Yes, I know five times
the stories you will ever know. For years, I hated Gurdjieff, and I loved him. I have left the Work at least 4 times over the years. Now, I know only,
just keep working. There is only one way to keep the teaching straight, voluntary attention and self-remembering, and voluntary suffering and then intentional suffering. Gurdjieff said, correct, we do not have our own I. That's why I've told you numerous times you are correct. But Gurdjieff went further, he said
it is possible to have one's own I, that's what his teaching is about. But it is only a possibility, no guarantees. But I've not gotten to the point, here, ST's, before.
How would you interpret what it means to "have one's own I?" If G. meant "authenticity" or "being grounded in the truth of one's being," then this would mean becoming so centered in one's understanding and embodiment of THIS, that one would be unshakable in facing the events of life.
If G. understood that reality is unified, and that the observer and the observed are one, then "having one's own I" would be an impossibility, so what do you think he was pointing to with that notion?
If G. understood that reality is unified, and that the observer and the observed are one, then "having one's own I" would be an impossibility, so what do you think he was pointing to with that notion?
quotes also go back to your last post, wherein ZD wrote:
Yes, most adults live life on what G. called "autopilot," and in the words of _______(can't think of his name at the moment) "They grow up in their sleep, get married in their sleep, have babies in their sleep, and die while still sound asleep."How does one wake up from what Charles Tart called "the concensus trance state" that is equivalent to a state of wakeful sleep? So note that Gurdjieff would make a distinction between realizing one is asleep, and awakening. From one to the other is a process.
Bold the pertinent. The last line
extra emphasis. The last two quotes answer your question more succinctly. From elsewhere, when he says permanent or immortal, he means as long as the Solar System exists, using these words, immortal within the limits of the Solar System, but it means essentially, surviving the death of the physical body.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We have already spoken enough about the meaning of being 'born.'
This relates to
the beginning of a new growth of essence, the beginning of the formation of
individuality, the beginning of the appearance of one indivisible I. "But in order to be able to attain this or at least begin to attain it, a man must die,
that is, he must free himself from a thousand petty attachments and identifications
which hold him in the position in which he is. He is attached to everything in his life,
attached to his imagination, attached to his stupidity, attached even to his sufferings,
possibly to his sufferings more than to anything else. He must free himself from this
attachment. Attachment to things, identification with things, keep alive a thousand
useless I's in a man.
These I's must die in order that the big I may be born. But how
can they be made to die? They do not want to die.
It is at this point that the possibility
of awakening comes to the rescue. To awaken means to realize one's nothingness, that
is to realize one's complete and absolute mechanicalness and one's complete and
absolute helplessness. And it is not sufficient to realize it philosophically in words. It
is necessary to realize it in clear, simple, and concrete facts, in one's own facts. When
a man begins to know himself a little he will see in himself many things that are
bound to horrify him. So long as a man is not horrified at himself he knows nothing
about himself. A man has seen in himself something that horrifies him. He decides to
throw it off, stop it, put an end to it. But however many efforts he makes, he feels that
he cannot do this, that everything remains as it was.
Here he will see his impotence,
his helplessness, and his nothingness; or again, when he begins to know himself a
man sees that he has nothing that is his own, that is, that all that he has regarded as his
own, his views, thoughts, convictions, tastes, habits, even faults and vices, all these
are not his own, but have been either formed through imitation or borrowed from
somewhere ready-made.
In feeling this a man may feel his nothingness. And in
feeling his nothingness a man should see himself as he really is, not for a second, not
for a moment, but constantly, never forgetting it.
"This continual consciousness of his nothingness and of his helplessness will
eventually give a man the courage to 'die,' that is, to die, not merely mentally or in his
consciousness, but to die in fact and to renounce actually and forever those aspects of
himself which are either unnecessary from the point of view of his inner growth or
which hinder it. These aspects are first of all his 'false I,' and then all the fantastic
ideas about his 'individuality,' 'will,' 'consciousness,' 'capacity to do,' his powers,
initiative, determination, and so on.
"But in order to see a thing always, one must first of all see it even if
only for a second. All new powers and capacities of realization come always in one
and the same way. At first they appear in the form of flashes at rare and short
moments; afterwards they appear more often and last longer until, finally, after very
long work they become permanent.
The same thing applies to awakening. It is
impossible to awaken completely all at once. One must first begin to awaken for short
moments. But one must die all at once and forever after having made a certain effort,
having surmounted a certain obstacle, having taken a certain decision from which
there is no going back.
This would be difficult, even impossible, for a man, were it not
for the slow and gradual awakening which precedes it.
"But there are a thousand things which prevent a man from awakening, which keep
him in the power of his dreams. In order to act consciously with the intention of
awakening, it is necessary to know the nature of the forces which keep man in a state
of sleep. "First of all it must be realized that the sleep in which man exists is not normal but
hypnotic sleep. Man is hypnotized and this hypnotic state is continually maintained
and strengthened in him. One would think that there are forces for whom it is useful
and profitable to keep man in a hypnotic state and prevent him from seeing the truth
and understanding his position. Pages 218,219 In Search of the Miraculous
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One may say that evil does not exist for subjective man at all, that there exist only
different conceptions of good. Nobody ever does anything deliberately in the interests
of evil, for the sake of evil. Everybody acts in the interests of good, as he understands
it. But everybody understands it in a different way. Consequently men drown, slay,
and kill one another in the interests of good.
The reason is again just the same, men's
ignorance and the deep sleep in which they live. "This is so obvious that it even seems strange that people have never thought of it
before. However, the fact remains that they fail to understand this and everyone
considers his good as the only good and all the rest as evil. It is naive and useless to
hope that men will ever understand this and that they will evolve a general and
identical idea of good."
"But do not good and evil exist in themselves apart from man?" asked someone
present.
"They do," said G., "only this is very far away from us and it is not worth your
while even to try to understand this at present. Simply remember one thing.
The only
possible permanent idea of good and evil for man is connected with the idea of
evolution; not with mechanical evolution, of course, but with the idea of man's
development through conscious efforts, the change of his being, the creation of unity
in him, and the formation of a permanent I. "A permanent idea of good and evil can be formed in man only in connection with
a permanent aim and a permanent understanding.
If a man understands that he is
asleep and if he wishes to awake, then everything that helps him to awake will be
good and everything that hinders him, everything that prolongs his sleep, will be evil. Exactly in the same way will he understand what is good and evil for other people.
What helps them to awake is good, what hinders them is evil.
But this is so only for
those who want to awake, that is, for those who understand that they are asleep. Those who do not understand that they are asleep and those who can have no wish to
awake, cannot have understanding of good and evil. And as the overwhelming
majority of people do not realize and will never realize that they are asleep, neither
good nor evil can actually exist for them.
"This contradicts generally accepted ideas. People are accustomed to think that
good and evil must be the same for everyone, and above all that good and evil exist
for everyone. In reality, however, good and evil exist only for a few, for those who
have an aim and who pursue that aim. Then what hinders the pursuit of that aim is
evil and what helps is good.
"But of course most sleeping people will say that they have an aim and that they are
going somewhere. The realization of the fact that he has no aim and that he is not
going anywhere is the first sign of the approaching awakening of a man or of
awakening becoming really possible for him. Awakening begins when a man realizes
that he is going nowhere and does not know where to go. "As has been explained before,
there are many qualities which men attribute to
themselves, which in reality can belong only to people of a higher degree of
development and of a higher degree of evolution than man number one, number two,
and number three.
Individuality, a single and permanent I, consciousness, will, the
ability to do, a state of inner freedom, all these are qualities which ordinary man does
not possess. To the same category belongs the idea of good and evil, the very
existence of which is connected with a permanent aim, with a permanent direction
and a permanent center of gravity.
"The idea of good and evil is sometimes connected with the idea of truth and
falsehood. But just as good and evil do not exist for ordinary man, neither do truth and
falsehood exist.
"Permanent truth and permanent falsehood can exist only for a permanent man. If a
man himself continually changes, then for him truth and falsehood will also
continually change. And if people are all in different states at every given moment,
their conceptions of truth must be as varied as their conceptions of good. A man never
notices how he begins to regard as true what yesterday he considered as false and vice
versa. He does not notice these transitions just as he does not notice the transitions of
his own I's one into another.
"In the life of an ordinary man truth and falsehood have no moral value of any kind
because a man can never keep to one single truth. His truth changes. If for a certain
time it does not change, it is simply because it is kept by 'buffers.' And a man can
never tell the truth. Sometimes 'it tells' the truth, sometimes 'it tells' a lie.
Consequently his truth and his falsehood have no value; neither of them depends upon
him, both of them depend upon accident. And this is equally true when applied to a
man's words, to his thoughts, his feelings, and to his conceptions of truth and
falsehood.
"In order to understand the interrelation of truth and falsehood in life a man must
understand falsehood in himself, the constant incessant lies he tells himself.
Pages 158,159 ISofM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Man number seven means a man who has reached the full development possible
to man and who possesses everything a man can possess, that is, will, consciousness,
permanent and unchangeable I, individuality, immortality, and many other properties
which, in our blindness and ignorance, we ascribe to ourselves. It is only when to a
certain extent we understand man number seven and his properties that we can under-
stand the gradual stages through which we can approach him, that is, understand the
process of development possible for us.
"Man number six stands very close to man number seven. He differs from man
number seven only by the fact that
some of his properties have not as yet become
permanent. "Man number five is also for us an unattainable standard of man,
for it is a man
who has reached unity. "Man number four is an intermediate stage. I shall speak of him later. page 71 ISotM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Below, Gurdjieff is referring to two different diagrams. The first refers to ordinary man.
The second refers to the attributes ZD asked for.
In the first case," said G., "that is, in relation to the functions of a man of physical
body only, the automaton depends upon external influences, and the next three
functions depend upon the physical body and the external influences it receives.
Desires or aversions—'I want,' 'I don't want,' 'I like,' 'I don't like'—that is, functions
occupying the place of the second body, depend upon accidental shocks and
influences. Thinking, which corresponds to the functions of the third body, is an
entirely mechanical process. 'Will' is absent in ordinary mechanical man, he has desires
only; and a greater or lesser permanence of desires and wishes is called a strong or a
weak will.
"In the second case, that is, in relation to the functions of the four bodies, the
automatism of the physical body depends upon the influences of the other bodies.
Instead of the discordant and often contradictory activity of different desires, there is
one single I, whole, indivisible, and permanent; there is individuality, dominating the
physical body and its desires and able to overcome both its reluctance and its
resistance. Instead of the mechanical process of thinking there is consciousness. And
there is will, that is, a power, not merely composed of various often contradictory
desires belonging to different "I's," but issuing from conscious-
ness and governed by individuality or a single and permanent I. Only such a will can
be called "free," for it is independent of accident and cannot be altered or directed
from without. pages 42,43 ISotM
end of quotes
At least we have the forum frags that people post from time to time. I was reminded of it because of what you wrote about acceptance.