Mr. Gurdjieff, who was a spiritual teacher, said, “Profit by everything that raises your temperature.” And by that, he meant that whatever stirs up an emotional state in you is an opportunity for self-study and growth. It’s an opportunity to transform this energy into something better, higher, and more joyous.
It’s only with positive emotions that we can experience a higher, sacred state. Angels don’t want our hate and self-pity. They want our love and our joy and they will open up to us if we open to that in ourselves.
M: I am Michael Perkola and I am the instructor. I’ve been teaching this class since September. I’ve been teaching meditation since 2008. I’ve been practicing meditation from around the age of 16. I’ve studied mostly Zen and Gurdjieff, but most people don’t know who Gurdjieff is.
[Self-introductions were made by the attendees.]
M: So we’re just here at the beginning of July. And, honestly, I’ve been having a very hard time emotionally due to various things happening in my life. A lot of people have come to this class seeking relief from emotional disturbances of some kind. I thought to make the classes in the month of July a series on emotions. How do we use meditation to manage our emotions? Without denying them, without suppressing them, how do we live our life in an open, vulnerable way and still deal with pain that gets thrown at us?
That’s what we’ll be studying tonight and this month. But first, I’ll lead you through what has become the usual meditation, a formula that I have developed. Later, I’ll explain the significance of each part. My hope is that in your own meditation practice you will be able to use these tools.
[A period of guided meditation followed. See Tri-Unity Meditation.]
M: Take a snapshot of yourself in this moment. What is your state? Register in your memory how you feel in this moment. Know that you can return it through meditation. Slowly restore movement to your body and, when you’re ready, roll over to one side and sit up.
I’ll now explain the significance of each phase of the meditation. The first phase is sinking into the mat, which establishes a state of light hypnosis. The mind really likes sequences. In hypnosis, a common technique is to guide the subject down a visualized staircase to bring him in a state of relaxation and light hypnosis.
Then we move through the body. This has two effects. It focuses the attention on something tangible – sensation. It’s most accessible thing to us. You are always sensing. When the attention moves through the body, it also moves chi or ki, which is your life-force. By moving it through the body, we are waking it up and establishing a conscious connection with it. We often occupy only our head, especially if we work at a computer. If you’re sensitive to energies, then you might feel it. You feel like a balloon – head with nothing below it.
So moving our attention around the body, we rinse the body with our chi. We go up the back of the spine and through a few key organs. This is drawn from a Taoist meditation technique called the Inner Smile. Going up the spine and down the front of the body is from a technique called the Micro-cosmic Orbit, also known as the Small Heavenly Circuit.
Then we move the energy and concentrate it just below the navel, at kikai – the sea of chi. We focus our attention here and then move our attention throughout the entire body. So we are taking whatever chi we have gathered from the body and putting it here, then spread it out through the entire body. Then we unify ourselves by saying inwardly, “I am.” This is from an Esoteric Christian meditation taught by Gurdjieff.
Having grounded ourselves in the body, we then look at the emotions, which now seem much less powerful. Then the thoughts, which dominate us the least in that moment. Then bring it all into one sense of self, into one whole being. From this, we take a step back and try to experience who (the consciousness) behind all of this – behind the awareness of sensation, emotions, and thoughts. There are actually many layers of consciousness behind that. If you can identify yourself as the consciousness rather than your shitty mood or your stubbed toe… if you can move back and move into this more global awareness, you’ll be more aware and yet less attached to one specific sensation, emotion, or thought. We won’t be captured as easily. You’ll be containing that thought instead it containing you. That’s the design logic behind the formula of Tri-Unity Meditation.
There is a word – “identified.” When we experience a very difficult emotion or we are overwhelmed by emotions, we get locked into one of them. We get stuck in a narrative like “Oh my God. She was so mean to me.” or “I have no control over this. Something bad is going to happen.” We replay this narrative and it stimulates negative emotions.
What kind of emotions or narratives do you guys get stuck in?
Q: Work. Always work.
M: Is it anxiety or anger? Or both?
Q: Yes, both.
M: When you meditate, this stuff will come up.
Q: Yeah, it does.
Q: One thing that I find that I really fixate on and steals my energy is people that are negative. I project positivity and it finds a black hole where there is no reciprocation of positivity. Because I am sensitive to energy, it makes me realize that they need more of that though at the same time my initial reaction is disappointment. I try to be more compassionate to the people that need me to be more grounded and positive toward them. What I find is that when I am not at my peak of energetic awareness, it tends to steal my positivity without me knowing. I’ve been noticing that negativity reflected to me tends to steal my positivity. I’ve been open to energy and emotions too. I’ve been feeling more vividly my emotions.
M: What’s the source of your positivity? Is it you or is it something beyond you?
Q: It’s definitely not me. I’m not just generating this positive energy. I am just taking it from around and allowing it to find an interpretation through me that’s positive. The positivity is my interpretation and projection.
M: So what you are saying is that you get stressed out by assholes?
Q: Yes, it’s draining. It’s not energy vampirism per se, but I send it out and more gets taken that I expect. After I discharge, it can take me all day to recharge from just one cross interaction that was not deserved.
Q: I felt a lot of tremors and movement in my body during the meditation. I’ve been doing trauma work, so I’ve been getting in touch with my teenage and inner child. So I feel like who I am after the meditation. But when I get stuck in ego or something that was traumatic in my life, I go limbic (getting stuck in the activation of a stress reaction in the limbic system).
M: There’s no avoiding that though. Have you ever heard of the book “Waking the Tiger” by Dr. Peter A. Levine? It’s a really good book.
Q: Yes, I have. Yes, it is.
M: I’ll just summarize it briefly for the other people here. When you experience trauma, it activates the nervous system. Unless the energy of that activation is discharged in some way, it stays in the body. If you can imagine putting more and more electricity in your body, it starts burning things up. Without a way to discharge that powerful emotional energy, you will burn up and disorders will appear, mental and physical. In Dr. Levine’s book, he describes how he would lead people through remembrances of traumatic periods and change the narrative. During the therapy, the subject would also scream and shake and swing out with their fists in the air. That kind of fighting and shaking released the nervous energy from the limbic system, because the trauma is not really in your mind then, it’s in the meat, in the body. So you’re going through that kind of work?
Q: I have been for two years. It’s bodywork and similar to what you said. The doctor will pinpoint where it is in the body and then he’ll recreate it for me through storytelling or help me feel it. Then it will come out in various ways. I am working in group therapy and the usual kind of therapy. Now I am doing Family Origin work and getting in touch with this little girl or rebellious teenager. So sometimes you get stuck in the rebellious nature or abandoned child or just fear. I have to process it out by being in therapy or around groups of women. I do my best not to let the fear, trauma, or ego attack others or myself.
M: You’re really brave to do that – to face it head-on. That’s great.
Q: Thank you.
Q: It’s the only way to get it out though. People medicate and they cover it up and they make bandages and excuses but, until you face your demons, there is no escaping them.
Q: The demon is always there until you face it.
Q: Yeah, it’s the only way to make real progress in that, even as painful as it can be.
M: We can support each other in that work. Teachers and doctors can support us as well. But what I’m selling here is meditation!
Q: Actually, you’re giving it away. It’s free.
M: It’s true, though you have to spend your time with me. We don’t have much time left, so I’ll drop a little wisdom on ya and then we’ll go.
M: The point that I wanted to make tonight is this: Emotions are a very important part of life. That’s obvious, I know. Mr. Gurdjieff, who was a spiritual teacher, said, “Profit by everything that raises your temperature.” And by that, he meant that whatever stirs up an emotional state in you is an opportunity for self-study and growth. It’s an opportunity to transform this energy into something better, higher, and more joyous.
It’s only with positive emotions that we can experience a higher, sacred state. Angels don’t want our hate and self-pity. They want our love and our joy and they will open up to us if we open to that in ourselves.
Mr. Gurdjieff also encouraged people to become more emotional. But really, that’s very scary, because we don’t manage our emotions very well. We’re not so skillful with our emotions. We either say, “I don’t want to feel this!” and beat down the feeling and throw it into the closet where turns into something much worse or we just kind of lay down and let it roll over us like steamroller. Neither total submission or total denial is a healthy way to deal with emotion. This is very much connected with identification, which I’ll talk more about in the next week’s class.
If you think of the people in our society with the most control over their emotions, it would be actors. They can create emotional state in themselves and portray them. When that scene is over, they can disengage from that emotion and enter into their normal self. One of my favorite actors is Hugh Jackman. He has been practicing Transcendental Meditation for around 20 years. I’ll close with this, Hugh Jackman talking to Oprah.
Now I meditate twice a day for half an hour. In meditation, I can let go of everything. I’m not Hugh Jackman. I’m not a dad. I’m not a husband. I’m just dipping into that powerful source that creates everything. I take a little bath in it. [My son] Oscar asks me, “What’s meditation?” I say, “I’m just gonna go sit with God and have a rest.” Occasionally, he’ll sit with me.
Everyone takes a shower every day, and we don’t complain about it. We do it out of discipline. There will always be an excuse not to meditate. In the Hindu tradition, there’s something called ahankara, or the ego. The ego says, “You don’t need to meditate, man. You’re really busy. What about the kids?” But do I say, “I can’t shower today because I have to make time for the kids?” No.Read more: http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/Oprah-Interviews-Hugh-Jackman/
M: Doing meditation will provide you with the energy, the skill, and the detachment to become aware of your emotional states and not get stuck in them. You’ll have a little distance between you and that emotion because you’ll be aware of it as an experience.
We’ll talk much more about identification next time and how it works. That’s all for today. Thank you very, very much for coming. Even late, it’s fine. The light within me bows to the light within you and within everything. Namaste.
