:   Yesterday, I went to a playgroup, and I had a plan in my mind to not have a cup of coffee, just to try to relax instead and sit and enjoy sitting in the sunshine. I remembered that plan, yet I did have a cup of coffee. It felt like a betrayal. It felt like I’d betrayed the work.

Mr Adie:   Hmm. That’s true, because you did have a certain degree of choice – you had remembered the plan.

Rachel:   I remembered what I’d planned, and yet I got tempted by this piece of cake that I wasn’t expecting to be there. I saw the nervousness that comes upon me, was thinking, would I get a piece of cake, or wouldn’t I? And how silly it is, that I don’t have enough control of my appetite.

Mr Adie:   It displaced your intention. You lost your intention. You chose that plan, I don’t quite know why you chose that, that you wouldn’t have a cup of coffee, whether it’s because you drink too much coffee, or whether you were going to use that to wake you up, or what?

Rachel:   It was used it to wake me up instead of a cup of coffee, just to try and be present.

Mr Adie:   Alright, then you were going to use the denial of the coffee in order to wake you up. But by the time the incident arrived, it wasn’t the same thing. You were not there. And there was this cup of coffee. And not only that, a piece of cake, too. Very reasonable with coffee. Of course, cake and coffee go together. I get displaced. I literally get displaced. Now, the question is, do I have to be displaced? Do I sense myself being pushed out of the way by a piece of cake? That is what happened.

If I could come nearer to that, it would give me a power that I don’t now possess, because when I’m not there, anything can happen. Why should it not? It’s very natural. Just the automatic mechanical laws of densities and cause and effect and so on, while the one thing that can remember, or make a choice, or differentiate in values, is missing. And that is the cost: a piece of cake and I’m banished. Am I going to be moved off the stage in my life for the sake of this piece of cake? It doesn’t matter if it was a piece of cake, or a cup of coffee, or the newspaper. It’s a question of myself.

Habits have been formed, the habit of reading, the habit of drinking coffee. It has an inertia, it has a momentum. It’s not to be trifled with. I get defeated over such a small matter. In a sense, it is a betrayal, but I learn by that. If I don’t take it immediately, at least I can acquaint myself with the various arguments about it. I cannot pretend that I wasn’t reminded a little bit; therefore, at least my intention had that amount of result. It raised a question. My enjoyment of the cup of coffee was not unalloyed. It wasn’t so nice as normal. I couldn’t really luxuriate in it. I didn’t say, “What a magnificent piece of cake this is!” I just ate it. Is that right? Or did you thoroughly enjoy it and stick your fingers in the air?

Rachel:   I seem to remember enjoying the cake.

Mr Adie:   There are different positions. I can sink very much down to the bottom, or I can try and avoid going back to the bottom. That’s something. But nothing means anything when I’m swept aside. I am swept aside time after time until I am in my waking sleep, and then I’m just a victim – a slave. Anything can happen. No wonder that are wars. No wonder there are hatred and enemies and friendships are lost.

 Then go on. Don’t stop. Now, again, do it three times more every other day. Choose some cup of coffee, or something, three times, once tomorrow, and then miss a day, and the next day, and the next day, and then no more. In that way. Don’t let it become mechanical.

Gervaise:   Mr Adie, yesterday I had a picture of just how low my life can fall. I had a plan at the start, but I was taken early in the day with some computer business, and then I found myself with no concern for people who were helping me, trying to some software. I was sitting down and having lunch with this person and just really, annihilating any honesty. Then going to my office and marking assignments, and no one could watch me. So, my marking was slap-dash, no concern at all for the effort that was put into this work. Then come home and expect to be open and be a happy family man. No conscience, at all about any of that. Somewhere deep in me, there’s a sort of wish that I did have a conscience. But even then, something in me saying, well, I’ve done it now, I’ve got this software. I can’t turn the clock back now. And after all the results have to be in tomorrow. So, it doesn’t really matter if I didn’t read every word. Then I go out and parade as this person who, you know is professional and has a dignity, yet underneath there’s all this hollowness.

Mr Adie:   Yes, but then you see a lot of work. You have a lot of work to do. You want to establish your attitude about this lack of consideration for others. You talk about stealing or pinching. Well, I don’t know how evil or not it was, but you must know; and whether it’s acceptable to you or not, it’s your business. There you see a rather irresponsible, unfair person, not a very good friend to everybody. But you want to see it yourself, and don’t glorify it, turning yourself into a great criminal and start pounding yourself on the back with a knotted rope. Just be practical about it and try and use it, try and make sure and verify. And maybe you can come to a resolve about it, but not at once. Otherwise, you make a resolve and can’t keep it.

You have touched a question of morality there. Well, that wants sorting out very carefully and getting clear. What is acceptable to you? What is too much? What is something which gives a very bad image to yourself? Try and be a real person.

I think that what Mr Adie said about how we can glorify our own negative emotions by “turning ourselves into criminals and lashing ourselves” is very true. Surely most if not all of us have seen how this attitude, which seems to be the very opposite of glorification, has had the effect of keeping the manifestation uppermost among our concerns in life.