Charlene:   Recently, I’ve tried to clarify to myself more how I spend my day and to have this idea that I need to somehow get some order into my activities. And what’s struck me so far was that the way I spend the day is erratic and hectic.

Mr Adie:   If you’re trying to get order into your activity, it has to be in relation to something. What did you choose?

Charlene:   To how I am, because I’m feeling-

Mr Adie:   Yes, the order has to start with how I am. I have to put order into how I am. What comes first in me? Automatic reaction, my customary attitudes. Now, I have to place that in order. I have to have something which is conscious-sensitive first. Then I have a chance, otherwise, it’s going to fail.

How can I put such chaotic elements as outside life in order? The order must come from inside. Really, I place the order. The order has to be in me, in relation to what is outside.

I always  think of putting the outside in order, but I have to now think of putting my inside in order. As I do so, I find the outside is different. The chaos in the outside is because I’m chaotic inside. To place in order brings me back. The work always returns me to myself.

Charlene:   Yes. The thought struck me today that the one affects the other.

Mr Adie:   If I have this inner search for order, then I can use the outer for that, and the outer will eventually correspond. I have a chance to affect the outer if the purpose is for my inner order. If I want to make order outside without this, it never works. It never will work, because my idea of order is some personal neatness which will satisfy an idea: conventional or non-conformist. I can never satisfy all those different elements. They come with heavier claims at different times. One knocking out the other. One day I’ll have a great surge of tiredness, and then another day I’ll have a great thing on the garden, and then something else will happen. Now suddenly, I realise I have got a whole raft of letters to write.

Charlene:   What struck me most, it’s following impulses all the time. The way I do it is hectic, there are habits. But something enters my head, and I dash and do it.

Mr Adie: I may have to go in that direction, but how do I go? Do I go knowing what I do, or am I just bound, dragged? The experience of these is totally different. There is order in time, and there is order in level, order in quality, and order in precedence – in sequence. What kind of order? There are different orders. He has a chapter, Form and Sequence. One of the last chapters of All and Everything.

Grayson:   Since last Wednesday’s meeting, I’ve been working on trying to turn away from my dreams.

Mr Adie:   In the day?

Grayson:   In the day. I found it’s necessary to be more firm with myself in the morning, about when I smoke, and that’s been a reminding factor. When I find that I’m dreaming, I have some sort of tension, the attitude is, they’re not terrifying, why bother?

Mr Adie:   About the dreams?

Grayson:   About the dreams. They’re often just dreaming about what I’m doing, or there’s some ordinary thing that I have to do when I get home.

Mr Adie:   You mean they’re not very terrifying?

Grayson:   No, they’re not terrifying or anything.  The closest I came to seeing it was on Friday, and it was as though I was standing in a room, and outside the window, there was a beautiful sunrise. Right next to me was somebody sort of leaning on a bar saying, oh, what’s so special about that?  I had to make a big effort to just believe that attitude because I knew that I was almost there.

Mr Adie:   Yes, I’m dangerously dead. Dangerously dead. But that’s what I need. I have awareness, and at once I have to respond. I mean, speaking from that moment. Sooner or later, I see something. I need sooner, really. I need more of a plan, so it comes up quicker.

Grayson:   It seems to come back to the preparation in the morning.

Mr Adie:   Morning is a special time, but all times are special. Don’t forget the Muslims have five prayers. It’s quite a lot.

Try and represent to yourself what is happening when you’re sort of just idly dreaming. It’s like a blow fly over a dunghill. Buzz buzz. But it wouldn’t have much to do with the sunrise. Just a low order, really.

I mean, do we find our life is a falling asleep and a waking up? Do we notice it? It’s a very good thing to try and make a note or try and understand what are the sort of periods in the day. We have a breakfast and then maybe there are periods nearly always associated with eating. That’s where the mealtime comes. Maybe there are other habits, according to whether I’m an office man or whatever I have to do; these waves of familiar surrounding conditions, the circumstances, into which I go, and then fade for the next hour dreamily. I’m never really with the sight of the circumstances themselves.

But towards the end, Mr Gurdjieff said, work for one-third, work for a third, sleep for a third, and just live for the third. The essential thing was you can’t work all the time. If you really work when you’re working, then your other period will be different.

Then there’s this vast interest of the quality of my own mind in preparation. What is the quality of my mind? What’s it doing? Everything takes place in what I think. Where’s the panic? What’s happening? Where’s my mind in reference to this panic? There’s no panic. It’s as if the house were on fire, and I said, it’s not on fire at all, you’re just dreaming. So, we have to have a plan. We have to have a near aim. It takes an enormous lot of courage to make plans and see how often I fail. But eventually I’ll learn something.