The Food of Impressions

Gurdjieff put forward the notion of three classes of foods for our body and soul: ordinary food, the air, and sensory impressions. The first two seem to be obvious, though both have deep subtleties that are far from obvious. But for the moment, we will focus on the third: the food of impressions.

Our senses bring us a broad and varied experience, continuous except during dreamless sleep. In what way is that food? In what way does this sensory experience feed us? With certain of nature's beauties, we do feel fed by the sights and sounds. With the impressions of certain music, art, great food, or other outstanding sensory experiences, we feel fed by our senses. Yet in ordinary circumstances, like perhaps our surroundings at this very moment, what we see and hear seems neutral, not particularly nourishing to us. We walk through life with most of it being ordinary. We feel that we have seen and heard it all before, and we give it only cursory attention. How much of your life is like that?

The key to this conundrum is presence, the intentional practice of presence. In presence, everything is new, every moment is unique and fresh. In presence, experience itself feeds us. We drink in this wondrous life.

In the ordinary mode of living, that is without presence, we default to our automatic patterns of thought, emotion, and physical habit, which live our life for us. This well-trained body-mind is merely a mechanism, an instrument running itself. We do not receive the impressions of our life. They pass by unnoticed, except perhaps by our automatism. Those life impressions do not feed us because we are not there to receive them. They may cause our automatism to react, yet without truly touching us, without getting through.

In presence, you are here in yourself to see what you see, hear what you hear, and do what you do. Life is vivid. Senses are alive. In presence you can say "I am." In presence, you are alive. In presence, your body and mind remain a mechanism, but now you are here in it. Without presence, you are absent. In presence, you receive the impressions of your life; otherwise life passes you by. This contact between your I and your senses allows the impressions to be received, digested, and transformed into the substance of your soul.

A related requirement for ingesting and digesting the food of impressions is not to be identified with the impression. If we are lost in the impression, we have given up our rightful place, we have given up our I, and the impression has no one to receive it. If we are lost in anger or jealousy, self-criticism or self-pity, or in any of the other endless ways we humans have of losing ourselves, our world narrows and we miss much of it. Even what is vivid in that state is not transformed in us, does not nourish us. On the contrary, states of identification consume our energies wastefully.

While it does happen that some strong impression, such as a beautiful natural vista or some unwanted event, wakes us up into a state of presence, so that we are there to receive it, we may not wish to leave our inner life to such accidental vagaries of happenstance. Instead, we can intentionally practice presence: sensing, feeling, mind, broad consciousness, and I.

Finally, there are also higher and more powerful impressions, sometimes awakened by sublime events: the birth of child, a great symphony, a vivid sunrise. Yet even higher impressions can be intentionally invited, for example through prayer, through a deep, inner opening to the Sacred, through letting go in the core of our being. Such higher impressions, higher energies, nourish us thoroughly and feed the world around us.

For this week, please notice how the impressions in your life feed you.

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