|
Reaching Presence
Efforts
to promote presence
are not presence itself. They are sparks.
They remind the wordless state of your true
self to remember
itself—to be present. Mr. Ouspensky
explained this when he said, “Consciousness
is something different from thought. You
use thought just to give a push, and then
you become conscious without thought.”
This ‘push’ is the job of work
‘I’s—intentional thoughts
that promote and prolong presence. For example,
the thought “Read with presence”
sharpens the effort to divide
attention. It makes self-remembering
definite and specific to the task at hand
right now. In other situations, it may be
“Look with presence,” “Walk
with presence,” “Speak with
presence.” As Robert
Earl Burton,
founder of the Fellowship of Friends, has
said, work ‘I’s are conscious
thinking; thinking that promotes presence
in the moment.
For example, if you take a short walk with
the sole aim of being present, you will
see almost immediately how mechanical thoughts
enter about the past and future, about something
unrelated to the present moment, even about
something you see on your walk. Yet none
of these thoughts, none of these ‘I’s,
are presence. They are all distractions—lures—from
presence, and the way not to be distracted
is to employ work ‘I’s.
Whatever the situation, work ‘I’s
keep cutting through the traffic of mechanical
‘I’s. They deflect imagination
and aim repeatedly at the target of being
present. “Avoid imagination.”
“Drop it.” “Don’t
follow that subject.” “Come
back to the present now.”
Introducing work ‘I’s amidst
the flow of mechanical ‘I’s
is never easy. It requires preparation,
practice, and diligence. But even then,
work ‘I’s do not always lead
to presence. Why? Because work ‘I’s
belong to the four lower
centers. They exist in the second
state of consciousness and do not always
produce enough spark to ignite the third
state.
Reaching the third state means going beyond
work ‘I’s to wordless presence
itself. About this, Mr. Burton says, “When
you have a work ‘I’, which is
already difficult, it is merely half the
battle. The other half is ensuring that
it engages presence. Work ‘I’s
do not have any value unless they actually
engage presence. You have to get in behind
the work ‘I’s and be
present.”
The Buddha said the same thing: “Any
spiritual act performed half-heartedly will
not produce great fruit.” Centuries
after him, the Sufi, Ibn Ajiba, advised:
“Do not be satisfied with anything
as long as you have not arrived at the divine
presence.” They were both saying,
as all schools
have said, that the real success of efforts
is presence itself.
Even when work ‘I’s are successful,
presence usually lasts only a few seconds
before it gets displaced by mechanical thoughts.
As Mr. Ouspensky put it, “When self-remembering
appears, it is immediately squashed.”
He was referring to imagination which keeps
reasserting itself, and he was pointing
to the fact that we must keep reasserting
work ‘I’s.
To generate work ‘I’s, however,
takes tremendous effort, largely because
we are so reluctant to give up our interest
and inertia in mechanical ‘I’s.
We like the subjects of our imagination
and we enjoy the ease of the second state.
We are not compelled to let these go and
exist without them. We may even derive satisfaction
from work ‘I’s themselves. Yet
work ‘I’s are designed to push
us out of the second state, so we cannot
cling to them either.
The work of schools has always been to deflect
imagination and use work ‘I’s
to gain command of presence. In our school,
we develop short work ‘I’s that
assert themselves and quickly step aside
so that presence can emerge. More and more,
we put emphasis on presence itself.
Mr. Burton said recently that when higher
centers hear crisp work ‘I’s,
they are eager to respond with presence.
He added, “When you rise from imagination
to presence itself, you verify that what
you were thinking about does not matter;
that the thousands of mechanical ‘I’s
are vaporous, unconscious activity; and
that even work ‘I’s exist in
the second state.”
See
our web site in 9 languages
English
Deutsch
Español
Français
Italiano
Magyar
Português
Russian
Czech
Links
of interest
Videos of
Robert Earl Burton teaching
Suggested
reading
Esoteric keys to understanding The
Bible
Introductory lectures
monthly
We offer a series of free introductory lectures
in cities around the world. To register:
Call our USA information line (1-800-642-0212),
or
Find a center nearest you.
1
An introduction to the system
The system is ancient, objective
knowledge
The microcosmos man can transcend
himself
Schools use precise methods for awakening
2
The four lower centers
(requires lecture 1)
How the lower centers function
How the lower centers displace presence
Using lower centers to reach higher
centers
3
Promoting and prolonging presence
(requires lecture 1 and 2)
The steward and intellectual parts
of centers
The instinctive center as the ‘mind
behind the machine’
Specific ways to promote and prolong
presence
Membership
information
The Fellowship
of Friends is a school for spiritual awakening
with centers worldwide. Membership is monthly.
For details:
Find a center nearest you.
Email contact@beingpresent.org.
Call 1-800-642-0212.
|
|
The Eqyptian sun god, Re, symbolizing the
successful emergence of presence. (The image
reproduced here is for spiritual and educational
use only, and is not to be used for any other
reason.)
Thoughts on reaching presence
The aim consists in awakening consciousness.
George
Gurdjieff
Evolution
is always the evolution of consciousness.
Peter
Ouspensky
We
have ten thousand mechanical ‘I’s
and it is very competitive to push up a work
‘I’ in between them; the weeds
of imagination tend to crowd out the seeds
of presence. We live in a machine that is
in an almost permanent state of imagination.
It leads an imaginary existence. The price
for awakening, however, is giving up the second
state.
Robert Earl Burton
Once
called, do not seek to remain in the world
for any reason at all; obey the call straight
away.
Philokalia
There
are many who believe the sayings of the Scriptures,
but have not the strength to fulfill what
is written.
Philokalia
There
is no advantage in the reciting unless the
words you are reciting become embodied in
you in the form of action.
Syriac Fathers
You
may have intellectually understood a high
view, but unless you act in accordance with
its meaning you stray from the path.
Padmasambhava
True
spiritual knowledge implies action and if
it does not do so, then it is not really knowledge.
Ibn Arabi
After
God’s order of ‘Be’, become
better than words.
Jalaluddin Rumi
Newsletter contact
Have a question or concern? Write to the editor@beingpresent.org.
Forward
this issue to a friend
Please
forward the newsletter to anyone who
may have an interest in learning more about
the Fourth Way and the Fellowship
of Friends.
Subscribe
Go to our
sign up form.
Send us your comments
Is this newsletter helpful? Let us know
on our response
form.
See
back
issues
Unsubscribe
Use the ‘safely
unsubscribe’ link at the bottom
of the newsletter.
Fellowship
of Friends
(a non-profit religious corporation)
P.O. Box 100 · Oregon House, CA 95962
copyright © 2005 · all rights
reserved
No part of this newsletter may be copied,
reprinted, or reproduced in any form without
written permission from the Fellowship of
Friends.
|