Emotion

Transcript of tape, abridged – 2005, Rosh Pina, Israel.

 

 

 

'What do I want to come out of this?' Do you ever do that – start to talk or do something or go some place, and stop to ask yourself, 'what do I want to come out of this?' From what I've seen, that question is not so natural for people in general. It's somewhat 'super-natural'. 

 

In any case, that's what I ask now – 'what for? – what do I want to come out of this?' 

 

We'll try to approach it this way, long way around : I think people AGONIZE most often, and then get so used to it that they don't even notice it anymore. Agonize, basically, because they're not feeling as good as they would like to, or as good as they have at one or another time in the past. 

 

Most of the things we call 'good' have at least as much anxiety in it, as it has good. A very mixed kind of good – maybe good for one 'center' and not for another. Nevertheless we have a memory of when we felt 'perfectly good' and experience an agony, more or less, when we're not in that place. One of the reasons for that is that we generally don't have the HABITS that can maintain us at that higher level. 

 

Most of our habits are of struggle – with the fear, the greed, the insult, on and on and on. The struggle of how to protect, how to get, how to hold – always something to the advantage of 'me, mine and more'. Among other things, the psychological ideas of the Work attempt to deal with this, what seems, endless anxiety. 

 

We learnt to live within what could be called 'Program A' : a life based on the betterment of 'me'. An 'I' which is constructed from a vague sense of yesterday, a shaky today and a speculative tomorrow. That’s all basically within a media inspired, imaginative, 'time picture' – all geared towards 'tomorrow'. You can say all kinds of things about it, but it's like a mountain of yesterdays that keeps building up and keeps us constantly, nervously, and busily, trying to project some kind of 'future'. 

 

The WORK is about NOW. That’s what we're missing – I, NOW. That requires a completely new program : 'Program B'. You have to learn how to function in the now – what gets in the way and what assists – so that you can truly be. The first thing you must grasp is what you have to DO – to BE. For if you'd be, you'd then be in a totally different relationship to life. It's the end of one story – and it's the beginning of another.  

 

We're living in a period of history the likes of which mankind has never before experienced – world-wide global hysterics. There is nothing  remotely close to it in what we call 'recorded history'. There are reports of the sunken continent of Atlantis, 'way back when' – a highly developed, sophisticated, scientific civilization that brought about its own destruction. We are again living in that kind of mad self-destructive wave. 

 

I now have to raise my voice to clear a channel for some serious thoughts that cannot come thorough while talking so 'nice and gentle'. These days are really remarkable. The Jews who would never teach Kabbalah to anyone less than forty and having experienced all the complexities of married life, are now ready to instruct anybody who shows an interest. They knew that if a person were to be exposed to The Truth, all at once, they'd simply go crazy. And obviously nobody wanted that. Now, it's all so crazy, there's nothing to lose! We're in a totally different 'ball game'. I for one keep my eyes wide open to it, while knowing well that to communicate through all the current complexities is not a simple matter, in the least. 

 

We'll try to jump to a most essential issue : In a particular school of Hinduism, emotions are not dealt with, at all. Why? As The WORK points out, there is only ONE TRUE EMOTION, all the rest are 'fictitious'. In that Hindu school, they will relate only to the 'Divine Emotion', all others being disregarded. 

 

And then they supply us with this remarkable quote:

 

'EMOTIONS are a DISTORTION of an 

UNCONTROLLED and MISPLACED SENSATION.' 

 

That's an immense statement, no?

 

We have absorbed an immense mass of twisted energies, from distorted humankind, both current and from time immemorial. Accident on top of accident, on top of explanation, on top of accident, on top of everything. And, internally, as we reflect all of that mentally, emotionally and physically, the totality of those mixed vibrations, ends off IN THE BODY.

 

Our body is EARTH. You want peace, love, truth, presence, what some call 'God'? That's at the next level up, within. It's very 'innocent' relative to our so called normal 'sophisticated' world. But in order to raise to that higher level, sometimes called 'Heaven' – you must start from earth, in your body. 

 

We're always trying to jump to Heaven, from the level of the moon. The 'moon' being symbolic of imagination – reflected light, images, the media world, imaginary 'I', millions of imaginary 'I's'; 'I' like, 'I' don't like, 'I' want, 'I' don't, and everything in between. 

 

To live from a more Real Place within yourself you must be grounded. You can't get to Heaven from the moon. You can only get there from earth. Strange way to talk about it, but most accurate. 

 

By applying Work Ideas, slowly but surely you would stop spinning your wheels in the 'sands of time'. You would recognize the actual uselessness of it. From morning to evening we're thinking, thinking, thinking, doing, thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking. Why? What are we up to? We're trying to get 'happy', fully satisfied, right? 

 

We’re trying to 'think' ourselves into Heaven. And it doesn't work. You can't do that anymore than 'kiss your own elbows' or 'jump over your own knees'. That’s only frantically trying to establish an identity within a mass of old impressions. Actually, all 'I's' wish to escape from that circus. 

 

Should you manage to extract all the lies and distortions out it... well, there would be no 'I' left there, at all. Take 'yesterday' and 'tomorrow' away, and who are you? NOBODY! But within that truth, you are really SOMETHING ! The basic issue is not who are you – but what you are. 

 

'TO KNOW THY SELF, IS TO KNOW THY LORD.' 

And, for that, we have The Work. 

 

Everyone is living with one or another degree of pain, that they know has something to do with themselves and not merely 'circumstances'. People moving  through all kinds of emotional waves, and not feeling particularly well. Can you 'aware' the location of those feelings? It's VIBRATIONS – and they’re in your BODY. You can't 'think' yourself out of all of that in a million years. That level of thinking got you into it in the first place. 

 

'THE ONLY THING YOU CAN REALLY CALL THINKING                        

– IS THINKING FROM AN IDEA.' 

 

To think from a Work Idea – you must be present. It's not possible while you're in that place of 'grinding of the teeth'. You must be, to some degree. The degree that you can be, is the degree that a Work Idea can be integrated. To put it in simple language – you can't understand deeper than you are. You can only start to work from where you are, but you've got to be where you are, and in order to be where you are, you have to be sensitive to yourself, incarnate, in your fuck'n body – whether you like it or not, right?

 

So the Hindus say : 'EMOTIONS are a DISTORTION of an UNCONTROLLED and MISPLACED SENSATION.' 

 

Let's look at it – a distortion is something twisted, out of place. Here, of an uncontrolled and misplaced SENSATION. How do you control something? Anything? How can you control a sensation? Like everything else in the Work, it's indirect. How do you control a horse? First of all you have to get through its nervousness. ATTENTION is the necessity! Only by giving attention to a sensation can you get it 'under control'. It moves this way, that way, it moves up, it moves down. It's an issue of attention. So simple, so clear, so obvious. But our problem is that we don't have sufficient energy to fuel that attention. Where are we wasting it? Well, trying to 'figure out' all those, as if, 'funny' emotions. 

 

That’s DUM – D for distortion, U for uncontrolled, and M for misplaced. 

 

Now, by just hearing about Tamara in India, we can sense the emotional atmosphere there. God-knows what exactly is going on, but it passes right through me. I've been carrying it all day.

 

Merav: Me too!

 

Like it or not, it's like when someone sneezes in your face, you get it. I'm not complaining. There was the suggestion that came through Na'ama's channeled material that went something like : 'Don't lose energy on your friend's problems or pains, each one has got to go through what they've got to go through – they have their own lessons to learn.' You and I know her love well enough, we don't even have to think about it. But at the moment it feels like she's being torn apart. Hopefully not apart, but surely torn, pulled, pushed, whatever. If she’s lucky, she just might end off writing a book about it all someday.

 

Some years back a young women wrote a book called, 'I never promised you a Rose Garden.' It's mostly about her schizophrenic-inspired psychoanalysis. She went, very thankfully, very deep with her analyst, then, at some point, started to complain. She was seeing a lot, understanding a great deal about herself – but it didn't 'change the world!' So, the psychiatrist says to her : ''I never promised you a Rose Garden!'' 

 

Whatever is going on with Tamara in India, is not your problem – it's her life. But it's not so simple, because 'Tamara' also lives in 'your world'. Everyone is continuously adjusting their own inner world trying to 'accommodate' all those whom they know. You've got Tamara in your world, you've got me in your world, you've got Stephen, Eliya, your mother, your father and a few other people – actually, each and every person you ever ran into. And Tamara also has a world, containing her 'own' cast of people. 

 

What's the common element? How to think about it? Tamara asks, ''why don't you come?'' Not that you hadn't thought of it – but what of the implications for the future, you think, or the implications now? It connects with all kinds of things and sure stirs up a lot. Tamara is not a small issue for you, not at all. Something close there to what’s called a symbiotic-relationship. 'Symbiotic' suggests a kind of mutual reliance. She says that you're the best friend she's got, best she's ever had. And you go, ''wow, did I really fool her so much?'' No, no, you just think, ''wow!'' With anyone saying that, it's not a small thing.

 

The point I'm trying to make is, really, that the energies she's projecting at the moment are ones that you wouldn't particularly like to be part of. But you are empathizing with her. What can you do about it? Can you tell her anything, or not? You really can't do very much. What can she  'do'? Can she 'think' her way out of it all? 

 

''If you can't do nothing, you really can't do anything'' – then it's all just happening. What can you figure out? You can't 'figure' anything out. But that truth doesn't feel at all good. Why? Well, because it exposes all the things that are 'just going on in you'. It’s all vibrations. 

 

That's what was being said about 'emotion', as only identification with sensation. It results not from paying attention to sensation, but from the identification with it. What we’re touching here is essential, essential, essential. Hopefully we can get a handle on it – and stop trying to 'jump over our own knees'. 

 

When the mind is turning, pay attention to the sensations in the BODY. Does the usual thinking get you anywhere? When it just goes on by itself you're making the same mistake a million times a day. There's so much tension in the body that the mind wants to take 'personally' – and tries to 'struggle' with. It sometimes seems the only alternative is a drug, sex, or television. 

 

No one can digest a Work Idea for you. And it doesn't happen 'just like that'. But as this world continues to spin faster and faster we desperately need something 'just like that'. We need something immediate. And what you've got 'most immediate', is your body.

 

Does it feel so bad to be simply your SELF? Not at all, right? So, we just might get closer to the bottom of this now. The closer to the real, to the tears, the more beautiful it becomes, actually. 

 

What about the 'usual' emotions?

 

Tami: A Distortion of an Uncontrolled and Misplaced Sensation. 

 

Alan: Yes. And that statement is not merely an excuse – it's an enticement.  'Enticement' is like encouragement, only stronger. To be enticed is to be tempted, in a way. Here we have an enticement for directed attention. Eventually a person should be sensitive to the TOTAL VIBRATION OF THEIR BODY. 

 

It's said, you know, very respectfully by Dr. Nicoll, that a person can remember themself in quite a simple way. How? Well, the moment that you become aware that you don’t remember yourself – at that very moment, to some extent, you are remembering yourself. And again, as you remember yourself – pass your attention around the body. 

 

'YOU CAN KNOW THE PIECES FROM THE WHOLE – BUT YOU CAN NEVER KNOW THE WHOLE FROM THE PIECES.' 

 

That works on a number of levels. As Shakespeare put it : 'to be or not to be, that is the question'. It's the simplest thing, the most natural thing in the world. You don't have to tell that to a child. The Truth is simple – and real learning starts from that Truth. Anything that you'd like to feel guilty about, or proud about, is complete and absolute nonsense – it's subjective picturing, judgment, based on nothing.

 

When I hear about Tamara I absorb her inside of myself as quickly as you do. And I have to say it can tear me apart. How can it do that? Well, I can get identified with her. Like, 'what is

she going to do?' Of course she's got a lot more within herself than whatever our imaginations cook up. You understand? We don't know the total situation. That's why worrying about another person is so ridiculous. She's no doubt finding out that freedom is not so simple, and a few other things. But it's still enough to make you cry. Stupid, how stupid. There were two to three hundred thousand people that just drowned in her area, just like that. And there's, god knows, millions homeless sitting on rocks and hoping for someone to drop them some food. And we are going to worry about…? She'll eventually become aware of why she does what she does, and what she wants, and what might be, or could be, whatever. She has the basics to ground herself. She wanted to be in a place where she could sit quietly and reflect, right? Well, I'm sure there are places like that in India. She's also carrying the Hu cards, The Sermon on the Mount and The Neglected Gift of Discomfort. Nonetheless, she left here like someone flying straight out of a slingshot. 

 

Entre-nous, I think she's going to do just fine. But it may take some time, maybe some years. In the document 'Priorities' recorded on her thirtieth-birthday, I said that I was not so impressed with her passing the thirty-mark. That I was really more interested in where she'll be when she’s seventy. And that's coming around the corner quicker than you can imagine. 

 

Our hope isn't in how to have a picnic in hell. It's to pass through all of this with our sanity intact. You've got to transit this life intelligently, prepared for another level. And not to wait, and to expect it only after you die. The trick is to do it, definitely, before you die. 

 

There's a lot of junk in everybody. Gurdjieff said : ''you people think, think, think – I don't think, I watch!'’ There's something so large in that. And there's a great deal more that came through this man having to do with SELF-knowledge, BE-coming, really alive. 'A World outside – a Universe inside'. Knowledge is needed.  

 

Should you believe you're not in need, then you can just keep 'wiggling' through life. Wiggle until you get so very tired that instead of wiggling you just might want to make the effort to CLIMB. Sometimes it appears nobody really wants to – but can anyone say that's not somehow connected with what we're all about? 

 

Each one can understand all this, more or less. It makes sense. Oh yes, it does! In a strange, but very true way, everything you've done in your life, up to now – is tironut (Basic-training). 

'This ain't a dream no more, it's the real thing', as Dylan put it.  So, best remember the BEST of what you know, now. 

 

'DON'T BE SO BUSY KEEPING PEOPLE HAPPY – KEEP GOD HAPPY !' 

 

What would keep 'God' happy? BE PRESENT ! Even if someone tries to give you a 'kick in the ass' while you're making that effort – it's still better, sooner than later.