Thursday 5 May 1983

Jerome:   My question has two parts to it, Mr Adie, and I think that they may be related. The first part begins when last Sunday I attended a Latin Mass most of which was conducted with Gregorian chants, and the feeling in it was very strong.

Mr Adie:   Your feeling?

Jerome:   Yes, my feeling was very strong and very simple. We haven’t had that sort of Mass since I was a very small child, and it left in me a very strong impression that I had had a certain simplicity and maybe gentleness when I was young, which had since been completely lost. I haven’t been getting melancholic about that, which I sometimes do when I remember mistakes I’ve made in the past. I can get very despondent. But this creates a feeling of almost pain, and this is related then to my second question: that is, I have come across the phrase, I understand it was used by Mr. Gurdjieff: I think it was paying the debt of one’s existence.

Mr Adie:   Paying?

Jerome:   Yes, or it could be making amends for one’s past.

Mr Adie:   Yes, but how does it relate to that first part of the question?

Jerome:   Because with the first part, I feel that there’s something in my past, a certain simplicity, a plus factor, which I’ve lost, so I feel as if I’ve almost betrayed the past, and I want to make up for that loss.

Mr Adie:  That’s clear.

(Pause)

I think one wants to understand that in the right way, not to be negative about it. There’s such a tremendous tendency to slip into negative state. Any excuse is good enough. The work, the ideas can be used.

You felt something which as you say, was simple, before you’d been completely indoctrinated and brainwashed and all the rest of the things. There should be a gladness that I haven’t lost the memory of that, because it shows me that within me there is the possibility of simplicity; and now I have the work to go in that direction.

If I ponder it, it reminds me that this is part of the direction. This is this, this certain tenderness, this childlike freedom from calculation and manipulation and all that.

(Long Pause)

That’s the way to understand it.

Sam:   This morning, Mr Adie, I had for the first time very clearly, the impression of my feeling going to my limbs, my body. Usually, my head tries to describe what feeling is and looks for it in a forced way, but this was quite different.

Mr Adie:   Again, I get a glimpse of the simplicity of the process. All the confusion is in my lack of connection, my lack of presence, which I need for understanding. Just by some fortunate coincidence of the relation of one part to another and my intention, for a moment I see something clearly and simply.

Again, I have proof, and it gives me some possibility if I respect it and don’t just sort of lull into it, and luxuriate, and start to dream about it.

It’s that way that I pay for the debt of my existence, by not going into dreams and wasting it.

Sam:   Mr Adie, with my work recently—

Mr Adie:   You mean your daily work? Your teaching work?

Sam:   Part of my inner work. I think this is what has been lacking, is this feeling. I started a few weeks ago with a very strong line of not expressing negative emotions with my parents, and that has gone downhill.

Mr Adie:   Having a strong line really means it was clear to you; you had a clear conception of what you wanted; and what you didn’t want. For a time you were able to realise that, but again, everything is going in a wave-like way, and you’ll come to the interval between mi and fa when there is needed a shock if it’s going to keep on the same line. I don’t know, I don’t recognise intervals, and so I haven’t learned yet how to fill the intervals with the right kind of shock. All the material is there; I don’t know how to use it yet.

How would it be? Think. I have an idea, I try it out, but I know by experience now that it won’t last forever and it goes down. So what can I do about it? I really wish to ponder that. There must be something in me which might understand a bit better.

Can I find any indication by pondering on the situation? I can’t do anything unless I can maintain the division of my attention. So, I remember that. I have the wish that I shall not be completely cut off from this. And I see that, that if I am present, then that’s possible. So, there’s a sort of connection in my present. Again, I need to ponder the thing.