Read the introduction to weekly work page before working with tasks and readings.
Note: Page numbers of online PDF versions of the books referred to here are not necessarily the same page numbers as your hard copy or other format editions. You may have to hunt a bit to find the excerpts to be studied each week. Scroll down for the week you are looking for.
~~*~~
27 March 2012
In Search of the Miraculous, P.D. Ouspensky
Chapter IX, read the first 12 Pages
(not in the usual way, but with attention to sensation of your spine and breathing)
~~*~~
20 March 2012
from "Commentaries",
Vol III, Maurice
Nicoll,
Quaremead, Ugley, September 22, 1945
THE SECOND LINE OF
WORK
There
are three lines of Work. The first line of Work is work on yourself in
connection with what the Work teaches. The second line of Work is work in
conjunction with other people who are in this Work.
The
third line of Work is work in relationship to what the Work is aiming at.
Let
us take the second line of Work, work in connection with other
people
who are in the Work. Let me say to begin with that if you are
in
a group of people who are studying this Work and you make no
endeavour
to get to know them or to understand them, you are not
doing
the second line of Work. No man can work on the first line only.
To
work only for yourself would only increase your self-love, your self vanity.
As
regards this working in conjunction with other people there
are
many things said in the Work that are very useful to remember. It
is
sometimes a matter of astonishment to me that people who have been
in
the Work —or who imagine they have been in the Work—for many
years
never make the slightest attempt to connect themselves with other
people
except through their prejudices and buffers—that is, they
only
wish to know people of whom they approve, people who have
the
same buffers as they have. Such people make no progress in the
Work—that
is, they do not change. There is a saying in the Work that
people
whom you meet in groups and dislike at first are often those
people
whom you like later on, but this change only takes place
through
work on oneself and through evaluation of the Work, which
always
leads to work on the third line of Work. When a number of
people
meet together they eventually tend to quarrel. Unless the force
of
the Work is behind a number of people who meet often together,
they
will break up into different forms of antagonism. As mechanical
people,
they are bound to quarrel. This is why it is said that life as a
Neutralizing
Force always disunites people and makes them split up
into
antagonistic cliques. But the Third Force that comes down
from
a different channel altogether is a uniting force that can hold
people
together if those people value the Work. And this discipline,
carried
out through feeling the value of the Work, brings people
together
in unusual ways and enlarges their life, and they begin to
form
what is called an accumulator—that is, a group of people who
forego
some of their mechanical reactions and begin to a certain
extent
to obey the Work and thus transmit its influences. This is
a
wonderful thing. And it is exactly in this wonder of the Work that
people
begin to change and become healed internally. You must
understand
that the Work is a healing force and that in many ways it
is
contradictory to life and its influences—in fact, it is actually said
in
the Work that the Work is against life—and you must understand
by
this that the influence of the Work, the understanding of what
it
means, goes against influences and values that come from life. You
have
only to look round to-day, in this so-called time of peace, to
see
how life disunites people and forms fresh quarrels, fresh antagonisms
in
every direction. Then you will understand why it is said that life is
a
disruptive force and that the Work is a uniting force.
In
regard to the second line of Work which can be called making
relationships
with other people, we have to remember that the Work
teaches
us that we are mechanical. This is a deep saying, far more
deep
in its meaning than any of us has realized. What does it mean
that
a person is mechanical? It means that he or she always acts in
the
only way in which he or she can act at any given moment. We
think
that people do things intentionally but cannot see that people
do
things mechanically. A person, for example, who tells a lie under
certain
given circumstances, is not doing it deliberately but mechanically
—namely,
his or her machine always at such a moment acts in this
way—that
is, tells a lie. Naturally we hate to think that we are machines
in
this sense. We have the illusion that we are always doing things
consciously,
deliberately, intentionally. This is not the case. Whatever
we
do, whatever we say, however we behave, whatever we think,
whatever
we feel, is mechanical. G. once said: "You are all different
kinds
of machines—some are typewriters, some are sewing-machines,
some
are mincing-machines, and so on." This view of human nature
is
unpleasant and yet it is true. There are many scientific theories
about
Man being a machine. You pour in petrol and get certain
results.
What interested me very much in the teaching of this Work was
the
idea that from one point
of view Man is a machine—that is, as long
as
he does not try to wake up and work on himself. He need not be a
machine
if he seeks to awaken from sleep and sleeping humanity.
This
interested me because it was a reconciliation of scientific and
spiritual
ideas about Man. Man is a machine, but he can become
something
that is no longer a question of machinery, if he follows teaching
coming
from those who are not machines—that is, teaching coming
from
the Conscious Circle of Humanity. The apparent paradox is
thus
reconciled and becomes a harmonious thought instead of a
contradictory
thought on the opposites. If you say: "Is so-and-so a
machine?"
I will answer you: "To which man do you refer?" He may
be
a mechanical man, or a man beginning to awaken, or even a Conscious
Man.
If he is a mechanical man he is a machine. If he is a Conscious
Man
he is not a machine because he has risen above his mechanicalness
and
is on a higher level. As you know, the Work divides mankind into
seven
categories. Three are mechanical—Nos. 1, 2 and 3 Man—No. 4
Man
is transitional, and Nos. 5, 6 and 7 Man belong to the Conscious
Circle
of Humanity and can no longer be called machines. But the
vast
majority are mechanical, governed by external impressions.
Now
in relating yourself to other people—that is, beginning to think
what
the second line of Work means and to apply it—it is sometimes
said
that you must begin with the idea that other people are machines.
But
this is quite wrong and should never be said. What you have to
begin
from is the idea that you yourself are a machine. Only through
self-observation
carried out rightly can you begin to see your own
machine,
your own mechanicalness. However, as we are we take
ourselves
and other people as being fully conscious, as capable of
independent
action, as not being ruled by past associations—in short,
as
not being machines. So in consequence we blame people very much
for
not behaving to us as we think they ought to behave and through
this
we start trains of inner talking and negative emotions. Probably
you
all know how we are always very disappointed in other people. We
expect
our husbands and our wives, our sisters and cousins and aunts,
and
our friends, to be quite different from what they are, and all this
lays
down a kind of secret grievance in us, a form of Internal Considering,
which
cannot be cured unless we understand about mechanicalness.
It
is like a typewriter finding fault with a mincing-machine. It is
like
complaining that a pair of gloves of a different size from your own
does
not fit you. We have to start by seeing our own mechanicalness.
As
you know, we all take ourselves for granted. And what does this
mean?
It means that we take ourselves as being fully conscious, capable
of
making every right adaptation to circumstances—in short, of having
no
machine laid down in us at all. We are quite certain that we have
no
fixed attitudes, ways of talking, no fixed tendencies, or even no
habits.
We may admit to a few physical habits but I do not think that
anyone
easily admits to having any emotional or mental habits. But
the
Work teaches that we have habits in Intellectual and Emotional
Centres
that are far more important than physical habits and far more
significant.
People grow up as Anglicans, as Roman Catholics, as
Presbyterians,
as Quakers, as Methodists, as Atheists, as Agnostics,
or
even as scientists, and they are perfectly certain that their minds
and
their emotions are quite free from mechanicalness—that is, that
they
are open-minded. All this has eventually to be made conscious
and
overcome so that a man begins to be universal in outlook and in
his
feelings. But it cannot be overcome unless your self-observation is
keen
and full of integrity, otherwise you will not shift from where you
are
and you will remain a mechanical man or woman in life—that is,
you
will not change—and so will not understand what the second
education
means, the real University that you have to attend to become
healed,
through External Considering.
So
one of the first great ideas in this teaching in regard to our
relationship
to other people is to realize first of all that we are mechanical
and
that what we do and what they do is inevitable, being mechanically
determined.
Many people think that they have reached this point of
view
and take up a kind of resigned attitude to other people. This is
a
pure fiction. It means that they have not seen their own mechanicalness,
and
so they get caught up in the great wheel of mechanical life,
thinking
that they are conscious and yet being more and more
mechanical
even than others. Now to regard yourself as mechanical
is
extremely difficult and extremely painful but it will change your
whole
relationship to other people. When you have realized that you
cannot
help doing something, you will realize that other people cannot
help
doing something and you will no longer feel this fatal criticism,
this
contempt, that underlies so many people's psychology. This will
give
you a right basis to begin to have relationship in the Work-sense
to
other people. Do you remember this sketched-out first octave of the
Work
which started from the note Do which was called 'evaluation of
the
Work'? It is of course an ascending octave, so the next note is
Re, which
was called 'application of the Work practically to yourself.'
The
third note Mi was
called 'realization of your own difficulties'.
Now
a man who begins to realize his own difficulties in the Work will
no
longer blame other people as he used to mechanically, because
everything
you realize in yourself frees you from other people. I mean
that
if you realize your own difficulties you will realize other people's
difficulties
in proportion. The more you see in yourself the more you
see
in other people. If you are blind to yourself you will never understand
other
people, and, as you know, one of the things we are seeking
in
this Work is understanding which is said to be the most powerful
force
that we can create in ourselves. The word 'create' is used in
regard
to understanding. If you behave mechanically you will create
nothing
because mechanicalness creates nothing. It is only if you
begin
to be more conscious that you begin to understand this difficult
word
'creation'. And for full understanding, we must
practise all three
lines
of this Work and we must get to know ourselves far more deeply
than
we used to. But unless there is the third line of Work as well, the
first
two lines of Work will peter out after a time. This is natural enough
because
how can you expect this Work to continue to maintain its
force
unless you attend to the third line, to the aim of the Work, to
what
the Work itself is trying to do at the moment. You must remember
that
the third line of Work is getting into contact with the Third Force,
the
Neutralizing Force, of the Work, and it is exactly this that prevents
the
Third Force of life from interfering with it and bringing it down to
zero
in the Emotional Centre so that the Work loses all its force for you.
Now
when you seek to make relationship with someone else, you
have
to create the person by seeing him or her distinctly. Most people
have
fixed ideas, not only about the kind of persons they like, but about
what
people are like. These ideas are practically always wrong and
are
seen to be so eventually in the Work. They are probably based on
what
we have been taught or have read about in novels. YOU cannot
take
a person simply as your opinion of him or her. Nor can you take
a
person merely as what he is in life or is reputed to be. To make
relationship
with a person you have to see the person differently from
the
way you would see him or her in life. If you have never undermined
yourself
and your own opinion of yourself you will never be able
to
do this. You will simply accept people at their face value and you will
only
wish to know people who have the same buffers and the same
attitudes
as you have, as I said before. So you will never move, you
will
never shift, from where you are—that is, you will never change.
But
the Work is about self-change.
The
second point that I would like to speak about to-night in regard
to
relationships towards others is that not only are other people machines
as
you are yourself, but they are not one person. Another person is
many
different persons, nice and unpleasant, intelligent and stupid.
To
take another person as one unvarying 'I' does him or her great harm.
But
again the real question is: Have you yet seen that you are many
different
persons, and that you are not one permanent person, but a
mixture
of different 'I's who act through you at different moments?
You
may be able to see changes in people, you may be able to see that
he
or she is in a good mood to-day, but have you seen the same thing
in
yourself and not taken it as one person changing, but as changing
persons
in you? How strange is this form of egotism that seems to
dominate
us, that makes us think that we ourselves are always one and
the
same person. You will notice that both the realization of our
mechanicalness
and the realization that we are not one but many
different
'I's strikes at our egotism and self-love. Through self-love we
attribute
everything to ourselves. That is why we are taught in esotericism,
especially
in the Gospels, that the only cure for self-love is love of
God.
This means that we gradually come to the conclusion that we do
nothing
ourselves and that everything in us comes from some other
source.
Sometimes I say to you: How do you move your body? How
do
you think? You cannot give an answer. And yet everything you do
you
ascribe to yourself. You even ascribe love to yourself, perhaps one
of
the worst sins. The point is that the Work teaches that we are recipient
organisms,
that we receive everything and that we can do nothing ourselves,
neither
think, love, nor anything else. In attributing to ourselves
the
existence of a real permanent 'I' we not only do enormous
harm
to ourselves but we do enormous harm to other people in taking
them
to be one permanent 'I', one permanent person.
The
third point in relating ourselves to others depends on the science
of
external impressions. We do not notice how we behave and so often
give
a quite wrong impression to other people. We may have difficulty
in
expressing ourselves, we may have some feature that refuses to give
to
others, or that makes us not say quite enough for the other person to
understand
what we mean, we may be jealous and not notice that we
express
it the whole time, we may be negative and shew it in intonation,
and
so on, and yet we may be surprised that other people do not seem
to
care for us. The science of external impressions is a subject that we
have
only talked about once or twice before and that we will talk about
later
on. It means acting towards another person in such a way that
the
other person can understand you. It requires a conscious attitude
towards
the other person which we are at present scarcely capable of
having.
As a rule we are extremely clumsy with one another. I think
you
will all admit this. We make a wrong impression on someone
without
knowing it. That is because we do not know ourselves enough
through
self-observation and therefore do not know about the other
person
internally. We do not know how to get to a person and think
that
a frontal attack, so to speak, is good enough. Of course, that will
only
increase second force and here comes in that part of the Work that
deals
with four categories of behaviour: foolish sincerity, foolish insincerity,
clever
sincerity, and clever insincerity. In our relationship with
one
another these four categories of behaviour are important to study
in
connection with the science of external impressions. Foolish sincerity
is
the most mechanical and stupid thing as regards relationships with
one
another. People call it telling the truth. It is better to use foolish
insincerity.
This may surprise you. But in our relationships with
others
we must above all things avoid foolish sincerity where a person
blurts
out something that may poison another person's soul and do
infinite
harm. Relationship with one another demands a great deal of
attention,
as, for example, stopping negative emotions at once. As we
are,
we cannot talk about behaving consciously to one another because
we
are not conscious men or women yet, but we can try to practise what
conscious
behaviour means and live more consciously every day. I
say,
live more consciously every day, on purpose. You can live more
consciously
every day if you understand what the Work teaches you
to
avoid. If you will follow the Work in your behaviour you will feel
something
happening to you because the Work is a lever to lift you up
to
another level and immediately you apply it to yourself—that is,
sound
the second note Re in
the Work-octave—you will feel yourself
lifted
up.”
~*~
13 March 2012
ISOTM: Chapter Two
Beginning on page 31 (Harcourt Brace 1997) last paragraph
"People do not value what is easily come by," he said. "And if a man has already felt something, believe me, he will sit waiting all day at the telephone in case he should be invited. Or he will himself ring up and ask and inquire. And whoever expects to be asked, and asked beforehand so that he can arrange his own affairs, let him go on expecting. Of course, for those who are not in Petersburg this is certainly difficult. But we cannot help it. Later on, perhaps, we shall have definite meetings on fixed days. At present it is impossible to do this. People must show themselves and their valuation of what they have heard."
All this and much else besides still remained for me at that time half-open to question.
But the lectures and, in general, all that G. said at that time, both at the meetings and outside them, interested me more and more.
On one occasion, at one of these meetings, someone asked about the possibility of reincarnation, and whether it was possible to believe in cases of communication with the dead.
"Many things are possible," said G. "But it is necessary to understand that man's being, both in life and after death, if it does exist after death, may be very different in quality. The 'man-machine' with whom everything depends upon external influences, with whom everything happens, who is now one, the next moment another, and the next moment a third, has no future of any kind; he is buried and that is all. Dust returns to dust. This applies to him. In order to be able to speak of any kind of future life there must be a certain crystallization, a certain fusion of man's inner qualities, a certain independence of external influences. If there is anything in a man able to resist external influences, then this very thing itself may also be able to resist the death of the physical body. But think for yourselves what there is to withstand physical death in a man who faints or forgets everything when he cuts his finger? If there is anything in a man, it may survive; if there is nothing, then there is nothing to survive. But even if something survives, its future can be very varied. In certain cases of fuller crystallization what people call 'reincarnation' may be possible after death, and, in other cases, what people call 'existence on the other side.' In both cases it is the continuation of life in the 'astral body,' or with the help of the 'astral body.' You know what the expression 'astral body' means. But the systems with which you are acquainted and which use this expression state that all men have an 'astral body.' This is quite wrong. What may be called the 'astral body' is obtained by means of fusion, that is, by means of terribly hard inner work and struggle. Man is not born with it. And only very few men acquire an 'astral body.' If it is formed it may continue to live after the death of the physical body, and it may be born again in another physical body. This is 'reincarnation.' If it is not re-born, then, in the course of time, it also dies; it is not immortal but it can live long after the death of the physical body.
"Fusion, inner unity, is obtained by means of 'friction,' by the struggle between 'yes' and 'no' in man. If a man lives without inner struggle, if everything happens in him without opposition, if he goes wherever he is drawn or wherever the wind blows, he will remain such as he is. But if a struggle begins in him, and particularly if there is a definite line in this struggle, then, gradually, permanent traits begin to form themselves, he begins to 'crystallize.' But crystallization is possible on a right foundation and it is possible on a wrong foundation. 'Friction,' the struggle between 'yes' and 'no,' can easily take place on a wrong foundation. For instance, a fanatical belief in some or other idea, or the 'fear of sin,' can evoke a terribly intense struggle between 'yes' and 'no,' and a man may crystallize on these foundations. But this would be a wrong, incomplete crystallization. Such a man will not possess the possibility of further development. In order to make further development possible he must be melted down again, and this can be accomplished only through terrible suffering.
"Crystallization is possible on any foundation. Take for example a brigand, a really good, genuine brigand. I knew such brigands in the Caucasus. He will stand with a rifle behind a stone by the roadside for eight hours without stirring. Could you do this? All the time, mind you, a struggle is going on in him. He is thirsty and hot, and flies are biting him; but he stands still. Another is a monk; he is afraid of the devil; all night long he beats his head on the floor and prays. Thus crystallization is achieved. In such ways people can generate in themselves an enormous inner strength; they can endure torture; they can get what they want. This means that there is now in them something solid, something permanent. Such people can become immortal. But what is the good of it? A man of this kind becomes an 'immortal thing,' although a certain amount of consciousness is sometimes preserved in him. But even this, it must be remembered, occurs very rarely."
I recollect that the talks which followed that evening struck me by the fact that many people heard something entirely different to what G. said; others only paid attention to G.'s secondary and nonessential remarks and remembered only these. The fundamental principles in what G. said escaped most of them. Only very few asked questions on the essential things he said. One of these questions has remained in my memory.
"In what way can one evoke the struggle between 'yes' and 'no' in oneself?" someone asked.
"Sacrifice is necessary," said G. "If nothing is sacrificed nothing is obtained. And it is necessary to sacrifice something precious at the moment, to sacrifice for a long time and to sacrifice a great deal. But still, not forever. This must be understood because often it is not understood. Sacrifice is necessary only while the process of crystallization is going on. When crystallization is achieved, renunciations, privations, and sacrifices are no longer necessary. Then a man may have everything he wants. There are no longer any laws for him, he is a law unto himself."
From among those who came to our lectures a small group of people was gradually formed who did not miss a single opportunity of listening to G. and who met together in his absence. This was the beginning of the first Petersburg group.
This week's task
~*~Beginning on page 31 (Harcourt Brace 1997) last paragraph
"A great deal I afterwards understood differently from the way I did then. And G.'s chief motives became clearer to me. He by no means wanted to make it easy for people to become acquainted with his ideas. On the contrary he considered that only by overcoming difficulties, however irrelevant and accidental, could people value his ideas.
"People do not value what is easily come by," he said. "And if a man has already felt something, believe me, he will sit waiting all day at the telephone in case he should be invited. Or he will himself ring up and ask and inquire. And whoever expects to be asked, and asked beforehand so that he can arrange his own affairs, let him go on expecting. Of course, for those who are not in Petersburg this is certainly difficult. But we cannot help it. Later on, perhaps, we shall have definite meetings on fixed days. At present it is impossible to do this. People must show themselves and their valuation of what they have heard."
All this and much else besides still remained for me at that time half-open to question.
But the lectures and, in general, all that G. said at that time, both at the meetings and outside them, interested me more and more.
On one occasion, at one of these meetings, someone asked about the possibility of reincarnation, and whether it was possible to believe in cases of communication with the dead.
"Many things are possible," said G. "But it is necessary to understand that man's being, both in life and after death, if it does exist after death, may be very different in quality. The 'man-machine' with whom everything depends upon external influences, with whom everything happens, who is now one, the next moment another, and the next moment a third, has no future of any kind; he is buried and that is all. Dust returns to dust. This applies to him. In order to be able to speak of any kind of future life there must be a certain crystallization, a certain fusion of man's inner qualities, a certain independence of external influences. If there is anything in a man able to resist external influences, then this very thing itself may also be able to resist the death of the physical body. But think for yourselves what there is to withstand physical death in a man who faints or forgets everything when he cuts his finger? If there is anything in a man, it may survive; if there is nothing, then there is nothing to survive. But even if something survives, its future can be very varied. In certain cases of fuller crystallization what people call 'reincarnation' may be possible after death, and, in other cases, what people call 'existence on the other side.' In both cases it is the continuation of life in the 'astral body,' or with the help of the 'astral body.' You know what the expression 'astral body' means. But the systems with which you are acquainted and which use this expression state that all men have an 'astral body.' This is quite wrong. What may be called the 'astral body' is obtained by means of fusion, that is, by means of terribly hard inner work and struggle. Man is not born with it. And only very few men acquire an 'astral body.' If it is formed it may continue to live after the death of the physical body, and it may be born again in another physical body. This is 'reincarnation.' If it is not re-born, then, in the course of time, it also dies; it is not immortal but it can live long after the death of the physical body.
"Fusion, inner unity, is obtained by means of 'friction,' by the struggle between 'yes' and 'no' in man. If a man lives without inner struggle, if everything happens in him without opposition, if he goes wherever he is drawn or wherever the wind blows, he will remain such as he is. But if a struggle begins in him, and particularly if there is a definite line in this struggle, then, gradually, permanent traits begin to form themselves, he begins to 'crystallize.' But crystallization is possible on a right foundation and it is possible on a wrong foundation. 'Friction,' the struggle between 'yes' and 'no,' can easily take place on a wrong foundation. For instance, a fanatical belief in some or other idea, or the 'fear of sin,' can evoke a terribly intense struggle between 'yes' and 'no,' and a man may crystallize on these foundations. But this would be a wrong, incomplete crystallization. Such a man will not possess the possibility of further development. In order to make further development possible he must be melted down again, and this can be accomplished only through terrible suffering.
"Crystallization is possible on any foundation. Take for example a brigand, a really good, genuine brigand. I knew such brigands in the Caucasus. He will stand with a rifle behind a stone by the roadside for eight hours without stirring. Could you do this? All the time, mind you, a struggle is going on in him. He is thirsty and hot, and flies are biting him; but he stands still. Another is a monk; he is afraid of the devil; all night long he beats his head on the floor and prays. Thus crystallization is achieved. In such ways people can generate in themselves an enormous inner strength; they can endure torture; they can get what they want. This means that there is now in them something solid, something permanent. Such people can become immortal. But what is the good of it? A man of this kind becomes an 'immortal thing,' although a certain amount of consciousness is sometimes preserved in him. But even this, it must be remembered, occurs very rarely."
I recollect that the talks which followed that evening struck me by the fact that many people heard something entirely different to what G. said; others only paid attention to G.'s secondary and nonessential remarks and remembered only these. The fundamental principles in what G. said escaped most of them. Only very few asked questions on the essential things he said. One of these questions has remained in my memory.
"In what way can one evoke the struggle between 'yes' and 'no' in oneself?" someone asked.
"Sacrifice is necessary," said G. "If nothing is sacrificed nothing is obtained. And it is necessary to sacrifice something precious at the moment, to sacrifice for a long time and to sacrifice a great deal. But still, not forever. This must be understood because often it is not understood. Sacrifice is necessary only while the process of crystallization is going on. When crystallization is achieved, renunciations, privations, and sacrifices are no longer necessary. Then a man may have everything he wants. There are no longer any laws for him, he is a law unto himself."
From among those who came to our lectures a small group of people was gradually formed who did not miss a single opportunity of listening to G. and who met together in his absence. This was the beginning of the first Petersburg group.
This week's task
31 March 2012
ISOTM: Table of Contents
CHAPTER IV
General impressions of G.'s system. Looking backwards. One of the fundamental propositions. The line of knowledge and the line of being. Being on different levels Divergence of the line of knowledge from the line of being. What a development of knowledge gives without a corresponding change of being—and a change of being without an increase in knowledge. What "understanding" means. Understanding as the resultant of knowledge and being. The difference between understanding and knowledge. Understanding as a function of three centers. Why people try to find names for things they do not understand. Our language. Why people do not understand one another. ...
*`*`*`*
“In almost every one of his lectures G. reverted to a theme which he evidently considered to be of the utmost importance but which was very difficult for many of us to assimilate.
"There are," he said, "two lines along which man's development proceeds, the line of knowledge and the line of being. In right evolution the line of knowledge and the line of being develop simultaneously, parallel to, and helping one another. But if the line of knowledge gets too far ahead of the line of being, or if the line of being gets ahead of the line of knowledge, man's development goes wrong, and sooner or later it must come to a standstill .”
"People understand what 'knowledge' means. And they understand the possibility of different levels of knowledge. They understand that knowledge may be lesser or greater, that is to say, of one quality or of another quality. But they do not understand this in relation to 'being.' 'Being,' for them, means simply 'existence' to which is opposed just 'non-existence.' They do not understand that being or existence may be of very different levels and categories. Take for instance the being of a mineral and of a plant. It is a different being. The being of a plant and of an animal is again a different being. The being of an animal and of a man is a different being. But the being of two people can differ from one another more than the being of a mineral and of an animal. This is exactly what people do not understand. And they do not understand that knowledge depends on being. Not only do they not understand this latter but they definitely do not wish to understand it. And especially in Western culture it is considered that a man may possess great knowledge, for example he may be an able scientist, make discoveries, advance science, and at the same time he may be, and has the right to be, a petty, egoistic, caviling, mean, envious, vain, naive, and absentminded man. It seems to be considered here that a professor must always forget his umbrella everywhere.
"And yet it is his being. And people think that his knowledge does not depend on his being. People of Western culture put great value on the level of a man's knowledge but they do not value the level of a man's being and are not ashamed of the low level of their own being. They do not even understand what it means. And they do not understand that a man's knowledge depends on the level of his being.
"If knowledge gets far ahead of being, it becomes theoretical and abstract and inapplicable to life, or actually harmful, because instead of serving life and helping people the better to struggle with the difficulties they meet, it begins to complicate man's life, brings new difficulties into it, new troubles and calamities which were not there before.
"The reason for this is that knowledge which is not in accordance with being cannot be large enough for, or sufficiently suited to, man's real needs. It will always be a knowledge of one thing together with ignorance of another thing; a knowledge of the detail without a knowledge of the whole; a knowledge of the form without a knowledge of the essence.
"Such preponderance of knowledge over being is observed in present-day culture. The idea of the value and importance of the level of being is completely forgotten. And it is forgotten that the level of knowledge is determined by the level of being. Actually at a given level of being the possibilities of knowledge are limited and finite. Within the limits of a given being the quality of knowledge cannot be changed, and the accumulation of information of one and the same nature, within already known limits, alone is possible. A change in the nature of knowledge is possible only with a change in the nature of being.
"Taken in itself, a man's being has many different sides. The most characteristic feature of a modem man is the absence of unity in him and, further, the absence in him of even traces of those properties which he most likes to ascribe to himself, that is, 'lucid consciousness,' 'free will,' a 'permanent ego or I,' and the 'ability to do.' It may surprise you if I say that the chief feature of a modem man's being which explains everything else that is lacking in him is sleep.
"A modern man lives in sleep, in sleep he is born and in sleep he dies. About sleep, its significance and its role in life, we will speak later. But at present just think of one thing, what knowledge can a sleeping man have? And if you think about it and at the same time remember that sleep is the chief feature of our being, it will at once become clear to you that if a man really wants knowledge, he must first of all think about how to wake, that is, about how to change his being.
"Exteriorly man's being has many different sides: activity or passivity; truthfulness or a tendency to lie; sincerity or insincerity; courage, cowardice; selfcontrol, profligacy; irritability, egoism, readiness for self-sacrifice, pride, vanity, conceit, industry, laziness, morality, depravity; all these and much more besides make up the being of man.
"But all this is entirely mechanical in man. If he lies it means that he cannot help lying. If he tells the truth it means that he cannot help telling the truth, and so it is with everything. Everything happens, a man can do nothing either in himself or outside himself.
"But of course there are limits and bounds. Generally speaking, the being of a modern man is of very inferior quality. But it can be of such bad quality that no change is possible. This must always be remembered. People whose being can still be changed are very lucky. But there are people who are definitely diseased, broken machines with whom nothing can be done. And such people are in the majority. If you think of this you will understand why only few can receive real knowledge. Their being prevents it.
"Generally speaking, the balance between knowledge and being is even more important than a separate development of either one or the other. And a separate development of knowledge or of being is not desirable in any way. Although it is precisely this one-sided development that often seems particularly attractive to people.
"If knowledge outweighs being a man knows but has no power to do. It is useless knowledge. On the other hand if being outweighs knowledge a man has the power to do, but does not know, that is, he can do something but does not know what to do. The being he has acquired becomes aimless and efforts made to attain it prove to be useless.
"In the history of humanity there are known many examples when entire civilizations have perished because knowledge outweighed being or being outweighed knowledge." ...
23 March 2012
Influence
From: ISOTM: Chapter 10
"Once there had been a meeting with a large number of people who had not been at our meetings before. One of them asked: "From what does the way start?" The person who asked the question had not heard G.'s description of the four ways and he used the word "way" in the usual religious-mystical sense.
"The chief difficulty in understanding the idea of the way,"' said G., "consists in the fact that people usually think that the ‘way’ (he emphasized this word) "starts on the same level on which life is going. This is quite wrong. The way begins on another, much higher, level. This is exactly what people usually do not understand. The beginning of the way is thought to be easier or simpler than it is in reality. I will try to explain this in the following way.
"Man lives in life under the law of accident and under two kinds of influences again governed by accident.
"The first kind are influences created in life itself or by life itself - influences of race, nation, country, climate, family, education, society, profession, manners and customs, wealth, poverty, current ideas, and so on. The second kind are influences created outside this life, influences of the inner circle, or esoteric influences— influences, that is, created under different laws, although also on the earth. These influences differ from the former, first of all in being conscious in their origin. This means that they have been created consciously by conscious men for a definite purpose. Influences of this kind are usually embodied in the form of religious systems and teachings, philosophical doctrines, works of art, and so on.
"They are let out into life for a definite purpose, and become mixed with influences of the first kind. But it must be borne in mind that these influences are conscious only in their origin. Coming into the general vortex of life they fall under the general law of accident and begin to act mechanically, that is, they may act on a certain definite man or may not act; they may reach him or they may not. In undergoing change and distortion in life through transmission and interpretation, influences of the second kind are transformed into influences of the first kind, that is, they become, as it were, merged into the influences of the first kind.
"If we think about this, we shall see that it is not difficult for us to distinguish influences created in life from influences whose source lies outside life. To enumerate them, to make up a catalog of the one and the other, is impossible. It is necessary to understand; and the whole thing depends upon this understanding. We have spoken about the beginning of the way. The beginning of the way depends precisely upon this understanding or upon the capacity for discriminating between the two kinds of influences. Of course, their distribution is unequal. One man receives more of the influences whose source lies outside life, another less; a third is almost isolated from them. But this cannot be helped. This is already fate. Speaking in general and taking normal life under normal conditions and a normal man, conditions are more or less the same for everybody, that is, to put it more correctly, difficulties are equal for everybody. The difficulty lies in separating the two kinds of influences. If a man in receiving them does not separate them, that is, does not see or does not feel their difference, their action upon him also is not separated, that is, they act in the same way, on the same level, and produce the same results. But if a man in receiving these influences begins to discriminate between them and put on one side those which are not created in life itself, then gradually discrimination becomes easier and after a certain time a man can no longer confuse them with the ordinary influences of life. "
~*~
15 March 2012
Read:
Psychology:
2) Narcissism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism
2) Narcissism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism
3) *Everything you can find on your own in the Work material about self love, false personality and ego. (see suggested reading list).
*If you do not have the basic books, get them now. Most of these books are available on the internet, used, for very little money - often less than what a latte would cost. There is no reason not to have them for your work. Trying to work without the Gurdjieff material as well as a few other recommended books is useless for you and a waste of my time and energies after a certain point. You must have the material to study the work
*If you do not have the basic books, get them now. Most of these books are available on the internet, used, for very little money - often less than what a latte would cost. There is no reason not to have them for your work. Trying to work without the Gurdjieff material as well as a few other recommended books is useless for you and a waste of my time and energies after a certain point. You must have the material to study the work
~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~
04 March 2012
In Search of the Miraculous
Chapter Six
from the beginning of the chapter to the end of the sentence:
"We shall speak of these words now."
Chapter Six
from the beginning of the chapter to the end of the sentence:
"We shall speak of these words now."
"ONE of the next lectures began with a question asked by one of those present: What was the aim of his teaching?"I certainly have an aim of my own,"' said G. "But you must permit me to keep silent about it. At the present moment my aim cannot have any meaning for you, because it is important that you should define your own aim. The teaching by itself cannot pursue any definite aim. It can only show the best way for men to attain whatever aims they may have. The question of aim is a very important question. Until a man has defined his own aim for himself he will not be able even to begin 'to do' anything. How is it possible 'to do' anything without having an aim? Before anything else 'doing' presupposes an aim."
"But the question of the aim of existence is one of the most difficult of philosophical questions," said one of those present. "You want us to begin by solving this question. But perhaps we have come here because we are seeking an answer to this question. You expect us to have known it beforehand. If a man knows this, he really knows everything."
"You misunderstood me," said G. "I was not speaking of the philosophical significance of the aim of existence. Man does not know it and he cannot know it so long as he remains what he is, first of all, because there is not one but many aims of existence. On the contrary, attempts to answer this question using ordinary methods are utterly hopeless and useless. I was asking about an entirely different thing. I was asking about your personal aim, about what you want to attain, and not about the reason for your existence. Everyone must have his own aim: one man wants riches, another health, a third wants the kingdom of heaven, and the fourth wants to be a general, and so on. It is about aims of this sort that I am asking. If you tell me what your aim is, I shall be able to tell you whether we are going along the same road or not.
"Think of how you formulated your own aim to yourselves before you came here."
"I formulated my own aim quite clearly several years ago," I said. "I said to myself then that I want to know the future. Through a theoretical study of the question I came to the conclusion that the future can be known, and several times I was even successful in experiments in knowing the exact future. I concluded from this that we ought, and that we have a right, to know the future, and that until we do know it we shall not be able to organize our lives. A great deal was connected for me with this question. I considered, for instance, that a man can know, and has a right to know, exactly how much time is left to him, how much time he has at his disposal, or, in other words, he can and has a right to know the day and hour of his death. I always thought it humiliating for a man to live without knowing this and I decided at one time not to begin doing anything in any sense whatever until I did know it. For what is the good of beginning any kind of work when one doesn't know whether one will have time to finish it or not?"
"Very well," said G., "to know the future is the first aim. Who else can formulate his aim?"
"I should like to be convinced that I shall go on existing after the death of the physical body, or, if this depends upon me, I should like to work in order to exist after death," said one of the company.
"I don't care whether I know the future or not, or whether I am certain or not certain of life after death," said another, "if I remain what I am now. What I feel most strongly is that I am not master of myself, and if I were to formulate my aim, I should say that I want to be master of myself."
"I should like to understand the teaching of Christ, and to be a Christian in the true sense of the term," said the next.
"I should like to be able to help people," said another.
"I should like to know how to stop wars," said another.
"Well, that's enough,' said G., "we have now sufficient material to go on with. The best formulation of those that have been put forward is the wish to be one's own master. Without this nothing else is possible and without this nothing else will have any value. But let us begin with the first question, or the first aim.
"In order to know the future it is necessary first to know the present in all its details, as well as to know the past. Today is what it is because yesterday was what it was. And if today is like yesterday, tomorrow will be like today. If you want tomorrow to be different, you must make today different. If today is simply a consequence of yesterday, tomorrow will be a consequence of today in exactly the same way. And if one has studied thoroughly what happened yesterday, the day before yesterday, a week ago, a year, ten years ago, one can say unmistakably what will and what will not happen tomorrow. But at present we have not sufficient material at our disposal to discuss this question seriously. What happens or may happen to us may depend upon three causes: upon accident, upon fate, or upon our own will. Such as we are, we are almost wholly dependent upon accident. We can have no fate in the real sense of the word any more than we can have will. If we had will, then through this alone we should know the future, because we should then make our future, and make it such as we want it to be. If we had fate, we could also know the future, because fate corresponds to type. If the type is known, then its fate can be known, that is, both the past and the future. But accidents cannot be foreseen. Today a man is one, tomorrow he is different: today one thing happens to him, tomorrow another."
"But are you not able to foresee what is going to happen to each of us," somebody asked, "that is to say, foretell what result each of us will reach in work on himself and whether it is worth his while to begin work?"
"It is impossible to say," said G. "One can only foretell the future for men. It is impossible to foretell the future for mad machines. Their direction changes every moment. At one moment a machine of this kind is going in one direction and you can calculate where it can get to, but five minutes later it is already going in quite a different direction and all your calculations prove to be wrong. Therefore, before talking about knowing the future, one must know whose future is meant. If a man wants to know his own future he must first of all know himself. Then he will see whether it is worth his while to know the future. Sometimes, maybe, it is better not to know it.
"It sounds paradoxical but we have every right to say that we know our future. It will be exactly the same as our past has been. Nothing can change of itself.
"And in practice, in order to study the future one must learn to notice and to remember the moments when we really know the future and when we act in accordance with this knowledge. Then judging by results, it will be possible to demonstrate that we really do know the future. This happens in a simple way in business, for instance. Every good commercial businessman knows the future. If he does not know the future his business goes smash. In work on oneself one must be a good businessman, a good merchant. And knowing the future is worthwhile only when a man can be his own master.
"There was a question here about the future life, about how to create it, how to avoid final death, how not to die.
"For this it is necessary 'to be' If a man is changing every minute, if there is nothing in him that can withstand external influences, it means that there is nothing in him that can withstand death. But if he becomes independent of external influences, if there appears in him something that can live by itself, this something may not die. In ordinary circumstances we die every moment. External influences change and we change with them, that is, many of our I's die. If a man develops in himself a permanent I that can survive a change in external conditions, it can survive the death of the physical body. The whole secret is that one cannot work for a future life without working for this one. In working for life a man works for death, or rather, for immortality. Therefore work for immor- tality, if one may so call it, cannot be separated from general work. In attaining the one, a man attains the other. A man may strive to be simply for the sake of his own life's interests. Through this alone he may become immortal. We do not speak specially of a future life and we do not study whether it exists or not, because the laws are everywhere the same. In studying his own life as he knows it, and the lives of other men, from birth to death, a man is studying all the laws which govern life and death and immortality. If he becomes the master of his life, he may become the master of his death.
"Another question was how to become a Christian.
"First of all it is necessary to understand that a Christian is not a man who calls himself a Christian or whom others call a Christian. A Christian is one who lives in accordance with Christ's precepts. Such as we are we cannot be Christians. In order to be Christians we must be able 'to do.' We cannot do; with us everything 'happens.' Christ says: 'Love your enemies,' but how can we love our enemies when we cannot even love our friends? Sometimes 'it loves' and sometimes 'it does not love.' Such as we are we cannot even really desire to be Christians because, again, sometimes 'it desires' and sometimes 'it does not desire.' And one and the same thing cannot be desired for long, because suddenly, instead of desiring to be a Christian, a man remembers a very good but very expensive carpet that he has seen in a shop. And instead of wishing to be a Christian he begins to think how he can manage to buy this carpet, forgetting all about Christianity. Or if somebody else does not believe what a wonderful Christian he is, he will be ready to eat him alive or to roast him on hot coals. In order to be a good Christian one must be. To be means to be master of oneself. If a man is not his own master he has nothing and can have nothing. And he cannot be a Christian. He is simply a machine, an automaton. A machine cannot be a Christian. Think for yourselves, is it possible for a motorcar or a typewriter or a gramophone to be Christian? They are simply things which are controlled by chance. They are not responsible. They are machines. To be a Christian means to be responsible. Responsibility comes later when a man even partially ceases to be a machine, and begins in fact, and not only in words, to desire to be a Christian."
"What is the relation of the teaching you are expounding to Christianity as we know it?" asked somebody present.
"I do not know what you know about Christianity," answered G., emphasizing this word. "It would be necessary to talk a great deal and to talk for a long time in order to make clear what you understand by this term. But for the benefit of those who know already, I will say that, if you like, this is esoteric Christianity. We will talk in due course about the meaning of these words. At present we will continue to discuss our questions. "Of the desires expressed the one which is most right is the desire to be master of oneself, because without this nothing else is possible. And in comparison with this desire all other desires are simply childish dreams, desires of which a man could make no use even if they were granted to him.
"It was said, for instance, that somebody wanted to help people. In order to be able to help people one must first learn to help oneself. A great number of people become absorbed in thoughts and feelings about helping others simply out of laziness. They are too lazy to work on themselves; and at the same time it is very pleasant for them to think that they are able to help others. This is being false and insincere with oneself. If a man looks at himself as he really is, he will not begin to think of helping other people: he will be ashamed to think about it. Love of mankind, altruism, are all very fine words, but they only have meaning when a man is able, of his own choice and of his own decision, to love or not to love, to be an altruist or an egoist. Then his choice has a value. But if there is no choice at all, if he cannot be different, if he is only such as chance has made or is making him, an altruist today, an egoist tomorrow, again an altruist the day after tomorrow, then there is no value in it whatever. In order to help others one must first learn to be an egoist, a conscious egoist. Only a conscious egoist can help people. Such as we are we can do nothing. A man decides to be an egoist but gives away his last shirt instead. He decides to give away his last shirt, but instead, he strips of his last shirt the man to whom he meant to give his own. Or he decides to give away his own shirt but gives away somebody else's and is offended if somebody refuses to give him his shirt so that he may give it to another. This is what happens most often. And so it goes on.
"And above all, in order to do what is difficult, one must first learn to do what is easy. One cannot begin with the most difficult.
"There was a question about war. How to stop wars? Wars cannot be stopped. War is the result of the slavery in which men live. Strictly speaking men are not to blame for war. War is due to cosmic forces, to planetary influences. But in men there is no resistance whatever against these influences, and there cannot be any, because men are slaves. If they were men and were capable of 'doing,' they would be able to resist these influences and refrain from killing one another."
"But surely those who realize this can do something?" said the man who had asked the question about war. "If a sufficient number of men came to a definite conclusion that there should be no war, could they not influence others?"
"Those who dislike war have been trying to do so almost since the creation of the world," said G. "And yet there has never been such a war as the present. Wars are not decreasing, they are increasing and war cannot be stopped by ordinary means. All these theories about universal peace, about peace conferences, and so on, are again simply laziness and hypocrisy. Men do not want to think about themselves, do not want to work on themselves, but think of how to make other people do what they want. If a sufficient number of people who wanted to stop war really did gather together they would first of all begin by making war upon those who disagreed with them. And it is still more certain that they would make war on people who also want to stop wars but in another way. And so they would fight. Men are what they are and they cannot be different. War has many causes that are unknown to us. Some causes are in men themselves, others are outside them. One must begin with the causes that are in man himself. How can he be independent of the external influences of great cosmic forces when he is the slave of everything that surrounds him? He is controlled by everything around him. If he becomes free from things, he may then become free from planetary influences.
"Freedom, liberation, this must be the aim of man. To become free, to be liberated
from slavery: this is what a man ought to strive for when he becomes even a little
conscious of his position. There is nothing else for him, and nothing else is possible so
long as he remains a slave both inwardly and outwardly. But he cannot cease to be a
slave outwardly while he remains a slave inwardly. Therefore in order to become free,
man must gain inner freedom.
"The first reason for man's inner slavery is his ignorance, and above all, his ignorance of himself. Without self-knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave, and the plaything of the forces acting upon him.
"This is why in all ancient teachings the first demand at the beginning of the way to liberation was: 'Know thyself.' "We shall speak of these words now."
~*~
25 February 2012In Search of the Miraculous
Chapter Two, pages 29 ~ 31
"IN PETERSBURG the summer passed with the usual literary work. I was preparing my books for new editions, reading proofs, and so on. This was the terrible summer of 1915 with its gradually lowering atmosphere, from which, in spite of all efforts, I could not free myself. The war was now being waged on Russian territory and was coming nearer to us. Everything was beginning to totter. The hidden suicidal activity which has determined so much in Russian life was becoming more and more apparent. A "trial of strength" was in progress. Printers were perpetually going on strike. My work was held up. And I was already beginning to think that the catastrophe would be upon us before I succeeded in doing what I intended. But my thoughts very often returned to the Moscow talks. Several times when things became particularly difficult I remember I said to myself, "I will give up everything and go to G. in Moscow." And at this thought I always felt easier.
Time passed. One day, it was already autumn, I was called to the telephone and heard G.'s voice. He had come to Petersburg for a few days. I went to see him at once and, in between conversations with other people who came to see him on various matters, he spoke to me just as he had in Moscow.
When he was leaving next day he told me he would soon be coming back again. And on this second visit, when I told him about a certain group I went to in Petersburg, where all possible subjects were discussed, from war to psychology, he said that acquaintance with similar groups might be useful, as he was thinking of starting the same kind of work in Petersburg as he was conducting in Moscow.
He went to Moscow and promised to return in a fortnight. I spoke of him to some of my friends and we began to await his arrival.
He returned again for a short time. I succeeded, however, in introducing some people to him. In regard to his plans and intentions, he said he wanted to organize his work on a larger scale, give public lectures, arrange a series of experiments and demonstrations, and attract to his work people with a wider and more varied preparation. All this reminded me of a part of what I had heard in Moscow. But I did not clearly understand what "experiments" and "demonstrations" he spoke of; this became clear only later.
I remember one talk—as usual with G.—in a small café on the Nevsky.
G. told me in some detail about the organization of groups for his work and about their role in that work. Once or twice he used the word "esoteric," which I had not heard from him before, and I was interested in what he meant by it. But when I tried to stop and ask what he meant by the word "esoteric" he avoided an answer.
"This is not important; well—call it what you like," he said. "That is not the point; the point is that a 'group' is the beginning of everything. One man can do nothing, can attain nothing. A group with a real leader can do more, A group of people can do what one man can never do.
"You do not realize your own situation. You are in prison. All you can wish for, if you are a sensible man, is to escape. But how escape? It is necessary to tunnel under a wall. One man can do nothing. But let us suppose there are ten or twenty men—if they work in turn and if one covers another they can complete the tunnel and escape.
"Furthermore, no one can escape from prison without the help of those who have escaped before. Only they can say in what way escape is possible or can send tools, files, or whatever may be necessary. But one prisoner alone cannot find these people or get into touch with them. An organization is necessary. Nothing can be achieved without an organization."
G. often returned afterwards to this example of "prison" and "escape from prison" in his talks. Sometimes he began with it, and then his favorite statement was that, if a man in prison was at any time to have a chance of escape, then he must first of all realize that he is in prison. So long as he fails to realize this, so long as he thinks he is free, he has no chance whatever. No one can help or liberate him by force, against his will, in opposition to his wishes. If liberation is possible, it is possible only as a result of great labor and great efforts, and, above all, of conscious efforts, towards a definite aim.
Gradually I introduced a greater and greater number of people to G. And every time he came to Petersburg I arranged talks and lectures, in which he took part, either at some private houses or with some already existing groups. Thirty or forty people used to come. After January, 1916, G. began to visit Petersburg regularly every fortnight, sometimes with some of his Moscow pupils.
I did not understand everything about the way these meetings were arranged. It seemed to me that G. was making much of it unnecessarily difficult. For instance, he seldom allowed me to fix a meeting beforehand. A former meeting usually ended with the announcement that G. was returning to Moscow the following day. On the following morning he would say that he had decided to stay till the evening. The whole day was passed in cafés where people came who wanted to see G. It was only in the evening, an hour or an hour and a half before we usually began our meetings, that he would say to me:
"Why not have a meeting tonight? Ring up those who wanted to come and tell them we shall be at such and such a place."
I used to rush to the telephone but, of course, at seven or half-past seven in the evening, everybody was already engaged and I could only collect a few people. And some who lived outside Petersburg, in Tsarskoye, etc., never succeeded in coming to our meetings.
A great deal I afterwards understood differently from the way I did then. And G.'s chief motives became clearer to me. He by no means wanted to make it easy for people to become acquainted with his ideas. On the contrary he considered that only by overcoming difficulties, however irrelevant and accidental, could people value his ideas.
"People do not value what is easily come by," he said. "And if a man has already felt something, believe me, he will sit waiting all day at the telephone in case he should be invited. Or he will himself ring up and ask and inquire. And whoever expects to be asked, and asked beforehand so that he can arrange his own affairs, let him go on expecting. Of course, for those who are not in Petersburg this is certainly difficult. But we cannot help it. Later on, perhaps, we shall have definite meetings on fixed days. At present it is impossible to do this. People must show themselves and their valuation of what they have heard."
All this and much else besides still remained for me at that time half-open to question.
But the lectures and, in general, all that G. said at that time, both at the meetings and outside them, interested me more and more." ~P.D. Ouspensky
When he was leaving next day he told me he would soon be coming back again. And on this second visit, when I told him about a certain group I went to in Petersburg, where all possible subjects were discussed, from war to psychology, he said that acquaintance with similar groups might be useful, as he was thinking of starting the same kind of work in Petersburg as he was conducting in Moscow.
He went to Moscow and promised to return in a fortnight. I spoke of him to some of my friends and we began to await his arrival.
He returned again for a short time. I succeeded, however, in introducing some people to him. In regard to his plans and intentions, he said he wanted to organize his work on a larger scale, give public lectures, arrange a series of experiments and demonstrations, and attract to his work people with a wider and more varied preparation. All this reminded me of a part of what I had heard in Moscow. But I did not clearly understand what "experiments" and "demonstrations" he spoke of; this became clear only later.
I remember one talk—as usual with G.—in a small café on the Nevsky.
G. told me in some detail about the organization of groups for his work and about their role in that work. Once or twice he used the word "esoteric," which I had not heard from him before, and I was interested in what he meant by it. But when I tried to stop and ask what he meant by the word "esoteric" he avoided an answer.
"This is not important; well—call it what you like," he said. "That is not the point; the point is that a 'group' is the beginning of everything. One man can do nothing, can attain nothing. A group with a real leader can do more, A group of people can do what one man can never do.
"You do not realize your own situation. You are in prison. All you can wish for, if you are a sensible man, is to escape. But how escape? It is necessary to tunnel under a wall. One man can do nothing. But let us suppose there are ten or twenty men—if they work in turn and if one covers another they can complete the tunnel and escape.
"Furthermore, no one can escape from prison without the help of those who have escaped before. Only they can say in what way escape is possible or can send tools, files, or whatever may be necessary. But one prisoner alone cannot find these people or get into touch with them. An organization is necessary. Nothing can be achieved without an organization."
G. often returned afterwards to this example of "prison" and "escape from prison" in his talks. Sometimes he began with it, and then his favorite statement was that, if a man in prison was at any time to have a chance of escape, then he must first of all realize that he is in prison. So long as he fails to realize this, so long as he thinks he is free, he has no chance whatever. No one can help or liberate him by force, against his will, in opposition to his wishes. If liberation is possible, it is possible only as a result of great labor and great efforts, and, above all, of conscious efforts, towards a definite aim.
Gradually I introduced a greater and greater number of people to G. And every time he came to Petersburg I arranged talks and lectures, in which he took part, either at some private houses or with some already existing groups. Thirty or forty people used to come. After January, 1916, G. began to visit Petersburg regularly every fortnight, sometimes with some of his Moscow pupils.
I did not understand everything about the way these meetings were arranged. It seemed to me that G. was making much of it unnecessarily difficult. For instance, he seldom allowed me to fix a meeting beforehand. A former meeting usually ended with the announcement that G. was returning to Moscow the following day. On the following morning he would say that he had decided to stay till the evening. The whole day was passed in cafés where people came who wanted to see G. It was only in the evening, an hour or an hour and a half before we usually began our meetings, that he would say to me:
"Why not have a meeting tonight? Ring up those who wanted to come and tell them we shall be at such and such a place."
I used to rush to the telephone but, of course, at seven or half-past seven in the evening, everybody was already engaged and I could only collect a few people. And some who lived outside Petersburg, in Tsarskoye, etc., never succeeded in coming to our meetings.
A great deal I afterwards understood differently from the way I did then. And G.'s chief motives became clearer to me. He by no means wanted to make it easy for people to become acquainted with his ideas. On the contrary he considered that only by overcoming difficulties, however irrelevant and accidental, could people value his ideas.
"People do not value what is easily come by," he said. "And if a man has already felt something, believe me, he will sit waiting all day at the telephone in case he should be invited. Or he will himself ring up and ask and inquire. And whoever expects to be asked, and asked beforehand so that he can arrange his own affairs, let him go on expecting. Of course, for those who are not in Petersburg this is certainly difficult. But we cannot help it. Later on, perhaps, we shall have definite meetings on fixed days. At present it is impossible to do this. People must show themselves and their valuation of what they have heard."
All this and much else besides still remained for me at that time half-open to question.
But the lectures and, in general, all that G. said at that time, both at the meetings and outside them, interested me more and more." ~P.D. Ouspensky
~*~
17 February 2012
Toward Awakening, JeanVaysse,
(PDF pages 16-18)
THE MEANING OF SELF-STUDY
As soon as we begin to question ourselves about our own identity and nature, either as a result of shocks in life or under the influence of exceptional moments, the question arises as to whether, instead of giving ourselves up more or less completely to events and thus to a course of evolution which we cannot control at all, there might not be in that evolution something which depends on us and could be influenced by us.
Thus it becomes obvious that the wish to be fully himself will not leave a man completely unaffected, and his first necessity, which is as urgent as the organic need to eat, should be to-find out if something in this direction is effectively possible for him, and in what way.
We can look outside us for the answer in books, philosophical systems and doctrines, in what the religions say-and, for a while, these answers may satisfy us. They satisfy us so long as life has not seriously brought us to question their effectiveness. Put to the test in life, the most solid religious faith in revealed truth is finally shaken, if it is not supported and confirmed in lived experiences. And, furthermore, we are so made that we rely indelibly and unshakably on what we have lived and verified for ourselves, in ourselves, by ourselves.
If we question ourselves deeply about ourselves and our possible evolution, we see it is within
ourselves and through ourselves that we shall ultimately have to find the answer. And if we ponder what is the meaning of this world around us, it is again only in ourselves and through ourselves that an answer can come that we recognize to be our own, and in which we can have faith. In addition, self-knowledge has from the beginning of time been fundamental in many doctrines and many schools. Not an exterior analytical knowledge, such as modern western science has been pursuing for so long, avoiding as the inner questions or trying to reduce them to purely materialist« explanations, but rather an inner self-knowledge wherein, to avoid distortion, each element, each structure, each function, as well as their relationships and the laws which govern them, are not looked at only from the outside, but must be experienced in the whole context to which they belong and can only be truly known “at work” in that totality. This is a completely different attitude from that which modern science has accustomed us to, and the one does not exclude the other. But, for our possibility of inner evolution, one thing must be clear. What is required is not intellectual knowledge, which, properly speaking is mere information. Such information may be necessary, but is absolutely inadequate in our search. For this search, the self-knowledge we need is above all an inner experience, consciously lived, of what we are, including the whole range of impressions of oneself which one receives.
A man cannot attain knowledge of this order except at the price of long work and patient efforts. Self-knowledge is inseparable from the Great Knowledge, objective Knowledge. It goes by stages, the first of which may appear simple to start with; however, even for one who recognizes the need of it, it soon comes to seem an immense undertaking with an almost unreachable goal. Little by little an unsuspected complexity is revealed.
It gradually becomes clear that the study of man has no meaning unless it is placed in the context of life as a whole and of the whole world in which he lives. The study of man is inseparable from a living study of the cosmos. Thus, obstacles never cease to arise, and this search, which at first may appear straightforward, opens up finally onto horizons of which a man could hardly have had the slightest idea when he began.
To have any chance of reaching his aim without going astray or getting lost, a man needs a guide for the study of himself here as elsewhere, he must learn from those who know, and accept to be guided by those who have already trodden the same path. Real self-knowledge requires a school. It cannot be found in books, which can give only theoretical data, mere information, leaving the whole of the real work still to be done -transforming the information into understanding, and then the understanding into self-knowledge.
In the beginning, the only thing that can be asked of a man who engages in this search is that he should understand the necessity of making his way tirelessly along the path whatever happens, and that he should understand that nothing but self-study, rightly conducted, can lead him to self-knowledge and tie great Knowledge."
~*~
10 February 2012
"What to do?" asked G. as though surprised. "It is impossible to do anything. A man must first of all understand certain things. He has thousands of false ideas and false conceptions, chiefly about himself, and he must get rid of some of them before beginning to acquire anything new. Otherwise the new will be built on a wrong foundation and the result will be worse than before."
"How can one get rid of false ideas?" I asked. "We depend on the forms of our perception. False ideas are produced by the forms of our perception." G. shook his head.
"Again you speak of something different,"' he said. "You speak of errors arising from perceptions but I am not speaking of these. Within the limits of given perceptions man can err more or err less. As I have said before, man's chief delusion is his conviction that he can do. All people think that they can do, all people want to do, and the first question all people ask is what they are to do. But actually nobody does anything and nobody can do anything. This is the first thing that must be understood. Everything happens. All that befalls a man, all that is done by him, all that comes from him—all this happens. And it happens in exactly the same way as rain falls as a result of a change in the temperature in the higher regions of the atmosphere or the surrounding clouds, as snow melts under the rays of the sun, as dust rises with the wind.
"Man is a machine. All his deeds, actions, words, thoughts, feelings, convictions, opinions, and habits are the results of external influences, external impressions. Out of himself a man cannot produce a single thought, a single action. Everything he says, does, thinks, feels—all this happens. Man cannot discover anything, invent anything. It all happens.
"To establish this fact for oneself, to understand it, to be convinced of its truth, means getting rid of a thousand illusions about man, about his being creative and consciously organizing his own life, and so on. There is nothing of this kind. Everything happens—popular movements, wars, revolutions, changes of government, all this happens. And it happens in exactly the same way as everything happens in the life of individual man. Man is born, lives, dies, builds houses, writes books, not as he wants to, but as it happens. Everything happens. Man does not love, hate, desire—all this happens.
"But no one will ever believe you if you tell him he can do nothing. This is the most offensive and the most unpleasant thing you can tell people. It is particularly unpleasant and offensive because it is the truth, and nobody wants to know the truth.
"When you understand this it will be easier for us to talk. But it is one thing to understand with the mind and another thing to feel it with one's "whole mass,' to be really convinced that it is so and never forget it.
"With this question of doing" (G. emphasized the word), "yet another thing is connected. It always seems to people that others invariably do things wrongly, not in the way they should be done. Everybody always thinks he could do it better. They do not understand, and do not want to understand, that what is being done, and particularly what has already been done in one way, cannot be, and could not have been, done in another way. Have you noticed how everyone now is talking about the war? Everyone has his own plan, his own theory. Everyone finds that nothing is being done in the way it ought to be done. Actually everything is being done in the only way it can be done. If one thing could be dif-ferent everything could be different. And then perhaps there would have been no war.
"Try to understand what I am saying: everything is dependent on everything else, everything is connected, nothing is separate. Therefore everything is going in the only way it can go. If people were different everything would be different. They are what they are, so everything is as it is."
This was very difficult to swallow.
"That is another question. In order to do it is necessary to be. And it is necessary first to understand what to be means. If we continue our talks you will see that we use a special language and that, in order to talk with us, it is necessary to learn this language. It is not worth while talking in ordinary language because, in that language, it is impossible to understand one another. This also, at the moment, seems strange to you. But it is true. In order to understand it is necessary to learn another language. In the language which people speak they cannot understand one another. You will see later on why this is so."
ISOTM: Ch.1, pgs 28-29
(From a PDF version: search words: Fourth Way e Books)
“There is another talk which has remained in my memory.
I asked G. what a man had to do to assimilate this teaching.
"What to do?" asked G. as though surprised. "It is impossible to do anything. A man must first of all understand certain things. He has thousands of false ideas and false conceptions, chiefly about himself, and he must get rid of some of them before beginning to acquire anything new. Otherwise the new will be built on a wrong foundation and the result will be worse than before."
"How can one get rid of false ideas?" I asked. "We depend on the forms of our perception. False ideas are produced by the forms of our perception." G. shook his head.
"Again you speak of something different,"' he said. "You speak of errors arising from perceptions but I am not speaking of these. Within the limits of given perceptions man can err more or err less. As I have said before, man's chief delusion is his conviction that he can do. All people think that they can do, all people want to do, and the first question all people ask is what they are to do. But actually nobody does anything and nobody can do anything. This is the first thing that must be understood. Everything happens. All that befalls a man, all that is done by him, all that comes from him—all this happens. And it happens in exactly the same way as rain falls as a result of a change in the temperature in the higher regions of the atmosphere or the surrounding clouds, as snow melts under the rays of the sun, as dust rises with the wind.
"Man is a machine. All his deeds, actions, words, thoughts, feelings, convictions, opinions, and habits are the results of external influences, external impressions. Out of himself a man cannot produce a single thought, a single action. Everything he says, does, thinks, feels—all this happens. Man cannot discover anything, invent anything. It all happens.
"To establish this fact for oneself, to understand it, to be convinced of its truth, means getting rid of a thousand illusions about man, about his being creative and consciously organizing his own life, and so on. There is nothing of this kind. Everything happens—popular movements, wars, revolutions, changes of government, all this happens. And it happens in exactly the same way as everything happens in the life of individual man. Man is born, lives, dies, builds houses, writes books, not as he wants to, but as it happens. Everything happens. Man does not love, hate, desire—all this happens.
"But no one will ever believe you if you tell him he can do nothing. This is the most offensive and the most unpleasant thing you can tell people. It is particularly unpleasant and offensive because it is the truth, and nobody wants to know the truth.
"When you understand this it will be easier for us to talk. But it is one thing to understand with the mind and another thing to feel it with one's "whole mass,' to be really convinced that it is so and never forget it.
"With this question of doing" (G. emphasized the word), "yet another thing is connected. It always seems to people that others invariably do things wrongly, not in the way they should be done. Everybody always thinks he could do it better. They do not understand, and do not want to understand, that what is being done, and particularly what has already been done in one way, cannot be, and could not have been, done in another way. Have you noticed how everyone now is talking about the war? Everyone has his own plan, his own theory. Everyone finds that nothing is being done in the way it ought to be done. Actually everything is being done in the only way it can be done. If one thing could be dif-ferent everything could be different. And then perhaps there would have been no war.
"Try to understand what I am saying: everything is dependent on everything else, everything is connected, nothing is separate. Therefore everything is going in the only way it can go. If people were different everything would be different. They are what they are, so everything is as it is."
This was very difficult to swallow.
"Is there nothing, absolutely nothing, that can be done?" I asked.
"Absolutely nothing."
"And can nobody do anything?"
"That is another question. In order to do it is necessary to be. And it is necessary first to understand what to be means. If we continue our talks you will see that we use a special language and that, in order to talk with us, it is necessary to learn this language. It is not worth while talking in ordinary language because, in that language, it is impossible to understand one another. This also, at the moment, seems strange to you. But it is true. In order to understand it is necessary to learn another language. In the language which people speak they cannot understand one another. You will see later on why this is so."
~*~
3 February 2012
RIGHT OBSERVATION OF ONESELF
Page 19 ~ 21
~*~
27 January 2012
"Commentaries", Vol III, Maurice Nicoll, ,pages: 966 - 968
Great Amwell House, November 16, 1946
A NOTE ON FALSE PERSONALITY
~*~
20 January 2012
"Commentaries", Vol III, Maurice Nicoll, ,pages: 963 - 964
Great Amwell House, November 11, 1946
INNER CONTRADICTIONS
16 December 2011
“The work must be practiced. In every wrong state it is absolutely necessary to review oneself from what the Work teaches and try to see where one is. If you never call upon the Work to help you it will not be able to help you.Your relationship to the Work is an internal matter that lies between you and the Work right down deep inside you. A person can talk as much as he likes about the difficulties of the work. He can let the whole of the work discharge itself into small ‘I’s”. He can connect the work with some feature of himself and turn it into a source of perplexity and worry. A man can treat the work in a thousand different ways. But it is important how one treats the work. It can produce very great tensions within one. Its object is to do so. But it is necessary to keep the work, as it were, inviolate, as something pure that cannot be contradicted and which at the same time is telling something if one will only listen to what it is saying, if one will only relate oneself to what it is teaching. It is quite easy to say that one does not understand the work, but there is a right way of saying this and a wrong way. It is quite useless to shrug one's shoulders mentally speaking and again it is quite useless to think that one should understand the work after a few years' casual practicing of it. A great deal of patience is necessary, and patience is the Mother of Will. We find ourselves in a crowd of people within us and some of them say one things and some say another. If there is valuation and if in spite of all the difficulties we can feel that here is something that can eventually lead us away from our present states, and if in spite of all the failures this valuation persists, then a centre of gravity will be formed, a point in the work will be established, and when this is so it is a very blessed condition.
So do not complain too easily, because you all know, it takes a very long time to lean anything in a real way even in life. You remember how often it was said that if you wish to learn Chinese thoroughly it will take all your life. So do not have a short view. Do not think that when you begin to observe yourself and find chaos within you, you need to be pessimistic. It is actually the first step in the work, the first step to realization. What then, a person may ask, must I do? The answer is that you must begin to follow as sincerely as you can all the practical things that the work tells you to observe and separate from. The intelligent scrutiny of oneself, the practice of a directed noticing of oneself, the application of non-identifying with certain states of oneself, remembering that certain "I's" weaken oneself and undermine everything one does - all this is being led by the work. All this is following the work. People do not surrender to the work for a long time. They keep on trying to do things by themselves according to their own lights instead of doing things according to the work. They continue to make the same life-efforts as before but they do not make Work-effort. But all this is necessary to pass through, and one must pass through this jungle, through this tangled forest, this kind og darkness, until one discerns the work and what it is saying. For a long time the last thing that we ever think of doing is to work on ourselves in accordance with what the work teaches. We wriggle about, as it were, like a fish on the end of a line and will not submit to the gentle pull of the line which will lift us into another atmosphere. We get into a bad state and we identify with it right away. Then we see everything through the meduium of this bad state but we do not think of practicing non-identfying with this bad state, of seeing that it is not 'I'. On the contrary, we say 'I' to it, and we argue about everything from this bad state which is quite incapable of leading us anywhere save into a worse state. We are like people standing in the drenching rain complainng that we are catching cold and saying how miserable they feel when their own house is standing close by them ito which they can go. Very often when we stand in this drenching rainand in this bad inner state, we think vaguely of trying to work on ourselves and separating ourselves from it internally by an act fo consciousness and Will, but some small 'I' pipes up and says: "Oh, the work is too difficult for me."
In connection with the idea of rendering things more distinct within ourselves I have written a short commentary on three different sorts of relationship that can occupy our attention. It is very necessary to try to establish a distinct awareness of where one is. I do not mean by this where one is in physical space but where one is in the world of relationship which is the real world in which we live. Everything lies in relationship to it. All this work is about changing our relationship, both to ourselves and to life. To say that you can do nothing is to take the idea of the work quite wrongly. You cannot change life. You cannot do in this sense but you can change yourself and your relationship to everything. This is what the work emphasizes time and again. We can change ourselves through the medium of C influences provided we recognize them- that is provided we recognize the existence of Greater Mind. But we cannot change life in general nor can we change other people. You cannot make a new world and if we think we can we are what is called "lunatics" in the work. Remember that the whole question lies in changing our relationship to things, in taking things in a new way and so in thinking in a new way about everything."
The "Commentaries" were originally published in England in 1952
9 December 2011
Read:
“Someone found that Nili [a Sufi teacher] was giving his disciples exercises and music and entertainments as well as encouraging them to read books and to meet in exotic places."
"This critic said to the sage:
‘I forget how many years it is that you have worked against such superficialities and fripperies! Now I discover that you are using them in your pretend teaching. Abandon this practice forthwith or explain it to me.’
Nili said:
‘I have neither to abandon nor to explain, but I am glad to tell you. This is the reason: I give exercises to people who understand what they are for. Most people do not, they are like people who have gone to the restaurant and fallen in love with the cook himself instead of eating the soup. People listen to music with the wrong ear, so I deny them music until they can benefit from it, not make play of it. Until they know what it is for they consume music like people warming their hands at a fire, which could be cooking something. As for environment, certain atmospheres are cultivated by aesthetes, who thus deprive them of their further value, and teach others to stop before they have gained anything of real worth. These are like people who have gone on a pilgrimage and can think only of the number of steps they have taken.’
‘As to exercises, I cannot give them to anyone any more than I can allow them to read books until they learn that there is a deeper content than the shallowness which smells the aroma of the fruit and then forgets that it is there to be eaten. Nobody objects to the smelling, but all would soon be dead if they refused to eat.’ "
From: Thinkers of the East by Idries Shah
~*~
2 December 2011
Read ISOM Online PDF
Ch 17, page 383, near the top of the page: “All of us who had stayed in Essentuki had to live through a very difficult time. For me and my family things turned out comparatively…” Through to page 385, 2nd paragraph starting: “I felt that there was very much material in the enneagram. Points 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8 represented, according to the "food diagram …”
Also Ch 9, page 174, beginning of the 1st chapter though to page 185, paragraph toward the bottom of the page ending: “…whatever between the diagrams and that there cannot be any.”
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