Chapter 27
The Fate of the Fête

All real enjoyment is as good, from the point of view of
energy production and conservation, as suffering. _JG Bennett

The last phase of the course is filled with a new energy, a sense of promise—what a relief—though the core of our daily schedule has not changed. We continue our usual activities of housework, gardening, Theme, Movements, and the evening reading. But now more of our other activities have a creative and interactional element to them. The longer days and burgeoning signs of spring appear to be earth’s way of joining in on the assignment to manifest our work.
For the first time in months, out in the garden students are tossing off their down vests and jumpers, as the British call sweaters. Fewer layers of warm clothes make everyone appear to have lost anywhere from ten to thirty pounds. It has been so long since I’ve seen my bare arms in the light of day, that when I lay eyes on them, I feel indecently exposed. read the rest of this entry… »

“Love is a force, by which all life is transformed,
and everything returns to its source.” — JG Bennett

Along with ninety other students from around the world, I studied with John Bennett at his Sherborne Academy the last months of his life.

Mr. Bennett was a sincere and adventurous man filled with a visible love for Gurdjieff and Gurdjieff’s Teaching. That love radiated through to us as a transmission.

Following Gurdjieff’s advice to “find out for yourself,” Bennett risked and lost much: the approval of his peers, a career in politics and commerce, and personal financial assets.

Bennett researched and validated everything he received from Gurdjieff; and—while sharing with us what he had found—while digging in the Sherborne flower garden, John Bennett died on Friday, December 13, 1974, thirty-seven years ago.

James Tomarelli

Even now, in the last third of the course, there are still issues about food. On our applications to Sherborne, we had been offered a choice of meat or vegetarian fare. Yet Mr. Bennett lectured at intervals about vegetarian eating and how often we in the West do it only for sentimental reasons. Each time he brings up the topic, he emphasizes the negative implications and reminds us about the spiritual transformation of any food. More and more people opt out of their vegetarian diets.
As an experiment, I’d been hoping to improve my health by eating vegetarian, but as each lecture convinces more students to give it up, I’ve become the only vegetarian left. This is no longer a health experiment for me but only obstinacy. I think we’ve been manipulated. And then I sadly wonder if my stubbornness can be applied to something more uplifting.

I was a vegetarian until I started leaning toward the sunlight. _Rita Rudner

read the rest of this entry… »

Chapter 26
Up The Ladder

It is one of the laws that if we wish to change
we must make it possible for somebody else to change. _JG Bennett

My thinking function is beyond overload. The only thinking I’m doing is visual—no words. Images of eggs keep popping into my mind unbidden. I have accumulated a collection of black and white photos taken around the property. In my mind, each one of them begs for a sunny side-up egg—hanging on a fence, resting on the balustrade, being held in someone’s hand while companions examine it, and, even, lurking behind the flora. A cheery prowling egg! Mrs. Bennett hears about the photos with eggs painted on them and asks to see them. I wonder what she is doing with them, imagining her taking them to a psychiatrist for professional evaluation. read the rest of this entry… »

Freshly Laundered & Hanging Out to Dry. Part IV
The Esoteric Phase:
Manifestation

Spring Break to August 15, 1973

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Chapter 25
Questions

One must learn to use life as one’s teacher. We have to learn from life
for our own being, for our own transformation. _JG Bennett

In the downstairs library Mr. Bennett gave us a series of lectures to prepare us for the last phase of the course. As usual, most of us sat on cushions on the floor while the older people sat on the few chairs in the room. In the first presentation he reminded us of the parable of making bread. read the rest of this entry… »