Occupy Your Body—Sense Always

“This work has service at its apex not its foundation.
At its foundation it has understanding what our situation really is.”—J.G. Bennett. Fallen Leaves. Private Collection, 1980.

“Tonight when we reached Hopeless Idiots, G was very solemn and after the Addition, spoke about ‘this small aim’ not to perish like a dog, and how everyone must have this. Everyone must have the wish ‘not be taxi,’ but to have real owner, not a succession of passengers. He gave us all the task of learning to distinguish between feeling and sensing*—when he sees that we do this task, and do it often, then he will be able to give us another subjective task.” — Elizabeth Bennett. Idiots in Paris p. 48

*download >> The Distinction Between Sensing and Feeling. JG Bennett, 1949.

“We had one of Madame Salzmann’s extraordinary practices: first we sat for 20 minutes sensing various parts of the body** and then the whole body: then we did a new canon with more ‘active’ sort of movements than usual: then we worked on the arms and legs, separately, of the First Obligatory, and she gave us an astonishing demonstration of how to balance; then we sat, beating rhythms on our knees, then we marched on the spot, and afterwards round the room, and then she teased us because we could not do it properly, and jumped up, with a little bounce, from the piano, laughing, and ended the class.” — Elizabeth Bennett. Idiots in Paris p. 128

Freshly Laundered & Hanging Out to Dry: Chapter27, Part2

Across the lawn to one side of the estate is a copse of dark larch trees, always seeming to be in silhouette. In a photo, I place them between the camera and the House, their hanging branches framing the architecture that has lost its graceless appearance as I have become accustomed to the foreign aesthetics. Mrs. Bennett sees my black and white photo and decides to have post cards printed from it in time to be sold at the fête.
As the event draws near, many students mention having dreams about their preparations for it. It is our seminal joint venture. During the weeks of preparation the Morris group is on house duty more often than the others, yet we remain cheery, attributing our mood to the music that buoys us up each day. We are also on house duty the day of the fête, not feeling as if we’re missing out on anything; Morris dance has endowed us with a miraculous state of equanimity.

On Freedom & Responsibility

“It is possible for any reasonable person to see that the greater part of the troubles that beset mankind at this time are due to the fact that those who have the power to take, take, and they disregard the consequences to those who are not able to. All of us probably feel that this is a wrong thing.”

“When we really come near this question of freedom, something in us revolts entirely against it. I remember very well when my work did bring me to a point where I knew and saw that I had the power—I saw that I knew exactly how to do it, so that I could feel exactly what I chose to feel. If I could do that, then I would be responsible for my life and I could no longer blame anything outside myself; because what was outside me could not touch me. Therefore, I had to be the answer. If I was in a bad state, I was able to change it; and if I did not change it, I could not blame any one else. But I wanted to be able to blame people. I wanted to say that it was not possible that it could have been different.”

Freshly Laundered & Hanging Out to Dry: Chapter27, Part1

Chapter 27
The Fate of the Fête

All real enjoyment is as good, from the point of view of
energy production and conservation, as suffering. _JG Bennett

The last phase of the course is filled with a new energy, a sense of promise—what a relief—though the core of our daily schedule has not changed. We continue our usual activities of housework, gardening, Theme, Movements, and the evening reading. But now more of our other activities have a creative and interactional element to them. The longer days and burgeoning signs of spring appear to be earth’s way of joining in on the assignment to manifest our work.
For the first time in months, out in the garden students are tossing off their down vests and jumpers, as the British call sweaters. Fewer layers of warm clothes make everyone appear to have lost anywhere from ten to thirty pounds. It has been so long since I’ve seen my bare arms in the light of day, that when I lay eyes on them, I feel indecently exposed.

A Transmission of Love through JG Bennett

“Love is a force, by which all life is transformed,
and everything returns to its source.” — JG Bennett

Along with ninety other students from around the world, I studied with John Bennett at his Sherborne Academy the last months of his life.

Mr. Bennett was a sincere and adventurous man filled with a visible love for Gurdjieff and Gurdjieff’s Teaching. That love radiated through to us as a transmission.

Following Gurdjieff’s advice to “find out for yourself,” Bennett risked and lost much: the approval of his peers, a career in politics and commerce, and personal financial assets.

Bennett researched and validated everything he received from Gurdjieff; and—while sharing with us what he had found—while digging in the Sherborne flower garden, John Bennett died on Friday, December 13, 1974, thirty-seven years ago.

James Tomarelli

Freshly Laundered & Hanging Out to Dry: Chapter26, Part2

Even now, in the last third of the course, there are still issues about food. On our applications to Sherborne, we had been offered a choice of meat or vegetarian fare. Yet Mr. Bennett lectured at intervals about vegetarian eating and how often we in the West do it only for sentimental reasons. Each time he brings up the topic, he emphasizes the negative implications and reminds us about the spiritual transformation of any food. More and more people opt out of their vegetarian diets.
As an experiment, I’d been hoping to improve my health by eating vegetarian, but as each lecture convinces more students to give it up, I’ve become the only vegetarian left. This is no longer a health experiment for me but only obstinacy. I think we’ve been manipulated. And then I sadly wonder if my stubbornness can be applied to something more uplifting.

I was a vegetarian until I started leaning toward the sunlight. _Rita Rudner

Freshly Laundered & Hanging Out to Dry: Chapter26, Part1

Chapter 26
Up The Ladder

It is one of the laws that if we wish to change
we must make it possible for somebody else to change. _JG Bennett

My thinking function is beyond overload. The only thinking I’m doing is visual—no words. Images of eggs keep popping into my mind unbidden. I have accumulated a collection of black and white photos taken around the property. In my mind, each one of them begs for a sunny side-up egg—hanging on a fence, resting on the balustrade, being held in someone’s hand while companions examine it, and, even, lurking behind the flora. A cheery prowling egg! Mrs. Bennett hears about the photos with eggs painted on them and asks to see them. I wonder what she is doing with them, imagining her taking them to a psychiatrist for professional evaluation.

Freshly Laundered & Hanging Out to Dry: Chapter25

Freshly Laundered & Hanging Out to Dry. Part IV
The Esoteric Phase:
Manifestation

Spring Break to August 15, 1973

Chapter 25
Questions

One must learn to use life as one’s teacher. We have to learn from life
for our own being, for our own transformation. _JG Bennett

In the downstairs library Mr. Bennett gave us a series of lectures to prepare us for the last phase of the course. As usual, most of us sat on cushions on the floor while the older people sat on the few chairs in the room. In the first presentation he reminded us of the parable of making bread.

Freshly Laundered & Hanging Out to Dry: Chapter24

Chapter 24
Recovery

We have to be able to tolerate other people, tolerate them totally,
not just externally but truly accepting other people as they are and
not attempting to impose ourselves on them. _JG Bennett

Almost a month after I’d been sick, Mr. B spoke of the Theme ‘breathing.’ He said it was important not to interfere with breath, that time is breath, that you are out of the time experience when you stop breathing. He said, “The Zikr breathing works on us despite our mental activities and chatter. We cannot be aware of how it works on us.”
How were we to do the Zikr breathing pattern of a single inhalation and three exhalations yet not interfere with breathing? It was another thing I didn’t understand or ask about.
Morning Exercise called for expanding the present moment. We alternated between the recent past and the near future, more distant past and more distant future until the ever-enlarging time increments included our own birth and the time of our death. The ability to feel an expanded sense of time was reassuring and stayed with me.