The Primal Scream

In a culture whose educational goals are directed toward the development of the mind or, more precisely, the technological use of the mind, this is not a surprising diagnosis. Suppression of feeling is obviously a price we pay for viewing rationality apart from the energies of the whole man. But Janov does not “console” himself with the rationalization that we live in an age of neurosis . . .” He suggests that “there is something beyond improved functioning in socially acceptable ways, something beyond symptomatic relief . . . there is a state of being quite different from that which we have conceived . . .”

Janov believes that neurosis begins when a child is not loved and accepted for what he is. Not being able to be himself, not being able to feel his own real needs without a painful sense of contradiction, he shuts himself off from his feelings and begins to “want” those things which he believes will bring his parents’ love. But the denied needs do not disappear. The pressure generated by their lack of fulfillment accumulates in his organism, upsetling its natural balance, and causing behavior which becomes increasingly “symbolic.” This symbolic behavior eventually shields the neurotic from his own inner pain, and supports him in his “hope” that his substitute wants and needs will somehow be satisfied. He does not realize that his struggle for satisfaction is essentially historical, that it derives its energy from the pains of the past. As a result, the neurotic’s life is full of the tensions that arise from his constantly defending himself against himself. As Janov points out, “people go crazy to keep from feeling their truth.”

Janov believes that the entire process of neurosis and its cure can be understood in relation to energy transformations. “We know by the law of conservation of energy that energy cannot be destroyed; it can only be transformed. I view the original Primal Feelings as essentially neuro-chemical energy which is transformed into kinetic or mechanical energy impelling constant physical motion or internal pressure. The aim of Primal Therapy is to change this transformed energy back into its original state, so that there will no longer be an inner force pushing the person toward compulsive action.”

How is this change accomplished? It is here that Janov makes his most radical break with traditional forms of therapy. He claims that it is only by a “forceful upheaval” of the entire defensive system that the neurotic can become real. For unless this system is completely destroyed it wiil continue to “grind up and absorb” whatever truth may reach it, whether through explanations, analysis, insights or any other means. An obvious truth, yet perhaps ineffectual in itself because it is the “unreal system” which hears it and pretends to agree. The neurotic, therefore, cannot cure himself.

According to Janov, since pain caused the neurotic split in the first place, it is only through intentionally experiencing this denied pain that the kinetic energy of neurosis can be changed back to its neuro-chemical form—thereby depriving the defensive system of its source of energy, and freeing a man from his slavery to the past. To facilitate this process Janov believes that the therapist must help the patient lose control, the defensive control which keeps the real self suppressed. The therapist attempts to keep the patient from dissipating his energy (draining off his pain) through “symbolic behavior.” In the midst of a buildup of internal pressure the patient is encouraged lo “sink into” any early situation that evokes strong feelings and to experience that situation in its entirety. If there is any resistance to this in the form of talking “about” the past, instead of living it, the patient is encouraged to call out to his mother or father (or others who might be important in this situation) as though he were speaking directly to them, and to try to express what he really feels.

Sometimes the therapist has to work directly with the patient’s breathing. “Because neurotic breathing is designed to clamp down against the pain, forcing the Primal patient to breathe deeply often helps lift the lid of repression. The result is the emission of explosive force, something which has been diffused throughout his body, in the form of high blood pressure, elevated temperature, shaky hands, or whatever . . .”

When the Primal Scream occurs, it “is at once a scream from the pain and a liberating event where the person’s defense system is dramatically opened up. It results from the pressure of holding ihe real self back, possibly for decades.” Janov makes it clear, however, that it is not the scream which is curative, but the pain the patient experiences as a result of being “wide open to his truth.”

By the end of Primal Therapy, which consists of an intensive three-week period, along with three months or more of group therapy, the patient has undergone many such experiences through which he is brought into contact with his own real feelings. The post-Primal patient, says Janov, is a “new kind of human being.” He is able to live fully in the present, without fear, without moods, without depressions, and without unnecessary tension.

Whether or not we accept this claim, Janov’s work with neurosis makes clearer the importance of the feelings for human growth to take place. “The activities which will make basic changes in individuals must flow from their feelings. The flow must occur from the inside out.” Clearly, this is an important idea for a culture which believes that meaningful human change can be manipulated from without, lacking the active participation of man’s own will. The latest experiments in altering behavior through the use of electrodes implanted in the brain represents this position in extreme. Janov recognizes that it is the whole of a man’s being which is at stake, not only his behavior. The neurotic must be willing to undergo a new dimension of pain in the movement from unreality to reality, with full acceptance of what he discovers in himself.

It is just here that Janov’s work with neurosis seems to be changing direction. In his latest book, The Anatomy of Menial Illness, he reports that many of his patients have relived their birth, that is, they have experienced “birth Primals.” Since all life processes follow natural rhythms, it is important, as Janov states, for a child to be born in his own rhythm. To have a difficult birth, to enter the world already out of rhythm with himself, establishes in the child unconscious attitudes towards life, a matrix of experience that reverberates through the child’s whole being.

Janov has equipped his office with various devices to simulate the birth process, thereby producing sensations which can reawaken the buried memory circuits that plague the neurotic. He also suggests the possibility of a “Primal Machine for refractory cases”; he has found that primals can be induced by means of a strobe light pulsating at specific frequencies.

Whatever the importance of Janov’s latest discoveries, the stress he places on them seems to diminish the call to wholeness that one feels in The Primal Scream. One cannot help but be moved by this call. But the acceptance of the whole of oneself is an enormous undertaking for any man, neurotic or normal. Surely all of us have a scream waiting beneath the facade of our “reality”—the universal scream of mortality and incomprehension, of which the sorrows of parental conditioning are but one expression. But whom can we trust to bring this scream forward?

I wrote this review of The Primal Scream with a lot of help from the Material for Thought writing team, back in the late 1970s or early 80s. Reading it again recently, it became clear to me that a lot of the material in this book is as relevant today as it was when it was first written.

To fully understand what this review meant to me, personally, it’s helpful to realize that, at least initially, I really didn’t want to write it. In looking for books to review for Material for Thought I had stumbled across the book in a bookstore, briefly paged through it, and decided it wasn’t worthy. I told no one.

Some weeks later, Lord John Pentland, who had been put in charge of the Gurdjieff Work in America by Gurdjieff himself shortly before his death, came to San Francisco, came into the writing team on our Sunday workday (it was his team), handed me The Primal Scream, and asked me to review it. I then told him I didn’t think it was a worthy book for us, but he insisted.

When I first began the review I had no idea what I was getting into. The way we worked on the team every Sunday was to work on writing the review and then read what we had written to the others on the team. There was usually a lot of feedback, not always easy to take but always given to one another in a respectful way, which generally helped each of us broaden our perspective on what we had written. When Lord Pentland came to town, we would each read our reviews out loud in his presence and he would make whatever comments he felt it necessary to make.

When I first read the review in Lord Pentland’s presence, he made it clear that I had to begin again. He said that I had not really faced my feelings in the review. And so it went, month after month. I would write and work with the team, he would come to town, I would read the review in his presence, and he would tell me that I hadn’t really faced my own feelings, and I would have to begin again. I felt like Milarepa (without the magical or spiritual powers) being told by Marpa to continually tear down, because of some imperfection in his work, the stone structure that Marpa had told him to build on a high rocky ridge. In my case, it had nothing to do with the writing itself, but rather with my inability to face my real feelings about this book and, more importantly, about myself. Each time Lord Pentland told me to begin again, he would give me a new thought or question to consider, which was an enormous help.

After about a year of beginning again and again, and actually beginning to learn to confront my real feelings, which was quite obviously no easy task for me at that time of my life, Lord Pentland came to San Francisco, listened to me read my review, and then remained silent for at least five minutes. Finally, he simply nodded his head yes and said, “Good. We’ll begin the next issue of Material for Thought with Dennis’ review.” Tears came into my eyes, as they do right now in recalling this moment, and I realized how important reading and reviewing this book was for me in relation to feeling my truth. How did Lord Pentland know? It doesn’t matter! He knew. He is no longer on this planet, but he was and still is my teacher.

According to the great spiritual pathfinder G. I. Gurdjieff, the first step toward experiencing the truth is to see that most of the time I’m not really interested in it. It is to see that I live my life in sleep, and that to fulfill my destiny as a “three-brained being” on this earth I must wake up. The inner and outer work needed to awaken requires the help of a real teacher, as well as of a community of other serious seekers trying to work together on behalf of the truth.

Lord John Pentland

One such outstanding teacher was Lord John Pentland. Until his death in 1984, Lord Pentland, who served as the president of the Gurdjieff Foundation of New York and founded the Gurdjieff Foundation of California, directed the work activities of hundreds of people throughout the United States who came to the Gurdjieff Work “in search of truth.” Exchanges Within is the record of some of the many questions that arose in relation to this search, as well as of Lord Pentland’s “answers.” The book shows his remarkable ability to translate Gurdjieff’s teachings into the exact language needed to help each seeker experience herself or himself as a living question in the face of the unknown. It is through this experience that awakening can begin.

What is the work that supports awakening? Exchanges Within probes this question on every page. Through responses such as the following one, Lord Pentland shows us that awakening requires the help not only of real ideas, but also of a deep work with attention, sensation, and energy: “The movement of consciousness is magic. Life is magic, would you agree? … You can’t understand life, it is the miraculous. … The point is, this magic is going on now and in order to experience it I have to have a very open muscle structure, an attention that contains all my energy … “

Readers who are willing to turn toward their own deepest questions, especially the question “Who am I?”, will find valuable guidance for their search in these unparalleled, deep-reaching exchanges.

Copyright 1997 by Dennis Lewis. This brief review was originally published on my website and in the Gurdjieff International Review.

Dennis Lewis

We all have a self-image. We all have a subjective identity fashioned over the years from the material of thought, feeling, sensation, posture, and movement. The overall image we have of ourselves, however, seldom bears any resemblance either to how others see us or to our inborn potential. As a result, most of us live stunted, illusory lives expressing only a small part of who we really are and can be.

Our self-image begins its formation during our first days on earth as a subtle interaction between our genetic inheritance and our familial, educational, social, and cultural conditioning and experiences. Depending on the kind and quality of experiences we have, this image begins to take on certain definite physical, emotional, and mental characteristics, powerfully shaping the way we see and relate to the world. Unfortunately, since a large part of this process takes place in childhood without our awareness, we tend to take our self-image for granted, as though it were given us by nature.

As we grow older, our self-image begins to crystallize and often not only cuts us off from our own inner potentials but also creates a deepening division between ourselves and others. Fortunately, however, cracks often appear in this psycho-physical structure through the shocks of our life. Difficult confrontations with our friends, families, and the everyday situations of life call our self-image–and its attendant attitudes–into question. At those moments, if we allow ourselves to experience the partiality of this image without recoiling, we may sense, at least briefly, that we are living in only a tiny part of ourselves. And, if the shock is strong enough, we may actually find ourselves in the face of the unknown: the mystery of our own being.

It is this experience of confronting the unknown, of being in question, that opens the door to awakening. If we observe ourselves honestly when we are in question, we may get a glimpse into new areas and dimensions of ourselves, as well as potentials that we never knew existed. We will also see just how powerful our self-image, our sense of “I am this” or I am that,” really is.

Most of us are unconscious slaves to our self-image. Our energies are constantly being mobilized to defend the identity that we present to ourselves and the world. This process of self-defense is an exhausting one, ultimately dulling our mind, feelings, and body, and making us less sensitive to the world in and around us.

Awakening requires that we find ways to put our self-image into question and start experiencing the truth about who and what we are. For the problem is not that we have a self-image, but that it is so partial and incomplete. At best, it expresses almost nothing of our real potential. At worst, it is fabricated almost entirely out of illusions and falsehoods.

There are many ways to become more conscious of our self-image and loosen its tyranny over us. Whatever experiments we try, however, it is important to remember that this image has been many years in the making, and that a direct assault on it will bring little benefit. However incomplete or false it may be, we depend on it for day-to-day living.

Experimenting with Our Body Image

An excellent first step in becoming more conscious of our self-image is the on-going exploration of our “body image,” of our body as we “sense” it to be. Our body image has to do with the way we experience the overall surface of our body, our skin, as well as our skeletal joints. What many of us don’t realize is that the skin is the largest organ system in the body, constituting about 16 to 18 percent of our total body weight and providing more than one-half million sensory fibers to the spinal cord. Most of us, however, have a very incomplete or faulty “kinesthetic awareness” of our bodily surface and joints. And this faulty awareness–with its many gaps, distortions, and areas of vagueness–not only impedes the overall functioning of our organism, but deprives us of many rich impressions of our physical being. When we use our body well, however, expanding our awareness to simultaneously include as many parts of ourselves as we can, our kinesthetic sense becomes more balanced and our entire organism begins functioning as a more finely tuned instrument of perception and action.

As an experiment, sit or lie down quietly for about 15 minutes after you’ve read this paragraph and simply be sensitive to your body as a whole. See if you can sense the skin everywhere on your body. If you are attentive to yourself during this effort you will undoubtedly note that there are huge gaps in your overall sensation. Check, for example, to see if you can sense your toes, behind your knees, your back, the back of your neck, your head, your nose, your eyes, your ears, and so on. If you try this experiment at various times of the day, you’ll begin to see just how weak and incomplete your kinesthetic awareness is. You’ll also begin to sense recurring bodily tensions and distortions related to various mental and emotional states, which will give you insights into your overall self-image. But even more important, as you allow impressions of what you are experiencing to enter your awareness from parts of your body that you are seldom in touch with you may feel yourself being energized in a new way, as though these impressions actually “feed” your organism at a very deep level.

As I wrote in my book Free Your Breath, Free Your Life, “Our self-image is also inevitably bound up with the particular ways we attempt to present ourselves to the world. The clothes we wear, the hair styles we choose, the furniture in our homes, the cars we drive and so on are all direct or indirect manifestations of this image, as advertising and public relations professionals know so well (it’s how they make their living). What is not so well known is that it is possible to gain access to our inner world by experimenting with these outer manifestations.”

For example, the next time you go shopping for clothes begin by ignoring the clothes you like and trying on some clothes that you don’t like. Then look at yourself closely in the mirror, being attentive to your inner reactions to what you see. Be honest about your reactions, about what you see and feel. If you’re really adventurous, purchase some clothes that you don’t like and wear them to an important social occasion (be sure to buy them from a store that will let you to return them later). You can also experiment in this way with your hair, makeup, and so on.

What these experiments show so clearly is that we are all “stuck” in a particular way of presenting ourselves not only to others, but more importantly to ourselves. We are used to seeing ourselves in a certain way, and if we alter that way even briefly our perceptual expectations are thrown into temporary disarray, thus allowing the various attitudes associated with and even underlying our self-image to become more visible. By altering our presentation it is thus possible to catch a glimpse of some of the many hidden springs of our behavior. We will also begin to see just how pervasive our self-image really is.

Experimenting with Being Right & Wrong

There is almost nothing that happens in our ordinary lives where our self-image is not called into play. When we are at work, for example, and we are criticized or praised, we all have habitual responses. If our self-image is that of a person who is usually “right” about everything, we will seldom take criticism as an opportunity to learn something new about ourselves. Instead, the criticism will make us defensive, shrinking our awareness of the moment and calling forth our suit of psycho-physical armor. If on the contrary, our image of ourselves is that of someone who is usually wrong about everything, we will again learn nothing. For again our consciousness will shrink and false attitudes of incompetence and humility will substitute for real perception.

Unfortunately, though we may agree with this analysis now, we quickly forget about it when we are in the thick of things. An excellent experiment, therefore, is to decide in advance to take one of these situations and try to respond to it in a new way. For example, if you are the type of person who is always right, allow yourself to be wrong the next time that you are criticized. And when your mind starts defending itself, don’t give in to it. Instead, simply observe your thoughts, feelings, and sensations as they arise and see if it is possible to look honestly at yourself and your motivations. If, on the contrary, your image is that of someone who is usually wrong, perhaps you should defend yourself and explain how in fact this time you are right, mustering every argument that you can imagine. Whether you’re right or wrong doesn’t matter for the purposes of this experiment. What does matter is that the repeated effort to struggle with the habitual manifestations of your self-image will help you become more conscious of it and learn more about its power over your life.

Experimenting with Winning & Losing

This kind of experimentation can be brought into many aspects of your daily life. Next time you’re playing chess, tennis, bridge, or some other sport or game with someone you habitually beat, or that you seldom beat but are about to now, allow yourself to lose without the other person knowing that you are doing it intentionally. This won’t be easy, but it will be revealing. Or if you are someone who always has to have the last word in an argument or discussion, give it up in a particular instance and watch what happens in your thoughts, feelings, and body. If, on the other hand, you’re the kind of person who seldom ventures forth with the last word, take a chance and make sure the conversation ends with what you would really like to say.

Though often difficult to actually try (in the heat of the moment we usually “forget” all about them), these experiments can be very enjoyable, since they loosen up our attitudes toward ourselves and create subtle situations in which our family, friends, colleagues, and others can relate to us in new, freer ways. Their real point, however, is not to change our self-image, but rather to help us observe it in action, to begin to include it in the larger field of our consciousness, and thus weaken its hold on us. It is important, therefore, that the experiments be undertaken in a gentle, light way and not be discussed with those around us. Otherwise we will end up having to explain and defend ourselves instead of simply experimenting. If we carry out these experiments regularly in this way they will not only help us become more conscious of what is going on in us and others, but they will also help us feel the urgency of the living question that lies at the heart of awakening: “Who am I?”.

Exploring Our Many “I’s”

What I have suggested above is really just the beginning of a possible exploration of ourselves. In our daily encounters with others we are given many opportunities to see our self-image in action, to see the precise way that it shapes these encounters. We are also given numerous opportunities to see that beneath this overall image each of us has of herself or himself, which is often referred to as “ego,” resides a plethora of personalities or sub-personalities, what G.I. Gurdjieff called “many I’s.” At one moment we can be the loving or disapproving mother or father; at another, the shrewd or inept business person; at another, the admirer or angry critic. We can be and are many things: seekers, followers, leaders, skeptics, optimists, victims, lovers, teachers, students, and so on–with all the attributes that define these different sub-personalities–though each of us generally manifests a habitual and limited repertoire of these “I’s.” Most of these “I’s,” however, are subsumed under our general self-image, which tries to control ourselves and our world and protect us from harm, and are seldom clearly seen or heard for exactly what they are. We can be “the angry critic,” for example, without really understanding the actual motivations of our anger and criticism and the defining roles they play in our lives. Yes, we mostly believe we have “good reasons” for our anger and criticism, but we seldom see how this sub-personality returns again and again, shaping our relationships with ourselves and others in often undesireable ways.

If we really wish to explore our self-image more deeply and open to the truth of our lives, we must learn how to let these “I’s,” these sub-personalities, speak to us honestly about themselves and their roles in our lives in the larger context of wholeness, a wholeness the includes all the sides of ourselves. Instead of identifying the whole of ourselves with each specific voice as it speaks (or rejecting that voice because it doesn’t fit in with our self-image), we must learn how to embrace all these “I’s” and their voices and, as they arise, welcome them into the spacious consciousness that is who we are at the deepest level. Only in this way can we discover the true freedom and joy that are our birthright.

Copyright 2008-2009 by Dennis Lewis. This is a revised and expanded version of an essay first published in the August 2008 issue of The Journal of Harmonious Awakening.

Sunset in an Unknown Land

My teacher was a man who traveled a great deal, both inside and out. Nonetheless, his statement aroused some big questions in me, questions that I hadn’t asked before. Other than traveling for the most obvious reasons–such as to relocate or for business or to see friends–why travel to other cities and countries at all? What was I looking for? What did I hope to experience or gain? Was I hoping to open my heart and mind to how others lived? Was I hoping to learn more about my own conditioning and limitations by traveling to other places? Would traveling inspire me? Would it make me happier, as it seemed to promise? I knew, for some people at least, that it was true, as Mark Twain said, that “travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness.” But I also sensed some truth in what Blaise Pascal wrote in Pensées: “The sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.” Perhaps both these insights can be summed up in Henry Miller’s statement that “One’s destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.”

Since those early days I’ve traveled to many places (though not as many as I would like), even to Russia where I met some extraordinary people in extraordinary condtions, and the question still remains, why travel at all, especially since most of my trips were only short ones, often no more than a week or two–certainly not enough time to truly understand how people in other countries perceive and live their lives.

When I inadvertently picked up The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton, I was immediately struck not just by the book’s originality, but also by the way it resonated with some of my own experiences and questions. I had always found that the reality of travel, when I was actually present to it, had little to do with my expectations of what it would bring. And I’ve always marveled at how trips are often reduced by all of us to a few “critical moments” and “photographic highlights” that, as de Botton says, “lend to life a vividness and a coherence that it may lack in the distracting woolliness of the present.” For most of us, the destination, and perhaps a few incidents on the way, are what we most remember; the process of traveling itself is seldom remembered or discussed. We represent our travels to ourselves and others very much like the travel books we read. Here is one of the ways the author describes it:

“A travel book may tell us, for example, that the narrator journeyed through the afternoon to reach the hill town of X and after a night in its medieval monastery awoke to a misty dawn. But we never simply ‘journey through an afternoon’. We sit in a train. Lunch digests awkwardly within us. The seat cloth is grey. We look out the window at a field. We look back inside. A drum of anxieties revolves in our consciousness. We notice a luggage label affixed to a suitcase in a rack above the seats opposite. We tap a finger on the window ledge. A broken nail on an index finger catches a thread. It starts to rain. A drop wends a muddy path down the dust-coated window. We wonder where our ticket might he. We look back out at the field, It continues to rain.

At last the train starts to move. It passes an iron bridge, after which it inexplicably stops, A fly lands on the window. And still we may have reached the end only of the first minute of a comprehensive account of the events lurking within the deceptive sentence ‘he journeyed through the afternoon.’” And, of course, Botton hasn’t even mentioned here the many associations that these events arouse in our thoughts and emotions, as well as the often dull and heavy sensations they arouse in our bodies.

The Art of Travel is organized into five sections “Departure,” “Motives,” “Landscape,” “Art,” and “Return.” Each chapter begins with one of the author’s own travel experiences, then introduces paintings, photographs, poetry, and insights from famous artists, poets, novelists, and others related to that experience. Some of the “guides” on our journey are J.K. Huysmans, Charles Baudelaire, Edward Hopper, Gustave Flaubert, Alexander von Humbolt, William Wordsworth, Edmund Burke, Job, Vincent van Gogh, John Ruskin, and Xavier de Maistre.

In the book’s last chapter, “On Habit,” the author spends some time discussing Xavier de Maistre’s rather audacious book Journey around My Bedroom. De Maistre, of course, had traveled much in his life, but, according to de Botton, this book, which de Maistre believed would bring the benefits of travel to millions of people who may otherwise be too “indolent” to actually step outside their house, may leave the reader “feeling a little betrayed,” since it “becomes mired in long and wearing digressions” about his dog, sweetheart, and servant. Nonetheless, says de Botton, “de Maistre’s work sprang from a profound and suggestive insight: the notion that the pleasure we derive from a journey may be dependent more on the mind-set we travel with than on the destination we travel to.”

Alain de Botton asks: “What, then, is a travelling mind-set?”. His simple answer is “receptivity,” which requires both “humility” and the giving up of “rigid ideas about what is or is not interesting.” If one ponders this simple answer, one see that these very qualities are also required for awakening here and now to the truth of our being.

Alain de Botton ends this beautiful and insightful book with the sage observation that “There are some who have crossed deserts, floated on ice caps and cut their ways through jungles but whose souls we would search in vain for evidence of what they have witnessed. Dressed in pink-and-blue pyjamas, satisfied within the confines of his own bedroom, Xavier de Maistre was gently nudging us to try, before taking off for distant hemispheres, to notice what we have already seen.”

I recommend The Art of Travel for everyone, whether your travels take you to distant lands, unknown dimensions of yourself, or only around the bedroom you think you know so well.

Copyright 2009 by Dennis Lewis. This is a revised version of a review that appeared in the Nov/Dec 2008 issue of The Journal of Harmonious Awakening.

Dennis Lewis

For most of us, even a momentary glimpse of the disparity between our ideals and how we actually live arouses the desire for perfection, the desire to somehow alter and perfect those aspects of ourselves and our lives that we believe would make us better, more desirable, more creative, or more enlightened people. Whether it is a desire for success, a desire for happiness, a desire for spiritual development, or some mixture of all of these, our desire for perfection gives us a potent sense of meaning and purpose in our lives. It sheds a kind of magical light on everything that we think, feel, and do. It becomes the springboard for many of our actions and re-actions, a springboard for becoming what we think we should be.

As one begins to look at one’s inner and outer worlds from the perspective of “the desire for perfection,” one begins to see just how much of our lives, and the life of society itself, is bound up in this quest. How many relationships, how many businesses, how many wars, how many religions, how many cults, have been founded on this desire?

If one thinks carefully about the desire for perfection, however, one sees that with this desire comes a particular relationship to time, a relationship in which “tomorrow” and what I believe I am lacking assumes greater importance than today and what I already have. If only I had more time, more money, a better job, a better relationship, more peace, more and higher spiritual experiences, and so on and so forth. There is obviously nothing wrong with wanting these things as long as I am able to remember that the miracle of life is my very existence right now, and that this nowness is forever complete. There is nothing else that is needed–except?

In this regard, one might be tempted, as many serious teachers have been, to pit the desire for being against the desire for becoming, for becoming more perfect. One might be tempted to say that being, especially being in the moment, is all that really matters. That all the rest is somehow a distraction or even an illusion. Often these teachers are unaware that they have simply created a new goal, a new state of perfection, to which we should all aspire. “Be here, now,” the pundits tell us. So what could be a natural, normal experience, now becomes an imperative, a goal, a new state of perfection. Now we measure each other by our presence, or lack of it.

No, what is needed is not a new definition of perfection. What is needed is simply the honest observation of what we actually are at any moment, of our mental and emotional attitudes, our contradictions, our confusion, our psychological messiness, our desires, our passions, our Gods and demons–in short, our humanness. What is needed is a global perception, a perception of our real motives and impulses. There is no perfection in this, and no imperfection. There is only conscious love. The love that welcomes whatever is seen and sensed and felt and heard because these functional activities are what the human dimension of human beings are all about. It is this non-egoistic love of ourselves as we are, as we respond or don’t respond to the demands of this situation, that quite naturally takes us to the next situation with its new demands and new responses and new perceptions. And who knows? Perhaps if we were to live this way, willing to experience fully the living truth, however comfortable or uncomfortable, that is being revealed right now, the perfection that we all seek in our heart of hearts, the real ground of our own being, might suddenly appear.

Copyright 2007-2009 by Dennis Lewis.

For example, after one such gathering–led by a well-known spiritual personage–someone I knew from a teaching I had studied for several years came up to me with a smile on his face and said “Hello, Dennis,” which I appreciated. Unfortunately, I couldn’t remember his name. When I told him that I had forgotten his name, a dark cloud, a frown, flashed across his face, which, after several moments, turned back into a smile. Now I am all for smiling (I write about the importance of smiling and “the smiling breath” in many places), but it was clear to me at that moment that his smile was an effort to cover up his irritation and maintain the image that he had of himself. Perhaps he saw this identification with his self-image, and, if so, that is all anyone can ask.

Another time I was waiting in line to get my room assignment in San Francisco at the Whole Life Expo for a talk I was giving. The person in front of me was a well-known spiritual author and teacher. She had a huge smile on her face and was a paradigm of calmness. When the woman giving the assignments told her which space she was going to be speaking in, the teacher erupted with disbelief, irritation, and tension. “I cannot be in that room,” she said. “I want a better room. It’s impossible to teach in that room.” After about ten minutes of checking and rechecking what other spaces were available, she finally got her way. And, with a huge smile, headed off toward her talk. Did she see herself impartially during that exchange? I have no idea.

But that is by no means the end of the story. Who do you think got the space she had just rejected? Why, me, of course. And she got the space that was originally assigned to me. There was a certain spiritual justice about that since my talk was entitled Awakening to the Miracle of Ordinary Life. This indeed was “ordinary life”! When I walked into my newly assigned space, which happened to be quite large and noisy (with people walking by to get into other rooms), I saw why the other teacher hadn’t wanted it. But I also realized that this was a perfect situation for what I was going to be speaking of. So a certain calmness came over me and I discovered an entirely new way not just to speak (so that I could be heard) but also a new way to be in relation to the various thoughts, emotions, and sensations that were arising as I spoke. A great sense of inner freedom appeared, the freedom to welcome the truth.

Before any of these events took place, I had been seriously involved in the Gurdjieff Work in San Francisco for some 18 years. In “The Work,” as it was called (not to be confused with Byron Katie’s teachings), we worked with, among many other things, learning how to observe with absolute sincerity the energies and manifestations of mind, body, and emotions. And this work was not just a matter of listening to people speak, thinking about the teaching, and so on, but of actually testing our understanding and presence in the midst of intense activities with others, where, in fact, our corns were stepped on frequently. It wasn’t a matter of what we liked or didn’t like—in fact, Gurdjieff made clear that identification with our likes and dislikes was a big part of our inner slavery, our sleep. No, it was a matter of actually observing this process in action and, through these observations, discovering the power and clarity of consciousness itself. And the teacher did not just speak beautiful words and express great ideas while we listened (though that did happen), but also put us to the test in many ways. What was at stake was not just our mind but our entire being. Perhaps this little story will help convey a sense of what I mean.

Lord John Pentland

I had been involved with the San Francisco Gurdjieff Foundation for three or four years, and I had gone to New York from San Francisco to take part in some special work activities there: group meetings, sacred dances, meditation, physical labor, and much more. Lord Pentland, who had worked with both P.D. Ouspensky and G.I. Gurdjieff and was the president of the New York Gurdjieff Foundation, invited me to his home outside the city before the organized events began, as he often did. When I arrived, he immediately put me to work raking leaves in his rather spacious yard. He instructed me to take the leaves I raked and dump them over the fence in an adjoining vacant lot, which already contained many piles of leaves. He then told me in no uncertain terms that my inner task was to be present to myself as I raked the leaves, to actually sense and observe what was going on in my inner and outer worlds.

After a couple hours of working in this way, and having found a comfortable sensation and rhythm of raking while taking in the smells that reminded me of raking leaves when I was a teenager in Wisconsin, I suddenly smelled and saw smoke coming from the lot where I had been dumping the leaves. I quickly threw the rake down, ran over to the fence, and saw that the leaves were in fact on fire. I also noticed that there were some houses that seemed very close to the fire. In near panic I ran back to Lord Pentland’s house and pounded excitedly on the front door. It took him what seemed like an eternity to come to the door and open it. When I told him about the fire, he slowly took a couple of steps outside, peered at the smoke that was visible over the fence, looked calmly back at me, remained silent for a minute or two, and then in a very calm yet serious voice said: “I told you that your only task was to stay present to yourself as you raked the leaves. Continue raking but don’t throw the leaves over the fence. I’ll take care of the fire.”

In great turmoil, partly because of the fire, but also because I had become so completely identified with my emotions of anxiety and fear and didn’t want to be seen by my teacher as having “lost it” (though I realized that I had), I continued raking the leaves. And in the mist of all the impressions of both the turmoil and my wish to follow my teacher’s instructions, I was brought back to the reality of how little relationship there was between what my mind believed it knew and my actual understanding. I saw my functioning and my being as it actually was. Within a few minutes, a fire truck arrived and put out the fire, which, in fact, turned out to be a rather small one. The houses that I had thought were so close to the fire were never threatened and, when I looked later appeared now to be much farther away than I had imagined.

Now, of course, you, like me, might assume that Lord Pentland started the fire for my benefit. And perhaps he did. But I never asked him. What I had learned that day was far too valuable to link up with my ego belief that I was somehow special enough for him to take this action on my behalf. The fact is, I don’t know. After the event was over, I remembered some kids playing around in the space. Perhaps one of them started the fire. But it really doesn’t matter, for life itself is constantly providing shocks that can help us awaken from our sleep. But what is our attitude when these shocks actually appear? It is in the face of this living question that there is a possibility to see and welcome the truth that is being revealed now, and to discover that it is the welcoming itself, the willingness to receive impressions of life just “as it is,” that is who or what we are at the deepest level of being. For me, at least, when this welcoming appears there is a deep sense of returning home.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

To do so, of course, one cannot be a “conformist.” To be a conformist, “to live after the world’s opinion,” is to be just another cog in society’s complex machinery–dead to the human spirit within. When we look around today we see such death at every corner. Instead of a spirit of discovery and truth, we stumble over the dead carcasses of social, political, and spiritual correctness. Instead of the willingness to contradict ourselves and our beliefs when we are faced with new insights and discoveries, we most often find ourselves either burying our new insights deep within our solitude so as to remain in harmony with whatever “crowd” we identify with, or grafting our insights for public consumption onto our old memories and beliefs in such a way that they lose all power to help us or anyone else think, feel, and sense the truth.

It does not matter whether the “world” Emerson speaks of is the larger world composed of diverse nations filled with people who call themselves “patriots” or the smaller world of diverse spiritual groups filled with people who call themselves “followers.” There is, in my estimation, little intrinsic difference between patriots and followers; both are examples of what Eric Hoffer called The True Believer. In both cases people take on the larger, more-comfortable perspective of a nation or group or teaching without realizing that in so doing they may well have cut themselves off from the less-comfortable perspective of truth itself.

When I was studying at the University of Wisconsin (back in the late 1950s), I joined a fraternity, where I lived, studied, and partied for more than a year. One day, in my solitude, I reached a decision to go to a political demonstration I had heard about (my first real flicker of political awareness). When I brought this decision to the larger world of the fraternity and suggested that perhaps others should go too, the vice president of the fraternity told me that he didn’t approve of my going–that it was against the ideals and rules of the fraternity–and that if I did go I should definitely not wear my fraternity pin (or ring, I don’t remember). I got very angry and told him that I didn’t have one (which was true and probably why I don’t remember) and that even if I did have one I would definitely wear it if I wanted to. He then told me that if I went I would be kicked out of the fraternity. I resigned from the fraternity on the spot, found a new place to live, and took part in the demonstration, which I felt in my heart of hearts was a true expression of who I was at that time.

Was I a “great man” in Emerson’s words? Absolutely not! Instead of keeping “with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude” “in the midst of the crowd,” I was a good example of an angry unconscious young man, without much “sweetness.” And yet, in spite of this, something of the truth awakened in me and began to manifest more and more often–the realization that, as difficult and revealing as it would be, it was necessary for me to attempt to live my own life as consciously as possible unencumbered by the opinions of others, no matter where that led and what difficulties it brought.

Since those early years, I have been involved for many years with teachings and groups (concerned with awakening) that helped in ways that I will not discuss in detail here. I am thankful for what I received through these teachings, especially from my teachers who showed how it is possible “in the midst of the crowd” to keep “with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” This is meditation in action–the natural and spontaneous state of those who have awakened to who they really are.

Copyright 2009 by Dennis Lewis

When I returned from my walk, I looked up one of my favorite Einstein quotes, which reminds us that “A human being is a part of the whole, called by us, ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest–a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.”

As I have pondered this passage over the years, I’ve realized that the practice of compassion begins at home, in our own hearts and minds and bodies. Before we can truly widen our circle of compassion to sincerely embrace others with our full presence, we need to widen the circle to embrace the whole of ourselves, to see and include all those aspects of ourselves that we have difficulty with, or don’t like, or even despise, along with the consciousness that makes everything possible.

When we are able to find this new, more-conscious way of embracing ourselves, when we wake up and realize that life itself is a miracle and a mystery, compassion toward others is a natural result. Fully present to the miracle of ourselves, how could we not feel great compassion toward “all living creatures” in the face of this beautiful mystery that we call life?

Copyright 2009 by Dennis Lewis

Dennis Lewis

a walk through space and time.
And as I walked a doorway opened
that revealed a world sublime.

Oh yes my thoughts they dwelled a while
on the pains and fears of mine.
And then I heard the songs of birds
which brought to me a smile.

As the smile opened I suddenly felt
all the walking I have done,
take place in the space of here and now
under the impartial sun.

And there I was with wholeness clear,
And here I am again,
being breathed by truth inside and out
no longer in fear of fear.

Copyright 2009 by Dennis Lewis