I wouldn't say it that way (not sure if ZD believes it comes down to willingness either, though he'd probably agree with the 'walking away' part). I think what you call the Spiritual Circus needs to be stayed with as long as necessary to see through the mind machinations. ATA-T, which is a way to become more attuned to stillness, is actually part of that 'circus'. So is Gurdjieff's directive to look. So is meditation. All worthwhile approaches, imo.
Well,
the average person is addicted to thinking, and what is intuitively being searched for is something that thinking can never reveal. I should know because I spent twenty years talking and thinking about various existential questions without resolving a single question. LOL.
"Progress" occurred only after I shifted attention away from thinking to what could be seen, heard, felt, etc.--to direct sensory perception and internal silence. As one becomes free from mind machinations, reliance upon mind as a way of resolving existential questions naturally falls away because it's seen/realized that
there's a big difference between the dead world of ideas, images, and symbols and the living truth of "what is." Mind is useful for planning and practical problem solving, but it's useless for attaining freedom from mind and discovering the Infinite.
People who are addicted to thinking cannot imagine that there is a far more powerful and direct way of interacting with the world than through thinking. It's ironic, to say the least.
Thinking is useful, but understanding the proper role of thinking (as a servant rather than a master),
and attaining freedom from the compulsion of incessant thinking is a gift of incalculable value. For anyone not wanting to sort through the verbiage, I have highlighted the most pertinent parts, that which links to ZD's bold underlined. (Starting with Quoting: everything is by the author except where specifically noted sdp).
I read the following just today (starting second paragraph), for the first time, such explicit language is rare, but it doesn't really give anything away. Some helpful information for understanding the excerpt. (Just ignore the numbers. [But the lower the number the higher the energy]. Gurdjieff had a diagram, the Table of Hydrogens, a sort of periodic table, in which he represented all the matter and energy existing in
all that is. [He said even God is material]. The numbers range from 1 - 12288. 1 is the highest density of
vibrations (highest
frequency of vibrations, finer, quicker, meaning more energy), the lowest density of
matter. 12288 is the highest density of matter, the lowest density of vibrations, IOW, ordinary matter. The numbers (1 - 12288) are a movement downward (creation, involution) generated by a series of triads and octaves. {But Gurdjieff said this full scale of energies, the higher energies are irresolvable for man, so 6 can be taken as 1. But this energy, 6, is also irresolvable, so we can reduce again, 12 is taken to be 1. So for man the Table of Hydrogens becomes 1 - 3072, meaning, 3072 is actually 12288, but to simplify, we call 12288, 3072 (showing how the reduction was arrived at, 3072 x 2 = 6144; 6144 x 2 = 12288). And this is the basic reason I am not a non-dualist, because the deepest aspect of man's being
does not reach the Absolute, it reaches only Hydrogen12 (of the full table). Of course this will only make sense if you have the full table, it is derived from the numbers 1,2,3. But this reduced table corresponds to what Brewster uses below}. I will list the full Table of Hydrogens and show how it is derived if anyone is interested. (pgs 171-174, I S of the M, PD Ouspensky). And the enneagram is a symbol which shows the relationship of the law of 3 and the law of 7, and how energy is transformed (pgs 286-294). The numbers mentioned represent a movement
back upward. Passive and active refer to either essence or personality, movement either upward [{
spiritual} evolution, Gurdjieff said there is no mechanical evolution, all evolution is
conscious, that is,
not mechanical] or downward). And another name for the Gurdjieff teaching is the Work (I don't think I've used it here. Centers mean the intellectual center, the emotional center, the moving center, the instinctive center, [the sex center].
The formatory center, formatory thoughts, come from the mechanical part of the intellectual center, the lowest part, the source of the monkey-mind
internal dialogue,
useless mind chatter, and a very great deal of ordinary thinking. Impressions means information coming in through the senses (for example, these words are entering via your eyes). Maybe last
edit:
impressions are considered a kind of food, along with air (meaning air is also considered a kind of food) and ordinary food. J Brewster (1928-2009) is describing (what he calls Spiritual Physics) his understanding of the Enneagram and how energy is transformed. (
edit: Many of you have probably seen popular books on the nine enneagram personality types. Although Gurdjieff introduced the enneagram to the world,
these enneagram personality types did not come from Gurdjieff.
Personality types is a misnomer). Quoting:
".....H96 is really an evolutionary movement from H192 to H96.
Entrance into the Enneagram
begins with active
Re H48,
the methods of the Work, being brought to passive
Do H192, and the result is reconciled
Mi H96, essence. Everything would stop there and begin to descend quickly unless I bring the shock of H24 from the left side of the Enneagram to reconciled
Mi H96.
How do we move along the Enneagram? It takes conscious efforts and voluntary suffering. And that's exactly what it is, except in the Enneagram
we need to know how that would relate to my attention. How will I get this triadic movement to be reconciled at
Mi H96? It takes an expansion of the attention that includes two forces, passive
Do H192 and active
Re H48. The main characteristic of H48 is self-remembering; the characteristic of passive H192 is self-observation. These two efforts need to happen
simultaneously! If I can look out and in and at the same time, expanding my attention to another center, I will move along the Enneagram. It is through an expansion of attention that includes active and passive, both forces together, a divided attention. If the result of this struggle is maintained for a sufficient length of time, these two forces reconcile at
Mi H96.
The main characteristic of reconciled
Mi H96
is this energy moving by itself; there's no additional effort required.Now, how do we go further? Reconciled H96 needs a shock according to the Enneagram. That shock comes from bringing H24 from the left side of the Enneagram to reconciled
Mi H96 on the right. Here H24 represents the energy of the body, a real resonance in me. For the first years in the Work, it is very difficult to know that because I haven't gone through the octave of postures and tensions to relaxation often enough, so I can't sense H24. Maybe I experienced H24 when I was a child. But as we get older, we develop inner tensions, and we carry more and more baggage. In the Work, if we struggle, we shed baggage; that's how conscious efforts and voluntary suffering pays off in time. Finer hydrogens are very expensive. You have to pay whatever the price. You have to "buy" them. Some people are not willing to spend or pay the price. You pay the price, not with money, but with effort and the struggle against ego, the struggle with not being satisfied at the point where you are receiving something, like a better state, for example. Let's say at reconciled H96 you're accumulating finer energies. At that moment you have to
not value that; you have to become passive (note sdp, impartial) to this new movement, which then makes you (note sdp, a
kind of double-bind) uncomfortable. (note sdp, this means not to let personality/ego try to insert itself and claim something in the process, [elsewhere known as spiritual materialism]). When you open your attention to include both active and passive, it's very uncomfortable. I see that I'm not united.
This is voluntary suffering. That resonance resounds within me and produces a shock that brings me to passive
Fa H48
on the left side of the Enneagram, which I call "real associations to quiet mind" (note sdp, explained further below*, this can be somewhat confusing, this is Brewster's own language). Passive
Fa H48 is very important to understand because at the moment I'm sensing my body, I'm connected with a resonance, an energy, that's whole. At this point I add the energy of the mind, and I become two-centered.
Expansion of consciousness isn't the expansion of a center; it's the adding of centers, the relationship between centers. H96 to H48 is
associations*--not formatory associations, but higher-quality associations*
on the journey to quiet mind. At quiet mind, I take in real impressions (note sdp, that is, they fall on essence instead of ego/personality,
therefore they don't activate a chain of ordinary formatory associations, IOW, useless mind chattering). Even at H96 I can start to take in
some impressions. In the Work we learn that our identification with thoughts is "bad". (note sdp, "bad" means mechanical, means thoughts merely happen). We have a long education in this struggle with formatory thoughts and bad associations.
Now, I need to sense my body in order to get out of my head. At passive
Fa H48 on the left side of the Enneagram I
need my head. These new associations* aren't negative:
if I can maintain a connection with this resonance of H24,
I will move to passive Fa H48, or
quiet mind. The danger of these associations (yes*, even these) is that I can easily become identified. Why? I'm thinking to myself, "I'm having my best thoughts". How many times have you meditated and better solutions to problems come? I remember once somebody came to the group and said, "I have my best thoughts during my sitting". But if I become identified with them, I lose the resonance. I go backwards, towards H384 and out of the Enneagram. If I don't
maintain the resonance , I must (note sdp, meaning will) go back to formatory thoughts. And that happens time and time again. I must learn to recognize the differences between the formatory thinking of H384 and thinking* in the band H96 to H48. The problem we face is that
when we're sensing ourselves, when we're sitting or we're innerly working with an active attention, and we come to a state in which there
is more sensation, we must realize that these new associations* may
not be formatory and they may be necessary. Now,
if I could be not identified with these thoughts* in my ordinary way but sense the energy and at the same time maintain both sensations and associations*,
my mind will quiet. Quiet mind is alien to the way we live. it's a new way of thinking*.
In a state of quiet mind a new energy can appear which is very high. But we don't maintain quiet mind long enough to go further. We're addicted to a busy mind. We associate associations with ordinary life, so we never come to a place, or value a place,
in which we are completely quiet. In that new quiet place I could become a receiver rather than a transmitter; and at H24, if I'm a receiver I could receive H12, which is very, very high energy spiritually". pages 203-206, 2014
If ZD reads this, I thank you again (I think I thanked you for every post) for all the replies to me, giving advice, which I never asked for. Now maybe you know why. And to Tzu, this is why we do not have to "reinvent the wheel" in all things.
edit: enigma is the only one here, that I've read, who has mentioned this finer energy, and that only once. To laughter, the Work is practically built upon the principle of the double-bind. (Involution is the movement of energy away
from the Absolute. Evolution is the return movement
back to Source, the Absolute. Gurdjieff called these, two rivers, and it's
possible to move from one river to the other. He said the Work
goes against Nature).
"
... But joke aside, thank you, much appreciated. I will read again, may ask one or two things.
Seth said alot of cool stuff. (** hops out of hat and heads for the forest **)