Animals, apparently, just "do what comes naturally." Sometimes they are active, and sometimes not. Cats sleep a lot. They do whatever they feel like doing. If they are frustrated, they express their frustration. They don't brood over that, or anything else. Cats don't have practices, nor do dogs. They have no need to work for a better life, but we do. It has to do with our consciousness, which is different from that of animals. This is obvious, and it might be obvious therefore that it is our consciousness that we need to work on, but this is not obvious. That is our culture. We pay attention as we have been taught. It is human to have culture, to be raised in a culture, to be part of a culture and pass it on to our children.
There really is no alternative to having practices, for people. You might think of it as having some kind of equipment that animals don't have. Since we have it, we have to do something with it. We can choose to let our equipment lie idle and deteriorate, but we aren't going to be happy that way. Animals aren't in the same position. They weren't gifted and burdened with human consciousness.
Practices that specifically work on our consciousness are rare in our culture. Buddhist or mindfulness meditation is the best known. The practice that I learned is a little different. I am not a Buddhist, and I was not taught to call this practice "meditation." I am actually a "Gurdjieffian," of the particular "sect" associated with Willem Nyland. This practice, as taught by Mr. Nyland, represents a somewhat different slant or angle of working on one's own consciousness than does Buddhism. There are differences and similarities.
My life experience has been somewhat unique- actually, it would be truthful to just say "unique." Some people do become devoted to Buddhism in our culture, and to mindfulness meditation. Some people also become devoted to the "Nyland version" of Gurdjieff Work. It is a much smaller number, but there are some of us and with good reason, because Gurdjieff Work as taught by Mr. Nyland offers some advantages over Buddhism. The uniqueness of my experience is that, although devoted to Mr. Nyland's version of this practice, I was "plucked," as it were, by really unusual circumstances out of the group in which I learned this, and strictly isolated from that group for over a decade. The same unusual circumstances placed me in close proximity to a Zen Buddhist group no less devoted to their practice than Mr. Nyland's group. So I, being the kind of devotee that I was, had to adapt to life in circumstances that were very unusual for such a devotee.
One outcome of this unique experience has been that I have learned a great deal about the practice that I learned from Mr. Nyland. That is to my benefit, and I would also like to turn it to your benefit.
Human beings are social creatures. Our practices are social. Other people can understand our practices not only by what we say but also by what we do. Most likely they have somewhat similar practices, so we can relate. For example, most people have some sort of home. Some people take pride in their home, others not so much. Those who take less pride in their home probably take more pride in something else. "Different strokes for different folks." We can and do relate somehow, even if we dislike people who let their property deteriorate and the grass grow wild, or maybe we dislike people who landscape the postage-stamp yards of their "little boxes," to quote Malvina Reynolds.
The practice of working on one's own consciousness is social in that it is learned from someone else and from some group, but our consciousness is our own individual experience. We cannot observe anyone else's consciousness, only our own. This makes it more difficult for devotees of this practice to relate with each other and also with our fellow human beings who are not, as yet, devotees of this practice. The difficulty can be overcome relatively easily when one is in communication with fellow devotees. My fellow members of Mr. Nyland's groups also understand that we are working on our own consciousness. We all understand that our consciousness is invisible to others. It is invisible, but it is reality itself for us, as it is for every human being. We are working on our reality itself by working, so to speak, on our reception. Of course we also continue to work on partial aspects of our reality, like everyone else. We still walk the dog, make breakfast, take our the garbage, go to work, and all the rest. This practice has nothing to do with abdicating any aspect of life. It is not joining a monastery, physically or psychologically, which is a clear advantage over some understandings of Buddhism. We all know that we can't invite others to look at our consciousness, as we can invite them to look at our homes, or at how much money we have, or how far and fast we can run, or our fit and beautiful bodies. We can invite people to become our sexual partner and experience our expertise in dancing in a truly intimate relationship, but we cannot invite even our most intimate partner to experience our own reality. But we can tell those who understand this kind of work, this practice, in the same way, about our work. They can understand what we are trying to do, our efforts, our experience, because they make similar efforts and have similar experiences. They can see our practice in our behavior, by comparing our behavior with theirs. Obviously a person who does not understand this practice cannot see our practice in our behavior- although maybe they do see something unusual, hopefully something good. We do this practice, make these efforts, in order to have a better life. That does include behaving better, more appropriately and effectively. I might illustrate what I mean with the example of playing golf. Some people get involved with the practice of playing golf, more or less seriously. There was a time when I was seriously interested in golf. Golf is a very interesting game because it isn't directly competitive at all. For example, in basketball one might become very adept at throwing the ball in the basket, but in the actual game one's opponents are trying to prevent it. In golf, no one is trying to prevent you from performing the simple task of knocking a golf ball into a distant hole with a collection of implements designed for that purpose.
Success in golf is determined by one's score, but in fact, many people are not especially trying to shoot the lowest score possible. Many of us really have other objectives- to hit satisfying shots, for instance, especially shots requiring a full swing, to be able to make good swings that generate power in a comfortable way, relaxed and forceful, precise, to be able to hit the ball where you want it to go and as you want it to go. Many of us are more interested in how we hit the ball than in the actual result. Also, some of us really enjoy working on this independently. We enjoy the quest of it. An outside observer sees only the result, although fellow golfers certainly can understand the quest for a good swing.
We can see the behavior of others, but only they themselves can know what they were trying to do, and why. A practice involves trying to do something, for reasons that make sense to the practitioner. The practice of working on one's own consciousness might be compared to playing golf if the golfer were invisible. All you get to see is the flight of the ball. I really play golf for the experience of trying to hit the ball, and anyone can see me trying to hit it. A person watching me play golf could see why I play, and also why I don't play more. But with the practice of working on one's own consciousness, no one can watch you play. We can still see the results, though. We do observe the behavior of others. It really can't be judged impartially without knowing what they are trying to do and why, but our behavior should be appropriate, becoming, responsible and responsive. One of the main reasons for working on our consciousness is to enable us to behave more appropriately, as judged impartially. Another even more impelling reason is to be able to HAVE an impartial judgment of our own behavior. But of course, we have the advantage of access to our own intentions. We are in no position to be able to judge anyone else, but we have a judgment anyway, based on our own experience.
And here is the stark reality, the reason for working on one's own consciousness. If we have never specifically worked on our consciousness, our behavior is literally stupid. I am going to make some accusations about your sins, based on my own sins. I accuse you of almost never being aware of your actual behavior in the present moment, and much of the time, you aren't even paying any attention to your behavior at all. How can you be responsible for what you are doing unconsciously? Yet we behave at all times, and we are responsible for behaving appropriately. Obviously, the condition of our consciousness is not adequate to enable us to live as we should live. The only excuse for not working on our consciousness is that we are so stupid that we don't even know how stupid we are. In other words, we don't know that it could and should be different, and must be made different, by our own work.
The deficiencies of our consciousness are not limited to our obliviousness regarding awareness of our own behavior- and again, I must emphasize that it is our inability to be aware of our behavior simultaneously with its occurance that is the real deficiency. Without that, we are not aware of our actions at the time that we are acting. Let's compare our behavior to driving a car. We are operating the voluntary muscles of our bodies. Driving a car requires attention, not necessarily conscious attention, particularly once we are skilled drivers. But physically, you had better be paying attention. Your eyes had better be looking at the road, and it is desirable to be able to hear the sounds, for instance of other cars. Even paying attention to smells, like burning rubber or an exhaust leak, is very useful, and of course, there are physical sensations like the bumps of a flat tire or of running off the road. All this information is being received by you in the present moment when you are driving, and you need to be responding to it. Given that you have the necessary skills, this is the formula for being a good driver. And most of us are good drivers, once we have learned. Some behavior is rather like driving a car, and we can be similarly alert at times, but we are almost never really aware of our behavior. For instance, we aren't really aware of our behavior when we are driving. We are just driving. Sometimes our objective of the moment is as clear as when driving- to get from point A to point B at an acceptable speed and above all without having an accident. Sometimes our objective at the moment is much less clear, but in any case, we are very rarely actually aware of our behavior in the moment, and without such awareness, we aren't really able to direct our behavior.
This deficiency in our consciousness is bad enough, but the situation is far worse than that. We are only partially aware of our own thoughts and feelings. We are only partially aware of our physical sensations and of our perceptions. We are alive in reality, and we have human consciousness, but our consciousness is not adequate for our purposes. It is not even adequate for us to know what our purposes are. If you compare us to golfers, we are in fact a bunch of miserable hackers. But some of us think that we are Arnold Palmer, or let's say Tiger Woods, before the fall.
Let's consider some practices that people have. Our philosophy, without awareness of reality, is as meaningful as the learned dissertations of blind men groping at the elephant of their own life. Without awareness of reality, our art is simply bad. Our science is partial, and what is so great, so valuable, about partial truth? Religion deserves special attention. We are incredibly stupid about religion. Religion means "reconnection," but obviously we are connected to all that is, and certainly to God. Where is the disconnect? Why, in our consciousness, fellow idiots. The problem of religion is with our consciousness. Our original sin is that our consciousness is not as it should be. We are not aware of reality. Awareness of reality includes awareness of the immensity and sacredness of life. We long to wake up, but we misplace our longing. When Jesus counseled us to pray that God's kingdom should "come on Earth, as it is in Heaven," isn't it obvious that he was talking about the need for a change in our consciousness? God is omnipotent and omnipresent, but not even God can wake you up unless you wish it and are willing to work. We have to do it. God has given us consciousness, it's up to us. He gave us the talent, it is up to us to use it.
Honestly, I get very frustrated with writing. I am not a writer and have never aspired to be a writer. But I have become a writer in fact because I have this need to express this practice to people who don't understand it at all, or to people who understand it differently from me. Maybe if I had not been forced to separate myself from Mr. Nyland's groups I would not have that need, but I do have it. There are disadvantages to living in a community of fellow devotees. I prefer the wide world. Unfortunately the deficiencies in our consciousness are pervasive and global. They are not remedied solely by recognizing the need to remedy them. Work on oneself of this kind is a process. It requires efforts and in order to really be as we should be and need to be, continuous effort and correct effort are required. This is a quest, and it is really an eternal quest, because we really live in eternity, as we would realize if we were aware of reality.
Groups devoted to this practice, including meditation groups and Gurdjieff groups, are subject to all kinds of stupidity of their own. Living in the wide world is lonely for a devotee of this practice, because we are few and far between, but it has advantages. We need to be aware of reality, not reality as imagined by any kind of culture, subculture, or cult. In the wide world the need for a common denominator helps to remind one of this aim. And we are driven by the need for a common denominator with our fellow human beings. We are social creatures. What we have in common are human bodies, obviously, but also human consciousness. At the present time, my friend, we have stupidity in common. We also have the need to wake up in common. I know that, and I am afraid that I am going to be compelled to keep on telling you about it, until you wise up, or I lose the power of writing.
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