This is from the meeting of Tuesday 3 March 1987. The first question was from Paul. On Friday night, he said, his briefcase was stolen from his car, with its financial records and travellers’ cheques. He should not have left it in his car, and he should have had his accounts written up long before. He did come to himself, and became much calmer at a meeting about it with his boss, but to some extent he was using the work to cope with his mistakes and help support his vanity.
“Be very careful about that,” counselled Mr Adie. “Before you had the meeting, you had recollected your wish not to be floored by it, and then you experienced the possibility of being entirely separate. But how could you be? What would be possible? You have to recognise the reality of the situation. There is this actual contact. After all, you live on the earth. You can’t wish not to be related to the earth on which you live. So we have to have two lives simultaneously. Then, when you come to your confrontation, if you remember your wish to a certain degree, there are benchmarks to help you, if you remember to look for them: your degree of presence, your degree of relaxation. These will show you what is possible.”
After a pause, he continued: “Another thing: do not accuse yourself of using the work unless it is true. Of course you use the work, and that is good if it brings you more of the wish to be present. If you think that you can work to be present without contact with your life, it is fallacy. So your self-accusation of using the work is, at that moment, probably in question, because you are bound to use everything you have, and probably also to misuse. But I have to recognise this, that I live on the earth, under the sun, under the rules of that world. If I understand that, it makes the work and the improvement of my state of being possible, because otherwise I would go in to see him perfectly serene and blissful. But that would be detached from all reality, and that wouldn’t be any good at all for anybody. He lives within his set of rules and expectations, as do you. But it is possible for a man to live in two worlds simultaneously. I mean, you had the recollection, you were aware of your identification, you were aware of this tendency, so what more could you desire, except to be more present, to be more available?”
“I am available to all influences, low and high, as well. Otherwise I might expect to deny the earth on which I live. Do you see how it opens? We need to open our work in that way. It isn’t this strange thing, and this position. When we are doing a preparation, if we could realise how privileged that is, we would do a better preparation. That is just the time when we can separate ourselves, to a certain extent. When we can relax more. We try and choose a time when we are not going to be interrupted. If we are going to be interrupted, or liable to be, then we must realise that the preparation is going to be of that kind, and not expect to have the same quality of calm. You can’t go into the workshop with tremendous noises going on, beating of hammers, and trolleys and pulleys, without being affected by it.”
“It is our work to see exactly what is possible in the present situation. That is our work all the time. And that’s why every second is unique. Every second demands a presence; some with recognition and that recognition begins to give power of choice, because what recognises has that energy. All different energies flowing in us. If I am present, I begin to see the energies which I need, and the forces, the energies which just flow around automatically are not dominating to the same extent. Flow in any direction. That is how it works. I have a finer energy. The energy of attention. This is the major energy, the energy of attention, but I am unaware of what is going on. It even takes precedence over my wish, in a way, because if I do not know what is going on my wish is not going to be fulfilled. So it’s that subtle order, that movement of forces. Everything is movement. It’s movement of energy, moving all the time. Now, everything is moving in us, coarse energy, fine energy.”
The next question came from Christine. She had received much from the movements. She has been jaded lately. She is changing her job, and hopes it will be better for her, as there will be more physical work.
“Very interesting. Whatever may happen, there will be a change. A change. Two lives simultaneous. There is no good walking into the thing with unrealistic expectations. You can’t. First of all, you can never maintain it, and second, you’ll probably fall over the door mat, which is not the way to walk in, and then that’s it. And then, when a crisis occurs, if one has been practising to accept the reality, however it may be, it is marvellous what it gives. It gives the recognition that these are the facts, and so it no good trying to step outside them: these are the things which have to be attended to.”
“So, you prepare and then try and be present in a way that is possible. It is no good imagining that you are not going to be taken. You are. In a way, after a preparation, I open my eyes, you might almost say, to be taken. I do not really do that, but immediately I open my eyes, everything beckons and I am taken. I have to open my eyes and be present. So, if I can, then the flow is two ways. First, I have my preparation. I separate myself. I go inside. Now I am open, but the inside is still there.”
18 November 2017
