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Focusing On Presence
At a recent teaching event, Robert Earl
Burton, founder of The Fellowship
of Friends, commented that, historically,
the greatest mistake men have made is to
think that there is somewhere to go other
than the present; and that there is something
to do other than to be present to one’s
own life. The event was a formal dinner
during which Mr. Burton kept emphasizing
the need to divide
attention and be present as much as
possible to each moment of one’s life.
The
dinner began with a quote from Bahauddin,
father of the Persian mystic and poet, Rumi:
“If there is no divine dimension [no
divine presence] to what we are doing, then
whatever we do is merely killing time. On
the other hand, if the presence of God [higher
centers] overlaps simultaneously with whatever
we are doing, then anything we work on performs
eternity.”
This
elegant description of divided attention
set the tone for a concentrated hour of
trying to be present while listening to
Mr. Burton speak about the urgency of promoting
presence, and about the countless things
that distract us from presence and cause
us to lapse into imagination.
For instance, every three seconds a new
or recurring ‘I’ appears in
us. Unless we are making a conscious effort
to divide attention, our awareness gets
pulled downstream by this constant flow
of ‘I’s.
Although we cannot stop the ‘I’s,
we can—with self-remembering—swim
to the shore of presence.
As
Mr. Burton says, it is when we listen to
the ‘I’s that we get into trouble.
He often reminds us that, although the system
teaches us about the many ‘I’s,
we still spend too much time observing the ‘I’s and not enough time
separating
from them. In this context, he enjoys two
related quotes, one from Rumi and the other
from George Gurdjieff. Rumi said, “Fast
from thought,” and Mr. Gurdjieff said,
“Do not be a taxi.” They both
refer to prolonging presence by not indulging
in or holding onto each ‘I’
that comes along.
Even when we know about self-remembering,
it is common for hundreds of mechanical
‘I’s to pass through us before
we produce an ‘I’ related to
self-remembering. In the language of the
system, ‘I’s that we introduce
with effort to intentionally promote presence
are called work ‘I’s; those
that occur automatically without effort,
and which inherently oppose and displace
presence, are called mechanical ‘I’s.
Mr. Burton keeps emphasizing that when we
are not making efforts to promote presence,
whatever we are doing is simply thwarting
self-remembering and displacing presence.
The literature of the Sufis repeatedly stresses
this truth, although it is easy to miss
their message by taking the words literally.
For example, when the Sufis speak of love,
they are speaking about efforts to promote
presence.
Mr.
Burton also points out that the knowledge
of the Sufis derives from the same objective
source as the Fourth Way. After all, Mr.
Gurdjieff himself was in direct connection
with the Sufis of his time. Clearly, the
Sufis understood that being present is the
door to the miraculous, and that tremendous
discipline is required to continuously focus
on the effort to promote presence. One of
the Sufis, Abu Said, wrote: “Do not
occupy your precious time except with the
most precious of things, and the most precious
of human things is the state of being occupied
with the present.”
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Other
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Videos of
Robert Earl Burton teaching
Suggested
reading about Fourth Way ideas
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
The foundation of the Fourth Way
Self-remembering · divided
attention · consciousness
Man as a machine · the many
'I's
Barriers to self-remembering ·
working in a school
2
The theory of centers
(requires lecture 1)
The 4 lower centers
The sex center
Higher centers
The soul, the spirit
3
Promoting and prolonging presence
(requires lecture 1 and 2)
Practical ways to introduce and sustain
self-remembering
Membership
information
The Fellowship
of Friends is a Fourth Way school with
centers worldwide. Membership is monthly.
For details:
Find a center nearest you.
Email contact@beingpresent.org.
Call 1-800-642-0212.
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Statue of an eagle. Collection of the Fellowship
of Friends.
Thoughts on presence
Moments of consciousness are very short and
are separated by long intervals of completely
unconscious, mechanical working of the machine.
You will then see that you can think, feel,
act, speak, work, without being conscious
of it.
George Gurdjieff
One moment you are aware of yourself, another
moment you are not: you do things, you speak,
you write—and you are not conscious.
We never realize that we are present, that
we are conscious, that we are here.
Peter Ouspensky
Accept what the present brings and live in
that. If one is not established in the present
then one is nowhere and nothing is possible.
Rodney Collin
It is difficult for one's work ‘I’s
to emerge from the chaos of imagination, because
the many mechanical ‘I’s compete
to prevent them from rising to the surface.
Until your last breath, your work ‘I’s
must oppose your mechanical ‘I’s.
This is the esoteric meaning of the Philokalia
when it says, 'Expect temptation till your
last breath.'
Robert Earl Burton
Make the divine present your destination.
Al
Ghazali
Give
value to your time, live in the present moment.
Do not live in imagination and throw your
time away.
Ibn Arabi
Each
moment fills my chalice with presence; this
is my wine, I drink the present moment.
Bahauddin
Attend upon the Lord without distraction.
Corinthians
7:35
This
most subtle awakening comes about through
moment-to-moment attentiveness.
Buddha
Be attentive with the awareness which does
not think.
Zen Master
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