This is from Tuesday 1 November 1983, at Newport.

Part One

Raymond:   One of my problems as regards to the work and other things is my energy for the work seems to fluctuate without any real control. I have plenty of energy for all sorts of things, but it seems to go up and down without any control of myself.

Mr Adie:   It’s like that. But it can’t be otherwise until you, really, are there. You’re the only one that can exercise control. The control is an inner control.

If the inner state is balanced, then outer things go differently. You see them more in reality; because, as you are, all your judgments are unreliable. They go automatically if you’re not there. You didn’t say that, but that’s what it amounts to. So, the energy flows where it will. It’s right that you come to that observation. In other words, there’s energy, but it’s not my energy. It’s at the mercy of automatic outside influences. Deep inside me is the seed of the I, the real I, the possibility of full control. That control is always immediate. Since you started speaking and I started trying to answer, there have been moments of you being there and not being there. It fluctuates. When your eyes flicker and you begin, for some curious reason, to consider it or something, then it goes again, then it comes and you’re free again. That’s your energy. It’s often caught into all these nonstop processes inside.

Try and think what “control” really means – to be able to control the flow of energy. It’s a very big thing. But the energy with which we’re concerned in our work is the energy of our attention.

The energy of attention is the essence energy, if you like. It’s the real energy of my life.

My attention is my life.

If I have no attention, I know nothing about it. I’m just a dream. Don’t let that truth go from you, that most of the time you’re not there. Every time you get any connexion or reminder or association, try for a moment to be there. That’s the effort we have to learn: to try and be present – but not to do something outside, to begin with. Now, if I’m in a bad temper and throwing things around, then naturally, it’d be a good thing if I could stop doing that. But broadly speaking, what I need is my presence.

Is that a bit clearer? Yes. It’s the way to work. The whole possibility now arises because you brought that. The thing is, how can I use it to work?

And “work:” is what is work? I’m talking about controlling attention. I had never thought of it as work. It’s a work to control my attention. The work is a special inner action, which I can make at a given moment. If I see I’m depressed, that’s the moment for the effort. I’m depressed, I’m down, I’ve seen a lot of difficulties, that’s the moment I need to be there. I’m not denying what I’ve seen, just wishing to understand. Beginning to have some of the influence of higher intelligence.

Part Two

Let us take the words “work” and “control.” Perhaps studying its etymology can help us get it from the formatory or moving part of the mind, to the emotional part of the intellect, where there is interest, the highest part, where inspiration, a new intellectual creation, may appear – which being so radically new, may affect our being even if it cannot be put into words.

Skeat tells us that the meaning in modern English is “a labour, effort, thing done or written.” He traces the word back to a conjectured Indogermanic root *WERG meaning “to work.” It is also productive in Greek, e.g. ergo, I work, ergon, a work, and this root is used in the Greek words organon, an instrument, organ, liturgy, “a public work.” It is good to ask myself, does my “work”  have the aim, the direction, the effort (application) to qualify as work? One can romanticise about the “effortless effort” so that the first word predominates over the second.

Even more interesting is the word “control.” It’s meaning is a “restraint, command.” We use the word in both senses, although the idea of controlling an impulse may at first sight seem inimical to that of controlling other a car  by steering it. The word is “short for contre-rolle, the old form of counter-roll. … a duplicate register, used to verify the official or first roll …”

This fits in well with what Mr Adie was saying, that the control in our work is an inner control. There is a pattern in our heads, a pattern being acted out or about to be, and then there is an internal check. How does this manifestation, thought, or feeling, compare with the counter-roll? That is, does my manifestation correspond with my aim, with my conscience (such as may be)?

It is not so much a forceful exertion as a catalytic seeing: a vision, a dividing of attention between inner and outer. Sometimes all I need to do is see. The illustration for this post is Gudea of Lagash. I think one can tell: he is awake, both innerly and outerly.