The point being made is here is significant. Henry said to Mr Adie: “Last time our group met, you said to me to bring some material, and I’ve been trying to, to see why anything that I have brought to the meetings has lacked any real substance.”

“Not always,” said Mr Adie. “Sometimes it does have substance. Don’t forget, however, that you’re liable to take these gloomy views, and they’re just as bad as the optimistic ones. What sort of dog is this that will condemn yourself all the time? It’s got to be able to get a profit out of it somehow. If you aren’t a great king, well be a great slug. But still, something wants to be great.”

Again, I believe this to be a significant issue: Mr Adie was pointing to what is beneath the manifestation. Both self-praise and self-criticism can be signs of a mechanical desire to be “great.” Both are equally removed from the state of impartiality. This thing in me takes everything to extremes – it has a dramatic or hysterical aspect.

Henry continued. “I found two things which are hindering me at the moment. One is I found that I’m dreaming that I’m working. And I’m not really able to get out of the repetitive dreams of work into the real work.”

Mr Adie:   Well, there we are. Those are the turning thoughts: dreams and turning thoughts. Yes, and the other is?

Henry:   When I do approach something, I’m very quickly distracted from that small aim.

Mr Adie:   What do you mean? Here is just where is the example would be enlightening for all of us.

Henry:   I took this last week in particular because I was trying to respond rather than react, and I found that I’d made my plan, but in my head there was this endless dreaming about it, so that I did not see anything except the dreams.

Mr Adie:   What was the plan? I mean the moment, what happened? I want the example. You described usefully your intention and your recollection. Now, speaking concretely, what took place? What is the experience which you can report and assert with a certain degree of factual truth? You have to have been there so that you can be there again now when you talk. Otherwise, you’ve had some useful thoughts about it, it’s been handy, but you haven’t got an example.

Henry   Well, at my set times to stop during the day, the aim was—

Mr Adie:   Yes, you’ve said what the aim is. Go on to the incident.

Henry   The aim was to stop and recount the morning to see if I had been able to respond or whether I was reacting. And I found that when I remembered the stop, to think about the morning, that I hadn’t been there all morning and everything was reaction only.

Mr Adie:   Where were you when this occurred?

Henry:   In general I was either—

Mr Adie:   No, not “either.” You can’t be “either.” If you say that you were either in the room or at the office, you miss the point, and you’re dreaming again, in generalities. What you say is potentially interesting, it’s about our work, and at times you come close to it. But now I have to come down to a real happening. What we want to know is what takes place at the moment, because that’s where I lack.

You prepare to work, don’t you? So take one day, say Sunday, and say, at this time on Sunday I was in this place and I saw this manifestation. But now you’re generalising. “In general” it is no good. Having said what you said to start with, which could have been shorter, but at least was clear, can you tell us what happened? Where’s the material?

It’s also going to have the effect of making the moment, if you work properly, more factual. You value the clean precise observation more, and understand that you have to be there more.

(to Ricardo) You’re moving a little bit inside, aren’t you Ricardo? You start looking with this hideous face. Just move inside.

(to Henry) Do you understand now?

Henry   I’m trying to.

Mr Adie:   What’s stopping you? It’s easy. It’s almost too easy.

I have to have been there to have an observation. And it’s not easy to be there and remember. You are proving that fact. But I am present, and if I was there, it’s easy enough to report it now. In a way, it comes naturally: there’s a connection in my state.

If I was there, I will have a clear recollection. And now I’ve come to bring what I saw, to have it scrutinised if need be, and I’m going to understand something more or less true. But without that, I an satisfied to come to these broad conclusions. I can do that with books, I can do that with discussion groups. If all we had was a discussion group about Mr Gurdjieff, where do you think it would end? We wouldn’t be getting anywhere. We couldn’t get anywhere.

Now we come to our work, and the same thing threatens us very much. So my material really is my example.

Many years ago, when a taxi driver had a horse-drawn carriage, it was a real art to get you from here to there safely and comfortably, in the time you wanted. There were no traffic lights, and if a horse shied it could be dangerous. A taxi driver took this lady home in his carriage, and he told me that he felt he had done a very good job of it, and shown real skill. He had hoped for a tip of sixpence. It doesn’t sound like much, does it? It would be five cents today, but it would have paid for his lunch so he could stay out and work a little longer for his family. The lady gave him a farthing. A quarter of oner cent. He said to me: “There’s no taste in nothing, today, Guv’nor.” No substance, no material.

What we have here is worth more than a farthing. Bring something of substance – something very practical. A friend brought us some freshly caught fish, couple of days ago, they were delicious, there’s no doubt about it. There they were, beautifully prepared, very good. It’s material, in a different connection. He didn’t have a long screed about how he caught it and all the rest of it, what he used to bait there was the fish. But there was the fish. No doubt about it.