Why We Should All Celebrate An Awesome Jewish New Year

Today, September 13th, is the first day of the Jewish New Year. Why should this matter to non-Jews?

Because I believe everyone, especially those of us in a Twelve Step Programme or in the Work, can benefit from observing the New Year customs that Jewish people will practice during the next ten days. At the end of that period, which are known as the Days of Awe, Jews observe Yom Kippur, the annual Day of Atonement, and it marks the final stage of the most important spiritual period in the Jewish Calendar.

 During these special days, Jews believe, we're all being closely watched by God. He will base the events of the coming year on how we've behaved during this time. Those of us whose good deeds outweigh the bad will be inscribed in the Book of Life; the reverse will happen for those who've committed more sins than good deeds.

This is the basis for Leonard Cohen's song title "Who By Fire". For God will decree that everyone will meet their just desserts as well as the tests they will need for their spiritual development during the year to come, and He will set us various trials and rewards according to our state of Being.

"Prayer, repentance and charity" are the prescribed good deeds, to be performed throughout the year, of course, but with especial emphasis during the Days of Awe.

And the ten-day period offers all of us, Jew or Gentile, a time to meditate on our conduct and to seek to make amends whenever possible for any harm we've done to others, as well as to examine our beliefs and our behaviour in regard to the Almighty, or our Higher Power.

 The Days of Awe are a concentrated period of time in which everyone is to practice what we Twelve-Steppers know as Steps Eight and Nine; the listing of all those we've harmed, including our neglect of God, and the practical making of amends that must immediately follow.

Interestingly, the Jewish religion teaches us that God can't forgive the sins we've committed towards other people unless we've first tried to make amends to them. We need to ask their forgiveness first of all, and to be ready to forgive all those who've harmed us in any way.

Jesus emphasizes the need for us to forgive others in the Lord's Prayer, when we say, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us". In other words, God's forgiveness depends on our reciprocal forgiveness of others.

He also tells us in the Gospels that it's no good going to the Temple (or anywhere else where we try to meet God) if we are carrying a grudge against someone else. First, we have to reconcile with them, or at least do our level best to achieve reconciliation; only then are we in a fit state to approach God.
Of course, our Higher Power knows how hard this is for us, how easily and tenaciously we cling to our resentments, so our first effort is often to ask Him for the willingness to forgive.

In the Twelve Step programme we're also advised to be constantly on our guard for any form of selfishness or resentment, because these can ruin our recovery. Unless we deal with them promptly, they will cause us to lose sobriety and become dry drunks. Actual drinking might then follow, with the usual disastrous consequences.

In the Work, of course, observing and disidentifying from negative emotions is essential in order to purify the Emotional Centre. We can't hold on to negative thoughts or feelings about other people, and must be always ready to forgive, even before we're asked. Everyone, no matter their type, must take part in this purification, and there's always more to observe the deeper we look.

As we know so well, any spiritual practice can quickly become mechanical. We can so easily go through the emotions of taking our inventory, glossing over the hard parts; in Work meetings we may make only superficial, formatory observations.  We may think we're working when we're just coasting along.

Our Work teacher or our Twelve-Step sponsor, if we have one, may call our attention to our lack of sincerity here.

But how wonderful, how awesome, for an entire nation, an entire religion, to build into its calendar a special yearly period of repentance! It's part of the genius of the Jewish religion that it was the first ever to do so, and it's influenced Christianity in this, as in so much else. Christianity, after all, grew out of Judaism, and if we are Christians and want to understand our faith we absolutely have to learn about Judaism too.

The Christian religion also commands us to repent and make amends during Lent, the period before Easter, and to a lesser extent during Advent. But these are longer stretches of time. Forty days of repentance and self-denial can seem very daunting, whereas anyone can practice the Ten Days of Awe - it's only just over a week, and it seems much more manageable. And because it's a shorter space of time, there's less chance of its becoming mechanical.

So why not have yourself a Jewish New Year? It needn't be September; it could be at any time you choose; but if you make your Ten Days coincide with those of the Jewish New Year itself you'll have the spiritual support of knowing you're acting in concert with a large group of people. There are some excellent articles on the subject on various websites, especially Aish.com, which specializes in Jewish spirituality and is popular among Christians and others who want to learn more about it.

The great religions were transmitted by conscious Beings, working through schools, and they selected certain times of the year as most propitious for various festivals and practices because they knew the energies of the cosmos reaching the Earth at these times would help the individual to carry out these practices.

At the time of the Jewish New Year, the earth is approaching its equinox. The energies of summer, which impelled us out into the world and emphasized the physical life in nature and in man, now begin to withdraw. The inward-looking energies of autumn and winter start once more to influence us. It's time now to look at our spiritual condition, to see what needs to be changed so that we may draw closer to the Absolute at the time of the Winter Solstice.

This year, New Year's Day - Rosh Ha Shanah in Hebrew - coincides with a solar eclipse at 22 degrees Virgo.  Two weeks later, on the Feast of Tabernacles, there will be a Blood Moon, a lunar eclipse, at 3 degrees Libra. If you know your birthchart, you may like to see where these highly important events fall in your own chart.

During the Days of Awe a popular custom is to go to a large body of water, such as river, a lake, or the sea, and throw small stones into it. Each stone symbolizes a particular sin, or addiction, from which you'd like to be free. Acting out this desire for renewal can be a powerful experience.

Have an awesome Jewish New Year!

The Queen from the viewpoint of the Work: a Tribute

Yesterday, Queen Elizabeth II became the longest-serving monarch in the history of the British Isles.  The line of succession into which she was born is more than 1,000 years old, and although there have been some pretty dreadful kings and queens in that time, our present Queen is a fine example of what it means to be a Good Householder.

We know that being a Good Householder doesn't necessarily entail owning a house. But Queen Elizabeth does, and not just ordinary houses at that, but a cluster of royal palaces. Nevertheless, the criteria for GH status are the same, whether we live in a rented student flat or a Highland castle. Do we use our resources wisely? Do we live according to our conscience? Do we see Life as an end in itself?

And Queen Elizabeth definitely ticks all these boxes. I suspect that's why she is so popular, even amongst people who don't really approve of monarchy - although if they are in the Work, they should really think again, as I'll show later in this post.

The Queen gives employment and financial support to a huge group of people, from her immediate family to the enormous staff who keep the royal palaces in good shape and help her carry out her job.

She is also a spiritual beacon for millions of people worldwide.

How? Because, as Head of the Church of England, she is the supreme earthly authority for the Anglican church.

But, more than that, even to people who don't feel any particular kinship with that church, she is an example of someone who does her duty as she perceives it, cheerfully and diligently, come rain or hail, in sickness and in health.

The Queen thinks of her position as having been ordained by God. She was anointed in Westminster Abbey by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the presence of the peers of the realm and representatives from the different faiths of the people of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. Consequently, she does not have the right to refuse any demand made of her as Head of State, nor may she show partiality to any one group, but must exemplify fairness and benevolence to all her subjects.

Although she's one of the world's richest women, she isn't attached to money for its own sake. She is frugal in her personal habits, going round turning off lights at night, eating her breakfast cereal from plastic containers just like the rest of us, feeding her dogs herself.

She doesn't waste, but neither does she stint on spending where necessary to show goodwill to foreign Heads of State, or on trips to demonstrate her interest in the wellbeing of her subjects all over the world.

She was not, it seems, a "hands on" mother, because that was never part of her job. Today's royal couple, Prince William and Princess Katherine, are involved in the daily activities of both their children, just as Princess Diana had been before them. But in the Queen and Prince Philip's day, child-rearing was considered the province of trained nannies and tutors, and later, of the school.

In all of this, Queen Elizabeth gives a living example of what it means to be a Good Householder on a very grand scale. And as such, her life and her work provide a focal point for all her subjects, and her emphasis on the spiritual aspects of each may actually help others to see life in that light.

Even people who don't agree with the principle of a hereditary monarchy have been forced to acknowledge that she is, in fact, a force for good in the family of nations.

This is not a political blog, so I won't go into that argument any further here. But just consider: if we had a President instead of a hereditary King or Queen, then the Head of State would be a political figure, just as is the case in the USA and other countries. And that figure would not be universally supported. He or she would become for many a source of contention, rather than a symbol of unity; and that, in a nutshell, is why most British people prefer their Head of State to be a politically neutral person, chosen not by political parties but by the "accident of birth".

People who know Queen Elizabeth personally say that she is, in fact, a deeply spiritual person who takes her role seriously and her commitment as a lifelong obligation. I can't think of anyone better to symbolize a kingdom than a monarch whose values are primarly spiritual, but who also carries out her duties in a professional, equable manner.

Mrs. Pogson had more to say about the symbolism of monarchy. She considered it a living illustration of the hierarchy of nature, and the order which should govern our own spiritual lives.

The public ceremonies where monarchs ride in golden coaches, escorted by parades of soldiers, to a solemn event, were, to Mrs. Pogson, an illustration of the way in which our different I's should be valued.

First comes the King or Queen, symbolizing Real I. The monarch rides in a special coach to draw our attention to the fact that this is no ordinary I, not "one of the crowd". He or she exists in Essence, from where life should in fact be directed.

The parades of soldiers, sailors, airmen and women, charity workers, and so on, who generally accompany the monarch to public events symbolize the well disciplined I's within us, those of Personality. They have particular jobs to do. They support the monarch and bring order to the kingdom, directed by their own leaders, always under the rulership of the King or Queen.

Finally, the crowds of onlookers symbolize those parts of Personality which are not particularly disciplined but which are sympathetic to the aims of Real I and willing to give their support to the ruling monarch, willing to accept a subordinate role in the knowledge that the kingdom is in safe hands.

And the value of watching these public processions, Mrs. Pogson would explain, was that the spectacle spoke directly to the Higher Emotional Centre.

That centre thinks in pictures and images, not in words. Hence, the regular ritual presentation of the correct hierarchical order of the kingdom is of great worth.

It reminds us both as individuals and as a nation that we are not the supreme rulers of our own world, that we must submit to the leadership of what is highest and closest to God in our inner being, and that this is the proper order of the world of Man.

Of course, this is an idealized picture. But we need such pictures to remind us of what should be, rather than what more often takes place - that increasing orderliness, instead of entropy, should be the pattern of our spiritual life, and that if this is borne in mind, then the outer life may eventually fall into into place as well.

Our Being attracts our life, the Work teaches us. If our Being is correctly arranged, then our lives may follow suit.

And this is the public role of the monarch - to show that right order, and to draw us into allegiance with it, as our Higher Emotional Centre recognizes the truth it shows.

The Five Being-Obligolnian Strivings: (5) The Striving Always to Assist the Most Rapid Perfecting of Other Beings, Both Those Similar to Oneself and Those of Other Forms, Up to the Degree of the Sacred Martfotai, that is up to the Degree of Self-Individuality

As we approach the Fifth Striving, we are beginning to understand our place in the universe and the efforts we must make in order to cooperate with God for the good of all sentient beings.

At first, we approached the Work with a desire for enlightenment, knowledge, understanding. But over the years of practicing the Work teachings in our everyday lives we gradually discover that we no longer wish for anything for ourselves. We already have everything that we need. Our Work becomes a response to the inner call to "lighten the sufferings of God", as we have seen in the previous Striving, and our own aim is to become able to respond to that call in every possible way.

Gurdjieff advised his students to practice conscious love first of all on animals, as they would respond better. Thus, animal welfare and the informed stewardship of the Earth are basic duties for Work students. We've seen in the previous strivings that unless we take better care of the world in which we live, we will end by destroying the planet, and with it, the whole of humanity. For our own sake, as well as that of the plant and animal world, we must heed the call to evolve in consciousness and enable other beings to reach their highest possible state.

In the Work, we speak of working on the First, Second and Third lines of work. The first line is our own personal work, the attempt to remember ourselves, the purification of the Emotional Centre, the withering away of False Personality and the correct use of the Personality in order to allow Essence to direct our actions.

In the Second Line, we work with others in groups, assisting one another under the guidance of an authorized teacher.

In the Third Line, our efforts are for the good of the Work itself, by contributing to its growth and enabling it to be known by more and more of those able to respond.

Sometimes this can be carried out by becoming a work teacher, and cooperating with other teachers in assisting students. But sometimes this is not possible, and it may be that we can serve the work by writing, as in this blog and many others, or by writing books which bring the ideas before the public.

But even if these types of Third Line work are not available to us, we are still, I think, serving the Work itself by living out its principles in everything we do.

We externally consider other people, for example, treating them as we ourselves wish to be treated. We refuse to trade insults or become angry when we cannot have our way; we accept our limitations; we no longer place requirements on anyone or anything. We realize our own powerlessness, as the Twelve Step Programmes say, and we don't try to impose our will on any person or situation.

By acting thus, by remembering ourselves in the midst of our everyday life, we help other beings in the gentlest and kindest way possible. We place no blocks in the path of their own evolution. If people ask for our advice or seek our teaching, we willingly give it.

We don't mind whether people view us as wise or foolish. Other people's opinions are of no concern to us. We don't want to be powerful, or famous, or the object of anyone's excessive admiration. We take our cue from Jesus, who was meek and compassionate to the point where he returned good for evil, and from Gurdjieff, who, if he felt someone was becoming too dependent on him, could consciously shock them into sense.

We treat anyone who crosses our path with kindness and consideration. But we don't make them dependent on us; we want to foster their own growth and independence, and to help them to find the path that is right for them, the way which may lead them to become conscious and eventually to serve God.

By not reacting mechanically, by becoming aware of our own addictive I's, our own habitual thoughts and emotions, we gradually gain the ability to live more consciously.

If we are addicts or alcoholics, we put an end to the generations of suffering that have culminated in our own addiction. We free our parents, our grandparents and all our ancestors from the sorrow and concern they have surely felt as they watched us live our own addicted lives and were unable to help us.

Gradually, imperceptibly even, by accepting our own share of suffering and by our conscious efforts to live out the Work teachings, we are assisting the perfection of all other beings.

And we are living according to our Essence, our Fate.

We are now approaching Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, as Gurdjieff would sometimes say to his American students. Philadelphia, the state of living in love and harmony, begins to become a real possibility for us. We see that "hand washing hand", another Gurdjieffian saying, is the only way for three-brained beings to live, and we strive more and more to achieve that state.

In the Five Strivings, Gurdjieff offers us an encapsulation of his teachings that covers every stage of our conscious existence and shows us the way to help others.

They contain the essential teachings of all the world's true religions. It is now up to us to live them.

The Five Being-Obligolnian Strivings: (4) The Striving, From the Beginning of One's Existence, to Pay as Quickly as Possible for one's Arising and Individuality, in Order Afterward to be Free to LIghten as Much as Possible the Sorrows of Our Common Father

When I first read through "All and Everything", I was, like any beginning Work student, thoroughly baffled! Why on earth did our teacher, Gurdjieff, have to write in such an obscure way? Why didn't he make his precious knowledge more easily available to us?

But then, when I came to the Five Strivings, I thought I'd finally located a part of the book that I could understand.

Of course, I later realized that the teaching had to be presented in this way so that students would spend the maximum amount of energy in struggling to understand them, and that through this process alone could we reach the stage of pondering which brings enlightenment. Reading the book by oneself, then in a Work group, then again on one's own with the knowledge acquired from the group, our teacher, and our own efforts, impresses it upon our unconscious, where our Higher Centres are located.

And the Strivings are not as easy to understand as I first thought.

How on earth could anyone lighten the sufferings of God?

Most Work teachers rightly stress the inner meanings of each Striving. This is the deepest level of understanding, and undoubtedly it's the way that Gurdjieff meant his teachings to be taken. But I think the outer, more obvious, meaning is also important. Our understanding will increase the more we study them, but that doesn't mean that we ignore the external meanings.

So, in the fourth Striving, I initially took the first part of the task to be that of paying for my own existence as a human being living on Planet Earth. And I think that Gurdjieff really did mean that we should take it in this way, as well as on the deeper level.

We know now how very expensive our human existence is, what it takes from the Earth in terms of depleted resources, pollution, disorder and war. Each human being is an enormously expensive entity. If we lived rightly, this would not be the case. But we don't, and Gurdjieff was very prescient in pointing this out.

Bennett and others have expounded on Gurdjieff's ecological understanding, and I won't go into it very much here, except to say that today we know at least some of the damage caused by human carelessness, greed, stupidity and anger. All these negative emotions impel us to act in such a way as to cause the planet itself to deteriorate, and we need to remember that our life here as three-brained beings is an experiment; an experiment which may fail. If we approach, as we seem to be fast doing, the danger of destroying vast parts of the Earth and rendering it uninhabitable, then mankind as a species may become extinct.

My Work teacher emphasized that the Earth, like other planets and stars, was a conscious being, with understanding and power at the level of an archangel. Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis put this teaching into more scientific terms, and today it's been accepted by many scientists who see that the Earth does actually respond to mankind's activities.

So to pay for my own existence here means that I must take care, as has been said, to "live lightly upon the Earth".  More, I must attempt to make some reparation for the damage that my activities have caused; I must promote ecological understanding among others, starting with my own family; and I must attempt to live in such a way that I may become a conscious being worthy of the gift of human life.

 At the very least, human beings should live at the level of Good Householder, and the Earth we live on is part of our "household".

Gurdjieff also emphasized many times how important it is to take care of our parents, how we should love and respect them. In Western society we tend to shunt older people off to institutions rather than caring for them in our own homes, as the extended families of more "primitive" societies do. And sometimes this may be necessary. But while our parents are alive and able to understand, we need to show our gratitude towards them for creating our planetary body, and as they took care of us in our infancy and childhood so we should take care of them in an appropriate way when they are no longer able to look after themselves.

What if our parents were abusive or neglectful? Then we can still be grateful for their gift to us of human existence, and by becoming more conscious ourselves we can put an end to the long chain of suffering which dogs each family where abuse or neglect have occurred. Breaking the chain of abuse may be our reparation, our payment, to them. And we must, however hard it may be, forgive them.

All this, to me, is the meaning of repayment for our "arising".

But the inner meaning of this Striving goes even further.

We must also pay for our "individuality". Surely this means our beginnings of consciousness, our efforts to awaken. As soon as we begin to remember ourselves and to experience at least a taste of real Work, and hence real individuality, we become aware of our huge debt to our teachers.

Beginning with Gurdjieff himself, the Fourth Way in our time has been given to us only at the cost of immense effort and suffering. Our teachers have suffered in order to become conscious, and have struggled to teach us, to pass on their knowledge. We owe them our experiences of individuality, of approaching Real I.

How can we possibly repay them?

Not by money; the Work has never been bought or sold. Students are sometimes asked to contribute to the cost of renting a meeting place or for materials and food on a Work weekend or break. But our teachers have never been paid in this way, nor would a genuine teacher ask for it.

No, the way we repay our teachers is by making efforts. Only our work efforts can effect any sort of payment. By working on ourselves we create the fine substances that have made possible our own evolution and that of other people; our teacher's efforts are repaid by our own.

And here, I think, is the cause of some confusion, because occasionally Gurdjieff would tell a student that he or she alone could repay him for his efforts.

This was, of course, quite true, but it didn't mean that that individual student was to become Gurdjieff's successor, though some misunderstood it in this way.

It means that each Work student, you and I and all the others we know in the Work, need to work on ourselves constantly so that we can repay our teachers for all they have undergone to bring the Work to us.

And eventually, our efforts may become strong enough, intense enough, to lighten the sorrows of God Himself. God is constantly suffering through our inadequacies and failures. Jesus was crucified for our sins, for our lack of understanding, for our failures, in order to teach us the only real way to God. The great saints and mystics, both known and unknown, who comprise Conscious Humanity, suffered to reach understanding and to change their own Being.

This payment is through remorse: the remorse of conscience as we become more and more aware of our Being.

We enter into the suffering of God, and we receive in return unlimited grace, unlimited compassion, which again engenders more remorse as we realize our unworthiness, in an ever-ascending spiral. Through this inner exchange we may experience the energies of God, His unending love and desire for communion with us, His creatures.

Such moments of communion are inexpressibly precious and may be felt as ecstasy. It is suffering, but suffering which is beautiful beyond description. Bernini's marvellous statue of St Teresa of Avila, showing the saint being pierced by an arrow that is wielded by an angel, shows us this experience in immediately understandable form.

This is the teaching of Esoteric Christianity, and the innermost teaching of the Work.

The Fourth Striving expresses this process very succinctly. And it is by living in this way, by suffering voluntarily and performing our Being-Partkdolg Duty, that we can repay God and the universe for our arising and our individuality.

What a tremendous privilege this is.

The Five Being-Obligolnian Strivings: (3) The Conscious Striving to Know Ever More and More About the Laws of World-Creation and World-Maintenance"

With the Third Striving - The Conscious Striving to Know Ever More and More About the Laws of World-Creation and World-Maintenance - we think first of all about the external application, the need to understand and care for the environment.

J.G. Bennett on several occasions drew attention to Gurdjieff's prescience concerning environmental knowledge. Gurdjieff wrote "All and Everything" at a time when few people paid any attention at all to the subject. In the early and middle years of the 20th century it was generally assumed that the environment - nature - was there for mankind to use as desired. Resources were thought to be inexhaustible. Pollution was undiscovered. Capitalism depended on the process of limitless growth in order to prosper; growth, therefore, must be good.

It wasn't until 1962, when Rachel Carson published her seminal work "Silent Spring", that public attention was drawn to the harm we were wreaking on the environment by our careless use of pesticides. Carson postulated a world where, as in the poem, "no birds sing"; hence the "silence" of the book's title. The unrestricted use of chemicals would, she thought, eventually destroy or warp wildlife beyond redemption. We were poisoning the planet we live on.

Such views were seen as almost heretical to begin with, but as scientists turned their attention more and more to the effects of such potent, destructive substances as DDT they saw that we were indeed in danger of killing off both plant and animal life, the very entities on which our own survival depends.

Later, with the pollution studies which followed, the public began to be aware of the need for a more restrained use of chemicals, and in the 1970s the need to care for our environment began to be accepted and promulgated.

With the close of the last century the effects of global warming were also becoming more known, until today, most scientists, along with the general public, have realized that mankind is in a perilous position. If we continue to misuse science and to seek unrestricted economic growth, then we face an uncertain future. We may render our own habitat sterile.

All of this, I believe, can be seen in Gurdjieff's formulation of this Third Striving.

He was so far ahead of his time in his knowledge and his sense of urgency about the situation we face that the full implications of this Striving were not understood until many years after he had written his masterpiece.

Gurdjieff hinted that civilization itself was in danger because of the overuse of chemicals and of electricity.

To begin with, his warning was not understood. Chemicals were surely a blessing - look at the convenience they offered, the shortcuts to achieving just about everything, from cleaning floors to curing illnesses.

And how could electricity possibly pose any threat? It was a huge forward leap; we now had instant light, instant heat, machinery to do just about everything that had previously necessitated huge physical effort or had been impossible, such as the speed of calculation now achievable with artificial intelligence.

Yet it's only recently that we have begun to realize the  full extent of the problems posed by those very machines, including, first and foremost, computers.

Cyber attacks, terrorism, irreversable climate change, atomic weapons - these are the fruits of our scientific experiments, just as much as convenience and speed; or, as George Ohsawa said, "The bigger the front, the bigger the back".

We need to study the "laws of world-creation and world-maintenance" more than ever before, because if we don't, we will destroy our own home. And it could happen sooner than we think.

One of the workings of Nature, which science has not so far proved but which Gurdjieff taught, is the necessity of receiving certain vibrations from organic life, and most importantly from mankind. The vibrations in question are those released involuntarily at death. They can, however, be created and released voluntarily in our lifetime if we work on ourselves, and - as Jesus taught - learn to "die to ourselves".

If Nature receives insufficient vibrations of this type, which Gurdjieff says is needed to feed the atmosphere of the Moon and possibly to facilitate other processes as yet unknown to us, then she will cause large numbers of deaths to take place.

With this teaching, Gurdjieff anticipated by many years the "Gaia" hypothesis of James Lovelock; that the Earth is a living organism, acting and reacting to our presence, intent on preserving her own existence and that of Nature.

We have seen in our lifetime huge natural and human disasters. The bombing of the Twin Towers on 9/11, devastating earthquakes around the world, the biggest hurricanes ever seen, and the unimaginably huge catastrophe which claimed the lives of more than 250,000 people around the Indian Ocean in the Boxing Day tsunami, all released these very fine spiritual substances by their destructive effects on human beings.

The terrorist attacks are manmade, of course, caused by the misapplication of religion and abetted by mechanical interplanetary influences, but others are caused by Nature alone. And the scale of disasters is increasing.

Gurdjieff points out that if sufficient people were conscious, then such loss of life would not be necessary. With beautiful symmetry, he is saying, if we work on ourselves in accordance with his teachings, which are akin to the inner teachings of all the great religions, then we benefit ourselves, we benefit Nature, and we lighten the sufferings of God.

What a awe-inspiring teaching - and how timely.

The concomitant inner evolution that may take place as we grow in consciousness reflects the orderly state of the greater cosmos. Gurdjieff tells us that we must become to our own inner world what the Sun is in relation to the solar system. The Sun, mystically, symbolizes Christ, the creator and maintainer of the universe. We can achieve authority over our own inner universe by imitating Him and working on ourselves.

And we must also create a "Moon" in our inner world, a permanent centre of gravity governing our actions, an inner point of growth and stability towards which our work efforts can contribute.

If we work on ourselves according to the precept given in the Third Striving, our growth will be assisted - and so will the evolution of the Universe.

Mrs. Pogson taught that each one of us may become a cell in the mystical Body of Christ. We can, if we choose, become incorporated into - "eaten by" - something higher.

If we do not, we will still contribute when we die, but this will be an involuntary contribution, a sort of tax on living that will be exacted without our consent.

And, Gurdjieff said, organic life on Earth is an experiment; the Sun wants something from us, some contribution in return for giving us our existence; and if we do not work on ourselves, then the experiment may fail.

The Five Being-Obligolnian Strivings: (2) To Have a Constant and Unflagging Instinctive Need to Perfect Oneself in the Sense of Being

The Second Striving seems at first to be either relatively easy or impossible to attain. Reading it at a superficial level, we might believe that we already have this need, and that we can "skip over" pondering what this striving really means.

Or else we read it carefully and perhaps fear we will never achieve a "constant and unflagging" need to perfect ourselves in the Sense of Being.

Because we can't be perfect. Of course not. None of us is. How can we possibly think that we could one day perfect ourselves, in the way in which Gurdjieff means it here, that is to attain an increase in our level of Being?

We are so very far from that state.

Beginners in the Work may start to lose heart here, because we all know that there is not one single area of our life or our personal Work in which we've reached anything approaching perfection.

We take snapshots of ourselves throughout the day, and what we see - when we are being honest - is how very often we fail. How faulty our centres are, and how they interfere with one another. How we forget our aim at every moment, and miss the task we've been set. And what a long way we have to go before we become even a reasonably well functioning machine, let alone a man or woman of real Being.

Perfectionism is one of the traits we need to overcome, anyway. It's part of False Personality for many of us, and a very harmful part. It can cause us to want to hide our mistakes, to pretend to be better than we are, to exaggerate our achievements to ourselves and in Work groups, and perhaps even to God.

Gurdjieff calls this sort of attempt making a "hot air pie". And what a wonderful image that is! I visualize this large, literally flaky creation, based on nothing at all but air, collapsing at the first puff of reality - and then I see the futility of my attempts to hide from myself, to put on a mask of good behaviour or understanding that is so easily destroyed by a blast of the truth.

For me personally, perfectionism was one of my pitfalls, and I'd like to share my story with you here to illustrate how overcoming perfectionism as a trait is important to seeking "perfection, in the sense of Being".

Often belittled as a child, I had no confidence in my ability to write, and yet my Essence loved to create, and I would spend every moment of my free time writing, painting or composing music. I couldn't see the point of much of my schoolwork, and instead was often told off for dreaming when I was mulling over my next poem.

When one day I was offered the chance to become a cub reporter on an American newspaper, I grabbed it with both hands. Despite my father's warnings that I was useless as a writer and would never make it to publication, I was determined that I would give it my best shot. In those early days, I believed it was what I had been created to do, and that even if I failed I owed it to myself and to God to at least try.

Every day I worked painstakingly on my news stories and features, making sure I used reliable sources for my facts, backed them up with suitable quotations, gave both sides of a story, and presented the information in an interesting, readable style.

I never felt my stories were ready to publish, but at five every afternoon, ready or not, off they went to the editor. I would wait with trepidation, fearing I would be told to rewrite, be scolded for my inadequacy, or even given my notice.

But it didn't happen! Though very far from perfect, my work was good enough. And seeing that I could, after all, be useful while imperfect, I began to let the super-critical, negative, perfectionist I's die away until eventually they barely ever surfaced.

My teacher explained that to silence these and other useless I's in False Personality I had to draw the feeling of "I" out of them. To do this with attention was the only way to avoid being dominated by them. I found that when I did so I seemed to have more room within myself, as it were, more freedom.  When I observed myself and eventually began to remember myself I came under fewer laws. I was living more like a three-brained being, and less like a malfunctioning machine.

As, over the years, I became better at my craft, my aim gradually changed and became linked to my work on myself. I realized that sometimes - perhaps only seldom, it was true - my talent could be used by something higher.

For along with my enjoyment of writing I had, like many reporters, a strongly idealistic streak. I wanted my work to do some good, to help people, to increase the amount of truth and understanding in the world. Gradually I began to apply these ideals to every story I wrote, but I knew I often failed to achieve them.

And yet it was just this sense of inadequacy, of failure to meet my aim, that most helped me to grow in Being.

When I began to read St. Therese of Lisieux, she showed me how important it was to offer all I had done, along with all my failures, imperfections and mistakes, to God - Conscious Humanity - at the end of each day.

The acknowledgment of my own littleness was sometimes all I did have to offer. But that itself - a form of humility - is often the most pleasing thing we can offer God, because it is the start of becoming teachable, of being able one day to really work on oneself,

Looking at this Second Striving, then, it's clear to me today that it doesn't mean what I initially mistook it to be - a demand to become quite perfect in every way. We can't do this, and we're not expected to. Jesus tells us to be perfect, just as our Heavenly Father is perfect, but again, like Gurdjieff, He is talking about our quest for spiritual perfection, not perfection in the sense of doing everything supremely well.

Spiritual perfection grows from humility, from just this acknowledgment of my creaturely nature, that I will never attain great heights but that I can accept my failures, continue to struggle, and make work efforts.

The call to make such efforts comes from within, and the longer we are in the Work, really in it as opposed to just turning up for meetings and reading the books, the stronger and more persistent is the call.

Sometimes it's called a "taste". We acquire a taste for truth, for honesty, for humility. Our Buried Conscience begins to awaken, and it slowly and benignly starts to overcome our sleep. We know when we have gone too long without working, and we start to sense when we need to make greater efforts.

Those efforts must come from that inner call, that sensing. We can't impose effort from without, or at least not for very long. In the beginning this is necessary, but after a while we begin to feel for ourselves whenever we have gone a long time without working on ourselves, and we dislike the staleness that results.

Our Essence has come from God, and to God it longs to return. As St Augustine says, "Thou has made us for thyself, and our hearts are restless till they rest in thee".

And once we have begun the pilgrimage to the Sacred Centre, that urge may indeed become "constant and unflagging", just as the Second Striving describes.

And one day, with prayer and effort, we may actually reach a higher state of Being. That is the goal towards which we are all working, and Gurdjieff tells us here that it is attainable.

The Five Being-Obligolnian Strivings: (1) To have in their ordinary being-existence everything satisfying and really necessary for their planetary body

The Five Being-Obligolnian Strivings offer us an overview of what the Work teaches in regard to our existence on this planet: our purpose, aim and direction as three-brained beings, as seen from the viewpoint of "Grandfather Beelzebub" - Gurdjieff himself.

The first of these strivings seems self-explanatory. In the phrase "to have in their ordinary
 being-existence everything satisfying and really necessary for their planetary body" Gurdjieff is apparently saying that we need to have our most basic needs met before any genuine spiritual work can begin.

Apparently.

But nothing Gurdjieff says is ever really that simple.

Taking a superficial view, we might see the strivings as being something like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which says that we must have our requirements for food, clothing and shelter met before anything higher can be sought. Eventually, in Maslow's theory, the human being may meet the highest level of need, that for "self-actualization", but Maslow's description of this state is sketchy at best, and it's been the subject of much theorizing. In any case, "self-actualization" is not the ultimate goal of the Work. We must ask "which self are we trying to actualize?" And without the recognition that we are not one but many, that final goal can never be achieved.

One of the chief goals of the Work, and therefore of each person trying to practice it, is to increase our consciousness to such an extent that we may participate in the redeeming, renewing work of God and Conscious Humanity. This takes us way beyond mere psychology and into the realm of the spirit.

The five strivings do seem to offer a guide to ascending levels of Being, the most basic of which the Work says is to become a Good Householder, an obyvatel. The first striving describes the way of life of such a person, but it is far from clear exactly what Gurdjieff is implying here. As he intended, we need to study each section of "All and Everything" many times before hazarding a conclusion that this or that is what he "meant" to say.

Our planetary body is our instrument for manifesting our consciousness on Earth. For some people, simply having food, clothing and shelter would be a distant goal, and I think that implicit in the overall Five Strivings may be the need for us all to be conscious of what our neighbour may lack - even if that "neighbour" is thousands of miles distant.

But taking it at the simplest level, it's obvious that each one of us needs to start our personal Work from the position of having these most basic needs already met. We may not own our own home - Gurdjieff never did - but we must have somewhere to live that gives us shelter from the elements, a reasonably comfortable place to eat, sleep and work, and which we may occupy in relative peace without worrying at every moment that we may be evicted.

We also need to have appropriate food.

But here, too, we know that in the Work three types of food are necessary for our personal development, indeed for our very existence to continue: physical food for the body, the food of air, and the food of impressions.

Physical food is easy to understand - it's simply what we eat, what we put into our stomach to meet our physical needs. Exactly what those needs are will vary with age, situation, health and so on. As I've written in previous posts, we do best when we eat "mindfully", according to the needs of our moving/instinctive centre. Whether that means a vegetarian or omnivorous diet will depend on our physical constitution, our genetic inheritance, together with the needs of our current situation. We can study nutrition with our Intellectual Centre, but the best guidance will come from our own intuitions and instincts when we have observed ourselves for long enough to become aware of the difference between what is a real intuition and what is imagination.

Gurdjieff knew well the importance of eating mindfully. His dinners were legendary, offering almost every type of food you could imagine. Spices, herbs, sauces and rare delicacies from all over the world found their way on to his table, for the benefit of his extremely fortunate companions. He was an excellent chef, and understood the properties of each of the foods he prepared. We can all follow his example here.

Personally, I love cooking, and when I'm feeding others I enjoy the positive emotions associated with being a Good Householder and providing them with what they need and will enjoy, as well as taking the best care possible of my own planetary body.

But beyond physical food there is the food of air and that of impressions: being aware of the breath and trying to live somewhere where the air is pure enough to be of benefit is important to our state of health. The food of air combines with the food of the stomach to create certain hydrogens, necessary for the continuation of life.  And when we work on ourselves, we bring consciousness to the assimilation of impressions, which then extends the amount and increases the quality of the higher hydrogens available to us. When we remember ourselves, and especially in the morning exercise, we combine the three being-foods so as to maximize their potentials within us and help us to become more conscious. The Food Diagram shows exactly what happens.

We all need to feed on impressions, without which we would die, just as surely as if we were suffocated or starved.

But the work of remembering ourselves creates a different quality of Being. It is not strictly necessary for our continued existence, but it is vital if we are to progress in the Work. Higher states of consciousness depend on the existence of the appropriate hydrogens in our planetary body, and the science of combining the three types of being-food could be said to be the very heart of the Work.

And the quality of the impressions we receive also needs attention. We don't watch violent or pornographic films or television programmes, for example, not because of an externally imposed morality but because they are coarse and degrading, and don't support the growth of consciousness. For the same reason, we monitor the impressions we give ourselves in our inner and outer talking; we avoid gossiping, criticizing and judging others. We don't want to feed our consciousness on such negative impressions, which encourage the growth of I's in False Personality at the expense of Essence. We want to nourish Essence and starve False Personality, and must carefully choose the food of impressions with that aim in mind.

So we take care over the music we listen to, the pictures we put on our walls, the books we read, the people with whom we associate. We want to take in the very highest quality of impressions available to us, and to do so we need an environment which will support our personal Work, an Essence-nourishing environment. That has little to do with money, and everything to do with awareness and aim.

Such apparently insignificant factors as the fabrics and colours we choose to wear are also of interest. Wearing cotton, wool or silk gives the body a finer impression and enhances health more than wearing manmade fibres, and the harmony of the colours we carry on our body will influence our emotions and those of other people.  We do this not out of vanity but out of the wish to assimilate finer impressions, and if possible give others the chance to do so.

When we eat, we eat; we don't read, watch the news, or listen to rap music!

 Our meals should be occasions for really nourishing ourselves on every level, including feeding our Essence. If we're lucky enough to eat with others, our conversation should be as life-enhancing and supportive as the food we serve. Meals are not the right time for disputes or controversies. Putting flowers on the table, using the best quality china and silverware we can afford, appreciating the efforts made by those who cooked the meal, if we ourselves didn't prepare it: all these should be included in our consciousness as we eat.

Saying Grace before meals is a very beneficial practice. We express our gratitude towards God and Conscious Humanity, who have given us our lives and the chance to become conscious, who have made it possible for us to enjoy the food we eat and the food we offer to others. All these are unmerited gifts.

Essence loves new impressions, hence the popularity of foreign travel. So we should change our surroundings from time to time, visit new places, listen to music we're unfamiliar with, try new foods. Reading challenging books also offers the chance for our Intellectual Centre to grow, giving it the difficult food that will help it.

And if we patiently work on ourselves day by day, we may eventually reach a state where all impressions fall directly on Essence. This is a highly desirable goal, because if this happens, then Gurdjieff tells us the result will be "everything more vivid".

All this, and more, is implied in fulfilling the first Striving.

Relationships and Relapse: or, the Danger of Codependence

Addiction is sometimes called a disease of relapse. That doesn't mean that relapses are inevitable, thank God! My husband has just celebrated his 27th AA birthday, while I've just turned 25. Neither of us has suffered a relapse, and there are many others like us in AA and NA.

But relapses can and do occur, and when they happen it's more often than not because a relationship has gone wrong.

Why should this be? Why are relationships so dangerous? And does that mean we'd be better off living alone for the rest of our lives?

Heaven forbid! As well as being AA "old timers", my husband and I are happily married. We thank God every day for bringing us together, and next week we'll be celebrating our china wedding (20 years).

Others aren't so lucky. 

The problem is that when we are drinking or using drugs, we're in the grip of a terrible illness, our addiction. We are sick people. Very sick. Sick people choose other sick people for partners, and consequently our relationships end up a mess. Sick people have sick relationships; a relationship is only as healthy as the people involved.

Whether we're well or sick, we all choose people whose level of mental health, or sickness, is similar to our own. Addiction is a family illness, and many of us were raised by addicted parents and their codependent spouses, so it's no wonder that when we first come into recovery we haven't a clue what a healthy relationship actually is.

For example, a controlling, fearful woman may choose a passive man for a partner, because this is a situation she's familiar with, and one she thinks she can manipulate. Codependents are often controlling, because they think this is what the other person "needs". Being in control makes such a person feel safe, but what happens next? Soon, the man begins to resent being controlled and may relapse, or the woman may become dissatisfied and resent the limitations his passive nature imposes.

A martyr may choose a compulsive helper; an abuser may choose a willing victim, and so on.

Typically, an alcoholic person, even in recovery, will make a beeline for a codependent partner, because that's what he or she observed in their family of origin. And codependents gravitate to alcoholics for the same reason, and the situation perpetuates itself.

To understand the dynamics of the dysfunctional, addicted family, it's important to study the literature on codependence and if possible go to a meeting of Alanon or Adult Children of Alcoholics.

There are various coping strategies that those of us from such families have unconsciously adopted, and that skew our perceptions and the way we relate to others. Nobody from a dysfunctional family ever escapes without damage. And we bring the damage with us into each new relationship we try to form.

If an addict in a long term relationship comes into recovery, either the entire relationship will improve, especially if the codependent spouse also attends Alanon meetings; or - more likely - it will collapse. The newly abstinent spouse seems a completely different person, and the codependent partner feels useless and helpless. Deprived of their familiar role, the codependent may leave, and then the addict is perfectly poised for a relapse. The codependent partner may then return, and the whole cycle begin over again.

My own case is typical. I was raised by an alcoholic man and a passive, codependent woman. I learned that it's a woman's job to obey her husband, cover up his addiction, and accept abuse. When I grew up I had absolutely no idea of what a healthy marriage could be, and I chose my spouses accordingly.

I've been legally married three times, but only once in church, so I'm very fortunate - my first two marriages, both disastrous, didn't count in the eyes of the church, so as a Christian I've been married only once. And that's actually how it feels to me now. This is the first healthy relationship I've ever had, and it's completely different from my past experiences. What I have today is love, not codependence.

I can see now that my first two "spouses" were completely unsuitable for me, but it's only with hindsight that I can see just why this was so. My first, whom I was pressured into marrying at university by the dean of students, was a heavy drinker who went out each night, chased other women, and left me on my own. I soon grew bored and angry, and moved out.

The second was a gay man who thought he might be bisexual, and was therefore interested in trying to make a go of being married and having children. Unfortunately for our marriage, he turned out to be gay, not bi, and eventually he felt he was living a lie. He left me and our children and went to live with another man, with whom he'd fallen in love, and that was the event that precipitated my drinking. Of course, my ex wasn't responsible for this and he didn't cause my alcoholism. The illness was waiting in the wings and would doubtless have surfaced in the end, but the breakup brought it on.

What had attracted me to this man - apart from his being very good-looking and popular - was his emotional unavailability. My father had been similarly remote, when not actually drinking, so I replicated my family situation in my marriage.

It wasn't until I was two years sober, and had the benefit of a year's counselling, that I was finally able to make a wise choice.

By that time I'd become enmeshed in yet another codependent relationship, this time with a man who drank heavily (surprise!) and was married, so was just as unavailable as my second husband had been. After that initial two years, I realized I had to end that relationship, because if I didn't I would put my sobriety at risk, and then I would have nothing. I couldn't allow that to happen, for my children's sake as much as my own, but ending that affair was the second hardest thing I've ever done. The first, of course, was giving up alcohol.

So much of our culture exalts codependence as if it were something marvellous, to be sought after. Pop songs reinforce the idea that we have to have that one special person, that man or woman we just can't live without. Plays, films, soap operas - all show relationships as heavily codependent, with the implication that that is how we're meant to live.

But in recovery, counsellors call such codependence a "second step slip". Instead of relying on our Higher Power, normally the God of our understanding or the AA group, we've chosen to make another, very fallible, human being our higher power - and no relationship, no person, can live up to that expectation.

In recovery we're advised not to get into a new relationship until we've been clean and sober for at least one year, and preferably for two. If we're already married or in a long term partnership, we will want to work on making that relationship as healthy as possible; but we have to accept that perhaps it can't be done. We chose one another in a state of mental distress, and our choice may be the opposite of what we need to become well.

What I've written applies as much to same-sex relationships as to heterosexual ones. The feelings are exactly the same, of course, though there may be added social pressures to cope with. AA and NA both have separate meetings in most areas for LGBT members, so that they won't feel stigmatized by other alcoholics and addicts. Sadly, that can happen. 

Any addict is also codependent, and along with working the Twelve Step programme around our primary addiction we will want to examine our codependence. We can do this with our sponsor, especially when we work the fourth and fifth steps, or with a counsellor. But we have to face it and expose it as the impostor it is, otherwise we will be setting ourselves up for another failed relationship and - perhaps - a relapse.

My husband knows that, much as I love him, my sobriety comes first, and the same is true for him. If we don't maintain our spiritual health, sooner or later we will lose everything, including each other.

Sobriety means so much more than just abstinence. It means being clear-sighted and honest, understanding ourselves and the devious nature of our disease, and relying on our Higher Power for the help we need in staying sober. As the AA Big Book says, alcoholism has no cure, but we are given a daily reprieve from our illness as long as we maintain a fit spiritual condition.

Codependence is the hidden disease which drives so much of our behaviour when we are drinking, and in the early days of our recovery. If we don't overcome it, we will surely relapse. And we can't afford to do that. We may have the potential for another relapse in us, but we can't be sure we will have the strength for another recovery.

AA and the Sidelining of God in the UK

An American alcoholic can walk into a UK meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and feel at home straight away. And the reverse is also true, of course. There are many, many similarities between meetings in both countries because AA worldwide is based on the same Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.

But there are also some differences, and they can be puzzling. I was somewhat baffled when I went to my first AA meeting in England, after having been in recovery for two years in America.

There on the wall were Twelve Steps, clearly printed in large type so that everyone could read it.

There too were the familiar slogans: H-A-L-T; Live and Let Live; Easy Does It, and so on.

There was a table spread with AA literature, including the Big Book, which I love.

Just as in Atlanta, where I used to live, I was greeted in Bournemouth by friendly members, offered a cup of tea (in Atlanta it had been coffee, but tea tends to be served more frequently in England), and a plate of biscuits.

People chatted, greeted friends, welcomed strangers like me, and then sat down in a large circle when

the officers took their places.

And then came the first difference. I expected we'd open the meeting with the Serenity Prayer, as we'd always done in my Atlanta home group - and in other Atlanta AA groups, too. 

But no, in England the meeting began with a reading from the Preamble, followed by the Promises, and then by some notices.

And this threw me. Because for me, the overarching principle of AA, the factor which drew me to it at first and kept me a faithful member, was the presence of God. And what I didn't know, but soon realized, was that in England people "don't do God" - at least, not all that much, and very rarely in public. Even in AA.

The rest of the English meetings proceeded in just the same way as AA meetings everywhere. There's usually a share by a guest speaker, sometimes a session of Big Book studies, and always contributions, or shares, from anyone in the room who wants to speak. 

But at the end, another difference, small but telling: in England, that was when we said the Serenity Prayer and closed the meeting. 

In America, however, meetings had ended with the Lord's Prayer. We'd already said the Serenity Prayer, so each AA meeting was bracketed with prayers at opening and closing. The ending, the loud and happy recital of the "Our Father" was a part of the meeting I particularly liked. I'd recently found my way back to God, and I appreciated the way that, in the USA, the God of our understanding was kept strongly in the forefront at AA.

At my American home meeting, a regular member who happened to be a Methodist minister would stand up at the close, hold out his arms, and call out - "Whose Father?"

And we all stood up, held hands, and called back, "Our Father!" And then followed with the rest of the familiar, well-loved prayer, said by everyone present, even those who claimed to be agnostics. It is such a well-known prayer to Christians of all denominations that everyone knew it by heart, and it gave the meeting a rousing finale. We walked outside feeling energized, refreshed, and recharged.

But in England, that simply didn't happen.

Why not? I've often pondered that question. And it seems to me that it reflects a profound and troubling difference in European, especially British, society, as compared to the USA - it exemplifies our post-modern religious apathy, our refusal to think about God, our desire to push Him into the background, even at AA meetings.

When it comes to thinking about God, the situation is really bad here in England, and, I think, throughout Europe.

We've simply cut Him out of our daily discourse and we don't even give Him much of a place at Twelve Step meetings, where most of all we would expect to find religion and spirituality honored rather than shoved into the background.

When the EU constitution was being drafted, the then-Pope, John Paul II (now Saint John Paul II), implored the politicians to make at least some reference to Christianity. Without it, as he rightly said, Europe as a political entity would never have existed. It was the Roman Empire, then the Holy Roman Empire, and then the various converted little states and principalities that eventually moved towards creating the idea of Europe, a larger, overriding category that included all these minor and major Christian powers and bound them together in common belief.

But no, the European politicos would have none of it. Democracy was highlighted, God left out.

In England today, Christianity has fallen into such disfavor that public servants or officials dare not wear a cross or even display one in their car. Nurses have been disciplined for doing so, and a council official lost his job because he kept his Palm Sunday cross on the dashboard of his van. Public prayers, even though ecumenical and inclusive and once the accepted way of opening council meetings, are now largely abandoned, and even in schools there is no guarantee of a public morning assembly with prayers, hymns, and readings, such as we always had 50 years ago.

Such a Christian background gave people a standard to live up to. Honored more often in the breach than in the observance, it nevertheless offered a common ideal towards which we were encouraged to strive. Society as a whole was permeated by Christian belief. Our laws, our festivals, our school and academic year, our government - everything reflected Christianity. 

But then, in the 1970s, my generation of students graduated and took up jobs in the media, in politics and in education. Formed by the prevalent Marxist philosophy of our undergraduate days, we were - most of us - very left-wing and idealistic. We thought naively that if we could only educate children to be unselfish, change the laws of the land to allow for more latitude as to marriage and family, and encourage everyone to "do their own thing" through the print and broadcast media, we would achieve some kind of semi-socialist Utopia. God was, we declared, irrelevant. We'd do much better without Him.

Of course, we didn't.

What happened instead was that ever since then we have forced the Judaeo-Christian religious ethos into the corner and ignored it as much as possible. 

Whereas, until the 1960s, Christianity was the ideal, today we have an entire generation of intelligentsia devoted to secular, socialist ideology in which there is no place for God. Only Catholics, some Baptists and Orthodox Christians now go to church on a regular basis. The good old Church of England, once the standard-bearer for social ideals, has become in many places an embodiment of the left-liberal ideology that now takes the place of real spirituality.

The reigning monarch has been Head of the Church in England since Henry VIII, but now, the heir to the throne, Prince Charles, has said that he wants to be "head of faith", or something similar, instead. Whatever that means.

 There are still many devout Anglicans who deplore the loss of the public religious standard, and who practice their own religion with devotion and love. They are the backbone of society, Good Householders par excellence.

But generally, God has been so neglected in modern day England that even in AA He no longer holds the centre stage.

Blasphemy and four letter words have become too common at many AA meetings, and members talk of their inability to believe in God with defiance rather than humility. 

Because AA was and remains a basically Christian programme, though broadminded enough to be suitable for people of any religion or none, I don't think the religious element will ever be entirely banished. If it ever is, God help the recovering alcoholic.

For all of us, whether we know it or not, who are recovering from addiction are wholly dependent on God for our spiritual progress - indeed, for our very lives. Only His power can keep us sober, and if we try to shut it out of our consciousness we will lose our sobriety, and chaos will again take over our lives.

As the Big Book says, we have a daily reprieve from alcoholism that is dependent on our maintaining a fit spiritual condition. 

And we can't do that without God.

Four Types of Suffering: (4) Redemptive Suffering

"Suffering may come as a result of your own feelings, thoughts and actions connected with your task; it may come by itself as a result of your own faults or as a result of other people's actions, attitudes or feelings. But what is important is your attitude towards it. It becomes deliberate if you do not rebel against it, if you do not try to avoid it, if you do not accuse anybody, if you accept it as a necessary part of your work at the moment, and as a means for attaining your aim."

-  P.D. Ouspensky - "Conscience: The Search for Truth"

We know that suffering is extremely important in the Work. So vital is it to our spiritual progress that we can't reach a higher state of Being unless we are prepared to suffer, and suffer willingly. What Ouspensky writes about above is that suffering which Christian writers call redemptive, or expiatory
 suffering. It's not that this suffering is any different in origin from the types which we've looked at in the preceding posts. It may be produced by our own internal negative thoughts and emotions, by life itself in the normal processes of living on this planet or by the remorse of conscience we feel when we see ourselves as we truly are.

Such suffering creates a spiritual energy which the Work calls "higher hydrogens". I'm convinced that this is the very energy that the Christian churches (especially the Catholic and Orthodox denominations) call the "treasury of merit", which is stored up in higher realms to be available for the redemption and healing of the world.

Jesus Christ Himself created an unimaginable amount of this spiritual substance during His ministry on Earth and most especially during His Sacred Passion and Crucifixion.

Such fine energies were necessary if mankind was ever going to be able to climb back up the Ray of Creation by means of the "side octave" created by the Sun, which to us in the Work represents the level of Christ.

We could not create sufficient by ourselves to accomplish this task. Wise men and woman throughout the ages have accepted suffering as part of their path, even before the incarnation of the Messiah. In Isaiah, the prophet describes the plight of the "suffering servant," a virtuous, wholly innocent person who is punished for the sins of others, and who "openeth not his mouth" to defend himself against his accusers. With hindsight, Christians interpret this passage to refer to Jesus. Orthodox Jews see it as applying to all innocent people made to suffer for the sins of others.

But however much individual human beings were prepared to suffer on behalf of others, it took a completely perfected and sinless human being - Jesus - to undertake the huge task of creating the energy which alone could lead us to redemption, or salvation. Nobody else had reached that level of perfection.

This is the significance of the Passion of Christ. This is what makes it possible for all of us, whether in the Work or living as Good Householders, to begin the ascent back to our origins, the true home of Essence. Without Him, we would never have been able to do this, and we would have been lost forever. Even now, our own personal redemption and the redemption of mankind is far from a certainty. Gurdjieff describes the creation of man, the three-brained being, as "an experiment". If sufficient people do not work on themselves, the experiment may fail.

Today, with the possibility of environmental disasters or vastly destructive wars looming more closely than ever, we can understand this difficult saying. Our consciousness, our Being, has not kept pace with our scientific knowledge. If mankind does not evolve, the planet may be destroyed.

Catholics have the clearest understand of the necessity for suffering, in my view. Sufi teachers also talk of the "Way of Blame," which is very similar to the path taken by Jesus and by Gurdjieff, who refused, like the "suffering servant" of the Bible, to respond to their accusers and accepted blame and suffering as the path to enlightenment. But few outside the Muslim world have heard of this way, while Catholic Christians the world over do understand and value the worth of suffering.

Catholic schoolchildren are taught from the earliest age that when they have difficulties or pain, they may "offer it up" in union with the sacrifice of Jesus, for a cause that they themselves may choose or simply to be used for the redemption of creation in any way that Jesus may desire.

St Pio of Pietrelcina (formerly venerated as Padre Pio, the Cappuchin Friar and stigmatist) says, "If humanity could realize the value of suffering, they would ask for nothing else ... My sufferings are more precious to me than gold".

St Pio experienced extremes of physical, mental and spiritual suffering in his lifetime. Not only did his stigmata, the wounds in his flesh identical to those of Christ, cause him almost unbearable pain and loss of blood, his physical health was fragile throughout his life and included pains and symptoms of many different kinds, all verified by medical doctors.

Yet not only did he willingly accept them in the interest of saving souls, he also accepted, though with even greater suffering, the pain of being completely misunderstood and vilified as a charlatan, even by some officials in the church, who later realized their error and apologized for it.

Redemptive suffering can only come to us when we are in what the church calls "a state of grace", which means that we are free of serious sin, and in what the Work calls "a state of self-remembering". If, in that condition, we are asked to undergo suffering, we may willingly accept it as a sure way to transformation which also helps many others, from our own family to our Work colleagues, to people far away on the other side of the planet who have never heard of us but who benefit by receiving the fine energy created by our acceptance of suffering.

Our suffering transforms our blood itself, when it's accepted with good will. Many poisons are eliminated, and fine, higher hydrogens can begin to circulate around our body. Sometimes this may result in physical healing, sometimes not. Many, if not most, of those who are willing to undergo redemptive suffering find that the task is theirs for a lifetime. But the experience is not a depressing one - on the contrary, suffering may be accepted not only willingly but with peace and joy, because the sufferer knows that what he or she is undergoing is of very great value to God and their fellow beings.

When suffering continues for long periods, or for the person's lifetime, then we are invited to use it as material for spiritual growth and understanding. The health of the body, while to be sought and enjoyed when it occurs, is not our chief goal. It is the health of the spirit which is being created here, a condition which will last past our physical lifetime and offer us the chance to progress even further in a different dimension, that which Christians call "heaven".

Without suffering, no higher "being bodies" can be created.

On a different level, suffering can also heal us emotionally if it is accepted and willingly undergone. If it has been caused by anything we ourselves have done, then we may learn from it and renounce the faults that caused it; if not, if it is truly undeserved, then besides offering it to God as Catholics do, we may also grow in compassion towards our fellow human beings. We begin to understand what innocent victims have to suffer, and we become more patient and more willing to help others.

The great Catholic theologian Henry Nouwen described the enormous benefits that suffering had given him, in his writings. After a period of great mental and spiritual torment, he began to live simply, among the mentally and physically handicapped residents of  "L'Arche," a Christian-run programme which cares for those unable to care for themselves.

In serving them, Nouwen discovered a deeper realm of living, a depth of understanding and a channel of grace which he had never suspected and which brought him healing and peace. For the first time, he understood the meaning of love.

This, too, is redemptive suffering. And it is the task required of us in the Five Being Strivings, where Gurdjieff explains that we must eventually begin to make efforts to lighten the sufferings of God Himself. We can do this only after painstaking work on ourselves, accepting suffering in the ways I've described above. If we persevere, we will truly take part in the redemption of creation, comforting our Creator as we do so.

How can God suffer? Is he not above all pain?

No. God has chosen to undertake the unimaginably difficult task of creating and maintaining the entire cosmos. And he is intimately involved because of His love for us. He is with us in our sufferings, and he is comforted by our willingness to bear them patiently, even joyfully, playing our part in the redemptive process.

A distressed Jew once asked, "Where was God in the holocaust?"

And the reply came, "He was there, suffering with the victims."

St Paul puts it thus: "I, Paul, am made a minister; who now rejoice in my sufferings for you and fill up that which may be lacking in the afflictions of Christ, in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the Church".

In other words, St Paul was rejoicing because he was suffering as part of the body of Christ, joining his own personal suffering to that of Jesus, helping the entire Church - visible and invisible - grow in grace.

In the Work we don't use religious language, but when we take suffering as a path to enlightenment we join with Jesus, St Paul, St Therese, St Pio, St John Paul II, the Buddha, the Sufi Pirs and Sheikhs, and all the saints and angels both known and unknown who comprise the circle of Conscious Humanity.

To be among them is our goal, and the way to reach it is by redemptive suffering.

Four Types of Suffering: (3) The Pain of Seeing Ourselves

"If you are willing to bear serenely the trial of being displeasing to yourself, then you will be ...(for Jesus) a pleasant place of shelter". 

- Collected letters of St Therese of Lisieux, translated by F. J. Sheed.

The trial of being displeasing to ourselves - this is the pain we all feel when we see ourselves and our fallen state. It's integral to the Twelve Steps and to the Work. It is a real pain, and it bites like no other. James Joyce's phrase - "agenbite of inwit" - is an accurate description of how we feel when our conscience, which literally means "seeing all together", shows us how we are. It bites us again and again until we accept our pettinesses, our weaknesses, our inconsistencies and much, much more; and we must suffer the sight of all this without running away from it, without trying to justify ourselves, and without judging and condemning ourselves, either.

St Therese offered everything to God, including her own "littleness". Here is the origin of the name given to her spiritual path, "The Way of Spiritual Childhood". By this she did not mean being naive or childish. She was talking of the way children with loving parents will run to them and confide their faults, and how, strengthened by our faith, we as adults can also confess our faults and accept our own "littleness". The saint was increasingly aware, as she matured in her convent community, of her own weaknesses; "her sinfulness, her tendencies to be self-righteous and judgmental, and to show a lack of full charity to her sisters" (Walking the Little Way of Therese of Lisieux, by Joseph F. Schmidt).

In working the Steps, we first catch a glimpse of our littleness when we admit in Step One that our lives have truly become unmanageable. We give up our previous ideas, that we are perfectly all right, that we are doing well in every respect, that each alcoholic binge is just an unfortunate and rare mishap, and admit that we've lost the plot. Our drinking has taken control of us, rather than the other way round, and every part of our life is a mess. We must see this, really see it and accept the truth of it.

Wisely, the Steps immediately go on to encourage the alcoholic to have faith in a Higher Power, a "God of their understanding," and then to willingly submit to the loving guidance of that God. By the time Step Four is reached, and the alcoholic is asked to make a fearless and searching moral inventory of his life, he has at least begun to trust that he is not alone in his distress, that he has the love of his God and the fellowship of an understanding AA group to turn to when he needs them.

But the inventory itself must be written and confessed, eventually to God and to one other person,  usually a sponsor from the AA program, who's been there and done it all and who will completely understand the alcoholic's situation.  As a Catholic, I chose to make my own Step Five (the "confessional") to a Jesuit priest, who was also a member of the program. His wisdom, honesty and compassion helped me through this difficult task, and I'm forever grateful to him for that.

However understanding our sponsor or chosen confessor may be, however, we have to bear the pain of looking unflinchingly at ourselves, and this can never be easy. AA members continue with this practice throughout their lives; it is vitally important for their sobriety. A daily inventory is made, either with "spot checks" on their spiritual state throughout the day, or, if they prefer, a final, more thorough spiritual check at the end of the day. Alcoholics are advised to continually check themselves for feelings of fear, worry or anger, so that such dangerous states are not allowed to fester.

In the Work, we are told from the very beginning of the need to observe ourselves. Not only do we look at our actions, we also become of our thoughts and feelings, our physical state, and our posture as we take "snapshots" of ourselves during the day. All centres must be observed so that we get a complete picture of how we are, because unless we are thorough and honest with ourselves we will never make any spiritual progress at all but will keep repeating the same mistakes over and over.

At the same time, the Work and Twelve Step programmes both insist that our observations must not be allowed to drift into what AA calls "morbid reflection", and what the Work points out as a negative emotion: the constant return to a state of remorse, without any attempt to change. If an alcoholic does this, she may be in danger of becoming seriously depressed, and this in turn could lead to a relapse. It is to be prevented at all costs, and a wise sponsor will be able to spot whether this is happening and if necessary draw the sponsee's attention to it.

In the Work, we don't dwell on our negativity. We don't identify with it: it is no more the "real" us than are any of our negative emotions. We see it, let go of it and make a fresh start at once.

As we go deeper and deeper into the Work, we discover that we are not at all the people we once thought we were. Our once-buried conscience gradually begins to speak to us without words, bringing its light to situations and inner states we had never suspected were present. Thus, we may see that we are not at all the kind, gentle, courteous driver we had believed - we may not have shouted at anyone, true, but what about the quiet fuming and sighing when we are caught in a traffic jam? Or our angry thoughts when the way is blocked by a really stupid person? What's wrong with them - don't they know who we are? And so on. We may find our attention drawn to these thoughts by changes in our physical state, such as increased heartbeat and muscular tension; or perhaps we are suddenly aware of feeling uneasy. When this happens, we can see ourselves, and disidentify.

Throughout our lives, we have all been prevented from seeing the full reality of our being by something which Gurdjieff called "buffers", and which Charles Tart, the psychotherapist and writer on the Work, calls "defence mechanisms". Other therapists refer to them as reaction formations, or blocking mechanisms. Whatever their name, we all have them. They stop us from seeing our multiple inner contradictions, and that's necessary for our survival,  because if we saw ourselves all at once, in all our contradictory, inconsistent states, we would go mad.

Their removal is therefore very gradual and happens at a time when we are prepared to suffer the pain of seeing ourselves. As St Paul writes in II Corinthians, "For godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation, a repentance which bringeth no regret: but the sorrow of the world worketh death. For behold, this self-same thing, that ye were made sorry after a godly sort, what earnest care it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves .." (verses 8-11).

This "clearing of ourselves" is exactly what we need, in the Work. It is a form of self-remembering. It brings us close to Real I. St Paul is pointing out that when we suffer because we have behaved mechanically, this can lead to repentance, a word which literally means "thinking again". In the Work we are encouraged to repent, not in the sense of wringing our hands and bewailing our sins, but meaning that we look afresh at what we are like so that we may become more conscious as a result.

In previous posts I wrote about mechanical suffering, which we must sacrifice to make progress in the Work, and the sort of suffering which is brought about by events in the world, over which we are powerless and which we must simply accept. But this third type of suffering, that of seeing ourselves as we truly are, painful as it is, can bring us real insight and new understanding.

Of course, we must make these observations every day, but if we persevere we will find that the light works very gently and very compassionately, pointing things out that we need to see, but never condemning, never judging, never criticizing. If any of those judgmental "I's" creep into our observations, we detach from them immediately and let them go. We take the feeling of "I" out of them. Such "I's" will put a stop to any sort of understanding if we let them, and that is why Jesus tells us not to judge, because if we do, we ourselves will be judged, and there will then be no escape from our suffering.

In the Acts of John, one of the gnostic gospels, Jesus tells his disciples, "If thou hadst known how to suffer, thou wouldest have been able not to suffer. Learn thou to suffer, and thou shalt be able not to suffer".

And much of the Work is about learning how to suffer, so that we may be able not to suffer, as Jesus says.

Each day is a new start in our spiritual journey. It is a fresh opportunity for insight and growth.

I'll end with an insight from Dr. Nicoll, who says, in Volume Five of his Psychological Commentaries, that in the Work, "state is place". In other words, when we are in a particular psychological state, we are in a definite place in ourselves. Different places in the brain are concerned with different thoughts, activities and emotions. Our state at any moment is due to the place we are in.

He goes on to say, "There are many dangerous places in the psychological city of yourself. It is necessary to study them by prolonged Self-Observation, and try to become increasingly conscious of the roads that lead to them, and why you go down them. This is intelligent observation."

Four Types of Suffering: (2) Unavoidable Suffering

If, as we are told, life on Earth is a pain factory, a "vale of tears", how can any of us hope to avoid suffering?

We can't. Suffering is built into human life, and nobody escapes their share of it. We've all lost people we love because of death; we've seen friends or family members suffer injuries, illnesses and losses; we've undergone many different types of loss ourselves. Such trials and burdens are normal. It's impossible to imagine a perfect life, marked by no sorrow, in this world - when novels or films try to depict such a life, as in "The Brady Bunch", we know it's completely fake. How could it not be?

What defines us is not the nature of our losses, but how we cope with them.

Do we react with resentment, anger, blame, or self-pity?

Or do we resign ourselves patiently, without complaint, and simply accept suffering as part of our lot?

The Good Householder knows that nobody can be free of suffering, but if he or she has a strong religious faith, that faith can give guidelines as to how to handle it when it comes.

And yet, even those of us with faith will necessarily grieve at the loss of a loved one. It's a natural part of life, yes, and we may know or hope that the person we've lost has gone on to a different kind of life in the world of Spirit, but the pain we feel is still real, still acute.

If we try to deny it, if we attempt to leap from grief to acceptance in one enormous jump, we're trying to bypass our suffering. Such a spiritual bypass can never succeed. We might, for a while, manage to put on a happy face and stuff our feelings back down into our unconscious mind, but inevitably they will fester and grow, only to surface, perhaps much later, in destructive ways.

Therapists know that grieving has five aspects, which often alternate, coming and going in no particular order for perhaps a year or more. If the acute form of grieving lasts longer than two years, then some sort of help is probably indicated; but there is no real relief for the normal course of grieving. Anger, sadness, denial, bargaining and acceptance - all take their turn in the round of stormy emotions that sweep through us on the death of someone we cherish.

Eventually, we hope to reach acceptance, which is not an approval of what has happened, but a bittersweet feeling that means we acknowledge our pain, are thankful for the life of the person we lost, and for what he or she meant to us, yet know that it's time to leave the deepest pain behind as we continue with our lives.

The Jewish tradition of mourning is one of the best I know: members of the family of a newly-deceased person spend a week in deepest mourning, sitting in their homes with darkened windows, visited by friends and other more distant family members who offer them comforting words, prayers, and concrete help in the form of food and drink. Nobody who has just lost someone dear to them should have to cope with the daily necessities of life, in that tradition. That's where the whole community comes in, faith with its sleeves rolled up, ready to work.

After the first seven days, a somewhat less acute form of mourning is sanctioned for thirty days. Grieving people may return to work and to their normal duties, but are not expected to take part in celebrations or festivals, and are excused from participating in many communal activities as they gradually begin to recover from their loss.

Personal mourning continues, of course, even after the thirty days, but at the end of a year the gravestone is set and the family bids a public, final farewell to the person they've lost.

In Catholic countries, public mourning, share sorrow, and the eventual, joyful funeral "wake" helps the bereaved to cope with their loss.

With clear boundaries like this, which everyone knows and respects, grieving is much more manageable. But so many of us in the West have lost our common traditions, and don't know how to handle grief, either in our own case or in relation to others. It's not uncommon for people to actually avoid speaking to a newly-bereaved spouse or child, to even cross the road in order not to have to say hello to them, simply because we no longer have any sense of what to say. And this, of course, isolates the bereaved and causes them even more grief.

People today often fear death because they feel no assurance or hope about what comes after. With no uniting religious traditions, a huge loss like this is almost impossible to cope with. When, in the sixties, society began to jettison all religious paths, all moral constraints, and adopt a hedonistic approach to life, a sense of connection, of community, was lost.

 Today, many react to the reality of death like a child afraid of the dark. We deny it in a thousand ways, through plastic surgery and artificially youthful looks, so that we can pretend to ourselves that we are still "only" 40, not 60 or 70; through a myriad vitamin supplements and odd diets to stave off the ageing process, none of which work;  through constant mental distraction with entertainment, trivia, intoxicants.

Queen Elizabeth I was so terrified of ageing that, even though she claimed a strong Christian faith, she banned all mirrors from her palaces and wore a thick mask of makeup to try to hide the ravages of time. It sometimes seems as though many today would like to do the same.

Other losses - financial, emotional, physical - affect us less acutely but are nonetheless part of our lives.

A Good Householder lives without the expectation of a smooth ride, an easy journey. Whatever comes, she handles with equanimity and acceptance. If a job is lost, then the family may have to move home, but instead of bewailing their problems, Good Householders simply make the necessary arrangements and set up a new home hundreds of miles away, where work is to be found. This has actually happened to several members of my family and to me and my husband. In no instance did those affected want to leave their home neighbourhoods, but all saw the need, and simply did what  had to be done in order to support themselves and their dependents.

There is no particular merit in acting thus, and it used to be the norm. Much mockery was made of the British "stiff upper lip", which was lampooned in films and books, but today the British war slogan - Keep Calm And Carry On - confronts us everywhere in the form of bags, t-shirts and posters. Clearly, while it could be overdone and lead to unhealthy repression, it also embodies a stoicism that people recognize as missing from an often hysterical society.

In the AA Big Book, mention is made of the universal need for acceptance of life on life's terms. Life often gives us unwelcome shocks, but if we know that this is quite normal we will live our lives with a calm acceptance of whatever may come. We may not like it, but what seems like a bitter blow can reveal unexpected gains if we handle it aright.

In the case of my own house move, to a different area where I knew nobody and felt ill at ease, I discovered two new Work students, and to this day am extremely grateful to my Higher Power, whom I choose to call God, for bringing them into my life. My husband, for his part, found good work that enabled him to help many suffering alcoholics, addicts and codependent clients. We both feel that the move was in the end a very good thing.

A Good Householder is not an unemotional, unfeeling robot. She does feel, often deeply, but she knows that sometimes feelings are best left unexpressed, and are certainly not always the right guide to action. She believes, along with Hegel, that "freedom is the recognition of necessity", and that we can't expect any real happiness or satisfaction from life. She does her duty, accepts her responsibilities, without seeking any reward. She knows that life itself is full of difficulties, but she also knows that life is not an end in itself. There is something higher, and that is where she places her trust.

This is the path of dharma, and right thinking people have followed it for thousands of years. Eventually they will reach enlightenment; they are assured of the loving care of God, however they conceive that God, because they live according to their real conscience.

Twelve Step programmes, if diligently followed, help the still suffering alcoholic or addict to reach the stage of the Good Householder.

And that is already at a much higher level than many of us.