“I” is a feeling, “Am” is a sensation in the I Am exercise as I’ve newly rediscovered. On our course at Sherborne I was introduced to stops during practical work. We would pause from our physical labor, be it gardening or construction or cutting wood, breath in “I” and exhale “Am.” I remember breathing in, centering my attention on my chest, intoning “I” and then exhaling Am, sensing my body. Those were the days of working “as if” we had a real I. Days and years of wishing for a single, indivisible I, rather than all the little “i’s” that ruled my life. That was the extent of my understanding of the “I AM” exercise. Thanks to Joseph Azize and his book about Gurdjieff’s exercises, I’m experiencing a whole new relationship with this particular exercise.
In part, I’m aware that after years of work I have the sense of a single “I” hovering about me. Something that is not ruled by personality, ego or my body, but is of a higher, finer substance. A presence that has slowly been forming and is beginning to fill-in, becoming more real, solid.
There is a connection with this “I” that has not been there before. I can feel it. So when I breath in and say “I” there is a recognition that is more than a wish. I can feel my “I” as I inhale in a tangible way that wasn’t there before. Joseph’s book points out the importance Gurdjieff gave to the I AM exercise. I’m beginning to see that this exercise holds the secret to filling my aspiring Self, my Am, with this newly forming “I.”
“I” the Key; “Am” the Keyhole
If feeling “I” is the key, then sensing “Am” is the keyhole. The reality of sensation has always been a concrete part of my work. But sensing my whole body as I exhale “am” is not the same as directing the feeling of “I” into a specific part of my body as I exhale “am.” Joseph’s mention of an exercise Madam De Salzmann gives in The Reality of Being led me to experience directing specific energies into specific parts of the body with the exhalation. That has brought me to re-appreciate the importance of learning to “blend” feeling and sensation, which the I AM exercise is all about.
Feeling I; Sensing Am
When I breath in the feeling of I, which does carry a wish, and exhale Am, sensing a limb, I become aware that I am inviting my “I” to inhabit my body. By blending the feeling of I with the sensation of a limb, I infuse this bit of me: I AM this arm. Working at this, I hope to be able to eventually install the Master, the Real I, into the carriage of myself.
You are saying something of real interest to me here Roberta. I have not read Azize’s work and I am still missing your point I think. You seem to be making a subtle distinction about the difference between blending the feeling of “I” with sensation throughout the whole body and doing it with just a specific part of the body. And what exactly is the difference beyond the obvious. I do remember the point Madam de S. made about how the usual sensation in a limb is only a hint of what full sensation throughout the whole body is. We discussed this a couple of times back when we were meeting outside at the mansion. If you are trying to make an observation about the nature of “blending” this is something I would like to understand better.
HI Lance, I’ll try to say this but not sure how well I can express it: it’s only been in recent years that I have felt the substance of a “real” I beginning to solidify. When I sense a specific part of my anatomy rather than the whole, my experience of blending “I” with the sensation is like filling that part of myself up with the presence of “I.” Madam’s exercise (that we discussed) was about filling the parts and then being aware of the whole. That was a new and powerful experience for me.
Roberta, there is so much here. Thank you – for your steadfastness, for your commitment to a learning stance, for your openness to what is. This blending of the feeling and sensation that you point to strikes me as urgent and immediate to our world and our work. I love the word “interabiding” – that we could hold both the physical and the feeling/higher at the same time.
Yes.