CALISTHENICS April 1, 1981
PROVIDE THE FIELD –THE WAY YOU RELATE –LINK TO THE FIELD –TRANSITION -- CORE ACTIVITY --EFFECTIVENESS
….There is one point in this respect that I want to stress. One of the first duties of a spiritual master is to provide the field in which experiences are possible.
You are the product of a type of civilization that is found here in this country, on this continent. But in this location on earth there is a trend which goes a certain way -- a trend within which you approach everything -- let's call it the basic paradigm under which you live. In this paradigm what we do does not exist, except possibly as a dream, certainly not as a reality. If you want to experience as we do here, we have to produce a field in which these things are just plain normal. This is simply a technicality, a very simple procedure for us. It has to be done, without it you stay within your own paradigm.
One of the difficulties is that you have to limber up so that you can use other paradigms or possibly no paradigm at all but only approaches or ways of expressing.
Georgette has a certain function in it, I have another one. If you watch us work ,and go beyond personal appearance, you will see that we work exactly from the same place, and depending on what we do, we do exactly the same as one, not as two. You know very little of this aspect. Your preconceived ideas block the way of the simple reality. You perceive in a certain way simply because you follow your paradigm. Drop it and suddenly you realize that you live differently, you see/live/sense a lot more than you thought yourself capable of doing.
Some of the sensitivity you have shouldn't be possible, classically speaking. You haven't trained your mind, you are not master of your thoughts --you cannot put them on or off at will. This is a requirement. Can you keep your emotions absolutely quiet; can you be fully and completely in a non-emotional state -- no you cannot . The mastery of the emotions is required for the first initiation -- to use a classical measure; in the second one you go over it again, somewhat deeper; in the third one you go to your mind. or , you can read Pantajali which is 2,500 years old and find all the techniques needed to master the mind -- from the concrete thoughts to the very waves within the substance of the mind (called chitta). Now honestly, you have no awareness of the waves, no awareness of the mind substance. In what we live together (sometimes, but not always) some mastery in this direction is required. Or some mastery in the direction of initiation is required, traditionally speaking, but you do it without these requirements. How is this possible?
It's very simple: because you live with us in a surrounding in which these experiences are simply normal (actually much more is normal but this has not yet come through your mind -- it's supraconscious not conscious). When I see you respond to what is going on with the music, for instance, it means you are participating supraconsciously; if you persist it will become conscious.
I want to go over with you a point which is kind of tricky: one participant asked if these elements are available over the whole world. The answer is yes, definitely. I have heard people say, for instance: "You are not the only one, there are others who do the same work". Whether the work is the same or not is not the point. Intellectually speaking, everything that we do is available for you right now, within you; you don't need to travel over the entire world -- it's right within you. But we are not dealing with a theoretical situation, we are in a practical action and you want to be able to participate (be practical too). To know that these different elements are available throughout the world in other societies and so on is fine and good, and I go even further and tell you that you don't have to look further than in yourself: "Man was created in the image and, likeness of God " , but the practical situation is different.
When you say that these elements are available elsewhere, most of the time the position is one of student-teacher: "I can find another teacher elsewhere". Yes, you can -- he won't work in the same way, but this is not the point, the real point is to start moving. If you want to work in what we are involved in, okay then you work here; if you want to work in something else, you go somewhere else; it is as simple as that. But the intellectual understanding that these elements are available elsewhere too is of no help. For many people, this understanding leads to a non-activity. Satisfied with the knowledge that the elements are available all over the world, most people don't move, and we are concerned with moving.
I wonder if you realize how difficult the position is if you one day assume professional responsibility. Take a simple situation: I know what I do on earth, including what I have done in the past, but this knowledge does not exist in the prevailing paradigm in which you live --what prevails is the belief that you cannot know. For me it's a very simple matter -- just plain obvious -- but because of the existing paradigm, we cannot come through in all simplicity (because an actual situation is always simple), we have to do a lot of work to make you face another situation, another paradigm, or no paradigm at all. And when you face it you will also know what you do. It is not a privilege that is proper to me alone in this world, definitely not.
When this comes through, that day you will have made a step with yourself, not with me. It will mean that you have to begun to relate to the situation in a more mature way. Remember, nearly all problems arise in your relation with what you are connected to and not with what you are connected to. It's the way you relate. This you know by experience already. Approach a person or an animal in a certain way and you have one result, approach in another way and you have another result -- but it's the same person, the same animal -- the difference depends on the way of relating.
You have a body which you relate to in a certain way; you take for granted that it is as you sense it. Now we have a mighty big difficulty with that, because we tell you all the time that we see you differently. The relation that we have with our body is different from yours; the relation we have with your body is different from yours. We see it differently. There is more to a body than the sensory awareness can bring up. Obviously. What prevents you from living that -- simply the way you function within your paradigm. Change it and you have new possibilities.
Incidentally, I notice in the group in general, that you become more and more sensitive to what is going on. You begin to show some relating that is genuine -- Most of what is conscious is not fully genuine (it is tinted by projections of images), but behind those projections is something else. If you come out with the symbolic value, the symbolic value represents something that is lived supraconsciously. But be very careful. What you see over there is not Georgette as you know her. It is not one person; it is not one radiation belonging to one being --it's true with me and it's true with her. This poses a kind of problem for your minds. You see an individual (which means non-divided) and the first thing you do is divide it from the surrounding. It's an example of reflection: you have the reverse image.
… But actually, as long as you are linked with this type of activity with us, you are linked to the field also -- wherever you are on earth, home included. it is a classic situation: being able to participate in the experience more harmoniously or more fully here and then going home and not being able to do that again. It happens all the time. There are several reasons: If you are in a group, the strength of the group comes in which makes the experience easier, but also the group as a whole is within the field, and all this works together. At home you are alone, a unit, no longer a group, the strength is gone, and you believe that the field is gone. As long as you are here the field exists for you, but when you are at home you believe that it is gone. Actually you remain in the field all the time (except if you quit, then we stop the field; if you take a holiday it doesn't stop, but quitting is serious).
……There is one point here that has to be understood: When you face a transition there is always, or nearly always, a zone of confusion -- meaning you go from one movement into another one, and the workings of the other one are different, they are usually more encompassing. Another image of confusion comes from old workings becoming suddenly inadequate because you deal with a surrounding that is more encompassing, and this creates a form of confusion. You might have some mastery in your mind then it wouldn't confuse you, you would simply recognize what is going on. If you haven't that mastery, confusion is common.
In the way you work, with the death exercise, for instance: When you practice death, your mind gets confused. You come to that point of confusion. This happens in actual death as well. Death is a liberation , actually, practically, but when you turn around from the body-linked awareness, at that moment you have a moment of confusion, and then you recognize that it is simply a transition. But if you look around you will notice that you begin to intuit by living a condition that is much more refined, and at that moment you don't really care about confusion. It is a happening, let it happen. There is no need to try to escape it. Confusion is a readjustment. If you refuse confusion, the tendency is to come back into the old functioning of the mind, but the interesting point is to acknowledge the confusion as one activity and then acknowledge the other one as well. It's just as valid, possibly more. If you live the other condition, the confusion will be gone after awhile. In the death exercise, the confusion zone is one of the aspects of what I call the gray veil. The gray veil has a dampening effect, but when you are in the veil sometimes you experience some sort of confusion because you don't see your reference points around. The important point for you is that when you do it there is a sense of otherness. Now the purpose of the exercise is to obtain the ability to live this otherness -- not to create confusion. Confusion has to be taken as a side effect. If it grows out of proportion, then it might be caused by something else and you have to look for it. The exercise itself, except for a short place of transition, does not create confusion. You can die without any confusion at all , you simply drop all that is known, and live the other condition.
In respect to transitions, not just this one but any transition, one of the signs is loss of directiveness. There is another sign: the loss of the ability to shape, And because you don't know how to shape in the transition you are confused. I judge that most confusions revolve around the shaping function rather than directiveness. Proof of this is those of you who have gone through confusion after confusion and are still here. This shows that directiveness was not lost. Your intent, which is a directiveness , is still alive. So the confusion is not the loss of your bearings, but the loss of your ability to shape.
Participant: What do you mean by the ability to shape?
Martin: It's the U function (in the book). Some people speak of the ability to discriminate. Discrimination and shaping are one and the same. As the shaping function goes ,, for instance, if you have a very fine intuition, it has no shape at first and then little by little it takes shape-- that's one aspect of it.
.....Now I will translate this technically, because you are supposed to know how to handle the things in the book. In the U region the heart is an A function. An A function is directive, not formative. This means that within the awareness of that region the A has no shape -- it's highly directive -- this is why you still sense some sort of radiation. But if you are true to the function, it doesn't have a shape. Now as far as color goes: a golden color is called a shape, it's not just a wave; if it's golden, it has taken a shape. There is a symbolic relation between the gold and the heart , but symbolic only because true heart has no color and no shape. Now it happens somehow that this appears for you spontaneously. Fine. Respect it. This is a situation that appears very often, you live spontaneously the actual situation and then your mind steps in and asks about this and that -- because it's not conforming to your mind. Mind is only a by-product of that heart.
Every time you live an active/acting condition that works, but not as you expect, respect it -- especially when it has no shape, no color, no nothing. Especially then. The mind speaks always in terms of thingness, unless you have retrained it, so it is expecting to find some thing, and suddenly you have a no-thing (but no-thing is not dead)! it's highly radiating, but beyond light (and if it's beyond light it doesn't generate a reflection, golden or otherwise). See how limber you have to be with your minds.
One point I didn't finish with: When you run into your difficulties (which means you mature, you outgrow situations), if you are lost, meaning you cannot shape , persist . means that you keep the directionality. If you maintain the directiveness through a transition, you land on the other side -- you make the transition. If you are afraid, you'll come back on the old side -- you won't make the transition. The problem is that when you are in the difficulty/transition, you don't like it -- why, I don't know, because apparently your soul has triggered the transition.
When you start living the other condition you don't care how hard it is for your person , you just don't care any more because it's not the point. Then things become actually more easy .
Participant: Is core activity the same as field activity?
Martin: No. Do you remember the picture of the hologram? Field stems from the greenhorn/person, core activity is what gives life ( ‡ ). Also the core activity is experienced, psychologically speaking, as what is really, deeply you. That you that you cannot define (because you try to define it in terms of field). The real, intimate you is different.
There is a type of activity that is very little known and that goes right through the core of you. As long as you are dualistic you will have a hard time understanding that. If I do something, you don't feel "Martin" blooming in you, it's you, yourself that is radiating. This kind of activity goes through the core of yourself -- your very identity blooms. I can't explain how it is done because in the hologram, for instance, it stems from the square above the greenhorn ‡ . Now that is another mode of life, another order -- meaning everything is completely different. We don't use the same references, the same words, the same whatever, things are not seen in the same way, it's utterly, completely, totally different.
Whether the mind understands this or not is completely irrelevant. This is a point that you have a hard time swallowing, because your mind doesn't believe it. There is nothing in your paradigm that allows you to follow that. If I have to speak, of course, I have to have my mind alive, but if I don't have to speak I don't care. There are things I do that my mind doesn't understand because it's just an average human mind, nothing more than that. There are other aspects that are trained, but even these trained aspects don't understand everything. We still act. It is not because you have a personality that you are limited to that. It's real , very real, we show it all the time.
…. As far as literature goes, techniques of visualization are pretty well known, and the methods are pretty popular. In the direction of our work you don't need them. When I see you speaking about visualization, your difficulty stems f from the f act that you use the function that is geared to create thoughts to create images, instead of using the function designed for creating images -- these are two different functions. So you have a hard time where others find it fairly easy, mainly because they don't try to visualize. Technical visualization is still something else. When you have a visual image that is a fantasy of your brain (the dome exercise for instance), it's a spontaneous fantasy that is symbolically linked to reality. In technical visualization you actually create something that is much more concrete. We have no use for this because it might easily side-track you. It's not that it is wrong, but we ask for the ability to live the situation more than anything else. If you visualize, you create the image, which does not mean you live it. When you live the heart radiating it shows in the whole field. If you created an image you would have a localized heart only.
So don't worry about the ability to visualize. They have techniques that are used to bring something forth, but it's not our way of working. I make no judgment about it, it's simply that we don't use it. In other disciplines they might use it. If you are gifted with it you might have a use for it, even in what we do, but as you seem to have difficulties, put your attention and your energy on living the condition directly rather than imagining. You simply participate in something that is going on. There is no effort or will-power involved; you are simply participating in an actual situation. The will is used to keep yourself quiet.
….When we speak of work and participation, we do it on a professional level. Now, seen from there, what I would call a success in an exercise is: When the group convenes and sits down, we would have immediately in this room a tremendous field of activity and the very sharp directiveness of the A, and this would fill the room before I come in. This would then set the type and level of activity we can do with you, also the type of function the group can perform in the world.
The matter is not whether you succeed with an exercise or not. There is an action to be done in the world and we need effectiveness. If field-A, for instance, is strong in you, imagine what we could do with a group of 20 or 30. It would be very strong. Then we could do a lot more. You are supposed to join in.
So you do an exercise until it works. I don't mean until you feel something -- this is not it. It's only a small beginning in the adjustment of consciousness. I do mean until it works. If you expect it from me, why not expect it from yourself.
For me the standard of effectiveness of any exercise is that when you come here the strength of it shows in the room. I agree that you have to begin somewhere and it takes some time, but as far as effectiveness is concerned, we mean professional effectiveness, not the gratifying of your senses.
If you come out heart in a room you change the atmosphere in the room and give it that kind of shade. If there is someone in the room you can make the shade (heart) play in that person (whether that person becomes conscious or not). This is real work.
I told you once, a long time ago: If you feel yourself as a great being, very special or whatever, I don't blame you -- my only recommendation is:
Live up to it.