Calisthenics September 1982
- CONTINUITY OF THE WORK – REQUIREMENTS –“WE” –LIVANCE – ALL-ENCOMPASSING –CENTERS – LOVE – NO LIMITS TO SENSES, EMOTIONS –MIND – SOUL AWARENESS –“YOU ‘ OVERRULES –NO SELF IMPROVEMENT OR TRANSFORMATION – FREEDOM FROM CONSCIOUSNESS – TRANSPARENCY – LIVANCE – FINDING SOUL --
We are at a crossroads in which there is a choice between continuing to work as we have done until we are gone and then having the groups peter out and disappear, or some of you, or others that come along later, might train professionally to continue to do what we do.
I'd like to give you some inkling of what this entails. First of all,, we work with the "we", and instructions from there or beyond, but, if you are professional, the "we" has to be present at the base of what you do. It has to be evident, not a dream somewhere. Otherwise, how will you know what you are doing, except to follow your own inclination at the moment, or some plan you have figured out. This is what most people do. You do your own thing, maybe a very good thing, but you cannot say you continue what we do.
In order to continue you have to connect with the same base, and you cannot do this consciously. Consciousness can translate some of the points, yes, but the connection itself is made by functions that are not yet conscious. So you have to be able to work livance-wise and act according to livance rather than consciousness. As long as you are used to working only with consciousness it seems impossible. In reality it's a lot easier than it looks, provided you make your consciousness a tool that you are free to use or not -- you have to have that freedom. As long as you are caught in the personality, you end up trying to "figure out" how to be aware in a different way, when in reality you are always aware in a different way, it's simply that you deny it. If you don't believe it, challenge yourself: on the level of consciousness, have you ever been able to describe fully what you live? You never have. We have sometimes had to help you describe your own experience because you missed some points, and these are experiences you live every day and should be sufficiently evident because of repetition and steady presence.
But you have to be consistent with yourself, consistent with your own experience, and act according to it. If you have an experience, allow the fullness of that experience to be -- just be. Don't try to reduce it to some sentences in your head, or some feelings or sensations. There is always a lot more. If you allow the "lot more" to be as is, not as a picture of your mind, little by little you will know what we call livance. Livance is all-encompassing. Your experiences are all-encompassing. you simply have a mind that is so skilled that it is able to deny it.
So, one of the first steps is to stop denying it. The problem is not whether you have the faculty or not, whether you are gifted or not, the first point is to recognize how you function and what you deny yourself. Or, some people try to do the reverse; they feel that they are a lot more than what shows. If you feel being a lot more, act according to it, then there is no problem. The problem arises when you feel being a lot more but you behave in a reduced way, meaning you act with your small consciousness only. The small consciousness is not very skilled.
So, as I said, to go along the professional way requires a position that is utterly different. You have to be able to be in connection with the "we", meaning you are able to follow. You are able to realize what is playing every time we play together -- possibly even the modalities. You can even know the "why" it is done, the purpose, the kind of structure being built. And it's not the "why" of the mind -- you simply face evidences. This in itself is very, very difficult and it requires a lot from your life -- a lot more than everything you dream.
-Now you very often hear me say that it is very difficult. I say this because we notice there is a very popular trend in mankind to approach everything as a difficulty -- people call this "sport" -- you know, an obstacle that you set up which you then manage to master. So I say it's difficult, and it is, if you take the position of the usual limited consciousness or concrete awareness, then it is difficult because the concrete awareness is not fit. But if you decide to go the other way around, livance-wise, then it's fairly easy.
Easy or difficult, everything depends on the way you position yourself, on the kind of awareness you use, simply that. I don't know how long I will have to repeat this. It is not livance that is difficult, livance is already functioning, it functions all the time, it simply doesn't come through your usual awareness. What makes things difficult is just your position. Now if you manage to train to change position at will,and are able to do it (meaning you act on it positively), things become a lot simpler.
Something else, most people are used to working according to their desires: "I want to do that", "I want to be part of that" -- most of the time it's a one-way proposition. There is a major point that is usually overlooked: If you want to work with the "we", the "we" has to accept you. It's going to test you, and if you do not pass they won't accept you. I have to say this because from the usual position you always have yourself in mind and what you want.
You see this in the groups. You have small, separate groups; one group doesn't like the other, or some say that others practice some form of elitism. Now what does this mean? If you see some people practicing some form of elitism, it means that you would like to be part of it, and you have the feeling that you cannot, so you label the others "elite".
Now, incidentally, if you are a part of a real elite, your task is a lot more difficult than if you are just an ordinary person. If you want to be part of an elite, then you have to be ready to assume responsibilities. We practically never speak this way, but it's a kind of picture some of you have.
Also, when we speak of professionalism, there is a type of maturity you have to have: You are given a task and you have to do it, period. It is not "Well, I don't like it", or "It's too hard for me", or "It asks too much of me", or even "I like it"... It's not the point. The point is it has to be done, period. No further comment. one day you mature to that position, and you assume a task and do it -- whether it pleases you or not. And as in any task, you have happy days and difficult days. Sometimes it's pleasing. Sometimes it's really hard. But the point is it has to be done.
The "we" works for mankind as a whole and things have to be done for mankind. If you have abilities you assume your responsibility. I use the word "professional" to make a difference from the usual amateurish position in which you do what pleases you. Professionally you can't. You assume a responsibility and you do it, period.
It requires a very different focusing. As long as you are here for yourself (and we do tolerate it, among other things), we are here to help you also, but the primary purpose is for mankind (see Statement of Purpose). So, of course, we do respond to some of your needs, but the main response is always to soul or higher. We give very little response to what is lower than that.
It is a fully different proposition when you work until it works, because it has to work, for the sake of the work. Usually it doesn't work because you do it for yourself. The most efficient way to work is to give, and a gift is an act of Love. Try it, you will see. People who give of themselves always learn a lot, not because they started out to learn, but because they started out to give.
Remember the teaching of the hologram: When the Pilot dwells in the All-Encompassing Love, He is said to be the Knower. This is usually forgotten. The true knowledge, not the acquired one that follows patterns, but the live one that implies Love All-Encompassing. Not possessive love, but the exquisite Love of soul. I don't know what kind of qualification to give it, but the word "exquisite" does express the quality that is in soul Love.
There are simple propositions that are forgotten most of the time because the mind is pretty confused-, When the Pilot dwells in the All-Encompassing Condition, He is said to be the Seer. If you train yourself livance-wise on the sensory, emotional and mental levels to face the All-Encompassing Condition, you become a Seer. You really do. If you do the same with All-Encompassing Love, with all your functions, sensory, emotional and mental, and with the fullness of livance, livance-in-the-first-place (and I have to say sensory, emotional and mental because nothing is excluded, otherwise it wouldn't be All-Encompassing), then you know as a Knower knows. You really do. when the Pilot dwells in the All-Encompassing Beauty, He is said to be the Doer. If you dwell in the All-Encompassing Beauty, you manifest the Doer. You really do.
But there is one catch: The mind sees three separate propositions. So, you think that one day you will live in the All-Encompassing Condition to train the Seer aspect, another day in All-Encompassing Love to train the Knower aspect, and another day in All-Encompassing Beauty to train the Doer aspect. But, in All-Encompassing Love there is already the All-Encompassingness of the Seer: You see and know, and seeing and knowing are one. When you dwell in the All-Encompassi ng Beauty, the All-Encompassingness, Love and Beauty are one You see, know, and do as one, simultaneously. You cannot dwell in All-Encompassing Beauty unless you know All-Encompassing Love. I have to say this because of the tendency I notice in the minds to go from one subject to the other, always separated. It thinks: "The Doer is better than the two previous ones, so I will concentrate on All-Encompassing Beauty" -- then you start imagining Beauty that's just a picture of the mind. If you imagine Beauty, it cannot be All-Encompassing. Be consistent with yourself, what you imagine always has form. The faculty of imagination exists to give form, and, by definition, form cannot be All-Encompassing.
There is another point that we have observed. We have, for instance, in the healing group, practiced from the start to bring some life in the field around the patient by moving the field with the hands, my observation is that the work very quickly progresses to other forms of activity, and then, little by little, a kind of pattern forms. As soon as you have a pattern the effectiveness is gone. Now in this situation the effectiveness is not gone, it has actually progressed, but for me something has gone: the awareness of what the hand can do, which was the first training. The first step has to be practiced until the hand knows positively what it does and does it -- meaning it can act. In the beginning you take a certain time to start things moving, but when the hand is more trained you just touch with the same effect. Then, when the ability to bring Life through the hands is present, the hand can do it in many ways. The ability to move the field is only the first step. When you practice, whatever the exercise, it is important not to stop at the first step.
I'm also thinking, for instance, of those who trained with the centers A, U, M. They can center on a center, they can help someone to center to some degree, and they are able to see a little how the centers work and so on, but that's only a first step. It is the very first step in which the consciousness becomes acquainted with something very abstract called "centers of awareness". Along the professional line it's not sufficient. What I've described is the endeavor of someone training-for-their-own-sake-to-be-able-to .... Professionally, if we sound a note the whole room changes.
Imagine practicing with a given center in a group. Do you change something in the room? According to the note of that center? Is there a response in the field around everyone? In the flowers? In the crystal? In the very atmosphere of the room?
When you work it is worthwhile to work until it really works. But, whether it works or not cannot be judged by ones awareness only. You have to be able to check in front of you.
If you feel being effective you can test it. You can propose to the group that you'd like to test to see if it works, and then do it. That's the usual position, but it will go only so far -- you'll never come to the point where you affect everyone, because you do it for your own sake, it's not a gift.
You might have noticed, when you help someone in need, and you have the movement to help, it works surprisingly well. But when there is no need, it's surprisingly hard in comparison. In other words, when the situation asks for a definite note, you might be able to give it, but when it doesn't ask, you might be at a loss. In the groups it's not really asked for so you have to overcome a kind of inertia that exists -- meaning you have to sound with a power sufficiently great to overcome the existing inertia in the group. when there is a demand, let us say, the slope for the flow already exists. If there is no demand you have no slope.
Later on we will play some music and dwell in Love. Yesterday we did this and I was appalled to see how few know what Love is. You crave after Love, everyone does, but you also deny yourself Love.
You have ideas about Love. You might even think you have to evolve to a certain point in order to know Love, or that Love is hidden somewhere. What you don"t know is that it is available all the time. You can say "There is no Love in mankind of today, so how can I live Love?" Forget about your ideas on Love.
You know, in practically all the reports of those who were declared clinically dead and have come back there is one common point. They all reported being surrounded by Love. As soon as they were "on the otherside", there was tremendous Love. What does this mean? That you all live in Love.
You would know this if you would listen to your soul. The soul lives in Love, exquisite Love. it is simply that you have not yet realized that your ego image, what you call "yourself", is an image produced by the sensory, emotional, and mental functions, and that it does not include all the other activities.
There are nine centers of awareness. You use three, and accept that the image given by those three centers is the real you. One day you have to challenge that image. The functions you use are the least trained, and that means it's the most primitive image you can make. You are not that.
When we play music together, for instance, if you are honest with yourself, you have to admit that you live different from your own ego image, every time. And you still go back to the ego image. Now in your ego image there is no Love, there is an image of Love. "I want to love". How can you want to love? on soul level you do it anyway.
Learn to face reality. It's simply a position, an point of view that happens to be very popular on earth nowadays, and you are frustrated because the greater Love that you feel does not come through. You give it no chance. First by trying to reach it. How can you? It's already here. You have to deny it first in order to "reach" it and "have" it. The denying is a fiction because it's already here. It's an inadequacy of your awareness.
I wish you would mature so that you can face the situation and realize that your obstacle is simply the way you use your mind (and I also include emotions and sensory awareness. There is no limit to senses, no limit to emotions, no limit to mind.
Soul awareness is different from mind. Learn to respect it, instead of always translating it in terms of mind. The trouble comes because you want to reduce every experience to sensations, emotions, mind, or combinations of these. Why reduce your experience? Why not accept it as full as it is? You hear the words I speak. You "hear" something else too. Do you acknowledge it? Some do, but very often you forget because you are used to acknowledging forms rather than the Life behind. what I want to convey is that it's just a matter of the position you take. The tendency is to work always from the same position, and that position has to change.
If you come to the point where you discover that you don't ever express fully what you experience, that you cannot, then learn to respect that part which cannot be put into terms of sensory, emotional, or mental. Live it as it is and you will discover that the "as is" contains functions you have overlooked.
You can see that you see your personality in a certain way --this awareness coming from the sensory, emotional, and mental -- what about the same personality seen from other functions? What about the same situation seen from soul or higher? What about the same situation lived from livance level. Each time it's different. Each time you have other possibilities. Why limit yourself so ferociously.
And you say: "I don't like it, but I still do it". For those who prepare themselves to work professionally, this style of speech has to go. The action is not about you. There is a task to be done and we do it, period. When you work, the work is a gift of Love. There is no feedback, no self-reflexiveness. You do something and you do it, period -- no need for feedback for your little ego.
When I look around I see someone enjoying the feeling of herself loving. This is not Love, this is an image -of-oneself-being-able-to-love. I don't say it's right or wrong, I do say Love is something else.
On the level of consciousness you are geared to objects. "I (object) love you (object), and something happens in between that you cannot define but you call love. Take the object away and see what happens.
When the Pilot dwells in the All-Encompassing Love, He is said to be the Knower.
We are not speaking of objects.
Or, let us say, we want to practice Agape, togetherness. So we all come together to practice Agape. This does not mean that there is Love -- you practice an image of Agape that is most of the time without Love. Let there be Love first. if there is Love and you happen to come together there is togetherness naturally.
So how can you do it? It says in the Bible: "Thou shalt love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your thoughts, with all your might". Simple. Don't appreciate the words. Don@t make an image. Do it. Really do it. All out. Not timidly. It's an immediate action. It has no place in the mind for propositions like: "First I have to train to be ready". You just do it, period. This is what is required if we want groups that are able to continue when we are gone.
Now, as I said, not everyone is mature enough to work professionally, but you can still work, even if it is for yourself. Do it, instead of figuring out, and you can mature quite a bit in practicing this proposition. And when I say "Do it", you have to train yourself systematically. You start doing it again, and again, and again, until it works. Of course, you will fail a few times. You will have the mind interfering saying: "It doesn't work, I don't want to do it today" and so on...
You are not just a person, you can quite successfully overrule a mood and do it anyway. This is a point that is little known and little understood. The ability to overrule yourself exists in every field. Suppose you go hiking and you come back fully tired. So you say: "I'm exhausted, I can't move anymore". Now, suddenly the earth shakes and there are rocks coming down on you. A miracle happens. As soon as you see the rocks you start running. Now how come you can run? Well apparently, for some reason, you overruled your previous disposition. Of course, there has to be a good reason, but it shows that you can do it. And the more often you do it, the easier it becomes.
Working professionally requires a lot, as I said. It becomes the goal of your life and this is not a very good expression-because it's not only this life. You have to subject your whole personal life to that. Meaning, on the level of the personality, you can do things only so far as they don't interfere with what you have to do.
There is something written in Brain/Mind that I want to read to you. I read it because you've heard me say it quite a few times, but I want to show you I'm not the only one saying it.
"... a warning to those who would blithely embark on the path of personal transformation. One must be willing to abandon any idea, assumption, belief, value feeling, or relationship held as dear or true, and live at the edge of formlessness .... It is not my intention to frighten anyone, but rather to evoke a properly focused attitude. Unwillingness to suspend preconceived notions about what transformation should be, tends to limit the seeker to self-improvement".
He also gives an example from Ram Dass, who once observed that "while self-improvement may add wings to caterpillars it does not produce butterflies".
I found this a very beautiful image. It's amazing to see how many people think in terms of self-improvement. Sometimes they improve so much that they feel they have wings, but they haven't changed. The butterfly has a form that is utterly different, and more abstract than form, the "feel" of what is there is fully different. The surrounding of a butterfly is not the one of a caterpillar. Sometimes you forget that when you change the surrounding is no longer the same.
And for those who train professionally, don't stop your consciousness at the level of transformation. What is being done is neither improvement nor transformation. For those who only know improvement or transformation it might look that way, but the function is different. You might feel transforming, but seen from the other side it's different. The simple change of position or of point of view is not a transformation, it is not an improvement, but it does change everything.
Do you have questions?
Participant: Earlier you spoke of the test of the "we", what are indications of such a test going on.
Martin: The form of the test is infinitely variable. There is no set form. Everyone is different from the rest, so the need in the test is different, and the time might be different too. The combination of different people and different times also makes for different forms in the test. The form might be abstract or concrete, or any combination, it depends on what you have mastered.
In the past, the one going through an initiation had to be able to sacrifice everything, including his life, for the cause for which he worked. But you have to be able to assume responsibility. There is a task to be done and you do it, period. The usual consciousness does not understand. It's too much. But when you come to this point, your awareness is different. So what sounds like something absolutely terrible might, at the moment, be simple routine.
If you are aware of the "we", I can . assure you, consciousness is completely different. Your own consciousness is trained to acknowledge some part of this, but we actually do work with or without consciousness -- both. We have this freedom. When you learn to challenge your own consciousness, You'll be surprised, there is a freedom that you never dreamed existed.
So we are going to play some music. Be centered on infinite freedom during the music. Watch how the group feels now, what it looks like, and when it's over, observe again how it looks and feels. You will register a difference. Learn to respect that "feel", without the need to bring it down to the shape of a thought or a sentence in your head. Stay with the "feel" still alive.
(music)
The other day I was wondering how you would practice the Crystal and Integration Exercises in the book, if you were to work with them now that you have undergone some change. It might be as if you had never practiced these exercises -- they might take on another meaning.
Both of these exercises are ways of living rather than exercises. They are presented as exercises because this implies some practice to retrain your consciousness so that these aspects may come through. They have to be done. Until they work, until they show. Professionally it's mandatory that you be able to live both aspects.
We have to stress the need for transparency that you can learn to live with the Crystal Exercise, utter transparency until all shape is gone. Your mind doesn't know about transparency but with practice it will get used to it.
I have a proposition for a practice. If it is done properly it will help you to be a lot more aware livance-wise.
Usually livance is not understood. Livance pertains to what you live, not to the abstraction that consciousness makes from what you live. The fullness of livance is not dependent on any form of consciousness.
I propose that you do something very specific to become more aware of the deeper aspects of soul and beyond. The exercise is very definite and has to be done very honestly.
Most of you have come here for years. You have undergone different types of crisis and still you continue to come. Why? Ask yourself why -- why do you come? Find the best "why" you can and then compare the "why" to what you actually live.
Something will happen. You will find that the "why" does not cover what you actually live: it may cover a part but not the fullness of it.
In the exercise of the unfoldment of desires, you realize that when you have fulfilled a desire something is still not settled -- we have called it the underlying current or the need behind the desire - then you find something deeper behind the need and possibly you find soul.
In the exercise I propose it is the same. You arrive at the answer, the "why" you come here, and then you realize that it doesn't answer the need; so you look for a better "why". You really seek honestly, and it may take days or months, until you run out of whys and you realize that no why can answer what you live.
If you come to the point where you run out of whys, then you face another awareness which might be called soul awareness. (I am always reluctant to use the term "soul" because soul has been so conceptualized that it's kind of tricky, so I always say "soul or higher". Some people respond to soul and some people do not.)
Try to remember why you came the first time, and then notice how it has changed so that in the long run the first why might have been already outgrown. See how now, possibly, you have a better understanding and can come up with a better why, a very valid why in your view, then compare it to what you actually live. Does it cover the field of what you actually live?
But you really have to run out of whys. If you "know" that at some point you are going to face something that is beyond the why, the tendency will be to take a shortcut and attempt to face what is beyond right away. No. You have to experience the depletion of the whys -- meaning you face the situation where the mind is really inadequate. Really face it. It can be real if you do the exercise without shortcuts. I would even say you have to believe in your whys.
It's a practice to do as honestly and concretely as you can.
So now we are going to play music again. This time, be centered on the exquisite Love of soul. The mind does not know this kind of Love -- but somewhere you do. Give a chance to this "somewhere" to express.
(music)