When World War II ended, among the displaced persons in Europe were orphaned children, children who had survived in ruined cities literally hand-to-mouth: fierce, rude, dirty, sly, manipulative, trusting no one.  These were feral children, and when conditions became more normal, they were brought into families to adjust to ordinary life.  Often the first sign of progress was that these children stopped hoarding food, stopped raiding garbage cans for more food.

Let us leave these feral children for a moment, and guess about the return of the Prodigal Son.  He has debased himself, learned strange ways.  He has learned to be fierce, rude, dirty, sly, manipulative.  He trusts no one.  Only his father has recognized him.  He looks terrible.  He says hurtful things.  He flees if approached.  He even smells bad.  His brother, who has ruled since his leaving, is not happy with the way their father has welcomed him.  The Prodigal Son is staying in the fancy guest bedroom.  If it were up to his brother, the Prodigal Son would live out in the woodshed.

Let us leave the Prodigal Son for a moment, and talk about my own negativity.  I have a favorite negativity, either fear or anger or hatred, and it acts through me.  Whenever I turn my back, whenever I fall asleep, there it is, saying things out my mouth, feeling things with my heart, thinking things with my mind.  I try and try to get it to stop, but it sneaks back in whenever I am not vigilant, and I am not vigilant much of the time.  It is fierce, rude, dirty, sly, manipulative, and it doesn’t trust me—for good reason.

Why is it that I feel incomplete, as if there were a part of me, an important part, missing?  It’s almost as if I was looking for a well-dressed stranger to come, but instead I get a nasty little twerp who won’t go away, who (how absurd) claims to be that missing part.  Of course I deny him.  Of course I chase him away whenever possible.

Much of the energy in my life is spent on the striving to be not what I am..

And this happens because I have been badly educated about seeing what I am, who I am

Without exception, Nature delivers me into adult life unperfected, with a serious tendency toward one of the three basic negativities: fear, anger or hatred.  By denying my favorite negativity’s influence on my most unconscious manifestations, I end up running away from what I am, and I can run away for my entire life.

But all of this is far from obvious, even in others.

Can I become aware of, perhaps even accept, the negativity in me, in a way that makes me more whole?  If my negativity is a kind of fear, I say to myself, “I know I’m afraid of a lot of situations and people and things, but I’m going to try to allow myself to have the experience of it, as it is, in me, here and now.”   It probably won’t be necessary to think much about this, except if the fear tries to escape and get outside myself.  “I won’t express this fear, and I won’t repress it.  I can and I will contain it.”

Can this unlikely guest make me more whole?

In time, might my negativity become transformed back to a real part of me?  First, it is necessary to see many times what is in me, and how it operates inwardly and manifests outwardly.  As I am, negativity is so prevalent that it goes unnoticed and unquestioned.

I know something of my weaknesses and what I am up against, and I can, for moments, separate from my automatic impulses and favorite habitual reactions.

When I make an effort, another world is opened up; another range of potential, where I am separate from what is being seen, and what is being seen simply is.  In moments such as these, has the Prodigal Son returned?

So—-I try each one in turn – fear, anger, or hatred, and see if one of them feels most at home.  A part of me may hide this potential guest by using its opposite, much as the bully hides the coward.  Or, I may just rationalize my negativity, or excuse it – “That’s just the way I am”.

An excellent indication that I’ve found the right “guest” is a feeling of mingled sadness and relief: sadness because I’ve wasted so much of my life in the pretense of being noble, faultless—or at least well-meaning—-and relief when I realize that I no longer need to pretend.

So, to review, first I need to get a sense of what my favorite negativity is, the one that leaks out of me when I’m most unaware.  I ask others if need be, especially those I feel share my weaknesses.

Second, I try and contact this negativity in a neutral way: I don’t have to like it or its effect on me.

Perhaps what I need to help complete my being is hiding in plain sight—already here.

==                Lou Gottlieb                                                    11/3/2002

++++++++++++++++++

I wrote this essay from my experience.  Ouspensky in In Search of the Miraculous writes that Gurdjieff said that we have no place in us for negative emotions.  I believe this to mean  1) we have no place because these negative emotions are something else in disguise—or something else debased, and  2) we have no place because we refuse to take them in as “guests” in the one place where they can be transformed: our lower center.

It came as a surprise when l found how well my own hatred fitted in my lower center.   In the months since that time, something l despaired of transforming in myself has been transformed, and my heart is a little cleaner as a result.  Certainly my reaction to taking hatred into my lower center was “No way!“, and I’m sure that will be true for anyone who considers taking their favorite negative emotion in.

In trying to explain why l had named this concept after the Prodigal Son, l clarified what I had been suspecting.  The theme describes the Prodigal Son’s return, yet when l wrote it, l hadn‘t read the Prodigal Son passage in Luke in years.  l was pleased and surprised to find that the brother was in the gospel, and that he had objected as l had written.

In my experience, these tendencies toward unbecoming behavior cannot be eradicated by opposing them. It’s what we do all the time, but it just doesn’t work.

Perhaps the mercilessness we show to our big weakness comes in because we (so to speak) bring food to the Prodigal Son out in the woodshed, and this is not useful.

Remember where he started from.

.                             Lou Gottlieb                        11/7/2002

===========================================================

            The Prodigal Son   Luke 15:11-32   

(From George M. Lamsa’s translation from the Aramaic of the Peshitta)

A man had two sons; and his younger son said to him,  My father, give me the portion which is coming to me from your house.  And he divided to them his possessions.  And after a few days, his younger son gathered everything that was his share, and went to a far country, and there he wasted his wealth in extravagant living.

And when all he had was gone, there was a severe famine in that country; and he began to be in need.  So he went and got acquainted with one of the citizens of that country; and he sent him to the field to feed the swine.  And he craved to fill his stomach with the husks that the swine were eating; and yet no man would give him. 

And when he came to himself, he said,  How many hired workers are now in my father’s house who have plenty of bread, and I am here perishing with hunger!  I will rise and go to my father and say to him,  My father, I have sinned before heaven and before you; and I am no longer worthy to be called your son; just make me like one of your hired workers.

And he rose up and came to his father.  And while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion on him, and he ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.

And his son said to him, My father, I have sinned before heaven and before you, and I am not worthy to be called your son.  But his father said to his servants, Bring the best robe and put it on him and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet; and bring and kill the fat ox, and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and has come to life; he was lost and is found.  And they began to be merry.

But his elder son was in the field; and as he came near the house, he heard the voice of

the singing of many.  And he called one of the boys, and asked him what it was all about.  He said to him, Your brother has come; and your father has killed the fat ox because he received him safe and well.  And he became angry and would not go in; so his father came out and besought him.  But he said to his father, Behold, how many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your commandment; and yet you never gave me even a kid that I might make merry with my friends.  But for this son of yours, after he had wasted your wealth with harlots and come back, you have killed the fat ox.

His father said to him, My son, you are always with me, and everything which is mine is yours.  It was right for us to make merry and rejoice; for this your brother was dead and has come to life; and was lost and is found.