Damian:   I’ve had a real struggle with the preparation.  The last two days, I really did stick with it and felt a sense of presence when I finished. I made a plan on Monday to stop three particular times, 10: 30, 12: 00, and 2: 00, to do the finger exercise. Monday is a particularly busy day for me. As well, two additional things happened during the day, two outbursts, and normally, that would throw me out of it. Come the end of the day, I didn’t feel tired. There was a sense that in spite of having the most incredible amount of accidental stress outside, I still felt good and aware of what was happening, still felt a little bit of the influence. I’d set out to do some reading, a quarter of an hour’s reading, and I couldn’t find the book. I started raging and stamping and saying, Where’s the book? My wife started laughing at me. But then I was able to see the stupidity of it. I went back to the practice and continued the rest of the afternoon. It brought home to me that I still haven’t learnt the importance of doing the morning preparation. I’ve already experienced how important it was and what a tremendous effect it had throughout both days. I guess the question is for me how to be able to do that every day and to just be totally down about it and not to compromise at all.

Mr Adie:   How to realise the possibility of a new day today? By approaching it with fear, uncertainty, so that I feel I shan’t be able to succeed? Already, other things have crept in. “I can’t,” or “it’s too difficult.” There are all these insidious voices starting up. The actual life is missing. The air is there, but I’m not receiving it. One moment follows another. And yet every moment is a possible starting point, and I say, “Oh, well, I can’t do anything now because I wasn’t there at the start.”

But there’s a new start. Every moment. I must go inside to understand. I must look for this feeling in myself. I must place myself so that there could be that feeling.

I have to put the physical organism more or less in the right posture. I mustn’t get into the habit of thinking that if any one thing is missing, that finishes it. I mean, if I’m ill, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t some work possible. In Sri Lanka there are reclining Buddhas, the length of the room, and more. They’re reclining, but they’re working. They have a posture that corresponds. What’s the best I can do if I’m immersed in a lot of details and phone calls? It’s no good looking round for the prayer stool; I’ve got just one second as I move towards it. If I only remember I didn’t do my preparation, I miss that moment. Always, I listen to accusations. There are always very good reasons why I can’t just do it now, or why I’ve lost my possibility.

There are these voices ready to seduce me. That’s part of the construction of the laws of the universe, that is put there just for me to transform. These are the terms of my developing life, the gifts. You’re in the midst. Here is this material, dense. Transform it. There’s other fine material to give you understanding. That’s how I am. I’m a being with this possibility. This can take place in any circumstance. You intended to have a reading, and couldn’t find the book. Alright – accept that, and don’t go throwing all your energy away. We’re so horrified with the idea of work that we’re not prepared to receive the marvellous thought that an effort is possible at any moment.

Chas:  Much of what you said tonight, I found very helpful. I have found that I was getting lost in negativities, all sorts of things. I realised that one of the things I don’t do is to just accept the situation as it is.

Mr Adie:   Remember all the material you’ve been given. I never realise that I’ve been given all this material. I’m a different person. As he used to say, “You are Mr Gurdjieff’s pupil. You are not tail of donkey, not nothing. You are  pupil of Mr Gurdjieff.” This is what he meant – I’ve received all this. Where is it? I don’t approach it with those inner realisations of the riches that I’ve had.

Chas:   So, I have some understanding when I find myself in this state of depression. I tried to prepare for it, but I only use my head. I can come intellectually to the point that I must accept the situation. I can’t find the right way to work on it.

Mr Adie:   You do the exercise?

Chas:   Yes.

Mr Adie:   Continue to do the exercise. Try and make it more real. You need to be able to divide the attention so that you can remember more than one thing at a time. I’m in the midst of things. That’s my life. But I have to remember things of a different level. Not suddenly becoming unaware of the things around me, but in addition, a different level as well. So where is that level? Where is it operating? Alright, I’ve got this, I don’t know how it’s going, but where’s this other level? It’s a moment of preparation. I have a few moments for collection. I have to think. This is what I need. It’s reasonable now to expect of myself some inner action. Surely, I wouldn’t now say that there’s no possibility for me. You believe there is possibility; but that possibility is now, just as I ponder, just as I see that I’m negative, that’s when the possibility exists.

I don’t need to work for results as it were. I need to work for the immediate realisation of what’s taking place.

You say you guess it’s all in your head and not even a feeling. If you go to your breathing, you’ll find without interfering, there is a force, there is a second being food. Why not accept some? When I find that some of this finer force which you experienced yourself previously, and proved, why not take some? Three breaths. One breath is good, but three. Force. Everything’s different. Such a little thing changes my state, my possibility. The attitude of my mind changes. All my internal psychic connexions have already changed in order to allow me to actually receive consciously this air. You’re experiencing that now?

I’m not sure what your experience of the feeling is. The force of feeling. Undifferentiated, just force. But if my attention goes, it can serve anything. It can be prostituted and turn negative.