Updated Intro to Weekly Work

Updated Introduction to weekly work. Please read and watch video.  Thank you

Weekly work for 25 February 2012

I may not be available  to post weekly tasks and readings from time to time during March. Until the new task and reading are posted please continue with the previous week's task. There is no reason to stop making efforts just because something new hasn't been given.


Thank you,
L.

Demons, Identification & Being

 
We all have our demons. Sometimes they win and that is a very big sin against self. Why are some of us equipped to beat them and some not? What does it take to win over habit, addiction and the stories in our heads that drive us to abuse self and others in all manner of ways?

Inner Demons: Decending ~ L. Lopez, Sculpture:1990's

The Following is from: "Conscience" by P.D. Ouspensky:

"The term 'negative emotions' means all emotions of violence or depression: self-pity, anger, suspicion, fear, annoyance, boredom, mistrust, jealousy and so on. Ordinarily, one accepts this expression of negative emotions as quite natural and even necessary. Very often people call it 'sincerity'. Of course it has nothing to do with sincerity; it is simply a sign of weakness in man, a sign of bad temper and of incapacity to keep his grievances to himself. Man realizes this when he tries to oppose it, and from . this he learns another lesson. He realizes that in relation to mechanical manifestations it is not enough to observe them, it is necessary to resist them, because without! resisting them one cannot observe them. They happen so quickly, so habitually and so imperceptibly that one cannot notice them if one does not make sufficient efforts to create obstacles for them.

These negative emotions are a terrible phenomenon. They occupy an enormous place in our life. Of many people it is possible to say that all their lives are regulated and controlled, and in the end ruined by negative emotions. At the same time, negative emotions do not play any useful part at all in our lives. They do not help our orientation, they do not give us any knowledge, they do not guide us in any sensible manner. On the contrary, they spoil all our pleasures, they make life a burden to us and they very effectively prevent our possible development because there is nothing more mechanical in our life than negative emotions.
Negative emotions can never come under our control. People who think they can control their negative emotions and manifest them when they want to, simply deceive themselves. Negative emotions depend on identification;1 if identification is destroyed in some particular case, they disappear. The strangest and most fantastic fact about negative emotions is that people actually worship them. The most difficult thing for an ordinary mechanical man to realize is that his own and other people's negative emotions have no value whatever and do not contain anything noble, anything beautiful or anything strong. In reality negative emotions contain nothing but weakness and very often the beginning of hysteria, insanity or crime. The only good thing about them is that, being quite useless and artificially created by imagination and identification, they can be destroyed without any loss — and this is the only chance of escape that man has.

In reality, we have much more power over negative emotions than we think, particularly when we already know how dangerous they are and how urgent is the need to struggle with them. But we find too many excuses for them, and swim in the seas of self-pity or selfishness, as the case may be, finding fault with everything except ourselves."

<<<<<<<<<< * >>>>>>>>>>

 

Thank you for sharing your beautiful voice and talents with us. May you Be in Peace now. 

Whitney Houston 1963 ~ 2012 : WireImage/Tibrina Hobson

The Good Householder (Part III)

“On another occasion in connection with the same question G said: “A good deal is incomprehensible to you because you do not take into account the meaning of some of the most simple words, for instance, you have never thought what to be serious means.
“To have a serious attitude toward something.” Someone said.
“That is exactly what everybody thinks, actually it is the reverse.” said G. “To have a serious attitude towards things does not at all mean being serious because the principal question is, towards what things? Very many people have a serious attitude towards trivial things. Can they be called serious? Of course not.

“The mistake is that the concept ‘serious’ is taken conditionally. One thing is serious for one man and another thing for another man. In reality seriousness is one of the concepts which can never and under no circumstance be taken conditionally. Only one thing is serious for all people at all times. A man may be more aware of it but the seriousness of things will not alter on this account.”

“If a man could understand all the horror of the lives of ordinary people turning round in a circle of insignificant interests and insignificant aims, if he could understand what they are losing, he would understand that there can be only one thing that is serious for him – to escape the general law, to be free. What can be serious for a man in prison who is condemned to death? Only one thing: How to save himself; how to escape: nothing else is serious.

When I say that an obyvatel is more serious than a ‘tramp’ or a ‘lunatic’ I mean by this that, accustomed to deal with real values, an obyvatel values the possibilities of the ‘ways’ and the possibilities of ‘liberation’ or ‘salvation’ better and quicker than a man who is accustomed all his life to a circle of imaginary values, imaginary interests, and imaginary possibilities.
People who are not serious for the obyvatel are people who live by fantasies, chiefly by the fantasy that they are able to do something. The obyvatel knows that they only deceive people, promise them God knows what, and that actually they are simply arranging affairs for themselves – or they are ‘lunatics’, which is still worse, in other words they believe everything that people say.”
“To what category do politicians belong who speak contemptuously about ‘obyvatel’, ‘obyvatels opinions’, ‘obyvatels interests’?” someone asked. “They are the worst kind of obyvatels,” said G., that is, obyvatels without any positive redeeming features, or they are charlatans, lunatics, or knaves.”
“But may there not be honest and decent people among politicians.” someone asked.
“Certainly there may be,” said G. “but in this case they are not practical people, they are dreamers and they will be used by other people as screens to cover their own obscure affairs.”
“The obyvatel perhaps may not know it in a philosophical way, that is to say, he is not able to formulate it, but he knows things that ‘so themselves’ simply through his own practical shrewdness, therefore, in his heart, he laughs at people who think, or who want to assure him, that they signify anything, that anything depends on their decisions, that they can change or, in general do anything. This for him is not being serious. And an understanding of what is not serious can help him to value that which is serious." Gurdjieff, ISOM

~

The Gurdjieff Work: Regarding the 'ideas'.

"The ideas are a summons, a summons towards another world, a call from one who knows and who is able to show us the way. But the transformation of the human being requires something more. It can only be achieved if there is a real meeting between the conscious force which descends and the total commitment that answers it. This brings about a fusion.

A new life can then appear in a new set of conditions which only someone with an objective consciousness can create and develop.

But to understand this one must have passed through all the stages of this development oneself.

Without such experience and understanding the work will lose its effectiveness and the conditions will be wrongly interpreted; they will not be brought at the right moment and one will see situations and efforts remaining on the level of ordinary life and uselessly repeating themselves." ~  Madame Jeanne de Salzmann

To find a group near you ~ The Gurdjieff Foundation 

Grow
BE at Peace

BE Love

BE

TOO MUCH TALKING

There's a whole lot of talking going on.
Too  much talking.
They say yes, they say no.

Others concur,
They disagree.

Hugging
Fighting
Hugging
 
Yes, no, yes, no... maybe.

Bargaining.

A whole lot of talking,
In head brains,
In heart brains.
Too much talking.

Does anyone really hear anything?
Do you know what is really meant?

No...

Filters, filters, everywhere,
Nothing is under~stood.

Filters in the brains,
Filters on the Heart,

Brains on automatic pilot.

Can you hear your cells
Whispering deeper down?
There are the roots of desire.

Do you know how to listen?

Somewhere in those unseen places,
In that deep darkness,
Lives the truth of who you were,
Who you really are,

Who you can be.

There, lie the real gems and secrets,
The treasures you yearn for.

If only you could Hear
In purer states of being,
In true honesty.

Perhaps a wiggling free
From the

Ordinary
Mundane
Hamster wheel
existence

You mistake for living

Could begin,

Opening doors to

Freedom from that deadening mechanicality.

If only...


BE at Peace
BE PEACE
BE

Other Practices

I was a little taken aback by the intensity and flippant condemnation of other schools and practices, as well as what was said about people who leave the work by a fellow member of the Gurdjieff work in his blog - which I had previously recommended to younger members of the work.

His diatribe embarrassed and concerns me. I would not want anyone to think he speaks for the Foundation itself or for all who practice the Gurdjieff work. The man is entitled to his opinion, as is anyone. If anyone reading his blog might think that what he says is true for everyone in the work - it is not. In this day and age, nothing is further from the truth.

All one has to do is a little research to know whether a system or a practice has true value for you: for your own work in this world with others and for the planet and whether it aids one in helping God.

While it is true that when you are beginning to study the Gurdjieff work it is best not to mix practices - this does not mean you have to give up your Spiritual beliefs and practices. For myself, I found that the work ideas helped me to understand my religious and spiritual beliefs more clearly.

I am now researching other practices to see and verify for myself what is being taught and espoused now, in the year 2009, and am posting links to sites I have found that prove that they and the work are pretty much on the same page - the languages and methods are a little different - i.e.: Sufi's call God, Allah, etc. Personally, I do not feel the seasoned practitioner of the work could possibly be led astray or get lost in any of them. Truth is truth.

As for those who leave the work, I believe it depends on when you leave and why. If you leave after 30 years or so, perhaps you are retiring - in any case such blanket statements as made by the person who posted the very old fearsome version is wrong.

What is between you and God is between you and God, you know what that is and God knows what that is. No one else can say what that is.

If you ever leave the work, you take with you everything you have earned up to that point - for those who leave too soon, you may lose it all. Some who leave too soon may come back after awhile, not having found what fulfills their needs. People move to other groups; many who have been in the work for some time may leave to form new groups in other places. The bottom line is, you can leave the work, but the work never leaves you. It is a gift that keeps on giving - no matter what.

The words or language used in any system are as varied as there are members of the given organization, I may say "experiment" or "experiential", (commonly used) you may say something else, I may suggest "explore", you may use a different word - again potatoes, potah-toes... I know what I mean and so does the person I am saying it to - and so does God. You would have to BE there in order to say anything about what I said, No?

Perhaps it was just a case of jet lag, identification, and being taken while describing so perfectly in words what cannot be described, I do not know. It doesn't matter, but please, have a care for what you say and the venue you choose to say it in. We don't want to spoil other people's chances - especially the youngest hopefuls, eh?