This continues the meeting of Thursday 1 November 1979. Gary said that at work he speaks to his supervisor in different ways depending on how he sees his position. When he feels under threat, he tries to please her. Recently, when he had some attention as he was speaking with her, he spoke to her in quite a different, even a cheeky way.
“Then you have seen an important habit, but you still have something else to see there,” said Mr Adie. “Maybe it’s preferable to be cheeky, maybe it’s not totally preferable. I have to be present, preferably without interfering, so all my previous ideas of this and this and this are a waste of time. So I want to be present and see what is happening.”
Gary then added that on other occasions since, when he had not been remembering himself, he tried to cover up that he had not done what she asked about by explaining how well he had done something else.
Mr Adie came back to the point he had started with: “It’s a beginning, because how you are manifesting is of course connected and dependent upon what is inside. So you go on, and you will find what is inside as you become less identified with this way of behaving. You will be able to see it, and to see the amusing side of it, as well as anything else. It is already a freedom to begin to see what is happening inside. A tremendous lot is happening inside, but we’re not yet enough there to know. So it’s a good ground. It’s interesting. And it is the experience of being present. You see, to a certain extent you were present. You couldn’t give the clear account you have given unless you had been. But it was not accompanied by a sense of complete freedom or the ability to change anything. The way you spoke just changed in a way that surprised you. But this ability to choose will come, you see. And then you can have an aim in what you say and how you say it. There was something else you were going to say?”
Gary added that this is not an isolated incident, “and there is more than I can handle, as if I am becoming less secure.”
“Yes, but if you are more present you will be able to handle more. Surely you find that in the exercise, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“See, the exercise is an exercise just in this kind of ability to be aware of different things at the same time, different inner things, you see.”
That was the end of the exchange with Gary. I think that what he meant when he said he was less secure, was that he felt less secure because the experience of being more present was almost too much for him. Mr Adie’s response was effectively no, all it means is that you are not in one of your usual “I”s, but the very understanding of this, and of continuing your efforts, will increase your ability to deal with the reality.
The next question was from Silvio. He said that his work has been concerned in looking at women with lust and constantly fantasizing. While he is driving, he said, he can’t seem to give it up. Silvio, by the way, was married, and his wife was in the same group.
“Yes, you can, if you’re serious about it. If you come to the conclusion that you need to give it up, it’s not difficult. But you need to come to the serious conclusion to give it up at least for a bit. But you have to be present, in a most genuine, serious part, on your own, and decide: am I serious about it? Or is it just an imaginary thing which I have got, and which I get directly the opportunity comes. Be present to it. Try and be present. You can do all sorts of things: you can decide that every second time you are driving you will not look. You can use it, and it doesn’t matter how you use it.”
“But you cannot possibly go against the tremendous fact of male and female. You distort the whole thing with imagination and all the rest. It’s quite possible for you to do something when you’re driving around, and as you are together with your business partner when you’re driving, it would help him if you did succeed. Not in a sort of stuffy righteous way, but just in a genuine way. You could probably succeed more if you were on your own, it would be easier, you may even consider about your decision, you don’t like to even reveal that you’re sincere about the thing. I don’t know.”
Mr Adie’s guess was right. Silvio said that that was exactly what happened, the presence of his business partner was a sort of goad.
“Don’t you see that there is nothing for any of us if we do not approach our serious part regularly, periodically? Otherwise it is just wiseacring, talking about work, talking about the system. There’s no real substance in it. And all these bogeys about good and bad is all beside the point. What I really want is, again, to be present to see what is going on. If I can seewhat is going on, I can be more present, because I see the necessity for it. If I am more present, I begin to understand, and everything changes.”
I think that Mr Adie’s answer to Silvio was very important: our culture is identified with sex to the point of madness, but we can overcome it, and we should, because an ability to control one’s reactions in sexual matters is a mark of a conscious man.
Joseph Azize, 6 June 2018
