Attention: a sacred energy coming into me. Be sensitive to it. Recognize again and again that it is there.
There is a subtle energy penetrating the body, moving through it, and I can perceive that because I am a human being.
With a very active attention, I can receive this energy. When this energy is there and I am sure of it, aware of it moment by moment, I begin to be.
When I’m here, it means there’s a silence.
A central attention appears, free of all different kinds of vibrations occurring.
There is “my” attention, secondary attention, that runs up the mountain, sees obstacles, does this or that. But when the central attention is there, we cross the threshold for a moment. This Attention is first.
The body, really, is second. It is not the body that is important but the atmosphere around it. The atmosphere becomes permeated with this finer vibration, in the stillness.
An axis begins to appear, of pure attention.
This Attention is always there. I go away from it. This central attention behind—join with it.
Perhaps it takes thirty minutes, perhaps five minutes, sometimes, perhaps five seconds. The whole of me becomes sensitive to this Intelligence, this central attention, listening for it. We were made for it.
Total sensitivity. Total receptivity.
Completely relaxed...
Something fine can fill me.
The stream of Attention is there. Be touched by it, link with it, something real in you. To be responsible for that. Not ideas, thoughts, techniques, not the head, but that touch. Being in the stream of Attention.
You don’t have to be a certain way to be related to this energy.
It is objective, absolutely objective, this Attention. Like the sun. It warms you no matter how you are, doesn’t care how you are.
Just let it be as it is and observe. If you keep looking, prefer that look upon you no matter what is taking place, something will calm down in you, and you will be able to become stable in this attention.
How to see, really see, myself as I am—hopeless, thinking, whatever. Stay a while, so force enters: it must, if I try to see.
When I am focused in seeing, this other can be as it is, and whatever comes and goes, I am free. Not taken by anything. If taken, it means I am concentrated on me, my functions, a thought, a feeling, a reaction. Free attention: an attention that is free of the vibrations on the surface.
Seeing allows this other energy to appear so I can be related to it. It changes everything. I don’t care what’s going on—thoughts, emotions. It can embrace everything.
As we become quieter, steadier in attention, can taste that, can draw nearer.
And then suddenly, I am living in awareness of this finer energy, and everything is okay. I can be. I can be related to others.
The work: to be related to this energy. To open directly. To work instantaneously—now. To have the intention to serve this Intelligence. To be a channel for that, more and more in life.
I begin to feel my responsibility. To be aligned with this energy brings consciousness, love, and will. My responsibility: to align.
Come to what is essential, this unknown, this mystery. To stay in concentration, not go far away from myself, but to let this flow of life penetrate me more deeply.
Come back to it—not to go a long period any day without that.
All my thoughts, feelings, ideas are nothing compared to this precious treasure, this quality of energy that is not mine but what I am.
Attention: a sacred energy coming into me. Be sensitive to it. Recognize again and again that it is there.
Freedom in a moment, freedom from fear and being anxious, free to be just as I am, giving all to what is number one in me. To be able to go deeply, instantaneously, into this central attention.
When younger, perhaps, had to try this and that, but now, when there is this central attention, an awareness of this energy, nothing else comes ahead of it, not ideas, not instructions.
Let it be; turn inward. To an unknown reality.
This energy I perceive when awake is the child of another higher energy that, perhaps, will come.
The body is quiet now, and it likes this quietness. There may be some busyness in the mind; let it be. I know better now where to retire from that more and more. Let a feeling arise for consciousness. Let this feeling arise...
Listen ... to life in this moment.
When very quiet inside—need an atmosphere of sensitivity—aware of breathing—become more interested in that, in this connection with something precious, so ego and vanity and judgment melt away.
I begin to be confident in this return to awareness of this energy—the source of peace and tranquility in me.
There is an axis in myself of this energy, this presence ... in the silence...
And I am aware of the direction of the inexhaustible dimension of Attention.
~ • ~
These excerpts have been chosen by Fran Shaw and are from her book, Notes on The Next Attention: Chandolin, 1993–2000, New York: Indications Press. Michel de Salzmann (1923-2001) led the worldwide network of Gurdjieff Institutes during the last decade of his life. The photograph is by Jan Clanton Collins and Sue Kagan. Additional information about the book can be found at www.thenextattention.com.
| Copyright © 2013 Gurdjieff Electronic Publishing Featured: Fall 2013 Issue, Vol. XII (1) Revision: November 1, 2013 |