A Short Study Regarding Beelzebub

Beelzebub is the penultimate Devil, also known as 

"Lord of the Flies". 

Flies have some interesting characteristics: 


First: They have compound eyes so they SEE almost an entire spherical 360 degrees 

Except where their thin bodies are. Their blind spot is therefore much smaller then 

Ours. They see right through their wings when in flight, and they do not take off 

Like birds, but vertically, like a Harrier Jet. They almost have eyes in the back of 

Their heads. 


Second: They fly, and there is a kind of stickum on their feet so they can land 

Anywhere; upside down, on ceilings, walls, anywhere. 


Third: ALL their hairs act like our ears, sensing changes in air pressure as well or 

better than a human's two ears. 


Fourth: They have giant orgies in flight,; that is to say, they have a crazy mind 

boggling acrobatic sex life. 


Fifth: They can eat almost anything, although they prefer sweets. 

They eat through a proboscis, like a vacuum cleaner. 


Sixth: They are constantly cleaning themselves, and cleansing themselves and their 

Senses.


Seventh: They have Real Will -- if they want to land on your nose, you can brush 

Them off but they will just fly around and re-land on your nose, if that's where they 

Want to land.  


---------------------------------------------------------------------

If "Man" had that kind of Will Power he could do almost anything, and he could but 

He doesn't know it because he is near comatose, glued to "The World".

---------------------------------------------------------------------



Eighth: Which starts a new Octave, Flies only have to live for six weeks, Lay eggs 

And die. I venture they die a happy death, because their lives are so vivid.


And they remember themselves 'Always and Everywhere'. 

WITW#16 To Serve Live Sacrifice becomes Grace - Einstein

"In the Service of Life; Sacrifice becomes Grace"

Albert Einstein: October 28, 1930

In terms of our Work, how do we see this? Is it "lip service"? Or something real? What do you FEEL about this Statement? 

Do we serve Life?
What can we Sacrifice?
What do we HAVE, to Sacrifice?
What would we be WILLING to sacrifice?

WITW#15): The Blind Spot

All things have a center, from which they whirl; the fingerprint has whorls; the hair on the skull has crowns, the spot where there is no hair and which serves as the center of the hair whorl; the eyes have blind spots where the optic nerve is attached; even Achilles had a place where his Mother held him which dipping him into the pool pf immortality, his heels.

The galaxies have large "black holes" at the center, and everything circulates around this center; why then should not Man have a ridgepole around which his personality revolves. I contend that he does, and it is called "Chief Feature;" a prevailing center around which the constellation of his personality whirls. We have been told by Mr. Gurdjieff that we cannot be told straight out what this is, as we will deny and rail against this fact, as it is two things: too close to our principle identification, and in a blind spot -- in our Subconscious and Unconscious aspects.

There is a well worn work story worth telling: Once two men in the Work decided to help each other by observing each other and discovering Chief feature in each other; after a set period they got together to discuss it. The first to speak told his friend that he had discovered the other's Chief feature and was invited to report it, and he told the other that he was "Argumentative." "Nonsense", said the other, "I am NOT argumentative, and you have lost your mind for thinking so, but I will tell you yours; and that is you are wishy-washy". Whereupon the second man asked the first, "do you really think so?".

This tells the tale. It is a VERY delicate matter, and not easily presented. A man will balk; will rail against this truth, will deny and squirm out of the insight. He has to find it himself, but also requires the presence of others. And this requires the face to face in person presence of those who are further on the way, or else a man will invent all sorts of glorious rubbish for himself, and as James declares in his New Testament letter, will be as men who look in a mirror, turn around and forget what they look like. This is a law.

Now, I spent nine months on this website, working my fingers to the bone participating and trying to see if anything essential could be conveyed over the internet. I got mixed results, but although "something" can be transmitted in words alone, a more important "something else" cannot.

NOTHING can take the place of an oral tradition, and by oral, it is meant that there be actual physical presence together, face to face. It is far too easy to hide behind pretty words and ideas, where the work is NOT. The ideas are NOT the Work. Words are NOT the Work; and only the Work is the Work, and it remains an oral and personal transmission. One can write cooking recipes of thousands of exercises, but as Mr. Gurdjieff has told us, there are general rules and Work for all, and then individual Work for each man, because each man bring with him, his life, which is his being, and the Work is a science of BEING, not of knowledge, or smarts, or of anything else.

So I have been visible here far less. It does not mean I have abandoned this group, only that I am Working, and working is not words and never will be. So I mean no judgement, but only state what I see. The vision of the fact that it is too easy to hide here; there are some who have come and set up "shop," who may not even realize that they have strayed far from the Work or never met it, but this I can be assured of. Those who do not find the Work itself will perish with their ideas; and "die like dogs", as Mr Gurdjieff would put it, and all of their know-how and knowledge will perish with them, and they will have squandered their lives in dispute and contention, arguing like "bon-ton" scientists, while the ship of the Work slips away.

Bless you all my friends. You will hear from me, but not in the manner of before.I cannot be as I was then. I have spent my "time" here, and found that I had to "move on," to "plunge into life" and swim in the "real world" rather than spend precious time blathering here. Enough blather. back to life, and back to the invisible Work.

WITW#14): Can I see me as the object you see?

I look out on the world, and people are objects who manifest in various ways. Can I look upon myself from their eyes, as an object traveling through their space? Can I separate from my self-centered view to a heliocentric view, forming an all seeing eye above me and those I interact with?

This requires a real effort, and a release of my personal requirements. My "requirements" are vast and varied, from having you do as I wish and love me at the same time, to telling the wind and the rain to stop, or something I have mishandled from falling and breaking on the floor. How can I develop an acceptance of what actually IS, without turning into some new age guru who says that everything is perfect if I just realize it?

It is NOT perfect, and will never become "perfect"; perfect things have no reason to change or to move, and thus cannot exist in this cosmos, which is asymmetrical. Can I accept that nothing including myself will ever be perfect?

I wish to work but at the same time large parts of me are lazy and prefer not to paddle, letting the current of life sweep me away, second by second.

I realize my nothingness, more and more -- that I will have NO effect on world history, or even wish to, and yet I wish to help. How can I help from where I actually am? Can an individual without a world stage role, help mankind - become conscious and develop conscience? And if so, does scale even matter? These are the questions in my consciousness of late. Any dialogue and exchange welcome. --Richard Lloyd

WITW#13): The Lazy Man's Building

   There was once a "man" who came upon the Work. He walked into the lobby and asked the doorman, "How many floors does this building have?" The doorman said, "many, perhaps 33 (conscious lying)"

"FANTASTIC" said the inquiring man and he ran home and got out his little toolbox. He came back and began building according to the architects rendering, but soon tired, so he began re-naming the floors 1 - 7 - 12 - 28 - 29, 31 and the luxurious penthouse, floor 33. 

Ah, I have written the law of seven into my building, having 7 floors. And the 33, this must mean first and second shock. And, the 33 must also stand for the 3 forces in the second generation; That of all Created Things

But he looked over at the Foundation and noticed that they had a lobby whereas he had failed in his haste to put in a lobby, so that those who wished in had to climb in a window. "Good"" said the man. Whereas across the street they just walk into the lobby, my method STARTS worth Work...climbing in the window of the first floor takes balance and maneuvering... as the windows are 3 feet off the ground, I am guiding people through the law of 3 before they even are aware of it" And he was satisfied.

The biggest problem was that nobody climbed into the window but thieves and weirdos, and those with a shred left of common-sense walked into the lobby, where they were given the first exercises, quiet work sensing the body and then it's breath. 

When those were told to, they went to the second floor they were given another set of instructions, etc... Nobody was truly satisfied because there were seemingly always floors above them, but the view got nicer and nicer. The "Pseudo-buidling" only had the windows on the "Ground floor/First floor, because the man who built it didn't want to "waste his time" putting windows on every floor. Those that went into the shorter building found themselves alone and in the dark (except for the other 'idiots' who had chosen the "fast route"), and they never got to meet the builder till they had climbed all seven floors, alone and in the dark.

But the Pseudo - Building got great reviews, from those had been inside and because it was shorter and seemed easier to reach the aim, whatever THAT might be. The real building shunned the reviewers; there were enough quality people with "common sense" (not that common, as we soon find out), and they had learned not to talk to strangers but only with those who had been in the building.

In the pseudo-bulding, because there were no windows, didn't even have a clue as to who had been in that building, because everything was done in total darkness; but those who came back out of the first floor windows took up teaching asap.

To those in false buildings, a shout out and a warning to those who haven't: Get out of that building asap, keep your mouth shut for a decade, and enter the building across the street, if you can find it (you may have been in the dark too long, and need to adjust to Sunlight).

Just a word to the unwise. The wise already know this.

WITW#12): A bit about "quiet work" (sitting/inner exercises)

I sit, and I seem to be present. I have asked all of my parts to help me. I am breathing and I notice that. No haste, just noticing. Just for now I feel quiet. I feel like I could stay here forever. I AM. Is there anything more that I can say which would be helpful?

Silence. No prayer, no mantra, no song.

Silence.
----------------------------------------------------
From a meeting with Mr. Gurdjieff:

Question. work in revealing two worlds to us has revealed to me two different kinds of time. First, that of the body in which we live, the time of disquiet, of fear. And that time of remembering when there is neither disquiet nor anguish. Everyone contains in himself an explosive force which can contain in a very small packet a second force richer tthan 10 years of the life of the body. -- Of sleep. In my ordinary study I am afraid of losing time. I would like to know what time is.

Mr. Gurdjieff... you notice that the6re are two different times for you as there are two states -- the ordinary state, The habitual state in life and that state in which you remember yourself. That makes two different times -- one time to which you are used, and another time when you come to 6 rue des Colonels Reynard. The time in which you are used to understanding and receiving everything is the time of the rue des Colonel Reynard...

Now, if your fear comes up in the second time, that is to say, if you are afraid, sooner or later, of losing your time, then measure time by your state "I am": for this has a being, I am. With the head you say "I am" -- it must be felt with the entire presence, in all gestures, and at once it will change for you. Cosmic time will have to run as will be necessary for you. You are you. Even cosmic laws submit to unity, however small that unity may be..

WITW#10): A little Homage to Dietrich Bonhoeffer

A part that has stuck with me of late is that "One must obtain oneself at cost of oneself"

This is so often misunderstood, that life and death are two sides of the same coin. Each breath brings death to what has past, and each inhalation brings a new creation, in which we have been given a new abiding chance, to follow the instructions of our master.

Again, I will share that the 20th century martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote that "When Christ calls a man; he bids him come and die"

Bonhoeffer returned to Nazi Germany to lead the "Confessing Church", and spoke against Hitler and was banned from speaking. Later he was arrested and spent time in 9 differrent prisons and camps before being hung on April 9, 1945, on direct orders from Heinrich Himmler.

He was in New York being pleaded with not to return, but he followed that call to it's inevitable conclusion. When I read his slim volume "To Live Together" I could not be think of us, following Mr. Gurdjieff. Every page shouted it loud and clear. But to obey that call if it should come?

Who could do that? Only a MAN.

He who is called but shirks is not only a coward and traitor, but inherits the death of the dirty dog.

At least I see and understand my cowardice. It is a never ending pain; an abiding suffering of my minuscule self.