... and in the end

"... And in the end
The love you take
Is equal to the love you make."

from the song ~"The End" on the Abbey Road Album by the Beatles 

Alarm Clocks

Automatic Alarm      Wind Up Alarm

There are as many alarm clocks as there are 'types'.

At the beginning of Chapter 11 in ISOM Gurdjieff addresses the issues that block us from awakening consciously to being fully present.

G: "There is a book of aphorisms which has never been published and probably will never be published [here G is speaking about an esoteric text he had learned of but which had not been published in his time] "I have mentioned this book before in connection with question of the meaning of knowledge and I quoted then one aphorism from this book." 

'A man may be born, but in order to be born he must first die, and in order to die, he must first awake.,'
"In another place it says:
"'When a man awakes, he can die; when he dies he can be born.'

"We must find out what this means. 'To awake, 'to die', 'to be born'. These are three successive stages. If you study the gospels attentively you all see the references are often made to the possibility of being born, several references are made to the necessity of 'dying,' and there are very many references to the necessity of 'awakening' -- 'watch, for ye know not the day and the hour...' [Christ warns us in the new testament] and so on. But these three possibilities of man, to awake and not to sleep, to die and to be born, are not set down in connection with one another. Nevertheless this is the whole point. If a man dies without having awakened he cannot be born. If a man is born without having died he may become an 'immortal thing.' Thus the fact that a man has not 'died' prevents a man from being 'born'; and should he be born without having died, he is prevented from 'being'.


A few paragraphs later Gurdjieff begins to outline the obstacles:

"But there are a thousand and one things which prevent a man from awakening, which keep him in the power of his dreams. In order to act consciously with the intention of awakening, it is necessary to know the nature of the forces which keep man in a state of sleep. ..."

He speaks about what 'sleep' is and what keeps man from awakening; he speaks of 'shocks' and 'alarm clocks' and then he suggests what will help a man to fully awaken:

"... Only a man who fully realizes the difficulty of awakening can understand the necessity of long and hard work in order to awake."


To those who are struggling with understanding what is meant by awakening and what is required in order to awaken and remain awake, I strongly recommend reading and rereading this chapter regardless of where you are on your journey in the work.  


Excerpts taken from Chapter 11 of In Search of the Miraculous,
[the ISBN 0-15-644508-5 Harvest/HBJ : pbk printing].

TODAY

Today is today,
not yesterday, not tomorrow.

What is on the agenda for today?
Can I Be completely where I am in any given moment today?


Or will I be satisfied with being taken by the usual illusions and imaginings?

What do I want in this moment, and this moment and this moment?

I Wish to Be.

Can I see what takes me at least?

LL.

"Permanent truth and permanent falsehood can exist only for a permanent man" ~ G.I. Gurdjieff

"Permanent truth and permanent falsehood can exist only for a permanent man. If a man himself continually changes, then for him truth and falsehood will also continually change. And if people are all in different states at every given moment, their conceptions of truth must be as varied as their conceptions of good. A man never notices how he begins to regard as true what yesterday he considered as false and vice versa. He does not notice these transitions just as he does not notice the transitions of his own I's one into another."

BUFFERS

ISOM: Ch IV


" 'Buffer' is a term which requires special explanation. We know what buffers on railway carriages are. They are the contrivances which lessen the shock when carriages or trucks strike one another. If there were no buffers the shock of one carriage against another would be very unpleasant and dangerous. Buffers soften the results of these shocks and render them unnoticeable and imperceptible.
"Exactly the same appliances are to be found within man. They are created, not by nature but by man himself, although involuntarily. The cause of their appearance is the existence in man of many contradictions; contradictions of opinions, feelings, sympathies, words, and actions. If a man throughout the whole of his life were to feel all the contradictions that are within him he could not live and act as calmly as he lives and acts now. He would have constant friction, constant unrest. We fail to see how contradictory and hostile the different I's of our personality are to one another. If a man were to feel all these contradictions he would feel what he really is. He would feel that he is mad. It is not pleasant to anyone to feel that he is mad. Moreover, a thought such as this deprives a man of self-confidence, weakens his energy, deprives him of 'self-respect.' Somehow or other he must master this thought or banish it. He must either destroy contradictions or cease to see and to feel them. A man cannot destroy contradictions. But if 'buffers' are created in him he can cease to feel them and he will not feel the impact from the clash of contradictory views, contradictory emotions, contradictory words.


"'Buffers' are created slowly and gradually. Very many 'buffers' are created artificially through 'education.' Others are created under the hypnotic influence of all surrounding life. A man is surrounded by people who live, speak, think, and feel by means of 'buffers.' Imitating them in their opinions, actions, and words, a man involuntarily creates similar 'buffers' in himself. 'Buffers' make a man's life more easy. It is very hard to live without 'buffers.' But they keep man from the possibility of inner development because 'buffers' are made to lessen shocks and it is only shocks that can lead a man out of the state in which he lives, that is, waken him. ..." ~ G.I. Gurdjieff

"The Business of Hybrid Fruit"

"In today's world of "frankenfoods' I would think of hybridization as just that but it is not. Hybridization - cross pollination - has been going on for centuries with roses, etc. and it cannot be compared to the laboratory specimens that have their DNA mixed with completely different species such as mixing plant and fish.....UGH! That being said, hybridization often does not capture the characteristic taste and scent that belongs to the original and results in a tasteless and scentless but sometimes a surprisingly beautiful product!" PruAtelier

Thank You

"In this quiet solitude
I hear my own emptiness.
How precious it is,
this Peace"

~ Laura Lopez