Teachings on Reciprocal Feeding from Maurice Nicoll and the Gospel of Thomas The Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) has a unique strategy for transforming energy that can be viewed through the lens of our spiritual teachings. Rhizobium bacteria infect the root...
Spiritual aim through self-observation. “The psychological meaning of the Pharisees refers, not to certain people who lived long ago, but to oneself now—to the Pharisee in oneself, to the insincere person in oneself, who, of course, cannot receive any real and genuine...
The Gurdjieff teachings of levels of consciousness and awakening from sleep. “Self-criticism is a dead end, it is a particularly negative identification, and 100% mechanical. It leads away from and not towards self-change.” Annie Lou Staveley, The Plan Is Good, p107...
The self transforming relationships of these four ideas. Maurice Nicoll states that the center of gravity of Will is in the Emotional Center—the part that is the object of the Work to awaken. Instead of Will being stern resolve, there is a new emotion entering this...
Thoughts on the transformation of self through living between opposites. In The Plan Is Good, a collection of her writings, Annie Lou Staveley writes about “pulls,” which seems to be her term for what Maurice Nicoll calls “opposites.” She says, “Now I’m...
Maurice Nicoll, Yeshua, and T.S. Eliot speak of consciousness levels. Maurice begins his talk with the statement, “The feeling of Eternity enters into Self-Remembering, and does not enter into Self-Observation.” Commentaries, p943. I love Maurice’s talks about...
Purifying the Emotional Center of Negativity is one path to self transformation. “It is in my thoughts and my feelings in which begins a possibility of ascent and descent. I must work to connect the idea of purification with this.” Annie Lou Staveley, The Plan is...
Conscious labor in the Teachings makes conscious levels of relationship possible. Maurice Nicoll offers a short talk on relationship. “Relationship depends on Attitude: attitude towards oneself, towards life, including other people, and attitude towards the universe.”...
Can cooking a potato illustrate personal transformation? Read on ... In this brief talk, Maurice Nicoll outlines a crucial meaning of the Enneagram. It depicts the process by which the higher transforms the lower. The outer points of the Enneagram depict movement up...
A key to inner transformation is work on Essence and Personality. I had dreams last night, “Groundhog Day” dreams of recurring events and the sense that so much of life in this realm is about keeping the flow of time intact and predictable. Our global socio-economic...
The idea of octaves weaves through the Gurdjieff teachings. This relates to one of the primary ideas of the work: the Law of Seven, or Law of Octaves, or the Law of Order of Manifestation. The Law of Seven describes the process of development through seven stages,...