CALISTHENICS OCTOBER 1984
RELAXING CENTRES – WILL – “AAAH”—LOVING GOD – DOWN AND AWAY – SPIRIT STRENGTH – NO GOODIES – AWARENESS IN KIDS – SPIRIT – STONGER BODY FINER – PATANJALI – ANOTHER ORDER OF MAGNITUDE – DYNAMICS/QUALITIES – SHARING THE TEMPLE – A FUNCTION—
Relaxing Centres…
..... Let's say you come from the head down, physically speaking, rather than from the plexus up. Be aware of the tensions in the forehead, in the side of the head, in the eyes, in the back of the head, behind the ears, under the ears, the side of the neck ... It's amazing how much tension there is. Come down to the shoulders and relax the back -- where you have a tendency to tense your head and shoulders forward -- and finally you come around to the front and the area of the mU center and relax that. Or instead of going below the shoulders (where you might pick up the plexus again), you might want to come around the side of neck, then to the tensions in the throat, an'" so on to the area of the mU -enter. That might be easier than coming around the back. In this way you bring another tonality.
Professionally speaking, the ability to sound the mU center and leave out whatever comes from elsewhere is absolutely needed, but, in the beginning, when it is not established, you might want to try what I've suggested.
But I have to remind you, because I'm afraid I have not been heard, in all that we do there is always a higher order of reality and you have to reckon with that -- all the time. In working with relaxing the centers, there is the implication of the real function behind. But you don't look for the real function, you relax until the real function shows. Relaxing means taking an active part, without effort, without tension, in releasing all the veils, due to tensions, that you have accumulated in front of the action of a center. And it has to be thorough.
Incidentally, I remember I told you years ago that you could work with this when you lie down in your bed after a tiring day. You lie down and you say "aaah ..." Do it and enjoy it thoroughly, then you will begin to realize a little bit about what relaxation is.
There is the explicit in the "aaah," the weight is gone from that body, etc., but the "aaah" is not just muscular, it's all-encompassing. That "aaah" contains all the livance related to what relaxation is -- a meaningful "aaah" that is, not a dead "aaah." When you are really tired, physically tired, for instance, you can really enjoy lying down flat (sitting in an armchair is not sufficient), so really enjoy it. When you really enjoy it, you have to realize that the next day you also have to really enjoy it, but it has to be different, deeper. And the next day again; Different. Deeper. Then you have a live action going on, not a static one. If you have the memory of the previous day and you are satisfied with duplicating the memory, this is not what we mean. Each day is different. If you have the same degree of tiredness, the "aaah" will still have a different connotation every time. It's bound to be because you don't live in the same time, even if you are in the same space.
..... Usually I recommend that if something doesn't work, don't insist, go along another route. Some people can do it, but this is not the point I want to make. The point I want to make is if an experience is not possible in a given atmosphere, change the atmosphere until it becomes possible. This is a point that is very little understood because it's not in the books. You have to provide the atmosphere, the field, or the surrounding, in which the experience is possible.
I'll take something I was going to speak of anyway tonight: Loving God. When Loving God becomes real, the down-and-away is not even done, it happens by itself. You just laugh. Down-and-away is not a difficult task, the field is completely different. You can do things you cannot do otherwise. You give the power to the procedure, but the power is really in you, the comedian, acting. The procedure is the way of acting. Speaking image-wise, when you have the movement down-and-away, that movement is an expression of what is happening inside of your body and down-and-away, so it symbolically represents what is going on. Now, if you make the movement and you don't live as you intend to live, nothing happens. You might feel the movement inside the body, but you don't live it.
Now you will notice that when you come from the head down to the thorax it's fairly easy. A few people might have some difficultly at the throat, or at the heart, but everyone has it with the plexus. Liberating the plexus is very hard because the plexus has a double aspect: spirit and nature. When you refer to the plexus it is usually the nature aspect. With the positive or spirit aspect you have no difficulty, but with the negative or nature aspect you reach a resonance belonging to the subconscious, and you have difficulty because your power over the subconscious is very weak. Incidentally, this shows that you have to be very aware of what you do and be very honest with yourself. To imagine down-and-away is easy, you just go down and you are completely empty, but when you begin to really feel it, you are bound to find obstructions. Some subside after some minutes of effort and some stubbornly won't. Usually in this case you are hitting a nature aspect that is related to the functions of the M zone, then you have problems. Go back to the book. In the square diagram you learn that in order to activate the M zone, or clear the M zone, you need spirit strength -- not just spirit but spirit strength. The lower you go, the stronger it has to be. I have heard people say that the M zone is active, and I have to ask: what polarity? You have to learn to recognize the polarity at work, otherwise you happily goof. So I'll give you a clue. You can measure the strength of the spirit by the power of the presence of the A. If the A is inactive, forget the pretense of your mind that you can handle the M zone. It's a dream.
You always have to find ways to check what you do. It's hard work but it's mandatory. You cannot skip it. You have to follow the rules. And when you train, train thoroughly until the result is there. You will notice, for instance, that if there is a problem with the plexus, if you insist and insist and insist, because of a greater goal, it will open. It cannot resist eternally. This is one of the ways. The other way is simply Loving God, and then it's a lot easier -- not Loving God according to the mind but Loving God really. It's not according to an image. It's not according to the mind. It's not according to whatever consciousness abstracts. It's not an abstraction, it's a wholeness.
So you have all these choices of ways. You have to remember, there are all-the ways that give you goodies and these always attract -- material goodies, spiritual goodies. For instance, what do you study in the book? All the pages up to the end? The quickest way is in the poem. All the rest is just to make you happy.
It's just about the same trick that Patanjali plays when he says if you do this and that you obtain this and that, but a true yogi ... Or there is St. John of the Cross' image of the golden middle way, the climbing of Mt. Carmel. on the left of the path you have all the material goodies, on the right you have the spiritual goodies, but the true mystic takes the middle path. According to St. John of the Cross' description, you climb, and there is nothing. You climb, and again there is nothing. You finally reach the top and there is nothing. Very few have the courage to take this way. Check for yourself.
Take The Statement of Purpose. It relates to the work to be done, and it says it is expected that you don't come for your own benefit. Now take the practical situation: You all want something. I don't say there is nothing behind, there usually is, something much more serious, but this is not what is recognized, it's not yet the dominant note. The dominant note is still on the goodies side. You want to reach something, you want to ... It's always a reaching or wanting to have. You might find a way to express this in a more subtle way, but it's still goodies. You might want to join the work. You might want to serve Christ -- but serving Christ is not a wanting. You might want to be the sun -- so you try to reach the sun. All your training, all the effort you make is directed at obtaining something higher. Please realize. I'm not criticizing, it's a factual situation, simply that. You live in a surrounding that is built in this way, with personas that are not yet perfected (as you can see in the square diagram), so you make the best use of what you have. All exercises are meant to bring out comedian activity, not to reach comedian. You have to turn around.
We speak of discipline. Discipline means: when you take the old route and you are suddenly aware of it, you turn around. Yes, there are things you can do consciously, but the subconscious does not respond. If you want the subconscious to respond you have to repeat and repeat and repeat. This means every day work. Every day. Then it starts sinking into the subconscious and the subconscious becomes more sensitive to what is happening. Its very important, it has to be done. Some people forget that the persona has to be built and retrained.
..... Oh incidentally, could you repeat what you told me the other day about your daughter.
Participant: one night we were talking about God. She was saying that the soul was like God because it was part of God. She hasn't had any formal religious training, so I was curious and I asked her: "What does God look like?" She said He's clear. I said: "What does that mean?" She thought for a moment and then she said: "He's clear." That was it. She's six years old.
Martin: I take advantage of the opportunity to remind those who have children to educate, that you find that finer awareness is present in many children, many more than people expect, but it cannot come out because they don't have surroundings that are favorable for them. You asked, so she had an opportunity to express what she felt. Traditionally speaking, that faculty begins to disappear somewhere between seven and nine years old, unless you are careful to maintain it.
Participant: Afterwards my husband and I decided we didn't want her to have any formal religious training, because we were afraid she would lose her own natural sense of God. If she had concepts piled on top ...
Martin: This is precisely what happens. If you try to give her religious teaching, she will have to surrender what she feels. When you live something deeper and you have to reduce it to what is said, you are bound to lose your faculty. This is what happens to children.
Imagine that child I told you about once who saw the big angel by the Christmas tree. Now that was a real experience for the child, those angels do exist. Here was something genuine and spontaneous that corresponded to a reality that grown-ups don't know, and because grown-ups don't know they say the child is making a fantasy. It's for you to check to see if the child is making a fantasy or not, but in this instance there is no fantasy -- simply fact. It's not very sophisticated, but the child can already make a difference between the concept of God and God a clear reality. "He is clear." So let it be that.
Look at yourself and your concept of God. The clarity you give to God is light, which is a concept. It's always a brilliant light, forgetting completely light cannot be seen, only its reflection. With this you can measure what you actually do -- your man-made image of God.
When you practice Loving God it's the same situation. In your consciousness love God -- that's not Love, that's imagination. You are centered on yourself and you love God because it's favorable to love God. It's for your benefit -- until one day it becomes real and you can't help it. Read the poem. You really can't help it, it's in your bones. It's not a figure of speech, it's real, the bones do respond.
..... Speaking of increasing of the frequency, there seems to be an aspect that is not understood and therefore awfully neglected. In the square diagram you have two types of motions: spirit coming down stronger and stronger and the body becoming finer and finer and finer. If you want persona or body support for super conscious (true head) activity, you have to allow the body to respond to very fine vibrations -- very fast vibrations or very short waves. If you don't do that, you don't have a true response in the head, you have the usual head response which belongs to the heart. And all the functions of the consciousness are involved, not just one part.
Also, I use the word "allow" the body to bring out a finer rate of vibration. Usually we speak in terms of teaching the body to vibrate in a higher way, but this is because you misunderstand nature -- true nature is able to do it, it's consciousness that stands in the way.
The vrittis in the chitta (mind substance) just work and work and work -- it's just awful. You might not realize it, but we are aware (for me it's practically visual) of those tiny wind devils in the mind. It's awfully tiring. This has to be brought under control by what we call relaxing or down-and-away, if you want.
.... At night when you go to bed, the moment you lie flat make "aaah...... Enjoy it. Don't think about it, enjoy it. You will realize that when you enjoy it there is a kind of atmosphere, deal with that atmosphere, not the items your mind tries to abstract. You use a mind power or image of relaxation in what you do, not the fact of relaxation. There is a misunderstanding of the mind that is not related to the situation. The mind believes it does it, but it does not.
I want you to be aware that between the idea of relaxation and the fact of relaxation there is a step. If you are caught up with the mind because the mind does not function correctly in relation to the body, then learn to start with the body, without a higher goal, and then go further. You could start with something simple. Tense your hand and then relax it. Tense. Relax. Slower. Slower. Slower. Do that with the other parts of your body as well and you will feel the difference. Then you will have a kind of reference for what relaxation is.
..... You have a first feeling/condition or baseline of being fully relaxed. That baseline has to move every day. One of the pitfalls when you work with relaxing is that people are happy with the first baseline. You have to be aware it's only the first one. once you have gone several baselines deeper, you will begin to realize that it is extraordinarily interesting: the kinds of tension you create in the body, the subtle tensions that are there for no reason at all, the automatic reflexes. When you read, for instance, the tendency is to move toward the subject, this happens all over the body. There are places you suddenly realize are tense for no reason -- it's simply a subconscious reflex.
Participant: So what you are calling relaxation is almost a continuous creative act and not one condition that once you've achieved it you have it forever.
Martin: Very exactly. I like your expression "continuous creative act." That's it. It's a very good expression because it is creative, and the sense of creativeness takes away the pitfall of relaxation understood as passivity. It's a creative act, and that creative act goes deeper and deeper and deeper, until you finally begin to realize that you face the reality of what is called psychosomatics. Then you realize how you can bring sickness to the body simply because of how your mind works. The subconscious responds by bringing tensions and if these tensions are sufficiently big they impair the proper functions, the blood circulation in that region of the body, and then you have sickness.
....... Your fear is simply a movement in the mind, nothing more. Calm the mind and it's gone. If you are not looking for goodies there is no reason for fear. Fear comes simply because you are used to being attached to something and that includes your sense of identity. So you have to have the courage to overcome that. But then we spoke of Loving God. The day that Love becomes real all that is gone. Gone. So it's not "in a way," it's definitely so.
..... It's one point that I wanted to make this evening. I am concerned that when you work among yourselves and we are not here, the work goes much too slowly in relation to what is actually happening. And, if we want to be technical, it's along the line of goodies and not the main point.
I would like to suggest something. At the beginning of each book of aphorisms of Patanjali, the aphorisms are given without comment. This is the important part, because the comments take the implicit away and guide you into an explicit way of understanding them, and you have to stay with the implicit. I had the idea today that you could start studying them deeply, really. When I say "study" I mean make the relation between your position and what is said. Make immediate relation with your experiential condition, not to your system of thinking. There are aspects you will recognize. That is the way I would like you to study them. It's not long to read, but each step has to be related to, and that's the point. Then you would become psychologists in the true sense of the word. It might be above the heads of some of you, but it's very concise and to the point.
.... Whatever he did from the personal level did not work, but then it started breaking through from the other side, and that had the sense of "real." Now here we have the whole situation.
..... Patanjali has a big advantage, he conveys the rules as they are. He does not cater to personas. This is the situation -- these and these goals have to be met -- and the rules are on a much broader scale than what you are used to. One of my reasons for proposing it is to make your limited minds aware of the broader scope.
You know I'm always amazed, because you are sensitive to reality -- you respond to it, and that means it plays in you. So why do you wait? You have those persons exercising. Personal exercising does not bring the result, because, as I've said before, you use the exercise in order to reach a higher condition. As Jack just said, trying to doesn't work. It's something spontaneous, something deeply ingrained. You will notice, if you follow, that everything in the body responds to it, not just the mind or the emotions. The body responds, the physical cells respond. It's this you have to bring out.
Now you begin to have the sense that something is really happening, and somehow you participate, but that participation has an awfully hard time coming out because the limbering of the persona is not done in the proper way. You can use the same exercise to reach up or to bring out.
As an example I'll use the simple desire exercise. There are two points: How many of you are able to make the difference between the desire and the need behind the desire, with the awareness that the need covers and array of desires related to the need, and able to make the clear difference between how the desire looks, how it emanates and what the need is? How many of you can do it?
(A few hands are raised)
My, you have to improve your abilities. Those who lifted their hands -- it's more serious than that. You show a mind awareness of the difference, which is already something, but the meaning of need/desire implies the comedian behind. It means the comedian can act on the need to influence the desire. This you didn't show.
Okay, we come further, and we face a void. How many of you can hear the voice of the void?
(Fewer hands are raised)
You can?
Participant: Well, once in a while I have the experience of what you describe.
Martin: No, you have a mind awareness of it. The mind does not hear the void -- ever. The mind can hear voices from this side of the void, but not from the other side.
I told you we deal with another order of magnitude and you have still not digested that. It's much broader than it looks at first sight. It means the comedian comes through and is able to come out. It's serious stuff, and part of the uneasiness you have is that your higher response is working but your persona has never been trained to come to a technical efficiency. Efficiency -- until the limbering of the persona allows you to do whatever is intended so that you can do a certain job.
For years we have worked, for instance, on the centers. There is not one of you able to sound a center. You don't sound a center with your persona, the comedian does it. It's implied in the action. You know what is true and you are dissatisfied.
What is going much too slow is the habit of following old patterns: "Let's train this." "Let's train that." In what surrounding? To what purpose? This part is forgotten. You express something and your words are received instead of your surrounding, instead of what you live, and then you are unhappy. Now, the unhappiness comes to a kind of crisis point, and I am very happy for that. The law of symmetry shows that when it becomes unbearable, what comes down is close. The most disagreeable point is when it is completely close. So a step has to be taken. We provide the surrounding, but we cannot take the step for you. It's a serious situation. If you take;the step you will begin to realize why you are here, and that step is not about the persona's image of goodies. And ... the step can be made in spite of everything that is going on.
If you study Patanjali, he says that deception comes from centering on the object, right perception comes from centering on being. In your endeavor to work, when we are not here, you are centered on objects -- then you become uneasy. Now I welcome this because it shows that there is an awareness just behind that begins to work properly, and this is why you begin to be more and more uneasy. The trouble is that you have a routine of formulas to use, and this has to go.
Don't work with ideas.
Learn to work with dynamics -- qualities rather than objects.
Very often I am embarrassed because I am asked what you should do and so on, but we've said it all already, so we have to repeat. Trouble is things are not done until there is a result.
Jesus said the first commandment and the greatest is to Love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength or might. In other words, completely, totally, utterly. I would ask with all your body, all the cells, all the functions.
I gave you a protocol, if it were applied truly, there would be no problem. As Jack expressed, with all his efforts from the persona out, he didn't succeed. But he was right, last week something happened. Suddenly it became real. Now if it became real, and you could feel the trueness of it, this is the note that has to come out. It's not something you discuss, it's self-evident.
How many of you registered something special last week?
(Many hands are raised)
It's going to continue, it's getting worse, but we need your help. If you stay the way you have worked up to now there will be a gap so monumental that we will disconnect..
We start with Loving God.
Self-reflexiveness, wanting- to, ideas, reaching towards etc. may appear, we forget them, and continue with Loving God. If it is impossible we continue still, Loving God through all three steps:
Loving God
Sharing the Temple
“O”
These are very precise situations, not just figures of speech.
There is one very important point: When it's impossible you continue still -- if you can do that it means the comedian begins to break through, because the comedian has the ability to continue when the persona thinks its impossible. Then it becomes possible.
Sharing the Temple is something that is happening now, and your minds are not ready. Loving God is a concept that is easy, Sharing the Temple is not a concept, it's a very definite action, but it implies the comedian. Observe that truthfully, and, every time you are at a loss, do that with an awareness linked to a higher order or magnitude, a much higher order. It's not of the usual scope of the persona. You cannot face God or Christ within the usual order of magnitude, it simply doesn't work. You face imagination, you face whatever, but it just doesn't work. This is why your endeavor through exercising doesn't work. The situation is not so, and you begin to face the reality, the fact, that the situation is not so. You believed this was the way to do it because this is how teachings have been translated and so on, to attract the persona to goodies, but you face a situation in which you are no longer happy with goodies, you want the actual fact. It's going to happen, but you have to help.
Seriously, make a collective effort to come out and start working for what you really need -- for what is real. When you hit what is real you know it. You don't need an explanation of what real is. It's the end of fantasy. You might lose it for a time, because you are used to fantasy, but eventually you will come back again until you hold that position. So you have to take some responsibility, collectively and with your self. Now let's just practice a little time: Loving God. For those who have an inkling of the meaning: Sharing the Temple. Take the movement that is genuine and natural for you, don't take Sharing the Temple because it's the next step from Loving God. You cannot Share the Temple in any way if Loving God is not absolutely true. Absolutely true. You have a clue for that. You come to the point that it's so intense you simply can't help it. There is nothing to do, it just is so. This has to be established first and then comes Sharing the Temple.
(music)
Okay, this creates a certain atmosphere that you can recognize time after time. This is the base from which all action is done. That means when you work together in small groups, in big groups, or alone, this is the first aspect that has to be present in order to create a climate of “Kr” Kreation.
Now we spoke about your unease. This level we just played, you feel it inside, you know it, and the contrast between this and how you deal with your outer practices begins to be so obvious that you are quite ill-at-ease. You are disturbed just because of that. It's not that far away. It's here in the first place. It's far away when you try to reach it, but, practically speaking, you live it already, and you are unhappy with the old situation. When you are caught between two impossible situations, you go ahead anyway. Fear or no fear. If you have fear: Love God. And do it for God, not for you. Fear comes only if you do it for you.
Now, presence of spirit implies the presence of the A function. You know about the A center, but you know a little less about the A function--- with no object.
We will play Pagannini, and there is something specific to do. Stay within that Loving God, and live the A function as an expression of God. Not the A center, the center will respond, but as a side effect or as a symptom of. So you continue Loving God. The polarization that is going to happen is simply an aspect of God. Let us say, God acting.
(music)
Now we are going to play the last piece, the flute from Zamfir, carry over the same atmosphere and see if you can keep it standing. Loving God and that A quality with the expression of Zamfir.
But before that I have forgotten to mention the practice of facing Christ or "Other" or God -- finer, finer, finer. Relaxed, relaxed, relaxed. It's simply another version of the protocol. The technical implications are enormous, so don't underestimate the practice. If you did that and only that, you would certainly see big differences coming.
Simply do it really. Everything has to be true.
So let's go with the Zamfir.
(music)