god has a particular relation to man as creator-->created. Similarly, one would see man:god::created:creator. But we might not actually be aware of the relation outside of a direct observation of action.

What excites me about this is the idea that the action might have a sentience and a consciousness itself, which sort of goes along with a hunch I've had for a bit. ("God" being not necessarily an entity or a condition but an action).

Oi, that's enough. . .

2/27/2011

Well, that was interesting. Just finished the morning sitting. The JGB group here in Boston has been working with an extended relaxation exercise that finishes with relaxing the mind, body, and emotions together as the whole self. I felt it all slot into place, and for not much more than ten seconds was aware of the whole. Then something triggered and I lost it, and was very aware of the thoughts trying to relax themselves, the mind trying to relax itself, and not being able to not identify as the body. That is, I moved from a clean and separated observation of the complete self in relaxation, to a slightly panicked inability to not be my body.

Kind of glad I picked up on that.

Goals.

Short terms goals: having the first primary up and down the neck 4 times each (twice 1-2-3-4 and twice 4-3-2-1) at 120 bpm by Christmas.

Also, playing cello suite 2 prelude within next month.

Long term goals: Full suite in 3-4 months. Two original circle pieces by end of summer.