Inside Out: Letters to My Children

Dedication

These letters are dedicated to my children,

Samantha, Damon and Kosta,

To my grandchildren,

Max and Hugo

And especially to Eleni.

Introduction

In November 2019, I wrote a letter to my eldest son Damon in response to a question he had about the existence of God. Since this is a question he has been carrying for some time, I wanted to provide him with a considered response.

What prompted my son’s enquiry on this occasion, was an interview we had both been watching. Stephen Colbert, who is a late-night talk show host on American television was in conversation with the British comedian Ricky Gervais and they were discussing the existence of God. This conversation was interesting because Gervais, an avowed atheist was exchanging on his views with Colbert, who is a practicing catholic.

Of course, the existence of God and all that this entails is the perennial question and is one that has persisted throughout history, usually re-surfacing at times so that our beliefs may be re-examined in the light of contemporary thought.

Usually, discussions of this sort end up being rational and dry or else argumentative and so leave us no wiser from having participated. In fact, this is a subject that most of the faithful would not even contemplate, but there are those, who like my son, are not content to rely on the opinion of others and who wish to question conventional thought, ways and means.

Holding traditions up to questioning, not from pure cynicism but a wish to understand is healthy and needs to be encouraged. So, with so much at stake, I wanted to provide a point of view that encouraged the pondering of what may be new perspectives.

These discussions were important for both of us and highlighted the need for such questions to be pondered and not reduced to the reaction that characterises so much of the typically shallow way we tend to formulate and express our thoughts and feelings - that engaging in meaningful discussion over questions that are vital to understanding ourselves and the world around us is essential and nourishing.

This letter soon found its way to my daughter Samantha and my youngest son Kosta, who were eager to join the discussion and to involve the entire family and it was they who suggested that a series of letters be composed, with each devoted to a topic that was of interest and relevant to the way we live and to our attitude to life in general.

This project seems now to be taking on a life of its own and it has been gratifying that friends and acquaintances have also expressed a wish to be included.

Interest in these exchanges appears to be arising as a result of a disillusionment over what is increasingly being felt as our collective impotence in being able to do anything constructive in overcoming the enormous challenges we are facing as human beings and the devastating impact that our choices are having not only on our own lives but the life of humanity and the planet.

We seem to be turning in circles with no real idea how to deal with the enormity of the problems we are facing and so we are reduced to stumbling around in the dark hoping for serendipity or divine intervention for a way out.

The real problem could be that we are not asking the right questions.

The impotence we feel and the futility of our attempts to rectify problems appears to stem from our obsession with symptoms and our blindness to causes. Treating symptoms is no better than placing a band-aid on an ulcer or taking an aspirin to cure an infected throat. Such measures can only ever be short term palliatives and without identifying and understanding the underlying causes, we leave ourselves open to interminable suffering.

The place to start is to look to our self before attempting to rectify what ails society and the environment. It is only by investigating what is taking place within ourselves, candidly and objectively, will we begin to discover the real cause of the problems we are facing at every level.

Important in this exploration is the need to question, to ponder the meaning and significance of our life; why we are here, who we are and why we are prone to becoming entangled, identified and destined to suffer throughout our life.

Most of all, we need to see the significance of being present to what is taking place, to actually participate in our life and to face the very real prospect that we are never present and that our life simply happens, driven by accidental associations that create their own reality, without our conscious participation.

We may come to understand that because we are not present, we cannot do anything, that because of the way we have been conditioned due to our education, what we take to be real is a mirage and that the only way to restore our rightful place, is to accept the fallacy of our perception of who and what we are.

The subject of each of these letters is an attempt to shed light on the misconceptions that have led to our predicament and to offer a glimmer of hope through the agency of practice and sharing, that we can find a way toward presence, wholeness and freedom.

What is contained in these letters needs to be questioned. They are intended to encourage an active pondering of what could be true for each us.

Robert Powell.

Acknowledgement

So much of what I have come to understand about my life is as a result of the wisdom imparted by many extraordinary people, but there is one that I especially wish to acknowledge, and this is the teaching of G. I. Gurdjieff.

George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff was born in Armenia in 1866 to Greek and Armenian parents and he died in Paris in 1949.

Much has now been written about Gurdjieff and his Work and I will not attempt to repeat what others have so eloquently covered previously. But what I wish to emphasise is that this quite extraordinary individual brought a way of working toward a knowledge of our self that is based on direct experience and an insistence that his ideas be practiced, studied and verified in the context of daily life.

Gurdjieff was adamant that none of his ideas should be taken on face value and that it is the responsibility of everyone who seriously undertakes their study, to put them to the test through practice and not simply as fodder for the mind. He emphasised the importance of being critical and that we must be prepared to labour consciously and to suffer intentionally for what we wish.

Gurdjieff also understood that those of us who are living in the west required a system, a way of working that did not require retiring into a monastery or ashram, but that could be undertaken in daily life.

The Work as it has become known, is a method based on practice and as such is rigorous, demanding and requires a quality of attention and perseverance that quickly tests the resolve of those wishing to understand the meaning of their life.

On God

Last week when we were listening to Stephen Colbert and Ricky Gervais speaking about God, you asked for my thoughts on the subject.

This is a question I’ve been asked on a number of occasions and have always felt awkward in answering, mainly because of the difficulty in encapsulating my feelings on such an important subject. But since your question is serious, I would like to offer these thoughts to you so that together, we may open the subject further.

Human beings have always had a sense of wonder, things we could not explain and that evoked a feeling of awe. There were the celestial and elemental forces, the stars, the sun and moon, the flow of the tides, volcanoes, earthquakes, storms that would either delight or terrify us depending on the threat being posed. At the very least these phenomena were stupendous in scale and because we existed at their mercy, we feared, revered and worshipped them as gods.

Then over the course of millennia, we gradually came to understand that the earth was not flat, the stars were not a canopy supported by great pillars anchored to the earth, that the earth revolved around the sun, the moon was a satellite and received its light from the sun and so on. But in spite of this emerging avalanche of knowledge, that is ongoing, we are still left with the question of how this all came about, what our place in all this might be, where we came from and where are we going. In other words, this questioning persists in spite of the many scientific theories that have attempted explanations.

While this deep questioning was challenged by the so-called age of reason that we know as the enlightenment, and the plethora of scientific theories and philosophies that emerged during this time that purported to debunk anything that was not rational, this feeling that there is an indefinable something else could not be extinguished, something profound that was beyond the rational minds ability to explain.

It’s this capacity humans have for awe and wonder - to be moved deeply, as a result of certain experiences, encounters, impressions, that sets us apart from all other creatures, a feeling that we are part of something beyond our understanding that gives our life its vitality, meaning and worth.

The poet William Wordsworth spoke about this in the opening lines of his Intimations of Immortality.

"There was a time when meadow grove and stream.

The earth and every common sight,

To me did seem

Apparelled in celestial light,

The glory and the freshness of a dream."

When I was very young, I remember seeing the world around me as having a magical quality. I was enthralled by the life of ants, butterflies, crickets, cicadas, spiders and all sorts of creatures and would spend hours crouched down watching them as closely as I could. I recall sitting out in the open to experience the power of thunderstorms directly and was enraptured by the stars and the moon. This continued well into my teenage years, until I became self-obsessed and lost this sense of wonder.

But thankfully, not completely lost.

I recall one occasion as vividly as if it were yesterday. I was sitting on a bus on my way home from school. Three elderly women entered the bus and as they were taking their seats, I was overcome by the strongest feeling that I can only describe as love. So strong was this feeling that it brought me to tears.

Another occasion that comes to mind was during an intensive session of interval training. The boat was a coxed pair, and we were engaged in a series of 500 metre sprints. This particular racing boat is relatively heavy and requires a great deal of effort and skill to row quickly. During the third interval, I experienced an extraordinary feeling of weightlessness, and the rowing suddenly became effortless leaving me wondering to this day what actually took place.

During the early part of my twenties, other experiences occurred that were beyond my comprehension and I became convinced that there was so much more to life than I imagined. Certainly, more than the narrow, self-centred existence that characterised the way I lived with all of its fears, concerns and anxieties about almost everything.

My mother came to visit us in Toronto during the early ’70s and one evening we decided to take in a movie at a local theatre. Arriving a little early for the session, we walked into the bookshop nearby.

While browsing the shelves, I noticed a book entitled The Flight of the Eagle, a series of talks given by an Indian mystic by the name of Jiddu Krishnamurti. As I began to read what Krishnamurti was saying, I was stunned to discover that here was a man speaking about the very things that by this time had begun to consume my thoughts.

Sometime soon after, I learned that Krishnamurti had a residence in Ojai California where he gave talks. I spent a weekend at Ojai and Krishnamurti opened my mind to the relationship between thought and the ego, the way thought entraps us in a tangled web of associations and how we become identified with this web.

For me, this was revolutionary and slowly over the years, I began to realise through experience, the truth of this assertion that we are not thought, not who or what we think we are, and while thought is a natural ongoing activity of the mind that never ceases, we become trapped by these thoughts and lose all sense of who we are.

Because this ego/thought conspiracy is structured and perpetuated on the basis of constant conditioning, I did not realise how artificial my life had become and that by taking the false for what is real, my life could never have any meaning.

Soon after arriving back in Australia after eight years in Canada, I happened to be browsing once again in a bookshop and was glancing at a book that I had never seen. It was P. D. Ouspensky’s In Search of the Miraculous.

As I leafed through the pages, a stranger tapped my shoulder and asked whether I was interested in what this book had to say. I responded that I had no idea and that I was just glancing at it out of curiosity. To my surprise, this man insisted I take the book as a gift and suggested that if I found it interesting and wanted to know more, I was welcome to attend a meeting that was to take place the following Thursday evening.

Grateful but sceptical, I accepted and read the book. This was my introduction to the ideas of G.I. Gurdjieff and my first meeting with people who had been studying the teaching of this extraordinary man for many years and who were to become my constant companions from that day to this.

What touched me more than anything at that time was Gurdjieff’s depth of insight into the human condition and the place human beings occupy in the overall scheme of things. I was also impressed by Gurdjieff’s insistence that we must never take any of his ideas on face value, that they needed to be verified by putting them to the test. And then there was the importance he placed on having a critical mind, one that is not easily seduced by teachers and teachings that purport to have all the answers.

In showing us our place as well as offering the means for understanding our purpose in life, Gurdjieff spoke about the vast scale of interconnected existence and how each cell within this scale fulfils a vital role in the unfolding and maintenance of all life at every level.

Let’s consider our natural body for a moment. We see that it is made up of elements that come from the earth - the flesh, bones, tissues, fluids and is sustained by food sources that also come mostly from the earth. And when the body has fulfilled its purpose then it simply de-composes and these elements return to the planet to complete a cycle.

We also derive nourishment from the atmosphere and the environment in which we live in the form of air and impressions. The air we breathe is composed of elements in the earth’s atmosphere which are derived from the planet, the sun, solar system and beyond. And it is the same with the food of impressions.

Mankind’s survival also depends on animals and vegetation. We feed on these creatures out of necessity. Similarly, animals feed on other animals or vegetation. Vegetation is fed by the nutrients in the soil and from the sun. Soil is derived from the decomposition of vegetation and minerals. Minerals occur as a result of tectonic forces and occasional bombardment of fragments from the solar system.

On a larger scale, the earth feeds on and is fed by the sun and the moon. The sun provides the conditions for life and the moon shares a mutual relationship with the earth for its own sake and for the sake of the earth. The moon governs the movement of tides, currents of water and air and influences the humours of our body and therefore our emotions.

The earth is also part of the solar system - a complex of planets whose emanations have a bearing on the quality of life we enjoy, and all totally depend on the energy of the sun.

Our sun is dependant for its survival on our galaxy the milky way, which in turn, is involved in a similar reciprocal relationship with all other galaxies. The milky way depends on the universe of galaxies for its birth and for sustaining its life.

In other words, absolutely everything is connected, everything is either consuming or being consumed by other creatures in the wider universe and this whole magnificent structure is governed by immutable laws, the most basic of which are the laws of being and becoming.

The law of being states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In other words, whenever there is affirmation there is denial. But if these two opposing forces were all there were, then we could get nowhere, nothing would be created because these two forces would simply annihilate each other and cancel each other out.

So, there is a third force - a force that enters into each impulse and reconciles the differences, allowing movement to take place. This is the law of three.

The second fundamental law is the law of becoming. This law states that once a process has begun, then it progresses through very definite and definable stages. This was discovered in ancient times and is referred to as the law of the octave. When a process is initiated it must pass through specific stages until it reaches a certain point where a retardation in development takes place.

We can see this process in the musical scale, where the note DO begins the process and then follows a natural line of progression through the notes, RE and MI.

Between the first three notes the energy available is constant and so progress is smooth. But between MI and FA there is a semi tone, a loss of force. In other words, the amount of energy now available at this interval is half what it was previously. The result is a retardation, a diversion. The previously smooth progress takes a turn, is diverted from its path. The process then continues its smooth sailing again albeit in a different direction, through the notes; SOL, LA and SI. But then another semi tone is encountered between SI and the completion of one octave and the beginning of the next.

If this process was to continue uninterrupted in this way, then we would end up back where we started after four completed octaves.

Unless an extra force is added at the intervals where the retardations are encountered, then we are doomed to keep repeating the same thing time and time again; ground hog day that sinking feeling that nothing ever seems to change.

This means that so called progress is an illusion unless the interval is filled, either mechanically or consciously. Without a something extra at these crucial intervals, what we assume to be progress is an illusion.

For us as we are, this process is purely mechanical and serving nature, it heralds another great law - the law of increasing entropy or involution.

This law states that whenever energy is expended, in a process then it is rendered less useful next time around (remembering that energy is never lost). This is the heat death of the universe that many scientists speak about - where energy as heat is attracted to cold and so becomes less useful as it cools. In fact, at minus 275 degrees centigrade, no motion is possible.

Man, the earth, the planets, the sun, the milky way, the galaxies and the universe comprise one enormous mechanism, operating under strict and measurable laws and that this process is toward increasing entropy. Of course, these laws also operate in the subatomic world of quantum mechanics.

It’s breath taking and magnificent in every way. The earth and everything in the universe will always obey these objective laws.

But there is one anomaly in all of this. Mankind has been created in such a way that under certain specific circumstances, the mechanical cycle of involution can be interrupted and made to serve another purpose that’s altogether different.

This is certainly not the case for mankind the way we are now, but the possibility exists to develop our inborn capacities and realise our true potential. But for this, a special work is required, a work against nature and that by undertaking this alternative course, we suddenly pose a threat that nature will resist.

The importance of mankind’s unique capacities and perhaps the real meaning for our existence is in serving the creation by playing a very specific role.

Mankind is able to ponder, to contemplate, to question and because this involves a conscious intention it disrupts the mechanical momentum of the downward flow of energy and provides an opening for a movement in the opposite direction, a conscious return toward the source.

If we are to find meaning in our existence, then we must embark upon a journey toward becoming fully conscious, complete. This is an enormous undertaking because the barriers that must be overcome are our; lack of awareness of reality, the resistance that will be encountered by nature and the tremendous force of our habitual way of life.

This means that this is a journey that will require sacrifice and involve suffering, a prospect that most will reject.

What we are now speaking about is nothing less than a fundamental transformation of our being and for such a process to begin, we must first come to realise what Gurdjieff referred to as; the terror of our situation, that we are not who we think we are. We must dispel the entrenched and tenacious belief that we are able to do what we wish and realise that everything that takes place in our life is governed by association and habit and that because of this, we live under the law of accident. We must come to face the awful truth that we do not exist because we are not present, and that we have no destiny other than as Gurdjieff would say, to die like a dog.

This is an assertion that is repugnant for every one of us. It runs completely against the grain to suggest that we are not conscious, that we have no free will and so we are likely to discard such a thought as ridiculous - until we begin to experiment and see for ourselves.

Then, when the mounting evidence is indisputable and we realise the extent to which we are asleep to our potential, only then will something begin to change.

So, when it comes to the question of whether there is a God, who can say? But we can feel the evidence of something other, an intelligence that is beyond our comprehension and that manifests itself through laws.

We have the capacity for wonder and awe, and we have our question. I think this is the most productive and satisfying direction - to have and remain in question.

With all my love,

Dad.

Identification

Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American poet and essayist who lived during the nineteenth century and in 1837 he was invited to deliver a speech to the graduating class at Harvard University. Emerson’s subject was The American Scholar.

In this talk Emerson extolled the virtues of many things – the need to think for oneself, not to rely on the works of others, to be courageous with ideas and so on, but there was something he mentioned that struck me in particular when I first read what he delivered; that man has degenerated from a man thinking, to a mere thinking.

For me, the importance of this statement is not only its relevance for those living almost two hundred years ago, but that it rings true for us today, that nothing has changed.

It is true,