Not Far Away - Page 2

Not Far Away - Page 2

The Gravity-Centered Question

A few years back, we had a Triple Play gathering of friends and family, celebrating the trifecta of a twentieth anniversary, a bar mitzvah and a high school graduation, giving rise to a party and the Gravity-Centered Question. Lost Guide came with Grace. They were so in love. Grace was his second wife and third cultural lifeline. He was the product of an upscale New York family and had fathered seven children with an Israeli woman in his first marriage. With Grace in his life, Lost Guide had converted to an Indonesian faith, Subud and once ventured as a pilgrim to Mecca, to pay homage and worship at the Haj. Lost Guide and I&I were DC urban professionals and later became friends and business associates. Through all the BS of this world, it was Lost Guide's spiritual path that shot me like an arrow through Time.

Georges Gurdjieff - Not Far Away by Tim Weil - Stories and SongsAt our Triple Play party, the price of admission was the Gravity-Centered Question – a puzzle, a parlor game, or a deep philosophical dive, as set forth in conversation by the Russian mystic, Georges Gurdjieff, in his Secret Talks With Mr. G, excerpted for you here:

"Everything you do in Life, no matter how ordinary, is done in relation to that question as center of gravity … My home becomes a restaurant. If I sit at a café and someone comes to my table to ask question, and question is not gravity-centered question, then I can refuse. But in my home, I cannot refuse. So, my home turns into restaurant. Enabling factor for this only grows in America and does not come to me in sufficient quantity to make restaurants. But possibility exists for you to make restaurant, where everyone must pay for entrance with Center of Gravity Question … at this businessman's club, each day a new gravity-centered question dish must be prepared."

So, for our Triple Play party, the guests played along, serving up some great thoughts to ponder:

'Is consciousness a property of empty space?' 'How many boards would the Mongols hoard if the Mongol horde got bored?' 'How far is the nearest star?' 'What's the dark matter with you?'

I&I did not know at the time, that Lost Guide would leave behind a gravity-centered question, that would be, for me, his last mark in this world:

'What is within us that has no weight, no mass, but is always alive… a soul.'

In the months that followed our party, Lost Guide, made his own trip to Jerusalem, this time to worship at the ancient Wailing Wall, where he visited in silent prayer, walked away and was struck down by a heart attack. Lost Guide died there, at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, where his spirit passed on from this world. Conciousness and gravity-centred question - Not Far Away by Tim Weil - Stories and Songs