> I can say that when I have undertaken
> real hardcore efforts I've done that without exception
> or consideration to my job. I can say also as a result I
> entered into a very peculiar realm of conflict which gave up
> great insights into why the 4th way is so powerful. Not to
> embrace it and take it wholly into every aspect of your life
> may be a missed opportunity. I can't go into detail on
> the events that took place during those intense periods but
> you can imagine that it was utterly shocking, unbelievable
> and absolutely (without doubt) beyond what you would ever
> expect to occur in the workplace and yet outrageous events
> that should never have occured manifested in the midst of
> routine work-a-day events - as if it were normal.
> Whilst I understand you are talking of containing your own
> explosive higher energy and the consequences of losing
> control I have found that the real dangers (of being at your
> job whilst making intense effort) come from the wild things
> that manifest thorough other people. I'm inclined to
> read this also towards something more than General
> Law, as if that were only a small manifestation within
> something far greater and more inimical. But these are words
> and worthless. What I got from that experience is this: the
> 4thway, some alleged shortcut, is way too direct and
> forceful for most of us to dare embrace let alone tolerate
> the unlimited abrasions, it's natural enough given that
> we are really very delicate things, hence why there are
> 4thwayers kicking around 30 years later - the real work is
> so abrupt, seemingly brutal and efficacious that it
> doesn't require all those years. Not that you would
> abandon the work but something should shift siesmically
> within otherwise you aren't there on the rockface. That
> is the raison d'etre for the host of the G groupies.
> They don't do. It's also why you need a relationship
> with Jesus Christ if you do - why you need to understand the
> need for contact - without it, it's a contemptuous and
> violent city full of mauraders that want to fuck you up the
> ass and push you in the dirt.
This is an epic take on this whole subject. It gets directly to what we have been touching on lightly here and there but not getting to the center of.
Earlier you'd said that you had never really experienced some of the General Law stuff myself and others have talked of, but it seems you've been making a distinction we weren't. Whether you call it General Law or not, though, (I do, it just becomes a more active force) what you describe is *the* experience.
What I see as epic in your take on it is a really forceful description of just how weird and direct and crazy it can be. (You actually used better language to describe it.)
I've been sort of on to this lately when I've stated that the Work doesn't prepare us for the *spiritual warfare* aspect of what we go up against.
You say we don't want to abandon Work efforts because of it, yet what we experience seems to suggest that the push-back eventually (and rather quickly) can go to martyrdom of any number of types. We must cut your head off for Allah.
Perhaps the metaphor of the grail knight might give perspective. When the grail knight is alone in the trackless forest being drawn and navigating with higher emotion, awake, then suddenly is set on by a number of knights who are trying to kill him, then in the midst of that melee it could very well seem like ultimate *terminal point* experience for the whole process, but we know that if he stays on his horse (so to speak) and battles through the episode then he moves on, usually now in a bit of a higher world.
Also, we maybe don't *have* to be Stephen, being stoned to death as we see higher visions. I mean, we *can* too have protection. But maybe it's the out-of-control element of the forces around us, potentially so, that makes it seem like stoning to death is inevitable if we go down that road far enough.
I've experienced it directly. I've experienced humans speaking to me like devils. I experienced them do irrational and criminal things to hurt me. A lot of false witness. More than one episode of that. Several over the years.
This is a subject of what to expect on the battlefield. And what one needs when on the battlefield and no longer an innocent participant.
I'll read your email again later and try to write something more. - C.
--- On Sat, 7/18/09, <> wrote:
> From: quickeningspirit <>
> Subject: Re: Haven't done this for a while...
> To: "W" <>
> Cc: "c. t." <>, "" <>,
> Date: Saturday, July 18, 2009, 6:50 AM
> I can say that when I have undertaken
> real hardcore efforts I've done that without exception
> or consideration to my job. I can say also as a result I
> entered into a very peculiar realm of conflict which gave up
> great insights into why the 4th way is so powerful. Not to
> embrace it and take it wholly into every aspect of your life
> may be a missed opportunity. I can't go into detail on
> the events that took place during those intense periods but
> you can imagine that it was utterly shocking, unbelievable
> and absolutely (without doubt) beyond what you would ever
> expect to occur in the workplace and yet outrageous events
> that should never have occured manifested in the midst of
> routine work-a-day events - as if it were normal.
> Whilst I understand you are talking of containing your own
> explosive higher energy and the consequences of losing
> control I have found that the real dangers (of being at your
> job whilst making intense effort) come from the wild things
> that manifest thorough other people. I'm inclined to
> read this also towards something more than General
> Law, as if that were only a small manifestation within
> something far greater and more inimical. But these are words
> and worthless. What I got from that experience is this: the
> 4thway, some alleged shortcut, is way too direct and
> forceful for most of us to dare embrace let alone tolerate
> the unlimited abrasions, it's natural enough given that
> we are really very delicate things, hence why there are
> 4thwayers kicking around 30 years later - the real work is
> so abrupt, seemingly brutal and efficacious that it
> doesn't require all those years. Not that you would
> abandon the work but something should shift siesmically
> within otherwise you aren't there on the rockface. That
> is the raison d'etre for the host of the G groupies.
> They don't do. It's also why you need a relationship
> with Jesus Christ if you do - why you need to understand the
> need for contact - without it, it's a contemptuous and
> violent city full of mauraders that want to fuck you up the
> ass and push you in the dirt.
>
>
> 2009/7/17 W <>
>
>
>
> > This is why, though, I've always wondered about
> doing Work
>
> > efforts when you have to perform at a job. The people
> involved with
>
> > G. and O. didn't seem to have jobs. And I know the
> Work is unique in
>
> > that you do it in the traffic of your everyday life,
> but still. If
>
> > you'd been full of explosive higher energy and at
> your limit at that
>
> > moment...
>
>
>
> I think there is something to that for sure.
> Personally I don't do
>
> hard core SR efforts at work but things are going to arise
> where you
>
> will be tested and you have to Work as you see fit wherever
> you are.
>
> The results of any hard core Work effort will carry over
> into the work
>
> days though so its unavoidable that one is going to have to
> make Work
>
> efforts of some kind whilst at work. The hard core efforts
> have that backlash and
>
> you cant know when that is going to surface and then one
> becomes much
>
> more emotional in general. I think the on-the-mark approach
> might be
>
> to not plan any Work efforts at a place of work and leave
> it at that.
>
>
>
> W.
>
>
>
>
>
>
* * * * * * * *
OK, I've read your email (below) again and saw the part I was going to come back to:
> What I got from that experience is this: the
> 4thway, some alleged shortcut, is way too direct and
> forceful for most of us to dare embrace let alone tolerate
> the unlimited abrasions, it's natural enough given that
> we are really very delicate things, hence why there are
> 4thwayers kicking around 30 years later - the real work is
> so abrupt, seemingly brutal and efficacious that it
> doesn't require all those years. Not that you would
> abandon the work but something should shift siesmically
> within otherwise you aren't there on the rockface. That
> is the raison d'etre for the host of the G groupies.
> They don't do.
Remember how I use to describe my own Work history as episodes of fast work where *much* would get done? And how just even *one* intense event of seeing something in real time (like my library experience with seeing internal-considering in real time) seemed to stand out for years. Or, how if I just once truly engaged in self-remembering deeply for like five or six hours and entered strange realms how I'd remember that. Or, how seeming everyday type effort (though with zeal) like in spontaneously writing down all the 'roles' I play in an average day, week, month, years, life, and how that list turns out to be definitive and complete and a big moment in my development.
That last example is good. How the Work happens, how development happens, in those few zealous efforts and in the events that are seismic (we can see after-the-fact).
I don't want to discount or not mention the fact that I did a lot of everyday self-remembering effort in the midst of that.
But when (I'm thinking as I'm writing) I maybe got gun shy of the 'troubles' and discomfort the big events get involved in that I didn't get what one should get from the more mundane effort. I was doing the mundane effort and avoiding the battles. Sort of. Except when life events themselves provided unavoidable material.
But what you write (taking into consideration as you do that we don't want to justify laziness or avoidance of discomfort) is something that hangs over all this Work history and phenomena. (Thinking aloud again) I suspect maybe it has to do with time. Higher aspects of time. We experience something in that eschatological NOW in those seismic Work events and moments and it stands out in our linear 4th dimensional memory and how we perceive our life history and the flow of time once we do go back into the usual perception of things.
Connected to this subject is that G. quote I found awhile back where he said once you become aware that you are asleep you are awake to a basic degree already (I can't remember the exact wording).
And there again: my initial moment I remember to this day of reading Ouspensky's POMPE for the first time, in a bookstore, connecting with it completely (ready for it) driving to a store somewhere, parked in the back of the parking lot, foggy, rainy early afternoon, looking out over the black top of the parking lot through the windshield of my car, holding the Ouspensky book as I read it more, then looking up through the window and saying, knowing what this means: I am here. (That may read kitschy, but you know what I mean.)
That is one of those seismic moments that shifts ground and changes things.
The feeling of malaise in regards to Work efforts (too mechanical, all that) is a line of effort with no intervals being forced, I suppose. Do re mi...do re mi...do re mi...
But you also add the part about the G. Foundation types who are around 30 years doing the same thing. Because they aren't really doing the Work. I agree, of course. How that relates to a true effort with the Work though is what I am contemplating (as I write this now)... I suppose what comes to mind is the truly new direction of coming into real faith. That's a continual shock on the Old Man within. G. Foundation types aren't usually known for that. As a group anyway.
Worldly things have happened too, but if I mention them it sounds shallow, but strange things. Things I wouldn't have expected to ever be involved in.
But like you say, it *is* difficult to be in an environment where we are being attacked with strange intensity and bizarreness. Though the Grail knight metaphor I mentioned again in the last email may mitigate that a bit. I.e. they are 'storms', and storms don't last forever. We have to weather them, and then we are in a higher world. (Even if we die.) - C.
* * * * * * * *
One thing we have to recognize is the fact that when we first became involved with Work ideas, practices, and goals we had certain defined limits to our being.
Then with effort limits gets extended.
Limits have to be provoked as well to potentially then be extended.
So degree of being is real.
I've written that when I first started doing self-remembering efforts I could become quite an interesting sight in my surroundings. You get through those stages, but limits are real.
After limits reach a certain degree of extension, you rest and look around. Kind of what a climber does on a summit. Maybe show some renewed interest in where you use to be. But generally you're . . . actually there is only going back down, or going beyond summit. And beyond summit is Real Will which occurs in a less visual (climbing) way. - C.
* * * * * * * *
> The climbing analogy poses something
> interesting viz being at the summit, you can only descend
> but being down on the plain after the summit is different in
> that you can always ascend another mountain and you have new
> skills so the climb is always different and one is always
> learning new things and engaging with different facets of
> the rock face and hence of ones own inner being. Interesting
> analogy.
That's a good extension of the metaphor. I was actually struggling to find more than the negative 'go back downwards' and the difficult 'go beyond summit' alternatives. One can probably be beyond summit back down on the plain too.
The original mountain climbing metaphor for the 2nd conscious shock was you climb to the summit then back down, but the average altitude of the plain rises each time. - C.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
