2.1: Inside the Fellowship: Meetings

Every thing possible to be believ’d is an image of truth. —William Blake

In my early days in the Fellowship there were up to twenty members in the London Centre, and new students came and went fairly often. I attended meetings about once a week, which were held in what was called ‘The Teaching House,’ a rented house in a pleasant suburb of London. The rent was partly paid by students who lived there and partly by contributions from other London members. 

We sat around the room usually in a circle and there would be a vase of flowers placed in the centre of the room. Someone would lead the meeting, usually supported by another student who might or might not say anything. There would be a Work topic, and meeting leaders had a free choice as to what they would talk about, although it was always about something in the fourth way as understood in the Fellowship. 

Often the topic would have been announced the week before so that students could make personal observations prior to the meeting in relation to some exercise or other than had been proposed. It might be, for example, some simple way of ‘interrupting sleep’ such as not saying ‘you know.’ Of course I would often forget. This, it was said, was the opportunity to awaken in that moment.

One’s observations would be presented as an angle. The idea of an angle is to get away from the idea that there is only one right point of view. Except for deliberate lies or misunderstandings of fact, every point of view is correct: it is just that each of us looks at a question from a different angle. Even so, someone’s genuine observation could easily evoke someone else’s opposite ‘I’s, the tendency we all have to see what is wrong with what another person is saying instead of trying to understand. Often disputes are merely about the imprecise use of words, or inferring some meaning that has not been intended. Sometimes what appear to be two opposite points of view are actually capable of both being true at the same time. School exercises at the time included substituting ‘and’ for ‘but’ and not giving opposite ‘I’s. Although logic was not mentioned, in fact this is usually perfectly consistent with formal logic. The contrary of ‘A’ is not ‘B,’ it is simply ‘not-A.’

At first I had to curb my own tendency to want to speak, as though my opinions were in a pressure cooker. In such a state it was difficult or impossible for me properly to understand what others were saying, and my opinion, expressed or not, remained unchanged and I learned nothing. I understood, though, that the London Centre was a place inimical to false personality, what one might call ‘ego.’ Once I let go of that I was able more often to rest in a state of essence. 

It was also a relief to me not to have to feel that I must make small-talk, and it was fine to remain silent. I still find that making small-talk requires effort, but it is part of what the Work calls external consideration, that is, considering the needs of others, and is therefore necessary sometimes. But in the Fellowship you can be silent and no-one feels uncomfortable because of this, as long as you acknowledge their presence. Words are sometimes a barrier to communication.

Something I remember from early meetings is the idea of creating memory. Someone would occasionally do something unexpected to create a state. Once for example, during a moment of silence, a student cut off a rosebud from the flower arrangement and ate it. Years later the idea of creating memory in this sort of way seemed to have been forgotten. I think we became a little stale, less experimental.