Here I am again on a Sunday morning. Nothing has changed. I have not changed nor has the world. A condo crashes to the ground in Miami, voting rights are being yanked away from us and we all have our own personal shocks to undergo.

The Work teaches that shocks give us the opportunity to wake up, yet we sleep on. If you wonder if you are awake, you will probably not allow the next shock to wake you up. One has to be desperate enough to admit defeat.

My younger brother is having continuous shocks as he has had sepsis and a bleeding ulcer, both within the last two weeks. We are used to emailing each other but he is too weak to do so now. I woke in the middle of the night and thought about surrendering but I fell back to sleep after an hour or so.

We are doing the Work while housed in a physical body. Mine, like the Miami condo, has some issues with its age. My brother is in dire straits. This world, if you study it closely, is inside of you. As the world goes, so go you. And the masses sleep on. Gurdjieff said that not everyone wants to wake up and even when you try, you are likely to fail.

After having read hundreds and hundreds of spiritual books, I now accept that the way to wake up is not to read more books. I pick one up from time to time and open to a random paragraph that catches my eye. Hold on, let me go take one down from the shelf and read what I find:

“I say to you, slip from the rim of Time into the axis and spare yourselves the nausea of motion. Let Time revolve about you; but you not revolve with Time.” That is from “The Book of Mirdad.”

So that is a prescription for freedom. Rest in the center of your being. Witness the shocks occurring around you and let them be. Breathe, calm your emotions and enter the moment. There is something inside of you that knows how to find the center that steadies you. Notice that there is a shift in your breath as new energy comes into your body. Welcome it with gratitude because soon enough you will have fallen asleep again.

Vicki Woodyard