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Post by zin on Sept 21, 2019 21:30:55 GMT -5
I am going to ask about 'conscious efforts' (I haven't read this thread from the start this time). I don't know about any formal practice; neither zazen nor self-remembering. What I am reading nowadays about Gurdjieff's teaching focuses on harmonious working of three centers of man (intellectual center, feeling center, instinctive-moving center). It seems one just tries not to get lost in one of them - one tries to use all three as much as possible. Is that right?
I think the intellectual center brings the possibility of seeing; the body, doing; and the emotional center gives 'depth'. I don't know what brings them together exactly.. But the 'effort' there does not look like an effort of sitting at some place for hours.. I mean it is a normal activity, but not always possible due to abnormal habits. .... Now...conscious efforts are not done with the centers, not thinking, not feeling/emotions, not bodily-actions, not sensations. zd's ATA-T is/can be a kind of conscious effort, but it is closer to preparatory work, it is sensing (which is preparatory work). Conscious efforts can take place simultaneously with the use of the centers, any time, any place, so yes, along with any normal activity. .... What about the 'higher centers'? Do they do anything? As I understand, a person can 'use' the lower centers, but I don't know how is it with the higher ones.
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Post by Reefs on Sept 21, 2019 23:02:28 GMT -5
SDP & Zindarud, does this sound like a fair assessment of Gurdjieff's teaching?
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Post by zin on Sept 22, 2019 6:27:18 GMT -5
SDP & Zindarud, does this sound like a fair assessment of Gurdjieff's teaching? I found it not wrong (except where he says that Gurdjieff had no respect for ordinary people) but a bit superficial. But I get obsessed with whatever I'm interested in, so I may not be impartial enough : )
The parts where I find valuable are, his telling about how he saw that his ordinary state of consciousness was just a dull bunch of conditioned responses.. And the part about the balanced state of centers/intelligences in man, its bringing the possibility of a deeper spiritual self. And also the mentioning about the studies (in psychology) on behaviour being based on a sterile view of the universe 'where there's no spiritual possibility'. Also the talk on Gurdjieff movements was good.
I think when one goes into this kind of 'work', one sooner or later comes to the cosmological aspect of it (the part which he finds nonsense). It is not solely about the individual person. In the R. Spira talk (on Cause and Effect and SR thread) Spira was saying if you feel that you should make efforts, do it, but know that it is God making the efforts (that's how I remember). Imo one can see the work in that way, too. You can say God makes one 'part' (you) conscious about what He is doing. This is just one way of explanation though, I am not attached to it.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Sept 22, 2019 8:30:05 GMT -5
.... Now...conscious efforts are not done with the centers, not thinking, not feeling/emotions, not bodily-actions, not sensations. zd's ATA-T is/can be a kind of conscious effort, but it is closer to preparatory work, it is sensing (which is preparatory work). Conscious efforts can take place simultaneously with the use of the centers, any time, any place, so yes, along with any normal activity. .... What about the 'higher centers'? Do they do anything? As I understand, a person can 'use' the lower centers, but I don't know how is it with the higher ones. The two higher centers are always functioning, in everyone. But we are not normally aware of their functioning. The higher emotional center is contacted through the emotional center, but our emotional center is so clogged with ~nasty~ emotions, these burn off a surplus of energy which has the possibility of being transformed into an energy which allows connection with the higher emotional center. One could say the whole of the Work is working toward being able to be connected to the higher centers. So work really begins with balancing the centers so that each center works with its own energy, thus saving energy, and transforming this energy to a finer quality which can connect to the higher centers. This is a process of learning, which begins with self-study.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Sept 22, 2019 8:52:15 GMT -5
SDP & Zindarud, does this sound like a fair assessment of Gurdjieff's teaching? I found it not wrong (except where he says that Gurdjieff had no respect for ordinary people) but a bit superficial. But I get obsessed with whatever I'm interested in, so I may not be impartial enough : ) The parts where I find valuable are, his telling about how he saw that his ordinary state of consciousness was just a dull bunch of conditioned responses.. And the part about the balanced state of centers/intelligences in man, its bringing the possibility of a deeper spiritual self. And also the mentioning about the studies (in psychology) on behaviour being based on a sterile view of the universe 'where there's no spiritual possibility'. Also the talk on Gurdjieff movements was good.
I think when one goes into this kind of 'work', one sooner or later comes to the cosmological aspect of it (the part which he finds nonsense). It is not solely about the individual person. In the R. Spira talk (on Cause and Effect and SR thread) Spira was saying if you feel that you should make efforts, do it, but know that it is God making the efforts (that's how I remember). Imo one can see the work in that way, too. You can say God makes one 'part' (you) conscious about what He is doing. This is just one way of explanation though, I am not attached to it. I haven't looked at the video yet but will say one thing here. Gurdjieff loved ordinary hard working people. There is a story where he showed a student a room full of paintings. Instead of just giving money away (which he did do), for some he bought their paintings (he lived is Paris then). Children on the streets of Paris called him Monsieur Bon Bon as he always had candy in his pocket to give them. And he left big tips when appropriate. When he died there were many stories of those sad, because he was their desperation source when in need of money for food or rent, these stories secret until he died. But also certain people he did have contempt for. He didn't care for the intelligiency. He didn't like the merely curious, say certain reporters or academics.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Sept 22, 2019 14:17:29 GMT -5
SDP & Zindarud, does this sound like a fair assessment of Gurdjieff's teaching? Just finished listening to. Yes, what he says is pretty accurate. Many things he says could be expanded upon and clarified so it could turn into two or more hours easily. But it's pretty close to being enough to get one interested in reading In Search of the Miraculous. It starts from Gurdjieff's teaching in Russia about 1912-1915 to Ouspensky's break with Gurdjieff (but not the teaching) about 1924. (There were several breaks until the final break). PD Ouspensky worked on the book until his death in 1947. Now, Madame Ouspensky never broke with Gurdjieff. But Gurdjieff basically told her to stay with Ouspensky. They eventually moved to America, and lived in New Jersey during WWII. PD didn't really talk to his students about Gurdjieff, didn't tell his students about Beelzebub's Tales (which was available in manuscript form). So when PD died his students asked Madame Ouspensky, What should we do? She answered, go to Gurdjieff in Paris. She also sent the manuscript, which was named: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching (which became the subtitle), to Gurdjieff. Gurdjieff read it and said: He write what I say. Gurdjieff called it objective reporting. ...So then, if one reads In Search of the Miraculous, that could be start of a real search, or it could at least be an indication of the why of no further searching, for you, in the Gurdjieff tradition (or maybe not even that). Meaning, basically, one has to bring something to the teaching. One other thing, maybe Tart doesn't see himself, impartially. He gave hints of this theoretically, but spoke of himself as being unified, that is, from the standpoint of ~Charles Tart~ (one has to be able to "step back" from oneself). We are really layers of the persona/mask, that is, not-one. But this is not so easy to see. He could have said directly (he did indicate the general idea) part of Charles Tart, the conditioning, IS a machine. The part that's NOT a machine is the really only important part. But yes, the New Thinking Allowed Charles Tart interview is a good start. I would only add a question, What sees?-What is the work done with? And a Tart answer, Attention...and awareness, this is what is-not machine. But what he did say is maybe enough, a beginning. Where he did talk about attention, he could have added, this is fundamental, and obligatory.
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Post by Reefs on Sept 24, 2019 4:03:20 GMT -5
SDP & Zindarud, does this sound like a fair assessment of Gurdjieff's teaching? I found it not wrong (except where he says that Gurdjieff had no respect for ordinary people) but a bit superficial. But I get obsessed with whatever I'm interested in, so I may not be impartial enough : ) The parts where I find valuable are, his telling about how he saw that his ordinary state of consciousness was just a dull bunch of conditioned responses.. And the part about the balanced state of centers/intelligences in man, its bringing the possibility of a deeper spiritual self. And also the mentioning about the studies (in psychology) on behaviour being based on a sterile view of the universe 'where there's no spiritual possibility'. Also the talk on Gurdjieff movements was good.
I think when one goes into this kind of 'work', one sooner or later comes to the cosmological aspect of it (the part which he finds nonsense). It is not solely about the individual person. In the R. Spira talk (on Cause and Effect and SR thread) Spira was saying if you feel that you should make efforts, do it, but know that it is God making the efforts (that's how I remember). Imo one can see the work in that way, too. You can say God makes one 'part' (you) conscious about what He is doing. This is just one way of explanation though, I am not attached to it. Okay, thanks. So he basically got the basics right. I've never read any of Gurdjieff's works. But what I've heard always sounded a tad too weird to get me interested in exploring it further. But the way Tart presented it changed my views on Gurdjieff completely.
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Post by Reefs on Sept 24, 2019 4:16:29 GMT -5
SDP & Zindarud, does this sound like a fair assessment of Gurdjieff's teaching? Just finished listening to. Yes, what he says is pretty accurate. Many things he says could be expanded upon and clarified so it could turn into two or more hours easily. But it's pretty close to being enough to get one interested in reading In Search of the Miraculous. It starts from Gurdjieff's teaching in Russia about 1912-1915 to Ouspensky's break with Gurdjieff (but not the teaching) about 1924. (There were several breaks until the final break). PD Ouspensky worked on the book until his death in 1947. Now, Madame Ouspensky never broke with Gurdjieff. But Gurdjieff basically told her to stay with Ouspensky. They eventually moved to America, and lived in New Jersey during WWII. PD didn't really talk to his students about Gurdjieff, didn't tell his students about Beelzebub's Tales (which was available in manuscript form). So when PD died his students asked Madame Ouspensky, What should we do? She answered, go to Gurdjieff in Paris. She also sent the manuscript, which was named: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching (which became the subtitle), to Gurdjieff. Gurdjieff read it and said: He write what I say. Gurdjieff called it objective reporting. ...So then, if one reads In Search of the Miraculous, that could be start of a real search, or it could at least be an indication of the why of no further searching, for you, in the Gurdjieff tradition (or maybe not even that). Meaning, basically, one has to bring something to the teaching. One other thing, maybe Tart doesn't see himself, impartially. He gave hints of this theoretically, but spoke of himself as being unified, that is, from the standpoint of ~Charles Tart~ (one has to be able to "step back" from oneself). We are really layers of the persona/mask, that is, not-one. But this is not so easy to see. He could have said directly (he did indicate the general idea) part of Charles Tart, the conditioning, IS a machine. The part that's NOT a machine is the really only important part. But yes, the New Thinking Allowed Charles Tart interview is a good start. I would only add a question, What sees?-What is the work done with? And a Tart answer, Attention...and awareness, this is what is-not machine. But what he did say is maybe enough, a beginning. Where he did talk about attention, he could have added, this is fundamental, and obligatory. Cool. Well, Tart looks at it primarily thru the filter of a psychologist. And with that perspective, one can't really go that deep. But I think it's also this perspective that made his presentation quite balanced and well structured. When he mentioned the space between thoughts and how he struggled with that pointer, that was sort of a giveaway for where he's actually at on the pathless path. But overall, I enjoyed the interview. He made Gurdjieff a lot more digestible to me.
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Post by zendancer on Sept 24, 2019 9:35:39 GMT -5
.[/quote]Cool. Well, Tart looks at it primarily thru the filter of a psychologist. And with that perspective, one can't really go that deep. But I think it's also this perspective that made his presentation quite balanced and well structured. When he mentioned the space between thoughts and how he struggled with that pointer, that was sort of a giveaway for where he's actually at on the pathless path. But overall, I enjoyed the interview. He made Gurdjieff a lot more digestible to me. [/quote]
Agreed. I encountered Tart more than 30 years ago, and I've often used his phrase "the concensus trance state" to point to the usual mind state of adults. I had never read about Gurdjieff's 3 centers, but that's certainly a worthwhile distinction. As you noted, Tart's comments about his own inability to meditate or become silent reveals that he remains an intellectual who has not yet become intimately familiar with what are arguably the two most important centers of intelligence. Tart also probably doesn't realize that by activating or focusing upon the body's natural intelligence it's possible to (1) become free of the intellect and (2) activate the emotional center.
Like Tart, I found the cushion-sitting thing to be rather cold and isolating, but it was a valuable first step for a blind person searching for a light switch, and it ultimately led to finding an activity (ATA-T) that was broader in scope and could be pursued in the midst of ordinary life. IOW, from my POV the fastest path to freedom and non-abidance is through re-discovering the body's natural intelligence, shifting attention to the ways that that intelligence manifests, and learning to trust that intelligence. Chilton Pearce didn't use those exact words, but what he was pointing to with his phrase "the primary program" was body knowledge, and his phrase "the secondary program" pointed to the intellectual overlay that keeps most adults trapped in Tart's "consensus trance state."
The great advantage to shifting attention away from thoughts to the body, to what the body senses, and to what the body does is that it's simple. There are no levels involved, and there is no complexity. It is, quite literally, a reversal of the activity that inevitably led to the dominance of the intellectual center. Best of all, no cushions are necessary, and the activity of pouring concrete, IF ATTENTION IS FULLY FOCUSED UPON THAT ACTIVITY, can probably lead to clarity faster than sitting in a cave on a mountaintop.
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Post by zendancer on Sept 24, 2019 11:10:19 GMT -5
Bearing in mind one name for the Gurdjieff teaching is the Work, and making conscious efforts is called work (on oneself), and the last sentence of my last post, and that post in general, "No work can be done in sleep" (the second state of consciousness), Gurdjieff. So one has to judge the value of "efforting", and the results, and what sleep is (the second state), and what it means to not-be asleep. (IOW, one comes to love and enjoy conscious efforts, and to such an extent that the results are simply a bonus). But of course you will still interpret all this from your own POV. I am going to ask about 'conscious efforts' (I haven't read this thread from the start this time). I don't know about any formal practice; neither zazen nor self-remembering. What I am reading nowadays about Gurdjieff's teaching focuses on harmonious working of three centers of man (intellectual center, feeling center, instinctive-moving center). It seems one just tries not to get lost in one of them - one tries to use all three as much as possible. Is that right?
I think the intellectual center brings the possibility of seeing; the body, doing; and the emotional center gives 'depth'. I don't know what brings them together exactly.. But the 'effort' there does not look like an effort of sitting at some place for hours.. I mean it is a normal activity, but not always possible due to abnormal habits. Because I had forgotten (or never learned about) Gurdjieff's 3 centers), I didn't respond to this post initially, but after watching the Tart interview, I became clearer about what G was pointing to as well as some other teachers who've pointed to the same thing. Adya, for example, talks about intellectual enlightenment, heart enlightenment, and gut enlightenment, and he's probably pointing to the same 3 centers. He talks about realization moving from a head-centered perspective, down to a heart-centered perspective, and ultimately to a body-centered perspective that is unified. Is there a conscious effort involved in anything we do, including practices like meditation? Is there any work involved? Well, yes and no, depending upon what has been realized and depending upon what one's understanding is. From a Zen perspective, that kind of question is generated by the intellect, and, as such, any verbal response to a yes/no existential question misses the reality that underlies the issue. Consequently, no advanced Zen student would ever answer such a question with either a yes or no. S/he would respond in a different way that would point directly to the truth of the matter. Whether the questioner would understand that pointing would depend upon his/her level of understanding. If, however, we ignore the Zen kind of response, and answer the question from a conventional perspective, then we're forced to discuss both sides of the issue. When an adult has decided to do anything, what was the source of the decision? Was there a thought that preceded the action? If so, where did the thought come from, and who had the thought? If no thought preceded the action, then what prompted the action? People who have learned to stop thinking, or people who have performed some of the volitional experiments suggested by many sages, know that thinking is not necessary for intelligent action to occur. Even people who are lost in thoughts do not have to think about going to bathroom when the body needs to do that. ITSW, people do not have to think in order to breathe, respond to sensory stimuli, or walk down the street. People like Gary Weber, the air traffic controller I've written about, and many other people who have relatively silent minds know that even highly complex tasks can be performed without thought, so how are such tasks performed in the absence of thinking? The simple answer is that the body is one-with the intelligence of THIS, and THIS is what does everything. People who first attempt to shift attention away from thoughts to the breathing process, or to direct sensory perception, or to the sense of I am, or anything other than thought will initially think that great effort is involved. Niz, for example, writes about the strong effort he had to make when he was first attempting to shift attention away from thoughts to the sense of I am, and I used to tell people that great effort was necessary to break the habit of incessant mind talk. The idea that effort is needed, however, is based upon a deeper idea--the idea that there is a person who is at the center of whatever is happening. When the illusion if "me" is penetrated, however, one's viewpoint radically changes. One realizes that there was never a person doing anything; everything that happened was more like an unfolding of one vast intelligent process. IOW, from a deep perspective there is nothing separate from THIS that could ever do anything volitionally. Whatever the body/mind organism does is what THIS does. Once this is realized, the idea of effort is seen as just an idea that might have usefulness for communication, but has no underlying actuality. How, then, do all three "centers" become unified, and do the three centers vary in depth? Well, yes and no. From a conventional perspective we can say that the intellectual center is the most superficial because it's like an mental overlay that obscures what's happening below the surface of the intellect, so to speak. The heart center is deeper because its free functioning requires a high degree of authenticity, honesty, freedom, and self knowledge. The body center is the deepest because as it becomes more dominant, all of the other centers become subservient and at the same time unified. The key to everything was summed up by Ikkyu who's famous for the "attention, attention, attention" admonition. The issue is where attention is focused. If it becomes focused upon the actual rather than thoughts, sooner or later ideas will fall away and psychological unity with THIS will result.
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Post by satchitananda on Sept 24, 2019 12:05:21 GMT -5
The issue is where attention is focused. If it becomes focused upon the actual rather than thoughts, sooner or later ideas will fall away and psychological unity with THIS will result. What's the difference between the actual and thoughts because I could argue that the spontaneous and effortless arising of thoughts is also the actual. It is what is actually happening.
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Post by zendancer on Sept 24, 2019 12:52:01 GMT -5
The issue is where attention is focused. If it becomes focused upon the actual rather than thoughts, sooner or later ideas will fall away and psychological unity with THIS will result. What's the difference between the actual and thoughts because I could argue that the spontaneous and effortless arising of thoughts is also the actual. It is what is actually happening. Yes, what you're pointing to is exactly why I stopped using the term "ATA" and began using the term "ATA-T." Someone asked me that very question several years ago, and I realized that I needed to alter the distinction so that people would understand precisely what I'm pointing to. ATA-T could equally be termed "direct sensory perception," but I continued to use ATA-T because it explicitly means looking or listening without thinking (in a state of mental silence). Sure, thoughts are a natural aspect of THIS (because humans have evolved to have that capacity), but humans unconsciously become conditioned to spend more and more time thinking about what they see rather than simply looking at what they see in silence. Like Tolle I consider mind talk the biggest reason that people stay entranced in their ideas and beliefs, so breaking that habit, or at least reducing its effect, seems highly correlated with realizations that lead to freedom.
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Post by satchitananda on Sept 24, 2019 12:59:52 GMT -5
humans unconsciously become conditioned to spend more and more time thinking about what they see rather than simply looking at what they see in silence Ah that's the crucial distinction. I thought that's what you meant. So you can also dispassionatly look at thoughts in the same way. It's the silence behind them that is the actual in the way you're using that word.
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Post by zendancer on Sept 24, 2019 13:25:55 GMT -5
humans unconsciously become conditioned to spend more and more time thinking about what they see rather than simply looking at what they see in silence Ah that's the crucial distinction. I thought that's what you meant. So you can also dispassionatly look at thoughts in the same way. It's the silence behind them that is the actual in the way you're using that word. Yes, but I don't distinguish between inner and outer. IOW, what we look at, whether the inner world of thoughts and feelings, or the outer world of the 10,000 things, is being looked at by an infinite, unified, and aware intelligence which is beyond all concept. The mental silence simply makes it more likely that THIS will discover ITSELF.
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Post by satchitananda on Sept 24, 2019 13:44:05 GMT -5
Ah that's the crucial distinction. I thought that's what you meant. So you can also dispassionatly look at thoughts in the same way. It's the silence behind them that is the actual in the way you're using that word. Yes, but I don't distinguish between inner and outer. IOW, what we look at, whether the inner world of thoughts and feelings, or the outer world of the 10,000 things, is being looked at by an infinite, unified, and aware intelligence which is beyond all concept. The mental silence simply makes it more likely that THIS will discover ITSELF. Yes right. There's no need to distinguish between inner and outer because regardless, they are all what I would call objects. But as you say it's the mental silence that is key in that self discovery.
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