Inner Octaves. Testimony of a Student of G.I. Gurdjieff 9780978066116

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INNER OCTAVES Michel Conge

DOLMEN MEADOW EDITIONS Toronto

This book is a translation of Sur le chemin de l'octave de l'homme: Témoignage d'un élève de G.I. Gurdjieff by Michel Gonge. Copyright © Société d’Étude des Traditions, Paris, 2004. Translated from the French by members of Gurdjieff Foundation groups in Europe and North America. Inner Octaves

Published with the permission of the Société d’Étude des Traditions. English text Copyright © Dolmen Meadow Editions, Toronto, 2007. Photographs Copyright © Société d’Étude des Traditions, Paris, 2007. Back-cover photograph: Michel and Gilles Conge at ‘Le Lesiau’. ISBN: 978-0-97806611-6 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher. DOLMEN MEADOW EDITIONS 283 Danforth Avenue, Suite 119 Toronto M4K IN2, Canada www.dolmenmeadoweditions.com dolmen — a silent marker of the invisible Printed and bound in Canada by Transcontinental Printing.

Everything moves out from the One in order to return to the One.

Notice to the Reader The passages in this book originated, for the most part, in convivial and provocative exchanges between Michel Conge and his students. Although not intended for

publication, they constitute a record of his thought. Reading these passages assumes a familiarity with the ideas brought by Mr. Gurdjieff as revealed in both In Search of the Miraculous [1] and, in a more veiled form, in the myth of Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson [2] . However, memorized knowledge of these ideas alone is not enough to enter into an understanding of this book. As Michel Conge said, “I will speak especially to those who have been searching for several years, or at the very least for several months, and who, having become acquainted with this teaching’s essential ideas, have felt their truth.” In this search, an understanding of the whole body of the ideas brought by Mr. Gurdjieff is inseparable from the practice of an inner discipline, a discipline in which the intelligence of the heart can only be awakened when the body is transparent to the energy of an intelligence from another world. On this path of the opening of inner being to its own true destiny — to be Man — the seeker unfailingly encounters traces of the great teachings and authentic religions. As Henri Tracol used to say to us, What are the hidden connections between our teaching and the great currents of the traditions? The kinship is unmistakable, a deep kinship ... but what is its nature? We need only remember that the Fourth Way cannot possibly be reduced to, nor be in opposition to, any of the other ways. On the contrary, it circulates freely whenever the dimension of consciousness allows seeming contradictions and incompatibilities to be transcended.' [3] While it is always risky to gather together notes of things that have been said over a period of some twenty years and under different conditions, as we looked through them, their coherence, the rigour of their intent, and the thread of the author’s essential thought seemed to us to justify this collection, which resonates with the question asked of the Almighty by David in the Psalms: ‘What is man that You remember him and the son of Adam that You are concerned for him?’ [4] Michel Conge constantly returned to the idea of man — his origin, his freedom, his role, what is expected of him — and what the conditions of his response are to the mystery of his own being and the mystery of having received life from what is beyond him. By his own example, Michel Conge constantly revivified these ideas, both by shedding light on them and by encouraging his students to put them into practice. The assertion by King David, ‘For thou hast made him a little lower than the Elohim,’ [5] reminds us of man’s origin from on high. This idea is found again and again in all the great traditional teachings, to which Michel Conge here brings his own voice. We should also add that Michel Conge’s voice did not lack humour, as can be seen in some of his responses and in the tale of the trip to Vichy with Mr. Gurdjieff. “I

greatly mistrust teachings where people don’t laugh,” he used to say ... to which he would offen add, “and other teachings too, by the way.” In this way, he allowed everyone the freedom to participate — or not — in a question. The editors of the French edition

Michel Conge and students, late 1960s, at ‘Le Lesiau’

TALKS AND EXCHANGES

A Hierarchy of Understanding [6] My life and my death, my liberation or my downfall... these are not isolated things; they are continuous processes; they are consequences. Everything is combination or state. It is in an organism undergoing constant reshaping, an organism destined for annihilation, that the imperishable ‘I’ must be born. My aim can only be achieved by following an extremely rigorous line. If the descending current carries me away, I am taken farther from that line; if I deviate, I move away, along a loop that will lead me lower down. My old illusion of being an accomplished and free man prevents me from seeing that, in fact, I am nothing more than a ceaselessly moving point where lines of force intersect. This perspective on things is the only one that can really show me the right way to work. But, because it is so difficult for us today, we might try to look for a more modest understanding that could gradually lead us to the right way of working. ln order not to deviate, I must learn to recognize the ideas that will enable me to encompass an increasing number of concerns and data in a single look. That will help me discover that deviation begins in the moment I take a single idea or a single phenomenon for the whole. And yet, my very constitution obliges me to do just that, and when I turn toward the longed-for truth with only one of my functions, I deviate immediately. A search supported by the head alone can only lead me astray; a search based solely on feeling leads to equally meaningless notions. Only by reaching a centre of gravity in myself that is capable of reconciling my different aspects will I be able to keep to a precise line without deviating. Just as I lose myself because I surrender to whatever function is dominant, similarly, I lose myself if I think that my vision of things is the only right one. My centres must contribute to my search, without any of them claiming to be the only one able to understand. Each one of us must draw closer to the others without claiming to be the only one who understands . Just as one centre will watch over another, so too will each of us watch over the other. But that can never be enough. In order not to deviate, I must recognize in myself a hierarchy of levels. Likewise, among us we have to recognize a hierarchy of understanding. In this way, little by little, a relationship will be achieved.

The Idea of Evolution [7]

I will not attempt to reassemble all the material that we have received, but will only bring out some essential elements. My aim is to try to share with you my deep interest in this question. To do that, I would like us to make the effort to approach this idea together, as if from within ourselves. I am convinced that at a given moment it becomes impossible for any man to go beyond certain thresholds in his inner effort, if he does not allow a particular knowledge, which is as much psychologicai as it is cosmic, to penetrate his being. However, this knowledge has not been transmitted to us as an organized whole, but in a fragmentary manner. One of the great tasks that can fall to us would be to reconstitute the body of ideas on which this teaching is based. I have singled out two of Mr. Gurdjieff’s statements: For exact understanding exact language is necessary. [8] The fundamental property of the new language is that all ideas in it are concentrated round one idea, that is, they are taken in their mutual relationship from the point of view of one idea. This idea is the idea of evolution . [9] This condusion forcefully underlines the essential place of the idea of ‘evolution’. And if any doubt remained in us, the foullowing definition, also found in Fragments , would completely convince us: The evolution of man is the evolution of his consciousness ... the evolution of his will ... the evolution of his power of doing. [10] But let us be careful at this point not to allow our attempt at understanding to drift toward a restrictive form. We must not limit the idea of evolution itself to the much too narrow notion of the evolution of man — even if we give to the word ‘man’ the widest possible meaning — since man’s evolution is only one aspect of the question. A limitation of that sort would prevent us from understanding anything. Although our own evolution can become an acutely painful problem for us, we constantly need to bring the problem back to its rightfui place, to restore it to its true context. More than anything else, evolution is a universal question. Without this universal quality, our own question loses all meaning, and hope would be impossible. To enable us to think more daringly, I felt a need to put before us the parallel diagrams of the great cosmic octave of the lateral octave, and of the four bodies of Man.

Parallel diagrams of the Ray of Creation, the lateral octave, and complete Man The problem of evolution seems to be inseparable from the Problem of Life, Creation, and Being — and I must open myself more deeply to this idea of Being. Even though I am not capable of living it, I must prepare myself for it now, even if only in theory. There is only one Being. He is the Unimaginable and the Unknowable. Nevertheless, it is from Him that I must begin and to Him that I must return. When I forget Him, when there is no longer even the least mental representation of Him, every idea and every attempt withers and degenerates. There is only one Being, but there are three worlds, as we find in many traditions: God — the World — Man.

This summary is only surprising if one has cast a merely superficial glance at the idea of the cosmoses, for the terminology of the scale of the seven worlds, such as we find in this teaching, makes the idea appear very clearly: Protocosmos Ayocosmos Megalocosmos Deuterocosmos Mesocosmos Tritocosmos Microcosmos Three worlds stand out from among these seven worlds. The Protocosmos, that is, the first cosmos, is the Absolute; then, jumping two levels, the Deuterocosmos, that is, the second cosmos (in spite of its fourth position), is the Sun; and finally, the Tritocosmos, that is, the third cosmos (in spite of its sixth position), is Man. This summary highlights an essential point. The first cosmos, or the Absolute, immediately evokes what Mr. Gurdjieff calls the ‘Most Holy Sun Absolute’. For us, the second cosmos is the world, since the Sun is at one and the same time the relative origin, the centre, and the whole of our human world. And if one recalls how often the Sun figures in many religions, one can, by comparing it with the Most Holy Sun Absolute, understand that it is the representative of a greater Sun from which it stems and from which it derives its power. The third cosmos is Man, or Adam, the unique soul — of whom it is said in the Old Testament, “So God created man in his own image.” [11] ln traditional teachings, in Islam, for instance, man is frequently called the Representative [12] — ‘for he has received a synthetic nature.’ This hierarchy of solar worlds, contained one within another, [13] gives an intensely real character to the idea of ‘the representative’, who derives his power entirely from his relationship to a world greater than himself. This greater world transmits to the Representative everything that is needed by those under his care, and gives a glimpse of the unity hidden beneath the multiplicity. Without the recognition of this cosmic hierarchy, the idea of evolution would not have the power to awaken the inner most parts of ourselves. The effort of visualizing these worlds — in their elusive relationship of Three to One — enables us at least to catch a glimpse of Being and Creation in this ‘motionless movement’, this eternal Vibration, which our gaze cannot bear and which we can only approach at present by means of a (more or less perceptible) continuous twofold movement of birth and rebirth. The contradictory and living character of this movement needs to be directly perceived within ourselves and ultimately reconciled through a unique act, the understanding of which escapes us the very moment that we believe we have reached it. We are as yet able to approach the truth only through moments of partial awareness, which, being partial, provide us with a notion of reality that gives rise to

illusion. We must take this situation into account. In order to prepare for the possibility of a unifying understanding, we must turn for a moment toward the idea of ‘involution’, while still carefully maintaining the painful impression that, through the lack of a true ability to think, we artificially separate what is definitely not separate. And, even though I am not capable of reaching this unifying understanding, I wish to emphasize the fact that something in me refuses to separate involution and evolution. There are not, nor can there be, two opposing movements that should be artificially reconciled. These movements have always been reconciled, but my mind divides this single process and plunges me into endless contradictions, whose recurring consequences I must endure. The idea of involution compels me to take a quick look at one of the remarkable aspects of the Law of Seven — the idea of intervals. We must try to understand that neither involution nor evolution, as we see them now, could take place without these apparent impediments. If there were no intervals, the initial divine manifestation would be followed by an immediate return of its energies. There would, strictly speaking, be no Creation. No voluntary effort would be required, and consequently there would be no evolution, because this mechanical return of energies would never be conscious and willed; that is to say, it would never have the nature of a gift which, as we will see in what follows, is a basic element of evolution as we must understand it. Alternatively, everything would tend to disintegrate, gradually shrinking the Most Holy Sun Absolute, a process which, in scientific terms, would mean an increasing entropy. It is probably this second hypothesis that should be adopted, if I understand anything at all of what Mr. Gurdjieff says in Beelzebub’s Tales . [14] It follows, therefore, that in order to oppose this inexorable increase in entropy, evolution is necessarily wanted from Above, and the specific characteristics of the Law of Seven are indeed an effective means of preventing a progressive and total deterioration of energy. In light of this very great problem, behind which there exists an unfathomable Consciousness, it appears, heyond any doubt, that Evolution is a necessity and a duty of Being, the echo of which we can perceive in ourselves. [15] In this way, the pulsation willed by the Protocosmos passes through critical points that are also willed. One of these critical points is to be found between the Planets and the Earth. There, the current of influences is interrupted. This amounts to saying that within this universal organism — this vast body endowed with Consciousness and Will, animated by a Mind, irrigated by a Heart — the circulation is blocked at a precise point resulting in an ischemia. [16] It is as if all the ‘organs’ below this point will be deprived of blood and will run the risk of gangrene unless a collateral route is opened up. The set of organs threatened in this way belongs to the lowest System, Earth-Moon. [17] We can begin to grasp the importance of this phenomenon for the general equilibrium when we learn that the Sun, acting as the representative of the Absolute, assumes the responsibility of giving birth to a phenomenon capable of

filling the interval that prevents the Earth and the Moon from growing. The interval, through the conditions that it creates, calls for an act and accords the Sun a conscious place. This point should be kept in mind because it will help us to understand, by analogy, the call that sounds within us and which, by inviting us in our turn to a conscious act, offers us a place that is not merely mechanical and passive but also conscious and willed. Yet, we will still have to understand all the analogous correspondences that will enable us to become what we ought to be: the Third World, or the Representative. This, by the way, can help us understand — because we are trying to look at things from higher up — why there is no need to be concerned about the expression ‘struggle against God’. [18] Everything shows that this struggle is willed by the Absolute, and that the duty at every level of Consciousness is to understand the reason for this and thereby be able to respond. [19] The mistake arises because I look at the problem from the outside and not from the inside, and because the struggle initiated by my ‘person’ is not an attempt to understand but is rather an assault, an attempt to take by force. Doesn’t struggling mean being actively still, in order to allow the free circulation ol energies in their twofold harmonious movement of descent and ascent? [20] By helping the forms of Being entrusted to its care in their struggle to go against the current, the Sun only comes closer to the Absolute, becomes more similar to It: the Sun serves the designs of the Absolute. And this indicates what act is expected from us and clarifies the meaning of evolution. The conscious effort of the Sun toward supporting evolution in its universal aspect is the creation of what has been called a new descending octave. This octave emanates from the Sun; it is lateral to the Ray of Creation and the generator of organic life. Its purpose is to fill the interval placed between the Planets and the Earth and to re-establish the flow of the descending current of higher influences. But this is only one of its meanings, for this octave is a cosmic manifestation that is among the richest in content — as much from the universal as from the human perspective. This lateral octave can give us a glimpse of the source of the evolutionary impulse, which is so difficult to understand wilhin ourselves. And one can say that our reason for existing — the hidden meaning of both our outer and inner movements, of our contradictions as well as our destiny — is all inscribed in us, and nothing could be more important for us than to try to decipher it. This octave shows clearly that the place of man is not on the Ray of Creation and that, although man’s feet are firmly planted on the Earth, the higher functions of being — which are his birthright — belong to a lineage that is not of the PlanetsEarth axis. It reveals that man appeared only secondarily in the vast process of Creation. Indeed this is why we cannot approach the idea of evolution from the limited perspective of the evolution of man. It overturns our subjective ideas about the relationship of authority and precedence with regard to the World and to man. The World was not created for man, but man for the World. Man corresponds to a cosmic need. He is born to serve. And if we think that this idea contradicts the

biblical account in Genesis, it is because we don’t know how to think in relative terms. If many things in organic life exist apparently to serve man, they also exist, among other reasons, to allow man to fulfil the function for which he was created. [21]

The Talmud says the sanie thing: “The Torah was not created for man, but man for the Torah.” We also find an echo of this statement in an affirmation of the Work that has possibly disturbed us: ‘The Work is not made for us.’ The difficulty that now appears is the need to read the lateral octave alternatively in its descending movement and its ascending movement, incapable as we are of apprehending the single movement — Three in One — which alone could convey the truth. In its ascending movement, this octave speaks of evolution, but only under certain conditions. Only one part of organic life can evolve: humanity. Only one part of humanity can evolve: certain men. This octave, Evolution-Man, is that of the complete Man, not that of humanity, since the ultimate function of humanity is altogether different. In order to understand the ascending movement better, let us return to the descending movement, but in another way. Man has been ‘sown from Above’ to fulfil a requirement inherent in the Ray of Creation. But whether it is a question of the creation of worlds by the Absolute, or the creation of organic life, one discovers by analogy that what is true for the first is obviously true for the second. This organic octave must not be lost or disintegrate any more than the Ray of Creation itself. So, the effort of creation carries within itself the need, the demand, for a return. And these examples, which come from vary high levels of life, invite us to find corresponding examples in ourselves. However, let us note a most important fact. At the level of the Sun, the Law of Seven no longer needs to be created. With all its power of Organization, it dominates the conscious act of the Sun and defines quite precisely the Sun’s place on the scale of consciousness. Below the Absolute, conscious efforts can take place but they can only be made according to precise and inescapable conditions. This shows that even if the Absolute does not intervene directly in the worlds stemming from its Presence, the primordial Laws are the organizing agent of its veiled glory. They bear its Will, bear witness to its Consciousness, and manifest the Absolute in all parts of the Universe. As we try to come closer to these realities, a double requirement appears. Man has been sown on Earth in order to transmit influences mechanically, in order to be a ‘link’ in this passage of energies. But man must evolve because, although the descending current is assured by his creation, only his conscious effort can allow an ascending current to appear. Without man’s voluntary effort, there would not be any exchange. Consequently, man bas two roles to fulfil, a mechanical one and a conscious one. The reconciliation of these opposing requirements obliges us to pause for a moment and reflect on the idea of the octave. An octave is an ordered succession of

notes that stand in a definite relation to one another. In order not to be a mere chaotic sequence of notes, man, having been created according to the principle of the octave, must be ‘put in order’ so that the connections and relationships between these notes are respected. Each of the notes is represented in him, but, if we consider man as he is habitually, the relationships between the notes are apparently not respected. The only constant reality, no matter where the centre of gravity of his presence settles, is that although all the levels remain materialized in him, order, in the cosmic sense of a hierarchy of worlds, is not established. This reality sheds a little more light on the idea of evolution. Nevertheless, it seeins clear — even though I’m unaware of it or I forget it — that, in spite of my erring ways and my perversity (in the etymological sense of ‘movement in all directions’), there remains an invisible property that prevents interruption and permits the passage of descending influences. Without this property, I could not even fulfil the primary mechanical role for which I was conceived. lt seems to me that to reach an understanding of this would be to discover one of the keys to life. And if our attempt today leads us no further than this question and allows it to take root in us, our efforts will not have been in vain. What is this thread that — in my sleep and even in my most destructively disordered states — protects me (at least for a time) from complete and irreversible disintegration? Isn’t asking this question the same as coming back inside myself, this time by a different route, lo this notion of primordial Laws that (in spite of my confusion and my state of unconsciousness) bear witness to a latent Consciousness that keeps watch during my sleep [22] and to a Will behind my childish dreams of power? Doesn’t ‘evolving’ mean recognizing Myself in this mysterious property? Seen in this light, descent already implies return. Attesting to the existence of a continuum underlies the disharmony, the descent imposes a search for evidence of the return. In this way, it clarifies what the idea of a being, constituted according to the principle of the octave, signifies. It signifies a being who bears in himself all the signs of a path leading from its secret origin to its perceptible manifestation. This path, which joins heaven and earth, can be rediscovered by man within himself, and therefore he can never rightfully say he has been abandoned by his Creator. Furthermore, even though man is in a state of sleep and his so-called autonomy is nothing but reactivity, the substances in him are not inert; they live, they vibrate. This gives actual meaning to what we attempt to describe by the term ‘inner call’. Here at last we discover the secret of the impulse calling us to evolve, the reason for the nostalgia that torments us and which we must translate into acts rather than laments. When we ask ourselves what is meant by ‘awakening’ and ‘sleep’, we find their meaning by becoming aware of — or by being unable to live — the way we are constituted, and by discovering these substances in us, their relationships, their connections and disconnections. At the same time, it becomes clear to me why I am cut off from myself. Fragments seek to reconnect, but their conjunction will not in

itself produce, by mere addition, this ‘I’ to which I aspire. However, unless they are reunited, the essential condition for the manifestation of this ‘I’ will be lacking. Needless to say, the real deciphering of this octave must take place internally and must be closely linked to the effort that we are more and more able to make, with every day. Studying it intellectually is only a preparatory stage. Every approach to a finer substance, every perception of a different level, while confirming for me the reality of the way I am constituted, defines the precise starting point of an effort. And, each time, this effort becomes a little more conscious. This is how my centre of gravity can shift, but ultimately the whole of the octave will have to be lived. The efforts that make me abandon one level for another, one note for another, are still only refined meanderings. To live this octave in its totality would be to discover that these two movements, which are called ‘first birth’ and ‘second birth’, far from being opposed, combine with and complete each other. The first was the promise of the second; the second will justify the first. Now, let us come back to the ascending direction of this octave. Beyond the possible evolution of the man I am today (still a very subjective viewpoint), it also refers to the uninterrupted chain of all the levels of men who are in the process of evolving. From the ordinary man to the totally evolved man and, returning to the unique concept of man — which is a far cry from my subjective viewpoint — the octave signifies the evolution of man, considered as One Man… Adam. If one takes into account the place given to the fourth body, the One Man belongs to the solar System and at the same time emerges from that System as it relates to different worlds in the Ray of Creation. This appears even more clearly when one to represent to oneself the different levels of men, no longer in a linear diagram, but with reference to the enneagram. Man number seven, although still related to this solar world, is free from it because he has become a completed enneagram, a complete universe analogous to the great Universe itself. In relation to the higher worlds, what is he? Toward what form, unknown to us, can he evolve? Does he become, as it were, a cell of the Megalocosmos? Of course I don’t know, and all speculation is idle before this simple fact: beyond that point there is certainly a different conception of evolution, but until that point, evolution means ‘to become a Man,’ and that alone needs to be kept in mind. Without wishing to do more than just mention them, it’s perhaps useful to say, as an invitation for reflection, that this octave of organic life opens up many other questions, for it brings to mind: ● the conscious circle of humanity and the outer circles; [23] ● the passage of ‘C’ influences; [24] ● the dual Constitution of man in ordinary nature and in higher nature: the visible and the invisible; ● the idea of higher centres and our relationship with them; ● the octave makes one want to find the correspondence between the three-storeyed machine and this human structure, according to the Law of Seven; and finally,

the Octave suggests the question of food and exchanges, that is, the question of opening to the different levels of the Universe. [25] It is important to try and study this idea of evolution more and more deeply. After having glimpsed the reason for man’s need for evolution, it is necessary to consider the possibility of his evolving. Actually, it is the same question, since his possibility resides in his need; and his need in his possibility; and both of them in the way he is constituted. It is remarkable to discover that man is connected in potentiality and in fact is actually connected even though he appears to be separated and manifests as if he lacked any connection. This is exactly the question that we mentioned a moment ago. It is just another way of speaking about evolution. But it will always be a matter of Consciousness, Will, and Doing. Man is in fact connected, and at the same time he is penetrated by every category of influence. He can live this connection either actively or passively — or better, actively and passively at the same time. This implies a trinity behind the duality and, at the heart of this trinity, an all-embracing unity. [26] Am I free to be That or not? Am I free to evolve, or is this nothing but the torment of Tantalus? The question takes on importance to the extent that we become more deeply aware of our slavery and of the cosmic reasons for this state. In fact, I am sure, not of my freedom, but of carrying in myself the principle of freedom. And the answer, paradoxically, appears strikingly in what I had thought would forever be a source of bitterness: I am subject to two implacable and opposing currents, and it is the fact that they are inexorably opposed that makes liberation possible . But then evolution no longer appears simply as an ascent, and I feel that, at this point, the oppressive counterpoint of the antagonistic forces can give way to another vision. At each point of intersection of the currents, we are free insofar as our simultaneous perception of both currents remains balanced. And I really mean, at each point of intersection. There is no once-and-for-all liberation for us, but a scale of successive liberations leading to that Unimaginable where the primordial laws are reunited into one peerless Whole; but not at a precise point indicated by my intellect. Simultaneously the Higher, the Lower, and the Middle. If man were subject only to the descending current, he would be lost forever. If he were only subject to the ascending impulse, there would be no conscious effort, therefore no evolution. I am contradiction. But what was only a depressing observation becomes a source of hope, since these currents never stop. With the return of silence, I can hear them act on me, discover that this notion of the octave, after being only a sort of abstract and cold idea, becomes material and animated, and that a kind of flow of a very different rhythm — deeper than the circulation of my blood — pulses in strange new arteries. This ebb and flow speaks to me about a life as yet unknown, the certainty of which, once glimpsed, at last evokes in me the ardent desire to be myself. ●

This scale, this octave, does exist; otherwise, hearing about it would not have aroused any echo in me. But I see that in order to become real, it wants me to embrace it. It has given me life and I must in turn recreate it by discovering it. The octave is my substance and yet it awaited me in Order to materialize. [27] Man is potentially a unity. But he must discover this in order to become a World, the Tritocosmos. [28] The understanding of this potential unity shows, by analogy, how we should regard the Ray of Creation, which is by no means just a succession of cosmoses that are more or less separate or more or less linked. [29] The Ray of Creation is a potential Whole, perhaps a Whole that is lost only so that it can be found again. [30] Each world bears within itself the same inextinguishable impulse of return, because each contains the intimation of higher worlds. This is clearly set forth in the way of counting the number of orders of laws for each world. Here, as is the case for man, consciousness must extend as much toward the lower as to the higher. The conscious action of the sun is an excellent example. The sun is turned toward the Absolute in order to understand the need for consciousness, and at the same time it is turned toward the most distantly lost worlds, and acts in order that the critical zone be filled. This confirms that the notion of evolution is not simply a movement of opposition. If this were not the case — and only the enneagram can show this — all conscious efforts would be doomed to fall back into the endless cycle of parts of a whole seeking each other and finding each other, only to be lost again. If I can hold this vision for a mornent, it overturns all my preconceptions and begins to free me from them. Let us come back to the question of man wishing to evolve. I must come to realize that the moment I perceive the two-way current that passes through me and imprints its contradictory movement on me, something must appear in the agonizing struggle and the sense of helplessness in which I find myself. This is possible because I am not alone and, without wanting to go too deeply into this aspect, I will mention again that this octave is, at one and the same time, the octave of a man who struggles to find himself and the octave of men who have evolved. A secret communication with them exists at the centre of my being and, like a comatose person receiving a transfusion, I receive some of the qualities of the donor. Does life return to my eyes? I know I am waking up. Will I be willing to stand up and show that I have understood that I can be reborn? Seen in this way, the question of evolution brings togetlier all levels of being and reminds us that there is only the One, and that Man is his representative. One question remains to be tackled before we finish, and it is the only one of interest to contemporary science: how should we understand the evolution of humanity? If it is true that, by definition, evolution means evolution of consciousness, and that consciousness, on our level, is an individual phenomenon, then this question, which applies to the cellular mass of humanity and not to the

individuum, has no meaning. But the question can become meaningful in a roundabout way. Let’s consider it for a moment. As a function of organic life, humanity is linked to the Earth. As an indirect consequence, it will share the Earth’s destiny. If the Earth involves, humanity will suffer from it; if the Earth evolves, humanity will experience the repercussions mechanically. But there is nothing to say that these repercussions will necessarily be favourable; organic life may even cease to be necessary. And even if humanity were to benefit, let us not forget that the evolution of the Earth can probably only be assessed in millions, or even billions, of years! This time span, out of all proportion with the duration of an individual human life, ultimately relieves us of any interest in such an uncertain, and moreover problematic, eventuality. What’s more, if the chain of consciously evolving men were to be broken, the unguaranteed possibility of an indirect evolution of humanity would come to nothing; if the octave of organic life were interrupted, the higher influences would no longer be able to reach the Earth. As a result, organic life, humanity, the Earth, and the Moon would disappear. When we ask ourselves whether it is not unjust that the whole of humanity WlIhIi cannot evolve, we let sentimentality distract us from the real issue of solidarity. In a sense, the possibility of evolution exists for all men, but it is a potentiality that must be considered for each ‘man-cell’. It depends on the effort of those few who have heard the call in the depths of their being. The real injustice would take place if, on hearing the call, I failed to answer it, because that would diminish even more the hope of those who wait in sleep. And if none of those who are chosen were to arise, hope would be shattered, the human race would be annihilated, and the point of growth of the Ray of Creation would be in mortal danger. This is because, within the sphere of our Sun, the worlds have as much need of sleeping men as of conscious ones, and probably in a very definite proportion. Every real effort that we attempt in the direction of consciousness therefore always bears fruit. As a glimmer of light grows in us, it filters into that undifferentiated mass of humanity out of which men will progressively arise, to ensure that the successive levels of evolution are always represented, and the transmission of the currents of life is never interrupted. [31] Finally, we should remember that one cannot speak of evolution before a first breath of consciousness appears, followed by a thirst to understand and an effort to set out toward a goal that remains mysterious for a long time. I would be tempted to stop here, because beyond this begins the ineffable, and I’m not unaware that the heart of the question resides there. So what is to be done? I have endeavoured to bring together some of the basic elements. I have tried to free myself as much as I possibly could from the more formatory aspects of my intellect in an effort to confront the ideas directly. Meanings that are hidden in these ideas have appeared to me. I do not want to lose these discoveries. I know for my part that without this effort I cannot come closer to the idea of evolution, and yet this effort itself can prevent me from evolving. I must therefore

gradually rid myself of all formulations, all images, and yet lose nothing of what begins to appear to me. I have to attain a quality of effort such that all that is left in me is the invisible structure of what was revealed. Then, all experiences, all work on oneself, could be recorded and organized along these lines of force, enabling me to rediscover the rhythmic movement of energies finally operating through the functions in both directions, and to rediscover my own organic life with its hierarchy of kingdoms, analogous to the great kingdoms that constitute organic life on Earth. And I could even rediscover this seed in myself — analogous to man’s situation within humanity — the seed for which this complex organization was created. Only by becoming ‘attention-consciousness-will’ — action, by perceiving the substance of all the worlds of which I am constituted and the laws that give them order, and by discovering the Motionless within motion and the One in the multiple, will I be able to speak of evolution. But, because I am too far away from all that, I have only been able to prepare the ground.

The Lateral Octave and Influences [32] Picture to yourself this immense universal octave, the Ray of Creation; and at the same time, the octave that begins from the Sun, the octave where organic life has its place. At present, your thinking and the information at your disposal do not alow you to see that there is an indefinite number of octaves; and that what you see in this process refers to one octave linked to another octave, which cuts across yet another with an interplay of intervals. Can we speak about involution evolution? First, we must understand these terms in a more inclusive way as they relate to us. I feel I’m being swept along by a current. There is a very astonishing thing: I can sense that if the process of creation were to stop, everything would stop. So, even though this current apparently drags me toward my downfall as an individual, I couldn’t in any way wish it to stop. This can already rcconcile me with a descending current. Then, I see that this current is mechanical — a prelimary vision of involution as a succession of causes and effects. What is evolution in relation to that? I need to notice the moment at which an involving process becomes evolving. It is what is called ‘conversion’ in certain teachings — a reversal of active and passive. It is very important for us to understand that it is at the very moment of this reversal that evolution begins. Then it can stop again, and I fall back into a current. Finally, I see that evolution cannot be other than conscious, even though octaves of a mechanical nature are set in motion. For in my conscious effort, automatic

actions can be triggered. That is why I mentioned just now that there is a whole range of octaves. But I know, by the taste of my efforts, that a reversal of polarity is taking place and is being maintained. This is an attempt to evolve. If I maintain this effort, at certain moments I catch a glimpse of an altogether different vision, as if my thought — which is on the verge of being expressed — were influenced by a different ability to think, a capacity that is beyond me. Perhaps it is only by these increasingly rigorous efforts, even though they are apparently destined to fail, that I allow the level of my current thinking to quicken, in an acceleration that would permit contact with the higher centres. These centres are not far off, and if my thought would only agree to become engaged, it would be enough for me, now and then, to get a surprise glimpse of them — not a contact though, because, for that, I lack the intermediary organisms, namely, the higher bodies. The world that is nearest to us is the terrestrial world; more precisely, it is organic life, of which each and every one of us is a cell. ln the lateral octave there are seven notes from the Sun to the Moon, of which three — la, sol, fa — represent organic life (see the diagram on page 5). Curiously, this representation is depicted as a layer between the higher and lower worlds, each of which is represented by two notes, do-si and mi-re , placed vertically above and below organic life, respectively. Regarding the centres, the proposed position is striking; and some Work ideas correspond to this fact in an astounding way. The lateral octave gives us great hope. The hope is that the situation of man — who, in the present state of things, belongs much more to the Earth world and the Moon world — is wretched only because we allow things to follow their course. The scale is there; the way is indicated . Man, with his levels from one to seven, can come and go along a vast portion of the Ray of Creation. And how could man be so limited, considering that he receives foods corresponding to such a vast scale? Only by cowardice and ignorance. But enormous possibilities are granted him. These ideas are not yet clear enough to you. You do not understand the double direction of ascent and descent in the lateral octave. I am made as a three-storeyed being capable of self-development, but I lead a life that doesn’t correspond at all to the latent possibilities in me. As for this diagram of a lateral scale with its very curious shape — which gives the impression of a reflection in water — it is symmetrical in relation to la-sol-fa , like a mirror image. Since the Ray of Creation has an interval to be filled between fa and mi of the great octave, the Sun sends out a lateral octave. But the further we go, the more we see that in the universe nothing is done for one reason alone (and that was also the way Mr. Gurdjieff proceeded). The Sun wouldn’t have taken so much trouble if there hadn’t been other problems to solve, other interconnections. On the one band, it is necessary that certain energies descend and reach the very tip of the new growth, that is, the Moon; and the Sun itself needs to receive energies. The octave is both ascending and descending.

It is said in Fragments that emanations must come from organic life to feed the Earth, the Moon, and the Sun simultaneously. We already see clearly that this proceeds in both directions, and that this ancillary process of creation did not occur for one reason alone. And also, strange as it seems, the scale proper to man is food for sol , which is the Sun. Yet we are told that the essence of which we are constituted comes from far above. This gives an image of the Fall, of man descending from far above, in fact from the level of the note la on the Ray of Creation, and sinking down so far into materiality that he forgets his origin. In the end, we see that this lateral octave corresponds to the needs of the Sun as well as to the needs of the Earth and the Moon, but also, no doubt, to the needs of essence, which descends the whole length of this octave and could equally well return. When one mentions the idea of food, one must immediately look at the idea of appetite, the necessity of feeding oneself. Why would this essence descend? As an experiment. The idea of ‘man as an experiment of the Sun’ has more than one meaning. It is difficult today to be precise about how things take place; but it appears that in the being of man, which includes different elements — essence, personality, and false personality — we can see a hierarchy of principles that are subject to differ ent numbers of laws and which correspond to various levels within the great octave of the Ray of Creation: the levels of the Moon, the Earth, the Planets, and the Sun. Looked at from this point of view, the idea of feeding leads to new discoveries, and one can start to discern the magnitude of the problem of identification. If essence did not need to be fed, perhaps this process — this misunderstanding that needs to be cleared up — would not exist. On a scale such as this, it is not good — and perhaps not necessary — to descend too low, to descend as low as to be subject to 96 orders of laws. It is urgent that we wake up. Is is also said that the levels of the lateral scale correspond to the types of man from one to seven. And because creation is a continuous process, one cannot consider these types of man as independent of one another. All along the scale there are semi-tones, and if the Sun is obliged to fill an interval with respect to a very great cosmic process, why wouldn’t the same thing occur in relation to a lesser process? Between man number seven and men number one, number two, and number three, there may also be intervals to fill. We are told that on the one hand there are influences created by the milieu in which we live: these are ‘A’ influences, mechanical and abundant. On the other hand, there are ‘B’ influences, which have a conscious origin but descend into the current of life — the idea of the Fall. And finally, ‘C’ influnces, which are conscious and remain conscious. ‘B’ and ‘C’ influences must each follow a different course. I receive ‘B’ influences, for example, through sacred texts and certain works of art; that is, from the outside. But I receive ‘C’ influences from within. Influences coming from within do not ‘fall’. They cannot be perverted because, to really be received, they demand an effort

in return. Both influences have a conscious source. ‘B’ influences are a gift offered to mankind; they are thrown into the sphere of the general life of humanity, and people do as they please with them. If we take in these influences through what is more superficial in ourselves, we tear them to pieces. When others take in these influences through what is most valid in themselves, then these influences strengthen their need. The nature of ‘C’ influences is that you cannot damage them so easily. But perhaps you have never yet received ‘C’ influences? Could it be that the best of what you have received are well- assimilated ‘B’ influences? Here is a very clear problem that I put to you: 48 — 3 = 24. Let me explain this a little: the 48 Orders of laws of the Earth are made up of 24 + 12 + 6 + 3 + 3 (from the Earth). So, there are three laws belonging to the Earth. It is said that if a man moves from one level to another, he is then subject to only half the laws, those of the planetary level. How can subtracting 3 from 48 make 24? If one considers this problem seriously, it can clarify many other things. It can help us understand why some influences fall and others pass through and do not fall. In fact, man does receive influences from very high above, but they degenerate. This is where the idea of a magnetic centre appears. ‘B’ influences serve to create a magnetic centre, which opens a way for a return to and a contact with ‘C’ influences — that is, with ‘schools’. Look at this whole interplay of forces with its ascents and descents, with elements that complete one another and allow a passage from one level to another. We said a moment ago that organic life evolves and within it mankind; and within mankind only certain men; among these men only a few will come to real attainment. And here again, there is a hierarchy and also a continuity; the levels are connected one with the other; they are ‘nested’ one in inside the other. We see that a bridge is necessary: essence coming down from high above, influences coming from knowledge, and the upward thrust — many men, then fewer and fewer — and all of this connected in different ways. Here is an interesting idea for those who consider it an injustice that only some men can work. Men who truly work consciously act as a thread connecting the highest summit to humanity as a whole, and if they were to stop working — they are the salt of the earth — all the rest of humanity would die. This corresponds to the interval filled by organic life, through which the life of the Earth and of the Moon is made possible. Essence appears on Earth naked; there is no personality at birth. Coming from another world to live an experience and be fed, essence coats itself in something: physical form and personality. Exchanges that nourish it will take place there. On its own, essence can do nothing. There must be a balance between these two organisms. [33] As the world is built for these exchanges, we find the same interplay there. Among the infinite number of essences that coat themselves with

personalitics in this way, only a few find a correct balance. Consider the image of innumerable seeds, of which only a few actually give birth to an organism. The idea of a bridge shows us why working on ourselves is so difficult, why all my attempts seem to fail... but, something crystallizes all the same. If I visualize the two octaves and recognize that the world is created by implacable necessities, for the needs of the Absolute and for the needs of the Sun, and if I can connect this with my own need, then I glimpse the immense stairway that responds to a necessity I cannot disregard. I see that this responds to the necessity of a much more intelligent organization. I sense that there are beings in the universe who think and live; a feeling can arise, and I feel that I am not alone, not abandoned, and that all this is leading toward a culmination. This idea that man is not complete ... this idea is vaster still. The Universe is not complete. Creation is ongoing; it starts over again, it continues. I partake of all of that. Man is a fallen being, banished, tormented. I will come to understand that this is not in vain. It is man’s misfortune to feel that it is in vain — but this may be completely wrong! It is my way of looking at things that is futile. We need to consider that men of higher levels of consciousness have taken on the task of transmitting influences; they struggle for themselves, but also for us. Without them, how could we find our way back to the path? Consider identification in relation to this: essence is hungry. We sometimes feel, for example, that certain kinds of reading and entertainment do not nourish us. Essence gets lost in them. It is hungry for impressions. Man cannot live for a second without impressions; therefore, this touches the most essential part of his complex organism. Furthermore, we speak of influences and impressions. There is an origin and an action; they are not the same. One can receive excellent impressions without evolving; but if one is open to receiving certain influences, one can evolve. The fact that we don’t connect this idea of hunger with the idea of food is proof that we are not in contact with essence: we don’t listen to it. And as long as we are not convinced, we don’t make the effort consciously to take in the impressions we receive. Try to cast light on these problems: 48 — 3 = 24; hunger-food identification. That might enable us to look at the machine-man’s constitution — in a new way, without losing sight of the lateral octave.

The Scale of Man [34] As a man, I come from World 6. I come from the world of the stars (see the diagram on page 5). Let’s return to that strange calculation that has already been proposed:

48 — 3 = 24. If you free yourself from half of the laws, you get 24; if you free yourself from half of them again, you get 12; if you free yourself from another half, you get 6; beyond this nothing is said. This is my point of ‘origin’, my point of ‘return’. And this is why religions speak about a ‘fall’ or a descent. In order for my being to be able subsequently to evolve even higher, it must first descend. This is not a punishment. It is a fall, yes! But it is an entirely unexpected opportunity. Never forget what is said in other books of scripture, in the great traditions: angels themselves, if they wish to evolve, must take on human form. That is their only possibility. So at first glance it is a descent, an incarnation into heavy matter in order to transmute. At the same time, we serve a purpose, we fulfil our role. What comes from below must combine with what comes from above; they cannot remain apart. This is a law of justice; these are reciprocal exchanges — relationships of mutual help, if you prefer. So it can only be a joy to begin to understand the true meaning of the sentence, ‘I come from the World of the stars and I’m called to return there.’ Because I have agreed to this descent (and I must agree, all the time, all the time — this really has to be my work), I will perhaps have served the primordial Triad — the One — and tried to come closer to the Absolute, to be part of that one world. But I could not — starting out from World 6 — have become part of the primordial Triad without having undergone this transmutation, this transformation. It is only possible upon my return. And we understand a little the meaning of what is said in Beelzebub’s Tales about the return to the planet Karatas — after a long struggle, with all the mistakes and errors, then this transformation, and at last the return to the true homeland — because my home is there, Above. Down here, there’s my plot of land to be worked. I must contribute to this Work. I cannot be passive. Don’t worry. In a sense, you cannot contravene any divine law. It is strictly impossible. If the return against the current takes place, then it is intended. It cannot be otherwise. And in the moments when, even so, I doubt, I need only observe how habitually and mechanically I behave, and then I fear that behaviour. It is by letting myself be swept along in that way, that I am truly contrary, that I am rebellious; whereas, by returning, I am not rebellious, I am the one who remembers. Try to understand this: for forms of being whose creation is complete — the cosmoses for example — mechanicality is obedience to Commandment, and for beings that are created unfinished in order that they themselves may be bearers of mechanicality, mechanicality is disobedience to Commandment. This puts the problem differently. It is said in a number of traditions — in Christianity one does not say the Absolute, but rather God — that God suffers. What principle is it that willed and made it possible in the world that God suffer through me and in me? These terrible conditions are necessary, inescapable, unavoidable. The assemblage must function as a whole because it is a machine. This is a condition for an action that until now has escaped us, bul which we vaguely sense. At the same time, there is this trace of

consciousness, which for the moment is present in difficult but not impossible conditions. Maybe what I am saying is not clear to everyone, but for each one of us... this trace of consciousness... what do I make of it? How do I respond to it? Since we are talking about it now, I begin worrying a little. I start to realize that perhaps I will end up in tragic circumstances after my death... and then, the moment I do an exercise that might finally give me a possibility, I start dreaming. I am already on the moon. And it doesn’t even make me gnash my teeth! [35] If I do not respond — if this trace of consciousness, which is the essential thing for me, doesn’t begin to stir and doesn’t struggle — then it serves something else. It serves; whereas I myself get caught up in a string of events that become more and more problematic. Here again, I must constantly place the vision I may have of myself within this vision of universal order. But, from one second to the next, I lose my opportunity. When I say, ‘Ive been too busy today; I’ll do my exercise tomorrow,’ I have no remorse. I find this normal. And then all these tomorrows taken together amount to nothing in the end. If, beforehand, we could begin to take into account what is going to happen... There is something that doesn’t get accomplished. In a sense, it is not total destruction, but just my neglect that has made me slip into a situation I am going to regret. When greed has made you eat too much, the next day, or in the night, you’ll be sick. We move within a vast cosmic scale, subordinate to the Sun — there, we have our being. It is said that a man whose fourth body has been formed is immortal within the limits of the solar systcm; and yet, just like the Sun, we also are connected to THAT WHICH IS ONE, THAT WHICH IS INDEPENDENT AND ENCOMPASSES EVERYTHING AT ONCE. It is an enormous question; if only I could really carry it within me. It is an enormous question because it can shatter the illusion that this body that I see is me. It is clear that if I am nothing but this little microbe, I do not understand at all what it means to move — to have my being — in the Sun. [36] ‘ln the Sun means within the sphere of influence of the Sun. But I must reach the point — and our whole experience awaits us there, now — the point where I recognize myself at levels of existence that I’m not yet aware of, but which nevertheless exist. The Gospels speak of sowing and of man being sown. If you know how really to hear the parables, you understand that it is precisely this octave that is being described. Even though he falls upon this soil, man nevertheless continues to exist on a completely different level; he exists on several levels at the same time. That’s the most astounding thing. If I manage to be sufficiently attentive within myself, I live several lives, several levels of life at the same time without knowing it. This crawling around on the surface of the earth is what I call my life; but that’s only one aspect, the coarsest one. At the same time that you crawl around, without knowing it you partake of a life that is extremely fine, extremely subtle. lf a man awakens to that, if he succeeds in awakening to all levels, he effectively fills this whole sphere in which he has his being. But today, I’m not aware that my

being is in some way waiting for me. It is prefigured in this whole sphere. If a man awakens to that, he truly accomplishes what is asked of him. First, he climbs back toward the origin, he returns. Someone mentioned just now the basic prayer of Christianity: he returns to his Father, to his origin. But he does not return by wanting to escape the Earth; he returns by occupying all levels. By doing that, in this much more limited sphere, he becomes — he is — the All. That is what is asked of man. He is in the image of God — he must, in his own way, on a quite different scale, be the All. But today, it’s only a small part; and it’s small because my mind is blinkered, it is blind, it sees hardly anything. And I am completely identified with this mind. Everything my tiny intellect thinks, I believe to be true, and I try to understand things from there. But I don’t live those things and, without living them, I understand nothing. I understand nothing of the fullness that is offered me. I live wretchedly. What do certain Scriptures say? “Man is the Son of God.” What is the significance of the Christ? He shows the way to come to this fullness. THE SON, THE ONE WHO IS TRULY FULFILMENT, THE FRUIT. I may dream about that today, but I have never come close to its reality. However, certain ideas, some of your questions, if they remained in us — if they were not ephemeral, not short-lived — would have this astonishing power of deflating the pretentiousness of the mind, because what the mind tells me is not true. It understands nothing. Do you understand what is to be gained for our work by entering the world of these ideas? Because these ideas are leaven. These ideas, the true ideas, coming from on high, are actually a yeast. They bring to this growth that can’t quite get under way — I am tempted to speak in biological terms — they bring it enzymes, that is, the substances indispensable for something to grow, to develop. A man cut off from ant transmission of ideas might very well make great efforts on his being, but the result would be negligible. And for a man who turned only to the ideas and made no effort to work on himself, the result would be also completely insignificant. The meeting of these two — ideas and efforts — may perhaps allow him to achieve the fullness of his stature... which is not, by the way, that of a superman. It is absurd to speak of a superman. That isn’t the point at all. It is a question of the completion of man, the man that I was called to be, in this sphere. Beyond this sphere, a new question arises, but then it is no longer about man; it is about a new being, and for us, what can we say about that? We are not even acquainted with the scale of man. If we reach that, we will perhaps understand that, at that point, the complete being, the accomplished being, Man — appears as the negative force of a new triad, the Great Triad that is made up of the first three levels. But that is not for us now.

This Unknown that Is Our Being [37] We have an image of our presence on Earth as if we were making a sketch: a big ball — that’s the Earth — and a little fellow standing on it — that’s me. Yes, that’s how my eyes see things, and since photographs confirm it, I am convinced it’s true. But it’s not like that at all. Yes, on this round planet there certainly is a bodily form, but my being is not limited to this physical presence. It’s quite a strange idea, scarcely believable, and yet if I knew how to read what we’re told about the lateral octave... The lateral octave is an octave, not one note. An octave is eight notes; and, in a sense, this octave is me. It is also the whole of humanity and many other things besides; but it is me. Where is my centre of gravity? Below an interval. And so it is quite obvious that I am much more easily in contact with forces of a certain kind that are in operation there, exactly as if I had magnetic soles on my shoes, gluing me to the planet: I can’t move. But I am learning ... and through this apprenticeship a certain keen attention becomes an infinitely precious component. If I learn to open inwardly to every aspect of this unknown that is my being, I discover that my being also exists on the other side of the interval. I must not dream about it. It is not actualized at present. I must not imagine it, but through this effort of opening myself to deeper levels, I come into contact with forces that are on the other side, in the direction of the Higher, and I sense that they are perhaps greater, that is, more vivifying. In any case, they are closer to the origin of creation, and therefore they have a much greater power. The unfortunate thing is that, until now, I did not know it and could not open to it. You have enough strength to try. After that, it is a matter of this energy penetrating, and what’s more, coming from both poles... . This penetration will work in me. But it is necessary to pay. A struggle awaits me, a real struggle. One day you will love this struggle. For the moment it can frighten us; sometimes we balk at it. This goes on for quite a while, but one day you will love it and you will know why you love it — this struggle is your own fire, your own vital quality. It is for this quality that I will come to love it; otherwise, I will never be able to do so. In awakening to this, I understand that I must die to my illusions. I don’t have to die to anything troublesome; I have to die to illusions, to memories. Afterwards, I can be born, because I am truly renewed in spirit. How clear all these texts are, if you begin to live them! How simple it is! Certainly it is long and hard, but it is simple.

To Be There, Between Worlds [38] What are the requirements for a conscious attitude? It must be based both on precise knowledge, which we lack most of the time, and on a precise experience of being. Both are needed. This is the condition that allows us to reach another understanding. In this direction, there is hope. Questioner : It’s like being close to a threshold whose crossing is guarded. I never know how this threshold can be crossed. The level of my attention is different for a moment; then, once again, I come up short. I have tried to relate this to the idea of the interval, which I’ve never understood. Michel Conge : To speak of thresholds is to speak of intervals; to speak of intervals is to speak of octaves; and to speak of octaves is to speak of notes. What exactly are these notes? I mean practically, in our experience? The theory that we are given is the structure of the octave. Either you honour this structure, or it will just remain outside you, as a representation. Can you recognize the notes as facts, as tangible realities within yourself? Yes, you can, if you are willing to look carefully. That’s what is important. As long as the image o f the octave remains something outside you, where on earth do you expect it to take you? You are an octave . All the processes within you are processes of the octave. Why not learn to recognize them now? Our experience will change if we can recognize these levels or notes in ourselves. Otherwise, our situation is hopeless. What’s missing is daring ... daring to recognize that you are touched, penetrated, by knowledge, and that you are receiving impressions, emanations, from something that is on the other side of the interval. Do not attribute this knowledge, this power, to yourself; all this comes from the other side. If you begin to accept the principle, if a few experiences show you that it is definitely true, then you will consent to being ploughed, as Mr. Gurdjieff used to say. ‘Ploughing’ means that the blade digs into the field. I am willing to accept spending half an hour on an exercise without anything happening; and I will accept this in order to hear a vibration that I usually do not hear because I don’t take the trouble or because I don’t believe in i. The whole issue, for us, is a question of faith. Can you, little by little, recognize that you are constantly being penetrated by impressions that come from the very depth of being, from this invisible, mysterious part of being? Can you, little by little, accept this — at least as a hypothesis, nothing more! A hypothesis that touches not only thought,but also feeling. II I admit that there is something important in this, I prepare myself to hear. At first, it’s almost nothing. I don’t give up, I don’t become discouraged. I don’t try to force events, I demand nothing. I am there. I understand much better what ‘being there’ means. I am there, watching over the habitual, agitated world of my functions — somebody does need to watch over this world — and at the same time I

am there because I know that communication could be established. I no longer have time to dream or to busy myself with the thousand and one stupid things that usually flow through me during this time of quietly trying to collect myself. I have an incredible task: to be there between two worlds . I need to be there, and to be ploughed ... ploughed, because on certain days I am barren; I’m not drifting, I’m not running away, but I am barren. I am no longer a conductor of energy; I am inert. I am there, but I am inert; and I gradually understand that something is missing in my attitude, something that would allow the currents to flow in all directions. Learn not to doubt. Even honesty can be dangerous. In your inner life, anything can be good or bad; it depends how you receive it, how you connect with it. You cannot cross the interval as long as you are completely raw. In order to cross over you must be cooked, digested. Always remember the raw potato and the baked potato. [39] It sounds like a far-fetched joke. Not at all! You are a raw potato.

Consciousness and Mechanicality [40] For a very long time we find the idea of mechanicality offensive; it's Iike a personal insult that this teaching seems determined to ding at us. But it is one of the most exciting ideas there could be, one of the richest in hope. Of course, this is exactly Mr. Gurdjieff’s style — to lob a bombshell like that at us. He had his reasons. When I encounter something offensive while I’m in a state of questioning, it’s like a thorn stuck in my flesh. It rankles. Nevertheless, given our state of sleep, it is very desirable that this thing should be there to prevent me from sleeping in peace. What is meant by a ‘machine’? First of all, the whole universe is a machine. The Creator created a machine. He Himself is Consciousness; He is Being; by definition, HE IS. He has allowed, He has willed that an organization, an organism, be created. Everything, absolutely everything, from that moment on, is a machine. There are all kinds of machines: dogs, cats, and so on. These are machines. There is a difference — and the Scriptures say it clearly — between man and any such animal. But man is a machine, too. ‘Machine’ means, organization willed by the Creator, fulfilling certain purposes, endowed with a certain potential, capable of certain movements. Man is a transformer. This term is very interesting, because, just as in physics, a transformer runs with two currents, in two directions, man also inherently has two directions. It’s simply a pity that he’s not aware of this; and the teachings are there to make it known to him — one way or another. The transformer plays its role as part of this larger machine that is the universe. It has its place in relation to the need for transformation of the substances that are

required through the action of the Will of the Creator. And this transformer also has two currents, two directions; and many other things can happen beyond this simple role that has been allotted to us on Earth, a role we cannot escape, one we are really obliged to play because that is how we are made. There is also this other direction. And if I am able to grasp the truth rather than latching on to negative emotions — ‘I don’t like being told I am a machine, I don’t want to admit it’ — then, at that point, something extraordinary appears. I am an ‘organization’ that enables the transformation of substances, such that the possibility of evolution is built into the machine itself. It is because I am a machine incorporated into a whole set of circuits for transforming substances that I have this incredible good fortune: I can gradually find and know states of being that are totally different from those I experience today, and I can reach Consciousness, that is, enter into the communion with the Divine that all religions call for and all teachings propose. If I were not a machine, that is, if I were not organized so as to transform these substances, there would be no hope for me other than to exist on a given level forever. Not all machines have this capacity, nor are they created with this potential. This is the prodigious nature of man which has always been proclaimed. It is not only this teaching that asserts this idea. It has always been said that, in the whole scale of creation, man has an exceptional place. In our stupidity we keep rebelling against this fact, which should be blindingly obvious: we are machines, and therein lies our possibility. Try to understand this point: consciousness and mechanicality are found on exactly the same line . They are not conflicting ideas; they go together. Consciousness cannot flourish if there is no organization to enable it to do so. Given the level we are on, we have no clear idea why the Creator created. Nevertheless, we can assume there was a reason for it, and we can begin to glimpse this immense cosmic game ( līlā , meaning ‘game’ — that’s exactly how it’s expressed in the Vedanta of India), this immense cosmic game that could not exist if there were no organism to allow these energies pass through it and be transformed. We can simply accept this idea without understanding it — one would have to be at the top of the ‘Ladder’ to fully understand it — but we can grasp it sufficiently to understand that the fact of our being a machine and our being incorporated into this large organism is our opportunity. And if we can look at this question anew, then we will learn to understand this organization and this machine, no longer reluctantly or resentfully, but with all our heart. Then we will start to learn not to get in the way, but to allow what constitutes our salvation, our transformation, and our possibility to be accomplished. I am consciousness . We always forget that. I am a consciousness which at this moment is engaged in a certain form of organization. From birth I am a consciousness. I do not know it today — or else I imagine it, but I cannot experience

myself that way. But thanks to this whole complex of functions, of centres that allow a two-way current, we can leave the realm of theory and truly enter reality. You must admit that this is something that deserves looking into. Let’s try to get away from an attitude that is narrow and especially too subjective, too negative. This is our possibility. I am consciousness... What consciousness? If this touches me and if I accept it, then I really seek to understand, and I try to see clearly what level of consciousness appears in me. Is it very high? Insofar as I am capable of discerning a little, is it not clearly much weaker than I wish? Do I not feel at certain moments that I should be, or would wish to be, infinitely more conscious, since by definition I am destined to be consciousness? This is something I can accept, it’s an aspect of my search: I truly wish to be more conscious. So let us try to really understand that in order for consciousness to appear, some conditions are necessary. It needs a suitable vehicle; if the vehicle is crude, the level of consciousness that appears will be very rudimentary. What vehicle do you offer to the grandeur of consciousness? Your body and its functioning. A machine, to be sure, but a fairly rudimentary machine. But since everything is a machine, I see that — in order to reach other levels of consciousness — I have the possibility of offering to this grandeur an organism, an organization, that is much more refined. So I remain a machine, but I see — and here is where the transformation of food in the machine comes in — that I can reach a state of being that is still an organization, therefore a machine, but one that offers a new vehicle to consciousness. This is the principle of the bodies, or the different souls, of which St. Paul spoke. [41]

So I see that the machine allows me access to more consciousness or less consciousness, that it enables me to live more consciously or less consciously. If I accept this idea, which is tangible and perceptible, then I see what I can work on. Since I cannot work directly on consciousness — it’s impossible — but only indirectly, if I provide a better-adapted organization, I will receive the illumination of a new level of consciousness. Work is possible on this organization. What could we do without this organization? Nothing. And man, like other beings, would be condemned to remain at his own level forever. Always remember what the Scriptures bring us with such insistence: man is a creature who perhaps suffers more, and has more fearsome conditions, but who is the envy of all beings of Creation. But we do not respond to this opportunity. Something in me may tell me, ‘Respond! Act! Bear witness!’ But I cannot bear witness, I cannot respond, if I deny — maybe because my pride has been wounded — if I deny this fact: I am a machine. It is because I am an organization that can be infinitely more complex, because I am constructed in this way, that I can respond, that I am able to bear witness. We do not force our way up the universal Ladder ... that’s how my ordinary personality operates, that’s the way I work today — I’m always tempted to ‘do’. We do not climb. The Titans tried to storm heaven, and you know what happened to

thern. We don’t climb; it’s not possible, but we can prepare ourselves inwardly. To work is both possible and lawful. I can apply myself in such a way as to be able to become an organism that corresponds to a certain quality of consciousness. Then I will know, more and more, that I actually am consciousness, and I will thank Creation for having endowed me with this possibility. This is an important issue, and I would like to dispel our misunderstanding about the idea of being a machine. It is not an affront. Really, it is not. At times, some of you say that mechanicality is fearsome. In a way I understand you, and I even agree with you, but why only mechanicality? Consciousness is also fearsome. God is fearsome. The Old Testament shows Him this way. In all these movements there is a greatness that frightens me. Our mistake is to say that just one of the two currents is fearsome; what, then, do we make of the other one? If we keep the term ‘fearsome’, which one of you used during our exchange, then not only is one current fearsome, but so is the other. It is important that I feel their fearsome character, as a force of Nature, an irresistible greatness; and it is essential for me to become aware of both currents at the same time. Because I don’t consent to this, or because I don’t reach that point, something fails to crystallize as I would wish. Maybe something begins to engage, but the more you consent to seeing both currents in yourself, fairly and impartially, the more your possibility of being transformed will grow and strengthen. You sometimes say, ‘I do not see the path by which I disappear, by which I fall down again.’ Call it a path if you like, or call it an act, or the abandonment of an act... But what feeling do you have when you actually observe yourself in relation to mechanicality? If I go by what is true for all of us at the outset, it is certainly not a warm feeling, since at first we dislike this idea of mechanicality — this notion of myself as mechanical man. Even though I recognize it theoretically, intellectually, even logically, I don’t like the fact that I am an organism. In my essential pride, I believe I am alone in the world, isolated from everything ... free. ‘What? You’re telling me I’m nothing but an organism inside an immense organism! I don’t like that at all!’ However, I have to come to that point sooner or later. If I don’t succeed in loving these two formidable currents, then I do not love this current of consciousness. Oh, of course, I would like to be conscious, but I don’t like consciousness, it frightens me. And I don’t like the machine-organization. It offends me; I find it outrageous. However, if I come, at the same time, to love the fact that I am part of the current of consciousness, and also the fact that I am an organization, and that that’s what makes all transformation possible; if I love my conditions as they are, not only my limited personal conditions but also my conditions within a universal organization; if I love all these things, I will find the strength to which I aspire. It’s simply that I don’t like unpredictable and very mysterious movements dragging me along like this, without my even understanding how it all begins: a wind comes up in the darkness and off I go. Always in the dark. That’s really the impression one can gradually have of oneself: everything is still in the dark, tragic. But let me love

— or learn to love (for it doesn’t happen right away); let me really try to be grateful and appreciative, opening up the possibility of being able, one day, to love — then I become permeable. I accept that these ascending and descending currents pass through me. I see that I partake of them and, through this, transformation is accomplished. I am misguided. I am misguided by my intellect, which knows only the everyday. I am misguided by an emotionality that is not feeling, but is much closer to ‘like or dislike’, an emotionality that has no sense of greatness, no sense of Creation. I am misguided by any number of things. It’s my fault; I let myself be led. But there is also the other direction of the transformer in me; all the possibilities of appreciating, of loving, of really turning toward the origin. Even if I don’t see it, I can always turn in the direction of Jerusalem; I can’t see Jerusalem from here, but I have the possibility of turning toward it. And that’s what they did with churches. They turned them toward Jerusalem, and the mosques toward Mecca. Am I able in that way to turn myself toward the celestial Jerusalem, toward something I cannot apprehend, something that my sense organs and my present level do not allow me to understand? But I do turn in this direction. If I learn in this way, something already changes. I acknowledge that something larger, more subtle exists. During our exchange, one of you mentioned the lunar level, symbolized in the Ray of Creation by the moon. One day we will come to an understanding of what that means: it’s not that moon up there ... or in any case very indirectly. The lunar level has to do with a level in myself that turns me to stone. Until now, I’ve been slipping in that direction because my likes and dislikes can only lead to that. But if I try to leave the pathways of my inner machine open — the channels of this inner machine — leave them open in the upward and opposite direction, then I will see that I can enter into contact with levels whose laws are different. Then I will have a taste of freedom that is not just doing whatever takes my fancy. What is important now is that, together, we learn to consider certain of these entirely unacceptable ideas in order to see what they actually mean, to allow us to position ourselves differently in our efforts. Many ideas that the teaching brings us, which at first sight are unacceptable (like you, I had my own rebellion against them), have another meaning. And the fact that this other meaning is not given immediately, predigested, prevents it from being completely snapped up by my personality, the most outward and superficial aspect of my functioning. If this happened, then these ideas would be destroyed for me. We have Mr. Gurdjieff to thank — or was it perhaps those who taught him? I don’t know. But ultimately it was those who, being responsible for a lineage, knew how to transmit knowledge in such a concentrated way that habitual emotionality and the intellect, at its most destructive level, are shattered by it. Because of that, something finally gets through to my essence. We can thank them, thank a lineage that goes back perhaps thousands of years. Something has been preserved by virtue of a tremendous force.

Every beginner becomes indignant and rebellious at first. That’s his role, it’s a normal reaction. It’s up to us, little by little, to understand: that’s just how it has to be, because that’s how energies are transmitted. You will see later, in regard to influences, that we could not receive certain impressions if they were not presented in a certain way. An example, which is not meant as a criticism: when you read certain passages in the Gospels you are struck by the conciseness of a parable, and if you search sincerely, you are not left in peace. Then you read certain recent texts written by the Reverend X — a decent enough fellow to be sure — who thought it would be a good idea to explain everything and sweeten the pill. But then it no longer makes an impression on you. The material needs to be given in a particular form, and later, by working, we try to understand, to assimilate. If we had not received this idea as a slap in the face — ‘You are a machine’ — we would have missed something. This idea does not leave us in peace, and no matter what we say among ourselves, it still does not leave us in peace. Do you find this idea hard to digest as you try to work? So much the better! Thanks to that, something gets through, and you think about energy, about this transmission of energy, about the special influences that are not the influences of everyday life.

What Evolves? [42] What evolves? Unless I am sure about this, the question will not be properly formulated. What is it that should evolve? The Work gives us invaluable indications on this topic: among the beings on this planet, there are men; among these men, a given man; and in this man, there is consciousness and will. We must understand this kind of diminishing progression. It is not all of humanity, but one man, or a few men. As the old texts say, “ Many are called but few are chosen.” [43] However, evolution is the evolution of consciousness, the evolution of will. If I first remember these most precious facts — for I couldn’t invent them — then I return to this amazing problem of being a machine, which is so painful for my pride and for my way of thinking, but not at all painful if I look at it from another viewpoint. I try to recall that Consciousness and Will are attributes of the Absolute. It is very important to remember this. I see the Ray of Creation and I see what the Bible says, which is fundamentally the same: there is an engagement in successive forms, successive levels — an involution. Involution necessarily implies evolution, otherwise there is destruction. I see that certain properties enter into this involutionary movement and then reappear following an effort; and this is possible only in special conditions. That immediately gives new meaning to the idea of the cosmic machine and to the machine that I am, within which I find myself — and to all the machines that surround me. In a way, all the forms I can see are machines.

In any case, I must understand that I am a machine and must necessarily remain a machine. This is an essential condition; without it, I can do nothing. It is not a depressing idea, this idea of being a machine. What is depressing is that I formulate my question badly, or else that I do not understand this amazing duality: what lives in the machine, what makes use of the machine, what relies on the machine. And this vision that one of you spoke about during the exchange — consciousness imprisoned in a body. Yes, I am in a form. Here we have an essential question. It is a two-directional machine. We haven’t become aware of that yet; and I allow this machine to function only in the direction of depletion and destruction. But the machine is also made to work in the other direction. Seen this way, the idea of a machine is no longer unacceptable at all, any more than the idea of a body. Until now maybe I saw only my body; it is a more ordinary concept. But a body isn’t depressing either! I have only to begin working on myself to see very well that I can’t do without it. Certain kinds of search, certain kinds of experience, would never occur without this support. And the notion of a ‘machine’, after all, is much more interesting than the mere vague notion of a ‘physical body’, as people usually conceive of it. There’s a whole organization here that we can become aware of. Yes indeed, man is and remains a machine; he cannot be anything else. However, he can either be devoured by the machine, let himself be consumed by it, or on the contrary, he can understand the help that it brings him. It’s a fascinating question. Now, my thinking is certainly weak, my attention is very weak, my feeling is lukewarm, barely awake; but if I take the trouble to come back to this question while living the process and understanding this act, which is an act of consciousness, an act of self-remembering, this question becomes of the utmost importance to me. And according to what I can discern, the question changes completely. I have only a few little glimmers of this possibility. As a matter of fact, we don’t see our centres, we don’t understand the levels of this three-storeyed machine; we don’t understand at all the different foods that enter this machine or how things will work out. We are not living it; we have a hard time, even intellectually, confronting the diagrams that are offered — not to mention trying to live them. But if it interests me, perhaps I will try — painfully and slowly. In any case, let’s have no illusions: as human beings, we are machines. And we have to be; this is a basic condition. But I can appear in this machine, I can fill it, I can inhabit it, I can become conscious. Will man always be a machine? ‘Ah,’ I say, ‘My freedom is compromised! Me? Me, a machine?’ From the point of view of our pride, the question can be formulated in an altogether misleading way, a completely negative way. Let’s try to put the question with a little presence. We feel that something must he released to allow obedience and gratitude. In what sense, and how, can this two-way transforming apparatus that I am serve higher levels? To put it simply, referring right now to an experience that can always be attempted — which is to try to remember myself — I prepare myself to realize that, in this

moment of remembering, in this moment when I know that I am here, I feed something. And I see that in the preceding moments, which were automatic, unconscious, I was being eaten in some way: something is always being fed... . A rather strange idea is given in this Work: ‘You must allow yourself to be eaten consciously’ — as if I give myself as food to a much higher level. At first, this idea is offensive. It is something we have great difficulty accepting, because we don’t see it clearly. It is less offensive when I start to understand that I am undeniably being eaten all the time, that I cannot escape. But then, instead of my being eaten by the very mediocre, small things, there is something ... something that descends ... to which I can give myself. This helps us understand many aspects of sacrifice and illuminates many concepts from ancient religious texts. During another exchange, we also spoke of the idea of prayer (and many other things) in completely different terms from the way it is generally understood. In our prayers, we are always making demands; and we don’t understand that prayer is a real gift. It is the way something is transmitted. And I feel that by being eaten mechanically I serve certain natural purposes. I don’t really know which ones, but I allow certain energies to pass through, to be transformed. And at this point, another action is possible, but a much more difficult one. It doesn’t happen on its own; it requires my agreement. I must give my consent. This action will not take place unless I consent to it. This must be stressed; and that alone protects us a little from rebellion or fear. We bristle at the idea of being eaten; but you won’t be eaten in that way if you don’t want to be. It’s not possible. If I wish inwardly to give myself, and if in a moment of self-remembering I experience what that means, I understand that I give up m yvery small ‘me’ for my greater Self. I mustn’t be taken aback by these sudden glimmerings of consciousness. I know clearly that such moments are what I aspire to. I can ask for nothing more exalting. But it is only possible with a gift, a sacrifice, a change of state. A change of state... . I give up a certain conception of being. I give up a certain ease of being for this much greater level of being ... and I always find myself. This is probably true, from the lowest level and ... who knows?... right up to the Absolute. If I’m able to experience this, I will find myself, always and on every occasion, in much fuller communication and communion both with my fellow man and with the universe. lt is an absolutely wonderful situation. But I am paralyzed with fear. I am not yet fully convinced that, no matter what, I am eaten alive. When this becomes indisputable, I will dare to turn in the other direction; and when I understand that this sacrifice is possible only if I consent to it — I am not obliged — things will change once more and it will be my gift: I will begin to serve . To serve means more than wanting to lend a hand; it is much richer than that. It means serving as food, serving as a passageway, serving this return ... for the sake of evolution. And it is solely in this way that I suddenly understand what is said in the Gospels, in speaking of Christ — about the time of glorification being only possible through a sacrifice, a real gift of oneself, but at an altogether different

level, which one cannot imagine. Even the strongest experiences one might have had, like satori , are certainly minor when compared to this possibility; and, yet, when this happens to us, it is so extraordinary. So the problem of the machine is a marvellous problem. It has to be looked at time and time again. It opens us to a new vision, a completely different vision that moves us beyond our narrow perspective. How very narrow this perspective is! We should not be afraid of this greatness, for fear is not a permanent condition. If I manage to see what I am afraid of and why, I know that what awaits me on the other side is a state of freedom, a state without fear — the normal state of a man who is well balanced inside. Make use of all these ideas, especially this last one, which must penetrate into me. This will not happen unless I want it to. This is my freedom. I can understand what the Last Judgment means. It means ‘without appeal’. There can be no appeal. Slowly, we come to understand that these countless misdeeds of ours — even very serious ones according to conventional morality — may take place without amounting to much. But this rejection of consciousness... . How can that be forgiven? Your tendency to succumb to certain kinds of temptation every day until you die, which is such a part of some constitutional weaknesses, is regrettable because it blocks your way, takes away energy, and cuts your efforts short. But this lack of love, this failure to consent to give oneself up to something greater, how can one be pardoned for that? I must come to understand this, to feel it very deeply. It is not a question of morality. It is beyond that. It is much greater. At our level, I must always know how to bring myself back to experiences that are beyond question, that will bring me true, living material within a body of knowledge that I cannot entirely live. Yet, in moving from one form to another, consciousness can free itself. When during the day you suddenly catch yourself in small grievances, in petty, little emotions that eat away at you, that wear you out... . It seems I am captured in forms. I have to remember myself right then. And if my experience is sincere enough and becomes serious work, I can recognize the feeling of a quality of being that is broader and much less restricted. I embrace these various forms. It is the same with mindless repetitions, those poor little repetitions of words and phrases... in the midst of them the thought of remembering consciousness can suddenly appear, releasing my thinking. I feel that this, too, is a form; but the two are worlds apart. This is not inaccessible. Within certain dimensions, in relation to a particular scale, I can experience it. And if I truly learn to experiment in this way, then little by little, by analogy, and by using the knowledge passed down by tradition — since it is found in all teachings, all religions — I begin to understand a kind of circulation. I begin to see a problem open up, when at first glance it seemed likely to imprison me forever. I am not forced to remain imprisoned.

Can I Recognize that I Am Consciousness? [44] Questioner : Can evolution be anything other than conscious and voluntary? Michel Conge : There is a way of questioning oneself that is not fruitful; for example, ‘Since I am not conscious, evolution is impossible.’ No! Consciousness is within us; will is within us. We always forget one essential thing: ‘Life comes from on high.’ Everything moves out from a primordial Reality that contains everything within itself. Starting from that unfathomable Unity, Creation has taken form, has unfolded. Consciousness circulates in this unfolding, and forms of beings appear from level to level, forms that contain this potential. The human being is a form that contains consciousness, that contains will; but man is unable to recognize it or to express it. If this possibility did not exist, there would be no turning back up, that is, no return to the primary process. Evolution is the freeing of this potentiality from everything that holds it in thrall. Do you acknowledge that consciousness is in you? You can experience it. In a moment of silence we certainly feel this property of consciousness. An effort leads to a collected state; a lack of effort leads to dispersion. These are phenomena that I can actually experience. Questioner : After the moment of our creation, what becomes of the Creator? It has always seemed to me that he withdrew from his creatures. Michel Conge : No! It is the creature who withdraws. I don’t think we can put the question that way. We know nothing about the Creator. But in the sense that it is the creature who withdraws, there could be a great many questions. Questioner : Man number four is the product of the work of a school. What does ‘the product of the work of a school’ mean? Michel Conge : The world was not created for me; human beings were created to serve various purposes in nature. There is an unconscious and mechanical way of serving that makes us spend energies, which are absorbed by the world around us; but there is another form of serving, conscious in its nature, which is truly to serve what is on high — to honour the Lord. It is not an evolution for my ‘person’. Conscious evolution is something altogether different. All along this chain of beings, there is a concern that is not present in mechanical man, a constant concern that this movement of help — a movement that is no longer mechanical — should reach fruition. And it is necessary for those who live this concern to instruct others who seem capable, so that they, in turn, might take a place on one of the steps of this ‘ladder'. This would help us understand better what groups represent, even if they represent only more limited segment.

A man who is more awake is — at his level and according to his capability — a transmitter of life. Of all those who are called, a certain number will remain asleep; others will receive and begin to come to life. This example can be transposed to a larger scale. A man number five, who receives from a man who is more evolved, both calls and transmits downward so that the movement of evolution may be continually preserved. And, at a given moment, one of these sleeping men understands what is required of him and awakens to the effort. He undertakes to serve, and in serving he receives even more. Do you see that this man is the result of a whole confluence of efforts that are far beyond him? We say ‘the product of a school’ because schools are gatherings of levels of consciousness. There are schools of different orders, of levels five, six, and seven. It is man number five who acts on us. A man number six acts on a man number five. Man number seven is so far beyond us that it’s out of the question to speak of him. We all have within us the possibility of awakening to our reality . That is what will make us men in the true sense of the word. Man number four has not crossed a threshold. Our goal is man number five, man who is no longer in a continually scattered state and who has passed from an active and destructive multiplicity to an unchangeable unity. And I cannot hope to reach that state without passing through the state of man number four — the state in which the centres are balanced. In that state, there is a centre of gravity, a centre of equilibrium; but unity has not yet been accomplished. Man number five is already very high in relation to the corresponding levels of worlds. He has passed beyond the implacable attraction of the Earth. He is closer to the heavenly level. Questioner : But how can the man who possesses the entirety of this knowledge lose it? And how can he lose it without losing his being? Michel Conge : Your question is not very clear. If a man does not attain the state of man number seven, he has not completed his evolutionary cycle and he must start something over again. The Great Knowledge is far beyond ordinary human capacity. The man who has not reached total completion is, in a sense, broken down again, returned to the crucible. He has to live once again through a very long experience. His very being is returned to the different levels of the cosmos, from which he received the necessary material. We have trouble coming to terms with this idea that we will have to be melted down again. Everything corresponds to a relationship between substances. Everything is in a state of flux, unless man arrives at this irreversible chemical reaction: man number seven. He is then permanently and forever free. He is much closer to the Absolute, and he can be worthy to enter into relationship with higher levels. But as long as a man is not completed in this way, he can only be melted down again, because he is unusable. We do not understand the idea of Purgatory. A re-forging is necessary, except for those whose purification is so complete that they have nothing more to do with this cycle of suffering humanity. They can be received into a different combination. In

the diagrams, man is not on the Ray of Creation. Man’s lower level and upper level are circumscribed. He is confined within limits — very broad limits, but limits nevertheless — and he cannot exceed these limits except by means of a complete transformation. Then he is no longer a Man, but a being that must be called something else. The term ‘man’ implies form, or ‘being-apparatus’. Man has been created and placed in certain conditions corresponding to cosmic levels, and called upon to live through a long experience until, having really become Man, he is worthy to pass on to a completely different segment of the octave, in order to enter into combination with levels that are much closer to the Creator. But that is an altogether different perspective. Everything can be lost except the quality of consciousness that has been lived. When we work on ourselves, we can become aware that moments of consciousness are exceedingly rare; they alone will not be destroyed. In that I can find support. That is what must be honoured. Will I recognize that I am consciousness? I am attention. This body will perish, and these mental constructs will disappear. I am attention: this is my only reality . If this state becomes one of permanent clarity, then it cannot be destroyed. This attention, or this consciousness — which from all eternity has been and remains outside this cycle — is simultaneously present in time. And in this time it is engaged in something; it does not become disengaged. These more awakened men try to help other men — not so much for their sake; rather, it is evolution, or consciousness, that they are helping. If a man number five turns his attention to us, it is not for our sake. There is only the One Unique Consciousness, from which this fragmentary, poorly balanced aspect that we are at present is derived. Can I recognize that I am consciousness ? Today I cling to manifestations that are opposed to that recognition. In a moment of remembering, you will know what it means to be called. A vibration appears in me, and it calls a corresponding higher vibration. It is indestructible. Consciousness is indestructible. If I recognize myself in it, and to the extent I do not recognize myself, I am indestructible. To the extent that I do not recognize myself, the experience is not completed... that is, in the sense of the words of Christ on the cross, “It is accomplished.” [45] Questioner : If evolution doesn’t take place, humanity may be destroyed… Michel Conge : For each of us, feeling our responsibility is a sign of awakening. Great responsibility awaits us. If the chain of men belonging to conscious levels were to be broken, we would die at that very moment. It is a strange idea, one that we can't bring ourselves to accept: what keeps us alive is the flow of the current of life! There must be representatives at each level to act as relays. If one of the rungs on the ladders of men were missing, life would no longer flow. Sixteen times a minute, we draw something from the air that enables us to live; and every fraction of a second, we draw from another current of energy without which we would instantly die. Now, certain impressions come from conscious men, in a

continuous movement of which we see nothing more than the stirring of a few people ... a few animals. We do not see these currents in which we are immersed. If these currents were suddenly cut off, that wouId be the end of us. Evolution is a movement of substances in transformation. This is something that must, one way or another, be accomplished. What is important is this inner circulation. In a sense, life is entrusted to us. Below the initial movement of the Absolute, the Absolute no longer intervenes, which means that responsible beings must appear. There is a need for beings who become aware of this and have such a love for Creation and the Creator that, no matter what trouble it causes them, they awaken to be the ones through whom this accomplishment takes place. But it is not for oneself in the petty sense; perhaps for the ‘I’ , but not for the selfish ‘me’. Questioner : What must be given to pay for this life that comes toward us? Michel Conge : This is the very purpose of evolution: a vast movement of maintenance — the law of reciprocal feeding: I eat and I am obliged to be food. Either I am eaten by the lower levels, which is the fate of every sleeping man, or I consent to serve as food for a more conscious level. A terrifying and wonderful idea: either way you will be eaten. But did God not give Himself? This is what the mystery of the Eucharist would have us understand. The whole of life is feeding, exchange, transmission of substances, transmutation of substances. All this is at once terrifying and wonderful; terrifying because we are identified with our skins; wonderful if we deidentify, because then we discover that all these aspects and images have no real existence. What frightens me is that I mistake my body for myself. In fact, I am also a psyche and, as such, I am always being sucked up, eaten all the time. This serves the lower powers. The moment I start dreaming or get angry, I abandon myself to these powers. The moment you become aware again, the movement goes the other way. It is essential that I recognize that I am part of consciousness. But you have to understand that you will always be eaten. However, choice is possible. Either you give yourself to something more conscious and you partake of that level of consciousness, or you let yourself go and you partake of a lesser consciousness. A mob, for example, is something very disturbing.

What Is Man? [46] Questioner : One can ask oneself the question, ‘Was man created to be conscious of himself; and if so, why is he never actually conscious of himself?’ Michel Conge : What patience the higher levels must have! What infinite patience! You speak of this freedom, given to man, which will probably never be honoured.

From a certain point of view, it is of no interest to the Earth whether you evolve; quite the contrary, you are needed as a being-apparatus so that the Earth will receive the influences that you transmit automatically. But at the level of life from which we originate, and which we can’t understand, there, surely, something is expected of man, and there, too, is infinite patience. Do you believe that creation is simply a whim? That would be unthinkable. Creation responds to a need that we don’t understand, and that we are very far from being able to understand. And yet, we can realize that all these worlds that are sent forth — whether they be galaxies or forms of beings — if they were sent forth with no hope of return … what would become of creation? There would be a depletion, an end by depletion. That would seem much more difficult to understand than the idea of a return and a circulation. There must be a circulation. There is a traditional term that often comes up: the ‘harvest’. A harvest must be reaped. This would be easier to understand if we remembered this idea, which is found in Christianity and is very important in our Work, where it is reformulated as: ‘You are a seed. I am a seed. The earthly level is the field where these seeds have been cast. If you were a farmer, you wouldn’t sow seeds with no hope that they might germinate! And then, for each grain of wheat you sow... you expect a hundred-fold harvest. There are many ways of looking at this question. In the end, it will always bring you back to the certitude of being. If it is true that I play a mechanical role that I had no say in, I will see that I am created here to fill a gap, so that influences can pass through. At the same time, I am called to a completely different role. My opportunity lies precisely in this possibility of playing another role. What does that mean? It means being there, having my feet firmly on the ground so that influences can pass through. And what then? Only downward influences? Why see only in one direction? There is also an upward direction. For there to be a return, however, I have to wake up in my situation and consent to participate in this returning, upward movement of energies, or influences. If we use these cosmological terms, which, if you will, are in fact only symbols — Sun-EarthMoon — we may come to understand that there really are currents of energies that pass from one cosmic level to another. In certain passages the flow is only possible if organisms are placed there. In the downward direction, the movement happens by itself. In the upward direction, it will not happen unless there are men who become aware of their condition as seeds and acknowledge that they are placed there to enable the energies to return and thereby receive a new possibility. If I enable this return of energies, I am transformed. It is absolutely extraordinary. But I must understand that the higher levels have just as great a need of that as the lower levels do. In a single whole, everything has need of everything. It is inconceivable that a higher level would just be there in a casual way. Do you understand? It is not a game; it is certainly much more than that. There is definitely suffering.... The more we evolve in the Work, the less blurred our vision becomes; and at the same time, we suffer. It is a suffering that we accept because it is right. We suffer,

for example, from the difficulty of transmitting, the difficulty of conveying something that we never feel deeply enough, that we would wish to feel more, and wish to pass on to someone else. This should make it clear that you do indeed hope for something in return when you are transmitting the Work to younger people. It can’t be otherwise; if not, you would be depleting yourself of your energy, and that wouldn’t be right. They have to give something back to you. It is really a reciprocal exchange. Then it is right! By means of all these examples, we can gradually under stand by analogy that the higher levels are certainly waiting for something. But there are many other ways of looking at it. Why do we imagine that we are merely this little physical body? Why are we still so blind as to believe that our being stops at our skin? Surely not! But I am not sufficiently awake to that; or perhaps I start imagining some kind of aura or some other astonishing phenomenon, and that’s not very interesting. In reality, man’s being is not limited to his physical envelope. He is a seed that comes from very high in the scale of these symbols, in the cosmic scale. Very high! This teaching tells us that man comes from the level of the stars. On the scale of Worlds — a scale that attempts to offer us a certain insight that is very difficult to grasp — man comes from the level of the stars, and he descends progressively until he has come all the way down to Earth. What a vast perspective! Maybe you already partake of these higher levels without realizing it. In our sleep we partake of these higher worlds, but we don’t know it and that is our misfortune. If we awaken to that, then we are definitely not cut off, our situation is definitely not wretched. What is pitiful is that my eyes are closed. I see nothing. All the traditions, in one way or another, give us to understand that man is truly the son of a king, that he came down for a certain purpose, that on the way he was assailed by a strange sleep, an invincible sleep, that he has completely forgotten the reason for his journey; and yet that he can emerge from his amnesia, realize that he is wandering about like a poverty-stricken beggar, and then set forth on the return to his origin. But he will come back enriched, just as when you come back from your travels enriched by all sorts of impressions and experiences. It is not for nothing that the voyage is undertaken. Only, how many die on the way? How many are lost forever on the way? Such is the law of seeds. Millions are sown, but only one or two will germinate. That, too, is in the texts; you will find it in the Bible. You really have to know how to read these texts and understand them. Am I going to wake up to that? Or is my life — this short stretch of allotted time — going to end up being wasted? If, little by little, we could truly centre ourselves in this way, many questions would no longer arise; in fact, these are idle questions. On the other hand, different questions would arise, urgent ones. Can I settle them by my reasoning or by remaining inert? Try to understand the origin, my origin: you were not born only of an earthly father and mother. Long before... you were . Same questioner : I think my underlying question was, ‘What is life?’

Michel Conge : What is Life? You know the answer: to know life, you must live it. And that’s what we try to do. It’s clear that a certain level of thought can only give you knowledge of a certain level of life; and another level of thought can give you access to another level of life. But at this stage we are at our lowest level of thought except in rare moments when, in you, a different thinking appears. Everything is at a certain level on a vast scale of thought. It’s a very good question; and now you must really let it animate you more and more. Do you feel that it might completely change you? Questioner : You said, “a seed”. Do you mean that even the least gifted man in some way contains man number seven? Michel Conge : No, not “contains”! Same questioner : All this despair that lives in us makes no sense... but that’s not a question… Michel Conge : But it is!... I like this question very much. After an exchange on man number one, number two, number three and number four, Michel Conge intervenes again. Michel Conge : It is absolutely certain that man number one, number two, and number three, taken together, do not make a man number four. That would just become a further category. Perhaps this man might be inclined toward certain phenomena, but that would not make a man number four. Man number four, if you really understand what is said in Fragments , has particular characteristics: an appreciation of the Work and its ideas, his relationship to the school. There is an axis in man number four. Man number four is an ordinary man, the man of whom the Gospels speak when they say: “He that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” [47] Man number four is an ordinary man. And yet, he is not just ordinary, in that he has had to struggle and suffer for a considerable time so that this ever-unstable, always fleeting appreciation finally becomes an element of his axis. And yet, he has not entered the Kingdom of Heaven; he has not crossed a certain threshold; he is not yet fit, because he lacks the appropriate ‘clothing’. Look at what the Scriptures tell us: Only those dressed in a wedding garment may enter. [48] So man number four has the physical body, but does not have the ‘seamless garment’ that corresponds to another body. [49] That is only possible beyond this threshold. Before that, he can only have glimmerings of consciousness; he can have contact with states of consciousness, but the body itself is not related. This point is very important and very precious. Now, there is another aspect … a very interesting idea that occurs frequently in Buddhism: You are the Buddha. This is what Bodliidharma said to his disciples:

“But you are the Buddha.” The disciple is so pleased with himself, so happy with this answer that he struts around thinking he’s the Buddha, and receives a welldeserved thrashing. What does that mean? When we transpose it in terms of man number one to man number seven, it means that you are man number seven. That’s why there’s never any reason to despair. You are man number seven, and yet you behave like a man number one, number two, or number three. Why? Don’t you find this really pathetic? On the one hand, there’s no reason to despair, and yet... you should be open to true suffering. Potentially we are complete men, but we really live and behave like tiny little grubs. This teaching calls us to be free. For a long time we don’t really know what that means but, just as when we are reminded of our origin, the hope of freedom can warm our hearts. That’s what should be active in us. If the connection is not established, it’s because our habitual centres are not working properly, our habitual conditions of life are abnormal. Energy is wasted. In everything we’ve been speaking about this evening, there is amazing hope. Whether it comes from Buddhism or another tradition, I cannot deny the hope. The least gifted man, the one you said contains man number seven — no, it cannot be said like that; that’s where I think you have phrased your question wrongly: the greater contains the lesser, but the lesser cannot contain the greater — the least gifted man is awaited, is hoped for. I am man number seven, but I am not aware of it. All the elements of the universe, this text tells us, are in us. It is said that is very easy to perceive in ourselves the substance of the level of the Sun, the substance of the level of the stars. [50] If I come to understand what that means by direct experience, I carry the trace of all levels in me. I can wake up to this possibility of fulfilling myself, of completing myself. And there I will preserve a trace of what belongs to the levels of man number four, number five, number six, and number seven. But I do not contain the completed being; the completed being contains me. You understand what real suffering — not ordinary suffering — should be: to suffer from the realization that I could be, and should be, what I am not. It means beginning to sense and understand that I am not what I am, and that there is no other cause than this for the unhappiness of my existence. This is the sole cause. Everything that happens to me happens because I am not what I am. So we realize that this has a meaning for us that is very practical, very direct, and very moving. Suddenly, this truly speaks to me about myself — a situation absolutely full of hope — and it shows me my own failing: not being open to a reality to which I am invited. I was born for this . And that realization reconciles me with the obligatory role that seems imposed on me and which seems a little cruel: coming here to plug a hole. There is nothing more unpleasant than to be told that. If that role is necessary for other levels of being, it is only by having this painful experience of being man that I will have a chance of understanding it. It is in this kind of crucible, it is in this

descent, which takes me through a whole scale of my being, that I will awaken to reality. If I remain just a potentiality, a seed, without understanding the call that is contained in the level of my origin, I will be absolutely unable to awaken to my full potential, to my totality, in what is offered to man. You have to go down to the bottom, to the lowest level, for the notion of climbing back up lo make sense. There is no harshness, no injustice. It’s absolutely extraordinary. I would not be able to accomplish the work that awaits me if there were not this compulsory descent. Do you understand what this means? You would remain at a level rich in possibilities, but... ‘I must die in order to be born’. I have to immerse myself in the most painful conditions — those of my life — in order to earn from them my complete fulfilment. So, of course, I experience it subjectively as being torn apart, as something dreadfully painful; and yet that is what will give birth to the greatest possibility imaginable. Questioner : But all the same, one can be tempted to ask why man was made that way. Michel Conge : You mean, ‘Why wasn’t he made complete, with nothing missing?’ Well, it’s a fact. It’s a bit strange, when you see a fact, to wonder why it is a fact; there’s no ready answer. What you have to see is who in you asks the question. In a moment when you are closer to a true state of self-remembering, you will see that you cannot ask the question like that. If I follow my own logic, of course, I can put it like that. In my usual emotional state, I can put it like that. But in a moment of consciousness, in a moment of self-remembering, you see things completely differently — the other way around. There is one thing to understand: if I had been created all at once, there would never have been any freedom, and I could never attain consciousness; the consciousness in me would not be mine.

The One, Man, and the Universe [51] Life is sacred . Everything is animated by the One and contained in It. Everything is maintained reciprocally and is connected by life. All that exists serves Creation and has its place in the order of the Universe. Creation is Love. Knowledge is sacred . It is sacred because it expresses the laws of Life. Diagrams and symbols are the revelation of what is hidden and are understood only according to one’s level of being. They require a new vision, a deeper and broader vision: the worlds are not separate, but are contained one within another. A higher world encompasses a lower world ad acts upon it, influences it. This helps us to

understand that the material of all worlds is in man, that a law of analogy structures the universe, and that the law of relativity comes into play according to the respective level. The lateral octave is created consciously by the Sun, which has taken on the task of maintaining the Ray of Creation by filling the fa-mi interval with organic life. The idea of the interval evokes both the idea of the suffering of the Absolute as well as the hope offered to man. Man has a possible destiny . Man occupies a unique and privileged place at the heart of Creation. As expressed in the idea of a factory with three storeys, man’s structure is analogous to that of the universe. (Note the role of sol in the three cosmic octaves.) Man has the possibility of a more rapid evolution. He is an unfinished world, representing a universe in a state of promise, like a tree within a seed; and he will reach fulfilment only as the whole Man in the image of God. Man is a living symbol. Only he stands upright, vertical, has the gift of speech, is a three-brained being, and can choose influences (whereas other beings are strictly conditioned). The dignity of man’s state is that it allows Heaven and Earth to meet in him and the Glory of God to manifest in him. The place of man is a function of his level . Ordinary sleeping man — man number one, number two, and number three — the ‘outer circle’ of humanity, [52] is an element of organic life. As he occupies no real place in himself, he is not related to the worlds within him and finds himself equally cut off from other men. His only relationship with the universe is one of submission to the laws of the world closest to him. As a man, he is enslaved by external influences; as part of humanity, he is under the yoke of the moon. Yet he thinks of himself as a unity, the centre of the world. There are two possibilities: involution and evolution . Man either mechanically serves the aims of the involutionary current — the transmission of energies for the growing tip of the Ray of Creation — or he can serve consciously by allowing the laws of the evolutionary current to fulfil themselves in him through the formation of ascending triads, which permit the development of the fine substances required for the growth of the higher bodies. In the universe the two currents are united and support each other reciprocally, as in a process of feeding, in order to maintain universal life. Man is offered the possibility of participating in this great work of Life. From this arise his cosmic responsibility, the task of radiating la-sol-fa with its cosmic reverberation, and the dignity of effort. It is here that we see the relationship with work on oneself . Only effort allows the ideas to become alive, because through effort I discover their reality in myself.

Through the effort of attention, I begin to become aware that I have to find a place, not only in the outer world, but also in the universe within me, a place of which I am most often unaware because I live at the lowest level. Then I begin to feel the reality of a call, a new animating force, the presence of different levels, of finer vibrations, the possibility of a change of rhythm, and the hope of placing myself under another order of laws. A new feeling can appear that is like a foretaste of Faith, Hope, and Love. I become conscious of being at an intersection of forces, and realize that a shock is necessary — self-remembering — in order to pass through the interval. I feel that I am at the heart of a living duality, as if I belong to two worlds; and then, by analogy, the idea of cosmoses begins to have meaning for me. It can happen that I begin to feel that attention creates a relationship, not by means of joining but in the way one order encompasses another , without suppressing anything; and then the idea of the relation of zero to infinity can, also by analogy, begin to be clarified. So, the notion of place cannot be envisaged as a fixed point somewhere, but rather as a moving place, corresponding to a vertical scale in man, and understood each time as being embraced by a larger order. Through this, we can understand that the possibility of an expansion of consciousness is related to an understanding of the Cosmoses. The mystery I sense regarding my origin — the one, omnipresent and yet multiple Consciousness — shatters, at least for an instant, my limited view of the ego: Who am I?

The Passage [53] The only moment you experience something true or authentic is the moment when you find yourself completely at a loss. Everything else is personality, ego; and my inner search always comes from my ego, from my person. In that state, when I feel that I have almost nothing, and that my understanding is almost insignificant — if I have the courage to stay there, if I have enough intelligence to remain there — suddenly I recognize the truth, or the first taste of the Truth, which I have been seeking for so many years. This first taste of truth ... it is you. Only there, only in that moment, can you say that you are directly in touch with yourself. How else can you understand the texts of any of the religions? You can’t understand a single one of them if you don’t understand that. It is said by all of them: Judaism, Christianity... It is said everywhere. Don’t put your trust in any logic that gives you the illusion that you understand. In fact, it leads you astray. When my intellect explains something to me, it’s a terrible

lie because the intellect actually understands nothing. What can it know of God — or of anything truly great? An organic state is a living state. Suddenly, I experience this state. At such a moment, I see all my functions gravitating around this state, and I do not feel any contempt for them. Only this direct perception has meaning. It gives me direction. That is why the inner life is so very difficult. Everyone balks; we always expect to get in through another door. There is no other door. This is the door. Yet it’s the one I want nothing to do with. I want to go through with my baggage, with my knowledge, with all my tattered finery. But it can’t be done: ‘You can’t get into Heaven with your boots on.’ Heaven or no heaven, it doesn’t matter. But we must understand that we can’t get through with our baggage. When all that falls away, when there is nothing left but the taste of being suddenly stripped of all encumbrances, only then does a glimmer of the possibility of understanding appear. It is in this non-understanding that the passage lies. I don’t know if you see what this non-understanding is. It is the moment when the ego no longer dares to assert its claim. If I am freed from that for an instant, of course I feel very poor. But that’s the way it is, and that’s the way I am. That is what everyone dislikes. That is why people shun the inner search. You understand what the Christian scriptures have tried to convey to us: giving up the world does not mean giving up our activities; it means giving up a certain way of seeing. It is not forms that are prohibited, but attachment, belief in a kind of illusion. I may pass through, perhaps, but empty-handed. This doesn’t mean that I will be condemned forever to have no activity of any kind. I will find myself stripped and, at that point, the functions can begin to serve; but as long as they are mixed, there is no way of passing through. I have a long undertaking before me: to recognize that this passage cannot happen by itself, to recognize what would be possible and at the same time not move toward a separation. A being that no longer had any possibility of communicating with the universe? How could that be? It would be absurd! I have no real task if I am lost in functioning; nor do I have a real task if I escape toward the higher while abandoning all relationship with the world. Not only do I need to discover the passage, the way through, but I must also be capable of commitment. The passage is not a means of escape, it requires acceptance of the human condition. Otherwise, it’s just an illusion.

What Freedom? [54] To be free of all attachment — this false hope is deeply rooted in us! But there is another conception of freedom that is no longer the ‘freedom’ of my personal impulses, and this real freedom is only possible if I recognize my attachments.

I belong to one world through my body and through my functions, and it is quite futile to imagine that escape from this world comes cheaply. It is all the more futile since I don’t in truth have any contact with the world of the body. And I must also recognize that I am part of quite another world, situated an immeasurable distance away, a distance for which there is no unit of measure. My belonging to another world is mysterious; but, belonging to the physical world is just as much a mystery to me, since I don’t know myself in either world. If I am not aware of the different cosmoses that are so closely related to me, I shall never be truly free. A conscious impression of myself… This means knowing myself in this functioning — these functions. These functions are me. But it also means knowing myself in this cosmos situated at the opposite pole, at the other extreme of a dimension I cannot measure. This is knowing myself, being conscious of myself, inside. Only by getting to know these two cosmoses, concretely and with certainty, will the true notion of freedom find its place. My whole inner fulfilment — let us never forget it — is in this life, in this body, in these conditions. We must come to experience, to understand, that I cannot be free of my physical organization. In your imagination, in your dream of yourself, you are already there; but, since the experience of transformation is possible only in this body, to hope one way or another to escape from the body is madness. The way toward freedom is to understand that, even though I am rooted in the body, bound to it... despite that, I also belong to another world. If, little by little, I come to live this experience directly, I will be profoundly struck by the fact that these worlds of currents of energy are opposed to each other, and that it is precisely because they are opposed that I have a hope of freedom. Freedom is the freedom for ‘I’ to appear . I cannot deny the existence of a world from which I am made, but I can appear in my relationship to this world. And in this sudden emergence, I appear in a relationship not merely to one world, but to two worlds, two worlds in opposition. I play the conscious role that is demanded of a man, whereas until now, I have played only the mechanical role. I play the role that puts me in harmony. My effort makes the connection; it reconciles. I don’t do anything, but my effort allows irreconcilable worlds to be reconciled. And in so doing, I respond to a need that is much greater than the needs of my own being. I respond to needs that emanate from a Being that is of a quality and level of being beyond that of man-beings. At that moment I can understand that man has been sown on earth in order that some men may accomplish this task, which must be carried out by a certain cycle of individuals. It could not be accomplished by anyone else, not by another being, not by a level that is even more conscious or higher on the ladder of being than that of ‘me’-man. Only man can accomplish this by his effort: he alone can permit a certain combination to take place. And the moment my experience allows the accomplishment of such an aim, at that very moment, I am, I understand my freedom. Freedom is the freedom to serve a purpose infinitely greater than anything I can imagine. And if I serve, if my action is exactly the right one, my whole being is as if

lifted up to a completely different level. I am freed from certain constraints, I am freed from certain laws. I am released from the power of a certain world, and I am related to what is greater, to what is above ‘me’-man. I consent to submit to a Will, to an infinitely higher power. I serve it. I must become independent and, at the same time, I must be even more closely related to a work environment. I must reconcile irreconcilables. How to obey and yet be independent? At a given moment, something in you will not accept being ‘dragged along’. And that something will be right. However, you cannot be entirely free, going your own way, doing as you wish, because your work would be cut off from some thing indispensable. I need to receive from others, whatever their level. Freedom is, at the same time, submission . There is no other freedom. It is the opposite of anarchy. It is clear that an order is established and that I find my place in this order. Until then, I have no place; I have neither place nor being. And even when it may seem that I have being, in fact, without the cosmic order, I have neither place nor being. I am merely one of those countless seeds that are sown. I may grow or not grow, be useful to higher purposes or not be useful... be eaten by the birds along the wayside...

What Is the Work? [55] Along with the problem of the way, the idea of liberation, and the idea of conscious effort, it seems that the life of the Work can only be considered from the widest possible perspective, in a complete break from our egocentric vision. What is the Work? It is not one form or another in which we participate. We must conceive of it as a whole, as a universe within which these forms are but one expression among an infinity of expressions. Even though these forms are essential, they are nevertheless secondary; we need to be able to open ourselves to the Whole. And although it’s impossible for us to live the Whole, it is beneficial for us to try to approach it as often as possible and in whatever way we can. For, no matter how limited and clumsy our effort may be, we always draw from it an impetus, a vivifying breath. I can always ask myself: ‘What is the Work?’ For years, we think we know, only to discover one day that we know nothing about it! But why stop there? One thing seems clear to me: if I don’t understand the Work, it’s because I always look with a limited perspective, always in relation to myself, in relation to this ‘me’ that wants to bring everything down to its own level. As long as I look selfishly, with the eyes of the acquisitive ‘me’, I will never understand anything about the life of the Work and I will never find my place in it. But if I manage to give up my personal vision, the life of the Work will reveal itself in me exactly to the extent

that I have let it permeate me. At the same time, I will know that my place depends on my degree of consciousness. I do not understand what the Work is, and I do not comprehend its life, because the Work begins much higher up and must reach fulfilment at a much higher level than we think. This in patently obvious when we take the trouble to read sacred texts with attention. We can find numerous examples in the Bible, for instance, and in Beelzebub’s Tales . Between the beginning and this end, this origin and this return, there’s a kind of incurvation that descends very low. And, as I see it, the Whole traces out the entire life of the Work; that is where I draw a breath of this vivifying air I just spoke about — in the rhythm that brings me relief from my jumping up and down on the spot. What’s more, there are several rhythms, one within another. Between this movement, which starts from the Absolute and returns to the Absolute, and a movement limited to my presence alone, there is an intermediate rhythm that concerns Man, man in the full sense of the word. In comparison to this intermediate rhythm, the Work begins on the scale of worlds far above us ordinary men. While we are sleeping, something is taking place in the world that should be of tremendous interest to us. What we call the Work, of which we see so little, is a cosmic undertaking that involves man but which precedes him. We always forget: ‘The Work is not made for me; I am made for the Work.’ If I could become sure of that, it would free me from needless worry and bring me back to a realization that may be unpleasant for my pride, but is nonetheless right and fitting. Being in contact with a traditional teaching does not therefore automatically mean being in the Work; we are immersed in the life of the Work, but we are not in the life of the Work if we are not conscious. It’s utterly futile to rebel against this idea. It’s better to let it enter and then draw one's conclusions — which, in truth, are not pessimistic at all. Let’s face facts: even if I leave a teaching, the Work will nonetheless continue without me. So I can only hope to find my place in it if I think and feel differently, if I comply with it, if I discover its needs, if I learn to serve. If we were in love, we could understand — like a suitor who knows he has nothing to give and looks day and night for a way to approach his beloved. But we are not in love. We are very far from that when we think that the Work is something owed us. It is not an entitlement; it’s an opportunity that we are in danger of passing right by. This Work, which begins so high above, is compared in the Gospels to a gesture: that of the sower who sows men on Earth and plants seeds in the soil of mankind. To be able to say that we are part of this Work, we would need to prove that we have recognized the seed in ourselves, that we recognize the meaning of the sowing, and that we see its extension beyond our insignificant selves toward what is above and what is below. To be part of this life of the Work, then, would mean to understand, to obey, to serve . I must learn to practise an inner awareness, so that it can become free of clamouring preoccupations and can discover that, without my knowledge, work has

begun in the depths of my being, but that this work will come to nothing if I remain a stranger to it. Through an always limited number of men, a game of uncertain outcome is being played that puts at stake much more than I imagine. Seen as a whole, the life of the Work is Descent — Fulfilment — Return ; or alternatively, Incarnation — Passion — Resurrection — Redemption . Through this being that I am, whole lineages of men are at stake. When we think about that, our thinking is faulty. It is as difficult to penetrate the mystery of the origin of what we call ‘the Work’ as it is to fathom the course of its unfolding. And yet, if we wish to find a place in it, that’s really what we will have to understand. Let’s come back to our own level. If we consider the past few years and how things have taken place, we can witness the slow and difficult penetration of the ideas, the birth of forms. We see the uncertainties, the difficulties, the obstacles, the struggle, and the perseverance of those through whom this mysterious life has worked its way down to us — the birth of a nucleus that is expanding, gradually consolidating, and yet ever-fragile, exposed as it is to the forces of ruin. And now, as I consider this group, which is becoming a reality, I can’t help looking far beyond, as if a slow penetration into more and more mechanical layers of humanity were already perceptible. Speaking entirely personally, and not on behalf of the teaching, I seem to see something new: a new seed of traditional civilization penetrating our brutal and disillusioned age — an age that is in the process of destroying the last remaining authentic values; a new seed that would constitute the hope of recovering an art of living and a reason for existing. So, the life of the Work as a whole gives mie the impression of an immense circulation in which the call to rise up reverberates from level to level. All this is only a sketch, but if we feel there is any truth in it, how can we understand what is offered to us and what role awaits us? How can we, one day, come to be in the Work? If I look at myself in the light of this perspective, I see that I am like a body in total cellular anarchy, like a state searching for its political unity. If I recognize that the Work is not made for me but derives from cosmic necessities, I can no longer tolerate my ‘an-archy’. The need for a larger view and the urgency of finding a unity become imperative. Among the ideas that are offered us, there is one that may now help us approach the notion of union and reintegration. It is the idea of ‘three lines of Work’ seen in the light of the saying: ‘The way up and the way down are one and the same.’ The first line, work on oneself, which we have all been exploring for a long time, gradually broadens the vision within my personal universe. This broadening vision slowly draws closer to the source of our life and gradually permeates the world of our manifestations, raising the question of connections and therefore of a union. The second line, work with others and for others, will teach us to recognize what brings us closer to one another and what separates us: our common origin and the diversity of our manifestations.

As for the third line, work for the school, it embraces this perspective — specifically, the cosmic perspective — of all the levels of man that we mentioned a moment ago. Within these lines, characterizing them and actualizing them, are the forms of the Work — those that we study and all all those we don’t yet know. By working on the first line, in a group, we prepare ourselves for the second. By working on the second, we study the third. To fully engage in the third line would mean entering the way. On each line, forms are necessary, but they are not rigid or unchangeable. There is nothing systematic about all this. The forms could be different, and the ability to create forms, to replace them, and to be free from them belongs to a high level of consciousness. Through these forms, the knowledge that exists outside us can penetrate us. And through these forms, if we submit to them intelligently, it becomes possible for us, in turn, to move toward knowledge. But no form can exist independently. Forms have meaning only in relation to and overall plan. They must serve. And this overall plan is what we must learn to approach; the more we understand it, the more understanding we will have. This implies the progressive renunciation of our subjective vision, but this renunciation is liberation. And this liberation is union. Is it possible to take a look at this process of progressive unification? First, if I come back to my present anarchy, I see that, by working on myself in conditions organized on the principle of the Law of Octaves, the different elements of my presence emerge from the undifferentiated magma of the first day. Levels take shape, relationships are established, exchanges are set in motion. A horizontal and vertical structure emerges and life circulates. This taste of life — of a living presence — is already a sign of union. Second, the diverse people who work — above me, below me, and at my side — come together despite sometimes bitter friction. And at times, during an exchange, a movement, or a task, for a few seconds, palpable life, greater than anything I have ever known, hovers overhead and encompasses our differences. And that is a sign of union. Third, the various forms of Work, which so often seem opposed, are in reality no more in conflict than people among themselves or the functions of my own person. All of them contribute to unity. Fourth, the three lines of Work, each so different, lead toward the same goal; they complete and complement each other. They are differently phased octaves that intersect and thereby fill gaping intervals. Fifth, the currents of energy, the great cosmic octaves, similarly express this: Everything moves out from the One in order to return to the One. Is that not the life of the Work as a whole?

Understanding [56] Where does your understanding usually reside? Or rather, what you mistakenly call ‘understanding’! It is in your functions, these functions that enslave you. In your experience of an inner shift of your centre of gravity, you have been able to go in the direction of a deeper reality, and for a second there has been the spark of contact.... In your functions, everything then becomes quiet. In this moment, I can’t trust the various understandings that I trust all the time, and I verify what I am told: ‘I have no understanding.’ I am there, as if in a new state, a state in which a deep understanding of what I am at that moment can appear. The fact that I am able to say that I understand nothing means that I have found myself placed there. And ‘finding myself placed there’ means I am initiating a movement toward liberation, a movement of disengaging from my functions, which have kept me subject to their authority, their know-how, their knowledge. I am there, like a child... a newborn child, a child who knows nothing, who cannot yet understand. Perhaps, potentially, the child has a force... but it is weak, it doesn’t know, it is not able... and after all... it needs its functions! Just at that moment, immediately, the functions reassert their despotic authority. What I should do — putting myself back there and starting from that place — is to begin to understand for myself what I always leave for one centre or another to understand on its own ... which is not a real understanding. That cannot be a real understanding since it will only be in my head, or only in my feeling, perhaps even only in my body; whereas in this new place, these three possibilities would come together. If I understand something from this new position, then I understand it physically, mentally, and emotionally. That’s what understanding really is: when the three are united and, at the same time, ‘I’ live this union. We must not fear lack of understanding; we must pass through the lack of understanding for this real understanding to be born . Then there is the other aspect, which we’ll talk and talk about, thousands of times! When I move toward a more authentic attitude in myself and want to put it to the test of an encounter in life, and especially an encounter with another being... in a flash, everything is destroyed! Nevertheless, that’s what we’ll have to experience, little by little. What does it matter if I fail every time! I have to come back to it, I must go toward it, I mustn’t let myself be discouraged or stopped by the fact that it’s almost impossible. It will be almost impossible thousands of times... then, suddenly, perhaps something will become possible. I don’t know on what day, at what moment, or even why. If I don’t attempt the experiment, I do not allow the condition that is necessary for this latent possibility to be fulfilled. This form of work is very painful... and yet, it’s

impossible to escape. I must go through that: put something to the test, expose it, risk it. And risk it knowing that I will lose every time!

Obeying [57] Breaching the question of obedience merely from the psychological point of view can only lead to disappointing conclusions, either of a moral order — ‘it is good to ... ’, which has nothing to do with what is good for man – or of a legal order – ‘thou shalt not disobey’, without our understanding the reason for this injunction. One undeniable fact underlies everything: man does not like obeying and, under one guise or another, always manages to serve his personal self and nothing greater. It cannot be otherwise until I understand that obedience is good, just, and necessary for my evolution, and until I discover the true source of obedience. Lacking understanding, even when a glimmer of intelligence moves me to study the question, I don’t realize that my rare, sketchy attempts at obedience are always based on one or another functional or subjective aspect. Yet that is not where the act of obedience must be born. To try to have an altogether different view of this problem, it would be good to place it in its cosmic setting. Obedience is a universal question. However, it doesn’t arise for man at all in the same way as it does for the other forms of beings in this universe – forms we know, or might know, and of which all traditional teachings speak. All other forms of being — suns, planets and satellites, or angels and archangels — obey unconditionally. Such is their nature, and they cannot do otherwise. The Ray of Creation is the symbol that most dearly evokes the harmonious state of the Universe. No celestial body shirks its role. The Earth is obeyed by the Moon, because the Earth itself obeys the Sun, which in turn obeys what is greater than itself. The result is a harmony of the spheres from which we benefit, even though — in accordance with the laws — difficulties occasionally arise. For these beings there are no dispensations, nothing but a certain flexibility that prevents collisions. Man is not on the Ray of Creation; he only finds himself there for special reasons and under very specific conditions. He finds himself inserted into it because the lateral octave of Organic Life, to which he belongs, penetrates the Ray of Creation. Man’s relationship to this octave is very different from the relationship of the celestial bodies to the Ray of Creation. The stars are represented by one note — that is, by one level and by a relative immutability that seems, to eyes belonging to our ephemeral lifespan, to be permanent. Man, on the other hand, does not correspond to only a single note of the octave of organic life. He corresponds, or at least ought to correspond, to the whole octave (see the diagram on page 5).

Because his feet are on the ground — in an earthly body corresponding to ‘dust’ — and his head is at the level of the stars — the level of spirit — the centre of gravity of man’s consciousness is not fixed. He is at liberty to move along the full length of this octave; and if it is not this way in fact, it is precisely because he does not obey what is offered him. Obedience is neither a hindrance nor a condemnation, but the condition – the way of living – that could crown all man’s aspirations. It is always difficult to grasp just what freedom is possible for man. If we say that man is the only creature that has the power to disobey, we are right; but we must add, nevertheless, that this power is very limited; and, if it were not so, this freedom, far from helping, would ruin him. Only the freedom to disobey enables man to attain an obedience that is freely accepted, recognized, loved, desired . This is what really distinguishes man from other forms of being: other forms cannot disobey; they obey passively and without suffering. Man must give himself willingly, in full awareness, and at the price of a certain suffering. That said, apart from this freedom to disobey, man is no freer than other forms of beings. Through his body, he is kept within strict limits of nutrition, but this applies only to his physical body. For, as regards his possibility of coating subtler bodies, a greater freedom, or flexibility, appears. Man must learn and understand the limits of his condition as a being, and he must distinguish the place where nothing is possible from the place where he has some room to manoeuvre. This art is an essential aspect of a search: the art of knowing the laws and their exceptions. And man must have no illusion about his disobedience: it is intended. Man pretentiously claims to do only as he pleases, yet he obeys the laws just the same. He hasn’t seen that, while he is unable to escape the laws, it is nevertheless possible for him to serve one particular level of laws or another. Angels and archangels cannot do this. But this discovery – which would be impossible if man had no ability to disobey one order of laws so as to obey another – is one he must make in the tiniest lapse of time. His chance is fleeting. The opportunity is so difficult to seize that, in order to make up for the obvious fact that almost everyone will miss it, nature multiplies these rough models of conscious beings, providing quantity at the expense of quality. The man who discovers this secret and puts it into practice plays the role that Christ played: he connects the Earth to the stars through his own organism. And the Gospels clearly show this through the parable of the centurion — the soldier who understood discipline and knew how to use it as an example of a process on a different scale. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this

man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. [58] One level cannot be obeyed unless it too obeys what is greater than itself. The parable of the centurion shows this precise relationship in regard to obedience; and it shows, moreover, that obedience can only be based on love and faith: When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. [59] The whole secret is there. Obey as a friend must and can obey, and not as a servant would. [60] It is to make this obedience possible that disobedience is granted. In our certitude and in our love, active obedience can be born. We have to want it, wish it. And how could I come to wish for it if I don’t understand the good that will flow from it for myself? I will not obey through constraint or a sense of duty, or because it looks good, or to improve my image. I will obey when I become aware of the repercussions of my act. I am awaited, I am not forced. But even when I am able to understand what is right and generous in the situation I am offered, I don’t necessarily become immediately able to obey. Because I am afraid. Because I am grasping. Because I am ruled by a belief in myself which is the counterpart of my relative freedom to disobey. I do not want to give up anything. Even if knowledge penetrates me, I want to keep it and eat its fruit for myself. But this fruit is something I must not touch, since its vivifying force is intended for the seed of my real ‘I’ and not for my ego. It is from this knowledge, which falls on my essence — an essence that is still inert, but has felt the light touch of awakening – that the act of obedience must arise, and not from my ordinary thought or feeling. At the core of my being there is a shadowy zone where ignorance and refusal, fear and avidity, link. This shadowy zone must awaken; a principle of struggle must come to life. Obedience is the price of awakening. In order to awaken to myself, I must see what is in front of me, and give up ‘my’ life for Life itself. This is the seat of hydrogens 12 [61] — the place of damnation or salvation — the place where conversion is awaited. The only way for this to become possible is for me to fully realize my complete nothingness. [62] Such as I am, in my dream of myself and my illusions, I am nothing. And I am nothing because I do not understand that my authentic being is something altogether different, and that, by clinging to my illusions, I deny the possibility of its realization. I must give up my freedom to disobey in order fully to be.

Serving [63] I serve as a channel for a flow of energy. I servc so that energy can be transmitted to other forms of beings, to other places,to other levels unknown to me. If only I understood my situation, if I took the trouble to see what is taking place… . I know that energy appears in me, that it becomes engaged within this machine that I am, that it expresses itself in movement, and then is gone. I know about it, but I do not understand it. I could make the effort to understand it; that is, to live this progressive degrading of energy, which is law-conformable and necessary. And I must really experience it, because I need to become familiar with it, because that is what will put me very directly in touch with the undeniable fact that I serve mechanically. If I felt this, if I experienced it deeply — rather than it remaining intellectual, intellectual baggage that does not stir me - perhaps I would be deeply moved by one fact: the whole universe is dying away! It is true. In a way, the world is moving as if toward its disintegration, both through me and through this multitude of machines, the billions of inhabitants of the planet. I need to feel - to experience - that this energy, which has such grandeur and which descends into me, is squandered. Is this necessary? Yes. But, if that is always the case, then there is a danger. And perhaps one of the signals murmured in the depths of my being, but which I don’t hear or don’t know how to decipher, is that there must be a return. But this return is not mechanical, I must agree to participate in it; I must serve this return. This is really a cosmic phenomenon; because, if there is a movement of return, a new descent will take place which cannot proceed mechanically as before. There will be a conscious descent of a new influence which otherwise never penetrates into me. To use the language of this Work: I only know ‘A’ influences, the very ordinary influences of life, and ‘B’ influences, which are conscious in their origin but have spread out into nature and lost their connection. I never actually receive influences from a completely different level, because I am unable to receive them and cannot communicate with them. I have not yet allowed this two-way current to flow. I do not understand that this dual current, this possibility of receiving two influences, this possibility of friction between contradictory movements, is precisely what will create the being that I so aspire to, a possibility of being completely different from the way I am today, enclosed in my shell. I do not understand that everything is already prepared . But if I understand, if I accept, if my heart has been stirred by the absolute necessity of responding to this never-ending gift, of responding so that something can be turned around and can

live in another way, then, at the same time, my own rebirth becomes possible. And that possibility is what I lose; that is what I forget. You see, this is the problem of ‘dying to oneself’. I must die to certain conceptions, certain harmful ideas that have taken root in me, certain illusions. Above all, I have to die to my own ignorance. This may seem strange, but I have to die to this kind of inner web that entangles me, this web of associations, preconceived patterns of thought, and things that I have never even verified and which prevent me from opening up to another perspective, a vast perspective. It’s senseless to be afraid of obeying; it’s just that I don’t understand. It makes no sense that I refuse to let myself serve; it’s just that I don’t understand. My need to serve ‘me’ becomes an abomination, a personal calamity. Yet it is an inverted expression, a caricature, of a perfectly real need. I need to be. I absolutely need to be; and this thirst is just as genuine as my physical thirst and hunger. Only, I must cure myself of my aberration, of my way of seeing everything upside-down ... always upside-down, inverted. If I cure myself of this, then everything becomes possible, and what I aspire to will come about. That’s just how it is. My thinking needs to be awakened, and this new approach must really enter into the way I see things. It must reach my feeling and even my body, right down to the smallest cells of my body, so that throughout my whole being, I may understand the tragic error in my way of seeing things and approaching them; and so that I may realize how, in the end, by wishing to serve ‘me’, I harm myself, I betray myself, I literally kill myself. Then, at a certain point — when this understanding truly penetrates every pore, permeates my entire presence — maybe then, what today seems to me extremely difficult will become easy and real. This is what we must wish for ourselves with all our might. ❖ We have readily agreed that part of us thinks of only one thing: serving itself. But I ask you this question: ‘What is to become of this part? Will it disappear?’ Clearly, it is an impulse of such force, and so deep, that it really seems that it cannot just disappear. Yes, indeed! This impulse will not disappear. So what then? The problem is presented as follows: in my being, there are two tendencies based on the same need, but they are in the same relationship to each other as an object and its reversed reflection. What can reconcile them? For only a reconciliation can resolve this opposition. When I remember myself, I feel that I still serve myself and that this is right. My being and its aspirations are fulfilled. At the same time ‘I’ serve God. By virtue of my presence, at last realized, the ascending and descending currents can flow, earth and heaven can communicate, and there is no longer any contradiction or any dissatisfaction. The smaller serves the greater and, surpassing all hope, receives from the greater an overflowing of goodness and joy.

The Struggle in the World of the Soul [64] The overwhelming urge to withdraw into the sitting exercise - to the point of becoming identified with the peace one finds - is the inevitable temptation we all have to go through. The sitting exercise, deep relaxation, and the silence we find should allow us to make contact with very fine and much more conscious impressions only so that, afterward, we may descend once again into the life of manifestation with a new intelligence, an intelligence enlightened by this contact. It will never be a question of taking refuge in some ‘disembodied Himalaya’. The sitting exercise is not intended to produce am cxtraordinary state. Even though this may occur, that is not its purpose. The aim is to enable us to live an ordinary life consciously. Our ultimate task is, by a transformation of our being and the appearance of a Presence (as yet virtual), to allow higher forces to pass through us at last and to illumine the darkness of our lower nature. To shy away from that or to seek anything else would be, as Mr. Gurdjieff has written, to misjudge what is expected of us and to betray ‘the hope sown from Above’. That requires a total conversion of our thinking, then of our feeling, and finally of our very substance; for, if the transformation does not involve our very flesh, nothing will be accomplished. Yes, we must allow two worlds to unite. I well understand your inner discomfort and this temptation to become indifferent to all the life around you. It is normal that your discomfort should go so far as to become suffering, and this indicates that the Work has penetrated deeply into you. But it is here that the notion of sacrificing one’s suffering comes in. Do not accept this isolated state, this kind of hypnotic state. The struggle with yourself begins there. Look carefully at everything that is taking place. You are beginning to doubt what you have known. This is useful, since you discover that you have sometimes worked in order to reach certain states, or egoistically to know more, or to have something to say. At the same time, it’s a temptation because this is the way the parts of our being that want nothing to do with the Work try to destroy it. Perhaps you feel weak, dry, empty. Here again, the same two sides appear: the doubt that creeps in and suggests that I give up inner work, making me believe I will get nowhere; and, on the other hand, the painful truth that we are, in fact, dry, and that by ourselves we have no force. Real feeling can come only from the higher centres, and force too can come only from the higher nature, to which you are not yet consciously connected. But this feeling of emptiness deserves to be looked at even more attentively because it does not imply nothingness, but that a space or location is available. When you feel you are empty and have no understanding, continue calmly, do not

try to attain something. Feel this emptiness, taste it, and you will finally discover that it is alive. In this emptiness reside the most real, but also the most subtle, aspects of your being - mind , real feeling , and conscious intelligence . Once you have recognized this, if only for a second, you will no longer be afraid, and you will understand that you have to relax in order to perceive it more deeply, every day more deeply, to receive help from it for going about your ordinary life ... but in a new way. You will begin to have a completely different understanding of sensation. Moreover, this intelligence is already beginning to act, and you prove it by discovering that you are very negative. You knew this, but you are beginning to live it. Here again, learn to sacrifice the suffering that you draw from it. We must bear the pain and at last seeing ourselves as we are. This sacrifice, that is, this effort not to identify with the pain you experience, is what will help the octave of impressions to develop (remember the diagram of the three-storeyed factory in Fragments ). [65] In this way, the notes re 24 and mi 12 will appear in us. ( Mi 12 is the substance that is indispensable for the formation of the second body, the body of feeling.) In order that Faith and Love may appear in us, we must sacrifice all our subjective pain and suffering, which are rooted in ordinary self-love. Ultimately, you begin to be aware of two lives in you, two separate lives. It is in this respect that the work becomes constructive. Despite the difficulties in your present work, I can’t help rejoicing at what is taking place in you. Begin by resting a little. Take advantage of your vacation. Love yourself - that is, if you know how to love yourself, since this is something that many people still have to learn. And when you feel better, resume your work in an entirely new way... . Open to silence, to the fertile reality of emptiness. Then go out into life and start seeing how you understand your functions, all your actions… . We have no conscious attitude in relation to these movements — these thoughts, emotions, and gestures. We immediately get lost in them, and then we judge them (which is a mistake). We don’t like them, but we allow ourselves in to be subjugated by them, and a highly impassioned entanglement ensues- an emotional rejection and an emotional collapse. The cause of our always being carried away is to be found neither in the world around us, nor in our functions, but in an innermost weakness that we must learn to recognize. The struggle must, little by little, take place in this intermediate world — the world of the soul — between our two natures. It is there that the Great Battle with oneself takes place, and that battle will take years. As you see, it is not a question of a mental configuration, but of an act that puts us totally into question. A sign that we sometimes approach this is the almost unbearable feeling — far beyond our usual suffering — of being torn apart, or crucified.

The Functions Enlisted to Serve [66]

You don’t seem to have realized yet that you are merely an instrument of something far greater than yourself. Every one of us is an instrument, and that’s all we can be. Moreover, this is our unique good fortune, because if we were not instruments of this higher reality, we would not have being and life. Our only freedom is to be either an unconscious instrument or a conscious one , either to suffer passively or to submit voluntarily - to accept to be what we are. No man can become a conscious instrument unless he manages to free himself from the illusion of running his own life and controlling everything around him — that is, as long as he continues to believe he can manipulate, direct, sort out his little universe, and conquer whatever comes his way. Getting to know my intellectual, emotional, and moving-instinctive mechanisms is my only possibility. It is not a question of my doing what I feel is mine to do, but of serving. Avidity, jealousy, irritability are only passing squalls. I can function and be conscious of it or not. I can, for example, remember myself while walking. When we speak of functions, we mean a way of looking at the machine, a way in which consciuosness may or may not appear. We need to recognize wrong functioning. We need to understand that the normal play of the functions works in two directions and allows consciousness to appear. In contrast, wrong functioning prevents its appearance. Being an obstacle to consciousness, wrong functioning keeps it locked in a horizontal circuit, giving us the illusion of doing and of being, which causes a loss of energy. What is the role of the functions? They have a double purpose. One obvious purpose is my manifestation in life. They also serve to capture influences, to nurture them and transform them. The functions are transforming apparatuses, each one being an aspect of a much greater apparatus. They serve nature, and are created primarily for that purpose. Man is created by nature, and his functions are adapted to serve it. But they are adapted for other purposes as well, and it is man’s misfortune that he does not know this. Nothing in him values this other possibility. The functions can receive and transform different substances, and then transmute them for the development of his being. A man who does not know his machine and its dual potential, a man who does not work on himself, is only half a man. He serves nature automatically and cannot escape doing so, but he also serves purposes that he is unaware of. A man who has heard the call in himself, which comes from the higher emotional centre, awakens to the dual direction of his machine and its functions. We are to serve life in both directions: toward what is below and toward what is above. Downward, automatically and inescapably; upward, consciously and voluntarily. However, the upward movement is not actually possible if I remain in my fragmented state. As long as serving is not voluntary, nothing can change. I will not maintain contact with what is above me or with what is around me. I have no connection either with my functions or with what animates them.

Do not try to separate yourself from ordinary thought simply because you have seen the need to do so. This must come from your recognition of the situation in which you find yourself. First you have to experience it. At that point, you will perhaps be able to try something that won’t be harmful. I must sense that I have this presence in me, a reality that l’m going to lose; and I’m going to lose it because I don’t know how my functions work, or what I am within their functioning. I don’t know how to go down toward them, or how to let them to enter into my presence, or how to set them in motion myself. How can I come closer to this moment? There is a presence; there are also elements that must be brought into presence. Practise! After a moment of gathering myself, I am here, seated, in a state of presence. I am here. I sense it. I feel it. Then, I make a decision. I decide to do something simple, a simple act in which I can more easily maintain some of this state of presence, more easily than if I wanted to express a feeling, speak, or feel a relationship with someone. I set my functions in motion. What is not ready? I have no knowledge, no idea of what’s going to happen to me. I need to come closer to myself living in this way and, at the same time, be aware of myself existing in another way as well. Do I know how I will be when I stand up, when I leave this collected state? Do I have only my habitual way of thinking by association, or have I learned to make a special effort of thinking? Do I know only my habitual emotions, or do I recognize a particular feeling when attention appears? Do I know only my habitual, passive, and involuntary sensations, or do I recognize the sensation that appears when I make the effort to remember myself? I know all this in the moment of greatest effort. But what will become of thought when I have to bring certain images to mind, at the same time as keeping close watch over my presence? What will become of the feeling of myself when something unexpected happens? It is the same for sensation. Every unfamiliar thing that happens completely throws me. I don’t have any sense of the urgency or the need for a special attention that would help me find the right way of thinking, feeling, and sensing. There is an octave I must get to know; then my thought, my feeling, and my sensation will no longer be the same. When I am faced with the necessity of not vanishing, everything changes. Sometimes the attention is held, sometimes it is loosened, like an elastic, and I pass through many levels. But you, you know nothing about that. This progressive relaxation corresponds to a certain way of thinking, to levels of possibility that are constantly changing.

Our Tenured Professor of Inner Work [67]

If you want to delve into those ordinary aspects of yourself that are always there, ready to reappear, you must really step back to gain some perspective. Failing that, you will never understand exactly what is meant by an attitude. Either I adopt an abstract attitude and cut myself off from the way I live or, on the contrary, I sink so low, so very low, that I lose all connection with something ‘other’, and I drown in this pool. I wonder if you have a sense of the individual who takes charge of your work for you. Unwisely, we have all entrusted our inner work to a certain individual — for me, it’s Doctor Conge — who, by the way, must also be a tenured ‘professor’ of inner work. He is really something! A leading expert, in fact! Do you need this parasite? Do you really need this so-and-so who knows all about inner work? He’s taking you for a ride. Questioner : I have been feeling for some time that I am going around in circles. I have really tried everything that I … Michel Conge : Oh! If you’d really tried everything, the earth would have split in two and you’d be free! Same questioner : But I have! I have tried everything in a wrong way with that character in me! Michel Conge : But you haven’t tried everything, because if you had, he would be on his last legs! Same questioner : I really feel that I should take the plunge somehow... but I don’t. Michel Conge : But he’s the one telling you to take the plunge and he even tells you how to go about it! We’ve been really duped! And how! It’s been going on for ages! This is what is meant by ‘liberation’, extricating myself from this extraordinarily clever trick. Ultimately, it’s not life that is hard; it’s not life that corners us. Nor is nature unwilling ... well, it may be unwilling, but that’s nothing to worry about! What is really alarming is this shady character in there; I know it’s that con man watching me... because sometimes I catch him giving me ferocious looks. Same questioner : I can’t manage to be present in the subtle way that I now understand is needed, because my presence does not correspond, in terms of sensitivity, to the sensitivity required to catch myself in the moment. Michel Conge : Hold on there! I even wonder if what we have here isn’t a super con man. Now, just between you and me, this one is even smarter! What an exciting moment, really exciting! Thrillers? Detective stories? No comparison! It’s exciting because it’s something you are living through. You’re beginning to see that there’s a trick to it. And if you want to unravel it, there’s that character again; and you try something ... he’s back again! Well then. How to get past that? It keeps you guessing. At such a time, you spend hours truly awake. These are tremendous moments because you feel that you’re close ... close to some kind of mystery. But it

constantly escapes you. Sometimes it’s in sleep — even ordinary sleep - that the key appears. It wakes you up with a start up and then, poof! It’s gone. I begin to feel that it’s an extraordinary game. But I must not get upset. This is why we are asked to work on our emotions, I must not get upset at all . I must not get annoyed. I must not be on edge. I must not tell myself, ‘I don’t have much time.’ I must not fall into any of those traps. If, instead, you answer him that you have all the time in the world, that bothers him. Now that’s a good attitude. There is a kind of joy that awakens in our own attention; it becomes happy… and that annoys him even more. There must be some roundabout way to get through, because you won’t get through just like that. There are border guards there! You must find another path, a way over the mountains which is not patrolled. He can’t patrol everything. Are you a seeker, a risk taker? I would almost say, a gambler. Because it actually is a kind of gamble. Same questioner : I don’t understand! A ‘gambler’? Michel Conge : It’s a game. You have to outwit him, be stronger, more intelligent than he is. Just imagine, he holds all the cards, and you have to win! He’s been dealt both hands, his and yours. It’s thrilling! Not even an Einstein could invent such a game!

Stubbornness and Will [68] I am a human being who, on the one hand, is conditioned and accustomed to living in a certain way. It’s compelling, very compelling, and I can’t bear to let go of it. And, on the other hand, I am a being who suffers desperately from living the way he does. There is no situation more horrible! But that is our situation. No one escapes it; that’s what we have to see. Is there any hope? If I keep going back and forth from one to the other, I really see that it’s hopeless. I see that at one moment I am obstinate, that I won’t do anything; and at the next moment, I am utterly wretched. I have to understand that the birth of will is dependent on the union of wanting and not wanting . But if this opposition is not clear, if there is no real perception of this categorical refusal in me, if I don’t see it really clearly, there will never be any will-power. We want will-power right away because it would be a good thing to have ... but that’s not possible. However, we can begin to become aware of what calls us and what refuses. Stubborn as a mule! We can become aware of that. But if we succeed, little by little — and it can be done — if we succeed, with time, in holding together in a single perception this strong demand and this systematic refusal that is in us, if we

succeed in keeping them clear while truly understanding what they are, then will can be born. Otherwise, it will never be born. There is no other solution. As long as we are unable to experience this, we will continue to be tossed between two poles. And there is nothing more disheartening, because when you are obstinate, you are not happy, and when you are at the other extreme, you are not happy; that is not happiness either. Happiness would mean coming to a kind of accord in myself, this understanding that we so heartily wish to experience, with others, but which we never quite experience. An understanding, an accord with everything included, contained, harmonized — that would be marvellous! I have to begin with myself. I cannot be in accord with my neighbour if I am not in accord with myself; it’s absolutely impossible. So, little by little, I will try to work toward bringing about this true unification. Questioner : If ever I want to reach some sort of peace between the desire to awaken and this gross laziness that I have seen, I must also take upon myself the decision to struggle. Michel Conge : There once was a man who had a donkey. He got on his donkey in the morning, and then he fell asleep. While he was dozing, the donkey wandered wherever it pleased. Then he noticed, our rider did, that his donkey had taken him in a completely different direction from the one he had chosen. So he tried to direct it, but the donkey started to balk. They struggled like that for an hour. Then the rider dismounted and pulled on the lead. He pushed the donkey and beat it. Finally, he offered it treats, but still no luck! He hurled insults at it, but there was absolutely no way out. In the end, they were both totally exasperated. Then the donkey found a very simple solution. It lay down on the ground and played dead. Seeing this, our good man said to himself, ‘I can’t leave it here. I’ve no other choice!’ So he put the donkey on his own back and went on his way. However, he made a miscalculation. He said to himself, ‘I will walk until the end of the day’. But just ten minutes later, he had to stop anyway. So, it’s better to foresee the stages. But you see, nevertheless, that at the end of the day you will have to know how to shoulder the burden yourself.

The Devil — A Very, Very Important Character [69] Questioner : During a movements class I saw myself as being powerless, the body doing whatever it wanted, not corresponding. And yet there was a certain sensation of myself, a taste of myself - powerless, but present. Michel Conge : There’s no innocence in us, none of the fresh innocence of a small child. And that is what we must return to, this complete innocence — full of life, full of fire, full of energy, but completely innocent. But you can’t get back there in six or eight years. It takes a long time. We all aspire to this. But there is a wide gap between aspiring to something and allowing it to surface in oneself. We stifle something in ourselves and we don’t even realize it. Don’t you know the reason no contact is made on some days? You kill it... or, at least, you allow it to be killed. Same questioner : I have certainly seen that for years, in all my efforts, I have been forcing in one direction or another. Michel Conge : And you couldn't have gone about it in any other way. Even if you had followed another discipline, it would have been the same. My experience must gradually shed light on this point. Little by little, I must come to see this very clearly. We have often said, ‘Just what’s needed, nothing more — just what is necessary, with all the required intensity needed, all that is possible.’ There is an inner place that I don’t understand. I don't know what goes on there. I don’t know at all. Yet it must exist and something must be happening there because I’ve had proof of it. Suddenly, this feeling arises ... so new. I suddenly have this impression of myself that I’ve never had before, an impression that is certainly real because, the very next instant, everything else seems to be desolation and death. So I must certainly have come in touch with life itself. Something is certainly there, because I saw myself: a poor larva enmeshed in a body, not even knowing how to guide that body, but being dragged along by it instead. Isn’t that a moment of truth? The other side of the coin is the same, exactly the same! I feel that something doesn’t unite, doesn’t connect, doesn’t link up. I really sense the truth. Each of us has sensed an aspect of it; and after that experience, either the same day or in a few days, we will perhaps find ourselves dejected from having touched something too big or too rich — the way we feel after a vacation when we come back to the office or the shop. It’s sad, after the sunshine, to come back to an old

hovel smelling of dust. Yes, and you could let yourself be overwhelmed by this sadness. Just the same, another attitude is possible. You had never before had these experiences; you had never before seen yourself so miserable. You had never really seen it in this way. And believe me, you would certainly never have known this if there had not been efforts, and repeated efforts. We are like mountain climbers who have just managed to perceive something through the mist... very indistinctly, and we’re not yet sure of the direction ... but it really seems to be over there; and yes, it seems to be a summit. Except that someone says, ‘It’s high, it’s far away, and we’ve already been walking for hours. We can always go back down. Go and tell them that!’ Same questioner : I understood that ‘someone’ to be the devil… . Michel Conge : He is a very, very important character, and he has a very big role to play. Lots of bad things have been said about him! For a long time, I was shocked by Mr. Gurdjieff’s humorous remarks about him and I felt that he didn’t despise the devil enough. But certain traditional texts also raise the same question. It is a bit outrageous, all the same, that he has access to the heavenly throne and strolls about the place… . He flicks his tail out of the way, sits down, chats with the Lord, and then goes back to play all sorts of dirty tricks. And he can come back up again ... no one ever bothers him. Everyone else all down the line has problems or difficulties, but he has none at all. I really understood nothing about him until the day when, as you yourself just said, I began to notice him, catch glimpses of him. How freely he comes and goes! No one has more freedom! He is a fearsome character; but without him, you couldn’t work. There’s no one more dangerous, no one more ready to kill you; and yet without him, you would be unable to live, unable to attain everlasting life. That’s why it’s understandable that the Eternal One so readily tolerates his presence and his ceaseless comings and goings... always busy. He’s the active one. You'll see, he's much more active than you are! Oh, la la ! Mr. Gurdjieff used to say, Fine gentleman. Always eager to please, obliging ... doesn’t miss a trick. Not a single one! He’s on top of everything. Really everything! Nothing, absolutely nothing, escapes him!” Whereas, poor idiot that I am ...! Get to know him— There is always a force of attraction if you look carefully. And I need to know this attraction, this force; just as I must learn to recognize a taste deep inside me, no doubt remote, but a taste of myself that really gives me a reason for daring to descend, even to be torn to pieces. The reason is even more compelling if I have lived through one of these experiences. Now I can say, ‘It doesn’t matter. I don’t know how much time it will take, but I’m certain there is something.’ And I must say this to myself and be very honest, because my whole personality will contrive to find arguments to deny it, to cast doubt on these seconds, these fractions of a second, which have such a

taste and are so rare for me at the moment. Months often pass between such momentary experiences. You must make a place for them in you, a place that is untouchable, inviolable. Nothing must disturb it. You will hear voices telling you, ‘It didn’t exist; and besides, it was so small!’ That’s where your responsibility lies: I don’t listen to voices that speak that way. In this too there is a certain innocence. I guard this taste of myself; I don’t even venture to take a look, to make sure. And that is the astonishing ruse of this temptation: the voices nag me to go and see, but they know very well that I can’t find it again; and if I’m stupid enough to let myself get caught, naturally, I return devastated. Yet I knew all along that it was no longer there! I don’t know if you understand what I’m trying to say: It’s not there, and yet I still watch over it. It is there . Is this a strange attitude? Only a child can do this; we adults no longer know how to have such freshness in front of things. I hold close and I don’t go to look. I hold close and I defuse the temptation, I defuse this destructive side with a tranquil smile. It’s there, I’m not going to go looking for it; there is no reason to do so. It’s there! This approach is tremendously disarming for the hard side of us; it breaks that side of us apart. You must realize: it is either this possibility or this brutal force that gets broken. There is no middle ground; sooner or later, one of the two will prevail. It depends on you.

Receiving a Fresh Impression of Oneself [70] Do you think patience would mean anything if there were no impatience? And yet that’s the way we live all the time. Either we are immersed in impatience and oblivious to any sense of patience, or we are apparently patient, but only because we’re not being tempted by an impulse of impatience. Do you understand this? It’s very important. We are always losing ourselves in blind alleys. There is an axis. There is a path that resolves contradictory elements. Mr. Gurdjieff used to say, “Let angels help you. Let devils help you.” And sometimes he would add, “And between the two, may God keep you.” You’re always into some intrigue... either with the angels or with the devils! You need both, the two poles, the two natures, the two tendencies, the plus and the minus. But what deals are you up to? Trafficking with the angels? That’s bad too, you know. No good ever comes of it! As for the devils, I won't even talk about them — we’ve known about all that for a long time! But “between the two, may God keep you” means there really is an axis toward which I should learn to orient myself.

And what is God for me today? It is surely the intelligence of an attitude that will gradually take hold and find an equilibrium among the various tendencies that characterize me. I don’t need to like them or hate them or judge them. I must take them into account. They are there. They are what I am made of. What’s the good of arguing, debating, or getting upset? It's useless! I enter into this game — the great cosmic game that, without knowing it, I already am — or else I don’t enter into it. Either this game, like some kind of immense machine, grinds me up and transforms me into another substance, or the opposite happens, and ‘I’ appear. For my part, I see no alternative. Do you understand? Without the appeareance of that ‘I’ , there is no search. The middle way, the fine line... . Of course, we are incapable of holding to it, but that is the guiding principle that I must learn to recognize. I must always be close to that attitude, and not let myself be influenced by the highs and the lows — all these diverse movements, these very complicated spiralling movements that you will come to see, and which even follow an extraordinary pattern. I have seen a time-lapse photograph of the astronomical movement of certain stars. It is the same pattern, the same spiral form. The stars do not move as one might think. They trace a very complex kind of movement. If I am able to see, I discover that exactly the same movement is inside us. What’s interesting is to be able to be true to that line. At the moment, I am true to nothing at all! You must demand a certain attitude of yourself, now. It’s urgent. I have to learn a new approach, an approach I am unfamiliar with. That’s why we are asking this question now: ‘How do I understand myself?’ This is not an intellectual qucstion. It is a very difficult question, but its very difficulty helps to support an effort that is new and hard to learn. And if we don’t live this effort, our work will come to a halt. Questioner : While doing a task, I felt completely at sea. I felt I was actually touching an extreme fragility that seems wholly related to the way I consider and to my way of throwing my weight around like a little soldier. I never imagined it would come to this! Michel Conge : This really is what I must go toward: to truly see the man I always present, this man with whom I am identified, and who I imagine I am. I cannot discover what in reality I am, if I do not see that. I have to see that again and again! You have suddenly touched upon the deep meaning of the question we have been asking ourselves, at least a part of that question. Now I must come closer. Here is the structure, here is the organization! I am beginning to understand. I am not able to see what sort of character traits, or costumes, I present to the world. I can only see this if, at that very moment, I am already a different man. And the fact that you were able to see it as you did means that, without realizing it, you were for a moment another being. The experience was too great! You

were not able to take it all in. And then one is so struck by the fact that the man I believed I was has been exposed, unmasked. It is so astounding that I don’t have time to grasp it. I was already someone else! And that is why you didn’t fall apart. The risk would be that I give way to sentimentality because of what I discover. It’s already an old corpse! Don’t be like the soul that frees itself from the body only after the body has begun to rot. Don’t despise it, but don’t let yourself be taken in by it again. Try saying, ‘I am already an “other”.’ I didn’t know it, but it’s true! It is impossible to truly see oneself through the old means, the ordinary means. It’s not possible! And there is something surprising in that: the perfect camouflage; it takes another being to see it. Let’s take a completely ordinary image as an example. You see certain personality traits in someone else. That person doesn’t see them. You see them because you are someone else. Similarly, in myself and in relation to myself, I must be ‘other’. This can be confirmed: if traits show up in me, it is because I am ‘other’. It’s really incredible, don’t you think? Don’t let yourself be won over by any sentimental niceties about your old skin! Learn to have this fresh impression of yourself. You are another.

I Exist, I Am, I Have Always Been [71] An impression of oneself is an organic phenomenon that is not at all intellectual. How is it that at one moment I don't vibrate and at another, I do? How is it that I receive or do not receive a current of energy, allow it to feed me or not to feed me? How do I sing with it, or resonate with it like a musical instrument? Life keeps hitting us, producing only a dull sound. Yet, suddenly, there is a pure, crystalline sound. How does that come about? You see... our life doesn’t change. Every day the same thing — day in, day out, we receive the same impressions! But it can happen that one day, bombarded by these same impressions, I have the feeling that my life is brand new, fascinating, rich. What makes this possible? That is what I need to recognize. There is one extremely simple thing: it doesn’t even enter my mind that I exist... and it never occurs to me to stop and be attentive to this. By the way, I’m not even sure that you are hearing what I’m saying right now.... You ARE, but you never stop at that point, because a reaction is inevitably triggered, and that immediately disturbs the periphery. I don’t understand that it’s not the events of my life that are of interest. What is important is that I AM.

I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN. This impression is what’s missing, the clear impression that I AM . That would change everything in my life. It takes daring. I dare to try letting myself be convinced that I EXIST. The moment I dare, the impressions I receive from life change as well: they penetrate. But first, I must have the courage to say I AM. We treat selfremembering as if it were an exercise. It is not an exercise! Riding a bicycle is an exercise; self-remembering is not an exercise. The problem is staggering. We can’t imagine what simple act would make everything we do — sitting quietly, having a good meal, going on a trip — exactly the same. Today, this important something is not to be found in church, at meals, or even in our daily sitting exercise. It is a terrible thing to feel that this is actually very close, very simple, and yet it’s far away, so very far away. Do we agree on the principle, at least? You are seated, you get up... . Whatever effort you make, what you are looking for is always there. Do we accept this principle? How to search, starting from there? Do you have the courage to endure this: at every step, to live only the essential thing?

The Essence of the Question [72] What is the world? What is this world in which we live? It’s an inquiry, a perennial question. One is tempted to say, it is the question God asks Himself; it is His way of thinking. This world... I am in it and I am asleep! But I bear within me the possibility of awakening to the question itself. I am born of this question and I am part of it . To the extent that I open myself to this question, I come closer to primordial Thought — call it divine, if you wish. But if I abandon the fruits of this effort to my intellect, I move away from a possibility, and I become once again a series of phenomena, a succession of events. There is a possibility of return in finally realizing that I am part of this inquiry, that I am part of this great question. We must learn not to keep falling back into our ordinary way — which is our downfall — our way of receiving the question with the intellect. There is a great risk in that. Is your intellect that important? Do you want to give it that much room? There is hope as long as the question continues to be, and always remains, a question. But take care that it does not become debased. That is the only possibility — to make sure that the question does not become debased. In moments of vigilance, there is no debasement. As soon as I stop being vigilant,

the law of mechanicality takes over, and one thing follows another in a downward succession. You don’t realize that every time you are able to be open to the question within you, it is as if you were learning to unite with that which is the Cause of all causes. There is no other possibility. ❖ You can try at certain moments to return to this echo: ‘I know there is a question, that it has no answer, that it is extremely important, and that, depending on my attitude, it will resonate. more or less powerfully.’ You know very well, having already been through this experience, that it won’t take long for the vibration of the question to disappear — which is the worst thing that can happen! The question must remain, but it cannot be kept artificially. In order for the question to remain, it must be truly acknowledged, welcomed. At certain moments, try to acknowledge the question without limiting it, without defining it, because that would be the same as wanting to explain it. Try not to remain outside the question. Try to acknowledge it, not as a form but as a resonance. That will help you to be present. When you feel a presence that is suddenly very strong, that presence is not you; and you do not understand that the doubt that appears is what you must be open to. At that moment I must open to a feeling of not understanding. That is definitely one of the most pressing and most difficult of requirements. Abruptly, I find myself in a real predicament, a situation that is completely genuine but doesn’t fit with what I have learned or thought I understood. I see that all the ideas I have stored up are of no help. I have been left, abandoned in a tragic situation. ❖ There are forces. I have no doubt about that. And there is manifestation, that is clear. But in the midst of it all, I feel that I do not understand. I feel an absence, a lack of understanding, an emptiness. This doesn’t correspond to any of my primary information. You were ready for anything, but not this... and you are completely thrown! Like any one of us, you don’t enjoy being thrown. You must remain in front of this feeling of doubt, of not understanding, and you must know how to return to it and experience it sufficiently. That’s where you’ll find the essence of your question; and that is what you must return to, the very essence of the question. Return to that without hoping, and without wishing it would become clear or become resolved. It’s true that it is extremely difficult to return to a situation that throws me. It is extremely uncomfortable to find myself in a situation where I do not understand, where I do not understand at all what effort I must try. I no longer even understand the meaning of effort; or, more precisely, everything I have understood about effort

is completely inadequate. If an effort is involved, it is no longer the same effort, and I don’t know what thal effort is. I can even live the moment when I don’t know whal that effort is. I can find myself at the place where there is a real lack of understanding. At that very moment, I am really living my situation. And I absolutely need that experience. If only we could stay in this place, we would see that our problems are not at all as we imagined them. In a way, they are much simpler. I don’t recognize myself in this feeling of not understanding, in this feeling of myself. I do not understand that this is the strongest moment of I AM. That ‘something’, which recognizes not-understanding without turning away, is not my personality, which always wants to understand, and explain everything. That ‘something’ is really the essence of myself. Why does it hurt so much? Because it touches the must intimate part of my being. Why is it almost unbearable? Why does it resonate as a question, a question that needs no words. The words ‘why’ or ‘who’ are enough! This is the moment I am closest to myself. I must become aware of that. What awaits me there is the greatest joy, through the pain of not understanding. It is ‘I’, it is ‘I’ who am here, smaller than a child, more destitute, poorer than anything in the world, given over to the functions, at the mercy of currents of energy, at the mercy of everything! If I could glimpse that for an instant, what strength of feeling would arise ... truly like a moment of joy, of gratitude! It is ‘nothing’, and it is extraordinary! This is the moment that I must come to experience. I am tormented, I struggle, I try to be conscientious. This is all necessary; otherwise I cannot pass through the different stages that bring me every day to a moment when there is suddenly a kind of stripping away. This is still not enough, but I cannot do more; I cannot hope for more. This sort of nakedness is already so painful that I now find myself almost like a child being born. It is ‘I’ who does not understand, and there’s nothing disheartening in that! It is not at all disheartening, because it is ‘I’, I am completely fooled by my subjectivity, which wants to explain everything. No! I don’t understand. But the fact of being ‘I’ — even if it’s so little, so fragile, so unformed - is so much stronger and greater than the whole accumulation of my learning, tricks, and opinions that make their claim over and over again! Suddenly I am here, at the juncture of worlds. And I see clearly that if my power of attention is not present at the same time — because this is where the force of attention is, this reality of attention — if it is not turned toward heaven, toward a force that is not of this world, and simultaneously toward the movements that place me in this world, then once again I dissolve, I disappear. It is only to the extent that I am turned both toward the higher and the lower, understanding that it is ‘I’ who am here ... only at that particular moment can I

accept everything, bear everything. The joy that floods through me when I begin to touch this is so great that I then realize I have never paid anything. And at that moment, the discipline and effort I demand of myself will no longer be the same discipline or the same effort. They will be much more willing, much more loving, much more intentional. I will understand why, and for a brief moment I will be in agreement. Then earthly magic will come into play once more, and I will be taken again. But what does that matter! The important thing is to know how to recognize what is here. And that is what I lack. The effort is not what one thinks it is! The effort is to be present! But what could that really mean, ‘to be present’? Who, then, would be present? I have a fantasy about myself, and suddenly reality appears to me through a veil; in an instant, everything changes. This feeling of poverty, of nakedness — how magnificent! l will never reach essence if my personality is not put in doubt. Every time an inner doubt — a doubt about what I believe, about what I deeply feel — every time such a doubt appears, it clears a path. We doubt all day long, but that is not the doubt that is meant. I need to doubt what I never doubt, in order to be able to believe in what I have never believed in . If I could really suffer for my Self... . But I have never really suffered for my Self. I have suffered in different ways, had to suffer for ‘I’, that would open the door to remorse of conscience. We do not know what ‘remorse of conscience’ is! We have never spoken about it. We cannot speak about it. We don’t have the slightest idea what it is! Maybe this new suffering - if we could bear it, welcome it — would open the way for us. Whatever can bring us closer to that, we must welcome with respect, with gratitude. But we always run away! Whenever we feel this way, that moment is an invitation to question ourselves. How to work? How to begin again? How to be toward it? This is much more vivifying than all the other suggestions that come from our emotionality or from our intellect. It ploughs deeper into you, it churns you; it eats into you! One would like to find a quick solution, but if the earth is not ploughed, there will be no harvest. It is not a question of a single pass of the plough. One pass is nothing. The ground must be deeply tilled!

The Role of Attention in Self-Liberation [73] I don’t plan to give a formal lecture, but rather to look closely at certain ideas belonging to what we call ‘our work’. So I will be speaking especially for those who have been searching for several years, or at least for several months, and

who, having become familiar with the basic ideas of this teaching, feel their truth. If I speak about truth or liberation, it is clear that the idea of liberation will make no sense to anyone who does not see his situation and who thinks he is free, conscious, has will, and can do whatever he wants in life. Only someone to whom life has shown his state of dependence, and who has understood that things are done through him — that he himself doesn’t ‘do’ — can really wish to become free and attain consciousness. This teaching includes ideas that are quite unpleasant to hear; for example, that we are mechanical. This is a bitter pill for our self-love, even though it is true. On the other hand, it is relatively easy to accept the following ideas. It is said that a man’s being may be compared to a house with four storeys, but that man occupies only the basement, a dark place where he is kept prisoner, while there are very important things on the other levels. At first one might think there is something depressing in this idea. However, if I am i willing to look at my life and all the failures I have experienced, I can easily recognize that my living this way explains many things, and in the end, offers great hope. For I realize clearly that, if this picture is accurate and if I could occupy all the levels of my being, things could change. Similarly, when I am told ‘I am not what I am,’ there is in this an invitation to wholeness that gives me courage. My wish this evening is that we might come to feel that a broader vision of human nature is needed in order to begin real work on oneself. If we speak of liberation, questions soon arise as to the ‘why’ of my slavery and the ‘how’ of my liberation. To help us come to this broader vision, all teachings offer the idea of a ‘ladder’ or ‘scale’; but it is not always easy to discern this in ancient texts, because they are difficult to penetrate, sometimes incomplete or distorted, and, above all, unsuited to modern man and therefore offen unacceptable to him. The constitution of human beings is not flat, but consists of various levels or storeys. Man does not correspond to just one level of the universe, but to many. To make this idea clearer, it is sometimes said in this teaching that a complete man, a fully developed, real human being — whom we call man number seven — has his head at the level of the stars and his feet on the earth. This suggests not only a symbol but an actual ladder, indicating a direct, but also steep, path (see the diagram on page 5). We need to understand that the two natures of man are inscribed upon this ladder: on the upper part of the ladder is the higher nature; on the lower part, the ordinary nature through which we manifest all the time and in which the centre of gravity of our whole existence is found. Unless we are aware of this twofold constitution and of the reciprocal positioning of the two natures on the vertical scale, we cannot possibly understand the difficulties of our existence and why we are alive.

Between these two natures, positioned in this way, there is an unbridgeable gap that we may call an ‘interval’, a term corresponding to a cosmic vision of things. Many ancient texts speak of this interval. In the Old Testament, for example, the struggle between Jacob and the Angel takes place in the very middle of a stream, at a ford, and it would be hard to understand why it is described that way unless we realized that a simple picture is being used to bring out the idea of a struggle and a particular difficulty where an interval occurs. It is striking to note with what careful precision all the elements of the story are set out. On the higher bank, the elder brother. On the lower bank, the younger brother, who, with his whole family, his herds, and his wealth, is approaching in fear. And then the struggle, in which a new force - a third force — appears in the form of an Angel. [74] We can also find other examples in the Old Testament: the crossing of the Red Sea, and the fact that certain powers can never pass over to the other side. Consciousness and Will belong to the higher nature; they are pre-existing realities. All the illusory manifestations - lying, imagination, and our entirely mechanical way of life - belong to the lower nature, which receives only weak rays of consciousness filtered across the interval. The idea that the source of life resides in the deeper - or higher - nature is found in the Gospels. It is found, for example, in the parable of Christ at the well, where the Samaritan woman comes to draw water. ‘Interval’, ‘ford’, ‘well’ - these are all symbolic images to make us understand that ‘living water’ must be sought beyond the place where we usually go. In preparing this talk, I recalled a Zen story from ancient China, which is worth telling because it is so simple and clear. A disciple came to his master with the following question: “Would you be so kind as to explain human nature to me?” Without saying a word, the master pointed to an earthworm that he had just cut in two while digging in a corner of the garden. The two pieces of the worm were trying in vain to reunite. This is exactly our dilemma: how to enable the two natures that constitute our being to reunite. In order to achieve this, we absolutely need the knowledge of those who, through the ages, have become conscious and, having attained this union, seek to transmit true knowledge. This is a knowledge that does not belong to the level of ordinary life and cannot be acquired in universities. This knowledge tells us that the higher nature seeks to unite with the lower nature; but that, because of this unbridgeable interval, this higher nature cannot

be further incarnated into our present form as we are now. It also tells us that the lower nature seeks to unite with the higher nature, but gets lost in blind attempts that pull it away from the centre. And this knowledge would also allow us to speak of the call that we sometimes perceive echoing deep inside ourselves, and also of the inextinguishable — but never sufficiently clear — aim that everyone carries within. These two natures fail to unite because between them a connecting element of a certain quality or of an intermediary vitality is missing. In fact, the qualitative difference between these two natures of which we are constituted is so disproportionate that they cannot be joined. When a person reaches this point, if he doesn’t receive the help of objective knowledge — and all the practical and theoretical data offered by a teaching that has remained intact and is adapted to his own culture — he is lost. In order to overcome this difficulty, one needs access to what might be called ‘sacred science’, the science that lives through Holy Scripture but which people nowadays no longer know how to interpret. We must desire this ‘science of being’. We must ask for it, know how to ask for it, and keep on asking for it from those who embody it. Left to his own devices, a man tries to solve the enigma either with his intellect or with his feeling. But even if he calls upon his most intelligent form of thought, he cannot hope to attain this union, because his thinking can only use, but not invent, data; at each step of the way man has to receive pre-existing knowledge that transcends him. Or, he may call upon his feelings; but without the aid of enlightened thinking, feeling alone cannot lead to union. Likewise, if he thinks he can find the key to the problem in the body, in instinct, he will fail. ❖ The functions are remarkable instruments, but their role is to be at the service of something greater. The secret resides in an entirely different quality. It resides in attention , in this living substance so poorly and so little understood, even though each of us has access to it. The fundamental idea is: I am attention. Where attention is, there am I. If the attention is weak, I am weak. If the attention is mechanical, I am mechanical. If it is free, I am free. Of course, one could just as well say, ‘I am consciousness’; but this is not true for us today. It will only be true when the two natures have at last united. Then consciousness will live in my entire being, and I will know that I am consciousness and that consciousness is ‘I’.

So we must come back to attention and understand that, just as I am a being divided in two, attention in me is also divided in two. There is a higher, hidden, inaccessible attention over which I have no more power than I do over consciousness. It is therefore useless to try anything whatsoever in relation to this attention, which is free, pure, unengaged, one . But there is an attention that corresponds to my lower nature. This attention is ‘fallen’; it has become fragmented, has split into divergent currents. I can know this attention much better than I know it today. I can recognize myself in it and thanks to it, come back to myself - remember myself. Attention enters into my functions, which are the channels it must take. And now I begin to understand why it is said that self-knowledge is, or begins with, knowledge of the machine. This body-mind machine has been given to me so that I can try to recognize myself as attention, and so that, at this level of ordinary life, three unconnected currents of attention can come together. I must further understand that in this lower nature each current of attention can appear in different degrees of intensity. I need to learn that attention can show itself to have a completely unstable, vagrant character. In my intellectual functioning, for example, attention lets itself be swept along by everything that attracts it: either by residual inner movements — words, images, memories — or by currents of energy coming from the events I am caught up in. Anything can take hold of my attention as it pleases. I go out into the street, and the store windows, the passers-by, the sounds... everything constantly catches this attention, which has no roots, and carries it away. Look. You go out and walk down the street with the intention of thinking about your own concerns. A dog barks at you and takes all your attention. This dog is stronger than you. So much for the strength of this man who thought he was conscious, thought he was master of his own thinking, his own will. And what takes place in the intellect takes place in the emotional and moving functions as well. However, when a problem or a great difficulty crops up, my attention can be concentrated; its quality changes, it acquires more force. Sustained by an element of desire or interest, it no longer wanders. It has become captive ... or captivated. Contrary to what we believe, it then has no freedom, and if I remember that I am my attention, I perceive the extent of my illusion. I think I am intentionally concentrating on a problem, when in fact the problem is absorbing me and holds me in its grip: an especially strong impulse has made off with my attention. There is, however, a very different kind of attention, an attention that is really more conscious, more intentional, Sometimes, on very rare occasions, we discover the taste of it. If this occurs in my thought, I see that my thinking has become clear. And if it occurs in my feeling, I perceive a feeling completely free from my habitual emotions. As for my body, I can also experience what is

happening at its level in a new way. What is important is to learn that each of these degrees or qualities of attention corresponds to one of the three levels of my centres. For each centre consists of three levels, one above the other: a moving or mechanical level, an emotional level, and the highest, an intellectual level. And knowledge of the correspondence between each specific taste of attention and each of these levels is a very great secret. If I learn to recognize this and experience it, the path toward union or reunification of the attention becomes apparent. But I have to understand that these three paths must be experienced simultaneously. In order to practise, it is good for me to work sometimes on one function and sometimes on another. However, on the level of my ordinary nature, the return to a unified attention is possible only when the three essential centres of my lower nature unite at their highest level. Only then does attention acquire a new character: it becomes truly voluntary attention, conscious attention. I am not saying ‘consciousness’ and I am not saying ‘will’, but this conscious or voluntary character helps me understand that there is now something in this regenerated attention that can correspond to the properties of the higher nature. Yet, union is still not possible. Nevertheless, I go on living my life and I understand that, through all these efforts, at the level of each function and as a result of the work of disengagement, my attention acquires properties that were lacking before. And I understand both the reason for my birth in this physical body and the meaning of the struggle to return to the source. On the level of the intellectual centre, the attention acquires a power of vision which is like a light that keeps everything in its field of illumination. On the level of the emotional centre, the attention acquires a warmth that was lacking until then, and thanks to which the struggle can be sustained for a time without weakening. On the level of the body, the attention is supported by a new phenomenon, which takes many years to get to know well: a sensation of oneself, a sensation that is neither pleasant nor unpleasant. By this vision, by this feeling, by this sensation, I know that I am here, present. These are the precursory signs ol Consciousness and Will. ❖ But this is still not enough. Even though, thanks to sensation, the attention benefits from a solid support that prevents it from wandering, and even though, thanks to the new feeling and clarity of vision, the attention can escape from whatever is trying to captivate it, to hypnotize it, nevertheless it is still not free and it constantly becomes fragmented. To attain an entirely different quality of attention, I need to know and experience other forms of support. And these I will

discover in my relationship to conscious impressions of myself. And I really mean conscious, intentional impressions of myself, impressions of what lives in my being, impressions of what is . I am aware of impressions. I receive them all the time — unintentional, mechanical impressions to which I am subjected by my surroundings. Every thing, each person I look at, the temperature of this room, the food I eat - all this gives rise to impressions. But if it is true that these impressions enable me to live, and if it is true that I would die instantly if I stopped receiving them, it is also true that these impressions slowly destroy me. They capture my force of attention by pulling me into reaction. ❖ What does ‘conscious, intentional impressions of myself’ mean? It is first of all the impression of myself-receiving-impressions-mechanicallyfrom-life, the impact of the life that surrounds me and in which I am immersed. I must strive to experience this impression of myself-receiving-stimuli-fromexistence. Here my attention finds a support so as not to get lost. Beyond that, I need to discover deep impressions, even deeper impressions of my being. Not yet the direct and real impressions of my higher nature, but rather, impressions of the highest part of the lower centres. And finally, a third kind of impression: the simultaneous impression of myselfknowing-the-impression-of-this-deep-life, and of myself-receiving-theimpressions-mechanically-from-life. This illuminates the well-known concept from the Bhagavad Gita : “The field [of action], the knower of the field, and the one who knows at the same time the field and the knower of the field.” It is exactly the same thing. ❖ We must keep these comments brief, but a great deal more could be said on the subject of attention. Take for example, the idea of reversing the active and the passive. The lowest level of each centre should be passive and, in relation to it, the level above it should be active. This would be normal. But in my habitual way of living, precisely the opposite occurs. Let’s look again at the idea of two natures. The higher nature should be active, holding authority, and the lower should be passive, ready to serve. In fact, the higher nature remains passive and the lower nature, agitated, usurps the active sign. This anomaly arises from the separation of the two natures and the absence of any relationship between them. There is nothing between the two to reconcile them. The same thing happens in each of my centres. I can understand this when I try to free my attention and it becomes active — when real ‘I’ becomes active — in relation to a mechanism that then becomes passive. At each step of the way, I experience the action of these changes in polarity.

Finally, when the highest level of the centres becomes active, a great event is in preparation: this whole nature, now unified and ordered, can begin to serve the higher nature. It has become passive in relation to the higher nature. To the extent that I free myself from the tyrannical hold of the functions, and as my attention, charged with new powers, climbs the ‘ladder’ of the centres and becomes concentrated, I discover that a new organization is gradually taking shape. This new organization is imbued with qualities of thought, feeling, and sensation that I did not know before. It is also the prelude to the formation of a new body, a spiritual body in relation to my present physical body. This new body - forming, condensing, and organizing itself — is the previously missing intermediary element that is capable of uniting the higher and the lower natures. From that moment, one can speak of vigilance, which is a capacity to live an effort in such a way that the polarities no longer reverse, and the joining truly occurs. Now I must try to live, carrying all this in the intimacy of my heart, protecting it against anything that might destroy it. To awaken, to die, to be born.

Attention — The Need of Our Being [75] I need to know the direction; and knowing the direction is to recognize my need. My need is to know I AM. And I AM is to know I AM ATTENTION. If I can continuously evoke what otherwise will die, and is in fact always dying… . If I can evoke that in myself, I will know my direction, and will understand what cannot mislead me, and what, some day, despite all of life’s provocations, I will no longer be able to forget. Do not think of attention as a device, something you can manipulate, something you can take or leave. Everything that is alive in me has the possibility of experiencing, to different degrees, that I AM ATTENTION. I AM ATTENTION - it is I AM, it is the ‘I’. This ‘i’ is my need. But, I madly search only in an outward direction. There is nothing wrong with searching outside; but it is absurd to search only outside. In reality, what I am searching for outside is what I should be searching for inside myself, at the same time as I am active in my life. This is something altogether different! This will not negate expression and manifestation; rather, it will give them their true character. Try to understand clearly. Get rid of all your theories and all your ways of going about your work. Each one of the formulations I have used is much more direct!

Act as if you knew nothing. It’s true that I have not worked, I have not understood and, when it comes down to it, that’s where we all are. I AM ATTENTION. You engage in a task, you are in movement, or perhaps, in the course of a busy day, you take a moment for self-observation: I AM ATTENTION. The acts themselves are not essential. What is essential is the spirit that passes, through all things. I don’t know how else to put it for you. It's such a natural movement! I AM ATTENTION. Suddenly, I AM resonates very strongly. I am even surprised. I AM! I do not let myself be carried away by a dangerous need to know more. This need will be my undoing. Instead, I put all my trust in a note that vibrates more clearly and more fully: I AM ATTENTION. Then, everything I thought I understood, with my intellect, for example - everything that would have taken me off course — I will know directly. Each time I return to this act, I will know these things better, and I will know simply and straightforwardly that this is my need. It is the need of all the levels of my being, from the deepest to the most superficial. The need of my being — it’s almost a play on words — is being. Not being here or there ... simply being, in an all-encompassing way. Attention is like a thread that passes through all levels. And this thread is: I AM ATTENTION. Do you need anything more? Look carefully! If we really live this, everything finds its place: everything, absolutely everything! Everything takes on meaning and everything is renewed. Life no longer has an ending. Life is no longer limited by space or time. We cannot ask for anything more. Live it!

Prayer [76] God the Holy, God the Mighty, God the Immortal. God All. God Nothing. Unimaginable light. Unimaginable darkness. [77] The whole Universe is prayer. That is, a call responding to a call. Worlds call and respond to one another. This is the movement of influences, the music of the spheres. This is the setting for prayer. There is therefore nothing, on any level whatever, that does not pray. And man, too, prays. However, this idea has many surprises in store for us. Everyone prays without knowing it, even the atheist who denies it. Man in his heaviest moments of sleep,

Man who goes about in walking sleep, Man who tries to awaken and who begins to wish to pray, Man who remembers himself, Man who is conscious of himself, Man who is objectively conscious. However, real prayer is not of this world. What are the different kinds of prayer? What are the responses to these prayers? The whole Universe is prayer. The whole Universe is response to prayer . Above, Light. Below, Darkness. Between the two is a boundary. Take any man: for him, the Light is inaccessible - it is consciousness, real intelligence. For the Light cannot descend below this boundary on its own. And this is why man has been created. A man must unite in himself his higher nature and his lower nature. If communication is established, the incarnation becomes the channel of penetration for the Light; it is not that the Light itself descends, but that its reflection is sent into the Darkness. For us, Darkness is sleep; Light is higher states of consciousness. Thus, the states of consciousness are ordered in levels on either side of the boundary, between Light and Darkness. But the man of this world below is only half a man, not a complete being who has recognized his two natures and, through his conscious labour and intentional suffering, has enabled the two to unite. What will bring about communication between the two? Self-remembering and prayer . ❖ If the idea of self-remembering awakens some echoes in us, the idea of prayer is wholly enigmatic. Even in his state of unconscious sleep, man prays. This has a readily accessible meaning and another, hidden, meaning. But between the two there is no link. The accessible meaning is terrifying, because it is on the dark side and we need courage to see it. Constantly, man asks and wants. This asking and this wanting correspond to his desires, his passions. Who is able to descend into this witch’s cauldron of our constantly agitated negative states? In the vague half-light of our unstable thought, we believe we want happiness or higher things, but in this lower heart of our negative states, our desires are being secretly distilled. And these desires go forth as messengers. Hatred, jealousy, demands, grievances. Demands! Take a close look. These are the prayers of Darkness that take shape without our knowing it. They always receive a response, since the Universe is response — response to every demand.

But these demands do not rise toward the Days of Clear Light. They make their way toward the lower worlds and return to us charged with evils called unhappiness, worry, sorrow, illness. The quality of the effect responds to the quality of the cause. In this dark world of our false personality, we always want, we unconsciously demand; but it is the dark aspect of the universe that responds. We see the responses, but we do not understand that they are responses. Karma, yes karma ... the result of the causes that I carry in myself. We see what happens to us without understanding that this is what we have asked for. Our unhappiness and our suffering are the response to our dark unconscious prayers. So we must be open to these causes. But we cannot be open to them as long as we blame fate and the malice of others. I am the cause of my own misfortune; there is no other cause. Thinking that is based on seeing these causes is possible only if I give up my idea of justice, if I look at myself and observe what I am, which is the invariable starting point. Everyone seeks happiness, intellectually or emotionally. But does everyone see his own witch’s cauldron of negative states, secret jealousies, deadly hate? And while you, naïvely and without real force, ask for happiness, all your energy is in this cauldron. Day and night, our true demands rise up from it. To pray, then, is first of all not to pray, but rather to see these urges to dominate, which are the cause of what happens to us. You hate your friends, you are jealous of them, and you build on that. And from this arise incessant grievances, demands, and calls for revenge. The Universe answers you; your bile overflows and your gut is wrenched. Your squandering of energy lands you in increasingly tragic situations. And the more I suffer, the more I demand. That is the infernal circle. We build in the lower world, the world where everything is upside down. The Universe - in its full and complete Reality - is response to every call. We don’t realize that, apparently without praying, we ceaselessly formulate requests. Now, these requests always receive a response. Therefore the Universe is capable of knowing, without our help, the demands that arise in us. From where do you receive? ‘Your being attracts your life.’ ❖ If something awakens in us, our demands may arise from somewhere else and may, at least, not result in any backlash. However, Mr. Gurdjieff said of such prayers, “Only go fifty centimetres up in air.” Yet the call that continually comes to us, and which we so rarely hear, can invite us to attempt real prayer. Here we find all the usual forms of prayer: petition, intercession, mechanical prayers of the heart. They will remain empty, however, if the attention does not

participate in them, feebly at first, then more and more strongly. Everything will depend on the quality of vigilance, and then on our understanding of that transcendent act: self-remembering. Attention is a property of real being, which exists on different levels. Vigilance is a state in which the attention is in dynamic equilibrium everywhere. Then it is truly voluntary attention, balanced and equally distributed. Attention is an energy. Vigilance is an act that brings this energy into play. Vigilance is the awakening of a part of me that until now has been sleeping. It is a disposition of being, quite different from my usual disposition. Silence of words. Attention of the heart. The vigilance of clear thought. Vigilance constantly renewed. It is an intelligence, a responsible attention. In the simultaneous awareness of two feelings of myself, the created knows the Creator. For essence has created me; in a sense, relatively, it represents God. No prayer is higher than any other; but we can recognize a state that is higher than others. When conscious, responsible, voluntary, and loving attention is present, we can discover what prayer is. And this has nothing in common with what is usually taught. What is taught are approaches to prayer. Prayer is a pre-existing, unknown reality to which I must find a way of opening myself. Prayer cannot come from the ego. That gift, that capacity, belongs to a very special aspect of one's being. Call it the higher emotional centre if you like, but know that this centre has always prayed without interruption and that its ceaseless prayer is what keeps you alive. To be in a state of grace is to discover this, and to know the relationship between this living, loving reality and what I call ‘me’. That is where the ‘gift of tears’ is to be found — in the understanding, the real knowledge of my situation as an incomplete being. It is there that I know the irresistible desire for union. ❖ Yet, the Kingdom can only be attained through force, that is, through strenuous effort. But it is equally true that we cannot force Grace. There is in fact an abyss between the world of higher states of consciousness and our world. Heroism begins here. Never doubt, never despair. Yes, I know that I can demand nothing, but I come back again and again. I remember myself, because, for the moment, it is my only way to pray. I mobilize my vigilance. And, for that, I see that all my wants need to be converted. Repent. Change your way of thinking and feeling. I fall back, and each fall is an opportunity to climb back up again with more energy. I give up my grievances. I forgive others. I no longer want to waste my energy on such useless things. I give up my desire for happiness. Little by little, I

give up everything. Still, I am too burdened. Still, the doorway is too narrow. So I give up even more. I give up all the desires of my ego. But the questioning grows. The call grows. It sheds all forms, all utterances, all emotions, everything, everything. Every single thing is unneeded. Soon, even words fall away. Nothing is left but a blade of steel, finer than a hair. Without knowing it, I pray. I no longer ask for anything. And something is stripped bare to such an extent that it finally comes into correspondence with this world of Light. For prayer is correspondence, accord, sinfonia . And one day, for an instant, the threshold is crossed. I will never be able to forget that. He who has seen the Light even once will search for it all his life, and no privation will seem too great to him. ❖ I find the hidden treasure just when I wasn’t expecting it, when the door to the unknown opens. I find it beyond what I call ‘me’, in a place where All is ‘I’ because there is no longer any ‘me’. I discover that prayer has always existed in me. It lives in my being. My being prays to these higher levels, and I easily understand the image of choirs of angels. For their idiom is truly a song that uses no word of our language, and that is what I am usually cut off from. This is what is meant when it is said that our higher centres are in perfect working order. The higher emotional centre prays; it has always prayed and it prays unceasingly no matter what we do. But if we are not in touch with it, we cannot receive this extraordinary gift. The higher emotional centre sings like the angels, to whose level it corresponds. It is turned toward what is above and prays to what is higher than itself, and yet it can be united with what is below, with that in us which aspires to Reality. But for this to be accomplished, a long period of ascetic practice is needed, a constant effort of attention, and the crystallization of a substance without which nothing is possible, since it forms the body that is needed for this union. The encounter with this overwhelming reality can bring us to tears, the very tears spoken of by those who have gone beyond our meagre level of self-remembering. I struggle, but so long as my struggle does not conform, I will not be able to live this discovery. No, prayer is not what we thought it was; and you undestand now what the gift of prayer means. ❖ The whole universe is prayer. In the silence, I perceive this vivifying life that I keep forgetting. That’s what grace is. Speaking of prayer in relation to the level of conscious man for the saints of the Church, Mr. Gurdjieff said, “Don’t bother about the saints, keep yourself always

turned toward God.” Contact with fine energy in ourselves — that is already prayer. The penetration of an unknown force — or grace - depends entirely on attitude. Total attention. I am a substance. Let go of the mind, of memory, of all my fears, of everything that is habitually ‘me’, so that all that remains is That Which Is. My ‘self’ must melt into my true nature. Preparing oneself to receive this unknown force — you may call it God or That or That Which Is — is already a prayer. It is not a demand, or even an appeal, because that would still be subjective. It is a state of active transparency. Submission. Gratitude. Abandoning the trust that I put in my thought, my feeling, my attachment to the body, in order to move toward silence, not for the sake of silence itself, but because in silence a question arises: Who ‘I’?

Presence and Prayer [78] Since you agree that a particle of divine energy animates you, you can understand that a contact, a direct perception of this circulating energy, must be possible. You can also understand that the key to the mystery of consciousness resides in this capacity of perception, which is not a mental act but the awakening of a dormant property. Everything is here. If this living and divine energy-substance were not in us, there would be no sense in trying anything at all. We are separated from ourselves, and also, of course, from God, only through our forgetting or our ignorance. Remembering oneself means recognizing oneself in a rediscovered and eternally present energy, free of all form. This rediscovery must not be the result of thought or desire alone; the proof must be brought by our whole mass, in order that the contact becomes in fact a fusion with no gap through which doubt might still slip in. It is only the Absolute whose reality we are incapable of knowing or touching, but this is not a permanent separation. Let us move on to speak of prayer. Prayer is not a petition. It is another special aspect of the contact with the divine spark that we can experience in ourselves. Without this contact, we consider ourselves to be a ‘tiny being’; as you say in your letter, “How can such a tiny being as me... ?” That’s a silly way of looking at it. You are this Life that circulates. To acknowledge it with your mass - without words and without desire — that is prayer.

Know the kingdom and its justice and all else will be added unto you. [79] Know the truth, and the truth will set you free. [80] We need ask for nothing. It is illusion — the ego — which asks. To come back to myself as ‘I’ — awakened to the mirage of the ‘person’, the ‘name’, and the ‘form’ — is to be fulfilled. I do not need to pray in order to be; I need to recognize that I AM — that’s what prayer is. And from this rediscovered fact, Faith, Love, and Hope are born, very naturally and without any subjective distortion. That’s what destiny really is — rediscovering what I am and, in fact, what I have never ceased to be: a spark that is never extinguished, a spark which creates. But never forsake the spark — I AM — for the illusion of the created form. Those who pray without seeking to awaken to their reality will fall into an even greater confusion than if they had asked for nothing.

REMINISCENCES First Encounters with Mr. Gurdjieff [81] Mr. Gurdjieff emphasized that man forgets himself by forgetting the seed that is within him, by turning his back on this reality, the only reality there is. In so doing, he increases his suffering, worsens his state, hastens his own ruin as well as that of others, and adds to the Sorrow of the Creator, for, in a certain way, the Creator is in man. The only direction is to connect. Our role is to understand the laws that govern the Universe so as not to contravene them, and so as to allow and assist transmutation... . Turn away from everything that dissipates; go toward what unites; turn away from what dilutes; seek out what concentrates; turn away from whatever degrades energy. Every being, at its own level, should form the bridge between what is above it and what is below. We should try to find these three levels in ourselves. Mr. Gurdjieff came to bear witness — to remind, to announce, to connect, to prepare — to do whatever was needed in order to make this link possible.

Mr. Gurdjieff thus seems to me like a bridge between us and the World. Can I call out to those who are on the other side that, if we are left to our own devices, we are lost? This makes me realize that, while he really did have the role of a bridge, through that role he prevented us from considering him as the goal, or confusing him with the ‘Principle’. So it would be a mistake on our part to betray him by making a god out of him. Let us not make the teaching into a new religion with Gurdjieff on its banner. He seems much greater to me for having known how to remain ‘the one who prepares the way’ — equally indifferent to all praise and to all blame. I knew Mr. Gurdjieff, but do you think that, in the first year, I could easily have said he was like this or like that? I received an avalanche of shocks, not always unpleasant, and so much energy that I didn’t know what to do with it, but in those days I would have had a hard time writing a book or telling anyone what Mr. Gurdjieff was like. Yet something was working away in me. It’s interesting to see how he placed us in conditions that turned us upsidedown. And that was a good thing! How can we expect to get out of the closed circuit we are in without being shaken up a little bit? Impossible!

His behaviour could be completely unpredictable, in order to get us moving, to deflect us from our mistaken view of ourselves, or to bring us back inside ourselves. That was one of his little secrets. With an economy of means, he would flip you over like a pancake, lead you to the right or to the left and then leave you stuck. You would realize that you had being derailed and you would try to learn a lesson from it. Whenever that happened, it always produced a peculiar effect. You would go to him in a certain mood and a quarter of an hour later you would find yourself in a different state altogether. It was rather strange, and you always wondered how that could have happened. After so many years, you swore never to get cought like that again, but.... The truth is that man hasn’t the slightest idea that he is fashioning the very canes with which he will be beaten. He mantains a sort of illusion of himself that reveals all the time, and that inevitably makes him vulnerable. If I could be what I am, without all these illusions, this junk, these bogus imitations, I would be invulnerable. When you found yourself face to face with him and were somewhat free of your intellectual and emotional fantasizing, in a state much closer to what one is in essence, then it didn’t matter what he said. What’s more, at such moments — it was a test — he would lash out at you with terrible blows, stab you; but it would have no effect whatever. I still have the memory of him saying, “Ah! Ah!” Those moments were amazing. You knew that the battle was over and that he was letting you rest because you needed to gather energy for the next encounter. And we loved him in that moment. We were truly grateful. It often happened that I would find myself alone in a tête-à-tête with him, for “good cup of coffee and talk this and that”, as he would say, even though I hadn’t come with any very precise question. So I would say to myself, ‘I mustn’t let such a moment slip by’. I would hunt around in myself for some question or some problem to bring to him. I would ask him,“Monsieur, how should I understand such and such?” And then, the most extraordinary thing was not his answer, but his silences. They would last for minutes on end. And, within me, everything would fall away – my talking, my eagerness to get an explanation, my desire to take advantage of being with him — and then ... I would again find myself alone in myself. Many others had the same experience. There would be these extraordinary silences in which one felt like a poor fool asking the wrong questions or asking the right questions in the wrong way. The silences gave an amazing depth to the talks one could have with him. They brought out the ‘knowing-understanding’ sequence... and suddenly something was there… . Once you have experienced this face-to-face encounter you feel that most of the time we tag along behind our intellectual and emotional functions and that the important thing is not to do that, but to go and see for yourself. Mr. Gurdjieff didn't answer, and by not answering, he answered even more.

First Dinners It was on St. Michael’s Day, my saint’s day, that I first made my way to Mr. Gurdjieff’s apartment. I was not the only one to be going for the first time, and the previous evening Mme de Salzmann had gathered us together for quite a while to put us on our guard. We knew that the worst could happen, and especially what we least expected. “Be vigilant,” had, I think, been her final comment. “Now he is your Teacher. He will put you to the test and, if you don’t remember yourself, I won’t be able to do anything for you.” So it was with deep apprehension that I entered his apartment that first evening. I’m always amazed, whenever I read descriptions by others who experienced these first meetings, to notice that they invariably emphasize their astonishment at how the rooms were decorated. Truly, I had other concerns. Was it a group exchange or a reading? Impossible to remember. At dinner, I sat next to Mme de Salzmann, and opposite Mr. Gurdjieff. He seemed very kind and explained to me — which he never failed to do — that the first time it was always “ Roses, roses." I was honoured with a few gastronomic delicacies, but nothing surprised me very much; my mother loved to cook exotic dishes and I enjoyed them. I somehow doubted that I was eating bear meat or camel sausages. Mr. Gurdjieff sensed this and seemed a little indignant at the thought that I wouldn’t believe him, but I was certainly not going to launch into a debate about the veracity of his assertions. I had nothing to go by, and I hadn’t the slightest desire to venture into such dangerous territory. It was prudence rather than weakness. It didn’t matter much to me in any case, since I hadn’t come for that. To hell with bear meat! When it came to the toasts, he invited me to choose my category of idiot for the next dinner. “You tell Director what idiot you are.” And since I sat there perplexed and, to tell the truth, rather irritated, he explained, in a way that explained nothing, that round idiots were round and square ones were like this — drawing an imaginary square in mid-air — or zig-zag, “like hysterical women”. All of this annoyed me; I don’t like venturing into areas I don’t understand. “Next time,” he repeated. But I thought, ‘No, I won’t choose. Besides, he’ll probably forget.’ Oh, how naïve I was! When dinner was over, I thought I had made it through a test rather easily. In fact, it hadn’t begun. Two or three evenings went by — I still hadn’t chosen my type of idiot and I still had no desire or reason to do so. Then one evening Mr. Gurdjieff abruptly stopped the Tamada [the director o f the toasts] saying, “ Doctor not choose idiot?” “ No, monsieur,” said the Director. “Well, you choose now!” The tone was peremptory.

“Monsieur, I don’t understand anything about it! How can I choose?” “ No, no, choose! You stop all! Director wait!” I had to get through it somehow. Everyone was looking at me. I begged a sign from Mme de Salzmann, but she was icy. I could have replied with just anything, but 1 really didn’t want to do that; it would have been dishonest. It was better to demonstrate some skill and in such a situation appear modest. Which meant that I opted for ‘ordinary idiot’. That seemed especially clever to me. “Oh! Doctor, that not fit. You superior idiot.” I saw no evidence of superiority, but I did get the impression that I’d been taken in. There were a few misplaced laughs! And I was acknowledged by the Director who, on the second toast, turned in my direction saying, “And to your health too, Doctor.”

First Question I used to go three times a week to rue des Colonels Renard; but although I would happily speak in Mme de Salzmann’s group, as soon as I entered Mr. Gurdjieff's room my mouth went dry. I had become incapable of formulating even the smallest observation. I had at least learned one thing: there was no use hiding at the back of the room — those who did were unfailingly singled out. I had known for a long time that it was only in the front row that one had a chance of not being noticed. This knowledge had resulted from the profound reflections of a dunce in high-school, where I had learned only one thing... the invaluable art of making oneself invisible. I would therefore sit right at Mr. Gurdjieff's feet, and rarely did he see me. When he did, he would say kindly, “Doctor, you not have question? You interest me.” And I would reply, “ No, monsieur, I understand nothing.” And it was absolutely true. I let myself be penetrated by his influence. I felt his presence. My head kept no memory of the hours that I spent close to him, but in the depths of my essence something was touched and kneaded like dough. And I know now that my good fortune lay in that: I was receiving with the heart. One day, however, I decided I just had to speak to him. I had a very precise question, and spent the whole week going over for the formulation until I knew it by heart. That evening, in the Metro on my way to his apartment, I rehearsed my question. When I arrived, I sat down and prepared to speak. But, right then, some idiot cut me off. Disaster! Before I could collect myself, a second person spoke. Time was running out! I had to speak to him that evening at all costs! Who knows if I would ever find the courage again? Finally I heard my voice formulating my question. Mr.Gurdjieff said, “Aaah...” seemed to listen attentively, and then, as soon as I had finished, broke into a long discussion in

Russian with Mme de Salzmann on what was obviously a completely different topic. Ten minutes later, he stopped and said, “Oh! Doctor, excuse! You spoke, I think, but I forgot what you say.” He seemed so apologetic that I mustered enough courage to repeat my litlle story, but the words seemed flat. He said, “Hm! Hm!” and got up to go into the kitchen. In his absence, no one spoke. When he came back, I still had the strength to say, “Monsieur, I asked you a question.” “Ah!” he said, “tell.” And for the third time I told my now completely impoverished story. He said, “That remind me box matches. Yesterday bought matches, and today not know where put.” I saw no connection. Seeing that my expression displayed neither disgust, nor irritation, nor weakness, he suddenly began to speak to me like a father. I had passed a test. And I can assure you that only if you had gone through that would you know what it costs.

A Special Treat One evening some time later, I stupidly left my briefcase at Mr. Gurdjieff's apartment after dinner. When I noticed, I was already in the Metro and it was too late to go back, I couldn’t risk disturbing him, especially since we’d been told that after us he had other people coming ... and besides, I was on the last train. To make things worse, along with the fact that I had shown a lack of attention which he would know about, there was a classified document in the briefcase relating to the manufacture of penicillin, which at the time was a state secret. I wondered what I would say the next day if I were asked for the document.... I didn’t sleep that night. I imagined Mr. Gurdjieff reading these documents. Actually, it wasn’t all that bad; perhaps he would form a high opinion of me. But if it were discovered that these papers were in the hands of a Russian.... What a mess that would be! 1already imagined the secret police arriving at his apartment with a warrant, and his being implicated. Early the next day, I decided I had to go to the little cafe on the rue des Acacias, where he had his breakfast; I knew he went there about nine. I was there on the dot. No Mr. Gurdjieff, and when I asked after him, I was taken aback by the black look ol a patron who kept staring at me from Mr. Gurdjieff’s usual table. All of that was unsettling. Should I go to his place? Perhaps it was a bit too early? I decided to go about eleven, a safe time, hoping he would be out and that his sister or someone else, but not him, would be there to open the door. At eleven, praying to high heaven, I knocked discreetly. But heaven was listening with a different ear. Mr. Gurdjieff opened the door himself. I knew that in such

circumstances, since I had no excuse, it was better not to embroil myself in dangerous justifications. Best to get straight to the point. “Good morning, Doctor! Surprise... you!” “Good morning, monsieur. I’m an idiot. Last night I forgot that here,” I said, pointing to the briefcase, which, thank God, was there patiently waiting for me. I thought he would quite rightly give me a good scolding for this lack of attention, but he didn’t mention it. His only words were, “You free? Lunch?” Was I free? Certainly! Not only was I getting off lightly, recovering the confidential documents with no trouble, but, to top it off, I had scored an invitation. I nevertheless had the feeling that l’d gotten off too lightly. But since luck was on my side, why complain? “Thank you, monsieur... ” But he didn’t let me finish. “Good, good.” Besides, I knew that he didn’t like to be thanked. “One o’clock come here. One o’clock, exact, exact,” he insisted. “Yes, monsieur, one o’clock, exact.” And I left. I had wings. One o’clock was chiming at Saint Ferdinand's Church as I knocked. He opened the door, saying, “Ah! You. Exact. Well done.” I hung up my coat and, at his invitation, went into the dining-room. There were five or six people there, all strangers. Probably Russians. Each one in turn took his soup plate to the kitchen where Mr. Gurdjieff was ladling out borscht from a big soup pot. When my turn came, after serving my portion of broth, he said, “Oh! Doctor, you like turkey neck?” I didn’t mind it, but I don’t know what devil in me drove me to not particularly like it that day. “ No,” I said, “ No thanks.” “What! You not like? That best part. Special treat to honour you. Take!” “ No, monsieur, I don’t want it.” “What! You, idiot!” “ Perhaps,” I said. “ Idiot who doesn’t like it.” “ No, no! Take to make me pleased.” “ I can assure you, I really don’t like it.” “ Like! That, mechanical thing. You must know new treat.” “ No, monsieur.” Then he got really angry and insulted me ferociously. I replied that no matter what, I wouldn’t change my mind. The dispute lasted so long that the borscht was cold when we returned to the dining-room under the disapproving looks of the other guests, who had not dared to begin eating and were watching their soup congeal. With a sigh, Mr. Gurdjieff had given up trying to convince me, which meant either that I had hurt him or that he was disappointed by such silliness. I saw my spiritual future irreparably damaged. But what could I do? I had said no; I wasn’t going to change my mind along the way. I was crushed because the struggle had been hard, and I had likely displeased him. All I could do was eat in silence, with sadness in my heart.

As I took a first spoonful of cold soup, he stopped me and told me to add a good dollop of heavy cream. I did so and once again began to eat. He stopped me dead in my tracks, telling me furiously that I lacked good manners and that any civilized person should know you have to stir in the cream before eating. I did so and, in the hostile silence of the group, I painfully ate my borscht. No one spoke! I realized very quickly, however, that the silence wasn’t related to this outburst. All these Russians, doubtless very needy, had been invited there to eat, not to talk. They probably had no idea at all that Gurdjieff was a teacher. Not a word was exchanged, except for the toasts. The Director turned to one of them, an old man, saying, “And to your health as well, Doctor.” I made a half-hearted gesture with my glass in the old man’s direction. And Mr. Gurdjieff emerged from his reserve to tell me with a certain liveliness, “He too doctor but he old. You must get up to toast him. He is for you father, and you must not remain seated in front of him.” I got up and toasted him. Something in in me rebelled. The man I was looking at was dead, nothing more than a human shell, his face completely lifeless; he did nol return my toast. Why should I honour a corpse? My pride was hurl! And at that moment I saw that my pride had entered my work and that I considered myself superior to others because I was working and knew certain things ... without really living them! It was a new lesson for me, and a bitter one! I felt defeated. I, who had been so happy with this first invitation to lunch with him, was now regretting even being there. And I realized that I had not understood what Mr. Gurdjieff repeated so often: “You must become aware of your complete nothingness.” How far from that I was! I wanted to develop through the work and I was humiliated in front of men who seemed so ordinary. The meal continued in a silence that was so unbearable that I looked for something to say in order to lift what weighed so heavily on me. I thought, ‘Here I am in front of Mr. Gurdjieff. What an opportunity to ask him what I can’t ask when there are so many people around him.’ An inner voice whispered to me, ‘Don’t miss your chance!’ But I was unable to find any intelligent question. Then suddenly I remembered a question that I had never dared ask him at the dinners. “Monsieur,” I said, “Why do you always drink vodka? There are such good wines in France.” “Good question. Is true. France wines no equal. But I explain you. You doctor, you understand. French wines, good for enema.” That was the last straw! I no longer had any desire to break the silence. I left after coffee, not at all content. That evening, after a meeting with Mme de Salzmann, I was so upset about it that I opened up to her. I feit strongly that l’d been an idiot and had missed a unique opportunity. As soon as I told her about the lunch, she stopped me and

said, “I know. You brought off a great victory. For the second time, Mr. Gurdjieff subjected you to a very hard test and you behaved well. This is very important for the continuation of your work.”

The Trip to Vichy One evening, as coffee was being served at the end of a meal, Mr. Gurdjieff said, completely out of the blue, “Maybe possible go Vichy few days with honourable persons.” I heard this from some distance... but then, Mr. Gurdjieff turned toward me and said, “Doctor! Why not come Vichy? That good trip ... rest for you.” Very disconcerted, because I had patients at that time, I floundered, and ended up saying, “Yes, of course, monsieur. Uh ... uh ... yes, with pleasure, only...” “Yes,” said Mr. Gurdjieff. “I know, but if warn you several days before, easy thing?” “Oh, yes,” I replied. “If I know a few days in advance, it will be possible for me to rearrange my patients’ appointments.” “Well, then,” said Mr. Gurdjieff. “Let’s say ... you want next Wednesday?” That gave me five days’ notice, which was really quite generous, so I answered without hesitation: “In that case, yes monsieur. It’s certainly possible.... I can make some phone calls... .All right, then.” “ Wednesday, come here eleven, eleven-thirty. Quiet lunch, good coffee, and after coffee, take car. All right?” “All right.” I don’t need to tell you how happy I was. As soon as I got home, I began to write to my patients who didn’t have phones. Next morning at daybreak, I telephoned the others and said thad been called ‘abroad’ for a consultation and that, regretfully, I would have to postpone their appointments until the following week. I had asked how many days the trip would take, thinking he would say about two days. To my great surprise, but also to my deep satisfaction, Mr. Gurdjieff had replied, “ Oh! Four days, five days ... just little trip.” So, I gave myself plenty of breathing space, putting off my appointments for six days, thinking I might need a day to recover.

Departure Delayed

On the Tuesday night I slept badly and awoke at dawn. At eleven-thirty, armed with my small suitcase, I presented myself at the rue des Colonels Renard, very excited and full of ‘self-remembering’. When I went in, however, I was surprised to find no sign of any preparation for a trip. Still, that didn’t strike me as particularly strange because with Mr. Gurdjieff, it was impossible to draw conclusions from such flimsy evidence. His luggage was no doubt already in his car. And anyway, I wasn’t going to bother with such details. ‘Savour the moment!’ I told myself. ‘And be alert!’ At midday we all sat down to eat. All this had made me quite hungry, and now that we were eating it seemed a good idea to do justice to the meal, because he was quite capable of making us drive all day without stopping. Lunch was excellent, as usual. Toward the end of the meal, after coffee, since Mr. Gurdjieff seemed in no hurry to leave the table and was neither shaved nor dressed, someone cleared his throat and asked, “Monsieur, what time are we leaving?” “Ah!” said Mr. Gurdjieff. “That impossible thing today. Tonight, very important appointment. But, tomorrow morning, come noon, lunch, and after, leave.” So, on Thursday at noon I came back with my little suitcase, with a light heart and feeling quite at ease. But there was still no sign of any preparation for a trip. At the end of the meal someone remarked that it would perhaps be a good idea not to leave too late if we wanted to make the most of the daylight for driving. Then Mr. Gurdjieff got a bit irritated and said, “Not always possible do what want. Today very important thing to do. Not have to leave. Maybe this evening, or tomorrow… . Yes, maybe this evening, come see if possible depart… .” We began to doubt that this excursion would ever take place. All the same, I came back in the evening, but this time without my little suitcase. Many people were there, and it was quite obvious that we wouldn’t be leaving. It even seemed that Mr. Gurdjieff was no longer giving any thought to this plan. After all, he had said, “Not have to leave.” And that was quite true... if he no longer wanted to, well, that was that! Nevertheless, I wouldn’t have missed coming back the next day at noon. Friday! This had now been going on for three days. I began to make some calculations: three days now, plus a four- or even five-day trip — that would add up to seven or eight days, already beyond my most generous calculations. I was almost beginning to wish the trip would be cancelled, wondering how I was going to make arrangements for my patients. Saturday noon, same comedy. There was something wrong with his car: “Difficult find cause!” And so, as I might have known, the five days we were supposed to take for the Vichy trip were spent shuttling between my house and the rue des Colonels Renard. And then, just when nobody thought the trip was still possible, there was a mad scramble.

In an instant, everyone was mobilized to gather up the baggage and bring it all down to the sidewalk, which soon resembled a railway loading platform. It looked as if someone was moving house, with suitcases of all sizes, boxes, crates and parcels being strapped on the roof of Mr. Gurdjieff’s car and several other vehicles. Whatever couldn’t fit on the roof went into the trunk, then onto the passenger seats… . And it just kept coming! No sooner was everything thoroughly tied onto a roof, than Mr. Gurdjieff made us undo it all, saying that such and such a parcel had to go with him in his car, that he might need it on the journey, or else that it had been badly tied. English, Germans, Canadians, French — everybody was on edge, and time was running out. At last, everything was ready, and our five or six cars set off in single file, Mr. Gurdjieff leading, each driver gripping his steering wheel, determined to run red lights if necessary, in order not to lose sight of him. We knew he was going to Vichy, but by which route? In response to a tactful question on this point, he had only growled, and we were actually quite anxious. The cars, loaded to breaking point, reminded me of what I had read somewhere about the travels of Indian potentates; like them, we were setting off with enough provisions to keep us going for weeks; not just food, but clothes too, as if we had to brave extreme climates. Everything was there: kitchen utensils, cooking pots that seemed full, raw vegetables, great bunches of aromatic herbs and, of course, several crates of vodka and I don’t know how many thermoses of coffee. As Gurdjieff used to say, “ln France, difficult find things.” In this connection, I remember a bizarre incident that struck me as we were leaving. Once everything had been stowed, one box remained on the sidewalk — a quite innocent-looking yellow box. Mr. Gurdjieff looked at it thoughtfully for a moment and, I don’t know why, asked somebody to take it back up to his apartment. Yet, we could have found room for it. Then some ill-informed person brought the box down again, and while he was struggling to put it into a trunk, Mr. Gurdjieff said that it wasn’t to be taken. And the box was sent back up for the second time. By then, I had lost interest in it. More than anything, I was impatient to set off, because I was afraid Mr. Gurdjieff might suddenly change his mind, claiming, for example, that it was really too late to leave. In fact, it was at least five o’clock, and I was thinking, naïvely, that I would only breathe easily once we were well on our way. So the box vanished from my thoughts. But we were to find it again, or rather not to find it, just when we needed it most; that is to say, in the middle of the night. But let’s set this box aside for the time being.

The Pursuit

At last we were off, and in spite of the gloomy and frankly miserable weather, I felt completely happy. I was in a tiny English car, driven by Elizabeth, an Englishwoman. Our ‘driver lady’ was very nice, I must admit. She didn’t know a word of French, which didn’t help, since, as you know, I don’t speak English, but we also had with us an English Canadian, Dr. C., an old friend who acted as interpreter. We had difficulty keeping up because her poor old car was not built for rallies, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw how tense and anxious she was. No doubt, she knew many things about her car that we were better off not knowing. So, the caravan set out on the road to Orléans, which, just between us, is not the shortest route to Vichy. We pushed it to the limit. Suddenly, to my great satisfaction, Mr. Gurdjieff stopped by the side of the road after a few kilometres, and all the other cars followed suit. We gathered round. The person in charge of the coffee took out a small suitcase of thermoses, and everybody had a cup of coffee, which by then had lost its flavour but was at least hot. Anyway, the main thing was just to be there, nurturing the hope that Mr. Gurdjieff would give us details about the route we were to take. And indeed, once we’d finished our coffee, Mr. Gurdjieff turned to us and said, “You, English car, that impossible. You make me late. Now will go straight Vichy. You meet me.” Right! But Mme de Salzmann, who was there, came to us and, taking advantage of the fact that Mr. Gurdjieff was talking to somebody else, whispered to us, “To Vichy or somewhere else. Besides,” she added, “Mr. Gurdjieff doesn’t like driving at night.” This sounded none too reassuring, and right away I smelled a rat. I was beginning to be suspicious. Mr. Gurdjieff took off like a whirlwind, with us lurching along behind. Elizabeth said, “We have to stop soon. We’ve hardly any petrol left.” I can’t tell you how many times we had to stop for gas! On top of that she never asked for a full tank! Oh! The mysteries of the English soul. It started to rain — at first a drizzle, then a lot, and then in torrents — and our driver, already hampered by having to drive on the right, obviously had great difficulty staying on the road. Added to that, the windshield wipers only worked intermittently and she was driving blind. Every time a car loomed in front of us, she slowed down, and it became quite obvious that Mr. Gurdjieff would be in Vichy before we even reached Bourges. I could hear the ironic chant of the engine, ‘To Vichy or elsewhere.’ But I consoled myself by saying, ‘Never mind. We’ll sleep somewhere on the way and we’ll find him tomorrow. After all, there’s nothing we can do about it.’ Just then, the phlegmatic Dr. C. let out an anguished cry: “I’ve just remembered! We’ve got one of Mr. Gurdjieff’s suitcases in our luggage!” A cold sweat ran down my spine. “We absolutely must find him tonight!”

“Yes,” I said in a strange voice. “Absolutely!” There was nothing more to be said. Our fate was sealed. Each of us, in our own way, imagined very clearly what would happen if we didn’t manage to find him at the hotel before he went to bed. We were convinced that Mr. Gurdjieff had deliberately arranged to have one of his suitcases put in our car, a suitcase containing something he would absolutely need that very night. And our old car was showing more and more signs of weakening. Our driver, likewise. In the middle of the night, in the pouring rain, after getting lost once or twice because the lack of visibility made us miss some signposts, we reached Bourges. What to do at Bourges? Make a bee-line for Vichy? But what if Mr. Gurdjieff had decided to stop here in Bourges! Since a quarter of an hour more no longer mattered, the best thing to do was to make the rounds of all the larger hotels. “Excuse me, monsieur. You wouldn’t by any chance during the last few hours have booked in a bald Russian gentleman, his head closely shaven, and with a big moustache? The gentleman is travelling with about ten people… . Thank you. Excuse us.” And on to the next one, “Excuse me, madame… .” Nothing! More time wasted. Just the same, we could not risk bypassing Bourges and going directly to Vichy, in case he had suddenly decided to stop on the way, if only to play a trick on us. But that meant heaven knows how many small towns, how many isolated inns, not to mention the ones that would have required a small detour. All we could do was set off again. But the car was thirsty and our driver hungry, and since our fale depended on them both, there was no way around it! Once more around the town in search of a bite to eat. You need to know Bourges to understand that finding a quick meal in that moribund town was no mean feat. We finally found a restaurant, but a pathetic excuse for one! We went in, dripping wet, and ordered three steak and chips — on the double. What better way to arouse the misgivings of the owner of a greasy-spoon restaurant, a fellow who had no reason to hurry! And who certainly had no reason to go out of his way to boost tourism, or encourage all these foreigners to come and disturb the peace of a small town that had barely recovered from the Hundred Years’ War. A whole hour for a miserable steak with badly cooked fries and an apple for dessert. And no wine... the epitome of poor taste. But this meal did us good all the same. The next town, another round of hotels; still raining, still nothing. Consumed by anxiety once again, we were now at least two hours behind Mr. Gurdjieff. And anyway, how could we be sure that he would go to Vichy? The bad weather might have induced him to change his mind. I knew he liked Cannes and Annecy. He could change direction and spend the night in St. Etienne, for instance, or in Lyon... . Yes! Why not Lyon? To find him there, we might just as well go to the police! How long would it take to catch up with him? One day? Two days? Never? And this damn suitcase… . Even if its

contents were of no importance whatsoever, he would be sure to tell us that because of us his trip had been ruined! All this seemed contrived, intentionally engineered for our downfall.

A Hotel Transformed It was in very low spirits that we finally arrived in Moulins. Dr. C. then said to me, “Moulins is a tiny place and so near Vichy. There’s no point stopping.” “Oh, but we must!” I said. “We said we’d check everywhere, so we’ll check here too. Tiny place or not, we’ll go round the hotels.” And so we did. One hotel, two hotels, three ... nothing, still nothing. Just as we were about to leave, as we were Crossing place de l’Allier, I spotted the back of a Citroën in the courtyard of a quite ordinary hotel. In a flash I thought, ‘You never know,’ and I shouted “Stop!” Screech of brakes. It was the only word of ‘French’ that our driver knew. I jumped out. It was Mr. Gurdjieff’s car. I went up to the door and saw him still at the wheel. He looked at me intensely and, pretending to scold me, he said, “You, Doctor, so you do magic.” But he was clearly in seventh heaven. Delighted. Everyone was happy. A few minutes later Mme de Salzmann said to me, “I’m so glad you found him!” So, there we were in Moulins. What time was it? About two in the morning. The rain had stopped. We walked into this very ordinary French hotel ... which really means a hotel with few amenities. Mr. Gurdjieff spoke to the very sleepy night porter and asked for ten or twelve rooms. “Good rooms, with baths." There weren’t that many rooms with such modern conveniences, and we had to settle for rooms with showers, or with neither bath nor shower. When each of us had been given a room key, Mr. Gurdjieff turned to us and said in the most natural manner, “Now, good dinner.” “But, monsieur!” somebody said. “Where? No restaurant will be open this time of night.” “Here, of course!” Mr. Gurdjieff said. “You move furniture, all rooms. Bring tables, chairs to bedroom of Tania [Mme Ouspensky’s granddaughter]. Push bed. And others, unload all boxes and bring to dining-room” — the dining-room being Tania’s bedroom. Everyone was coming and going, running in and out in search of their suitcases, handing each other parcels and boxes. Sometimes a string would give way, and gastronomic delights would be caught just in the nick of time before they rolled

down the stairs; and all that in the midst of laughter and gaiety, made livelier still by the difficulty of the journey. So far I have spoken about English women, but now you have to imagine what three young American women can be like at two in the morning when they are asked to organize that kind of ceremony. The English are refined and discreet people, but with these young Americans let loose in this hotel, you could have been watching a Marx brothers film! They ran about, giggling and squawking wildly, calling each other from one end of the corridor to the other, as if it were broad daylight in a remote villa on a huge Californian estate. But, do you think any of the guests woke up? Absolutely not! The night porter had fallen asleep again, as all night porters do, and the manager did not show up. Not until an hour later did he make a timid appearance. But the unbelievable scene he encountered made such a profound impression on him that he left without a word. Believe me, this was a big hotel with at least forty rooms and I think they were all occupied. I am sure no one had ever made such a racket there before. Yet a spell was at work and all the guests remained soundly and peacefully asleep.

A Valiant Effort As the improvised dining-room began to take shape, Mr. Gurdjieff stood there, pensively watching the setting out of plates, glasses, and silverware. There were all sorts of things on the tables ... not quite everything, however. Finally he asked, “But where little box? Yellow box?” Then it came back to me: the yellow box! That was it! The travelling box that, in fact, hadn’t travelled, and which at that moment must have been in the corridor of Mr. Gurdjieff’s apartment. It was the box he had sent back. He knew all along what he was doing. What on earth could there be in that box? “We can’t find it,” someone said at last. “ What!” said Mr. Gurdjieff. “ That main thing. Is box meat and vegetables.” “ No, monsieur, it’s not here. We’ve got the box of onions, the packet of herbs, the crate of vodka, the box of special salad, the box of chutneys and all the spices, but not the yellow box. We’ve also got the raw cucumbers, the gherkins.” I thought Mr. Gurdjieff would pretend to fly into a wild rage, but... no. (Later it occurred to me that he was keeping the big scene in reserve for Lisa on his return to Paris. Pool Lisa who had let herself be taken in and hadn’t known how to assert herself and get the box loaded.) Very calmly he turned to me and said, “That not important. Doctor and other doctor [that is, Dr. C.], you go now town Moulins, knock at butcher’s, wake butcher, buy meat.”

“Very good, monsieur,” I said. “And what sort of meat. Lamb? Beef?” “Not matter.” He could not have been more accommodating. Off we went, the two of us, Dr. C. none too confident, wondering if we’d wind up at the police station for causing a public disturbance, since in order to succeed, we’d clearly have to make a good deal of noise. The town was strangely deserted. One empty street, two empty streets, no lighted windows. At last a butcher’s shop, a large butcher’s shop. All that could be heard was the humming of refrigerators. Nothing else. The metal shutters were lowered. Quite normal. A doorbell? But where?... Ah! There! A discreet ring. “Louder!” I said. “Insist!” Another very discreet ring from Dr. C. Then I took a turn. “Stop!” said Dr. C. “You’re going to annoy them.” No fear of that. We could have blown a hunting horn with still no result. I banged vigorously on the shutter. The metal responded loudly. I pounded on it, calling out, “Butcher. Buuutch-er!” Do you think anybody in that house or any of the houses in that silent street woke up? Nobody. It was as if the entire population had fled before an invader. We didn’t get a bucket of water on our heads. Nothing. We tried three butcher shops. It was a valiant effort, but from the outset we knew it was hopeless. Even the police were sleeping peacefully. Ah, the dear old town of Moulins! When we went into the ‘dining-room’ on our return, no one was waiting for us any longer. Mr. Gurdjieff was sitting at the table with all the others, saying nothing. He didn't notice, or pretended not to notice, our discreet entry. He didn't ask us about the outcome of our heroic expedition, as if that was of no importance to him. In fact, it was he who had created this situation by having the famous yellow box taken back up to his apartment. Had he really hoped we would succeed in waking up a butcher who was less asleep than the others? I doubted it. I had made ‘magic’ by finding him; now I had failed to do what he had asked. Was he unhappy about that? Who will ever know? As for me, I had once again read in my heart many things that did not delight me all that much, and I had measured my courage and my faith. “Good,” he said. “Now, let’s eat.” That’s all he said for the whole meal. Not once did he speak a word. From time to time he raised his glass and, with a sign, invited the Tamada to make the appropriate toast. This time it was an Englishman, terribly ill-at-ease and flushed with anxiety, who officiated. He made mistakes, mixed up the order of the toasts, mumbled in English, drank to the health of someone or other in the wrong category of idiots. Mr. Gurdjieff did not correct Ihm. Suddenly an air of sadness pervaded in the room. Something was missing; or, was it that Mr. Gurdjieff was overcome with fatigue? After all, this was only a few months before his death. This feeling of uneasiness was made worse by the insolent restlessness of the young American girls, who had

little concern for him, or Mme de Salzmann, or for us, confused as we were in our thinking, and searching within ourselves for the cause of this sudden change of atmosphere. Each toast was a full glass of vodka, for both men and women, which made the young girls more and more excitable, and all we had to eat with this alcohol were slices of bread lavishly spread with strongly spiced chutney or raw onions, and to temper the fire, slices of fresh cucumber. It was only at the end of the meal that Mr. Gurdjieff began to speak again. He talked to the American girls, gave each one of them a 10,000 franc note, [82] and told them to go and enjoy themselves the next day in Vichy. After which he said, “Now late. Everybody tired. Tomorrow lazy morning. Much rest. Good sleep! Holidays!” It must have been three-thirty in the morning. I felt that everyone welcomed this with relief, because the trip had certainly been hard for us all. Who knows what ordeals the others had been through? One only ever sees one’s own.

An Early Rising Now in bed, I knew that the mixture of vodka and raw onions could be relied upon to give me a woolly tongue in the morning. So, the prospect of a good night’s sleep appealed to me. I had used up too much nervous energy and needed to recover. I had thought of having a bath and a shave before going to bed, but I was afraid of waking up the hotel! What timidity! After all, I had seen clearly that you couldn’t wake anyone up that night. But we are made of contradictions. We believe in one thing one minute, and take no notice of it the next. So, innocent and stupid, I went to bed and sank into sleep. It seemed I had only been asleep for a few moments when the phone rang.‘What an idiot! It must be that night porter calling the wrong room... .’ I was just about to give him a piece of my mind when he announced in a groggy voice: “Monsieur Gurdjieff says everyone’s to come down right away.” “What! What time is it?” “Half past five, monsieur.” “Are you sure he said that?” “Yes, monsieur. He’s right here beside me, and he insists.” “I see. Thank you!” I turned to Dr. C.: “Quick! Get up! We’re leaving in five minutes.” Right away. That meant no time to wash or shave. We chucked our things into our suitcases any way we could, and down we went, after a regretful look at the bathtub; and with one of my I’s which said, like the Kurd, [83] ‘But the bath was paid for… .’ Too bad!

I darted down the stairs. At the bottom, comfortably installed in an armchair, his look encompassing the whole scene, sat Mr. Gurdjieff, intently observing the way we arrived. Nothing escaped him: our way of coming downstairs, our faces, our way of approaching him. “Good morning, monsieur. Did you sleep well... ?” “Good morning, Doctor.” Being one of the first to come down, I took a seat not far from him to watch, in my turn, the faces of those who were about to arrive. Their faces were definitely quite different, but how much more there was to be read in their expressions! Some, like me, ended up being quite content and smiling, others less so. I hate to get up early. However, the scene was fascinating enough to make me forget my fatigue. As for Mr. Gurdjieff — and this was amazing — he looked as if he had slept for twenty-four hours. Freshly shaven, well-dressed, he sat quiet and relaxed. We, on the other hand, looked pale and haggard. He’d already had his breakfast. Like thieves, we gulped down our sealding hot cafe au lait, nearly choking in the process, leaving behind the bread and jam that we so longed to eat. But we had no time to spare. And this time, the cars took the road to Vichy, with no detours. We even knew the name of the hotel we were headed for.

The Fraudulent Document At the Hotel Albert I er , a good hotel this time, Mr. Gurdjieff had reserved a whole block of rooms. But the manager, who knew him and dreaded a scene (I had an inkling that something of the sort must have occurred in the past), had carefully set aside rooms for him on the ground floor, a little apart from the normal comings and goings of the more conventional guests. Our collection of rooms was isolated, rather like a leper colony. Furthermore, we were even allocated a special dining-room for our meals, which was not so much a courtesy as a precaution. We shared this room with some Arab guests who must also have been judged undesirable. After the ballet of the suitcases, we went to the front desk, where the receptionist gave each of us a police registration form. But when Mr. Gurdjieff was given one to fill out, he took it with an air of astonishment, as if this were the first time such a thing had happened to him, and then he put it down again. But the receptionist would have none of it and persisted, explaining to Mr. Gurdjieff what he had to do. And Mr. Gurdjieff said, “Why this thing?” “It is for the police records, monsieur.” Then Mr. Gurdjieff turned toward Dr. C. and said to him, “You write. That idiot thing.”

Dr. C. was distraught. He asked Mr. Gurdjieff, “Monsieur, what shall I put?” “What want! That not matter.” And he withdrew in a dignified manner. Then Dr. C. turned to an impassive Mme de Salzmann, who simply said, “Do as Mr. Gurdjieff asked.” Now, try to put yourself in the shoes of a scrupulous Canadian who is asked to give false information officially on a document destined for the police, and you will understand what a state our scribe was in. He took out his pen. SURNAME: Well, that was easy. FIRST NAMES: Georges Ivanovitch. DATE OF BIRTH: “What shall I put?” “Whatever you like,” I said. He was about to write 1880, then changed his mind and put 1875, I think. But his hand was shaking. PLACE OF BIRTH: “ ... Suppose I put Alexandropol? No! It can’t be that... er! er! Tiflis? … No… .” In the end, I have no idea what Dr. C. wrote. Imagine how much worse his ordeal would have been if he had known that, several years later, I would hear about these fanciful entries on the hotel form ... and from none other than the Vichy police. [84] In the lobby of the hotel, when I asked the manager where my room was, he looked at me pityingly and let slip, “Ah! You’re with that man!” He meant Mr. Gurdjieff. “Yes,” I said. “Do you know him?” “I certainly do. I’ve known him for years, and I know all about him, believe you me!” “To tell the truth,” I said, “I don’t often have the opportunity to travel with him, but I too have known him for years. He is an extraordinary man.” With a condescending smile, he said, “Of course, you’re just like all the others. He has twisted you around his little finger, you poor hypnotized sheep, and he shears you unscrupulously.” “What do you mean? After all, he’s paying for our trip.” “Well! Someone is paying for you.” Then he turned his back on me without a word of apology. I was still reeling a little from this incident, wondering whether I should have told this disagreeable individual off, when I was approached timidly by the elevator boy, who had heard everything. “That man hates Monsieur Gurdjieff,” he said. “But I love him. How lucky you are to travel with him!” This difference of opinion was interesting, so I asked him, “Why? Do you know him well?” “Of course! He comes here every year. He’s a wonderful man.” The young fellow had an unusual accent, and I commented on it.

“Ah! I come from Russia, but now I’m French.” “Is it because you’re Russian that you know him so well?” “Yes,” he answered. “He does so much good here for all the refugees. He comforts them; he helps them with money. You have no idea how many people he’s rescued from destitution. As for the manager, he despises Russians and must be jealous.”

The Platter of Trout The midday meal proceeded without untoward incident. Toasts were proposed, and the Arabs at the neighbouring table did not appear at all surprised. It was in the evening that things began to deteriorate. For this initial dinner, we were expecting the first members of the Lyon group. Mr. Gurdjieff welcomed them graciously, and asked them a few general questions; but I should have known it wouldn’t continue that way. A traditional soup was served and consumed in silence. Then, after the first toast to the idiots, the second course arrived: trout, in a very appetizing sauce. A waiter came in carrying an enormous platter on which there must have been twenty fair-sized trout. He was followed by a second waiter and by the manager, who was supervising the whole affair. Before serving everyone, the waiter came and bowed to Mr. Gurdjieff and presented the dish. “What that?” said Mr. Gurdjieff; and, turning to Mme de Salzmann, “Him, what want?” “He wants you to admire the trout, Mr. Gurdjieff.” “Ah!” said Mr. Gurdjieff. He grabbed the one closest to him in his fist and put it on his plate. General consternation. It was at that moment that I understood why we had been placed out of the sight of the more respectable guests in the restaurant. Obviously playing the role of a person who has put his foot in it and doesn’t know how to redeem himself, Mr. Gurdjieff picked up his trout again and with dignity put it back on the platter. Then he wiped his hands theatrically on his napkin, which began to look like a motor mechanic’s rag. But it didn’t stop there. The waiter started to prepare his trout for him, but Mr. Gurdjieff refused indignantly and set about it himself in a masterful way. Then, looking it over, he said, “Good, good.” Everything seemed to be in order. Solemnly, he took a mouthful ... and spat it out violently onto his plate with a roar. His face had completely changed, and he seemed to be in the grip of a murderous rage. He yelled loudly, turning to the head-waiter, “Call cooks, chef, everybody!” “But, monsieur, they’re all busy.... What’s wrong, monsieur?”

“Call chef! This filth. He come at once!” With resignation, the head-waiter made a sign to one of the waiters, as if to say, ‘It was bound to happen.’ “All right, all right! Call the chef.” The chef appeared, with his hat on, a large spoon in his hand, and looking worried stiff. “You, crime! Cooked trout, no salt inside. Not eat. Dirty.” And he had all the plates removed. I was watching the people from Lyon, and also all those who, like me, would have gladly eaten those trout. For all of us it was extraordinary, torn as we were between, on the one hand, tremendous considering, contradictory feelings, our desire to eat, the fear that this fury created in us, and the idea that from now on we were going to be seen in a bad light and on the other hand, what we felt, what we understood about Mr. Gurdjieff, and our admiration for a scene worthy of classical theatre. I think that, for me, the most painful thing was to see ‘my’ trout whisked away.

A Soul Laid Bare The next day during lunch we were treated to an unforgettable demonstration. To be honest, things unfolded in such a seemingly ordinary way that it is almost impossible to tell the story. Coffee had been served when the manager (the one who had made no secret of his contempt for Mr. Gurdjieff and for us ‘poor bleating sheep’) came in to check that everything was in order and that Mr. Gurdjieff was satisfied. He might not have liked Mr. Gurdjieff as a man, but he was obliged to show him the consideration due to a guest, and what’s more, a valuable guest; so he spoke to him with an obsequious smile. Mr. Gurdjieff answered most affably, saying that everything was “Roses, roses,” and he very courteously invited the manager to sit down with us. “Have glass spirits. Here very special vodka, like you not have in hotel.” (Just between us, it was a kind of vodka that one could easily buy in any store.) Then, the manager turned down the invitation no less courteously. “Unfortunately sir, it’s absolutely impossible. My position here does not permit me. Please believe me, I’m very sorry.” “But yes,” said Mr. Gurdjieff. “If I invite, cannot say no, rude thing!” “I know, I know, it is indeed most impolite on my part, and I apologize once again, but our rules specifically forbid us to accept invitations from guests, and especially... not in front of the waiters. You do understand.” “Oh!” said Mr. Gurdjieff. “Rules, that one thing, but here, very different, small dining-room. We alone, among ourselves, all here friends. You sit, nobody

know.” The poor fellow was visibly beginning to weaken. “Just small glass vodka. Then quiet talk. Nice thing for me.” Suddenly, the manager stiffened and made a discreet sign to the waiters, who slipped out. He sat down beside Mr. Gurdjieff. And then, a strange experience began; strange, and at the same time so simple that if I had not written it down right away, I would later have doubted whether it had ever happened. (You must have read the story in Fragments [85] about the night in Mr. Gurdjieff’s apartment, when he separated the essences of two men from their personalities. He didn’t do quite the same thing this time, but it’s the closest example I can think of.) He engaged in a kind of live autopsy on that man. It began very, very gently and continued in the same vein. Mr. Gurdjieff started talking to him about his family, asking him how many children he had. He then enquired about his wife, and about the military decoration he was wearing in his buttonhole. He congratulated him and got him to speak about himself. From moment to moment, one could see all the man’s reticence melt away, and little by little, everything about him was revealed in the full light of day. Mr. Gurdjieff could easily have gotten him to disclose his most secret aspirations. This man was relaxing without any apparent pressure, as if happy to be able, finally, to relieve his heart. We could see his weaknesses, his limitations, his good sides. He was a good family man, ill at ease in his role as a flunkey. And for once in his life, he was able to unburden himself and let go of everything that weighed on his heart. There was nothing shocking about this, no more shocking than the act of a surgeon removing a tumour that was jeopardizing the life of a patient. We pitied him, but it was not a judgmental pity. This poor man, halfasleep, was suffering, and the conversation was doing him good. What science! What art! Mr. Gurdjieff freed this man from himself far more effectively than any psychoanalyst could have done. And it all took place just as if you or I were chatting about random things with someone we happened to meet. But in our case, we would reminisce without revealing anything of ourselves, whereas here this man could finally open up as if released from a spell. “Ah! Sheep, bleating sheep,” he had said to me. If only he could see with his inner eye what was taking place in him at that moment. The conversation lasted at least a quarter of an hour; and at the end, Mr. Gurdjieff reached into his pocket and gave him a big handful of candies, “For your children.” I learned later that the children were over twenty, but at that point, the man no longer even knew whether they were still in nursery school or were on the verge of starting their careers. Mr. Gurdjieff finished with a few kind words for his wife, and more compliments for him, adding how happy he had been to have had this heart-to-heart conversation, man to man. That day I clearly saw Mr.

Gurdjieff’s power: he was capable of laying bare a man’s soul, making him transparent, and doing so without hurting him in any way. Seeming very happy, the manager stood up and offered his thanks. He smiled around at us, the ‘hypnotized’ ones. He had experienced a good moment and, who knows, perhaps from then on he felt differently toward Mr. Gurdjieff. But that I never found out. Had I ever met him again, I would never have taken the liberty of asking him about it. I felt bound by a new kind of ‘professional secrecy’, and I would have considered it indelicate to disturb what Mr. Gurdjieff had sown in that man’s heart.

A Shopping Spree On the second-last day, in the course of the afternoon, Mr. Gurdjieff asked us to do him the favour of accompanying him, saying that he had some shopping to do. I don’t know why, but I imagined that perhaps he needed an interpreter — not exactly an interpreter, because I didn’t know Russian but someone who could express in good French what he said in his own language, which was always a mixture of invented words or words from various languages, a language to which I had eventually become accustomed. As if Mr. Gurdjieff needed an interpreter! He never travelled without buying masses of presents, especially to shower on those who had not taken part in the expedition. First he went to a confectioner’s shop, at the corner of avenue du President Wilson and rue Burnol, and addressed a young salesgirl who was not too quick on the uptake. Catching sight of some larger-than-life bees wrapped in yellow and black foil, with beautiful antennae and artistically decorated cellophane wings, he asked, “What is?” “They are bees, monsieur.” He shrugged his shoulders almost imperceptibly and added, “But what inside?” “Ah! They have marzipan inside.” “Good,” and pointing to the boxes that went with the mouth-watering display, he added casually, “Thirty boxes.” “But,” said the salesgirl. “It’s just that every box costs one thousand francs.” “Eh!” he said. “Perhaps it is for a gift,” the salesgirl persisted, convinced that her customer didn’t understand a thing. “Yes,” said Mr. Gurdjieff. “Yes, gift. Thirty boxes.” “If I understand you correctly, you want thirty boxes of bees. Thirty boxes at one thousand francs, monsieur. That makes thirty thousand francs, monsieur.” “Yes,” said Mr. Gurdjieff, who was already pointing to some other boxes while saying, “Ten boxes, like that.”

The salesgirl, thinking he had changed his mind, replied, “Certainly, monsieur. You would prefer ten boxes of our nougatines, but they are a little more expensive.” Finally, unable to hold back any longer, I jumped in to clear up the poor girl’s confusion. “The gentleman would like thirty boxes of these at one thousand francs apiece, as well as ten boxes of nougatines.” “And also twelve boxes these,” said Mr. Gurdjieff, “and eighteen those.... No. They are too small, eighteen big ones.” Finally, with still more purchases, we needed four men to carry everything back to the hotel. I escaped being a porter, and, rather full of myself but equally curious to see what would happen next, I accompanied Mr. Gurdjieff to a perfume shop. There, the same ceremony was performed, except that he kept asking me whether such and such a person would like this or that scent. How could I know? First, he bought for all the women on the trip; then for “wife you”; then for those he would see on his return to Paris. Lipstick, powder, compacts, little vials of perfume, bottles of eau de cologne, that he would doubtless present as “Special Eau de Cologne Vichy, unique in world!” No one would be taken in; everybody would be delighted. He was visibly happy, and I was happy along with him. When he had finished and everything was wrapped up, I had in my arms more parcels — and fragile ones at that — than my four companions did when they left the confectioner’s shop. But I had witnessed Mr. Gurdjieff shopping, and nothing could replace that.

Money Matters These brief anecdotes prompt me to go back and recount a small incident that made a strong impression on me. It was on the day of departure, the actual departure from Paris for Vichy. We had gone back up to the apartment to make sure nothing had been forgotten. In fact, we hadn’t paid enough attention to the famous yellow box. There were four of us, and Mme de Salzmann as well. We were waiting for Mr. Gurdjieff. He arrived from the back of the apartment, decked out from head to foot, elegant and laughing like a child at our surprised looks — since we were more used to seeing him in an old pair of trousers and a vest that served as a jacket. He was holding what looked like three small books — or perhaps booklets — which, in the poorly lit hallway, looked new. I was paying more attention to him than to the books. At that point he said, “Ah! Who trust... ? Mme Salzmann!” and he handed her what I then saw to be a tightly packed bundle of large denomination banknotes, fresh from the bank.

Then he handed the second bundle to another very honourable, trustworthy person. I can no longer remember who. He pretended to search for a person who could inspire him with enough confidence to receive the third packet. Then he turned toward me, saying, “Doctor!” I don’t think I had ever held such a fortune in my hands. I was very flattered, and yet slightly worried at the thought that if I were to lose that amount, I would put him in a difficult position, since I couldn’t see how I’d be able to repay him in a hurry. A few moments later, Mme de Salzmann put me quite at ease. At a moment when Mr. Gurdjieff was otherwise engaged, she confided to me in a low voice, “You know, don’t give him too much of it at once.” “I beg your pardon?” I said. “Yes, yes. You’re not used to it, but, believe me, as soon as Mr. Gurdjieff arrives in Vichy, he’ll spend it all as quickly as possible, the whole lot of it, and we’ll find ourselves without any money and an enormous hotel bill to pay. He’s done it before. You could pawn our watches, wedding rings, and all our jeweis, and it still wouldn’t be enough. So, do as I do. I put half the amount in the lining of my coat. Here, you see, this coat is specially fitted for that. And I give him the rest a little at a time.” I couldn’t quite picture myself in that situation, saying to Mr. Gurdjieff, “Here are two banknotes. That should be enough for today.” So, during the shopping expedition that afternoon, her warning came back to me: “Don’t give him everything at once.” But fortunately I had no problem on that score, and when we returned to Paris, I gave him back almost the whole amount he had entrusted to me on our departure. Could I say that he was happy about this? No, I would be rather inclined to think the opposite; but for my part, I was relieved that I had managed to get through it without too much trouble. What money did he pay with, then? Because he bought a great deal, and I doubt that I saw all of it. Who knows? Perhaps he too had a coat with a special lining, and then ... and then… . It’s quite possible that Mme de Salzmann, seeing how uneasy I was about handling that much money, had added to Mr. Gurdjieff’s supply to turn up the heat a little on my predicament. At that time, my personal financial situation was not particularly easy to manage. All the same, I didn’t discount the possibility that he could easily put any of us on the spot. Nothing was out of the question when he wanted to touch something in one of his students. Once, when I told that story, someone asked, “But didn’t he have anyone to organize his finances?” What a naïve question! As if Mr. Gurdjieff weren’t capable of organizing and disorganizing his finances on his own and in his own way! He could make a lot of money quickly and spend it just as quickly. He was gifted in both directions. In fact, that was not the point. I saw here a man who was completely free to make it or to lose it. That struck me especially because I

was so unskilled in money matters, and found it painful to see my hard-earned savings disappear. But the lesson was hard to swallow, and whenever I retell the story of these purchases — in themselves quite trivial, though intended to give pleasure, which in itself is not trivial — I see people’s faces darken. How small we are in front of this question! In another incident concerning money matters, I had, as if by chance, a brief but very significant experience with Mr. Gurdjieff while we were still in Vichy. I was ready for anything, but what I most expected never happened, whereas when a challenge arose, I was brought up short. One morning as I was crossing the lobby, I met Mr. Gurdjieff. “So, Doctor,” he said. “How you are?” Without waiting for my reply, he went on, “You morning nothing special do?” “No, monsieur.” “Good. Then time go terrace, take coffee.” We went to rue Lucas, where he chose a little cafe. After we had sat down, he settled himself into his armchair, saying, “Good thing, terrace France. Sit well, look people pass.” He pointed out a few, indicating for example a person standing in front of a shop window. He explained that he belonged to a certain type and therefore always did the same kinds of things, whereas another type of man would behave differently. “They not able do other.” It was fascinating to see him take each machine to pieces in this way, exactly as if he had taken apart a car engine and had said to me, ‘Given that it is a two-stroke engine, you cannot ask it to give you what a four-stroke engine can.’ What’s more, he summed up each one in two or three characteristics. I was taken both by the captivating side of the explanations and, I confess, by an agreeable intimate titillation at the thought of being Mr. Gurdjieff’s confidant, as well as the idea that I alone was receiving these precious bits of knowledge. Then, out of the blue, he asked, “How going, you, Minister Finance?” It was easy enough to understand. “Uh! ... Not so well, monsieur.” “Ah!” he replied; and with an expression to suit the occasion, he brought out his wallet and handed me a ten thousand franc note, a real fortune at the time. I had no time to gather my thoughts. It was a difficult problem: to accept or to refuse? And for what reasons to accept or not? I made a quick survey of the consequences. To say ‘No’ would be stupid and too easy; but to say ‘Yes’ was loaded with repercussions. I broke out in a cold sweat. Then, suddenly, something I had heard Mr. Gurdjieff once say came back to me: “You can take anything, absolutely anything, on condition that you give it back a hundredfold.” So without hesitation, and looking him straight in the eye, I said, “Yes, monsieur, thank you.”

That afternoon, I had the opportunity for a moment of conversation with Mme de Salzmann and I related what had happened. When I mentioned the banknote, she stopped me: “Of course, you didn’t accept!” “But yes, madame, I did accept. I accepted because I sud denly remembered what Mr. Gurdjieff said one evening: ‘You can take anything, absolutely anything, on condition that you give it back a hundredfold.’ I accepted ten thousand francs. I am now in his debt for one million.” She smiled brightly and said, “In that case, all is well.” Later, I made this debt into a new reminding factor, and it was a great help for my work. On the last day I was able to do a little shopping myself so as not to go back to Paris empty-handed. But I did so on a much more modest scale than Mr. Gurdjieff. Without his gift of money, I would not have been able to take anything back. The return trip was uneventful, but I will never forget what I felt as I turned the key to open the door of our apartment: it seemed that those five days had lasted a whole year. I felt a little concerned about my patients, and was wondering how I was going to excuse my absence, since I had been away longer than expected. To my immense surprise, when I asked my wife about my patients, she told me nobody had called for me. But the next morning, as if by magic, the appointments started flooding in. [1]

In subsequent references P.D. Ouspensky’s In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown

Teaching (New Y ork: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1949) will be referred to as Fragments .

[2]

In subsequent references G.I. Gurdjieff’s Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grand Son (New Y ork: Dutton,

1950) will be referred to as Beelzebub’s Tales .

[3] [4]

Henri Tracol, La vraie question demeure (Paris: Édition olienne, 1996), p. 216. Compare with the Bible, Psalms, 8:4, “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? And the son of

man, that thou visitest him?” Editors’ note: All references to the Bible are to the King James version unless otherwise noted.

[5]

Compare with the Bible, Psalms, 8:5, "For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast

crowned him with glory and honour.”

[6] Notes given to a few students. [7] Lecture given in Lima, Peru, in 1959, and reworked by Michel Conge at Angers in 1960. [8] Fragments, p. 70. [9] Fragments, p. 70. [10] Fragments, p. 58. [11] The Bible, Genesis, 1:26. [12] The Koran, 2:30,“ Behold, thy Lord said to the angels: I will create a vice-regent on earth.”

[13]

Conge: One can’t help thinking at this point of the solar monstrance used in Roman Catholic ritual,

at the centre of which is divine man. This integration in a solar figure that is solemnly held up [before the congregation] evokes the hidden communication of three worlds. [A monstrance is a receptacle in which the consecrated Host (usually a disk-shaped wafer) is exposed for veneration.]

[14] [15] [16]

See pp. 749ff. Conge: We need to study the relationship: entropy-time-eternity. Editors’ note: Ischemia is a local anemia caused by a stoppage or inadequacy of the circulation of the

blood.

[17]

Conge: By analogy, the various Systems of circulation in the human organism must function

according to a similar plan, which opens a new direction for physiological research.

[18] [19]

Fragments , p. 47. Conge: A thought from Simone Weil comes to me 0n this subject: “Is it not a great misfortune, when

one struggles with God, not to be defeated?”

[20] [21]

Conge: The analogy must always be deciphered at my own level. Conge: The precise determination of what constitutes organic life — that is, of what belongs to the

lateral octave — might clarify something that remains an enigma and an endless subject of discussion in contemporary science. What is the dividing line between animate life and so-called inanimate life, or between mineral and organic life? If, as it seems to me, the mineral world belongs to the Ray of Creation, this would explain the impossibility of finding the transition from one to the other as people usually try to do. Organic life and mineral life do not follow one another on the same line, but meet and interpenetrate each other as two distinct currents might do. Saying this does not solve the problem, but allows it to be stated in terms that are finally accurate.

[22] [23] [24] [25]

The Bible, The Song of Solomon, 5:2,“I sleep, but my heart waketh.” See Fragments , pp. 310-11. See Fragments , pp. 199-201. Conge: To arrive at this, in addition to a greater capacity of being, it would perhaps be necessary to

re-think the whole body of knowledge —assimilated gradually thanks to direct experiences — in relation to the enneagram, as I have just suggested. Perhaps the rotation of octaves on the enneagrams might give us an understanding of the three displaced scales in the Table of Hydrogens... and, at last, an effective broaching of the problem of foods.

[26]

Conge: “Thou art That” or “Thou art the Buddha”: this evokes a reality that nothing can alter. And the

“I Am The One Who Is and you are the one who is not,” by breaking the illusion, shows where the key to the enigma must be found. What does it matter to me that these higher influences — like so many energy fields — pass through me, if I am incapable of submitting myself in them? What does it matter to me to learn that “I am the Buddha” if I am incapable of bearing witness to that? And yet it does matter, because if I don’t learn this, and if I don’t realize at the same time to what extent I am cut off from it, nothing will vibrate in me to disturb my torpor.

[27]

Conge: Does not this Vision of the Creation, which is at the heart of the contradiction, give an answer

to the eternal debate between finalism and determinism? It is not a matter of adhering to one theory rather than the other, but of recognizing that there is a dual finality and a dual determin ism; and also of understanding that the directly experienced perception of this quadruple aspect is the key to freedom.

[28]

Conge: Was it not Ouspensky’s failure to see this clearly that led him to refuse to consider man as the

Tritocosmos? See Fragments , pp. 215-16.

[29] Conge: Similarly a scale does not have to be a succession of notes. [30] Conge: Consider the meaning of the Hindu concept of līlā . [31] Conge: This gives meaning to monastic forms of ceaseless prayer or chant. [32] Excerpt from group exchanges — Reims, December 10 and 27, 1956. [33] Consider the story in Fragments about the man with a weak essence and a strong personality, and the man who had a weak personality and a strong essence, pp. 252-3.

[34] [35]

Excerpt from an exchange on the theme, “The Absolute” — Reims, December 1963. Compare with Fragments , “The moon is ‘at the extremity’, at the end of the world; it is the ‘outer

darkness’ of the Christian doctrine ‘where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’,” p. 85; and the Bible, Matthew, 8:12, “But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

[36]

The Bible, Acts, 17:27-28 (Paul addressing the Athenians), “That they should seek the Lord, if haply

they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our being.”

[37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42]

Excerpt from a group exchange — Reims, November 23,1959. Excerpt from a group exchange — Reims, April 11,1972. Fragments, p. 321. Excerpt from an exchange on the theme, “Man is a machine” — Reims, December 7, 1959. The Bible, I Corinthians, 15:44. Excerpt from an exchange on the theme,“Will man always be a machine?” — Reims, March 16,

1962.

[43] [44] [45]

The Bible, Matthew, 22:14. Excerpt from an exchange on Fragments , pp. 68-75 — Vichy, November 8, 1964. The New English Bible . Compare with the King James Version of the Bible, John, 19:30,“It is

finished.”

[46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51]

Excerpt from an exchange on the theme, “Man” — Reims, December 23, 1963. The Bible, Matthew, 11:11. Compare with the Bible, Matthew, 22:11-14. Compare with the Bible, John, 19:23. Consider Fragments , p. 88. Notes selected and edited by Michel Conge from the principal ideas developed by a team studying

Fragments .

[52] [53] [54] [55] [56] [57] [58] [59]

Fragments, p.310. Excerpt from a group exchange — Paris, January 28, 1970. Excerpt from a group exchange — Reims, June 15, 1962. Notes entrusted to some students — December 20, 1962. Excerpt from a group exchange — Reims, April 25, 1963. Excerpt from a group exchange — Paris, January 21, 1971. The Bible, Matthew, 8:8-9 The Bible, Matthew, 8:10.

[60] [61] [62] [63]

Consider the Bible, John, 15:14-15. Fragments , pp. 192-93. Fragments , pp. 155, 160, 218, 226. Excerpt from an exchange on the theme,“How do you understand the idea of serving?’' - Angers,

1961, and Paris, 1966.

[64]

Excerpt from a letter to a student - Paris, January 28, 1967.

[65] [66] [67] [68] [69] [70]

Fragments, p. 182. Excerpt from a group cxchange — Paris, 1971. Excerpt from a group exchange — Reims, June 28, 1966. Excerpt from a group exchange — Reims, January 19, 1965. Excerpt from a group exchange — Reims, May 9, 1960. Excerpt from a group exchange on the theme, “How do I understand myself?” — Reims, October 18,

1962.

[71] [72]

Excerpt from a group exchange — Paris, June 23, 1971. Excerpt from a group exchange on the theme, “How do I understand myself?” — Reims, November

20, 1962, and February 5, 1963.

[73] [74] [75] [76] [77]

A talk given by Michel Conge — Santiago, Chile, August 6, 1966. Greek: aggelos , ἄγγελος, a messenger [of God], The Bible, Genesis, 32. Excerpt from a group exchange — Reims, February 19, 1962. Notes entrusted to a few students. Translators’ note: Although the first line of this invocation was translated from the Russian in the

1950 English edition of Beelzebub’s Tales as “Holy God, Holy Firm, Holy Immortal” (p. 752), the present translation follows Conge’s direct quotation from the French edition of Beelzebub’s Tales (p. 721).

[78]

Excerpt from a letter to one of Michel Conge’s students — September 25, 1972.

[79]

The Bible, Matthew, 6:33, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these

things shall be added unto you.”

[80] [81]

The Bible, John, 8:32, “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Every january 13th on the occasion of Mr. Gurdjieff’s birthday, Michel Conge would gather his

students and tell them stories... . A version of some of these stories related by Michel Conge to his students has already appeared in Gurdjieff: Essays and Reflections on the Man and His Teaching , Jacob Needleman and George Baker (eds.) (New Y ork: Continuum, 1996).

[82]

Ten thousand French francs in 1949, when converted to U. S. dollars, and adjusted for inflation to

the year 2006, would be about $250.

[83]

Editors’ note: This is an allusion to the story of the Transcaucasian Kurd and the noble red peppers in

Beelzebub’s Tales , pp. 19-22.

[84]

Editors’ note: Among Dr. Conge’s students in the Vichy group was a police chief who, knowing that

Mr. Gurdjieff had stayed in Vichy, had looked up the record of his visit and found the famous registration form.

[85]

Fragments , pp. 252-3.