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Return Chapter#2
Chapter#01
"Glimpses
of truth"
The
<> "search
for the
miraculous".
The main ideas are are toward the end of the outline points (Man is a machine, what is
art,the question of payment etc...), but what is also important is to read this chapter as
a literary work and observe Ouspensky's relization what he encounteres in Gurdjieff.
Objectives:
Find out what is Socrates' metaphor for Glimpses of Truth. What does the the
"Search" entails, and also what is subjective and objective art at least hat it means to
Gurdjieff. What about the 10th planet? 7-27-05
Outline
8. Lectures on India.
9. The meeting with G.
10. A "disguised man".
11. The first talk.
12. G's opinion on schools
13. G's group.
14. "Glimpses of truth".
Notes:
Socrates (469-399 B.C.E.) Bibliography Internet Sources In his use of critical
reasoning, by his unwavering commitment to truth, and through the vivid example of
his own life, fifth-century Athenian Socrates set the standard for all subsequent
Western philosophy. Since he left no literary legacy of his own, we are dependent
upon contemporary writers like Aristophanes and Xenophon for our information
about his life and work. As a pupil of Archelaus during his youth, Socrates showed a
great deal of interest in the scientific theories of Anaxagoras, but he later abandoned
inquiries into the physical world for a dedicated investigation of the development of
moral character. Having served with some distinction as a soldier at Delium and
Amphipolis during the Peloponnesian War, Socrates dabbled in the political turmoil
that consumed Athens after the War, then retired from active life to work as a
stonemason and to raise his children with his wife, Xanthippe. After inheriting a
modest fortune from his father, the sculptor Sophroniscus, Socrates used his marginal
financial independence as an opportunity to give full-time attention to inventing the
practice of philosophical dialogue.
Plato: Born in Athens in 427 BC. Died in Athens 347 BC. Symbol of the start of
Western Systematic Philosophy. Student of Socrates -- until the death of Socrates in
399 B.C. Provider of the concept of Abstract Universals or Ideal Forms. Presenter, in
his Republic, of the concept of a utopian intentional community. Serious student of
mathematics and the ideas of Pythagorus. Traveled to Sicily to participate in a
political experiment. Twenty years with his student Aristotle. Founder of an Academy
-- which survived his death for several hundred years. Suggested that knowledge and
learning may be a matter of remembering.
Glossary:
Buddah with the safayre eyes in Sri Lanka:
The Sphinx:
The Cathedrals:
Chapter#3
Chapter#02
While this book is the faithful interpration of the teaching of Gurdjief, in this
particular chapter Ouspensky touches upon and describes Gurdjieff extraordinary
powers.
Outline:
1. Petersburg in 1915.
2. G. in Petersburg.
3. A talk about groups.
4. Reference to "esoteric" work.
5. "Prison" and "Escape from prison".
6. What is necessary for this escape?
7. Who can help and how?.
Objective:
Notes: Aristotle (384-322 B.C) was born in Stagira in north Greece, the son of
Nichomachus, the court physician to the Macedonian royal family. He was trained
first in medicine, and then in 367 he was sent to Athens to study philosophy with
Plato. He stayed at Plato's Academy until about 347 After leaving Athens, Aristotle
spent some time traveling, and possibly studying biology, in Asia Minor (now Turkey)
and its islands. He returned to Macedonia in 338 to tutor Alexander the Great; after
Alexander conquered Athens, Aristotle returned to Athens and set up a school of his
own, known as the Lyceum. After Alexander's death, Athens rebelled against
Macedonian rule, and Aristotle's political situation
became precarious. To avoid being put to death, he fled to
the island of Euboea, where he died soon after.
Chapter#03
1. G’s fundamental ideas concerning man. Very strange ideas, but his basic idea is that man is a ma
of us in a hypnotic dream.
2. Absence of unity.
3. Multiplicity of I’s.
4. Construction of the human machine.
5. Psychic centers.
6. G's method of exposition of the ideas of the system.
7. Repetation unavoidable.
• Benares=
• hypnosis=
• rupies=
• dagoba=
• Buddhist neckles=
• astral body=
• lymphatic glands=
• apathetic=
• fakirs' miracle=
• miracle=
• individuality=
• evolution= Evolution of man is the evolution of his consciousness and as such
it can not evolve involunterly. We must participate in this involvement
consciously.
< Chapter#04
22. Examination of the word "world" from the point of view of the principle of relativity.
23. Tha fundemental law of the universe.
24. The law of three principles or three forces.
25. Necessity of three forces for the appearance of a phenomenon.
26. The third force.
27. Why we do not see the third force.
28. Three forces in ancient teachings.
22. Examination of the word "world" from the point of view of the principle of relativity.
23. Tha fundemental law of the universe.
24. The law of three principles or three forces.
25. Necessity of three forces for the appearance of a phenomenon.
26. The third force.
27. Why we do not see the third force.
28. Three forces in ancient teachings.
Chapter#05
The current scientific understanding (in 2005) is that the Univers was born in an
enormous explosion, called the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago. This is when
time space matter and energy are born. This is a scientific theory. Scientific theory is a
model. This is the current (model) of the universe with a set of rules, (it only exist in
our mind). Gurdjieff's model gives a different picture of the Universe. Who can tell
which is right? or What are we to make of this.
Original Outline Points
1. A "lecture on the mechanics of the universe."
2. The ray of creation and its growth from the Absolute.
3. A contradiction of scientific views.
4. The moon as the end of the ray of creation.
5. The will of the Absolute.
6. The idea of miracle.
7. Our place in the world.
Chapter#06
Talk about AIMS, PERSONAL AIMS
8. To be a Christian.
9. To help humanity.
10. To stop wars.
11. G's explanations.
12. Fate, accident and will.
13. "Mad machines".
14. Esoteric Christianity.
22. Self-observation.
23. Recording and analysis.
24. A fundamental principle of the working of the human machine
25. The four centers:Thinking, emotional, moving, instinctive.
26. Distinguishing between the work of the centers.
27. Making changes in the working of the machine.
28. Upsetting the balance.
8. To be a Christian.
9. To help humanity.
10. To stop wars.
11. G's explanations.
12. Fate, accident and will.
13. "Mad machines".
14. Esoteric Christianity.
22. Self-observation.
23. Recording and analysis.
24. A fundamental principle of the working of the human machine
25. The four centers:Thinking, emotional, moving, instinctive.
26. Distinguishing between the work of the centers.
27. Making changes in the working of the machine.
28. Upsetting the balance.
notes
This piece probably will be moved to some other place The five "being-obligolnian-
strivings"
From: Gurdjieff, «Beelzebub tales to his grandson» (ed.3 vol.) v.1, Chapter 27, p. 386:
"The organization for man's existence created by the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash.
All the beings of this planet then began to work in order to have in their consciousness
this Divine function of genuine conscience, and for this purpose, as everywhere in the
Universe, they transubstantiated in themselves what are called the "being-obligolnian-
strivings" which consist of the following five, namely:
Chapter#07
What is consciousness?
In order to DO it is
neccessary to be able to
control “additional
shocks”.
Objectives(Celok):
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) "The universe is corporeal; all that is real is material,
and what is not material is not real." --The Leviathan The philosophy of Thomas
Hobbes is perhaps the most complete materialist philosophy of the 17th century.
Hobbes rejects Cartesian dualism and believes in the mortality of the soul. He rejects
free will in favor of determinism, a determinism which treats freedom as being able to
do what one desires. He rejects Aristotelian and scholastic philosophy in favor of the
"new" philosophy of Galileo and Gassendi, which largely treats the world as matter in
motion. Hobbes is perhaps most famous for his political philosophy. Men in a state of
nature, that is a state without civil government, are in a war of all against all in which
life is hardly worth living. The way out of this desperate state is to make a social
contract and establish the state to keep peace and order. Because of his view of how
nasty life is without the state, Hobbes subscribes to a very authoritarian version of the
social contract.
René Descartes (1596-1650) is one of the most important Western philosophers of
the past few centuries. During his lifetime, Descartes was just as famous as an original
physicist, physiologist and mathematician. But it is as a highly original philosopher
that he is most frequently read today. He attempted to restart philosophy in a fresh
direction. For example, his philosophy refused to accept the Aristotelian and
Scholastic traditions that had dominated philosophical thought throughout the
Medieval period; it attempted to fully integrate philosophy with the 'new' sciences;
and Descartes changed the relationship between philosophy and theology. Such new
directions for philosophy made Descartes into a revolutionary figure.
The two most widely known of Descartes' philosophical ideas are those of a method
of hyperbolic doubt, and the argument that, though he may doubt, he cannot doubt
that he exists. The first of these comprises a key aspect of Descartes' philosophical
method. As noted above, he refused to accept the authority of previous philosophers -
but he also refused to accept the obviousness of his own senses. In the search for a
foundation for philosophy, whatever could be doubted must be rejected. He resolves
to trust only that which is clearly and distinctly seen to be beyond any doubt. In this
manner, Descartes peels away the layers of beliefs and opinions that clouded his view
of the truth. But, very little remains, only the simple fact of doubting itself, and the
inescapable inference that something exists doubting, namely Descartes himself. Rene
Decart - is a great French philosopher facinated by crosseted woman. Decart was the
first to connect the ideas of the greatest Italian physicist and German astronomer.
Galilei law about inertia and constructed the mechanism of Universe, where all the
solids are made more by pushing. Decart system was the first attempt to describe the
origin of Universe without miracles and divinely wonders, he scientifically explained
the planets turning to one side and in one plane and its coordinated rotation. Young
Newton was meditating over Decart's ideas and Newton pointed out the planets as the
celestial bodies, which "wandered" near the Sun in any directions. He returned the
Space to the hollowness again, which Decart drove out from the Universe.
Questions for this chapter developed by Richard Liebow:
Glossary:
The seven tone scale=heptatonic scale from Encyclopædia Britannica Article:
also called Seven-note Scale, or Seven-tone Scale, musical scale made up of
seven different tones. The major and minor scales of Western art music are the
most commonly known heptatonic scales, but different forms of seven-tone
scales exist. Medieval church modes, each having its characteristic pattern of
whole and half steps, used seven tones. Scales that resemble the medieval
modes are found in some European folk music. In Java, many forms of the
seven-tone pelog scale occur. Heptatonic scales can also be found in the music
of black Africa and of some American Indians.
The law of “intervals”=
Additional shocs=
The law of seven or the law of octaves=
Subordinate octaves=
Inner octaves=
artificial schock= an effort is made or (a kind of action) at the moment of
preception of the impression.
ordinary condition= generally all the time when we do not remember
ourselves.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Return Chapter#7 Chapter#9
Chapter#08
CONSCIENCE. Different
states of consciousness. To
become self-conscious you
must study yourself.
Main idea:
Exercise:
Stay with the numerical sensory exercise 10 minutes every morning. Also read
"Search" for at least 5 minutes with divided attention.
Objectives(Celok):
Whach what is what you like and start working with that .
Outline
15. Self-study.
16. “Mental photographs.”
17. Different men in one man.
18. “I” and “Ouspensky”.
19. Who is active and who is passive.
20. Man and his mask.
21. Division of oneself as the first stage of work on oneself.
Notes:
John Locke (1632-1704) was an Oxford scholar, medical researcher and physician,
political operative, economist and idealogue for a revolutionary movement, as well as
being one of the great philosophers of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth
century. His monumental Essay Concerning Human Understanding aims to determine
the limits of human understanding. Earlier writers such as Chillingworth had argued
that human understanding was limited, Locke tries to determine what those limits are.
We can, he thinks, know with certainty that God exists. We can also know about
morality with the same precision we know about mathematics, because we are the
creators of moral and political ideas. In regard to natural substances we can know
only the appearances and not the underlying realities which produce those
appearances. Still, the atomic hypothesis with its attendant distinction between
primary and secondary qualities is the most plausible available hypothesis. Locke's
Two Treatises of Civil Government were published after the Glorious Revolution of
1688 brought William of Orange and Mary to the throne, but they were written in the
throes of the Whig revolutionary plots against Charles II in the early 1680s. In this
work Locke gives us a theory of natural law and natural rights which he uses to
distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate civil governments, and to argue for the
legitimacy of revolt against tyrannical governments. Locke wrote on a variety of other
topics Among the most important of these is toleration. Henry VIII had created a
Church of England when he broke with Rome. This Church was the official religion
of England. Catholics and dissenting Protestants, e.g Quakers, Unitarians and so forth,
were subject to legal prosecution. During much of the Restoration period there was
debate, negotiation and manuevering to include dissenting Protestants within the
Church of England. In a "Letter Concerning Toleration" and several defenses of that
letter Locke argues for a separation between church and state.
"Though the familiar use of the Things about us, takes off our Wonder; yet it cures not
our Ignorance." ---An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (III. vi. 9) "...he that
will not give just occasion to think that all government in the world is the product
only of force and violence, and that men live together by no other rules but that of
beasts, where the strongest carries it...must of necessity find another rise of
government, another original of political power..." ---from The Second Treatise of
Civil Government
SØREN KIERKEGAARD was born in Copenhagen on the 5th of May 1813 and
died in 1855. In summers of 1834 and 1835 Kierkegaard was in a state of violent
mental unrest and ferment. For a time he was obliged to break off his studies entirely
and retire to Gilleleje, a coastal resort. There he attempted to clarify his thoughts and
among other things wrote in his notes: "What I really need is to come to terms with
myself about what I am to do, not about what I am to know, except insomuch as
knowledge must precede every act. It is a matter of understanding my destiny, of
seeing what the Divinity actually wants me to do; what counts is to find a truth, which
is true for me, to find that idea for which I will live and die." When a memorial stone
was erected on Gilbjerg Head at Gilleleje in 1935 to commemorate the centenary of
the intellectual emergence of the young Kierkegaard, these words from his notebook
were inscribed on the stone: "What is truth but to live for an idea."
Return Chapter#8
Chapter#10
Chapter#9
The "ray
of
creation"
in the
form of
the three octaves of radiations.The Food
Diagram.
General ideas in this chapter: This chapter is similar to chapter #5 and 10 there's a
lot of material covering the understanding of the cosmos. Gurdjieff considers the
teaching of cosmoses one of the most important thing. However I will not comment
on these, because frankly it doesn't make much sense to me. It seems that Ouspensky
trys to explain a mystical view scientificly. Gurdjieff is talking about the spiritual
cosmos and not a physical one. However, the idea that the sun, the moon and the
planets can influence humanity is still with us. Although I skip this material I'm
becoming more and more interested in astronomy and to some extent astrology too. I
try to understand the system, so I try not rework the material.
Objectives in this lecture:
for duscussion: Monthly newsletters rather than weekly. Also Choose topics from the
chapter we're on for discussion.
Have an understanding what the words artificila shock and alchemy means
Check out Ernest Helm "This thing called You"
How to create your own world? Are you emotionally ready for this?
Outline:
8. Twelve triads.
9. "Table of Hydrogens."
10. Matter in the light of its chemical, physical, psychic and cosmic properties.
11. Intelligence of matter.
12. "Atom."
13. Every human function and state depends on energy.
14. Substances in man.
15. Man has sufficient energy to begin work on himself if he saves energy.
16. Wastage of energy.
17. "Learn to separate the fine from the coarse."
18. Production of fine hydrogens.
19. Change of being.
20. Growth of inner bodies.
21. The human organism as a three-storied factory.
8. Twelve triads.
9. "Table of Hydrogens."
10. Matter in the light of its chemical, physical, psychic and cosmic properties.
11. Intelligence of matter.
12. "Atom."
13. Every human function and state depends on energy.
14. Substances in man.
15. Man has sufficient energy to begin work on himself if he saves energy.
16. Wastage of energy.
17. "Learn to separate the fine from the coarse."
18. Production of fine hydrogens.
19. Change of being.
20. Growth of inner bodies.
21. The human organism as a three-storied factory.
Food Diagram:
The System teaches that everything in the Universe is material, even quantities such
as thought and emotion which we are not accustomed to think of as such. However,
the materiality of substances varies very much, according to the Scale of Hydrogens.
All matter consists of vibrations, and the density of the matter is in inverse proportion
to the density (or frequency) of vibrations. This density determines its place on the
scale. Within the overall scale, there are further scales, inner octaves and side octaves
which in their totality encompass all materials contained in the Universe. To construct
this scale, we take the Ray of Creation in the expanded form of three octaves of
radiations, spanning the four fundamental points: Absolute-Sun-Earth-Moon. In each
of these octaves, the Fa-Mi interval is regarded as a note in itself. This gives a total of
3x8+1 = 25 notes, from the highest Do (in the Absolute) to the lowest Do (in the
Moon). These 25 notes are organised into 12 triads, with successive triads overlapping
in one note (Do-Si-La, La-Sol-Fa, Fa-**-Mi, and so on). The order of forces in all
these triads is affirming-denying-reconciling (1-2-3, corresponding to the Process of
Growth, or in the language of Organic Chemistry, carbon-oxygen-nitrogen or C-O-N.
The elements C,O,N refer to forces, and each is designated by a number representing
the density of the matter in which the force acts. These numbers are always in the
ratio 1:3:2. (So the affirming force acts in the most rarefied matter, the denying force
in the most dense, and the reconciling force in matter of an intermediate density.) The
numbers double with each successively descending triad: Do (C 1) Do Si (O 3) Si La
(N 2) (C 2) La Sol (O 6) Sol Fa (C 4) (N 4) Fa ** (O 12) ** Mi (N 8) Mi and so on.
Each triad of forces taken together gives a particular hydrogen, whose density is
designated by the sum of the three numbers entering into it: these densities therefore
follow the sequence: H6, H12, H24, and so on to H12288. These twelve hydrogens
represent twelve categories of matter contained in the Universe from the Absolute to
the Moon. For us, however, the first two hydrogens are irresolvable. Therefore for the
study of Man we use a reduced scale, in which H24 is denoted by h6, H48 by h12,
and so on, and H12 is denoted by h1. All matters from h6 to h3072 are to be found
and play a part in the human organism. Each of these hydrogens includes a very large
group of chemical substances, linked together by some function in connection with
our organism and representing a definite cosmic group. For example, man's ordinary
food is h768. A piece of wood, which cannot serve as food for man, is h1536. A piece
of iron is h3072. Water is h384. The air we breathe is h192. h96 includes the matter of
animal magnetism, hormones, vitamins and so on, some rarefied gases, and many
other substances known or unknown to modern science. h48, h24, h12 and h6 are
matters of our psychic and spiritual life on different levels. The Food Diagram shows
how these hydrogens are transformed in the human body, and how this process of
transformation may be extended and made complete with right work on oneself.
Ray of Creation:
The Ray of Creation is a representation of the Universe which takes account of scale.
It provides a framework for the study of esoteric cosmology and psychology. It has
the form of an octave, each note of which signifies a particular level of World: The
diagram known as “the Ray of Creation” provides one of the conceptual keys to
approaching this interconnection between humanity and the universal order, and as
such invites repeated study from a variety of angles and stages of understanding. Note
World Do Absolute Si All Galaxies La Milky Way Sol Sun Fa Planets Mi Earth Re
Moon The names refer to our own ray, the ray which passes through our planet.
Visualising the whole of Creation as a tree, this will be one branch, with the Moon as
its growing tip. We can discern two kinds of relation between each world and the
world above it in the Ray of Creation: one is a satellite relation (as the Moon is a
satellite of the Earth, and the Planets of the Sun); the other is an inclusion relation (as
the Earth is included in the Planetary world, the Sun is included in the Milky Way, the
Milky Way is included in All Galaxies). The relation of All Galaxies to the Absolute is
less clear, because we cannot really visualise the Absolute. Indeed, we must remember
that our visualisations of all these Worlds are only very partial projections. We do not
even see the Earth as it sees itself. We usually visualise the Planetary world as a small
collection of spherical bodies in orbit around the Sun, but we have very little
conception of its objective cosmic nature. (For instance, in a higher dimension of
time, the orbits themselves would become solid bodies, spiraling around a moving
Sun. And it is difficult to imagine the nature of the electromagnetic interactions on
this level.) Perhaps the distinction between satellite and inclusion relationships is
merely an artefact of our limited intelligence, and would dissolve with the application
of correct scale. As in any octave, two intervals need to be filled. That between Do
and Si is filled by the Will of the Absolute. For the interval between Fa and Mi, a
special mechanism exists, which encompasses all that we know as Organic Life on
Earth. This is the Lateral Octave. It begins at the level of the Sun, Sol in the Great
Octave, which sounds as Do in the Lateral Octave: Great Octave Lateral Octave Sol
Do Fa Si ** La-Sol-Fa Mi Mi Re Re Thus Organic Life begins in the Sun; after
passing through Si (on the level of the Planets and the Earth's atmosphere), it reaches
the Earth in the notes La-Sol-Fa, which represent the thin film of organic life on the
Earth's surface (mankind, fauna and flora). Passing into the Earth at Mi, it finally goes
to the Moon at Re: some elementary life-substance travels to and nourishes the Moon.
Thus Organic Life as a whole acts as a transmitter station for cosmic influences. The
fundamental property of the new language is that all ideas in it are concentrated round
one idea, that is, they are taken in their mutual relationship from the point of view of
one idea. This idea is the idea of evolution. Of course, not evolution in the sense of
mechanical evolution, because such an evolution does not exist, but in the sense of a
conscious and volitional evolution, which alone is possible. G.I.Gurdjieff The Ray of
Creation is in us as well as outside us, and as well as a cosmological significance it
has a psychological significance. We have in us levels of being ranging from False
Personality to the potential Real I. Consciousness itself can be on very different
levels, and can encompass different dimensions of time, corresponding to the levels of
Worlds in the Ray of Creation. It is impossible to study a system of the universe
without studying man. At the same time it is impossible to study man without
studying the universe. Man is an image of the world. He was created by the same laws
which created the whole of the world. By knowing and understanding himself he will
know and understand the whole world, all the laws that create and govern the world.
And at the same time by studying the world and the laws that govern the world he will
learn and understand the laws that govern him. In this connection some laws are
understood and assimilated more easily by studying the objective world, while man
can only understand other laws by studying himself. The study of the world and the
study of man must therefore run parallel, one helping the other.
Additional Notes:
Albert Camus The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the
top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had
thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than fu tile and
hopeless labor. If one believes Homer, Sisyphus was the wisest and most prudent of
mortals. According to another tradition, however, he was disposed to practice the
profession of highwayman. I see no contradiction in this. Opinions differ as to the
reasons why he became the futile laborer of the underworld. To begin with, he is
accused of a certain levity in regard to the gods. He stole their secrets. Egina, the
daughter of Esopus, was carried off by Jupiter. The father was shocked by that
disappearance and complained to Sisyphus. He, who knew of the abduction, offered
to tell about it on condition that Esopu s would give water to the citadel of Corinth. To
the celestial thunderbolts he preferred the benediction of water. He was punished for
this in the underworld. Homer tells us also that Sisyphus had put Death in chains.
Pluto could not endure the sight of h is deserted, silent empire. He dispatched the god
of war, who liberated Death from the hands of her conqueror. It is said that Sisyphus,
being near to death, rashly wanted to test his wife's love. He ordered her to cast his
unburied body into the middle of the public square. Sisyphus woke up in the
underworld. And there, annoyed by an obedience so contrary to human love, he
obtained from Pluto permission to return to earth in order to chastise his wife. But
when he had seen again the face of this world, enjoyed water and sun, warm stones
and the sea, he no longer wanted to go back to the infernal darkness. Recalls, signs of
anger, warnings were of no avail. Many years more he lived facing the curve of the
gulf, the sparkling sea, and the smiles of earth. A decree of the gods w as necessary.
Mercury came and seized the impudent man by the collar and, snatching him from his
joys, lead him forcibly back to the underworld, where his rock was ready for him. You
have already grasped that Sisyphus is the absurd hero. He is, as much through his
passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his
passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted
toward accomplishing nothing. This is the price that must be paid for the passions of
this earth. Nothing is told us about Sisyphus in the underworld. Myths are made for
the imagination to breathe life into them. As for this myth, one sees merely the whole
effort of a body straining to raise the huge stone, to roll it, and push it up a slope a
hundred times over; one sees the face screw ed up, the cheek tight against the stone,
the shoulder bracing the clay-covered mass, the foot wedging it, the fresh start with
arms outstretched, the wholly human security of two earth-clotted hands. At the very
end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose
is achieved. Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments toward
that lower world whence he will have to push it up again toward the summit. He goes
back down to the plain. It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me.
A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back
down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know
the end. That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that
is the hour of consciousness . At each of those moments when he leaves the heights
and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is
stronger than his rock. If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious.
Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld
him? The workman of today works everyday in his life at the same tasks, and his fate
is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious.
Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of
his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that
was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that
can not be surmou nted by scorn. If the descent is thus sometimes performed in
sorrow, it can also take place in joy. This word is not too much. Again I fancy
Sisyphus returning toward his rock, and the sorrow was in the beginning. When the
images of earth cling too tightly to memory, when the call of happiness becomes too
insistent, it happens that melancholy arises in man's heart: this is the rock's victory,
this is the rock itself. The boundless grief is too heavy to bear. These are our nights of
Gethsemane. But crushing truths perish from being acknowledged. Thus, Edipus at
the outset obeys fate without knowing it. But from the moment he knows, his tragedy
begins. Yet at the same moment, blind and desperate, he realizes that the on ly bond
linking him to the world is the cool hand of a girl. Then a tremendous remark rings
out: "Despite so many ordeals, my advanced age and the nobility of my soul make me
conclude that all is well." Sophocles' Edipus, like Dostoevsky's Kirilov, thus gives the
recipe for the absurd victory. Ancient wisdom confirms modern heroism. One does
not discover the absurd without being tempted to write a manual of happiness.
"What!---by such narrow ways--?" There is but one world, however. Happiness and
the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable. It would be a mistake
to say that happiness necessarily springs from the absurd. discover y. It happens as
well that the felling of the absurd springs from happiness. "I conclude that all is well,"
says Edipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of
man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god
who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile suffering. It
makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men. All Sisyphus' silent
joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is a thing Likewise, the
absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols. In the universe
suddenly restored to its silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up.
Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse
and price of victory. There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the
night. The absurd man says yes and his efforts will henceforth be unceasing. If there is
a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is, but one which he
concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest, he knows himself to be the master
of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus
returning toward his rock, in that slight pivoting he contemplates that series of
unrelated actions which become his fate, created by him, combined under his
memory's eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of the wholly human
origin of all that is human, a blind man eage r to see who knows that the night has no
end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling. I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the
mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher
fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This
universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each
atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a
world. The strugg le itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must
imagine Sisyphus happy. ---Albert Camus--- Translation by Justin O'Brien, 1955
Jean-Paul Sartre was born in Paris. His father was a naval officer who died when
Jean-Paul was young. Through his mother, the former Anne-Marie Schweitzer, he was
a great nephew of Albert Schweitzer. Sartre lived after his father's early death with his
grandfather, Charles Schweitzer and his mother in Paris. When his mother remarried
in 1917, the family moved to La Rochelle. Sartre attended the Lycée Louis-le-Grand.
He graduated from the Ècole Normale Supérieure in 1929. From 1931 to 1945 he
worked as a teacher and traveled in Egypt, Greece, and Italy. In 1933-34 he studied in
Berlin the writings of the German philosophers Edmund Husserl and Martin
Heidegger. In 1956 Sartre spoke out on behalf of freedom for Hungarians, and Czechs
in 1968. After Stalin's death in 1953 Sartre accepted the right to criticize the Soviet
system although he defended the Soviet state. He visited the Soviet Union next year
and was hospitalized for ten days because of exhaustion. The O.A.S. (Organisation de
l'Armee Secrete), engaged in terrorist activities against Algerian independence,
exploded a bomb in 1961 in Sartre's apartment on rue Bonaparte; it happened also
next year and Sartre moved on quai Louis-Blériot, opposite the Eiffel tower. In a
historical debate between Louis Althusser unexpectedly Sartre lost, perhaps the only
time in his public life. In 1965 Sartre adopted Arlette Elkaïm, his mistress, who
received the rights to Sartre's literary heritage after his death. In 1967 Sartre headed
the International War Crimes Tribunal set up by Bertrand Russell to judge American
military conduct in Indochina. He became closely involved in movement against
Vietnam War and supported student rebellion in 1968. In 1970 Sartre was arrested
because of selling on the streets the forbidden Maoist paper La cause du peuple.
existentialism - The doctrine that among sentient beings, especially humanity,
existence takes precedence over essence and holding that man is totally free and
responsible for his acts. This
responsibility is the source of
dread and anguish that
encompasses mankind.
Glossary:
artificial shock: Conscious labor
and intentional suffering. Yes
but what is that mean ?
Alchemy: ancient art practiced
especially in the Middle Ages,
devoted chiefly to discovering a
substance that would transmute
the more common metals into
gold or silver. Also the finding a
means of indefinitely prolonging human life. Although its purposes and techniques
were dubious and often illusory, alchemy was in many ways the predecessor of
modern science, the science of chemistry.
Questions developed by Richard Liebow:
1) Are you as concerned and careful about the quality of impressions you feed into
your brain as you are about the kinds and qualities of food you take into your mouth
and your belly? 2) Do you now and again pause to make a conscious effort just to
observe your own breathing? 3) Do you now and again pause to make a conscious
effort just to observe and feel the kinds and qualities of sensations passing through the
nerves and muscles of your fingers and toes, your hands and your feet? 4) Do you
sometimes just pause to ponder the subtleties of negativity (fear, false pride,
arrogance, and envy) that pervade your thoughts and feelings? 5) Do you really
believe that just pausing to center yourself causes chemical changes in the physiology
of your body? 6) Do you really believe that struggling to control expressions of
negative emotions saves enormous amounts of precious energy? 7) Do you really
believe that you can control the expression of your negative emotions--without first
forming the habit of pausing frequently just to be present? 8) Do you really believe
that the practice of dividing your attention is crystallizing something in you that may
survive the shock of the decay and crumbling of your physical body? 9) How often do
you find yourself aware of Higher Forces coming from far away places exerting their
influence on your thoughts, your feelings, and your behavior? 10) Are you beginning
to understand why Ouspensky should have understood why he should have listened to
the same lecture more than once? 11) Are you beginning to get any sense of the
meaning and value of the suggestion that every function you perform (whether it be
physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual) requires a certain distinct kind of energy that
sometimes must be synthesized through your own efforts? 12) Do you sometimes
sense the presence of some hint of an emotional stirring in your nerves and muscles
when you pause to ask yourself, "Where am I in all of this?" 13) Do you waste energy
on unnecessary worry? 14) Do you sometimes waste energy on unnecessary
movement of your arms and legs, your fingers and toes?
Notes:Witness to the process Eric Hoffer "The True Boliever" Return chapter#9
Chapter#11
Chapter#10
From what does the Way start. The Way starts where ever You
are, but to be on the "Way" that is a different story.
This chapter is similar to chapter #5 just like in 5 there's a lot of material covering the
understanding of the cosmos. Gurdjieff considers the teaching of cosmoses one of the
most important thing. However I will not comment on these, because frankly it
doesn't make much sense to me. It seems that Ouspensky trys to explain a mystical
view scientificly. Gurdjieff is talking about the spiritual cosmos and not a physical
one. However, the idea that the sun, the moon and the planets can influence humanity
is still with us. Although I skip this material I'm becoming more and more interested
in astronomy and to some extent astrology too.
Original Outline Points
1. From what does the way start?
2. The law of accident.
3. Kinds of influences.
4. Influences created in life.
5. Influences created outside of life, conscious in their origin only.
6. The magnetic center.
7. Lookingfor the way.
Chapter#11
36. The emotional center is a more subtl apparatus then the intellectual center.
37. Explonation of yawning in connection with accumulators.
38. Role and significance of laughter in life.
Notes:
Acharya Shankaracharya(Shankara) was born in Kerala in South India (around
686 A.D., some maintain 788 A.D.) the saviour of true Hinduism, who reestablished
the dharma of Upanishads, the eternal religion. Shankara was personification of
Knowledge and Compassion combined together! No adjectives would ever be enough
to sing glories about his extraordinary life, supernatural powers, and razor sharp logic,
reasoning and rational analysis of epistemology. His philosophy was based on one
fundamental truth, truth of personal realization of the Highest Truth. Shankara
preached Absolute Monism, also known as Advaita Vedanta. The basic philosophical
tenet is based on only One Truth, without second - ek meva advitiya. This Reality is
of the nature of Consciousness, and can be described as Sat Chit Ananda at the best!
The Reality is also called as Brahman, Self, God, and Atman. The world, the nature,
the Jivas and whatever we experience through our senses, as multifarious existence is
illusory and therefore unreal - Maya. Thus Acharya Shankara is credited to have
propounded Mayavada.
Ananda Maya or Ananadamaya:I'll research this more later, it is connected to a
person or to food.
As for the review of the content of Chapter Eleven we address some of these
questions. Developed by Richard Liebow:
1. What does it mean to you that one must die and be reborn--in order to awake?
2. Do you have a serious desire to escape from the victimization of your own
hypnotic sleep?
3. Do you ever dream that an alarm clock is waking you up--only to wake up to
find that you were dreaming that an alarm clock was waking you up?
4. Are these meetings some sort of alarm clock--or do they just put you into a
deeper level of hypnotic sleep?
5. Do you like rules?
6. Are there any barriers standing between you and your wish to focus the
scattered tendencies of your mind?
7. Does the concept of accumulators have any practical value for you?
8. Does the content of Chapter Eleven enhances your understanding of the need
to work with others in a group?
9. Do you sometimes imagine that you are really awake and fully conscious of
everything that is happening in your inner and outer worlds?
10. Are you prepared to confess that your normal waking state of consciousness is
really a kind of somnambulistic sleep?
11. Do you sometimes try talking about these ideas with your friends?
12. "Realization of one's own nothingness"--does that really mean anything to
you?
13. Is there some part of you that resents having to review these chapters again
and again?
14. Do you really believe that you yourself possess all the faults you find in
others?
15. "The more you give, the more you do, the more is expected of you."---is that
fair?
16. Do you ever feel that you may be just a sheep waiting to be slaughtered and
skinned by some sly friendly-faced butcher?
17. How do you feel about Gurdjieff's explanation of kundalini?
18. Is your imagination a positive or a negative resource?
19. Are you ever horrified by your own thoughts and feelings--by your own
behavior?
20. Are you ever stupidly sincere?
21. Are you beginning to understand that in this work ordinary efforts are
absolutely worthless?
22. What is the difference between normal sleep and hypnotic sleep?
23. Do you place a great value on your time?
24. How do you feel about the suggestion that such as you are, your life is an
absolute zero?
Additional Notes:
Glossary: Chief fault(Chief Feature): Is something you work against. The Nine
Personality Types and the Nine Capital Tendencies
Type The The The The The The The The The
Number Perfectionist Giver Performer Romantic Observer Trooper Epicure Boss Mediator
Fault One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine
anger pride deceit envy avarice fear gluttony lust sloth
Chapter#12
THe enniagram is designed with all the accuracy the symbol deserves, meant to
protect you and to help you in remembering yourself always and everywhere.
General observations for this chapter:This chapter like all others contain many
ideas. Most importantly, however, and the ones I'll comment on are groupwork and
tasks, but not yet. Possibly later I will add some research on sex. The ideas relating to
the Way is discussed in more detail in chapter 10.
Think about these - (1)Can this be done by yourself or groups are neccessary? A
human being is incapable of realizing himself simply by noting his inward states - he
needs the reflection of them in others to discover their meaning for himself. (The art
of interpreting by means of poetry, painting, myths and legends and also in sculptures,
songs and history has been going on from the beginning). It's like questioning nature
by experiments. Existentialism and Indian Thought by Guru Dutt 1960.
(2)Also what does it mean to have a task?(work or project) Do you have to have daily
tasks? Fully conscious work seem to have 4 stages:
Deliberation:Setting goals or objectives with adequete motovation.
Decision:Making a choice or a comittment to one goal (an objective to be realized).
Planning:Organize the best way to achieve this goal.
Execution:The actual implementation and realization of these goals or objectives.
From Apocalypse Now by Peter Roache de Coppens.
(3)How does sex come into liberation?
Original Outline Points
1. Work in groups becomes more intensive.
2. Each man's limited "repertoire of roles."
3. The choice between work on oneself and a "quiet life."
4. Difficulties of obedience.
5. The place of "tasks."
6. G. gives a definite task.
7. Reaction of friends to the ideas.
Chapter #13
Intensity of inner work"CHIEF
FEATURE".The "miracle" begins.
Impossibility of investigating higher
phenomena by ordinary means.
Exercises: Walk, diet, reading, and meditation
Notes:
Gurdjieff recognizes seven general types of Man - Man Number Seven is almost
unimaginably evolved relative to us. He defines four levels of consciousness: 1) what
we usually call sleep, 2) our normal state of so-called waking consciousness, 3) self
consciousness - characterized partly by constant "self-remembering", and a capacity
to act with non-mechanical independence - and 4) objective consciousness, the level
of enlightened, transcendent Being. To pursue awakened, independent Being is
harrowingly difficult. One needs a relentless will to work, rooted in an inexhaustible
Wish, a hunger to learn to be - and, even that is not enough. One also needs help from
others. And there's worse news yet: authentic help is hard to find, since few in our
world are awake. Few have created real I. We live in a world of sleepwalkers, and it
shows. As James Moore puts it, "We are all asleep. This is not a metaphor but a fact. It
is also a social perception more subversive and revolutionary than anything remotely
conceived by all the Troskys and Kropotkins of history; an idea which, like death and
the sun, cannot be looked at steadily - a world in trance!"
THe enniagram is designed with all the accuracy the symbol deserves, meant to
protect you and to help you in remembering yourself always and everywhere.
Glossary:
Chapter#14
Examination of the ENNEAGRAM.
Objective and subjective knowledge.
Main idea:The outline points are somewhat arbitrary and a few times the main idea is
not in the outline. This is the case for this chapter also. The main idea is in the first
paragraph:"Stay awake always and everywhere!!!!" In an other word as a Gurdjieffian
you're always at work in self observation.
Practice: Continue practicing guided meditation for 10 minutes and 10 minute self
aware reading daily. Also 2 mile walk 4 times a week.
Objectives(Celok): Make your own Enneagram! Listen to the playing of the
shakuhachi
Evaluate what you want -- because what gets measured, gets produced. Sag bolung
hosh
Reordered Outline Points for Commentary Purposes only
22. "No one can give a man what he did not possess before".
23. Attainment only through one’s own efforts.
24. Different known "lines" using symbology.
25. This system and its place.
26. One of the principle symbols of this teaching.
27. The enneagram.
28. The law of seven and its union with the law of three.
Adler noted that his four types looked very much like the four types proposed by the ancient Greek
They, too, noticed that some people are always sad, others always angry, and so on. But they
attributed these temperaments (from the same root as temperature) to the relative presence of four
bodily fluids called humors. If you had too much yellow bile, you would be choleric (hot and dry)
and angry all the time. The choleric is, roughly, the ruling type. If you had too much phlegm, you
would be phlegmatic (cold and wet) and be sluggish. This is roughly the leaning type. If you had to
much black bile -- and we don't know what the Greeks were referring to here -- you would be
melancholy (cold and dry) and tend to be sad constantly. This is roughly the avoiding type. And, if
you had a lot of blood relative to the other humors, you be in a good humor, sanguine (warm and
moist). This naturally cheerful and friendly person represents the socially useful type. One word of
warning about Adler's types: Adler believed very strongly that each person is a unique individual w
his or her own unique lifestyle. The idea of types is, for him, only a heuristic device, meaning a use
fiction, not an absolute reality!
The Enneagram - Symbol of All and Everything
What the Enneagram Is and Is Not The Enneagram is a diagram for the cooperative functioning of
two fundamental cosmic laws, the Law of Three and the Law of Seven, so structuring the Overall
Universal Law. The Enneagram is not a list of personality types. The Enneagram is a sacred, very
powerful symbol, brought to us by Gurdjieff himself, and by no other. It is not a Sufi symbol. If no
correctly used, the enneagram can be harmful, due to its high power of transformation. This is why
Gurdjieff left it only in the sphere of oral teaching. From this we conclude that the Enneagram is n
to be used superficially, without knowledge of the laws. According to Gurdjieff's Five Being-
obligolnian-strivings (Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson, p. 386), only the last striving is concerne
with helping others. Do no try to help other when you do not Know. Either you know and do thing
the right way, or just do nothing, and live your life the way you can. This is the point of view of thi
book. The Enneagram - Symbol of All
30. "What a man can not put into the enneagram, he does not understand."
31. A symbol in motion.
32. Experiencing the enneagram by movment.
33. Excercises.
34. Universal language.
35. Objective and subjective art.
TO DEFINE WHAT I CALL OBJECTIVE ART IS DIFFICULT (it's difficult to define any art) firs
of all because you ascribe to subjective art the characteristics of objective art, and secondly becaus
when you happen upon objective works of art you take them as being on the same level as subjecti
works of art…. In subjective art everything is accidental. The artist, as I have already said, does no
create; with him “it creates itself. ” This means that he is in the power of ideas, thoughts, and mood
which he himself does not understand and over which he has no control whatever. They rule him a
they express themselves in one form or another. And when they have accidentally taken this or that
form, this form just as accidentally produces on man this or that action according to his mood, taste
habits, the nature of the hypnosis under which he lives, and so on. There is nothing invariable;
nothing is definite here. In objective art there is nothing indefinite.From IN SEARCH OF THE
MIRACULOUS, p. 296
YOU ARE RIGHT IN SAYING THAT THERE ARE MANY CONTRADICTORY OPINIONS on
this subject. Does not that alone prove that people do not know the truth? Where truth is, there can
be many different opinions. In antiquity that which is now called art served the aim of objective
knowledge. And as we said a moment ago, speaking of dances, works of art represented an exposit
and a record of the eternal laws of the structure of the universe. Those who devoted themselves to
research and thus acquired a knowledge of important laws, embodied them in works of art, just as
done in books today.… This art did not pursue the aim either of “beauty” or of producing a likenes
of something or somebody. For instance, an ancient statue created by such an artist is neither a cop
of the form of a person nor the expression of a subjective sensation; it is either the expression of th
laws of knowledge, in terms of the human body, or a means of objective transmission of a state of
mind. The form and action, indeed the whole expression, is according to law. VIEWS FROM THE
REAL WORLD, pp. 32–33 [paperback]
“DO SUCH OBJECTIVE WORKS OF ART EXIST AT THE PRESENT DAY?” I asked. “Of cour
they exist,” answered G. “The great Sphinx in Egypt is such a work of art, as well as some
historically known works of architecture, certain statues of gods, and many other things. There are
figures of gods and of various mythological beings that can be read like books, only not with the
mind but with the emotions, provided they are sufficiently developed. In the course of our travels i
Central Asia we found, in the desert at the foot of the Hindu Kush, a strange figure which we thoug
at first was some ancient god or devil. At first it produced upon us simply the impression of being
curiosity. But after a while we began to feel that this figure contained many things, a big, complete
and complex system of cosmology. And slowly, step by step, we began to decipher this system. It w
in the body of the figure, in its legs, in its arms, in its head, in its eyes, in its ears; everywhere. In th
whole statue there was nothing accidental, nothing without meaning. And gradually we understood
the aim of the people who built this statue. We began to feel their thoughts, their feelings. Some of
thought that we saw their faces, heard their voices. At all events, we grasped the meaning of what
they wanted to convey to us across thousands of years, and not only the meaning, but all the feeling
and the emotions connected with it as well. That indeed was art!” IN SEARCH OF THE
MIRACULOUS, p. 27
THE KEYS TO ALL THE ANCIENT ARTS ARE LOST, were lost many centuries ago. And
therefore there is no longer a sacred art embodying laws of the Great Knowledge, and so serving to
influence the instincts of the multitude. There are no creators today. The contemporary priests of ar
do not create but imitate. They run after beauty and likeness or what is called originality, without
possessing even the necessary knowledge. Not knowing, and not being able to do anything, since t
are groping in the dark, they are praised by the crowd, which places them on a pedestal. Sacred art
vanished and left behind only the halo which surrounded its servants. All the current words about t
divine spark, talent, genius, creation, sacred art, have no solid basis—they are anachronisms. What
are these talents? We will talk about them on some suitable occasion. Either the shoemaker’s craft
must be called art, or all contempora ry art must be called craft. In what way is a shoemaker sewin
fashionable custom shoes of beautiful design inferior to an artist who pursues the aim of imitation
originality? With knowledge, the sewing of shoes may be sacred art too, but without it, a priest of
contemporary art is worse than a cobbler. From: VIEWS FROM THE REAL WORLD, pp. 35–36
36. Music.
37. Objective music is based on inner octaves.
IN THE LEGEND OF ORPHEUS THERE ARE HINTS OF OBJECTIVE MUSIC, for Orpheus us
to impart knowledge by music. Snake charmers’ music in the East is an approach to objective musi
of course very primitive. Very often it is simply one note which is long drawn out, rising and fallin
only very little; but in this single note “inner octaves” are going on all the time and melodies of “in
octaves” which are inaudible to the ears but felt by the emotional center. And the snake hears this
music, or, more strictly speaking, he feels it, and he obeys it. The same music, only a little more
complicated, and men would obey it. IN SEARCH OF THE MIRACULOUS, p. 297
Aditional Notes:
YOU SAW OUR MOVEMENTS AND DANCES. But all you saw was the outer
form—beauty, technique. But I do not like the external side you see. For me, art is a
means for harmonious development. In everything we do the underlying idea is to do
what cannot be done automatically and without thought. Ordinary gymnastics and
dances are mechanical. If our aim is a harmonious development of man, then for us,
dances and movements are a means of combining the mind and the feeling with
movements of the body and manifesting them together. In all things, we have the aim
to develop something which cannot be developed directly or mechanically—which
interprets the whole man: mind, body and feeling. VIEWS FROM THE REAL
WORLD, p. 183
MANY YEARS PASS before these young future priestesses are allowed to dance in
the temple, where only elderly and experienced priestesses may dance. Everyone in
the monastery knows the alphabet of these postures and when, in the evening in the
main hall of the temple, the priestesses perform the dances indicated for the ritual of
that day, the brethren may read in these dances one or another truth which men have
placed there thousands of years before. These dances correspond precisely to our
books. Just as is now done on paper, so, once, certain information about long past
events was recorded in dances and transmitted from century to century to people of
subsequent generations. And these dances are called sacred. MEETINGS WITH
REMARKABLE MEN, pp. 162–163
QuestionsDeveloped by Richard Liebow:
1. How do you interpret the suggestion that no one can give a person
anything he or she did not possess before?
2. How do you interpret the suggestion that the union of knowledge and
being produces Great Doing?
3. How do you interpret the suggestion that what a person cannot put into
an enneagram he or she does not really understand?
4. How do you interpret the suggestion that objective art is based on inner
octaves?
5. How do you interpret the suggestion that mechanical humanity can
have subjective art only?
6. Do you believe that myths and symbols can have access to your higher
emotions--and that verbal formulas can provide access to the higher
levels of your intellect?
7. Do you feel that a greater frequency of moments of pausing to
remember yourself will gradually increase in your activities,
relationships and involvements a sustained line of will?
8. Do you really believe that pausing frequently just to be present will
bring ever greater harmony into your on-going thinking, feeling,
moving, and instinctive functions?
9. Which of the following has the greatest appeal to your head and heart:
Numbers, geometrical figures, letters, or words?
10. Which of the following disciplines appeals most to your head and
heart: Astrology, numerology, magic, or the tarot?
11. Are you being to understand that your mechanical response to objects
and events is the most fundamental cause of your anxieties,
frustrations, and fears?
12. How does one experience a symbol?
13. Have you, as yet, found the key to unifying your experiences?
14. Do you sometimes look outside yourself for that for which you should
be looking within yourself?
Glossary:
inner octaves:
Line of will= a warrior waits for his will! (Carlos Casteneda via Don
Juan)
Objective music: It seems that there's no objective music. Music by it's
very nature subjective, but what about the cittar music from India.
Quatirnity:
Chapter#15
RELIGION a
relative concept
and School of the
4th Way.
Main Idea:DEfine what Religion means. Objectives: Look for answers from a
deeper place and the answers may come in the form of an other question or you get an
answer to a different question.
EXERCISE:
10 minutes of guided meditation & 10 minutes of self-aware reading. Also read Her-
Bak. As of right now I can only make small changes as I gain confidence I'll try to
take on bigger projects.
Outline:
1. Religion a relative concept. Define What religoin is:There are many definitions for
the term "religion" in common usage. So in order to include the greatest number of
belief systems: "Religion is any specific system of belief about deity, often involving
rituals, a code of ethics, and a philosophy of life." It includes monotheistic religions,
Eastern religions; Neopagan religions; a wide range of other faith groups, spiritual
paths, and ethical systems; and beliefs about the existence of God(s) and Goddess(es).
But for most people defining "religion" in a much more exclusive. Important
Religions (From the Needleman class):
Primitive Religions The spiritual experience of nature
Hinduism The experience of the greater self
Buddhism Experience freedom from ego
Confucionism The spiritual dimension of morali experience
Taoism The experince of total receptivity
Christianity Love thy neighbor like yourself
Judaism The experince of responsibility to God & neigbor
Islam The experience of submission to God
2.
Religions correspond to the level of a man's being. Excerpt from Views from the
Real World by G. I. Gurdjieff: To build a living body inside man is the aim of all
religions and all schools; every religion has its own special way, but the aim is always
the same. There are many ways toward achieving this aim. I have studied about two
hundred religions,but if they are to be classified, I would say that there exist only four
ways.As you already know, man has a number of specific centers. Let us take four of
them: moving, thinking, feeling and the formatory apparatus. Imagine a man as a flat
with four rooms. The first room is our physical body and corresponds to the cart in
another illustration I have given. The second room is the emotional center, or the
horse; the third room, the intellectual center, or the driver; and the fourth room, the
master. Every religion understands that the master is not there and seeks him. But a
master can be there only when the whole flat is furnished. Before receiving visitors,
all the rooms should be furnished. Everyone does this in his own way. If a man is not
rich, he furnishes every room separately, little by little. In order to furnish the fourth
room,one must first furnish the other three. The four ways differ according to the
order in which the three rooms are furnished. The first way begins with the furnishing
of the first room, and so on...... If we act consciously, the interaction will be
conscious. If I act unconsciously, everything will be the result of what I am sending
out.....
3. "Can prayer help?"
4. Learning to pray.
5. General ignorance regarding Christianity.
6. The Christian Church a school.
7. Egyptian "schools of repetition".
8. Significance of rights.
9. The "techniques" of religion.
10. Where does the word "I" sound in one?
11. The two parts of real religion and what each teaches.
12. Kant and the idea of scale. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
Kant's most original contribution to philosophy is his "Copernican Revolution," that,
as he puts it, it is the representation that makes the object possible rather than the
object that makes the representation possible. This introduced the human mind as an
active originator of experience rather than just a passive recipient of perception.
Something like this now seems obvious: the mind could be a tabula rasa, a "blank
tablet," no more than a bathtub full of silicon chips could be a digital computer.
Perceptual input must be processed, i.e. recognized, or it would just be noise -- "less
even than a dream" or "nothing to us," as Kant alternatively puts it.
13. Organic life on earth.
14. Growth of the ray of creation.
22. "Two hundred conscious people could change the whole of life on earth."
23. Three "inner circles of humanity".
24. The "outer circle". Define Exoteric :From:Wordsmith To:
linguaphile@wordsmith.org Subject: A.Word.A.Day--exoteric exoteric (ek-so-TER-
ik) adjective
1. Not limited to an inner circle of select people.
2. Suitable for the general public.
3. Relating to the outside; external
[From Latin exotericus, from Greek exoterikos (external), from exotero, comparative
form of exo (outside).] "In crude terms, some critics of Strauss argue that he
interpreted the ancient philosophers as offering two different teachings, an esoteric
one which is available only to those who read the ancient texts closely, and an
exoteric one accessible to naive readers. The exoteric interpretations were aimed at
the mass of people, the vulgar, while the esoteric teachings - the hidden meanings -
were vouch-safed to the few, the philosophers." Ronald Bailey, Origin of the
Specious: Why Do Neoconservatives Doubt Darwin?, Reason magazine (Los
Angeles), Jul 1, 1997. "In their different ways and obviously to a varying degree these
two publications should appeal to those who are alienated by exoteric Judaism
stripped of its mystical elements. Ronald Isaacs begins by noting that there is no
biblical Hebrew word for miracle." Jonathan Galante, Mysticism for the Masses,
Jerusalem Post, Aug 27, 1999
25. The four "ways" as four gates to the "exoteric circle".
26. Schools of the fourth way.
27. Pseudo exoteric systems and schools.
28. "Truth in the form of a lie".
29. Esoteric schools in the East. Essoteric:"Know thyself" is one of the fundamental
tenets of esotericism but, as Alan Watts has bluntly put it, there is a Taboo Against
Knowing Who You Are. The esoteric disciplines both in the East and in the West have
been repositories of hidden and secret knowledge designed to circumvent this taboo.
Yeah!?
30. Initiation and the Mysteries.
31. Only self-initiation is possible.
The following questions for this chapter were developed by Richard Liebow :
Chapter#16
Historical events of the Winter 1916-17,
Consciousness of matter. An interesting
event-"transfiguration" or " plastics"?
Outline:
22. Application of the idea of cosmoses to the inner processess of the human organism.
23. The life of molecules and electrons.
24. Time dimensions of different cosmoses.
25. Application of the Minkovski formula.
26. Relation of different times to centersof the human body.
27. Relation to higher centers.
28. "Cosmic calculation of time" in Gnostic and Indian literature.
22. Application of the idea of cosmoses to the inner processess of the human organism.
23. The life of molecules and electrons.
24. Time dimensions of different cosmoses.
25. Application of the Minkovski formula.
26. Relation of different times to centersof the human body.
27. Relation to higher centers.
28. "Cosmic calculation of time" in Gnostic and Indian literature.
Notes: SPACE-TIME :In our three-dimensional (3-D) space, we have three "degrees
of freedom" to move. We see objects that occupy space exclusive of each other. We
also experience time,
From there we are into our concentration on the points in the outline of Chapter
Sixteen. And for our review of the content of Chapter Sixteen we address some of
these questions: 1) Are you becoming convinced that events are not against you at all?
2) What are you doing to strengthen your feeling of "I"...? 3) What do you think that
portrait of G. with his black curly hair and wearing a black frock coat signifies? 4)
How well are you able to adapt yourself to any kind of work--to any kind of business?
5) Do you really believe that a baked potato is more intelligent than a raw potato? 6)
Do you accept the suggestion that every object--a pebble, a blade of grass, a worm--
possesses some degree of intelligence? 7) Do you really believe that your perceptions
of feeling move 30,000 times faster than your thoughts? 8) Regarding the story of G.
on the train leaving Petersburg for the last time: Was he physically transformed or was
it just an hallucination? 9) Do you perceive this system of ideas as some kind of
Noah's Ark? 10) Do you accept the suggestion that every living creature feeds on
other living creatures--and serves as food for still other living creatures? 11) Do you
accept the suggestion that every living creature possesses within itself its own unique
dimension of time and projects onto its fields on activity its own subjective
conception of time? 12) Do you feel that G.'s relationship with his father may serve as
some kind of a model for how one ought to relate to other human creatures? 13) Why
do you suppose G. places so much value and importance and necessity of difficult
situtations, challenging relationships, and mass madness? 14) Are you in the business
of collecting knowledge and collecting people? And what do you do with the
knowledge of the people you collect? 15) Are you really more intelligent than a baked
potato? 16) Do you think that people that grow up in a small village like Alexandropol
are any better off than those of us who struggle with the challenges of life in a big
city? 17) War or no war, do you always make a profit? 18) Are you a puppet--or a
puppeteer? 19) Can you eat water and breathe fire? 20) In your opinion, is there any
chance that the kind of social upheaval that was happening in Russia in 1917 could
happen in the United States of America any time soon?
Teilhard de Chardin’s Evolutionary Philosophy According to Teilhard,
Consciousness and Matter are aspects of the same reality, and are called the "Within"
and the "Without" respectively. Evolution is the steady increase in the "Within" or
degree of consciousness and complexity, through a number of successive stages: the
various grades of inanimate matter; life or the "Biosphere"; man or thought or mind,
the "Noosphere" (Teilhard's cosmology reflects the Christian anthropocentric bias in
having man as the first progression from inanimate matter through primitive life and
invertebrates to fish, amphibia, reptiles, mammals, and finally man; always an
increase in consciousness. With man a threshhold is crossed - self-conscious thought,
or mind, appears. But even humans do not represent the end-point of evolution, for
this process will continue until all humans are united in a single Divine Christ-
consciousness, the "Omega Point" (so-called after the last letter of the Greek alphabet
- hence the Hellenistic statement attributed to Christ (but unlikely to be said by him,
as he would not have known Greek - "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning
and the end"). Teilhardian cosmology thus revolves around the idea of an evolutionary
progression towards greater and greater consciousness, culminating first in the
appearance of self-conscious mind in humankind, and then in the Omega point of
divinisation of humanity. Teilhard refers to "Centeredness" as a characteristic of the
universe on all levels. Each corpuscle of matter has a centre "within", its principle of
organisation. The more complex the being, the greater degree of centreity. Teilhard
teaches that Centreity is the true, absolute measure of being in the beings that
surround us, and the only basis for a truely natural classification of the elements of the
universe. The axis of evolution stretches from the lowest degree of centreity to the
highest, and entities having the same degree of centreity constitute "isopheres",
forming universal units of the same type of being. So pre-living entities are ordered
on Earth in the lithosphere, the hydrosphere, and the atmosphere. Organic beings
make up the biosphere, and thinking entities (which in Teilhard's system solely means
man) the noosphere. When ranked in their natural order, the whole family of isopheres
will define at the heart of the system a focus-point of universal synthesis, the Centre
of centres, Omega [Activation of Energy, pp.10-13, 102; Beatrice Bruteau, Evolution
towards Divinity, p.138],
Einstein, Albert (1879-1955), German-born American physicist and Nobel laureate,
best known as the creator of the special and general theories of relativity and for his
bold hypothesis concerning the particle nature of light. He is perhaps the most well-
known scientist of the 20th century.
Einstein’s third major paper in 1905, “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, ”
contained what became known as the special theory of relativity. Since the time of the
English mathematician and physicist Sir Isaac Newton, natural philosophers (as
physicists and chemists were known) had been trying to understand the nature of
matter and radiation, and how they interacted in some unified world picture. The
position that mechanical laws are fundamental has become known as the mechanical
world view, and the position that electrical laws are fundamental has become known
as the electromagnetic world view. Neither approach, however, is capable of
providing a consistent explanation for the way radiation (light, for example) and
matter interact when viewed from different inertial frames of reference, that is, an
interaction viewed simultaneously by an observer at rest and an observer moving at
uniform speed. In the spring of 1905, after considering these problems for ten years,
Einstein realized that the crux of the problem lay not in a theory of matter but in a
theory of measurement. At the heart of his special theory of relativity was the
realization that all measurements of time and space depend on judgments as to
whether two distant events occur simultaneously. This led him to develop a theory
based on two postulates: the principle of relativity, that physical laws are the same in
all inertial reference systems, and the principle of the invariance of the speed of light,
that the speed of light in a vacuum is a universal constant. He was thus able to provide
a consistent and correct description of physical events in different inertial frames of
reference without making special assumptions about the nature of matter or radiation,
or how they interact. Virtually no one understood Einstein’s argument. He also said
that there's two ways of lookink at life (1) Nothing is a miracle, and (2) Everything is
a miracle.
A breath is 3 seconds. In a normal state, a man takes about twenty full breaths in a
minute. The "breath of organic life" is twenty-four hours.
Glossary:
Nicholas II.:
Minkovski formula:
Additional Notes:
Eric Hoffer was a American social philosopher. He was born in 1902 and died in
1983, after writing nine books and winning the Presidential Medal of Freedom. His
first book, The True Believer, published in 1951, was widely recognized as a classic.
This book, which he considered his best, established his reputation, and he remained a
successful writer for most of his remaining years.
At age seven, and for unknown reasons, Hoffer went blind. His eyesight inexplicably
returned when he was fifteen. Fearing he would again go blind, he seized upon the
opportunity to read as much as he could for as long as he could. His eyesight
remained, but Hoffer never abandoned his habit of voracious reading. He was
completely self-educated.
His work was not only original, it was completely out of step with dominant academic
trends. In particular, it was completey non-Freudian, at a time when almost all
American psychology was confined to the Freudian paradigm. In avoiding the
academic mainstream, Hoffer managed to avoid the straightjacket of established
thought.
Hoffer was among the first to recognize the central importance of self-esteem to
psychological well-being. While most recent writers focus on the benefits of a
positive self-esteem, Hoffer focused on the consequences of a lack of self-esteem. He
finds in self-hatred, self-doubt, and insecurity the roots of fanatacism and self-
righteousness. He finds that a passionate obsession with the outside world or with the
private lives of other people is merely a craven attempt to compensate for a lack of
meaning in one's own life.
Additional Notes: Some of you may have had the experience of gradually or even
suddenly realizing that you have been thoroughly deceived by somebody or
something. For weeks, months, years--sometimes even decades--you believed
somebody or something was one way, only to find out that such was not the case at
all. Life usually affords us at least a few such experiences.
Ouspensky here seems to confuse the map with the teritory
Chapter#17
This chapter is about schools and Exercises. You must realize that the chance to meet
some kind of school is very rare - I mean to meet a school in real life, not in books or
in theory; and if one meets a school, generally there is no other. said Peter Ouspensky.
I'm not sure that we're in a school or not. Need a better understanding what school is,
and what about the sacrifice. our school is not really a school We all bring something
to the party
Original Outline Points
1. August 1917.
2. The six weeks at Essentuki.
3. G. unfolds the plan of the whole work.
4. “Schools are imperative”.
5. “Super-efforts”.
6. The unison of the centers is the chief difficulty in work on oneself.
7. Man the slave of his body.
1. August 1917.
2. The six weeks at Essentuki.
3. G. unfolds the plan of the whole work.
4. “Schools are imperative”.
5. “Super-efforts”. What is super effort? It isn't working harder; Yes we must go the extra mile , but it
go all the way and accomplish what we said out to do our aim,it relly means what AAA says: Halfw
us nothing! Half ass work is not an opption, otherwise this (Gurdjiffian system) is nothing but hot a
and effort we have done will be for norhing. It evaports fast; like farth in the wind.
6. The unison of the centers is the chief difficulty in work on oneself.
7. Man the slave of his body.
Outline
1. Petersburg: October1917.
2. Bolshevik revolution.
3. Return to G. in the Caucasus.
4. G’s. attitude to one of his pupils.
5. A small company with G. at Essentuki
6. More people arrive.
7. Resumption of work.
Notes and Archival material: Ouspensky’s experimental efforts to enter higher states
of consciousness proved to him that an entirely new mode of thought was needed by
modern man, qualitatively different from the two modes (classical and positivistic)
that have dominated Western civilization for 2000 years. I need to think about this
Additional Notes:Katherine Mansfield: Mansfied and Murray became closely
associated with D.H. Lawrence and his wife Frieda. When Murray had an affair with
the Princess Bibesco (née Asquith), Mansfield objected not to the affair but to her
letters to Murray: "I am afraid you must stop writing these love letters to my husband
while he and I live together. It is one of the things which is not done in our world."
(from a letter to Princess Bibesco, 1921). In her last years Katherina Mansfield lived
much of her time in southern France and in Switzerland, seeking relief from
tuberculosis. As a part of her treatment in 1922 at an institute (institute, sminstitute
that is the Gurdjiffian stuff), Mansfield had to spend a few hours every day on a
platform suspended over a cow manger. She breathed odors emanating from below
but the treatment did no good. (how could it? it's plain quackery) Without the
company of her literary friends, family, or her husband, she wrote much about her
own roots and her childhood. Mansfield died of a pulmonary hemorrhage on January
9, 1923, in Gurdjieff Institute, near Fontainebleau, France. Her last words were: "I
love the rain. I want the feeling of it on my face." I saw her grave in the Avon
cemetery. A lot of people blame Gurdjieff for her death. I don't because, at one point
we become responsible for our own death.
Glossary:operational consciousness
Dr. Zivago
Essentuki, Caucasses,Petersburg/Tiflis/Sochi/London/Rostov