Post by stardustpilgrim on Jan 15, 2024 11:16:11 GMT -5
Just up front, within this OP is a quote from In Search of the Miraculous, Gurdjieff speaking. Probably half of ISotM is a report by PD Ouspensky of what Gurdjieff said. Gurdjieff read it, approved of it, said publish it. It's clear when Ouspensky is speaking and when Gurdjieff is speaking.
I've read probably at least ten books by Cheri Huber, a Zen teacher. She's very good, very concise, simple, profound. You could easily call her a ND teacher, but that is kind of redundant.
OK, this part is for tenka-inavalan. Do you ever have a conversation in your head? Do you talk to yourself, and answer yourself? You don't have to answer, we all do, or we used to. Cheri Huber says the big bamboozle is almost like a AI in-your-head which continually tries to convince ~you~ that this dialogue is the real-actual you. (AI comes from sdp, she doesn't say AI so far, haven't finished the book). How would you know otherwise? OK, the why? She says the Con Artist lives on stealing your attention, its fuel is attention, its food is attention. This is where she directly connects with the Gurdjieff teaching, thus the coming quote.
Cheri Huber is a proponent of practice. sdp would call correct spiritual practice, collecting attention. So when you see meditation, it means collecting attention. When you see shikantaza, it means collecting attention. It isn't just sitting, a rock just sits. You could say it's in a sense everything it takes, to just sit. It's just-awareness, which allows one to just sit. It's not so easy to just sit. Albert low explains pretty well the everything it takes to just sit.
So, in the context of practice (she just uses the word practice), the Con Artist will do anything and everything to take your attention. She gives twelve strategies the Con Artist continually uses to take your attention. The first is distraction. When there is just-attention, present moment attention, the Con Artist doesn't exist. But Con Artist AI has a whole team of influences and support which tries to immediately promote C-A back into control. So there are multiple ways the C-A gets ~you~ to say "I", to it. It's basic job is to get you to say "I", to anything that takes your attention. Con Artist is a kind of job description, what the C-A is, is an Imposter. This gets me closer to the quote. I read the quote almost exactly 48 years ago, and we discussed it thoroughly in meetings. We were taught to continually come back to 'collecting attention'.
OK, this is especially for ZD, and the NDtists. Here's another problem with ND (I gave two in a post last night in reply to inavalan). You see the NDtists INCLUDE the C-A as part of All That Is. I've seen this language often, and it seems the purpose to to make it OK. But the C-A is imaginary, that's the whole point. I have no problem with ZD calling it imaginary, you've seen through the imposter-ness. But you tell everybody, you know that voice in-the-head, it's imaginary, because when it vanished, I saw it never existed in the first place (which is correct). But, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. Telling anyone the "I" which they think they are, they aren't, can be a delicate matter. But you basically say, ND means that the C-A-Imposter gets to go along for the ride, because ND is inclusive. This is a subtle point, probably better left to discuss later. But I finally get to my quote. You see, from day one we were taught, you have to become two. Something has to be separate, from the C-A-Imposter, to be able to see the C-A-Imposter. But NDtists will have nothing to do with that, because it promotes two, and if there is anything we don't want to do, it's we don't want to promote two in any sense. However, it's necessary, attention-awareness is what sees the C-A-Imposter, nothing else can. This has gotten longer that I wished, the quote.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Instead of the man he had supposed himself to be he will see quite another man.
This 'other' man is himself and at the same time not himself. It is he as other people
know him, as he imagines himself and as he appears in his actions, words, and so on;
but not altogether such as he actually is. For a man himself knows that there is a great
deal that is unreal, invented, and artificial in this other man whom other people know
and whom he knows himself. You must learn to divide the real from the invented. And to begin
self-observation and self-study it is necessary to divide oneself. A man must realize
that he indeed consists of two men.
"One is the man he calls 'I' and whom others call
'Ouspensky,' 'Zakharov' or'Petrov.' The other is the real he, the real I, which appears
in his life only for very short moments and which can become firm and permanent only
after a very lengthy period of work. "So long as a man takes himself as one person he will
never move from where he is. His work on himself starts from the moment when he begins to
feel two men in himself. One is passive and the most it can do is to register or observe what
is happening to it. The other, which calls itself 'I,' is active, and speaks of itself in the
first person, is in reality only 'Ouspensky,' 'Petrov' or 'Zakharov.'
"This is the first realization that a man can have. Having begun to think correctly he
very soon sees that he is completely in the power of his 'Ouspensky,' 'Petrov,' or
'Zakharov.' No matter what he plans or what he intends to do or say, it is not 'he,' not
'I,' that will carry it out, do or say it, but his 'Ouspensky' 'Petrov,' or 'Zakharov,' and of
course they will do or say it, not in the way 'I' would have done or said it, but in their
own way with their own shade of meaning, and often this shade of meaning
completely changes what 'I' wanted to do.
"From this point of view there is a very definite
danger arising from the very first moment of self-observation. It is 'I' who begins
self-observation, But 'Ouspensky','Zakharov,' or 'Petrov' from the very
first steps introduces a slight alteration into this self-observation, an alteration which seems
to be quite unimportant but which in reality fundamentally alters the whole thing".
In Search of the Miraculous pages 146, 147
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So, of course the Con Artist-Imposter never tells us it is an imposter, the C-A-Imposter calls itself I. So Cheri Huber directly connects, here, with exactly what Gurdjieff taught, and what sdp was taught, from day one. I have explained for years, here, this whole process. So what tenka and inavalan need to be careful concerning, what is, what do you say I to? For ZD, Bob Harwood actually disappeared one day, he doesn't even call himself Bob except as a social convenience. As this has gotten very long, I'll come back later with some commentary, but this is essentially what I wanted to say. But one last thing, this, is the Con Artist-Imposter at work.
I've read probably at least ten books by Cheri Huber, a Zen teacher. She's very good, very concise, simple, profound. You could easily call her a ND teacher, but that is kind of redundant.
OK, this part is for tenka-inavalan. Do you ever have a conversation in your head? Do you talk to yourself, and answer yourself? You don't have to answer, we all do, or we used to. Cheri Huber says the big bamboozle is almost like a AI in-your-head which continually tries to convince ~you~ that this dialogue is the real-actual you. (AI comes from sdp, she doesn't say AI so far, haven't finished the book). How would you know otherwise? OK, the why? She says the Con Artist lives on stealing your attention, its fuel is attention, its food is attention. This is where she directly connects with the Gurdjieff teaching, thus the coming quote.
Cheri Huber is a proponent of practice. sdp would call correct spiritual practice, collecting attention. So when you see meditation, it means collecting attention. When you see shikantaza, it means collecting attention. It isn't just sitting, a rock just sits. You could say it's in a sense everything it takes, to just sit. It's just-awareness, which allows one to just sit. It's not so easy to just sit. Albert low explains pretty well the everything it takes to just sit.
So, in the context of practice (she just uses the word practice), the Con Artist will do anything and everything to take your attention. She gives twelve strategies the Con Artist continually uses to take your attention. The first is distraction. When there is just-attention, present moment attention, the Con Artist doesn't exist. But Con Artist AI has a whole team of influences and support which tries to immediately promote C-A back into control. So there are multiple ways the C-A gets ~you~ to say "I", to it. It's basic job is to get you to say "I", to anything that takes your attention. Con Artist is a kind of job description, what the C-A is, is an Imposter. This gets me closer to the quote. I read the quote almost exactly 48 years ago, and we discussed it thoroughly in meetings. We were taught to continually come back to 'collecting attention'.
OK, this is especially for ZD, and the NDtists. Here's another problem with ND (I gave two in a post last night in reply to inavalan). You see the NDtists INCLUDE the C-A as part of All That Is. I've seen this language often, and it seems the purpose to to make it OK. But the C-A is imaginary, that's the whole point. I have no problem with ZD calling it imaginary, you've seen through the imposter-ness. But you tell everybody, you know that voice in-the-head, it's imaginary, because when it vanished, I saw it never existed in the first place (which is correct). But, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. Telling anyone the "I" which they think they are, they aren't, can be a delicate matter. But you basically say, ND means that the C-A-Imposter gets to go along for the ride, because ND is inclusive. This is a subtle point, probably better left to discuss later. But I finally get to my quote. You see, from day one we were taught, you have to become two. Something has to be separate, from the C-A-Imposter, to be able to see the C-A-Imposter. But NDtists will have nothing to do with that, because it promotes two, and if there is anything we don't want to do, it's we don't want to promote two in any sense. However, it's necessary, attention-awareness is what sees the C-A-Imposter, nothing else can. This has gotten longer that I wished, the quote.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Instead of the man he had supposed himself to be he will see quite another man.
This 'other' man is himself and at the same time not himself. It is he as other people
know him, as he imagines himself and as he appears in his actions, words, and so on;
but not altogether such as he actually is. For a man himself knows that there is a great
deal that is unreal, invented, and artificial in this other man whom other people know
and whom he knows himself. You must learn to divide the real from the invented. And to begin
self-observation and self-study it is necessary to divide oneself. A man must realize
that he indeed consists of two men.
"One is the man he calls 'I' and whom others call
'Ouspensky,' 'Zakharov' or'Petrov.' The other is the real he, the real I, which appears
in his life only for very short moments and which can become firm and permanent only
after a very lengthy period of work. "So long as a man takes himself as one person he will
never move from where he is. His work on himself starts from the moment when he begins to
feel two men in himself. One is passive and the most it can do is to register or observe what
is happening to it. The other, which calls itself 'I,' is active, and speaks of itself in the
first person, is in reality only 'Ouspensky,' 'Petrov' or 'Zakharov.'
"This is the first realization that a man can have. Having begun to think correctly he
very soon sees that he is completely in the power of his 'Ouspensky,' 'Petrov,' or
'Zakharov.' No matter what he plans or what he intends to do or say, it is not 'he,' not
'I,' that will carry it out, do or say it, but his 'Ouspensky' 'Petrov,' or 'Zakharov,' and of
course they will do or say it, not in the way 'I' would have done or said it, but in their
own way with their own shade of meaning, and often this shade of meaning
completely changes what 'I' wanted to do.
"From this point of view there is a very definite
danger arising from the very first moment of self-observation. It is 'I' who begins
self-observation, But 'Ouspensky','Zakharov,' or 'Petrov' from the very
first steps introduces a slight alteration into this self-observation, an alteration which seems
to be quite unimportant but which in reality fundamentally alters the whole thing".
In Search of the Miraculous pages 146, 147
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So, of course the Con Artist-Imposter never tells us it is an imposter, the C-A-Imposter calls itself I. So Cheri Huber directly connects, here, with exactly what Gurdjieff taught, and what sdp was taught, from day one. I have explained for years, here, this whole process. So what tenka and inavalan need to be careful concerning, what is, what do you say I to? For ZD, Bob Harwood actually disappeared one day, he doesn't even call himself Bob except as a social convenience. As this has gotten very long, I'll come back later with some commentary, but this is essentially what I wanted to say. But one last thing, this, is the Con Artist-Imposter at work.
