Monday, March 31, 2014

Beautiful Stillness

Caravaggio


Finding that beautiful stillness … letting helplessness overcome me ... quieting the self-importance of all my identifications and judgments ..In these moments I have felt something real enter that is not of me or from me ... 
and suddenly, by complete abdication ... I am flooded with new gifts of understanding and grace ... This is a hard place for me to enter … my machine makes me forget ... that in completely letting go of my desires and plans .. I can receive this grace … and that it is always there, just lingering nearby, if only I will submit to it …


Sunday, March 30, 2014

Climbing the Mountain

George Frederick Watts


I had this vision today inside of climbing the mountain (on wards and upwards) the importance of going forward and not looking back or regretting, keeping the foot on the next rung of the ladder... yet having the external consideration and balance to also share the journey with those on the mountain too. Not to feel alone is important. I guess what i am feeling is more the scale of this journey and how big the soul can actually stretch, when i compare this to the pettiness of negative i's trapped in my being somewhere, i feel pangs of conscience. But it is imperative now to become my own priest as Mervyn used to say, to clear the conscience each day is a good practice, conscience to guide the heart back and also the hands of students ready to reach out and pull me up.

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Before the Gate

George Frederick Watts


We prize most highly
That for which we have striven,
Opinions hard-won
By our own experience
Are the last to be sacrificed.

Who can see beyond
The horizon? Only those
Who have confidence
In a new way of thinking,
Unsupported by the known.


Friday, March 28, 2014

The Sea

John William Waterhouse


I was in the sea this morning. Mostly no wind and calm, but there is a saying: "Never turn your back on the sea"... who knows what unknown surge may rise up? It reminds me of self remembering; being aware, being present, calm and mild yet alert for the surges that naturally come because we too are part of nature and our surges are natural and to be expected.
~M

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Imagination

Evelyn Pickering de Morgan


If I say to you “stay out of Imagination about higher worlds and allow them the space to enter you,”  then I say the same to you about Love. Stay out of Imagination about Love and allow it to enter you. Then when they both arrive do not let the body steal them and make them the products of its own efforts. With Love and the Soul, it is better that we keep the body and its ability to imagine everything out of the picture, as often as possible.
~Mervyn J. Brady

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Language of Love

John Everett Millais


The language of the Academy is love regardless of it's source of origin
whether sufis or christian mistics, buddha or some other conscious beings.

Once in a state of love all identities disapear, and the soul like the water flowing in a riverbed flows contentedly in the riverbed of love.

Saturday, March 22, 2014

The Direction...


Briton Rivière


"The direction of the work is spiritual. In order to respond to it, the soul has to grow and the vanity of personality has to shrink. All the work of preparation anticipates either the one or the other aspect of this change. What is the key to the process? It is to be sincere, to be honest, to be truthful. To be sincere means to find oneself, one's own way, one's own fate, without pretension, without imitation and without fear. To be honest means to pay one's debts to the extent that one can, in order to be able to be free to offer oneself to higher service without other obligation; to realise that everything that is good has its price that has to be paid by someone. To be truthful means little by little to abandon the subjective point of view based on likes and dislikes, and consider everything on the basis of objective laws, on divine truth."

~Rodney Collin



Friday, March 21, 2014

The Finer Energies

Edward Burne Jones


The finer energies that we accumulate through self remembering and through connecting to one another provides a mirror for change to begin.

There is like a hardness in the instinctive parts that only patience and great kindness could soften.
When we receive love and are unable to relfect it back to the giver, to reciprocate it is a process that i'm seeing is constantly deepening an unpeeling like an onion in my being.  To have compassion is to stand by myself in great patience with this process and to allow magic of self remembering to make the connections throughout past and allow my being to hold firm to my aim of ...just simple kindness...to myself and others.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

The Question if Time

Giotto di Bondone


It seems that through experiences, I have verified that physical deaths bring the consciousness of a soul into greater being when the desire is there, fostered by the Grace of The Higher. It brings the question of time into the arena; the constant ticking of the clock, days, weeks, months, years, seasons, millennia, and so on. why then do we not hear the ticking? As students of a conscious school we would assume that our aim/desire is to constantly make efforts to be present, feed the soul, stay awake to our play.  We affirm this desire/aim and do the Work in order to keep going.
Why then does time seem wasted?  Talking about the time is now....kairos time...we have no time to waste in World 96 and lower...yet life takes us the long way even when we think we are working the hardest to be present to the moments.

~M

Saturday, March 8, 2014

An Exchange on Beginning in the Work....

The Academy of European Arts and Culture

"A Being a beginner in the work." 

What should a beginner do in our school?

Mervyn

"A beginner in this work means someone who has begun. It means that they have begun again where they left off the last time. For each student this is a very different starting point. For one on a 9th lifetime the starting point is very different than a one meeting the work for the first time. This is one reason why longevity in this work is not an accurate picture of where one stands in relation to it. Every angle is important, as we do not always know, or can judge from how deep within one it came from. Some of the most refreshing angles I have heard are from people right at the beginning of their re-entry."

Student
I have been reading the first 9 pages of "Fourth Way" over and 
over for a few weeks now. It appears to be a transcript of a 
particular meeting of O's school in London. My guess is that
it was an introductory meeting: a meeting for beginners.

Mervyn
"Once again if we call them Re-entries then it allows for different 
levels of being."

Student
O taught his students the same thing Mervyn taught me in my 
introductory meetings: the four centres. The idea that we are not 
one, we are at least four.

Mervyn
"We are of course a lot more than 4, when one considers all the 
other laws such as body type chief feature etc."

Student
Once we grasp this basic idea, our endless task becomes to observe it.

Mervyn
"There is a point, further on, where one keeps an eye on the mechanics, 
and has to be careful that the work does not degenerate into 
self fascination with self. After several years in the work one sees 
the machine is like a car. You have to have a basic knowledge of it 
and have to keep upgrading one's manual, however the idea is to 
Drive it and make it serve our inner worlds. Some people become 
"Machine Mechanics or Engineers". We need them in a school to
 keep us abreast of new developments", but most important we need 
rally drivers who will take this work to its limits."


Student
As our machines live out their lives, we observe them switching
continually from one centre to the next. The continued observation 
of ourselves in this manner is 'self remembering.' That is the beginner's 
task.

Mervyn
"Actually this is "Self Observation." Self-Remembering is completely
different on a cosmic scale. One, is the machine, watching and learning
about itself, and the former is the Soul watching the machine and learning 
about its prison, the guards and how to hatch an escape plan"

Student
One student noted that each of the four centres seems to have its own
agenda, its own desires, memories, its own life.

Mervyn
"Each center creates its own I's, remembers them as fact and will continue
to operate as long as the machine is alive"

Student
Out of this discussion came the concept of "will." What is the difference 
between "will' and "desire?" At last week's New Years Eve party, a part
of us had the desire to eat too much. Another part of us has the desire to 
restrain our eating. Is one "will" and the other only "desire?" Is "desire" 
a thing of the machine and "will" of something higher?

Mervyn
"Desire was seen by the ancients as a God called Eros. Each person 
was given an allocation of Eros at birth. The idea is to allocate Eros 
to various parts of the living experience and it had to be directed. 
If we are not present, and therefore do not direct this force, it will 
sink to the lower parts of the machine and leak out as wanting a 
cream pie more than anything in the world. For some, Eros ends up
 in the Sex Center,(Hence, the connotation with the word and sex).

One of the things wrong with mans condition is Eros does not reach the
higher parts, (because they are asleep), and therefore he does not awaken
because HE DOES NOT DESIRE IT.

It is essential to bring Eros to our work, i.e. DESIRE to awaken.

There is a saying; "Eros gives wings to Psyche." Without desire we will 
never fly. So check out your desires. Where is your Eros going? If you are
in this work and your Eros is going to "Other Parts", then you will
 flounder."

Student
One student pointed out that the duality of conflicting desires can be 
resolved by a third force. If this is true, "will" doesn't have to be
there at all.

Mervyn
"I have seen many people fail over this "Will" thing. Active types feel it
means to become more active and get more done. Will in this work means
having the Will to pick up a spoon consciously or to Remember-Yourself for
another 30 seconds. I often see machines veering off and showing off their
will by some amazing feat. For me, Real Will is when the Soul can make the
machine DO something.

Start with something simple like Remember yourself for the next hour, then
talk about WILL. Otherwise, we are mixing up mechanics and machine operating
skills with what we are really trying to do i.e. Wake UP the Soul"


Student
Mervyn often tells the story about the person who wanted to paint the living room, 
but never seemed to find the time. (the duality) Then, her mother in- law called 
and said she was coming over next week for a visit. (3rd force) The living room 
was painted immediately. This story tells us that many things can get done without 
the use of "Will."

Mervyn
"If you are serious about awakening the Soul and freeing it from its prison,
this piece of information is invaluable. It is how the Soul can get the
machine to work to its advantage. It is turning a steering wheel on a car
instead of trying to turn it by pushing the side."


Student
As a beginner, I can observe the I's, the desires of the four centers, 
look for third forces.

Mervyn
"This you CAN do."

Student
I can self-remember.

Mervyn
"This you cannot on a long term basis"

Student
But I have no will.

Mervyn
"Right now you don't need one from one angle."

Student
On page 8 and 9, O explains that in order to develop will, one has to 
develop unity. One has to become "one" instead of four.



Mervyn
"Yes, DO this and then, as Ouspensky says, you can talk about will. For a
man No.6, that translates as, "Now I have will. What do I want to DO"?

Student

Is the task of "becoming one" a beginner's task in our school? 
Or is "becoming one" more advanced work than "self remembering?"

Mervyn
"It is everybody’s task and it IS Self-Remembering because without 
one you cannot have the other"

Friday, March 7, 2014

Higher Love...



Higher Love

We need not get lost in the whirling wheel of thoughts and the mind, trying to understand or learn...  we need only open our hearts...  quiet our minds, allow the Soul to come forth....  Higher Love has this incredible power...

~E


Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Mervyn J. Brady
(1948-2006)

The Ides of March

Dear All.

Normally people in life spend a lot of time expressing and feeling negativity. It has become so normal that most people even take it as normal, and sometimes even are proud of how well they express it.

We are striving to evolve and regenerate into something higher, [thus] we have to be more careful. In the work we try and not express negativity.  This is how we can best study it.

This is and has to be an ongoing situation, just as the effort to have our Souls present must be.

The 14th and 15th of March represent a time called "The Ides of March" or "The I”s of March.

Seven days before and after these dates is a time when "The Asteroids" come quite close to the Earth. Some feel it is the remains of a Planet that once was and perhaps exploded.

Schools look at them as a time for the Process of Crime.

Julius Caesar was stabbed in the back by his friends during this time in Shakespeare's play.

What actually happens is NOTHING......It is our I”s that create the crime. These Influences are especially difficult for any human who is working on being present.

Crime can enter your work, or you might say it is a time when "the Devil" is active. Real Schools know this and warn their Students to be very careful with the I's (thoughts) during these times. Some of you may lose the work during these times and I urge you not to leave the work until April 2nd.

April 1st is called "Fools Day" because it is this day we see how foolish we were during these periods.

All higher parts of you will be tested. This also means your Love Life. Crime can enter into all relationships, Lovers Parents and Children, Teachers and Students.

So my Dearest Friends....be cautious. Be vigilant and watch each other for the I’s turning into a Fury. Support each other, and most important, please verify that your I’s become a little crazy.

Therefore please avoid and rash rush to action.

Everyone knows it is crazy....but not one person on Earth can stop it.

Please don’t allow your work or relationships fail, no matter how strong the urge will be to do it. This is your opportunity to experience a Month of Madness, and watch it consciously.

If you enter April and wake up on the 1st asking "Oh my God what have I done?"

Remember you have been warned.

Verify it this year, because it will arrive every year of your life... ..for the rest of it.

Call it your annual test by the Devil.

Good Luck and my Love to you all

Mervyn

London 8th March, 2003