Friday, March 30, 2012

the outer limits



a work friend made some simple statement that she likes spiritual writings she can understand, they are practical and make sense.

immediately i recognized (rightly or wrongly) that she was measuring her potential evolution against what she already likes, against what she already is capable of understanding. and i was immediately grateful for the impossibility of gurdjieff's difficult and convoluted writing.

***

once i was given an exercise to make a certain effort for a period, and then to cease as entirely as possible with just enough “maintenance” to continue to observe. somehow with that direction, for once, rather than being so taken with an energetic buzz, that afforded an opportunity to experience something quieter and stiller – who knew!?!?

from that experience about ceasing to make an effort, i often suspect any “thrilling” sensation to be a “descent” or a “radiation” rather than an “emanation” and am sometimes reminded to try to “try less” and to “watch more” when i experience a buzz, rather than let it take over.

***

among other friends in the Work we briefly touched upon:
Soon after the beginning of my sixth sojourn I became categorically convinced, as a result of my experimental investigations, that most of the causes of the strangeness of their psyche lie, not in that usual consciousness in which they have automatized themselves to exist during what they call their 'waking state,' but in the consciousness which, thanks to their abnormal ordinary being-existence, was gradually driven back within their common presence and which, although it should have been their real consciousness, remains in them in its primitive state and is called by them the 'subconscious.'
and then we sat quietly for a short while. and under the suggestion from that passage, that my waking consciousness wouldn’t “take me there” i allowed some “sleep” to overtake my mind and even the characteristic experience of “energy” subsided and in its place everything became remarkably still and quiet. what was a “buzz” now had a “relatively” “more objective” still and silent quality.

perhaps this seeming breaching of the restrictive structure of my personality was only possible because the idea was somehow novel, not anticipated – that’s why the matrix portals only work for a limited time. ("In the Construct, Neo and Trinity get armaments. 'Neo,' protests Trinity, 'No one has ever done anything like this.' 'That's why it's going to work,' he replies." -http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/synopsis)

i shared my (big) experience. but it met some downplaying, like we’re gathering bits of information, etc., etc., and i realized that i had stumbled into an experience bigger than he credited. but inasmuch as i realized he wasn’t quite right, i realized "i" could not be right either – that my know-it-all'ness, at my level, is mathematically impossible. so in a roundabout fashion i realize my friend was right, we’re just gathering bits of information. i'm also reminded that whenever i share some “insight” with someone, it gets picked up by a something ordinary which “already knew.” that's always frustrating, but, i guess, lawful. here's what i read recently:
The subject of the conversation at my table and across the restaurant was the bad weather. The diners expressed a number of different views on the subject, which the waiters – invested with a presumed meterological wisdom, and locals, after all – took it upon themselves to arbitrate. In the end the faction that forecast good weather for the following day won.
--Robert Bolano, The Third Reich (a novel, but reading that is why i purchased it). (reminiscent of "Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody ever does anything about it.")
every idea in the work, i do not understand them today, but i wish to understand them more and more through work on myself
--attributed to someone in a group, "wish" is my emphasis:
“‘Wish’ is the most powerful thing in the world. Higher than God.” – i don't know where that comes from and cannot vouch that this is a real quote (so if you copy the phrase please include a similar disclaimer).

Thursday, March 22, 2012

georgette leblanc

an account from Georgette LeBlanc's memoir (i think called Souvenirs, but i'll update this post later; in william patrick patterson's article it is attributed as a quote from "Margaret Anderson, Unknowable Gurdjieff, Arkana, 1962, p. 149):
The light that came from the little salon illuminated him fully. Instead of avoiding it, he stepped back and leaned against the wall. Then, for the first time, he let me see what he really is... as if he had torn off the masks behind which he is obliged to hide himself. His face was stamped with a charity that embraced the whole world. Transfixed, standing before him, I saw him with all my strength and I experienced a gratitude so deep, so sad, that he felt a need to calm me. With an unforgettable look he said, "God helps me."
with regard to g.le b., she's portrayed as nothing short of miraculous in her own right:

and now for something completely different

An older Jewish gentleman marries a younger lady and they are very much in love. However, no matter what the husband does sexually, the woman never achieves orgasm. Since a Jewish wife is entitled to sexual pleasure, they decide to ask the rabbi.

The rabbi listens to their story, strokes his beard, and makes the following suggestion. "Hire a strapping young man. While the two of you are making love, have the young man wave a towel over you. That will help the wife fantasize and should bring on an orgasm."

They go home and follow the rabbi's advice. They hire a handsome young man and he waves a towel over them as they make love. But it doesn't help and she is still unsatisfied. Obviously frustrated, they return to the rabbi.

"Okay", says the rabbi, "Let's try it reversed. Have the young man make love to your wife and you wave the towel over them."

They follow the rabbi's advice. The young man gets into bed with the wife and the husband waves the towel. The young man really gets into fucking this guy's wife so he works with great enthusiasm and the wife soon has an enormous, room-shaking screaming orgasm.

Stubborn to the end, the husband smiles, looks at the young man and says to him, triumphantly, "You see, THAT'S the way to wave a fucking towel!"

***

A modern Orthodox Jewish couple, preparing for a religious wedding meets with their rabbi for counseling. The rabbi asks if they have any last questions before they leave. The man asks, "Rabbi, we realize it's tradition for men to dance with men, and women to dance with women at the reception. But, we'd like your permission to dance together, like the rest of the world." "Absolutely not," says the rabbi. "It's immodest. Men and women always dance separately."

"So after the ceremony I can't even dance with my own wife?" "No," answered the rabbi.... "It's forbidden." "Well, okay," says the man, "What about sex? Can we finally have sex?" "Of course!" replies the rabbi. "Sex is a mitzvah a good thing within marriage, to have children!" "What about different positions?" asks the man. "No problem," says the rabbi "It's a mitzvah!" "Woman on top?" the man asks. "Sure," says the rabbi, "go for it! It's a mitzvah!" "Doggy style?" "Sure! A mitzvah!" "On the kitchen table?" "Yes, yes! A mitzvah!" "Can we do it on rubber sheets with a bottle of hot oil, a couple of vibrators, a leather harness, a bucket of honey and a porno video?" "You may indeed. It's all a mitzvah!" "Can we do it standing up?" "No." says the rabbi." "Why not?" asks the man. "Could lead to dancing!"

***

reb yishi asks reb fein a riddle:
yishi: What’s green, hangs on the wall, and whistles?
fein: I don’t know. What’s green, hangs on the wall, and whistles?
yishi: A herring.
fein: But … a herring Isn’t green!
yishi: Nu, so you could paint it green
fein: But a herring doesn’t hang on the wall!
yishi: Nu, so you could hang it on the wall.
fein: But a herring doesn’t whistle!
yishi: Alright already, ok, so ... it doesn’t whistle.

***

In a restaurant a woman walked over to another diner's table, "Excuse me," she said, "but are you Jewish?"

"No," replied the man.

A few minutes later the woman returned. "Excuse me," she said again, "really, you're not Jewish?"

"Really, I'm not Jewish," said the man.

Still, a few minutes later she again approached him, "Are you sure you're not Jewish?" she asked?

"All right, all right," the man said. "You win. I'm Jewish."

"That's funny," said the woman. "You don't look Jewish."

***

shapiro visits the kosher chinese restaurant and is delighted that the chinese waiter addresses his party in yiddish, takes their orders in yiddish, everything yiddish. on the way out he asks the manager if he can talk to the waiter, to compliment him and thank him. the manager said, "thank you, that's not necessary, he knows he's appreciated." but shapiro insists, after all, who would go through all that effort, etc., and they repeat their sides back and forth, until, "please, please, let me have one word with him, just to say thanks!" defeated, the proprietor leans and whispers confidentially, "he thinks we're teaching him english."

***

In the village synagogue, during the High Holydays, the rabbi prostrates himself on the floor, saying, "God, before You I am nothing." Immediately the richest man in town prostrates himself on the floor, saying, "God, before You I am nothing." Right after that the town beggar prostrates himself on the floor, saying, "God, before You I am nothing." The rich man whispers to the rabbi,"Look who thinks he's nothing."