BEING ATTENTION

Meetings with a Gurdjieff Guide in Provence, Holland, and New York

De: Fran Shaw

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

“With a quiet mind, clear, no thoughts, the subtle energy is there,” says French filmmaker Jean-Claude Lubtchansky, who guided the Gurdjieff Work worldwide from 2001 to 2020. In these 41 recollected talks, he speaks of awakening through becoming aware of “a sacred energy.” Perceiving it directly calls for “a very active attention, watchful for something very high from a different level: a radiance that touches everything.”

“When I dwell in the awareness, unidentified with the contents of awareness, I am in the stillness which is always there... truly magical.” In the Preface we join him for a summer Work week in Provence, a weeklong retreat in Holland, and Work days in New York. Awakening in the midst of everyday life, seeing objectively, being present, related to higher energies—all these are prominent themes.

“Immediately stimulating. What this book brings is so vitally important. The essence of Work is here. Not just the essence of the Work: the essence of practice.”

--Lee van Laer, Senior Editor, Parabola

Excerpts at franshawbooks.com.

Talks (2007-2018) include the following:

Now, Sensitivity, in the Silence
Opening to Presence
Awaken the Attention
Finer Energy Can Appear
Trust This Awareness
Life Energy Coming into Me
A Taste of Freedom
What Comes First Is Being Present Now
All My Beliefs Are Nothing
Return to This Light in You
Community Can Help
Tree of Life, Rooted in Attention
Something Real in You
Embody This Force Consciously

From the Recollected Talks of Jean-Claude Lubtchansky

There is a Life in you. You can become sensitive, receptive to a finer material. It is important to mobilize attention and to be very watchful. What is needed is a very active attention, a strong attention.

Seeing at each moment: not so easy when talking or moving, but something sees how I am. Then it becomes possible for Attention to flow through.

A level of intensity can come by opening again and again to Presence. If I am near, I go deeper into that dimension. If I am far away, I come back.

Be aware of this finer Intelligence. Experience it, embody it. t is always there. Silent mind. No thoughts, no judgments. Allow the force of Life to come through.

To work is an act of creation. It is allowing this creative force to come into the world.

Jean-Claude Lubtchansky (1930-2020) led the Paris Institut G.I. Gurdjieff and guided the network of Work foundations around the globe during the last twenty years of his life. Working closely with Mme. Jeanne de Salzmann, he participated in every aspect of the production of the film drawn from Gurdjieff’s book Meetings with Remarkable Men. Working with Dr. Michel de Salzmann, Jean-Claude brought to fruition The Seekers of Truth, a three-part documentary of Gurdjieff’s life and passing, including rare footage and interviews with pupils.

Fran Shaw, Ph.D., a lifelong practitioner in a spiritual discipline, is a university professor emerita and an award-winning author whose books include The Next Attention (Gurdjieff Work with Michel de Salzmann), also called Notes on The Next Attention; a companion short-story cycle, I AM Stories: Up at the Retreat; an illustrated work of spiritual humor, Lord Have Murphy: Waking Up in the Spiritual Marketplace; and Writing My Yoga: Poems for Presence.