Hair and Bones, Iron and Gold

The search

St. Michael and the Angels at War with the Devil, Domenico Ghirlandaio, about 1479. Collection at the Detroit Institute of Art.

Notes from Suzhou, China, Oct. 20 2024

One of the "results" of inner work, more especially so far as I have seen in the Gurdjieff work than in any other work, I know of (I am hardly any expert on these matters) is that people think that "demand" consists of some kind of severity and intensity; and that, furthermore, the more severe and intense they become about "working" (a term which, in my humble opinion is grossly misunderstood by most if not perhaps all of us) the more “real” that their work is.

Even worse, folks begin to think that transmitting the teachings through this severe and intense approach will benefit others; and there you go.

In other words, folks grow something hard in them, kind of like a nodule, which is a concentrated pellet of inner force that actually is more or less something like the hairball that an owl coughs up after it has eaten a mouse. It certainly derives from a vital and vibrant life; and it is certainly the remains of a force that has fed something that helps the work; but it is a pellet of the remains, and only contains the hair and bones of what can truly feed being. The hair is attractive, but already dead, and can only be styled to make things look better; and the bones have no marrow left in them.