I am now doing weekly (or so) free short podcasts on breathing, presence, and much more. Still developing my approach and working out the kinks (for example, I just recently worked with a musician in Italy to create 30 seconds of introductory theme music for some of my podcasts), but I hope you’ll take a… Continue reading New Podcasts On Breathing & Presence From Author Dennis Lewis
Category: Gurdjieff
Spiritual Suggestibility
The word “spiritual,” imbued with so much potential meaning and promise, is one of those words behind which many people hide and about which there is much confusion and obfuscation. On the social media, people readily bandy this word about. An entire industry has been created to take advantage of our “spiritual suggestibility.” And, yes,… Continue reading Spiritual Suggestibility
Breathe Into Being Retreat
For a description of this weekend retreat with Dennis Lewis and Master Yu, click here. For a retreat registration form, click here. Once you’ve filled out the form, pay the full retreat amount by March 31st, or a 30 % deposit before that date to hold your place. Please… Continue reading Breathe Into Being Retreat
Stop Trying to Erase What You Don’t Like
I was in a weekend art class with Mrs Nyland, Willem Nyland’s wife, at the San Francisco Gurdjieff Foundation many years ago. As I was drawing, not very well in my estimation, she came over to me and strongly suggested that I stop erasing, or trying to erase, what I didn’t like and just move… Continue reading Stop Trying to Erase What You Don’t Like
Observing Our Self-Importance
“The famous Tibetan meditator Geshe Ben said that his only practice was to watch his self-importance bloat up and then crumble down again and again. Seeing how it made his mind freer and freer every time it crumbled brought meaning and pleasure to his life. In fact, it was his life’s passion.”–“Light Comes Through,” Dzigar… Continue reading Observing Our Self-Importance
Listening In Two Directions at Once
The effort to listen in two directions at once, inwardly and outwardly, and suddenly realizing that, in a very real sense, there is no inward and outward; there is only the vast, silent spaciousness of Presence that welcomes everything into its miraculous embrace. Copyright 2016 by Dennis Lewis
Do You Create a Negative Atmosphere Around Yourself?
Some people create a negative atmosphere around them by frequently expressing their anger and other negative thoughts and emotions. This atmosphere, this energy field, affects them and everyone near them and, like a magnet, attracts even more negativity into their lives. Such people often have ready-made excuses for expressing themselves in this way, perhaps not… Continue reading Do You Create a Negative Atmosphere Around Yourself?
Open Mind, Open Heart
Some people today put great emphasis on heart-based perception. To be sure, the heart is a powerful brain–one of three main brains, or instruments of perception (head, heart, and gut) according to G. I. Gurdjieff, as well as to modern science. But fewer and fewer people today use their head brains as an instrument of… Continue reading Open Mind, Open Heart
Defining and Labeling
As part of the latest spiritual paradigm, some people will tell you that it’s better if you can avoid defining and labeling things, especially in relation to ourselves and others. Of course, that may be a very difficult task, since defining and labeling are part of what the human brain does quite naturally and automatically.… Continue reading Defining and Labeling
Awakening: Two Perspectives
“Awakening comes unexpectedly when you do not wait for it, when you live in not-knowing. Only then are you available.”–Jean Klein, Blossoms In Silence “Awakening begins when a man realizes that he is going nowhere and does not know where to go.”–G.I Gurdjieff, from In Search of the Miraculous, by P.D. Ouspensky
“I Work With What I’ve Got”
In complaining once to Lord Pentland, whom Gurdjieff put in charge of The Gurdjieff Work in America, about some group leaders in the Gurdjieff Foundation (San Francisco) where I had been studying for a few years, he responded tersely but with a smile: “I work with what I’ve got.” Shortly thereafter he made me a… Continue reading “I Work With What I’ve Got”
Lord Have Murphy: Waking Up In the Spiritual Marketplace
Fran Shaw recently sent me a hard copy of this marvelous book. We read some passages from the book in a recent Sunday group meeting, and everyone loved it. It helped open, in funny and unusual ways, many deep questions about the meaning and power of attention in the process of awakening. The book includes… Continue reading Lord Have Murphy: Waking Up In the Spiritual Marketplace
Gurdjieff: Payment
“Man never on any account wants to pay for anything; and above all he does not want to pay for what is most important for him. You now know that everything must be paid for and that it must be paid for in proportion to what is received. But usually a man thinks to the… Continue reading Gurdjieff: Payment