Gurdjieff Internet Guide Newsletter © Copyright 2003
Editorial
We are celebrating our one year birthday!
I want to say that I am amazed and very pleased at the support from our
visitors and the people who have contributed to the site during this
hectic year with so many things happening.
In July there have been visitors from 82 countries with 12500 visits.
The aim of GIG is to put Gurdjieff properly on the internet. This is a
task that is not easy and never complete.
Many people have written to me and said that if Gurdjieff lived in our
time he would use the internet.
When Ouspensky said that people are turning into machines, but if they
tried to think they could not have been such fine machines. Gurdjieff
answered: "Yes, that is true, but only partly true. It depends first of
all on the question which
mind they use for their work. If they use the proper mind they will be
able to think even better in the midst of all their work with
machines." Fragments, p. 18.
It is a constant challenge!
The Russian Connection
Recently I received an e-mail from Andrei Stepanov in Russia.
An interview is under work with related articles, translations and
information also from other people following Gurdjieff's ideas in
Russia.
Andrei has told that the Russian School, called 'Academy of Harmonious
Development of Antropos', also known as 'Ship of Fools', can claim to
have a direct line of transmission from the early times, before the
1917 revolution. This work continued all through the Soviet times, but
had to go underground. With the new political developments in Russia
the situation is rapidly changing.
The School has not only branches in different parts of Russia, but also
in Europe.
Oxana from St. Petersburg wrote: "In this respect Russia is intuitive
and mystical and it needs intellect and logic of Western Europe. And
their union can only be accomplished through people. The idea is simple
- Russians and West Europeans should meet, communicate and go through
different experiences - internal and external - together. Only through
such practical contact there can be born unified understanding and even
common being. And this is what our school is trying to do".
I will post this interview in the course of August.
Interview with Jim Belleau by Guy Hoffman
Jim Belleau runs a picture framing business in Oneonta, New
York.
Belleau returned to creative filmmaking in 1994 and has produced a
series of documentaries that address the issues of meaning and purpose
combined with images of beauty. Experiences With The Sacred Movements
is the latest documentary released under the name of his video
business, Acorn Productions.
It is made in co-operation with the Movements Foundation in Holland. In
this video nine people talk about their experiences with the Gurdjieff
Movements. Jim is interviewed in New York by Guy Hoffman, who with his
zen-like laughing makes these interviews alive.
Guy: I’m very happy, Jim, to be here with you. I first heard
about you
from David Kherdian and I sent away for the video you did on him
called, The Dividing River The Meeting Shore: The Poetry of David
Kherdian. I have since seen your video, Hills’ Gold, a
documentary
about Oneonta, the town where you live in upstate New York, the CD-Rom,
The Art Of The Sacred Movements, and your latest film, Experiences With
The Sacred Movements. Just yesterday, I looked again at The Dividing
River The Meeting Shore, and I was aware how the poetry of your filming
had such a beautiful blend with the poetry of David. So, my first
question is how did you meet David Kherdian?
Jim: The way I met David was very interesting. I found a copy of
Beelzebub when I was twenty-five or twenty-six. I couldn’t
make heads
or tails of it, but I could see that there was something there. As I
began to explore Gurdjieff a little more, I found In Search of the
Miraculous. I couldn’t believe what was between those covers.
It
absolutely floored me. That was really the turning point in my life.
And so, I had these very powerful ideas floating around in my head for
a couple of years, and I was trying to work on myself. And I was
beginning to feel my own helplessness. I could see more and more that I
couldn’t do the Work. I was getting like kind of desperate.
So, I’m
also the type to want to lead, astrologically I am a Leo, and I am kind
of a know-it-all, and so I have to admit the embarrassing fact that I
decided to start and lead a group.
Guy and Jim: (laughing)
Jim: As for the Gurdjieff work, I live in an isolated community and
there was no one else around and I just decided to have a group because
I was reading Ouspensky and I thought I could answer questions as well
as he could. It was so ridiculous, it is amusing now, but there was a
design involved. So I plastered Oneonta with flyers announcing that a
Gurdjieff group was now forming. Just at that moment, before I received
any calls or inquiries, David Kherdian walked into my picture framing
shop and said, are you the one putting up the flyers?
Guy: (laughing)
Jim: I said yes. He told me the bookstore owner directed him to me. And
then he asked me a few questions about my authority to start a group.
He was very kind, he didn’t laugh out loud or faint. He had
just spent
nine years living full-time in a Gurdjieff work community in Oregon and
had just moved to the area and he said, maybe he should lead the group.
I said that’s fine with me.
Guy and Jim: (laughing)
Guy:: Saved.
Guy and Jim: (continue laughing)
Jim: Do you know what I realized later? And this is interesting. And I
think this is what the work is all about—what was happening
in those
two years, and in my efforts to start a group, I was preparing a space
for something to enter. And I think that’s really the central
part of
the Work, especially in the beginning. You work to prepare a space so
that something can come in. If you have any experience in the Work you
know that on the surface what I was doing was ridiculous, but look at
the results. I met a teacher who for the next three years allowed me to
get a good foothold in the Work and if I hadn’t made my
apparently
ridiculous efforts I may not have met him.
Guy: Right.
Jim: So that’s how I met David. That’s how it all
began. You mentioned
the tape I made of his poetry. I made that tape seven years later to
thank him for what he had given me.
Guy: Oh, I see.
Jim: It was in gratitude.
Guy: It’s a beautiful, beautiful video.
Jim: For those who haven’t seen the video, which is just
about everyone,
Guy: (laughs)
Jim: I mixed images of nature with the poetry.
Guy: How did you get started in doing films?
Jim: Filmmaking is really my calling. That’s what I majored
in in
college. I got a degree in l979 in cinematography from Emerson College
in Boston. I worked for three years as a free-lance lighting technician
and then walked away from the whole thing. It’s an absurd
business.
There’s a lack of meaning on a cosmic scale (laughs). So I
just walked
away from it for about ten or twelve years. I moved away from Boston to
Oneonta and bought a picture framing business.
Guy: How did the Work influence or change your way of filming?
Jim: One of the reasons I didn’t want to make films in the
early days
was because I didn’t have the money, but also because I knew
better
than to embarrass myself. I wanted to tackle serious dramatic subjects
related to the emotional well being of adults. And I wasn’t
ready for
it.
Guy: Excuse me. Could you please repeat that line about film for
…
Jim: I wanted to make serious dramatic films concerning the emotional
well being of adults.
Guy: Okay. Good.
Jim: I felt that was an area that was really neglected. So I think the
incubation period when I walked away from the industry was good because
I needed to mature. Filmmaking is not my job, it has felt like a
calling. So when I met David and got into the Work and started trying
to work on myself, I began to penetrate the false parts of myself. I
felt ready to begin to make films that I thought would be useful in
terms of the exploration of the ordinary. You know films are always
about extreme things: someone with an addiction, or murder, or
violence, or Aids, or whatever. There’s not much about the
ordinary,
existential, quiet desperation that most people come to at some point
in their life.
Guy: I think that’s why I like your films so much. Even when
you film
just a little brook, or a branch, or a leaf there’s something
there.
Jim: In film you can add sound, you can add music, you can add natural
sound effects, and someone speaking about something substantially; and
so you have all these layers combined with that picture of the brook.
So it’s not just like a still photograph that is nicely done
or a
travelogue film that is nicely done. In film you can combine real
substance with real visual beauty. If you look at all the films I have
made you will see a pattern there of using an image in its natural
beauty. I like to shoot things unaltered, things that I find though it
may be a piece of weathered wood or a derelict barn or something.
Guy: So you went over to Holland to do a film.
Jim: I went over to Holland to help Wim van Dullemen to film a
Movements demonstration he was giving there. It was one of the few
public demonstrations ever done of the Movements—free, and
open to the
public. I met him through David Kherdian. And he asked me to help him
record it. [.... material deleted to respect confidentiality - January
2008] who is
a multimedia producer, and also one of Wim’s students, was
also there
and he brought four cameras with him and I brought two. The
demonstrations went well and we realized we had a lot of good material.
It developed into the CD-Rom, The Art Of The Sacred Movements.
Guy: What did you learn about the Work there?
Jim: Well … that’s when everything started to
accelerate for me. Once I
started getting mixed up with the Movements, my progress of coming to
myself really began to accelerate. It was remarkable. When David moved
to California, I was again isolated after three years of working with
him. So when I got to Holland in May of 2002, I started meeting live
human beings again who were working hard on themselves. The atmosphere,
-- it was like osmosis, it was unbelievable, by just being with the
people and by the discussions and the good feelings that are always
there I was absorbing many things.
Guy: So what did you learn about yourself?
Jim: (sighing – long pause) Boy. I don’t think I
learned a lot
specifically except that I wanted to be with these people. When I
really began to learn was when I went back again and took a two-day
seminar with Wim and I actually started to do the Movements. A war
broke out inside me (laughs), and it was like … an
incredible struggle,
yet at the same time there was no place else on the planet that I would
rather be.
Guy: Wow.
Jim: There’s an aspect of the Movements that isn’t
spoken about much.
When you first learn a movement, you begin with a foot pattern or
whatever. Each time that you try it there’s an interval when
you make
an effort and you stop, and that’s when you can see into
yourself
because it causes such a disturbance inside. You become very plainly
visible to yourself. A good Movements teacher will always respect that
interval. I started to benefit from that little interval, no matter how
well or badly I did the movements, and badly is the winner there.
Guy: (laughs)
Jim: I valued the struggle, I could see right away the value in the
disturbance and the struggle, so I continued to work at it. I went to a
ten-day seminar in January on the Movements and a seven-day seminar in
April. I worked hard and I have not ever fully joined with a Movement.
However, the value I have received for my Being is really beyond
description.
Guy: How have you related that experience into your life?
Jim:Jim: Oh (sighing). That’s like saying how does sunlight
relate to
your day. I mean it pervades everything. I feel like I have the tiger
by the tail now. I remember every hour—ego, to watch out for
it. I
remember every hour—my breath. I’m not successful
with that every hour,
but I remember every day at some point. I remember every time I am
disturbed or upset or knocked off balance that this is an opportunity
to Work. I wake up remembering it, and I go to sleep remembering it.
There’s a profit in everything that happens in every hour of
the day
now. Also, I don’t have this negativity I used to have. I
used to worry
so heavily about the world, about Iraq, about George Bush …
Guy: (laughing)
Jim: Pushing us all off the edge of the cliff.
Guy: (laughing)
Jim: I mean, I don’t have this anxiety anymore about the
state of the
World, I only worry about the world I can affect. It’s a
process of
remembrance, and opportunity—no matter what happens in the
day.
Guy: Right. That’s very, very good.
Jim: Yes, I feel very lucky.
Guy: Was there anything in your childhood, any experience or any
moment, that you feel set you off on your search for …?
Jim: Yes, there was one very serious, miraculous experience when I was
young, ten or eleven years old, although I forgot about it for the
longest time. I think the real answer to your question was that I was
loved, that my parents loved me. That, I think, is a huge key to my
ability to work with my emotional center the right way as an adult. But
there was one experience: I was raised in a Catholic school. Nine years
I was in this cinder block building. It was a typical “how
can I
survive a religious upbringing” situation. So I sort of went
underground and hid through invisibility most of those years. We used
to go to Mass every first Friday. This one time I was sitting in the
front row in the Church. It came to the reading of the Gospel and
something cracked open inside me and I deeply understood every word
that the Priest was saying. I knew I was understanding it a thousand
times more deeply than he was. And it was incredible. I guess it was an
ecstatic experience. I felt the truth and weight on a huge scale of
every word he was speaking. And this door opened for a few minutes and
I was there in a place of strength and beauty and deep understanding.
The Priest noticed it actually; I saw him looking up over his glasses.
He noticed something was going on but he never spoke to me about it.
Guy: So that was your first experience of something mystical and
unusual?
Jim: Yes. You used the word mystical.
(Fire siren – long pause. This interview in taking place in
Jim’s van at Cairo, NY, in a parking lot.)
Guy: Okay.
Jim: The one thing I realized this year is that the term mystical has
become its own opposite. We tend to think of mystics as people who are
removed from reality, our ordinary view of reality, that they are out
there on a spiritual plane, not bothered by all the worldly things. A
true mystic is someone who is approaching reality, who is living closer
to Objective Reality than we are in our ordinary view of reality.
Guy: Where do you see yourself going in the future in the Work?
Jim: I don’t worry about the future. I only worry about what
I’m going
to do next. The future doesn’t exist in any way that concerns
me. For
instance I have no creative film on the docket at the moment, but I
know it will appear. It will simply just appear. At the moment
I’m
working on getting Experiences With The Sacred Movements out into the
world. Also, my work on myself seems to have uncovered some other
abilities that can be applied to people who are open to it, who may
need it. And so, there’s a lot going on at the moment. The
next couple
of months are filled with activities that further the common good that
are related to the Work. If you are in the present, if you are in the
present day remembering and watching and living your life—I
don’t mean
to make it sound too unbalanced back in the direction of spirituality.
I live a nice, robust balanced life. So I don’t worry about
the future.
In my morning sitting, I just ask for guidance and help and strength
and clarity for today.
Guy: Right.
Jim: So I’m working day by day and it’s nice,
there’s a freedom there.
I feel this incredible freedom from not waiting for my life to begin,
not waiting for success to come to me. I’m not reliant
anymore on
outside forces to confirm my identity or add to my reason for being.
And Gurdjieff mentions this a lot in Beelzebub’s Tales. I
would like to
say something about Beelzebub’s Tales. I met some holy men
this year. I
met a couple of Sheiks in the Sufi tradition and they study the Koran;
Priests study the Bible; Jews study the Torah; we should be studying
Beelzebub’s Tales in the same way. This book is just as thick,
Guy: (laughing)
Jim: And as weighty at the Bible,
Guy: (laughing)
Jim: And I think that was very intentional. I get up in the morning and
I read Beelzebub’s Tales; I study it every day, the same way
that these
other people study their books. I think that we in the Work really need
to look at Beelzebub’s Tales as a truly sacred and holy book.
And when
I read it, it’s like stepping into a garden. As if I had a
sacred space
in my backyard with some kind of an amazing garden, and it had a
particular scent or atmosphere and I stepped out into it every
morning—that’s the same way that
Beelzebub’s Tales works for me now. I
feel as if Mr. Gurdjieff is putting his arm around me and
he’s
transmitting that compassion that he was so well known for when he was
not being harsh. I can understand now why he would be both kind and
harsh. Beelzebub’s Tales is the most important book for
western society
that will come down the pike for decades and decades. This book is a
truly sacred and miraculous piece of work. It plainly demonstrates the
existence of higher centers.
Guy: What is it that you would like people to get from Experiences With
The Sacred Movements?
Jim: If nothing else, I hope it will help people feel less alone in
their inner thoughts and feelings. This is what all of my video work
has been about. We always feel so terribly alone and I would like to
try and fight that in a kind of unspoken way.
Ikast, Denmark 1st August 2003 Reijo Elsner