What is this teaching, for you?
Not his definition, but how do you live the teaching personally?
Two words that come up: self-emptying and true nature.
The specificity of this teaching compared to other teachings is its application, which is not through intellectual understanding… When I compare to the teachings like classical Advaita, there are many explanations, questions-answers, but ultimately, much of it is at the mental level. Here, it is very concrete, much applied, and many times I did not understand how it corresponded to my quest. But finally, I noticed the effects and the transformation.
Personally, what I find differentiating compared to other teachings that I have known, is the level of commitment it demands, a process that has grown over the years.
It is a teaching that is not just theoretical but applied with tools. I do not always understand the relationship with the core of my quest, but which have proved successful, such as the work on procrastination, which was major for me.
Finally, it is alive, constantly renewed. There is not an established form. This really is extremely lively.
It is for me the sense of self-emptying, … It is this notion of direct. To remove the superfluous.
Self-emptying to go towards ones true nature.
This is a convenient way to discover the dimensions of our humanity. Going to the limits.
It is the meeting with myself, of all that I know towards all that I do not know. The word accompaniment for me is very important because it includes the need to be accompanied.
And I really have this image of the outstretched hand, where the other holds out his hand, and I take it.
Look what were your expectations when you started to follow the teaching…
I feel more and more close to people, even if they do not have the same thoughts. And I think it is because I rid myself of everything that built me. This is really what struck me the most, not in the beginning, but after several years. Today I feel love for everyone.
What I wanted at first was the awakening, the enlightenment, without really knowing what it was.
But what I retain is to have been guided with a great benevolence, and also in a way (that is) relentless. It forced me to make a lot of sacrifices (especially my unnecessary suffering), but with an evidence, to go towards myself. And I did it for me. It is an accompaniment towards death, too.
The word benevolence is extremely strong for me. And I remember the awareness of the day when I realized that, and that it was going in both directions.
And when I talk of sacrifice, of course, it is the sacrifice of the superfluous. That is why, for me, the word self-emptying sums up everything.
My expectation was to respond to an inner call, that I felt for many years, to be able to fulfill my existential duty, my destiny, in a teaching corresponding to what I understood and to what life offered me, a teaching for which I felt a YES.
There is a presupposition behind my question, it is that everyone had expectations and went towards his expectations.
Yes, completely.
My expectations: find the tools to be autonomous.
Find a school and a teacher who gives me the tools to get to do what I could not do alone.
Since always, the sirens song … and yes they are fulfilled.
Another expectation buried deep: find a school where one learns to be humans together. I had given up this dream, I did not believe in it anymore.
I wondered why Gurdjieff called his institute “Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man.” And today I live it here, and I understand that it is only with beings who have made this work, that it is possible.
I hadn’t any expectations, I was pushed in there. But gradually I reconciled within myself, and that’s really the most important thing. At the same time, I was bewildered by all this shit in myself that I found along the way.
I wonder, am I really fulfilled? As long as I do not have the feeling of being there permanently, although I’m there pretty much all the time, I cannot say I’m fulfilled.
For me, there is also an unsaid dimension. I often have this sensation, that through very concrete things, like when you showed us how to sharpen knives, there is something else that is going on.
I was looking for an accessible master, here you are.
For me too, that which is unsaid speaks to me. You initiate something, and then it’s up to us to do our work. But it is only like this we can really understand it or live it.
This is the opposite of what I have read, when I read books on non-duality.
You are sometimes radical, but you are sometimes more benevolent depending on the person and his context to it.