4. 12. 01

When I first came to this country, in 1955, I had the feeling that what was going on here, ’was about the most glorious thing in the world’! How does a picture like that form up in the psyche of a twenty-one year old?

That was a picture being sold by what are sometimes called the ’professional Jews’. Many speeches were heard as they worked to raise money from the Montreal Jewish Community.

This was a mere seven years after the State of Israel was established, and only ten years from the end of World War II with the resulting extermination of six million Jews. Various elements came together that seemed ’just unbelievable’ - all following two thousand years of exile, with the Jews praying yearly, ’next year, in Jerusalem’!

Audio - tape 9.2.02

Television, which has never been overly stimulating, looks particularly dull since September 11. The fact is, the world has now become crazier than anything they can put on that little screen. The drug doesn’t work anymore! It was meant to hold people’s attention. Now, people get angry watching it - it’s no longer the least bit interesting. Oh, you notice that!

02-01

There is a thin veil between the living and the dead. One could say the ‘so-called living’ and the ‘so-called dead’, because the words, other than being frightening, really don’t have any meaning, generally speaking. There is only One Reality, One Totality - what we call ‘God’. That is a word that really scares shit out of us. It feels so abstract and distant, and brings up everything from fear to guilt. But the word ‘God’ is specifically the word that indicates ‘everything’! And within the everything, we, as human beings, are aware of only a sliver.

Transcription - Audio tape: 31.1. 2000

I just poured out my soul yesterday, or what is left of it - maybe I saved a little - into Lebanon! Martha brought it over. Round eyes, innocent like a child, hard to tell how old he was. Somewhere between 27 and 35. Beirut, Christian Arab, from a poor family. Martha met him in the mental wing of the Safed hospital. It’s kind of a moderate mental wing, not for very heavy cases. Rumor: ’shell-shock.’ Martha gave a bit of his story. He speaks English only somewhat. If I got it correctly, his father was with the Falanges militia. Got killed recently. His brother also got killed. Civil war! He didn’t go into detail but I can guess from his age. Twelve year civil war, Beirut. The world never saw anything like it, I mean, one of every three persons that went out just to get water, that they had to have, got shot dead. Just leaving the house to get water! That’s how crazy it was in Beirut. Everyone shooting at everybody else. What happens to a kid that grows up in that?

Audio-tape 9.12.01

What is day-dreaming other than being somewhat of an embarrassment?

Tie a string around your finger. That’s what some people do in order to remember something!

Can you be aware of what you’re thinking at any particular moment? Can you consciously choose the one thing that you most wish to think about, now?

What I’m asking might serve as a way to get ’a foot in the door’ - into an area which has been up to now mostly embarrassing.

(Audio - tape 10.8.01)

I also don’t mind any noise that comes from the child. If it bothers me, I’ll let you know.

If anyone can sit through what I’m going to say now, relaxed - that means they’re dead! You should be jumping out of your skin. Don’t expect to be relaxed.

Bring the child to me for a minute.

Hallo... you sit with me here, okay, see how it goes... wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, yes, you’ve got the belches, hiccups they call it. I’ll try this (massage) - okay? Try and belch!

(Audio-tape 31.7.01)

What I’m going to touch here - if I were to go into it thoroughly - I could write a book ‘this’ big, and I could write a commentary ‘this’ big. I’d like to keep it down to a few words, so I’ll lay it out as I see it, and I guess I’ll be open to some suggestions afterwards.

First of all I’ve got some questions for Sari, before trying to figure out what the hell I’m going to do. Maybe I can get a few quick answers.

(Audio tape 12.12.01)

We have only one birthday, the end of which we call death. Within that time there is a possibility for what is called ’rebirth’. That comes at the point where you experience the fact that you are not your body, or its functions. There is an essential you that was born, into a body. With that realization, you are re-born.

audio- tape 9.11.01

Everybody wants the peace of Eternity, of Now. Eternity isn’t only of the ’past’ and the ’future’, it is, most essentially, Now! Everything alive is making an effort to balance out with that ’Presence’. That’s where ’God’ is, the Intelligent Universe, alive and functioning. Whether your ’trick’ is liquor, drugs, sex, sky diving, or meditation - that’s the connection you’re begging for consciously or otherwise. Even an explosion of anger can leave you with a few moments of... ’ahhh!’..., of Now!

Video tape 13.8.2000

I’m already thinking of what this is going to be called. Maybe: “I’ve had enough!” That should ring a bell in everybody’s irritated heart. But more likely: “The Question of Good and Bad.” It’s the issue of the day! We’re living in a world that is poisoned with peoples’ subjective good and bad. And everyone is going around making judgments. That’s what we got used to, even though it drives us crazy. We’re continually looking over our shoulder for someone’s criticism or compliment!

8.2001

Many of those around Gurdjieff, like Ouspensky, Nicoll and Orage were highly educated people. They were ’intellectual types’ - part of the then current Intelligentsia!

(Here we’ve got two of our high-tech defence systems flying overhead - helicopters! They look like Christmas trees with their blue and red flashing lights.)

This opens up some interesting angles. In the age that we are now living ’intellectuals’ are running the world. It’s the valued faculty! It hasn’t always been that way - not so long ago a real farmer was the backbone of society. Intellectuals were likely to be up in their ’ivory tower’ reading or writing while the farmers were out there feeding the populace. But in these days those with the best memories and educated to ’think’ are running the show. All head stuff!

Video tape: April, 2000

I thought maybe you went down to the computer. When I looked up, the balance in this room, whatever it was made of, felt like it collapsed when you walked out. It could have happened had anybody left, I don’t know, but the balance was affected ... much better now!

Maybe it’s connected with what I want to say. That’s a funny expression! When a person says: ‘what I want to say’ - they don’t really know what they are going to say! They know they want to say something, they have a ‘feeling’, but they don’t have the words.

Audio tape 18.5.2000

Something happened here over 25 years ago. I’m glad that it comes up now because I know it’s something I want to speak to you about. It’s not such a long story, but there was a lot to it.

I had horses on the property - I ended-off with three horses. Why did I have horses? The question of ’doing’ comes up again -and that’s the issue!