The Gurdjieff Aphorisms

The Gurdjieff Aphorisms

What is an aphorism? Wiki definition

Like what “it” does not like.

The highest that a man can attain is to be able to do.

The worse the conditions of life the more productive the work, always provided you remember the work.

Remember yourself always and everywhere.

Remember you come here having already understood the necessity of struggling with yourself—only with yourself. Therefore thank everyone who gives you the opportunity.

Here we can only direct and create conditions, but not help.

Know that this house can be useful only to those who have recognized their nothingness and who believe in the possibility of changing.

If you already know it is bad and do it, you commit a sin difficult to redress.

The chief means of happiness in this life is the ability to consider externally always, internally never.

Do not love art with your feelings.

A true sign of a good man is if he loves his father and mother.

Judge others by yourself and you will rarely be mistaken.

Only help him who is not an idler.

Respect every religion.

I love him who loves work.

We can only strive to be able to be Christians.

Don't judge a man by the tales of others.

Consider what people think of you—not what they say.

Take the understanding of the East and the knowledge of the West—and then seek.

Only he who can take care of what belongs to others may have his own.

Only conscious suffering has any sense.

It is better to be temporarily an egoist than never to be just.

Practice love first on animals, they are more sensitive.

By teaching others you will learn yourself.

Remember that here work is not for work’s sake but is only a means.

Only he can be just who is able to put himself in the position of others.

If you have not by nature a critical mind your staying here is useless.

He who has freed himself of the disease of “tomorrow” has a chance to attain what he came here for.

Blessed is he who has a soul, blessed is he who has none, but woe and grief to him who has it in embryo.

Rest comes not from the quantity but from the quality of sleep.

Sleep little without regret.

The energy spent on active inner work is then and there transformed into a fresh supply, but that spent on passive work is lost for ever.

One of the best means for arousing the wish to work on yourself is to realize that you may die at any moment. But first you must learn how to keep it in mind.

Conscious love evokes the same in response. Emotional love evokes the opposite. Physical love depends on type and polarity.

Conscious faith is freedom. Emotional faith is slavery. Mechanical faith is foolishness.

Hope, when bold, is strength. Hope, with doubt, is cowardice. Hope, with fear, is weakness.

Man is given a definite number of experiences—economizing them, he prolongs his life.

Here there are neither Russians nor English, Jews nor Christians, but only those who pursue one aim ~ to be able to be.

~ G. I. Gurdjieff 1924

Where am I in my [inner] work today?

Originally Posted:  2011 May 17

I picked up Life Is Real Only Then, When I AM  (by G.I. Gurdjieff) this morning to look for some help before moving into my day of outer work around the house. As I started to leaf through the pages looking for the table of contents, the page fell open to the prologue which appeared to be speaking directly to the question I have:”Where am I in relation to my inner work today?” I thought I’d share it here. Hopefully it will be useful to you as well.

***

“I am…? But what has become of that full sensing of the whole of myself, formerly always in me in just such cases of self questioning during the process of self remembering…

Is it possible that this inner ability was achieved by me thanks to all kinds of self-denial and frequent self-goading only in order that now, when its influence for my Being is more necessary even than air, it should vanish without a trace?

No! This cannot be! …

Something here is not right!

If this is true, then everything in the sphere of reason is illogical.

But in me is not yet atrophied the possibility of actualizing conscious labor and intentional suffering! …

According to all past events I must still be.

I wish! … and will be!!

Moreover, my Being is necessary not only for my own personal egoism but also for the common welfare of all humanity.

My Being is necessary to all people; even more necessary to them than their own felicity and their happiness of today.

I wish to be … I still am!”

“This fantastic soliloquy proceeded in me on the 6^th of November, 1927 early in the morning of one of the Montmartre night cafés in Paris when, tired to exhaustion from my “black” thoughts, I had decided to go home and there once more to try whether I might perhaps succeed in sleeping at least a little. …”

***

Gurdjieff then goes on to give an account of his state at the time of writing this book and what lead up to it. Perhaps, here, in this prologue left by our dear old rascally teacher, we can find some clues in relation to our own question of “Where am I in relation to my inner work today?” It is certainly worth re-reading.

SECRETS

All the people I know have 'secrets'. Some they share with me so we can work with them, some they do not - too fearful to give them voice.

Of course, soon after meeting someone, I see there are secrets and what they are related to. I just haven't heard the words that go with the body language and the 'stories' in the head... yet.

Bill Wilson, founder of AA once said: "You are only as sick as your secrets." I find this is Truth with a capital T.  I have worked with people who have been mentally, emotionally and physically crippled for a majority of their lives by what they believed must be kept secret. Soon, after we begin the work of unraveling the 'secret' stories in the head and people begin to discuss their secrets - even if only conditionally and partially - a transformation begins to take place almost immediately as the burdens begin to lift.

Unfortunately, I've also known several people who died from self medicating in order to deny and keep their secrets secret. They never had the chance to be free of them, not even for a moment - unless drunk or drugged. In the end no amount of drink or drugs or other vices could keep the voices in the head from tormenting them in a self contained inferno with all the imagined horrors attached to turning the secrets out into the light. Secrets, suicide and drink or drugs killed them.

TASK

What secrets do you have?
Listen for them this week. 

Change nothing while listening to the "secret's stories in the head".
 

Simply observe, as objectively as possible, what effects they have on the body
        on your relationships with everyone you know and meet

        on your inner and outer freedom in life.

        How do your secrets make you behave?

        Feel?

        Think?

Note your objective observations from the day in your journal every night.

Do not judge, be taken by or speculate about what you observe.

~~~~~~~

BE

 LISTENING

IN ALL SENSES AND CENTERS

 
LISTENING   

 
BREATHE IN
 

LISTENING

   LETTING  GO 

  BREATHE OUT 

 
 LISTENING IN ALL SENSES AND CENTERS

 *
REPEAT REPEAT REPEAT

~L.Lopez

Breath

Study the areas of the brain.

Read ISOM re influences - all parts

Continue relaxation of muscles around any pain experienced

Continue listening and modulating vocal tones -

Observe when there is real empathy or compassion when interacting with others and when there is not. When there is not, what is there? (Note observations in journal without analysis or speculation, bring to next session.)

Observe how you breathe, changing nothing

LISTEN, sensing your body at the same time, and as you:

BREATHE IN, Check for locations of tensions  

note the stop
BREATHE OUT, RELAXING TENSIONS

note the stop

all the while listening,

moving, walking, talking, living

LISTENING

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

Relationships and Friendships and the Work

The problematic nature of engaging in this kind of work with people on the telephone and the internet, and of friendships in the work in relation to the work itself have come to the forefront again over the past month and a half. 

It is crystal clear that too many people have forgotten that the type of inner work we are engaged in is not in the least bit ordinary. 

You have forgotten why we work.  

You have been imagining that you are working and have become too complacent and too comfortable and have fallen back to sleep.

Remembering the aim of our work and the tasks has fallen by the wayside much too often. Having fallen into the trap of the illusion that you are working when you are not, it is impossible to see you have been taken. Once so thoroughly taken only others who are more awake can help you to wake up. This can only happen if you trust. 

How you behave toward others who can help you and your attitudes toward the work itself during this time shows how you value what you've been given so far.
If you are too far gone and can no longer see and believe you know better what tasks and exercises you should or should not do, or believe you know better than your mentors or group leaders at this point, no one can help you. You will fall away from the work until you (literally) return to your senses, if you ever do. If and when you do wish to return to inner work it will be very hard; for some it will be impossible.

Take care, remember what you want, remember why you study and work. 

~ LL, April 2012

This week's reading

This week's task

Resistance to Waking (Re-post from 2010.6)

I had a conversation with someone very new to the work about resistance to sitting and to doing the tasks. Hopefully the following post from 2010, June will help.


"Question:  http://ajourneymanswayhome.blogspot.com/2010/06/resistence.html"

Comment:
 "So, who (which part or "i") wakes up prior to the part of you that appreciates Qi Gong? "It likes, it doesn't like." as G said, eh? So, which "i" wakes up, unaware that another part of you likes Qi Gong and appreciates how it helps the total Being?"

"I wonder [must see] who [what part of self] is awake first in the  [morning] when I become aware of my own being as I wake from deep sleep and the rest of me begins to catch up. Who is it that resists and does not want to proceed into the next moments? Just then, in those first moments of becoming aware of self awakening, there is a small space in time to watch those first "i's" gather and and to hear their individual songs (stories). I have the opportunity to objectively observe them "waking" up in their sleep, already talking, complaining, etc. ..."

We can apply this question at any moment we begin to awaken a bit from illusion or daydreams, etc. We can be curious about what is really going on in those moments. That kind of curiosity, [that of the 'watcher' or 'observer'] - allows me to silently, without the 'head brain' [picking away at or analyzing or judging what it sees], gather more information about my little devils - those illusive little "i's".



Be Observing
Be Peace
BE

Weekly Work : Buffers

Weekly Work 2012

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

Stealing: Wisdom

Listening to and repeating words of wisdom does not make you wise. True Being is not earned through taking words into your head brain and there associating and conceptualizing what you hear.

True wisdom comes after you've put the ideas the words you speak about to clinical tests by verifying the ideas experientially - on the organic level - in your own life.

No amount of head brain "thinking", association, and imagination will make you wise.

Anyone who "steals" ideas and speaks them as if they are their own is living in illusion, which dissipates the moment real life happens.

Why are you so surprised when you keep waking up in the same place year after year?

Awake
Sleep not

BE

Where am I in relation my work today?

I picked up Life Is Real Only Then, When I AM  (by G.I. Gurdjieff) this morning to look for some help before moving into my day of outer work around the house. As I started to leaf through the pages looking for the table of contents, the page fell open to the prologue which appeared to be speaking directly to the question I have:”Where am I in relation to my inner work today?” I thought I’d share it here. Hopefully it will be useful to you as well.

***

“I am…? But what has become of that full sensing of the whole of myself, formerly always in me in just such cases of self questioning during the process of self remembering…

Is it possible that this inner ability was achieved by me thanks to all kinds of self-denial and frequent self-goading only in order that now, when its influence for my Being is more necessary even than air, it should vanish without a trace?

No! This cannot be! …

Something here is not right!

If this is true, then everything in the sphere of reason is illogical.

But in me is not yet atrophied the possibility of actualizing conscious labor and intentional suffering! …

According to all past events I must still be.

I wish! … and will be!!

Moreover, my Being is necessary not only for my own personal egoism but also for the common welfare of all humanity.

My Being is necessary to all people; even more necessary to them than their own felicity and their happiness of today.

I wish to be … I still am!”

“This fantastic soliloquy proceeded in me on the 6^th of November, 1927 early in the morning of one of the Montmartre night cafés in Paris when, tired to exhaustion from my “black” thoughts, I had decided to go home and there once more to try whether I might perhaps succeed in sleeping at least a little. …”

***

Gurdjieff then goes on to give an account of his state at the time of writing this book and what lead up to it. Perhaps, here, in this prologue left by our dear old rascally teacher, we can find some clues in relation to our own question of “Where am I in relation to my inner work today?” It is certainly worth re-reading.

In Cases of Stubborn Attachment

I’m sure you’ve seen movies where someone has to yell at a beloved animal friend to make it leave for its own good. Sometimes it is necessary to do this with other human beings who have become too attached to us and are stuck in imagination about the relationship.  If they are allowed to remain so emotionally attached they will never get unstuck, they will never grow.

So… after many suggestions, conversations and exhortations about the need for them to expand their horizons, if the resistance to doing so is so great that they are unable to move forward, we take a deep breath, make our faces look ugly and do it. We Act.  Hearts breaking, we put on a great show and shout, “shoo!!!” gesticulating wildly at them. We force them out of their self imposed prisons -  we force them to fly. The heart aches, but there it is, the bare naked truth; it is time for change. The love for these dear ones is not gone from the heart, if anything it is greater than ever. “I wish you all the best." you think. and pray for their safety and well being day and night. And you grin and bear what comes, donning your new masks every time you see them again. Some spit on you, some play monstrous head games, some try to kill you, or destroy you however they can. “One day”, you pray, “one day they will understand.” Is that so? I remind myself.

May you hear with ears and heart that can hear and may you BE Blessed and Blessed and Blessed. Amen, Amen and Amen!
L.

Polishing Being

"There's no courage", The Prophet said, "before the war has begun."
Drunkards vaunt their bravery when you speak of war.
But in the blaze of battle they scatter like mice.
I'm astonished by the man who wants purity
And yet trembles when the harshness of polishing begins.

When a person beats a carpet again and again
It's not the carpet he's attacking, but the dirt in it."
                                                                               ~ Rumi

Where Fear Cannot Live

ASCENDING, LL 2002

"Fear tingles in me.
Gripping  at my innards like a tap dancing fighter
It wrestles with my emotions and head brain
In the arena of my body.

Creating an anxiety
that spreads throughout my cells like a rash,
Causing an 'unpleasant itching' in my heart
And exaggerated tension in the tummy.

With attention awakened, I stop everything and am very still.
Hmm...
Here's a clue.

A sensation at the back of the head is whispering stories.
I can hear them clearly now,
Whereas before there was only a vague "not feeling so good".

Know the difference in sensations and where they fall in you.
Learn the body's mode of communication well.
The sensations of knowing what is real and and what is true do not live there,
At that spot in the head.
That is the ego's place
Recognizable by it's dull sensation.

Listening sensing carefully, I realize it is that snake, ego
Rummaging around in old files in the 'formatory apparatus',
Reading off the past presenting it as the now
To do it's fear mongering.
The liar is trying to fool me.
That is what is causing  this"fear".
It is trying to fool my sweet heart into total upset.
It is trying to trap my being in it's illusion with it's snaky whispering.

Shh....
More vigilant now, more present...
Shh... quieter still,
I shine the light of Attention on them,
That secretary of the filing cabinets and the sneaky snake.
In the shadows I see
Ego desperately wanting to regain lost ground.
It wants its "throne" back, it wants to "live".

It wants to be Laura.

In the illumination of this revelation
The cellular rash clears instantly.
Tension, that 'itching'  in the heart area
and tummy go away.

Ahhh, I am myself again.
O' Happy day.

Breathing freely.

Peace and Blessings
Peace and Blessings,

Thank you GOD, The All.

Peace and Blessings
Peace and Blessing to You
All eternity long. "


~ L. Lopez 8/11/2010

STAY CLOSE, MY HEART

 "Stay close, my heart, to the One who knows your ways;
Come into the shade of the Tree that always has fresh flowers.
Don't stroll idly through the bazaar of the perfume-markers:
Stay in the shop of the sugar-seller.
If you don't find true balance, anyone can deceive you;
Anyone can trick out of a thing of straw,
And make you take it for gold
Don't squat with a bowl before every boiling pot;
In each pot on the fire you find very different things.
Not all sugar canes have sugar, not all abysses a peak;
Not all eyes possess vision, not every sea is full of pearls.
O nightingale, with your voice of dark honey! Go on lamenting!
Only your drunken ecstasy can pierce the rock's hard heart!
Surrender yourself, and if you cannot be welcomed by the Friend,
Know that you are rebelling inwardly like a thread
That doesn't want to go through the needle's eye!
The awakened heart is a lamp; protect it by the hem of your robe!
Hurry and get out of this wind, for the weather is bad.
And when you've left this storm, you will come to a fountain;
You'll find a Friend there who will always nourish your soul.
And with your soul always green, you'll grow into a tall tree
Flowering always with sweet light-fruit, whose growth is interior."   
~Jalaluddin Rumi

Rumi was one of the great spiritual masters and poetical geniuses of mankind; he founded the Mawlawi Sufi order, a leading mystical brotherhood still in existence today.
 
This poem is  warns us to not allow ordinary things to deter us from our spiritual sojourns from the ordinary and mundane to the miraculous. He exhorts us to stay on the path and to remain steadfast to find what  is highest in self - to find God, whom he calls the Friend.
 
Along with Tolle, I am  cautious about using the word "God" . It has been so misused and abused. Very few truly Know GOD, but those who do,  know that GOD is not a word or the ordinary concepts, myths and stories. God is not 'dead", meet GOD in the NOW.
 
Peace and Blessings, Peace and Blessings, May you find your Way.
 BE LOVE
BE PEACE
BE COMPASSION
 
BE

Do Not Squander Your Hard Earned Pay

Do not squander your hard earned Pay.
Baby steps, my friend,
Lest you trip and fall.

Your work is not done at first light,
Nor even at the ten thousandth.
Wait a while longer and see where,
Moment to moment,
Yearnings and learnings fall in you
And how they fit in the Now.

Too much excitement over new discoveries,
Too much talking -the Ego's boasting -
Takes experience into the head brain and
Makes you drunk with the illusion of "mystical" power
And imagined Being.

In squandering your riches this way,
Carless-ness surely ensues.

Before you know it,
Revelations become clouds of confusion and babble.
No "bravado" can save you there.
No "bravado" can Awaken you there
In that sleep.

Many would be prophets walk that road
For a long time,
Lost Emperors in "new robes".
Using "tricks" to fool the masses,
They end at the End -
Empty shells
Of tatter and regret.

Work where God Lives.

Stay until you are able to Under- stand

Without quotation marks.
Stay until you Know
Your cellular structure

and the Way of things 

Intimately.

Respect your self.
Know that body is not yours alone
Know those magical glimpses of Life
Are gifts from the Beloved.
Know That which is Highest in You - is in All.
Know that each Breath is the Master
Living and Breathing You without a wink.

Learn to focus in and focus out at the same time.
Without losing sight of the one or the other.

Be Brave
Be Honest
Be Truthful
Be Sincere
Be a Warrior
Be Compassion
BE LOVE
BE

Not from the mind
But from BEING.

This is a Path.
The doorway you seek to Freedom is always Here.
In this moment and this moment and this moment....

c 21 July 2010
Laura Lopez

About Resistance on Waking I

Question:  http://ajourneymanswayhome.blogspot.com/2010/06/resistence.html

Comment:
 "So, who (which part or "i") wakes up prior to the part of you that appreciates Qi Gong? "It likes, it doesn't like." Eh? So, which "i" wakes up, unaware that another part of you likes Qi Gong and appreciates how it helps the total Being?"

"I wonder who is awake first when I become aware of my own being as I wake from deep sleep and the rest of me begins to catch up. Who is it that resists and does not want to proceed into the next moments? Just then, in those first moments of becoming aware of self awakening, there is a small space in time to watch those first "i's" gather and and to hear their individual songs (stories). I have the opportunity to objectively observe them "waking" up in their sleep, already talking, complaining, etc. ..."

We can apply this question at any moment we begin to awaken a bit from sleep or daydreams, etc. We can be curious about what is really going on in those moments. That kind of curiosity, that of the 'watcher' or 'observer' - allows me to silently, without the 'head brain', gather more information about those little devils, those illusive little "i's".

Be Observing
Be Peace
BE

Every Moment

Vessel

Every moment there is an opportunity to 'come back' to my-self. I can stop for a moment and in that moment I can take a deep breath and relax the body - releasing tensions in muscles. I can let go of the chatter in the 'mind' and return to awareness of my own presence -my body here, in this moment, in the now. I can awaken to the reality that I am not just a talking head; I am a living breathing organism.

As I return to my self perhaps, if I am quiet enough, I can see that what I truly wish for in my heart of hearts cannot be found outside of my self in worldly striving, it is here, in this Peace. Everything I truly wish for can only be found through Being in this moment and this moment and this moment and so on. When I forget and am taken again by the outer world and lose the connection to self, in every moment I have an opportunity to stop, breathe, let go, and return.

Stop
Breathe
Let go
Be Still
Return
Be Peace Full
BE