GURDJIEFF, G.I. – Life is real only then, when I am - Integral Book

American délicatesse Mr. Orage, who was during many years inAmerica almost the chief representative and interpreter of my ideas.When they told me of his having come and of his philosophizingconcerning the proposal I made him, and his decision also to sign thisobligation, I was in the kitchen, preparing the so to say "gravity-centerdish," as it is called by my "drones," which I did every day during mystay in New York for the purpose chiefly of having some physicalexercise, devoting each day, moreover, to the preparation of a newnational dish of some one of the peoples inhabiting all continents.That day I was preparing the favorite dish of the people inhabitingthe space between China and Russian Turkestan.At the moment when there was reported to me the arrival of Mr.Orage and of his fine philosophical deliberations, I was beating theyolks of eggs with cinnamon and pompadory.And when the outer sounding of certain of the sentences used by himbegan to be perceived in me—nobody knows why—right in the centerbetween the two hemispheres of the brain, in all that totality of thefunctioning of my organism which in general engenders in man"feeling," there gradually began a process similar to the experiencing ofa feeling called a "touchy emotion," and I suddenly, without anyconsideration, instead of a pinch of ginger, dumped into the casserolewith the left hand the whole supply in the kitchen of powdered cayennepepper, an action which is not at all proper to me during such a, for me,sacred ritual as the composition and preparation for obtaining acorresponding symphonic taste of some dish which has existed on theEarth since olden times; and, swinging my right arm in rhythm with allmy force, "dealt a blow on the back" to my poor secretary of music,who was there in the kitchen washing dishes, and then flung myself intomy room, fell on the sofa and, burying