CALISTHENICS MARCH 1982 HOW MUSIC WORKS – OPENING OF THE M --HE DOER –POSITIVE M FUNCTION
Today I want to explain something about music. First, you have to realize how music works. When the music plays you, for instance when you work with Chopin or Mozart as we proposed several months ago, your nature side becomes more sensitive in the field of that type of music. When, on the other hand, you use music as a language, you imprint something on the music that is dependent on the position you hold or on what is backing what you are doing.
When you play a record and let the music do the acting, the music plays you and the nature side of you is tuned to that music. When you use the music, as for example when we play it with you, everything is dependent on the position you hold. I say specifically " the position you hold", not the position you think you hold -- the outcome will show it.
So, you have to be very careful with what we do now. When you listen to music for fun, for relaxation, the music tends to draw the center of gravity of the body functions to the level of the music -- whether you want it to or not -- unless, of course, you are trained to go from negative to positive.
I simply want to make you attentive to two ways of playing music. The first is the usual way of listening: the music plays you, there is a modulation of sound, it works on you. The other aspect is when you use the music for a definite purpose.
There is nothing wrong with using music to tune your nature side. Mozart and Chopin are, for instance, above average, so they make you more refined. obviously , if you play music that reaches the subconscious, like jazz, blues, rock and things like that, you tune your nature side to low vibrations. You feel the strength, nature-wise, but the finer sensitiveness is gone.
Just to give you a small idea of the power of music: having let loose music like jazz, blues , rock etc. has brought along irresponsibility and crime -- the higher values are gone. So don't fool around with music. You already know what advertising or politicians can do with words, but you are used to words, you have much better control of the situation than with music. Be careful, life is full of traps.
When we play music, we play it differently every time. When you play at home, you listen in a given position, which you repeat and repeat and repeat --you create a conditioned reflex toward the music. So, the next time we play it here, the first thing that comes up is the conditioned reflex and you miss what is going on. Some people are more sensitive, let us say, above the level of the conditioned reflex and can possibly hold it in check and then tune in, but it does make your work more difficult. You make your life more complicated and you are not free to to be fully alive with what is going on at the moment, without any preconceived whatever. Make the kind of patterns that you create when you work alone as little related to the group action as possible, so that you can be fresh for all the changes going on. So, we suggest it would be easier for you if you would find other pieces of music by the same composers. There are lots of choices.
Incidentally, when you choose a piece of music, choose a piece with which you feel an affinity for doing some kind of work. Don't choose simply because it's Chopin -- there has to be a symbolic relation between the piece and what you do, and, also, one piece will work better on a given day than another one. If you can't establish a relation, play something else. You have to experiment and realize that it is something specific, related to what you want to do.
The first response is simply your response, spontaneous. But, unfortunately, you have a memory so there is a tendency to bring back the same response. If you observe this going on, watch out. Even the same type of feeling the second time should show different shades. Shades change constantly, they have to, otherwise you have an image, and a conditioned reflex is precisely that, an image. If you had no memory it would be a lot easier, but when you call yesterday back, it creates the conditioned reflex.
Participant: About rock music, if we are going to be where rock music is playing, what can we do?
Martin: You can simply react -- positively.
Now here we have a problem. You have to learn to make the difference between positive and negative, spirit and nature. It is vital. You can see that in the public in general, in the lower levels of spirituality that you see all around, the ability to make the difference has been lost. This will lead to a catastrophe one day.
If you go with the rock music, you will notice your finer sensitiveness is gone. You have instead a kind of nervous (nature) dynamism that you want to get stronger and stronger. As a test, if you are in a surrounding like that, go home and play Chopin or Mozart; you might be shocked at the difference -- the finer quality of life compared to the coarseness of the rock music. It does no good for your body either. You can kill a plant with rock music, not with Mozart, not with Chopin. You might be able to balance it, it is possible, but the level of sensitiveness will be much too low -- I mean lower than your natural standard.
So, if you have to be in a surrounding like that, you can always react. This can be learned. Some people do it spontaneously. But don't say that rock music is not harmful, it definitely is, unless you turn it around. It's a small mastery, but it is a kind of mastery. If you can be Christ-centered, you turn it around anyway, but Christ has to be real not an image. If you use an image to protect you from an evil influence, it's not sufficient.
We have to make these remarks because, traditionally in the group, no sooner do we introduce a music than we have a few people playing it at home again and again. I have one example in mind of a person playing one record all day long, just because it was fantastic the first time in the group. ;its the best way to destroy what has been set in motion.
In the book you learn that when spirit comes down to the M region, it doesn't need more sensitiveness, it needs more strength.. But it is spirit strength ,, not nature strength. Nature has to become more and more sensitive, with spirit it's the reverse.
You are used to us, so you may not exactly realize what is happening. We are introducing you into the M function. Now, if you want to be romantic and use the old language ,, it's a kind of collective initiation. You cannot do it by yourself, and you will notice that it feels entirely different from any effort you have made to activate the M region positively. For your mind, you can follow the picture in the Square Diagram in the book: it is an opening in the m region. Hologramically , it brings along the Doer, and that's a lot more than the opening of the M region -- It's both together. Now, both together bring along a bridging of the gap. This means you begin to become sensitive and aware, not only perceptively but also livance -wise, to being a lot bigger than your usual person. There is a lot more to you and this you begin to sense. This is the introduction going on. We started it at Christmas. It comes down now. Little by little you will realize that the work is real, and we cannot wait until your consciousness is ready. We have schedules, it has to be done now whether you are ready or not. So, you happen to be in it whether you are ready or not. For your psychological peace of mind, be prepared for a small reality: You can never be ready. To be ready is a vast illusion.
Yesterday I heard a quote from George Bernard Shaw that I found very good for the M aspect: "The one who can, does, the one who cannot teaches". Isn't that beautiful. It applies in what we do. When you teach it doesn't mean you can do it -- with the M function you have to be able to do it, because the Doer is behind. If someone lives something, it has to show around, otherwise that someone is not a Doer. Many times I have heard people say: "Oh he lives this or that quality", when what they see is the intention not the fact. I have a reason to always urge you to look around. If you see a quality in one person only, it can be a genuine quality or it can be a picture of that quality within the person. You have to learn to make the difference. In the beginning, be prepared not to be able to make the difference. However, you can know by your own experience that you can live an image very intensely.
Also, I must warn you, the music we played at Easter has undertones, overtones, whatever you want to call them, that touch the subconscious, so if you play that music you risk enhancing subconscious activity, unless you can hold a positive M position, which at the moment you cannot because you were just introduced to it. If you enhance the subconscious activity in yourself you lower the center of gravity instead of raising it.
Not everyone has the same sensitivity toward the subconscious, some people respond very little to it, so for them it's not that critical. For others, they respond a lot to it, and they might even have a type of sensitivity that is geared along the subconscious, for them it is risky. it's not so bad that you have to fear damage, but you have to fear going backward instead of forward. If you are in charge of groups, either within our groups or outside our groups, be careful, because if you trigger the subconscious activity and you don't know how to handle it, you are going to be in a mess, and you are responsible. For your own safety, I would say don't play it at home. Don't work with it until you begin to be a lot more at ease than you are now in the new aspect.
Participant: You chose this music to work with the M function; are there any classical composers who work with the same strength?
Martin: You could have beautiful pieces in Stravinsky, for instance, but with overtones of the U function. It would be preparing the way, but it is not sufficiently M. It's the M as it was seen before, but time goes on and some of you begin to realize that changes are going on.
Incidentally, it makes everything obsolete that we did before, and that includes your whole understanding of the situation. As an example, make a relation with what we just said about Stravinsky touching the M from the U -- this is what you just did also. When you touch the M from the M it's another story -- utterly different.
Participant: Is electronic music closer to an M function?
Martin: You cannot generalize. You can play Bach on electronic instruments and it can be beautiful -- it's still Bach -- it's simply the instrument that is different.
But it is true that some composers nowadays try to create a new type of music, new sounds, new compositions, but in what you hear there is some melodic construction that goes along the old way, while introducing sounds that have a very curious effect on you. For our purpose, we cannot use every piece of music that touches the subconscious, some pieces are fit and some are not. Some pieces are just too difficult to use positively, they would require more training so we cannot use them. It's a choice you have to make according to what you want to do. The introduction of electronic music opens new possibilities. The new possibilities are interesting, and not simply because the music is electronic.
Participant: I wanted to check something out. You said that the old way was relating to the M through the U and I remember a few sessions ago that you said it was very important to maintain a Christ-centered attitude throughout the work, and that in the beginning you would allow us to select whatever way we wanted to go about being Christ-centered. Prior to last week, I had used a pretty devotional, emotional way of maintaining a Christ-centeredness, and somehow there felt to be some kind of connection. Last week it was so totally beside the point that I have since been left with no sense of what to do. I'm wondering if it has to do with the direct M without any U.
Martin: You just gave a beautiful example of something that has become suddenly obsolete. If you happen to be centered in the new way, the old way won't function. You might have images come, you try them, but they don't work -- that's beautiful.
……We come from a past that is very strong, we are going over into a change. If you are not attentive, you are taken back into the past. In the spiritual teachings of that past you will find something very typical: all of them are self centered. You are supposed to reach a high level, that's your salvation. It's a benefit you're looking for. The mode called "having" is typically mask and mask only. We have to work in another mode. Why do you think that when we join in, as we will in a moment, that everything changes?
You might test it any time: In this new mode of action, we are here outside and we are inside you as well -- but there is no difference between inside and outside. If you are honest you will notice it. It can be very concrete. You might close your eyes and feel it inside, then, open your eyes and see it outside. It's the same. You are really facing a position in which your memory (the past) is of no help. It has become suddenly obsolete, because of the new mode.
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You will notice that your awareness of yourself is not the usual one. And no one is speaking of the subconscious.
I would suggest that when you work together you discover how obsolete it is to address another person's mask when you have the whole being there.
I have a suggestion for your meditation: Did it ever occur to you that Christ does not "see" you as you see yourself? We could extrapolate in human language and say he cannot be that limited. The image you have of yourself is a sensory one. The most popular one is that you are that body and that's it. Let it dawn in you that he sees you differently, very differently. We see you differently too. When we work with you we address you differently too, and you see the results. So, let it dawn in you that the image you have of yourself may be very seriously obsolete too. If you are Christ-centered, you cannot be a mask.
I'm going to ask someone to read something to you after we are gone. It is what I read when we first started calisthenics several years ago. It shows what is implied in calisthenics, I want you to realize two things; First , it is precisely a type of training fitted for what is coming now; and, second, I want you to realize how little you understood it and how much of it you forgot. I venture to say that you have completely lost track of what calisthenics was intended to be. But I also have to say that based on what is going on now it will make a lot more sense to you -- because it's a training of a Doer and not a training of a Knower. I hope it will make sense for you in this new light.
To conclude we are going to play another piece of music for what we call "structuring". If you are sensitive or aware of the continuum of structures (not just the person, more than that) you will notice that there is a change going on when we play, and you can sense it.
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