These exchanges complete the report of the meeting of Tuesday 20 August 1985. The first question was from Spider, who said he felt he hadn’t been making many efforts, and especially that he had delayed the morning preparation until he had done other things, and when he comes to write his task for the day, can’t usually think of anything, and if he does write something down it’s not practical. It was also an issue that he asked that question, and been answered before.
“You write down what you feel is important,” said Mr Adie, “that you just had a quiet moment and some of the thoughts were of more value than others. Some of them may have shown you what you need. It’s something of that I make a note of.”
“Writing it down, and also reading it later on, will mean that its formulated for me. So, it becomes available for me on the level of consciousness of writing down. I don’t have to be caught up to the seventh heaven in order to remember it. Are you following?”
“I need to know why I make a note of something. I see it’s vital that when I get a reminder some self-search is necessary. A thousand things can call me, and then I immediately seek for myself. If I have written that down, it means I got somethingfrom my preparation.”
“I establish a fact. I want facts of all kinds. If you had thought carefully, you’d probably have found quite a good few facts the last few days. If you were to write those facts down you wouldn’t so sort of doubtful. But it means to act, it means actually coming to myself and taking pen and paper, and having a valuation of the struggle I am engaged on.”
The next question was from Sandra: “Mr Adie, I feel that I have some attention but I also feel that there’s something missing, something else is needed. I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t know whether I really have some sort of presence or if it’s just intellectual or … Am I expecting too much? I don’t really understand it.”
“Part of that,” said Mr Adie, “is that there’s a sort of commentary on my state. We’re trying to watch ourselves, and you can’t prevent associations operating, so there’ll be little bits of questions and things and other ideas connected to them and to each other. You must expect that. It’s not a beautiful clear transition from my ordinary sleep to this atmosphere here which can give me a lot. So, it can help to remind me of what I am really interested in finding out. It’s a good thing. Of course, a moment of presence can come, and then it goes in a flash and I’m left with a sort of “well I wonder” sense. You don’t need to worry about that; you just know that there are these commentaries: they can even be valuable, because otherwise you might slip into a comfortable slumber.”
“So, it becomes true for me that I have thousands of I’s, little I’s, big I’s, bad I’s, good I’s; a mixture, a whole family with all sorts of history and everything, and all of them can pop up by association, even when I go to a meeting and there are ideas and other people and visual impressions, sounds, music. It isn’t at all reasonable to think that this hoard of inhabitants are going to stay quiet all the time, there’re not. There’re all active, some of them are creeping, some of them are peering about, but they’re all there. Every now and again, one or two of the gang make just enough noise to arouse my notice.”
Sandra replied: “I was just a bit concerned that maybe I was believing that I was in a good state when I was in a bad one.”
“Yes, many of these things don’t want any interference, they hide from this strong light. They want a gloom that they can play around in, and so they feed these doubts. So switch on the light. I have to get used to all the things that can arise, and in a way hope that they do, because until they do, I can’t deal with them yet. Begin with your presence, before I come to a conclusion in my thought, I need my presence first. I know I’m here. Right. What I might observe that I can perhaps rely on, at least as long as I’m here.”
The last question was from Remmy, who said that when he gets thrown into a state of displeasure or disagreement, he maintains it for a period of time. He concluded: “On one occasion I tried to break the spell and it was kind of valuable experience.”
“Describe the experience: not the circumstances, the experience,” said Mr Adie.
Remmy said that he had put his arm around her.
“Have you any question about it?” asked Mr Adie.
“The question is, to see this clearly and not to be carried by some disagreement or conflict of ideas which create a negative atmosphere.”
“Yes, but there’s more: if she had offended you three times as badly would you have able to do so?”
“No.”
“What would have happened? It doesn’t sound that the offence was very much, it’s more of a question of habit on your part of some kind rather than a conflict which has crept up. There isn’t any big fire there, there’s just this tremendous slothfulness, the power of sheer laziness, but there’s no fire there. Anyone who has really gone against a powerful negative emotion knows that in order to act it requires all their force. I mean it really enters the realm of real deep negative emotion and the absence of feeling; and then, in order to act, I have to get into the realm of feeling, and that will be very difficult.”
Joseph Azize, 19 September 2019
