CHANGE

""According to real, exact knowledge, one force, or two forces, can never produce a phenomenon. The presence of a third force is necessary, for it is only with the help of a third force that the first two can produce what may be called a phenomenon, no matter in what sphere." ~ G.I. Gurdjieff

ISOTM Chapter IV

Valuation of the Work

The first bloom on Helen's Tree after a frosty winter's rest ~ 26 April 2012, LL

"Nearly two years later, in November, 1917, a small party of us consisting of six people, among whom was G., was living on the Black Sea shore twenty-five miles north of Tuapse, in a small country house more than a mile from the nearest habitation. One evening we sat and talked. It was already late and the weather was very bad, a northeast wind was blowing which brought now rain, now snow, in squalls. 

I was thinking just of certain deductions from the 'table of hydrogens,' chiefly about one inconsistency in this diagram as compared with another of which we heard later. My question referred to hydrogens below the normal level. Later on I will explain exactly what it was I asked and what, long afterwards, G. answered This time he did not give me a direct answer. 

"You ought to know that," he said, "it was spoken of in the lectures in St. Petersburg. You could not have listened. Do you remember a lecture that you did not want to hear, saying you knew it already? But what was said then is precisely what you ask about now." After a short silence he said: "Well, if you now heard that somebody was giving the same lecture at Tuapse, would you go there on foot?" 

"I would," I said. 

And indeed, though I felt very strongly how long, difficult, and cold the road could be, at the same time I knew that this would not stop me. 

G. laughed.

"Would you really go?" he asked. "Think—twenty-five miles, darkness, snow, rain, wind." 

"What is there to think about?" I said. "You know I have walked the whole way more than once, when there were no horses or when there was no room for me in the cart, and for no reward, simply because there was nothing else to be done. Of course I would go without a word if somebody were going to give a lecture on these things at Tuapse." 

"Yes," said G., "if only people really reasoned in this way. But in reality they reason in exactly the opposite way. Without any particular necessity they would face any difficulties you like. But on a matter of importance that can really bring them something they will not move a finger. Such is human nature. Man never on any account wants to pay for anything; and above all he does not want to pay for what is most important for him. You now know that everything must be paid for and that it must be paid for in proportion to what is received. But usually a man thinks to the contrary. For trifles, for things that are perfectly useless to him, he will pay anything. But for something important, never. This must come to him of itself. 

"And as to the lecture, what you ask was actually spoken of in St. Petersburg. If you had listened then, you would now understand that there is no contradiction whatever between the diagrams and that there cannot be any."

~from: In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of An Unknown Teaching, P.D. Ouspensky

MISUNDERSTANDING

ISOTM: Table of Contents: Chapter IV

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 . ...”

KNOW THYSELF

 

"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." ~ G.I. Gurdjieff

This week's reading

IMPRESSIONS

"All the substances necessary for the maintenance of the life of the organism, for psychic work, for the higher functions of consciousness and the growth of the higher bodies, are produced by the organism from the food which enters it from outside
"The human organism receives three kinds of food
1. The ordinary food we eat
2. The air we breathe
3. Our impressions
"It is not difficult to agree that air is a kind of food for the organism But in what way impressions can be food may appear at first difficult to understand We must however remember that, with every external impression, whether it takes the form of sound, or vision, or smell, we receive from outside a certain amount of energy, a certain number of vibrations, this energy which enters the organism from outside is food Moreover, as has been said before, energy cannot be transmitted without matter. If an external impression brings external energy with it into the organism it means that external matter also enters which feeds the organism in the full meaning of the term. ..."

from: In Search of the Miraculous, Chapter IX, pg 188 online version

"The Holidays" are a particularly interesting time to be aware of the impressions you are taking in from the world around you. Emotions are highly charged and highly conflicted. So many root buttons (memories) are being pushed and brought to the fore by external forces such as advertising, others expectations of us and their agendas as well as our own expectations of ourselves and others and our own internal agendas -- all too often unnoticed by any of us because we are all so thoroughly taken by it all. 

To stand in one's shoes and to 'see' more clearly the mechanics of these processes in ourselves and in others is a privilege, and a gift of the work, a gift from Gurdjieff and all those amazing masters who brought us ways to See and to Know so that we might BE - not sheep, but Men and Women. 

Take this opportunity this year to become more conscious, to know more about inner being. OCCUPY your body.


Remember yourself
Always and Everywhere. 

Inner Work: Relaxation

"Exercises in relaxing the muscles which we began to perform gave very interesting results to some of our company. Thus one of us was suddenly able to stop a bad neuralgic pain in his arm by relaxing his muscles. Then relaxation of the muscles had an immense significance in proper sleep and whoever did exercises in relaxation seriously very quickly noticed that his sleep became sounder and that he needed fewer hours of sleep." ~ P.D. Ouspenski, ISOM Ch 17

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

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

The Good Householder: External Considering in the Work

 “Right external considering is very important in the work. It often happens that people who understand very well the necessity of external considering in life do not understand the necessity of external considering in the work; they decide that just because they are in the work, they have the right to not consider. Whereas in reality, in the work, that is, for a man’s own successful work, ten times more external considering is necessary than in life, because only external considering on his part shows his valuation of the work; and success in the work is always proportional to the valuation and understanding of the work.
Remember that the work cannot begin on a level lower than an obyvatel, that is, on a level lower than ordinary life. This is a very important principle which, for some reason or other, is very easily forgotten...”
ISOM (In Search of the Miraculous, PD Ouspensky) Page 153-154