Calisthenics February 26, 1980
SHIFT IN AWARENESS - LIVANCE - TURNING AROUND --MASTERY -- CONSCIOUS WITH OR WITHOUT BRAIN SUPPORT - MAN POSITIVE BEING -- AA CENTERING --AWAKENING OF THE ABDOMEN CENTERS -- MERIT OF DISCIPLINE -- CHRIST IMPULSE, AWAKENING OF THE DOER --
much more than you acknowledge. But it takes some training to learn or relearn to acknowledge the fullness of what is going on in you -- in and around -- that is in the livance. I very often see people clearly responding to something going on and their consciousness not acknowledging anything. Nothing. "Nothing happened" they say, and it's not true. So learn to be more open with your own awareness. What did you miss? What kind of position did you accept for what was going on? Ask these questions.
For instance: If you would train yourself systematically to observe the room, the group,when you come in, after you are here awhile,and then when the music has played, and then see the difference. Maybe the change does not take place according to the ideas you have, but training is not to acknowledge your ideas, the training is to acknowledge the change -- your own change whether you understand it or not. Understanding is not the point. The training requires some objectivity. And one of the fine points is to be able to acknowledge a change, even if you refuse it. You might be in an inner mood to refuse what does not come according to how you think it "should". or when you go through some experience you come out with what you think about the experience not the experience itself. There's a difference.
You learn to acknowledge the experience in spite of your consciousness, and this gives you the opportunity to train your awareness or your awaring abilities according to the experience rather than bias the experience according to your concepts. If you try to explain something, learn to do it according to the experience. Then you train to notice how much the expression you use is going to bias the experience -- or how little. Sometimes you find words, sometimes not. And then you know. It is very simple, but it has to be done.
I'd like to begin with something that seems to be inbred in the consciousness: the symbol of the sun. And I repeat that certain experiences have been proven to be so every time: In fantasy work, when we go to the sun (when it works) the person goes into the center of the sun and at that moment when asked how he feels the person might say he feels that huge sun all around. The person has the sun all around. Then I ask the person to turn around 180 degrees and face the way that he came; and ask him "what do you feel?" At this point the person spontaneously feels that "the radiation starts from me". "I am the sun". This means that as long as you have not turned around 180 degrees, you are not the sun. The sun aspect works when you turn around 180 degrees.
Now let's apply this to consciousness. The consciousness has to turn around 180 degrees to be "spirit". Sun is the symbol of "spirit". Practically speaking this means as long as you strive towards (the old movement) a higher consciousness, a higher condition, towards heaven, towards God, towards a Master, towards whatever... you are always working on a nature base. Now this is part of the picture, your nature side has to respond to "Very high" conditions. I say "very high" (in quotes) because one day you will -outgrow this. Still it is true. But you have an inverse symmetry of spirit coming down. For me it's striking to see so-called intelligent and logical people, knowing the theory of spirit coming down -- all the way down from the the center at the top of the head to the centers in the abdomen and they continue to strive upwards (nature side). Remember you have to turn around. If you have that upward movement, the reaching up, there is also the inverse movement coming down. Put this together with the statement I make all the time (which one day will not be a statement but a fact for you): man is a positive entity. He is at home in the movement coming down. He is not at home in the upward movement. The upward movement is the nature part of man. It is absolutely true that nature has to be refined and be able to respond higher and higher, but that's not sufficient in itself. You can become overly sensitive and destroy yourself. The coming down of spirit is not automatic. if you do the nature part and become overly sensitive, which happens sometimes, and at the same time you are still overly nature, you can destroy yourself. It's an imbalance.
When we speak of spirit being expressed, it comes out, flows out, and you have the question "how do I do it?", this is the nature side asking. You as a positive entity simply do it. It's the way of your being. But remember, in order to train your consciousness, learn to be aware of that movement of wanting to transform that body in order to... reach higher. Learn to drop that movement. The question for you is to come down into the so-called human personality which is usually the nature side, until you master it.
Mastering it is a tough proposal. We constantly see problems arising, dramas arising, because of the lack of understanding that mastery has to be a mastery. No less. And the first thing you meet (this is classical teaching) is the mastery of your emotional world. This has to be established. If it is not established there is no way to go further. You can go back but you can't go further.
Long ago I taught what I called at that time psychosynthesis. The essence of it was that if you have a reaction in you toward a situation,' that means you are not even with the situation -- something in you is not balanced. For instance, we spoke earlier of anger, in order to be angry you have to sense something in the other person that makes you angry, and you feel you are entitled to become angry and react very strongly. Until you realize that in that same situation another person might not be upset at all. So if you're upset it means that there is something in you that is out of balance. If you were in this instance perfectly balanced you would notice the condition but you would not react. You would deal with the situation but with an equal mood -- much more objective. So whenever you are upset in one way or another by something in front of you, a situation, or someone (which is a closer relationship), then check yourself: Why do I react? What prevents me from being even with the situation? Then act on it. As long as you react you can never be sure of what you sense of that situation, because you have projected part of you into it (your own weakness for instance). so you might attribute that weakness to someone else and objectively it might not be there. But then possibly it might. This you will know once you have set yourself on even ground.
Also, (this is in the book in the chapter on the unfolding of desires) you have to learn to go consciously beyond the desire
to see what is playing behind. To let yourself be taken by any drive on the level of desires is a dangerous play. You must, at all times,I repeat t all times, to be able to accept or drop a desire -- at any stage of fulfillment of the desire or the drive.
That is a mastery that is required if you really want to work.
You will notice that when you let yourself be driven by your desires,you are always self-centered. This the main reason why we have a hard time finding true participants -- I mean, true ones -- those who do participate. Most of the time there is the desire to participate (self-centered): I want to... it's the same movement we saw with the hands: I try to give to that hand... well, something I want to give. Or, I give it -- beautiful! The hand becomes warm -- it works! No. A gift is selfless, not self-centered.
We don't speak of these things too often and they tend to be forgotten. There is the old tendency: settle for too little. if you have a nice feeling -- fine. No, that's not sufficient. There has to be the ability to perform -- to be of use, so when an action is made, it is made (comes out). Your reason to be on earth, not the acquisitiveness of a new quality. You know perfectly well that you respond when we work together, too a much higher degree than you do when you are at home. That should at least make you aware that you are much more than your consciousness tells you. Bring it out. But you cannot bring it out with the reflected awareness that tries to be something you are already. There has to be a turning around. If you give something called love, all your plexus, and all your heart is still not really love. Man is a positive entity. That quality has to be in it. Warmth is not sufficient -- that's a plexus quality. most of the light of the heart is still a nature quality.
You have to come through. Now love is not dependent on the heart. There is love in the secret heart, as we said last time, and it's much more free and more beautiful -- as you may experience. So it can come out in spite of your plexus and in spite of your heart. And it can teach them. So the Beethoven of the first time (heart) and the Beethoven of the second time (integrated) is no longer the same.
The ability to act positively does not come from a strong desire to be positive. That you are already. It comes from reeducating/transpenetrating the personality (positively). That means it comes from you and not your consciousness. You have to learn to observe yourself throughout the day -- when I say observe I would nearly say: live yourself, but consciously and super consciously -- constantly, to see how things work. It is through daily work, daily training of awareness, accepting the daily presence of that awareness which is not the so-called consciousness, that you make a lot of discoveries. But it has to be done.
You will notice that there is a brain in your head. Well, this you already know. What you don't know in your consciousness is that you can be conscious with or without the brain support -- and know the difference. Usually you believe in consciousness that has only brain support. No. If you learn to live every day consciously, you will notice that there are lots of events going on -- conscious events -- signals if you want, that are beyond brain support. You learn t
heir quality. Then you have the brain supported consciousness and you have the unsupported signals. And then you learn to recognize them -- even within the brain -- and then you make the difference between the quality the brain gives and the quality without the brain. You won't learn it from a book, you won't learn it through my words, you will learn it through daily work.
Learning to acknowledge what you really live -- not what you think you live (that's absolutely secondary), or what you feel you live(that's secondary too). Don't settle for too little. It's a chronic disease you have to overcome. As soon as something is sensational you think "well, now, that's it". No it is not. A mastery is a mastery. It shows in the smallest everyday things.
So keep in mind, the situation is for you, as a positive being to transpenetrate the whole structure. Now realize that this is not done by transforming the physical body. It is done by transpenetrating it. So the emphasis is on you coming down, not on changing the body. Obviously the result is a changed body, yes. It is not begun by changing the body. Now you will notice that the tendency to change a situation instead of transpenetrating it, infusing it, is deeply rooted in the subconsciousness. And you will have to work day after day, possibly for years to change that pattern.
One of the simple ways to become aware of the positive aspect is to follow what is going on in these sessions. As I said, when you come in some people are more positive, some are more negative, some people that are usually positive are negative that day, or vice versa -- I mean it's pretty variable. Then we play the music and something happens. There is an activity around the heads, above the heads ... something is happening. Learn to acknowledge it. Not as something you have seen, but as something you live, and because you live it you see it too. If you acknowledge it, little by little it will become natural; you can come back to it (by come back I mean you show it again). it is that easy, provided you do it systematically. You notice it every time. Not as something you have seen, but as something you live. Until that quality installs itself -- transfuses the personality.only then you will begin to realize that we do work -- something is going on, steadily. You could be much more effective.But you will notice that most of the time there is the dominant note of your own brain concocting something: "I have to do this", "I have to do that". It would be so much simpler to live that quality again, as quickly as I just said. Whereas you try to bring forth a positive quality as if it were something special. You live it every time, every session. So it's not that special. But, of course, it's different from what you are used to. It's different from the training you receive in school and so on, but you cannot say that you don't know it, you cannot say that you haven't lived it. But let it come through the nature system of your consciousness. This has to be done. It's not the nature system that is acquiring spirituality -- that's a vast illusion. It's a play between two polarities. You cannot say the negative polarity becomes positive. What we do say is that the positive note becomes predominant because man is a positive entity. So you learn to deal with the negative polarity. But the change in consciousness is a real big change. It turns into a more positive mode and the positive mode is not thing-ness based.
For those who study with the book, one of the ways to enhance positive polarity is to become very aware of the activity of the aA center (top of the head), because your nature sensitiveness has not yet reached the head level. For some people a little bit, but most not. So if you awaken the livance of the A activity it will be nearly essentially positive as far as practical practice goes. So when it becomes active you can live in a desire and then live it again with the aA active and see the difference. If a desire is holding you, if this center is active and you take that position, it won't hold you any more. That can be done instantly. At that time you have a choice: you are free to fulfill the desire or the situation tells you you are not free. This is main directiveness (aA center), so you can give the direction you want. It may not be done right away, because you will notice, and in a way that's the fun of the game, that for some desires you might just plain not want to look at them from this position -- that means there is a part in you that just plain refuses. Perhaps you might realize that you are not fully right and you might not want to face it. That's common psychology and it's kind of fun. Most of the time it's fun when you look at it later on. But at the moment You have to face a harsh reality: there are things you might not accept -- mastery -- not yet. For Some people it's never that drastic, but then for others it is that drastic:. You just face it and then flatly refuse to face it. Okay so it comes later on. in the mean time you can work on other points- But remember, the feeling world called the astral world has to be modified -- profoundly modified. And to let yourself be driven by desires -- mainly sensory desires -- is the worst trap you can fall into. Now you might have always been in the trap -- then get out of it. In classical initiation, if this is not done, there is no initiation at all. Simply that. That means it's the end of your dreams; if it is not done don't dream of anything further. You will continue to toil around in the usual lifestyle. If you want to get out of the usual lifestyle and go ahead, something has to be done. This is the first step.
Now look in your lives to see how much mastery there is. We don't ask full mastery right away. There are some points you will master to some degree, some other points will be still very weak, and so on. But when you learn to train your personality the weakest point will take longer -- that's normal. But you still work on the personality, and sometimes you will notice that if you work on a certain point the effect covers a lot of other points. That means when we speak of working, let us say, on a certain type of desire, if this is somehow mastered pretty fully, that mastery will extend over a lot of other types. Because the point is not the kind of desire, the point is the mastery of that quality of function called the astral world. if you begin to establish a mastery on one point it will invade others. But something has to be done.
There is a psychological point that you absolutely have to remember: You never come to the end of a desire. Look calmly and objectively in your life. Has the fulfillment of a desire ever closed that line of desire? It won't. I'm afraid you will agree with me. It has not. That means you cannot accept from your mind or feelings that you have first to fulfill in order to get rid of later on. You have to realize that these are like patterns; you give up a certain pattern in favor of something else that is now more efficient in your life. A pattern is something more abstract than the fulfillment of a desire. And if you give up that pattern, some of the desires are going to fall away. You cannot expect to come to the fulfillment of them in order to go further. You have to drop them where they are. Simply that. Don't fool yourself. When you choose a pattern that is more encompassing you will have to drop some desires and ways of thinking and so on -- even if they are not fulfilled -- and they won't ever be. It's a misunderstanding of functions to think that the fulfillment of a desire is a fulfillment.
Martin: When I speak of discipline I mean: if you choose a new diet, you have to be able to really put your heart in it -- then the discipline is effective. If it's an imposed discipline it can lead to rebellion. So you have to make the difference. How much can you do? Just the doctor's advice is not sufficient. I mean your participation is implied. And if your participation is rebellious, it's no good.
Another Participant: Martin, I would like to be clear on what you're saying when you say that the change in the personality has to come as a result of a transpenetration not as a result of striving and working and trying to mold yourself, and shape yourself according to certain concepts. There are schools of training, for instance, there are a number of Buddhist lines, Zen is one, and there are schools of training involving the Alice Bailey books. my sense is that they could be approached both ways: both as a striving or as a necessary support for the transpenetration, but I'm not very clear on that.
Martin: Yes, that's the accepted conceptualization. We try as much as possible to train you to move according to experience not to concept - that means according to what you live -- and to bring it through. To answer your question, you have to realize that consciousness is a reflective function, that means it reflects. You reflect on a subject, you reflect everything. The usual concrete consciousness, brain supported, is reflective. So you learn that when you strive toward a higher goal, let us say, that is a reflection of something coming down. It's a mirror image of an action going on. That means that if this has caught your attention, you learn to recognize the other movement and then you join in, but the other movement has an awareness that is not a reflected awareness -- it's a direct awareness -- it's different. Now we hint about that all the time. This (the movement coming down) is you; the reflection is an image. Thus following the reflection you are bound to function according to images. The other way around not. Those schools say that movement (striving toward) is supportive. Now we work with an awareness that is utterly, completely different and that does not use any of those images. So we try to convey something and the images have their use -- there has to be a response from the nature side and so. When you really work you don't work with the response, you simply act. Now that's hard to translate into usual mental terms. The action has an awareness of its own -- it all occurs at the same time. There is a reference. For instance; when you deal with certain problems you have to create a new dimension, as with.space and time which have been put together as the space-time continuum, which is the fourth dimension. By using it they have discovered that the yesterday-today-tomorrow sequence disappears. This they have discovered mathematically. We deal with it all the time, but we also deal with minds that cannot grasp the disappearance of yesterday-today-tomorrow.
When we function we see you as a whole -- now, here. Then we are confronted with a mind that makes a yesterday, a today, and a tomorrow. It's like a mathematician playing with the fourth dimension and a high school kid playing with only three; and they try to work together and it doesn't work. This is why I tell you to follow what you experience. Acknowledge it. Don't make images about it. Take it as is and little by little you will become aware -- but aware livance-wise instead of conceptualizing (sequence-wise). Livance is full in itself. It contains sequences but is not a sequence.
Participant: I guess I still have the question: What would the purpose of training in yoga or working,with any of the trainings involved with the Alice Bailey books or Zen training or something like that. Given what we are endeavoring to do, is there a purpose for doing anything like that?
Martin: If we don't conceptualize about the merits, I would simply say that the merit of those disciplines is that which you give them. it is a way you choose in order to express ... whatever. Because you can take, let us say Theosophy, which has been around for about a century. There are millions of Theosophists. How many of those millions have really accomplished something. Very few. Now speak of the merit of the discipline for people who don't discipline themselves. They read books -- libraries of books -- and then they are happy. The first step is to move -- but they didn't move. oh a few did, yes -- very few. Now You have Alice Bailey's books; you have a lot of instruction on what to do -- how many have read those books? How many have accomplished something? A few certainly -- but too few. Always the same thing: we settle for too little. You have a sensational book, you accept the sensation of the sensational, but you don't act. We are coming into a new age -- things are different. For us the main point of all these disciplines is that they are surrounded by a conceptualization belonging to the beginning of the century --or worse. Then take advanced physics and mathematics -- it's a different world. It's a world those people cannot even imagine. That's the opening toward the new age; we have to take that into account. There are,new possibilities that did not exist before.
But then, you cannot say that these are completely outdated. Because there are such things as outdated people too. They might need it; they might have an affinity with that kind of training or teaching. It might be their way of doing it; so let them do it. I was thinking, for instance, about epistemics. I still regret that so few know about epistemics, because it still is, for me, one of the understandable techniques that help you manage your personality. If you ask if what we do helps -- Sure it helps, provided you can handle it. This means that you are proficient in it, then it helps. But if you ask if it helps practically speaking, I see very little -- well I do see some changes in your personalities, I have to accept that -- but if you run into a crisis, have you a tool to handle it? I, I know we have. But you, do you know what you have. You might not know it. I have in mind one person who made the biggest mistake possible in her life after working two or three years -- I don't remember how long. A very simple thing --but the ability to act when the moment arrived was not there. What can you do? So sometimes something that is less sophisticated and not asking for higher awareness is more to the point for such a person than higher awareness when it's not effective. So if you ask if those disciplines help, I say it depends on each individual. If what you do can be a way of expression -- good. If it's simply a kind of physical fitness (like yoga) but it is not your expression, then its just physical fitness that's all. If you feel you need it, good; if you don't feel you need it you can do something else. It's not because it has a name coming from the Far East that it is that beautiful. if you read Djwharl Khul he will tell you that yoga is way outdated. These are techniques used... I don't remember how many thousands or millions of years back. But still you have yogis proving that health-wise it can be applied and can be effective.
...everyday constantly, you sense more than what your mind tells. And constantly you do things without the methodology. Possibly because you did a few things very often you think about the methodology. When you learn to act as a Doer you don't need any methodology, because methodology of man is awfully poor. You establish a method and no sooner than you have established one you realize that you can do better. You, yourself, will discover it and others will too. That means that no sooner than you have published it it is outdated. Those who publish know this. Those who don't publish ought to know it too. No sooner than you have decided that something is so it is already outdated.
The function of a Doer is to do. There is a big step between Knower and Doer -- much bigger than most of you realize. You have to realize that you have been educated to think that you have to know in order to do, but we come into a new time -- the Christ Impulse opens a new time, and this comes out now.
One day you might receive a shock -- I mean a real one -- when you suddenly encompass a greater whole and your realize just how small the human mind is (including the brighter minds). It's just shocking, and one day you'll receive the shock.
You come back to your own mind pretending to use it to solve everything when you know time after time that you determine a few things (in a small area) but most things are not determined by that. And this you face constantly: you want to do something in a certain way and it doesn't work -- something interferes and it doesn't work as you planned. But possibly you have never realized that if you determine small events, this happens within an area of much bigger events. Now the dynamics of these events interfere constantly in your life, and you haven't yet acknowledged it. You still continue with step by step procedures that do not take into account the situation as it is in the present-day events.Let us say you are going to work with someone and you decide what you will do -- comes the day, it might be completely upset. Because you didn't take into account the situation of that day. Now the situation of that day is utterly new. You couldn't plan for it. You could plan according to a reference you had until the day of planning, but when the new day comes, the situation is new. Now what do you do with all your systems in front of the new situation. You have to readjust everything if you want to be efficient. Now possibly you face situations that are only slightly different, so the adjustment is minor. Now some days you meet situations that are widely different. If we deal with people the situation is always changing. Sometimes you have a sensitive spot and a lot more can come through. Sometimes it's the reverse. If you plan ahead for those situations you might be surprised. Your planning is not up to the point; learn to face the situation as is.
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....but there is one point that very seldom comes through: the Christ impulse. What is it, and what difference does it make?
Now if you ask what to do, I can't tell you because you don't know what the Christ Impulse is. You hear the words that's all. Once you know, it's very clear. As long as you don't know -- what can I say. I don't want to make our group something special. There are very good people working around. But we are involved in an action not a teaching. Every time we approach something that looks like a teaching we have much more success because you expect a teaching. This is incidental and is always directed so that you can become proficient in working. What we are looking for is people able to join into the work. (See Statement of Purpose Logoic Action). By this we mean you joining an action that is linked to your reason-for being-on Earth. Nothing in what we do is linked to acquisitiveness. You'll get lost that way. Anyone here wanting to acquire a higher quality gets lost after a while. This is a common experience. The action is directed toward you bringing out some specific action. This cannot be put in words. This can only be done.
......You know, spiritual realities are somewhat bigger than what the mind encompasses. Obviously. And as time has passed there have been major actions that have gone on. And perhaps some have realized intuitively that the coming of the Christ was something very big; they haven't the mind to confront it, so it has become the action of a person called Jesus, seen only as a person. Then you have occultists going further and realizing that behind Jesus was something else that was much bigger, life for instance with Steiner. Alice Bailey speaks about it in a different way. So you might realize suddenly that something happened in the history of mankind that brought a given impulse. Steiner speaks of the Christ Impulse, for instance. When you read about it, it's one thing; it's another story to join into it -- completely different story. It's the awakening of the Doer. It's a completely different situation, and that can be very puzzling for the mind. Suddenly you realize you can do a lot more than you thought you could, and you can do things even if your mind does not understand. That means you are not limited to your mind at all. You have to face it. And now we come to the time where this is possible. There are things possible now that were not possible prior to this.
.. In the case I speak of, you are conscious, or rather, as a matter of semantics,you are aware but not conscious. You have to read about consciousness in the book -- the working together of two polarities. But the positive polarity has its own type of awareness, and the negative has its own as well.When you do as a Doer you are aware that you do it, everything that is needed is included in the package. But you don't need to be conscious, depending upon what you are doing, sometimes you need it and sometimes you don't. If I deal with the subtler aspects of you, let us say the field aspect, I need a field awareness to make it concrete in the field. I don't need a consciousness. I need a consciousness to make it concrete in your consciousness.
... . Because you just do what has to be done, and that's it. No reward, no nothing. Not even karma. There is no karma when you simply act. Because you don't expect a return. Karma is linked to a kind of return. So when you hope you are good, it implies a kind of return. This is why we say sometimes you will lose that hope - not for less, for more. something more efficient. The hope is an action of the reflective consciousness. Now you have to look to the other side where you have the direct action. And in a direct action you don't have to have a hope.....
-- remember, field awareness. We have spoken of the field a lot, and you acknowledge the field from the head. Now learn to do the reverse -- turn around 180 degrees -- learn from the field to acknowledge the head and train it.