INTENSE CITY

…there is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.

When It Rains

with 7 comments

Rain

At one meeting a man who had just started coming to meetings said, “Mr. Gurdjieff, what are you trying to do?”
“What I try do?” Mr. Gurdjieff- replied, “I try show people when it rains the streets are wet.”

That struck me so strongly that I have never forgotten it.

When Mr. Gurdjieff was here on his last visit to New York in 1949, I happened to be alone with him one afternoon in his apartment at the Wellington. In the course of a brief conversation I said to him, “Mr. Gurdjieff, years ago a new man in a group asked you what you were trying to do. You said, ‘I try show people when it rains the streets are wet.’

“I say this?” he asked me as if with great surprise.
So there is the first unforgettable remark and an addition equally unforgettable.

— Edwin Wolfe, “Episodes with Gurdjieff”

Written by Luke Storms

18 June, 2009 at 10:53 am

Posted in All Posts, Findings, Journals from a Work in Progress

Tagged with , ,

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7 Responses

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  1. It seems like every time I read a memory of Gurdjieff the person says something like this: I was struck so strongly.

    (I love that rain picture; that’s so cool…how did you do that?)

    Seth

    19 June, 2009 at 6:45 am

  2. Dear Seth,

    Some people think that Gurjieff was a charlatan and others think he was the most important spiritual teacher in this century. Personally, as you probably know, I agree with the latter. In any case, he certainly made quite a stir.

    I remember reading something by William Segal, a student of G’s and one of my favorite writers, where he said he learned more from Gurdjieff from watching his back in a sauna than anything he ever said to him. I find that idea interesting, that a master can impart something to you more directly if you are open to receive it. That something can bypass all the usual hullabaloo and penetrate deeply into the body.

    There’s an amazing interview with Segal where he describes meeting G.
    He says,

    I’ll never forget him. He made the biggest impression on me. It wasn’t what he said. I don’t remember much what he said. But he was an astonishing force when he walked in. He just came in and looked at people and sized them up and you just felt something very, very different. He was a man who radiated something. Something very great, and at the same time, very kind—very strong and very kind.”

    I would say that he must have been in touch with something that most people are not in touch with. And he had a gift, a faculty, of making your time stop. Everything would stop. And one would have sort of a picture, a panoramic view of oneself.

    You felt that there was something beyond the life that we know that was going on around him. And you wanted to be part of that. And it’s nothing you can speak about or put into words easily.

    INTERVIEWER: From what I’m hearing there was a sense of presence that he had that cut through our normal thought patterns.

    It was beyond the sensing of the material or the form. One could experience that there is another energy/vibration which we’re not ordinarily in touch with. In his presence you felt this presence/vibration and you didn’t know what it was.

    You felt the truth that you are not you, and things are not what they seem, and perhaps we have things upside down. We only see the surface of the form. And with him you felt that. You felt a new light in the life that we knew around him.

    Pretty fascinating account. The full interview can be read here.

    As for the .gif image, I found it on the internet somewhere during my relentless surfing activities. I didn’t know how to create them, but thanks to your question I discovered how to do it this morning. There’s a wonderfully easy tutorial on You Tube on how to do it here.

    You will need Adobe Image Ready for this, but I’m sure there’s other software that will do the job.

    Thanks for the comment.

    Luke Storms

    19 June, 2009 at 11:58 am

  3. Awesome follow-up, Luke. Thanks.

    That interview is so clearly similar to so many other interviews or memoirs I’ve read about Gurdjieff.

    Did you ever read Boyhood with Gurdjieff? By Fitz Peters? It’s fascinating…

    Seth

    19 June, 2009 at 12:46 pm

  4. Fritz Peter’s book “Boyhood with Gurdjieff” is excellent. It’s definitely one of the best books written about G that I’ve come across.
    I also hold Kathyrn Hulme’s “Undiscovered Country” and “Our Life with Mr Gurdjieff” by Olga de Hartmann in the same category.

    Luke Storms

    19 June, 2009 at 1:12 pm

  5. Thank you for so many inspiring and informative messages. I love looking at the rain you’ve chosen. I was pleased to find your website and have enjoyed this and your articles that appear from time to time in Alive. A good word for your work is: soul food.

    Judy Gardner

    26 June, 2009 at 9:23 am

  6. Thank you for your kind words Judy.

    I was speaking with a close friend this morning about the idea that everything is material which essentially means that everything around us, including plants, trees, and even words and ideas are a type of food or energy.

    I feel that there is a lot of poetry or writings that have sacred currents running through them and if I am open to receive it, if I can drop all the ideas I have of myself, those words can descend beyond the head and become embodied.

    Similarly, if I follow the breath while maintaining an inner attention of my body here-now and at the same time to have an awareness of the world in and around me, this mysterious life energy can be absorbed much more deeply into the organism, and in this way I am nourished right down into the very roots of being.

    Luke Storms

    26 June, 2009 at 10:51 am

  7. it’s good to see gurdjieff’s presence being wrestled with and related in your writing. in reading his own words and those of people who struggled to get inside and then past his words there’s work of the kind that his student j.g. bennett might characterize as “worthwhile”. it’s difficult to place “self” inside words but somehow i find in gurdjieff’s and john bennett’s words so much essence. i too find strands of the sacred inside poetry and thoughtful writing, art and dance. thanks for all your work luke.

    steven

    steven

    26 June, 2009 at 4:36 pm


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