Talk with Three Sisters

 

(August 2005)

 

If I can put out clearly what I want to get across to you tonight it will be a miracle. A little or a big miracle, if only to make myself clear. What you might do with it is another story.  

 

I made some notes from different angles on what I wanted to say but I'm not going to look back at that right away. I'll see what's possible to get through now – maybe we'll just have to wait until we have the right level of energy. I would like to have the right level. You people have had meditation exercises in the past. Maybe you can now think of your best one – just to remember, in your mind, when you were most serious, and most within your own being. You must have some experience of that – not as an explanation, but as a FACT. Maybe you can get there without me having to continually throw my voice out. 

 

I guess that's what people are generally trying to do when they yell at each other. They really don't know what they are doing, but they're trying to REACH a person, maybe only to get some attention – so they yell. Now, to relate to people, you've got to sort of bypass their fear of that sort of 'aggression'. 

 

Your Being was there BEFORE your fear. When a person yells at you, you run, you go, you move – unless, that is, if you WANT something from them. Then you, as they say, 'bite your lip', and take it – you know you have to get BEHIND it. Everybody does that every once in a while. 

 

I don't want to make the mistake of over generalizing when I say, Martha, Sharon and Hanna, as if they were one and the same. God knows how different you are, at least on the surface. On the other hand I met you all at the same time and on the 'bounce', so to speak. That expression is usually used in reference to love affairs. You know, someone gets DUMPED, and then someone new comes along and they fall into their arms. They say 'they meet on the bounce'. People are sort of vulnerable then. Something just finished, nothing yet started, so they're on the bounce. So, I kind of met you people on the bounce - and that's where a common element came in. 

 

That's more than fifteen years ago. You all came from the same 'school'. Actually, everything in life is a school. The small school being you, the big school is life. Everything in-between is school at one level or another – like it or not, acknowledge it or not. Everything that a person is involved in is like a CLASSROOM. Of course most get IDENTIFIED up to their neck, get to feel that their 'life depends on it'. They don't generally see it as something to LEARN from.  Sometimes, vaguely, they see that. But mostly, ninety percent of the time, identified. "Oh yes, school, of course, in everything I'm learning, I'm learning." But they don't REALLY take that issue seriously. 

 

Now, whether you acknowledge it, know it, believe it or not, doesn't really matter – you are an INCARNATE SOUL, that didn't start here, and is not going to end here. This is an episode, a QUICK episode. You are already old enough to know that. 

 

You can do like the politicians and kiss all the babies in the world, but that's not going to change the reality, that you are here to LEARN SOMETHING YOURSELF. That doesn't mean you shouldn't kiss children. In the Koran, in the holy Koran, the statement is made: "Not your children and not your property will help you." Now, THAT'S worth pondering. What does it mean, 'not help you'? Help you for what? 

 

Now, you three came here from a certain 'situation', together, and you have pretty well kept in touch. I don't know if you think about it very much but your relationship with each other is DIFFERENT from your relationships with other people. You happen to know each other kind of well and more or less trust each other. More than less. And the last thing in the world that you're prone to do is to criticize each other, because in face of each other no one is pretending to be perfect. With other people it's a different story. Generally, to maintain some kind of 'identity', you've got to sell yourselves as 'something'. You hardly notice it but you're doing it all the time, in order to maintain a relationship with new people, and some 'old' people, that somehow don't have the same 'taste' of what you had when you were working together. Something called 'spiritual'. 

 

I hate the word spiritual – IT'S ALL SPIRITUAL! But, you three had a more or less common connection with MIKE, that had a HOPE in it which wasn't of the usual kind. Maybe it had the usual kind in it as well, I don't know. But basically it wasn't of the usual kind – so you share that. Not only in memory, and not sentimentally, but actually, from your deepest experiences there. It had a particular focus – that's a fact. 

 

I'm going to take that fact a little further tonight. Maybe a lot further. It's really amazing that I have to put these words to it for you to recognize it, if only in the way you're feeling the ISSUE at the moment. 

 

Okay then, a short few months, not even years, went by and you met Alan. We won't try to analyze that at the moment but somehow that's what got you to this village, just in case you forgot. Now, when I met you – and here are three things that I put down on paper - you were presenting yourselves in a particular way, which I accepted. I didn't think much about it then, but somehow it rang true, at least in terms of intention. Things that you held YOURSELVES up to be. Three things, actually: 'I'm INTELLIGENT, I'm GOOD and I'm SERIOUS'. That's how you presented yourselves. And that's where I related to you from. 

 

As a matter of fact that's not so unusual. I relate to people from how they present themselves. I relate to quite a lot of people. I guess you've noticed that. You've been in this area for around fifteen years. I've been here for some thirty years. And I arrived here older than you. And I knew why I came. Actually I came some five thousand kilometers to get here. Then, in these thirty years I would guess that there has been an average of close to ten people living with me. Some for longer, some shorter periods. Plus a goodly number not at the house that I related to quite intimately. I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say that I relate to you three quite intimately. Not so frequently, but intimately. That's just a bit of a background. We'll come back to the point.

 

Of all people that I relate to, at some level, and there are different levels, I relate to them also as they present themselves, as 'intelligent'.

 

Intelligent? Yes, intelligent. Not necessarily measured against anyone else in particular, but yes, as you, as intelligent, good, and serious. Anybody that doesn't put out those three 'odors' I'm not interested in, in the least, or, as they say, 'not for love nor money'. 

 

Now, after these fifteen years plus, here in this village, you all have been through a lot. With children, money, houses, with family, with trying to survive physically, emotionally, mentally. You've had quite busy lives. And also, you had the 'benefit' of my – I don't know what to call it – 'decision?' Well, it wasn't really a matter of decision. Let's say my natural disposition. I had to put it into words with Hanna, at first, when she asked me, "would you accept me as a student?" I didn't know her so well at the time but it sounded to me more like a request to be ADOPTED, than anything else. She already knows that element in herself. How was I to relate to that? What am I going to say? Yes? No? What did she mean by 'student'? What exactly was she asking? I don't know, was she asking for a commitment, from me?

 

Martha: For knowledge. 

 

Well, I guess that DEEP down that's what everyone wants – Knowledge, Being, maybe Enlightenment, I don't know what. I don't assume that her question was only an expression of an habitual weakness, but it did have that very questionable element in it. My response to her, which I'll tell you in a minute, would have been the same whether that question arose or not. It's pretty much the same with you people, who might more or less be thinking, 'I wasn't asking for anything, actually!' 

 

The Koran says that with people in their general state, "you've got to drag them away in chains". It's not that you've got to PUT chains on somebody – they ARE in chains. How many kinds of identifications, how many fears, how many manipulations. I'm looking at this 'generally' - if the hat fits, put it on. Okay? 

 

But what I DID say to her in answer to her question was: "I'll tell you ONE thing – I'll relate to you." 

 

And that's what I've been doing. Not exclusively, but when I relate, I relate seriously. Sometimes that's liked and sometimes it's resented. I am able to do that freely and in good conscience, without any expectation. Because, I don't owe you a thing! There is nothing that I do that comes from 'owing'. 

 

Now the truth of the matter is, that if you could 'swallow' that totally in your own life, you could already go your own fine way. NO ONE owes you a thing! And, you don't owe anybody. You're lucky if you understand that. Because, owing doesn't bring proper action, calm action, action from conscience - not love, not presence, not nothing. Guilt, it brings! 

 

NOTHING healthy comes from guilt. INTELLIGENCE doesn't come from guilt. You've heard me say that before. It is most difficult for people to hear that without feeling, as if, 'resentment'. "What, I don't owe my children? My children don't owe me? My parents don't owe me? I don't owe my parents? Well, if I accepted that, I wouldn't exist, almost. What could I count on?" Well… what CAN you count on? 

 

Now I can lower my tone, I think, without the risk of losing your 'presence'. Look, each one of you in your own particular way of expressing it, have indicated to me more than once, that the WORK that you came across here, you thank God for! It's expressed differently by each one of you. I am putting in the emphasis. But when it is said, it's FELT, to the degree that you couldn't imagine yourselves without it. 

 

You know, there's so little spare energy, to look at other people, or even to WONDER how they deal with anything, really, other than when they get irritable. But there are people in this room, as well as others, that relate to the Work at times so seriously that you MIGHT wonder – exactly what does it mean to THEM? It's just a word! What is the Work? You could ask Dina for instance, she would also say she is working and you can ask Nili, she would probably also say…you could ask Laurence, he would be working, and you can ask Jacky and he's also working, not only working but teaching sometimes. And I could go on and on, of people that you know. 

 

Now, are they doing the same thing you are doing? Does the word 'Work' mean the same thing to each of them? God knows! Do you ever really think about it?  I came across someone recently in K'lil that got more than a little irritated with me. He said, "don't you SEE I'm working?" 

 

So, it's a very interesting question, no? If you're 'working', what are you actually doing, why are you doing it, and what do you expect the result to be? What was said before, when I asked about Hanna? Knowledge? Okay, 'knowledge'. Then what's this knowledge good for? Knowledge for what? Oh, you can say 'self knowledge'. Okay, self knowledge…I mean... you can juggle with a vocabulary very easily. What is the AIM, what is the purpose of the Work? What is the Work, other than your relationship to it? Did anyone ever think of that? The Work has its own aims. What would you say the aim of the Work is?

 

Martha: Individual evolution.

 

And what is evolution? What evolves? Is there anyone in this room who has a sense of haolam haba (the afterlife)? Or are you trying to squeeze orgasms out of the petty little few years that you're here? 

 

Yes, "Working for life and working for death is the same thing." 

 

But your pissy little couple of years here doesn't match up very well to Eternity, does it? Does anyone ever think of that? The hope of the Work is to have a SURVIVABLE 'something'. Are you aware of that? Or is it for your pleasure and pride and significance in life? What do you want more, a soul that can survive, or to be 'respected'… by whomever... your boyfriend, your children, the banker, the neighbors. It's not a small issue. 

 

The issue of the Work is to allow the 'seed', that YOU are, to grow, into a Survivable Being. Does that sound new to you? Can you think of anything that is more significant? 

 

I'll tell you something else. For a SERIOUS worker, any other person who is working is as important to them as themself. That's the BOTTOM LINE of 'external considering'. And that's the bottom line of this conversation. 

 

You came from a 'school'. Everyone I know comes from a school. One comes from a university. That's a school. Also, from off a basketball court. That's also a school. Also came out of a family, another school. You three came from the same school. Your school told you there is something DIFFERENT from the way people usually take their lives. A certain quality that's called, excuse the expression, 'spiritual'. Something that is more subtle, wider, more amazing than the world that people generally experience.  Other than the fucking, the children, the family, the money, the property. Something different than usual life. 

 

'Life', in this sense, being everything that has a beginning and an end. EVERYTHING that has a beginning has an end! At the SPIRITUAL LEVEL – I'll use the word in different ways although I dislike it – THERE IS NO BEGINNING AND NO END. 

 

So, you arrived from somewhere and then have had your experiences here. You have gone through a lot. Oh my goodness. You've been hit by cars, you've been hit by men, among other things. In this country, in this 'wonderful' environment, we are without culture. Religious culture, hardly thought of, but dumped. What are we left with? In a religious family, or an Arab family, when you come across someone who is older than you, you look twice before you 'twiddle your thumbs'. Just simple respect. We are living in a society of a hundred different broken cultures. Each one rejects the other, so there is no culture. Nobody knows what the fuck to do. Well, it's very difficult, because when you can do 'anything', you really don't know what to do. So, it all becomes a kind of 'license', without even realizing it. Everyone becomes their own culture. 

 

Martha has had many experiences with Arabs, who have a culture, hey? It really is a culture of respect. The Jews here, generally, don't respect nothing: "I'm getting, or I'm not getting"! We talked about it before: "I want, I don't want. I like, not like". Life becomes, as if, very simple. What is there to respect? You wouldn't know an honorable person if you met one, because you don't yet know what that is in yourself. You hardly ever had an experience of that even in your own family. It's a fact, it's just a fact. Anyone who thinks I'm wrong, write me a letter please and I'll correct my impression. That's again a generalization. Your father, Martha, considers himself an honorable man and tries to live up to it. So you know something of honorable and careful, right? 

 

I'm going to jump around to different points, and then I'll end off with the 'grand finale'. I'm about to make a very serious suggestion that maybe will only come clear closer to the end. 

 

It's pretty serious stuff here. What am I really trying to do? Actually, I'm trying to do it all the time. To make an 'argument', so to speak, or a description of The Work, which WILL STAND. Somehow for you to grasp a picture, so when you say to yourself, 'I'm working', it doesn't turn into a 'fogy, fogy night in London Town', as Frank Sinatra would put it.

 

Okay, we'll build a little bit on this business of 'soul'. Can you not already see that most every thing that you're doing has only its small ups and downs, that you're most of the time grasping at straws? After your past 'school', then years here and with your 'pleasure in the Work', let's look at the facts. Like most in our society, you're all on pills or dope. That's a great sign of success! Just as a fact. I don't think that's the most horrible thing in the world, but it has to be recognized. It's a crutch. Now, you know it. 

 

This is a very difficult world, a very difficult time. Everyone is on drugs in this society. If they're not on pills, whatever they call them, they are on dope, or liquor, or sleeping pills and tranquilizers. You're not in a very different situation, actually. Maybe a bit more, because you're so 'sensitive'. Sensitive souls, that have come into this world for a REASON. To get rid of some kind of bullshit, so you can 'move on'. 

 

This is a very cold planet. You take the lesson here, or you'll come back 'till you do. But you are sophisticated dudes, you are. I mean, you're in the 'Work'. To build a SOUL isn't a completely new idea to you, although you haven't thought about that in some time. Sometimes you wonder how you're going to get through the day! That's the fact of the matter. What I'm talking about here, now, one way or another, is why you are here in this world, whether you know it or like it or not.

 

Ah, I love you too! That means I SEE YOU. I like it better put that way. And it's nice to be seen, without 'hunger', no? It's different to be seen, than to be 'wanted'. It's not the same. 

 

There is an expression that comes to mind now, that says: "When ONE person awakens all the angels rejoice". When one person remembers themself, when one person awakens, all the angels rejoice. So my interest in you is also…we could all use a little rejoicing. One person's awakening is Universal. If you awaken to your Real Self, at that level, in any language, there is an EQUALITY. What is Real in you, is the Real in everybody. There is One Real. It's sometimes referred to as the 'Christ level', or 'All Suns' at a cosmic level. Well, you see, I talk in different terms, different languages. Certain people might get a 'lift' from it. For me, your benefit is no different than my benefit. I don't know what I can say, but I can't even think of 'my benefit'.

 

The Work is called New Meaning. New Meaning! It's got a direction to it completely different from the usual. We don't live in a world that is really interested in Real I, in Soul, in a SURVIVABLE SOMETHING, larger than these few pissy petty years that we are here. 

 

New meaning! That's why the Koran says: "Not your children and not your property will help you". You can hold on to nothing! Everyone is trying to 'hold on'. But what has a beginning, has an end. How can you hold on? Your child didn't come until 'afterwards', and you're going to go 'before', or they can go before. Who can hold on to what? They too have a soul, and are also down here to learn something. Not to play baby, not to be famous, not just to come for Sabbath dinner. New Meaning – hopefully they'll come to a realization of that too.

 

So, each of you have said at one time or another – I don't know if you ever used these exact words – that you're 'committed to the Work'. You're committed to the Work, you say! Are you committed to the Work?

 

Hanna is busy. She has her music, work with children and art as well. These are places where she can give something and get something. There is a hope in those things, right? There is hope in the family, there is hope in art, there is hope in music and there is hope in the children. Nothing NEW about that! That's not 'New Meaning'. What that has got to do with the building of a Soul, other than maybe indirectly? What has that got to do with non-critical self-observation, with self-knowledge, now? What's that got to do with non-identification, with self-remembering, now? 

 

When you're IDENTIFIED with something, you DON'T remember yourself. Your 'I' is in what you're identified with. It's one thing to be AWARE - knowing what the mind, the emotions are doing, what the body is sensing, to be aware NON-CRITICALLY – and it's quite another thing to be IDENTIFIED with it, calling it 'I'. Because, when you do that, YOU are not really present, not remembering yourSelf. 

 

Everything is always changing, outside and inside. There is ONE THING in you that doesn't change. That's your CONSCIOUSNESS – where you can be established in Real I. Everything else passes on the screen of consciousness. It starts and it goes. And you live in the identification of those PICTURES, and get an as if 'identity' in it. It's not your REAL IDENTITY at the very Source – it's not 'real'. 

 

There is something extremely essential in what was just said. That which is real in you can SURVIVE THE DEATH OF THE BODY. There is something really worthwhile to DO, on top of this generally comic/tragic trip. At the very least, not to 'slip down'. 

 

Well, you might come back for another try on this, or maybe some other planet, in case this one gets blown up, which is a very real possibility.

 

So, Hanna has her interests. Those kind of  experiences need not steal one's PRESENCE. If they DON'T steal your presence, that presence gets strengthened. And when they do steal your presence, it sucks you dry. You just paid with SOUL ENERGY, that you're going to need the moment you die, which is sooner than you think. Now, what do you want to do before you go? Another kind of 'high'? You want another.…what?

 

And, Sharon. There is also family and there is art, and there is astrology. These are all really idols if you want to 'get something' from them. Idols are made, and idols break. They do that all the time. And before they break, my God, what energy goes into worrying about them as to WHEN they may break. There are a million things that might happen. Your 'beloveds' may drop-away in a million different ways. 

 

Is that building a Soul? Everyone running around like chickens with their heads cut off, worrying about the future? Don't forget our three 'accepted facts' about you people – your INTELLIGENCE, GOODNESS and SERIOUSNESS.

 

Serious people don't worry about the million things that 'could' happen to them, their property or their family. What a dream that turns into, what a nightmare. Okay, just to look at it! 

 

Astrology, very good – but good for what? Well, art, very good, but you can't do it all the time. Be aware of the pride and vanity in doing these things. Can we be really serious, rather than just a vain bubba. 

 

Martha is a little bit more difficult. Not so difficult, simpler maybe. She has her hospital work group. There's usefulness in that. There is usefulness in all of it. Can you act really properly towards your children? You can call them 'motek' a million times, but that in itself adds very little. With art, I don't know, Martha is the least identified there. When it comes to son Benji it gets a little more questionable. She admits to that. But you know, if you have a clean bucket of water and you've got one drop of piss in it, it's not clean anymore.

 

To be 'committed to the Work', really, requires a sense of haolam haba (the afterlife). How does one get a sense of that? Only then, when they really see the uselessness of their worry, their holding, their compulsive identifications. The total illusion in it, the pathetic childishness of it all. When you really see that, and can't identify with it any more, then you are left with SOMETHING ELSE. Sometimes it's called God, sometimes Love. It's that level where FEAR HAS NO PLACE! 

 

I recently met a girl who I've known more than thirty years. SHE now comes close to realizing this. I met her when she was around thirty. She now must be close to seventy, though she looks younger to me than when I first met her. It would require a book to tell her story. 

 

She's from an 'aristocratic' family from Buchara. They arrived here generations ago with a caravan of a hundred camels carrying their 'goods'. Built the Bucharian district in Jerusalem. Wealthy bankers from Buchara. The grandfather now dead, the father also. The brother rich, rich, rich. But they give nothing to the girls! So to make money she goes to Buchara every once in a while and brings back all kinds of fancy stuff to sell. 

 

She also has a degree in psychology, practically her doctorate, just has to write a dissertation. Also, she was a student of A., in Jerusalem, a female 'spiritual teacher of repute'. A very delicate soul, tall and good looking. Married for a period in New Jersey to a dentist. It didn't last. Then she married an artist some few years back. What a business! A year, two years later, she's not doing so well. Again divorced. "It got violent," she said. I said, what, physically or emotionally? She said, "both". And then, even more importantly, she said, "HOW I saw myself!" This is a God fearing, trained professional, spiritually aware, a very subtle soul. "Things came out of me that I never knew were there. It's like a death, it's true - I feel like I died". 

 

One has heard that  'suggestion' more than once: 

 

"DIE BEFORE YOU DIE". 

 

That means die to the crap and corruption, you stupid serious people. You 'die' when you've seen the uselessness of all that. Well, you girls have been 'working' over the years that I've known you, and before. And where are you now? Still living in anxiety. EVERYTHING IS ANXIETY in this world! There is not a thing that you can think of or feel that isn't going to slip away, one way or another. People 'live' in anxiety! Maybe, maybe, we can get to touch that tonight – UNDERSTANDING THE BASIS OF ALL ANXIETY. You've got to find that out!

 

I printed up a little booklet called: 'The Neglected Gift of Discomfort'. I don't remember at the moment what is in it. Do you? Did you read it? Because, I'm the guy that, it seems, you want 'something' from. What is it that you want?

Be my guest. 

 

You are busy with YOURSELF, constantly. ETERNITY doesn't have within it the 'I' that you're used to feeling. One can look at this in so many ways. We're right on the dividing line now. 

 

Am I calling you selfish? How can I do that? Paint other people's pictures, read other people's charts. Okay! You have to understand that I take complete license to talk like this. Because you people carry the 'flag of the Work'. That's how you present yourselves – "I'm a soldier in the god-damn army of the Work!"

 

I'm having a little difficulty getting to this now. It's more of a background, trying to get to the point. Here are a whole lot of things that you've heard a hundred times over. But the truth is you are all trying to do it alone. ALONE, with 'your' house, 'your' bank account, 'your' mortgage, children, family. You're actually trying to do it alone. And it's known that you can't do it alone! 

 

What we are interested in is the SOUL / PSYCHOLOGICAL BODY. You want 'health', and that comes from God, The Whole. THERE you want to be connected. As long as you are busy with only 'you' - you've DISCONNECTED yourself. And don't fool yourself, what you call 'yours', and 'you', IS EXACTLY THE SAME THING. An infinitesimal little package, regurgitating its own confusion. That's coming closer to the point!

 

My proposition to you tonight, is that you form CONSCIOUSLY, what you've been doing a little bit of intuitively. A 'group of three'. THREE SISTERS. Not the usual 'sisters' that people tend to have a confused relationship with. Sisters in the deepest and best sense of the word. That you commit yourselves to each other's interests. If you cannot do that, then you fool yourselves, from top to bottom. 

 

The truth of the matter is that every human being on this planet is your brother and sister, child of the One Creative Force called God. And the DIVISIONS are petty, blind, sleeping illusion. If you cannot break through that with each other, then put the 'flag' down. Can you see that in each other – each one carrying the flag of the Work? Sometimes even putting words to it? It IS deeply important, deeply valued by you, a LIFELINE it sometimes seems. Do you see that? Do you see it in other people? Can you relate to it? Are you going to continue to live in a 'me and mine' package, with everybody else being turned into a second class citizen?   Do you want to make each other second class citizens? If you want to, then put the flag down. 

 

That's the end, or the beginning of the end, of the purpose of me gathering you here tonight. To take the bullshit and imagination out of it. To go back to the Intelligence, the 'Goodness' of it.

 

Martha: Seriousness.

 

Seriousness, yes. Work is about ETERNITY, it's not about your pupik. And we're prepared, in this life, to suffer the ignorance, for survival sake. It's all suffering down here. It's not for nothing that Gurdjieff calls this world a PAIN FACTORY. But in that pain there is an immense amount of energy! You want to be 'comfortable' here? That's what you've been trying all your life. Are you comfortable?

 

How you will do this, I don't know. That's going to take your 'goodness', your 'intelligence', and your 'seriousness'. You can listen to this tape later – the least it might do is help you stop fooling yourselves.

 

NOW you might come together with your intelligence, goodness and seriousness as close as you can to what I'm suggesting, and further. I can only give a few hints. Or, you can continue as you've been doing. As you like. You can maintain the same relationship, more or less, with me. I'll relate to you as I've been relating up to now, accepting your 'intention' for the intelligent and good. But WHAT are you good for, or good to, that doesn't belong to you or doesn't give YOU some 'profit'? Think about it. You have a choice. You either try to put together something from what we're talking about, or you can continue with me relating to you still 'believing' your intention. I believe it, actually. I'll continue to believe it. Maybe it has to go on to other life times, I don't know. But I won't be able to relate to you any more seriously than I have up to now unless you raise your level – unless you can, as they say, 'put your money where your mouth is'. That is, put your energy where you 'claim' your intention is. 

 

I'll tell you something. Badly, you need each other's support. Because you're not really living up to your best understanding half an hour a day. It's very legitimate, the 'mutuality'. You make yourselves sisters, like you think a sister should be. Make it 'blood'. Make it SPIRITUAL BLOOD, with your everything, like you would LIKE to have with your children. The children are not so interested, because they don't really share your picture. As Leonard Cohen put it in one of his songs: "If you call me brother, forgive me if I inquire, just according to who's plan." Your children don't share your 'plan'. They're not interested in your sentimentality, although they're not totally free from fear either. It's 'nice' for them to know that if, God forbid, everything went wrong, you'd feed them and give them a bed. 

 

But THAT'S what the children say: 'forgive me if I inquire, just according to whose plan?' 

 

Now, supposedly the flag that you carry is based on the same plan. You call it The Work. Now, can you girls come to a common understanding of that, and support each other in it? Because if you can't, with people so close to you, who the hell in this world do you think you're going to make contact with? And not because you 'owe', or that they owe. You be ready to share your TOTALITY. And if you choose to make someone more important because you call them 'blood family', and turn the others into second class citizens, you've just fucked yourselves. That's your own little ego package, which never did ANYBODY any good.

 

You can do what you want with what I'm saying. I'm talking about this because it has got something to do with the AIM of the Work. Not just 'another idea'. Now, that either sounds right to you or it doesn't. If it does, you can think of what you can do with it, or not. Maybe you'll change, maybe you'll communicate differently with each other – not whine to each other. What's whining?

 

Martha: leyalel.

 

Sharon: Ah.

 

'Good friends' tend to 'help' each other with their WEAKNESSES, without realizing it. Not the principles of Work! The principles of Work are concerned with the building of a SOUL. Something that is already in you that can become strong enough to resist all the bullshit, the fear, the abuse, anything. To really come ALIVE within the HOLY TRIAD of non-critical self-observation, non-identification and Self-remembering. Those three things go together! They strengthen the REAL in a person at the expense of everything else. Until that becomes a reality, you are not worth shit to yourself or anyone else, regardless of what you think about your intelligence, your goodness, or your seriousness. Without that TRIAD you're another bouncing ball with a self-image, changing all the time. 

 

I don't think I've got anything more to say but I shall look at these notes. A few things come up. Every day you should be doing something together. What? I don't know. Maybe to find out how many people there are in this area that are over eighty with hardly any food, and make sandwiches for them. Do something together, even if you are feeling 'weak'. Do something together every day. And maybe – these are all maybes – maybe, you can come up with a better idea. At least once a week to meet, maybe play this tape. And to ask yourselves: DO WE AGREE TO THIS? What could he mean? What could we do? What does it mean to be a sister? Is there food in each of your refrigerators? You could all exist on what each one of you eats daily and be healthy. Survive - for what? 

 

Can you STAND your sister? Not so easy just to listen, not to be wanting your own way. There you just might come close to identifying your CHIEF FEATURE. 

 

What's the alternative? These things are not always so obvious. It's most useful to listen, if you can REMEMBER YOURSELF at the same time, if you can BE - if you can observe how things affect your mind, emotions and body. To be aware of whether you are IDENTIFIED - or OBSERVING. Then it would be good to listen to everything, to your sisters and everyone. The Work says, "you can do anything you want, if you remember yourself". Because, with every effort there, you strengthen the remembering. The remembering is the SHMA, actually. That remembering has to be there at the moment of death. If not, you go to 'hell', or at least for a time to 'purgatory'. At death ALL IDENTIFICATIONS get RIPPED from you. 

 

I was telling you about this friend of mine, the one who said she 'died'. Until we talked she didn't quite recognize it. When you're really 'dead', THERE you're ALIVE, like a new baby. And, she didn't know what to do! She had been in New York a short while before and gave a course. I guess she became kind of an expert in it – her lady teacher, Colette, did a lot of work with her in 'visualization'. So, she gave a course in it in New York and later gets a call, in Israel, from one of the girls that took the course. A divorced girl about thirty-three with two children – wanted to come and study some more. And our friend said, "yes". But she now knows that she 'doesn't know nothing'. "What am I'm going to do with this girl, I don't know anything." And she wasn't just saying that, she knew the truth of that down to her very bones. Whoever she had THOUGHT she was, with whatever intelligence, or importance, or God knows what - gone, gone, gone! When I said to her, "you are like a new born child", she said, "oh yes, it's true!" Then, "what I'm going to do now about money? How can I earn money? Oh, I know, it will come!"  I didn't answer, I said yeah. 

 

You know one of her problems? She doesn't really know people, although she almost has a doctorate in psychology, and then her work with Colette. The Work says that the hardest thing to do is to TOLERATE SOMEBODY ELSE'S MECHANICALITY. Why? Because it doesn't 'suit' you! 

 

But what doesn't suit you - exactly THERE you've got a lot to see! That requires a special effort to remember yourself - and as such is a great opportunity. A lot of material to see there - what the mind, the emotions do. A lot NOT to be identified with. To see the mechanics in it, what is NOT REAL I. Oh, THAT'S what they call irritation. Oh, THAT'S what they call dislike. Take the 'I' out of it! That's Work! We want God, but we cannot stand people. That's a critical issue. A soul comes to this earth, and turns into a petty little 'Sharon'. (laughter). 

 

You be ready to share your bed, your clothes, if necessary. Your blood if necessary. I don't like that last one. I don't know, what kind of blood are we talking about. Are THEY working or not? Did THEY get some kind of the 'spirit' from Mike, something enlarged? Is it an accident that you're still connected with each other?  Are there other people that you are closer to, spiritually? Then go to them, make them your brother and sister. But check yourselves, don't fool yourselves. You don't have to neglect anything in your family. You can give them a TASTE of something larger than the pettiness of the usual. Let them see you. Let them sit at your table and see you serve someone else first. The older and more 'respectable', should be respected. And people that are working deserve that. Naturally, not artificially. 

 

Should the children think that they are the most important thing in the world? Where is that going to get them, soul wise? When they get a little older, or when they get close to dying, which is just a few moments away for them as well, they should NOT die in a state of self importance. God forbid! Let them be PRESENT – not with the feeling that they are owed anything. They are given when needed, but not with sentimentality.

 

INTELLIGENT, GOOD and SERIOUS. First of all, try that on for size! If that fits you, then go to the next step, to these other girls. If you don't fit together then do something else for your soul. If not, forget about the word Work. Then go, earn some money, sell something, then buy yourself a ticket and go and spend some time with the Tibetans, or I don't know who else. It's not particularly my recommendation, but THEY are intelligent, good and serious. Then again they have another culture. 

 

Just before Osho died, he said, "people are going to hate me after I'm gone. I didn't realize how CORRUPT they were". 

 

"An ashram in India had a sign outside saying: 'Westerners Only'. Once, an Indian came there and said, 'how terrible… it's like the days of the British occupation, when they didn't let Indians into some places'. 'No, no, you don't understand', they told him, 'you don't understand how CORRUPT these Westerners are. We don't want them mixing with our people'." 

 

It may take some time before a real SHAME arises in you. What corruption got into our systems! That's what Osho said: "They'll hate me when I'm gone. I didn't realize how corrupt they were". And, I tell you, the Tibetans may not yet realize it. Gurdjieff STUDIED the issue. He understood very well, and in detail, the corruption. That's not said to induce guilt. That's said for shame! 

 

One of our new card says, "The last, and best energy available for transformation, is shame".

 

No new man, or money, will do it. Only Self-Remembering can build YOU. It doesn't really matter what happens in your life. The harder the better. Because, everything that is difficult, requires a special effort. You get nothing real from your usual wants and your day to day bullshit, nothing that lasts. What you do get is so 'wishy washy'. 

 

Be ready for death. It could come at any time. If you're lucky it will be a little ways away, so you might have the time to build up some strength. THERE IS SOMETHING AFTER! When you die, you move into a new 'room', into a new World. How are you going to do that successfully if you take every little sentimental stupid thing, fearfully – grasping, greedily, self pityingly? 

 

You are going to be out of this before long. So if you are intelligent, if you are good, and if you are serious, fuck'n well USE this opportunity. The 'intention' by itself isn't worth a dime. Cheap. 

 

Hard to find a person, if you really got down to the bottom of it, that doesn't think they are good, essentially, and doesn't think they are intelligent and serious. You don't have to go to India to meet one. Talk to any street cleaner and see if he doesn't tell you that he is more serious, good and intelligent than you are. Everybody, with their stinking little egos. You don't have to have three doctorates like Devora. She had three Doctorates but she knew she didn't know. She said to me once, "Alan, I'm very clever, but I'm not wise". 

 

You don't have to be more clever, good or serious than anyone else. Just live up to your own capacity. Anything else is imitation. 

 

Comparison doesn't help. Just use what you've got. Use it! Intelligence grows with INTELLIGENT EFFORT. Not just effort – Intelligent Effort. If it were only effort, the most intelligent being in the world would be the donkey. Also, if you take a donkey, and pile a whole bunch of books on its back, it's still a donkey.

 

Help your family as much as you can, as much as possible - but no second class friends. There should be no second class citizens, actually. That doesn't mean you can relate to everybody. But 'God' does love everyone. If you want CONNECTION with that love, you cannot be so selective, conditioned by your fear, basically, or sentimentality. Yes, sentimentality. 

 

To get to KNOW something or someone, you have to PAY attention. That's love, connection, seeing. The rest is just shit, forget it. You happen to be here, and I happen to be here, and I happen to see you, so I relate. Without obligation and without guilt and without accounts – as God is my witness. 

 

Now, what about you, serious, intelligent, loving people?

 

There are any number of people around that I've spent many years with, that you tend to take for granted. Maybe some with a little sense of 'commonality'. You can take Dina for granted, you can take Merav for granted, you can take Tamara for granted, you can take Nily for granted. A number of people that also claim to be serious, good and intelligent. Some even have a certain Work sense, more or less. 

 

Let's start small. Come out of your shell! You're going to be dead soon anyways, you haven't got fuck-all to lose. You are holding on to a lot of the useless. The way you deal with your children also affects their dealing with me. Believe it or not, I also care for them. You want to bind them to yourself? You try to sometimes, without realizing it. You value the Work? You value my relationship to it? If I were you, when your son visits, I would put a rope around his neck and bring him down to the house. You can call that egomaniacal if you want. You can also show them this conversation, if you like.

 

To the degree that you can work together, you might receive help. The Universe is waiting to help you, if you would just open to IT. To the degree that you can work together, you would 'call-up' help. And God knows you need it. Everything in this Universe is ready to feed every other piece that has a common interest. If you care for the Whole, the Whole cares for you. If you don't care for the Whole, the Whole doesn't give a shit for you. 

 

You see, unless you are in a state of self-remembering, whatever else you are doing is hardly one trillionth of the things that are happening in the world. It has no significance, even though you think you're doing good. If you remember yourself, and then try to relate 'for the good', you've got a real chance. 

 

Why can't we REMEMBER OURSELVES? Why can't we just BE? They say it's a 'dangerous world', so we're always fearful. No matter what you do, it's all fearful. That's true. You can't avoid it. A million things you never even thought of could happen. We struggle with a person, we struggle with a thought, we struggle with this or that fear. Now it's reached the point in this world, certainly in your own life, that there are so many things that are fearful, that when you start thinking of one, it connects with them all. You CAN'T 'think' about them all. 

 

How can you? You can try thinking of the money issue. How can you think of it? You could take it, you could spend it, you could save it, but you couldn't, you could give it, you can bury it, you can change it into dollars, you can play with it on the stock market, you could get a mortgage, sell a mortgage. You don't know what! The whole money thing has so many angles that are fearful. And the children. They can get married or not, make money or not, and they could be happy, or not. You want them to be happy? Ah, yeah, "I'm going to do just what you say, mommy, so I'll be happy, just like you". Oh, come on now!

 

But what if you don't show that you're interested? Well, you don't know where to start or where to finish, what to say, what not. What difference will it make? You are just a piece in any other person's life. They've all got their own history behind them, their own ambitions, fears, sex, craziness, like everyone has. 

 

Everything is so mixed up. What can you think of for more than a few seconds? Does this make any sense to you? Who can think straight for more than a moment? That's a fact, one of many facts. 

 

I lived in a house where my mother always wanted to pull the window shades down at night. I said, "Why?" She says, "people might look in". I was just a little boy. I said, "what difference does it make?" Also, as a child, she said to me, "look, you don't have to repeat everything that you hear in the house." That went in one ear and out the other. I didn't know what she was talking about. We LIVE in secrets and lies! 

 

Here is another little hint: LIVE YOUR LIFE LIKE EVERYTHING IS KNOWN. Everything IS known, one way or another. What a DRAIN of energy it takes to be secretive. 

 

Maybe you can talk about some of these things when you meet. You don't have to get into a routine like, "oh, we'll read Nicoll together". Talk about real things! And don't stand for each other's nonsense, sentimentality, greed, fear. That's going on all the time. You've got something else to do: self-observation, non-identification, Self-remembering. THAT'S REAL! You've got to learn how. That's an INNER EFFORT. If you start practicing that, YOU DON'T HAVE THE  TIME FOR ALL THE REST. And it's really not so dangerous. You can worry yourself sick, but that doesn't make more money come in. When you've got good energy, you do something. When you don't, you don't.

 

You can consider this, Hanna. And if you do, I'll call you a 'good girl', but not for that reason. Maybe it can be useful to these people, maybe elsewhere. You've got to care for your brothers and sisters in this world who WANT to be intelligent, good, and serious. Those who have FAITH in that, and who couldn't stand themselves if they didn't believe deep down that that was their true intention. So, I don't say this sarcastically. I believe that's your intention. I also believe it's a reality. That's quite a piece of Work - to NURTURE that. 

 

So, here you've got a few direct words from me. Nothing that you haven't seen in the books you've read, from  Buddhist to Jewish to the Work. Now, bring it together! No one has very much time on this earth. You've already gone, maybe, two thirds through it. Now you've got the DATA. You know the bullshit, you know the weaknesses in yourself and others. Now you've got enough data to really become serious. Nobody can secure you in this life, nobody. And no amount of money can secure you. Only your Self-Remembering can secure you for a respectable and happy trip now, and when the body drops.

 

The rest is kindergarten. Without haolam haba (the afterlife) as a FACT understood, it's all kindergarten from top to bottom.  "He, who does not believe in haolam haba (the afterlife), will have no part of it", the Jews say.

 

So, this fear thing! Each fear has so many angles to it that you can't even start thinking about it. You can't. Each of the fears is somehow connected with everything else. And when you KNOW that you can't deal with it in the usual way, then it all comes together as ONE BIG MOUNTAIN. Then, you can DROP the word 'fear'. It was: "I'm afraid of this, or I'm afraid of that". When you arrive at this big mountain you can't think like that any more. It turns into a TOTAL LUMP OF ANXIETY. That's the last book I want to write: ''Anxiety, Please!' 

 

Our only problem with anxiety is that we fight it, and pay no attention to the sheer ENERGY that it is - that is BEGGING TO BE TRANSFORMED. 

 

Maybe that little booklet, 'The Neglected Gift of Displeasure' should have been called 'The Neglected Gift of Anxiety'. It's a total vibration! Don't struggle with it, or try to 'think' yourself out of it, which you cannot do. It's got EVERYTHING in it – the history of mankind. If you can allow yourself to FEEL that energy, discomfort, if you can feel it, actually experience it fully, not objecting to it, you've got some real transformation going. 

 

That's what I want to call a new book, if I get to it: 'ANXIETY, PLEASE!' You have to regard it as a GIFT, because it's got a tremendous energy reserve in it. You can't think yourself out of that in a million years. You can take a drug, you can be a workaholic, you can be a fanatic in something, you can be artistic, artistic, artistic, but that does not clear it up. 

 

That's all running away from this anxiety. If you go THROUGH the anxiety, if you accept the anxiety, if you say, 'Anxiety, please', then you absorb/transform that energy into your SELF. Not as a bad thing, as a reality. Ah, if it was so simple! 

 

Behind the anxiety is YOU. You are not responsible for it. You've co-operated, you're a little responsible – but you can't change it. You can't change your relationships to people. It changes by itself, according to your blood pressure, whether you've got your 'period' or not, whatever. Each person is going through a hundred things and so are you. You can't change your relationships. You can't 'establish' a relationship, not with a child, not with a sister, not with a lover. You can't nail down nothing, it's all moving. 

 

The more you are YOURSELF, the more your OVERVIEW, the more you are attractive in the REAL sense. There is nothing more attractive than your PRESENCE, behind the anxiety. The anxiety maintains itself only when you struggle with it. If you don't struggle with it, it's just ENERGY. And that energy, with attention, transforms, actually!

 

Our problem isn't lack of cleverness. Our problem is lack of refined ENERGY. What I've just told you, if you figure that out before you die you're alright. But maybe you can do it sooner. These few words that I'm putting to it are true - how to make the distinction between individual 'little' fears and Total Anxiety. 

 

You can be afraid of something, but when there's a million somethings, or ten somethings or one something that is connected with all the rest, what can you do? Then when you realize that there are so many elements in your life that are causing it all, what IS there to struggle with? You can SEE it as a total bundle of anxiety. It's available energy. 

 

I'd like to polish that diamond so that everyone could see it. But you've got to polish your own diamond. Polish your own understanding, I don't know what to say. The Work is so comprehensive. But, it's got an AIM to it. The aim is your survival, not your petty pleasures or sentimental fears. The aim of the Work is your survival! 

 

Finish with this mess down here, by seeing it. You've been struggling with it long enough. You've struggled with it before you met Mike and you struggle with it here. You're so exhausted that in order to have a few moments of relaxation you've had to develop a few 'tricks'. And they don't even work any more. More pills, more drugs, more smoking or what not. 

 

Don't turn yourselves into zombies. FACE THE ANXIETY. It's just a VIBRATION. Use The Work. Stop waging the flag. I don't want to hear from you any more, ever again, that "The Work is important to me". To tell me? Why? Use it, don't tell nobody.

 

The Work is very practical. It's a full time job. Yes, at the risk of having no food, no house, no heating, no money. You're going to lose all of that anyways. But if you are really in a proper state, a normal state, you are not going to starve or sleep outside. You don't realize that? You still want your 'own' ? Your own this, and your own that? Well, I'm not so sure how serious THAT is!

 

Let me see if I'm finished. 

 

No reasoning is going to get you out of all this business. Only if you get BEHIND it. There you have an overview. Then you can see what's possible, or not. NOT from anxiety. You CANNOT be intelligent from anxiety. How about that one? You cannot be intelligent, you cannot be good, other than in a sentimental bullshit way, and you can't be serious, from anxiety. It's your job to FEEL it, and find yourself behind it, or above it. 

 

The drugs are not important. Can you drop it? Cold turkey? I don't know. You have to be strong enough to survive that. Can you work, even with it? I don't know. If it starts making you stupid, I'd get rid of it. Have a 'psychotic' trip and be finished with it? I don't know. I'M NOT GIVING ADVICE ON THAT. It's like, you know, natural healers and homeopaths or whoever tend to say, "take my advice, but if it doesn't work, go see your regular doctor". They cover their ass. You know, go have a 'check-up', anyways.

 

Here we have another note: 

 

'You cannot control life'. That's not obvious? You can't control war, peace, sickness or death. You cannot control how anybody else thinks, feels, how they take you, or don't take you, whether they love you, hate you, beat you, kiss you. You can't control it. You cannot control what your children are going to do, whether they are happy or not, if they 'take-up' with this one or that one, study or not, smoke or not. You can't control it anymore than anybody can control you. You can't see that, now? You cannot control life. 

 

Maybe you can control yourself. Maybe you can get to know what your REAL SELF IS, behind all the stupid small 'I's. You can always tell they are 'stupid', because they always, eventually, get you NEGATIVE, a little or a lot.

 

Here you have a tape which really covers a lot. In other places you're given a great deal more detail. Many Work People have put in their blood, sweat and tears, working for YOU! What Gurfjieff didn't have to go through. What energy and effort to experience, and then write what he did. What Nicoll and Ouspensky didn't go through. What thousands of hours of activity and struggle and work. 

 

People throughout the ages have been making incredible efforts. They've learned through others, then worked to keep the truth ALIVE. Because, if it dies completely, this world would dissolve. 

 

People with different temperaments and backgrounds 'explain' the issue in their terms. Consider a sophisticated, trained psychiatrist, Maurice Nicoll, or a scientist like Ouspensky, or the highly developed, amazing individual called Gurdjieff. And all this while you're thinking of 'chicken soup', because your son is coming home. That's going to save him? Well, if you do make it, make it WELL. That's also useful.

 

You have talents and gifts. You've got 'talented boys'. But they're going to need another level of understanding in order to build a Soul. The whole world could clap for their 'cleverness' and all that won't add up to one soul. They're going to have to UNDERSTAND THEMSELVES, and the world. There's no way of avoiding the pain. It can also prove to be very useful.

 

That's it, my friends.

 

What we've just touched is, actually, if you haven't yet recognized it, the issue of LIFE AND DEATH. That's what you're dealing with, like it or not. The only problem is that what we call life is really death and what we call death is really life. Death is not darkness - DEATH IS LIGHT!

 

Bye, everybody. That's the end of your transcription.