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Who inhabits this body of flesh and bones ?
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What immensity does exist within the limitations of the body ?
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How to answer this nostalgia of the “higher”, the “better”, and this call for truth that once in a while grabs one’s own soul ?
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How to live more passionately the inner fire ?
This journey of discovery is priceless...
“What you cannot discover in your own body,
you will not
discover in any place of the world..." (Idris Lahore)
Given very precisely by Gurdjieff as a powerful tool for growth, the practice of movements creates exceptional conditions for transforming the body –machine into a place where the forces of intelligence, heart, and action can freely expand, through the development of a certain quality of attention and relaxation.
Sincere efforts are needed, but efforts in lightness…. We cant fly freely through the inner sky burdened by the heaviness of seriousness.
If the effort is made at the centre, the periphery will be
taken care of, on its own, because it is the manifestation, the extension of
the centre.
So, while practising the movements, we keep our centre of
gravity into the watcher. From the flow of movements, emotions and thoughts
to the one who sees them.
Yet we see how much we forget it again and again, getting distracted by some desire to reach, to succeed, some comparison or judgment. The movements call us back to the watcher, and further, to an anchor of stillness, silence and inner peace.
Such is the inner process, the inner dance of attention. Learning to sense the body from inside, by and by this sensation of the body radiates the whole of our being.
The watching does not stop at the body, but expands to the
room, the other participants, the music and sounds…
Distance with thoughts and emotions is created. Stillness is
experienced at the core of all movements, inaction behind action...
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The seen is movements, forms, rhythm, group action
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The seer is formless, inaction, motionlessness
The movements are a flowing current but there is no movement at the centre. Through the changing forms, whether quick or slow, round or staccato, we awaken to the unchanging and the formless. Hence this feeling of freedom and expansion...
The 3 elements of human nature are always participating in the movements: The movements of our body, our heart, our mind are brought in a harmonic exchange with each other, in a certain common vibration. Hence the importance of the presence of the 3 components:
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the intellectual part through a specific quality of attention, but also sometimes through counting, repetitions of words or statements
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the emotional part may be given by the music which will trigger a specific inner state , or the remembrance of a brother, sister et… or the suggestion to enter a special feeling
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the practice of the movements is the discipline of balance and harmony. Intellectual discipline, emotional discipline is called forth along the physical discipline.
This word” discipline” is nowadays very much misunderstood. It simply means “readiness to learn”, a deep acknowledgement that without a guideline, I would be wandering around endlessly.
The structured frame that the practice of the movements offers, opens a world of clarity, inner strength, love, creativity and action...