This is from the meeting of Thursday 26 November 1987 with Mr Adie. It is extraordinary how relevant this material still is; but the reader must do some extra work – while both Anna and Mr Adie would have made gestures to indicate where they were referring to, readers can only apply their own understanding.

Anna:   Over the past week, whenever I remembered the idea of self-remembering, I’ve sensed my whole body just in a flash, just to see how my feeling is and where it is.

Mr Adie:   That’s a lot. If you are able to do that even sometimes, that’s not nothing. It’s the right way to work. Of course, it can be expanded, too.

Anna:   Yes. Sometimes I remembered how you said that feeling could be in different places. Sometimes it here, and sometimes it wasn’t even anywhere, then sometimes it seemed to be up here, and I would try and put it here, try and find a place.

Mr Adie:   You direct a beam of light from there to there. And you sense yourself. And you breathe, and you feel yourself, too. The more you direct it, relax, and as you become aware of places, they relax, otherwise, you wouldn’t become aware of them. You relax them more; you relate more. The shoulders are better let down. The head a little bit back, the stomach down. Suddenly, I’m aware of my feet. I go on, and then I’m relatively balanced. I can breathe. I know I breathe; there’s a force that passes through. All this is available to me. Sometimes I don’t have all that time, but even if I just have the wish, it gives me some possibility.

Anna:   Yes I found it would only last a second or two. And it felt so difficult. A lot of times I could hear things happening, and I knew it was imagination.

Mr Adie:   You mean there were negative things going on in the head?

Anna:   Yes. But I didn’t believe it, and I just wanted to let it go, I would try and remember.

Mr Adie:   Don’t forget there’s a better part of the head. There’s also a higher part. I haven’t got to rob myself of my head. I can go into the higher part. There’s a guardian here, the top one, over the head. There is a guardian there. It’s over the back of the head. It comes in many ancient statues. It’s a continuation of the spine. It continues up that line. There’s a vertical line of life proceeding from the area of the sex organs right up through the spine, right up through the head, into the higher centres. I can expand both ways. You tried to get out of your head into something more, more moving, more compassionate, more alive. But there’s a higher part of the head, too, which can smile at all that. In fact, it is quite free of all that. It’s a different order.

Anna:   How can I find that? I don’t know how to get there.

Mr Adie:   All our work is directed at finding that place. If I only work when it is easy, when it’s more corresponding, when I’m not upset, then I tend to go to sleep. Something in me thinks, “Oh, well, it’s fine. Everything’s all right.” And in a moment I’ve forgotten.

I need to be serious, not gloomy, but I need to have some serious observation. At any moment the foe may come, but I have a centre in me now. The serious things have a place me somewhere, I mean the incidents which have informed me of something which I’ve been quite sure of at certain times, and those things which I wish I could have but it seems I can’t have them.

If I do my preparation honestly and keep on, I shall find that place more and more certainly; it’s of a certain quality. It is related to ideas, and impulses, and all sorts of things which I’ve experienced of a corresponding quality. They’re gathered together to make a centre. It’s a sort of oratory. It’s a place for prayer. If I want to pray, that’s where I go – to that central place in me, a protected place. There’s nothing negative there. Negative emotion infects everything else, but it can’t infect that. I apply there. I’ve only got to touch the door, even that’s enough. In any case, all my work is my own work.  I have to struggle myself and find my own way and my own truth and my own seriousness, and see what I have to see.

Anna:   I found today that I did not judge people as much as I have done because I see that I don’t know why they do things, for what reasons.

Mr Adie:   No. I don’t even see the actions truly. At the crucifixion, when Christ was suffering this incredible anguish, he said, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” Enormous compassion. Those that were persecuting him. If I can remember that, well, what have I got to blame anyone for? In any case, they do not know. Nobody intentionally goes and does something bad. It’s always because they’re not there. And that’s a great relief.

But sometimes I have something that I’m holding on to. As long as I hold on to that, I can’t have the other. So, it’s a question. While this trouble goes on, I can see a lot. I can’t always expect to get over the thing quickly. But if I work, I see what is necessary. I learn what is necessary in order to get over quickly because I don’t want to waste time. If I can finish it off with a moment’s conscious work, that’s desirable.

We go to freedom, freedom to work, to be able to work. All the ideas we have and were brought up with are just those things that make our prison. The things which I criticise, the false position I give myself, my great accomplishments and assets, and so on. All these things have been plastered onto me, I want to be free of those things that I parade, that I resent if they’re not acknowledged, and so on. I want to let all those insane trappings go, because I never made any of it.

Anna:   They can come upon me at any second.

Mr Adie:   Yes, at any second, they can come. But then, this material that I acquire is very quick material. Very quick. It’s even quick enough to see a negative emotion coming and then to stop it. It’s so quick, a feeling rising in me as a fury, and then I can move and I’m not stuck. I can move.