The Intergalactic Cowboy

Before I resume quoting J.G. Bennett, I will catch you up on my personal life.
My mom has required more of my time than ever before, necessitating help walking, identifiying objects, hearing what people say to her and driving to the grocery store and other businesses. This extra help from me has cut into my guitar practice, which is frustrating. I now get up before dawn for sitting, coffee and guitar practice. I have offered to hire someone to take her to lunch and to run errands each day, but she is resistant to the idea.
My band’s drummer has not been able to attend practice due to a couple of illnesses and we are anxiously awaiting his return. Good wishes to drummer Tony Martinez.
My cats, Suvy and Ashley, still fight several times a day, but have not injured each other severely. I guess that Ashley is about seven months old now. She is still enough of a kitten to enjoy curling up with either me or my mom. On several unseasonably cold nights recently, Suvy has crawled into bed with me and cuddled up next to my leg. Since my bed is a twin bed, she makes it difficult to change my sleeping position in the middle of the night. Some people might say, ” why don’t you just pick the cat up and move her to another location?” I would hate for either of these cats to feel unloved by me. Moving them might cause them to feel rejected and I don’t want that.
Tommorrow, I run sound at the funeral of a family friend and neighbor. December looks to be a busy month for me.
More later,
I.C.

The U.S.A. was founded on the idea of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The materialistic approach to these three goals, by the world, not just America have caused things to go off course in the eyes of J.G.B. From ” Needs..”
“Our lives must serve some better purpose than the satisfaction of our personal desires and ambitions. The idea that the aim of life is the pursuit of happiness has gotten the world into its present trouble. But this does not mean that human life on the earth need be as meaningless and frustrating as most lives are today. Man is not merely a domestic animal serving the needs of the higher powers. He has a very high destiny, but he can attain it only if he earns it. ”
“The wool and mutton that man is required to produce is not his own flesh and blood, but energy. There are psychic energies as well as physical energies. Gurdjieff showed us how to produce psychic energies of the kind required by nature and also those need for our own self-perfecting. ”
In the spirit of unselfishness,
I.C.

The Gurdjieff Work is referred to as The Fourth Way. Mr. Bennett in ‘Needs’ explains it in the following way :
“There is the intellectual way and the way of devotion and the way of ascetic withdrawal. The fourth way is the way of service and the way of shared effort. The fourth way is only active when there is a task to be done.”
“The fourth way is not only a way of service, but is also a way of self perfecting - of self transformation. It is necessary for people who wish to serve to be able to sacrifice. Anyone can sacrifice in a splendid way when everyone’s eye is on them. But the small, daily sacrifice of doing without this or that, of allowing oneself to be imposed on, to allow others to get the better of us, to give up our pride, sometimes even to give up our self respect - that sort of sacrifice doesn’t come without a very great inward change. And one must know that that change is necessary and be prepared to commit oneself to it. Only people who are committed to that change can be said to be people of the way.”
May God rest the souls of those people who lost their lives in the terrorist attack in India yesterday.
I.C.

Is the empire about to fall ?
This week will bring a few economic reports that could prove to be pessimistic. On Wednesday there will be a durable goods report that will show the increase or decrease in the sales of cars, refrigerators and other large appliances. This past week, congress questioned the CEOs of the three major automakers. Congressmen and economists have been expressing differing opinions as to how the situation should be handled. Some want congress to give the big three 25 billion dollars to divide up among themselves. Others want the automakers to declare bankruptcy or worse, and not burden the taxpayers with the results of bad business decisions. I just don’t know which side to take in this issue. The CEOs say that if the american auto makers go out of business, then 3 million autoworkers and supplier employees will be out of work, causing a new great depression. On the other hand, the president of GM said that it would take between 4 and 6 billion dollars a month to keep GM afloat. If the 25 billion in government help is divided evenly among the big three, GM would get a little over 8 billion dollars, keeping it afloat for only six weeks. Then it would be in the same situation that it is in today. On the other hand, people say that the taxpayers should not bail out a failing business. But, if the auto companies fail, 3 million taxpayers will be out of work, with no income coming in and no tax money going out. So what should we do over here in the U.S. ?
With morbid curiosity,
I.C.

What other question than this could religion be most concerned with ? Once again, Mr. B. tackles this question with clarity.
” What happens to ordinary good people? Our model suggests that merit as acquired during life takes the form of potential existence and therefore doesn’t degenerate with time. Such merit is derived exclusively from acts of will. All other actions are the result of pre-existing causes, that is, of conditioning and their results must be confined to the conditioned world. Soul making has been rightly compared to procreation and the formation of the soul has been called rebirth.”
” It is very necessary to distinguish betweeen those who attempt such a task relying on their own strength and those who can do nothing without the help of the Unconditional Will. The first are false prophets, who deceive themselves and others. The second kind belong - consciously or unconsciously - to the future soul of humanity, called the Communion of Saints.”
Feeling reborn ?
I.C.

One of the subjects that I studied in school was Transpersonal Psychology. Part of this was the study of Peak Experiences, which involve a raising of conciousness into a state where the unity of things becomes apparent, as opposed to the seperateness of things as we usually experience them. J.G.B. explains this in terms of how the Will can take us to this higher state of conciousness.
” The conditioned and unconditioned achieve unity in a higher synthesis of which we have only glimpses. This synthesis is what I call transformation. As a process in time, it is the penetrating, step by step, of the Individual Will into the human selfhood, until a moment comes when the conditioned state gives way and the transfomed human person enters into the beatific vision of the unconditioned Lord. ”
Religion refers to sin as a bad act which is displeasing to God and can prevent one from going to heaven. J.G.B.’s explanation is of a more detailed manner.
” Our model of the world enables us to give an objective account of sin, in terms of transformation. We postulate an aim or purpose that is shared by the conditioned and the unconditioned worlds : to achieve realization by the union of the will and existence. Sin is the refusal to serve this aim when the opportunity to do so arises for us. Sin opts out of the process, because the sinner refuses to pay the price which is the submission of his own will to the divine purpose. The consequences of opting out are deadly serious, for it means that the sinner cuts himself off from the reality toward which all existence is striving. He gets left behind. ”
” It follows that man will see hazard as a misfortune rather than an opportunity and will seek to close the door to freedom rather than keep it open. In its simplest form this leads to an assessment of experience in terms of pleasure and pain, labeled as happiness and suffering. We do not wish to suffer because we cannot see the point of it. In a deeper and even more significant interpretation, we reject the necessity for sacrifice because it appears to be a demand made upon us from without, instead of being a requirement of self - realization.”
Tomorrow, I will run sound at the church unless the p.a. system has completely broken down. The church has not found the money to replace the system, which is fifteen years old and on its last legs.
Perhaps the building and grounds committee of the church are setting up the conditions to facilitate an act of intentional suffering. I don’t know how many church members will be interested in participating in this exercise however…
The congregation awaits,
I.C.
” We may have an inherited tendency to refuse to pay the price for the transformation of selfhood into individuality, which price, in the long run, amounts to the sacrifice of egoism.”

Rebounding from the Dallas Taylor book, I have begun reading a more clean and cheerful book that Bennett Books sent me, called ‘ Needs of a New Age Community. This is the most readable of any of Mr. Bennetts books, using language that I can understand, most of the time. For instance, check out the following paragraph fragment :
” What I see is not the disappearance of large organizations, but that a kind of cooperation will arise. The need for communities will be so evident that they will be accepted. This in fifty years time. At the same time, on account of the complexity of the world, large institutions will be needed. There will be a kind of symbiosis for a considerable time. ”
I am hoping for a symbiosis of small communities and large institutions. J.G.B. also speaks of how small communities might be so small as to not be threatening to large institutions. He speaks of how large institutions have been guilty in the past of stamping out small communities that the institution finds threatening. I wish that the small community in which I currently reside fulfilled my needs…
With community at a distance,
I.C.

Have any of you ever read Dallas Taylor’s book ‘ Prisoner of Woodstock?’ Back in 1993 I was watching Nightline with Ted Koppel and Dallas was being interviewed on the release of his new book about his life as a professional musician in the late 60s / early 70s. During the interview with Ted Koppel, he told of his liver transplant and career as a drug addiction counselor. The book talks about the events that led up to that outcome.
Dallas was a boy wonder drummer from San Antonio, Texas. In the late sixties he was playing in a psychedelic band called Clear Light, I believe. This band was recording in a studio where John Sebastian was recording his own first solo album. Sebastian liked Dallas’ playing and invited him to play on the Sebastian solo album. Also recording with Sebastian were David Crosby and Graham Nash, who told Dallas that they were starting a new group with Stephen Stills and that the group needed a drummer. Dallas was recruited into C,S,N and Y in his late teens and had made a million dollars by age 21. Having earned this money at too young of an age he blew it all on drugs, women and expensive cars.
Dallas, in this book, tells tales of craving sex and drugs and of having unlimited access to both of these vices. He mentions encounters with Jimi Hendrix, Keith Richards, Grace Slick, Eric Clapton and of course C,S,N and Y. Some of these encounters are shocking. Did you know that needle drugs were being used backstage at Woodstock ? I had always pictured Woodstock as a pot and LSD sort of scene. Dallas tells a tale of visiting one tent with cocaine, another with downers, another with uppers, another with hashish. When the time came for C,S,N and Y to perform, Dallas had to be carried onstage and placed behind the drumset. He was literally too incapacitated to walk. I want to track down a copy of the Woodstock One album and relisten to his performance. He also talks of his rehab experience and recovery. So, if you’re in the mood for a racy look at the 1960s musician lifestyle, check this book out.
Which prison are you located in ?
I.C.

There has been so much to experience lately that there has not been time to write; only experiencing.
When I returned to Thomaston, my cat Suvy recognized me and acted as if I had never left. Last year when I returned from vacation, she did not know me. Ashley the kitten did not seem to know me but was not afraid of me. It took her a couple of days to jump into my lap and cuddle with me. Kittens must have a problem with long term memory.
I have been getting up early and having some better than average sittings since returning. I should add that I had a sitting on every day of my vacation.
I am glad that the presidential election has been completed.
The weather here has been beautiful, with blue skies and temperatures hovering around 70 degrees farenheit (sp?)
Mom has been rather needy lately.
Life goes on,
I.C.

When I left off, I had finally made it safely back to my hotel in Nice. It had occurred to me that I would need some extra cash for my trip back to the states the next morning. It was still daylight out, so I walked to the automatic cash machine to get a hundred euros. There was a homeless man sitting under the cash machine. So how do you tell someone that you don’t have any money after withdrawing money from a cash machine ? I turned around a walked down the street in search of another cash machine. Four blocks later, I found one and was able to get ninety euros out of it. Then it was time to eat my final meal in Nice. After finding five Italian restaurants and no French restaurants, I settled on a middle eastern place in which no other customers were sitting. This was a nicely appointed place with wicker chairs and music playing that sounded like Sufi music. The proprietor confirmed that it was Sufi music that I was listening to. He served me french wine and roasted vegetables. He explained to me the spiritual message of the lyrics to the music. He then proclaimed that I had found the restaurant and that the restaurant had found me. The experience of eating there was like that of attending a religious ceremony. I was a calm, contemplative end to a stressful day.
Although I may have talked about the negative aspects of my vacation, the vacation was a wonderful change of pace which jolted me out of my stale, daily reality. It was an educational cultural experience that undoubtedly changed me for the better. The next morning, I flew to New York and then to Atlanta.
Happy voting,
I.C.