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Post by stardustpilgrim on Nov 2, 2023 11:33:28 GMT -5
There are only two states of existence possible for a human being: freedom and slavery. However, it is not easy to describe the difference in words. The problem is a problem of scale, scope, dimension. Freedom cannot be described in terms of slavery. The mind which is enslaved attempts to conceive of freedom but will always only replicate its own slavery with every thought. There are not degrees of freedom. Freedom is not a progression of states. One is either free or not. One cannot be partially free, or a little free. However, a person can and does change states, to and from freedom, in and out of slavery. The changes go unnoticed for the most part, mainly because of the time spent by most people in freedom is very, very brief, perhaps only fractions of a second at any one time. Baba Fabukola
Yes, a new book came yesterday. Put up some quotes. Decided to start a thread. I'm away from home, a longer quote will come this afternoon. This seemed too good to wait.
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Post by zendancer on Nov 2, 2023 11:46:57 GMT -5
There are only two states possible for a human being: freedom and slavery. However, it is not easy to describe the difference in words. The problem is a problem of scale, scope, dimension. Freedom cannot be described in terms of slavery. The mind which is enslaved attempts to conceive of freedom but will always only replicate its own slavery with every thought. There are not degrees of freedom. Freedom is not a progression of states. One is either free or not. One cannot be partially free, or a little free. However, a person can and does change states, to and from freedom, in and out of slavery. The changes go unnoticed for the most part, mainly because of the time spent by most people in freedom is very, very brief, perhaps only fractions of a second at any one time. Baba Fabukola Yes, a new book came yesterday. Put up some quotes. Decided to start a thread. I'm away from home, a longer quote will come this afternoon. This seemed too good to wait. One is either free and knows it, or one isn't and doesn't know it. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Nov 2, 2023 11:47:18 GMT -5
...Now, within the conditions of this little experiment, we are saying that a free person would know for a fact that he or she is free, and a slave would not even know that he or she is a slave. And further, we are saying that I, the student, presume myself to be enslaved and therefore am incapable of even knowing that much, and that any thoughts or ideas I have on the subject must be a product of my own mental slavery and therefore could not of themselves lead to freedom. Very good paradox indeed! Baba Fabukola
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Post by laughter on Nov 2, 2023 13:53:58 GMT -5
...Now, within the conditions of this little experiment, we are saying that a free person would know for a fact that he or she is free, and a slave would not even know that he or she is a slave. And further, we are saying that I, the student, presume myself to be enslaved and therefore am incapable of even knowing that much, and that any thoughts or ideas I have on the subject must be a product of my own mental slavery and therefore could not of themselves lead to freedom. Very good paradox indeed! Baba Fabukola It only seems a paradox to the thinking mind. Notice how Baba hasn't said the following explicitly, but implies it: while Freedom is not a matter of degree, slavery is. For just one example, some "enslaved minds" will have encountered this pointing, but not all. And of those that do, some will reject it. As E' once said, paradox is only ever mental confusion. When the enslaved mind comes to realize that there is no ground, nothing it can rely on, it can encounter a free fall. Low describes this free fall in a visceral sense of stepping back inside the enslaved mind in Iron Cow. This is a glorious confusion, mr. 'pilgirm! |
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Post by lolly on Nov 2, 2023 22:28:43 GMT -5
Sounds like someone is appropriating Nietzsche's work on masters and slaves. I didn't get Nietzsche for a longtime, but Foucault twisted 'the will to power' into 'the will to knowledge' which really only explained the operations of Nietzsche's principles. Quick video. It's pretty succinct actually and explains the external paradigm in terms of internal conflict. Since the mind is a slave unto itself, there is a parallel between society as a relationship between identities and how, when internalised, the individual is fractured into both the disciplinarian and the punished, and how that internal quandry is exerted upon the 'master' or the free man. I like Nietzsche's take because not only does he picture the slave as a split, conflicted personality, he points out its manifestation, mainly in religion, but we can infer it from modern things such BLM, rainbow flags et.al. and so on. I'm actually a moralist, but I see Nietzsche's point that morality is the heart of slavery.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Nov 3, 2023 11:15:48 GMT -5
Moving a quote. By paying attention to the idea of the infinite, a man can understand his own being. The ego is a fragment of the totality of being. It is held in place, in space and time, by psychological habits which are self-created and willingly accepted and which give each person a conviction that reality is only what he or she experiences it to be. Baba Fabukola Or three. As phenomenon occur, in linear time, they remain in the matrix of all possible events and simultaneously become individualized centers of concentration for creative expansion. An event then expresses first the intent, that of general expansion, as well as the second intent, which is toward specific manifestation. It is impossible to think of the present. Baba Fabukola |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Nov 4, 2023 7:36:09 GMT -5
It’s true the prison has no walls.. yet so few will ever leave..why? This is being touched on the Surrender thread. Most people do not know any better, don't know there is an alternative to what they are experiencing in life. The imaginary self is made from the prison bars, it is the prison bars. So the prison is invisible. I've read this before, don't know if it's true. They say you can chain a baby elephant to a metal stake, one leg, one he cannot pull up, and when he is an adult it has become conditioned to not being able to pull up the stake, and will not pull it up as an adult, when it easily could. I've told Gopal numerous times, you can shift attention to where you wish. He always comes back, no, I can't. |
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Post by lolly on Nov 5, 2023 21:58:11 GMT -5
It’s true the prison has no walls.. yet so few will ever leave..why? There's no walls for reference? |
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Post by andrew on Nov 6, 2023 0:38:28 GMT -5
It’s true the prison has no walls.. yet so few will ever leave..why? You seen Shawshank Redemption? Remember the guy that took his own life after he had been released? People become 'institutionalized' by their perceived limitations (even if this limitation is an illusion) Humans have enormous capacity to find comfort in the most awful/torrid of conditions....this comfort is basically addictive. In psychology, I believe they call it 'secondary gain' (someone correct me if I'm wrong). 'Secondary gain' explains so much about the way that people function. |
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Post by andrew on Nov 6, 2023 0:41:04 GMT -5
It’s true the prison has no walls.. yet so few will ever leave..why? This is being touched on the Surrender thread. Most people do not know any better, don't know there is an alternative to what they are experiencing in life. The imaginary self is made from the prison bars, it is the prison bars. So the prison is invisible. I've read this before, don't know if it's true. They say you can chain a baby elephant to a metal stake, one leg, one he cannot pull up, and when he is an adult it has become conditioned to not being able to pull up the stake, and will not pull it up as an adult, when it easily could. I've told Gopal numerous times, you can shift attention to where you wish. He always comes back, no, I can't. He might mean that the wish itself, happens to us i.e the wish is outside of our hands. |
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Post by inavalan on Nov 6, 2023 1:40:26 GMT -5
It’s true the prison has no walls.. yet so few will ever leave..why? You seen Shawshank Redemption? Remember the guy that took his own life after he had been released? People become 'institutionalized' by their perceived limitations ( even if this limitation is an illusion) Humans have enormous capacity to find comfort in the most awful/torrid of conditions....this comfort is basically addictive. In psychology, I believe they call it 'secondary gain' (someone correct me if I'm wrong). 'Secondary gain' explains so much about the way that people function. As I see it: ' belief causes emotion, causes expectation, causes reality'. "Limitation" applies to belief. "Illusion" applies to reality (perception / experience). To change reality, you have to change a precursor. The more basic the precursor the more definitive the change. If you don't change / remove / replace the belief, but act down the chain, the limiting belief will manifest again, in the same or a different manner. To me, "illusion" sounds pejorative, and misplaces the responsibility and the attention of the observer / experiencer. For example, as I understand it, there is no objective physical reality (there is no physical reality that exists independently, as a reference), and I wouldn't call the physical reality that I perceive / experience an "illusion", but "my subjective physical reality". This is why to say that we misidentify the real as false / illusory, and viceversa, and that getting "realized" is to identify real as real and false as false, doesn't sound right to me. This experience in the physical that we have isn't false nor illusory; it is that we don't understand it for what it is, and to fix it isn't a matter of wanting, or of a thunderbolt illumination, but can be only the result of growth that translates into a more differentiated understanding, a clearer "image" of reality. A first grader can't suddenly understand second grade material, and even less graduation level material. |
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Post by zendancer on Nov 6, 2023 9:23:55 GMT -5
This is being touched on the Surrender thread. Most people do not know any better, don't know there is an alternative to what they are experiencing in life. The imaginary self is made from the prison bars, it is the prison bars. So the prison is invisible. I've read this before, don't know if it's true. They say you can chain a baby elephant to a metal stake, one leg, one he cannot pull up, and when he is an adult it has become conditioned to not being able to pull up the stake, and will not pull it up as an adult, when it easily could. I've told Gopal numerous times, you can shift attention to where you wish. He always comes back, no, I can't. He might mean that the wish itself, happens to us i.e the wish is outside of our hands. Yes, I think that's what Gopal means and I agree. If one thinks, "I'll shift attention away from X to Y," where did that thought come from? It did not come from a SVP because the SVP is imaginary. It came from THIS--the entire field of all being which manifests as individual humans. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Nov 6, 2023 10:45:40 GMT -5
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.
PRIEURÉ, OCTOBER 1922
Question 1: Has Mr. Gurdjieff’s educational system produced an example of the type of man that he wishes to develop?
Answer: With regard to the results achieved by pupils here during this short period of time, first of all we can note: Improvement in their health.
That means that there was established a basis to improve their future health from the chronic diseases that they had.
The following can serve as examples:
Improvement from obesity,
The strengthening of their weak memories and,
The bringing in order their disordered nerves.
The second result is the enlargement of their horizons.
In general, people have a very narrow outlook on life; it is as if they wear blinkers which prevent them from seeing more.
Here, thanks to a great variety of new conditions of work, and thanks to many other things, this field of view is enlarged, as if a new horizon is acquired.
A new interest has been created.
The majority of people who came here had quite lost any interest in, and for, life.
This is also because they had such a narrow outlook on life.
Here, a new interest is born for them.
It is possible to list a thousand examples of results acquired by people from being here, but most of the results would come from these three fundamental ones; that is why it is not important to list them.
Since the Institute has been in existence for a very short time, it is only recently that some pupils have emerged who measure up to the results I expected. But generally speaking there are no limits for self-perfecting, and so each attainment is only a temporary state.
People in their outer life are not tied to the Institute. They can play any social role, fulfill any job, have any occupation that occurs in life.
Many people live their own independent life and Work at the same time.
The difference lies only in that if, before, someone was a good shoemaker, by becoming a pupil of the Institute and continuing to learn, he will become a different shoemaker; if someone was a priest, he will become a different priest.
Question 2: How do you explain the despair that some pupils of the Institute fall into in the beginning?
Answer: There exists a principle in the Institute about which I will tell you at once, and then this period of despair will begin to be quite clear to you.
A man generally lives with a “foreign” mind. He has not his own opinion and is under the influence of everything that others tell him.
(The example was given of a man who thinks badly of another person only because someone else has said bad things about that person.)
In the Institute you have to learn how to live with your own mind, how to be active, to develop your own individuality.
Here in the Institute many people come only on account of their “foreign” mind; they have no interest of their own in the Work at all.
That is why when a man arrives at the Institute, difficult conditions are created and all sorts of traps laid for him intentionally, so that he himself can find out whether he came because of his own interest or only because he heard about the interest of others. Can he, disregarding the outside difficulties that are made for him, continue to work for the main aim?
And does this aim exist within him?
When the need for these artificial difficulties is over, then they are no longer created for him.
The periods of despair in life are the result of the same cause.
The man lives with a “foreign” mind and his interest arises accidentally, owing to some outside influence. As long as the influence continues, the man seems quite satisfied.
But when, for some reason or other, the outside influence ceases, his interest loses all meaning and he falls into despair.
What is his own, and cannot be taken away from him and is always his—this does not yet exist.
Only when this begins to exist, is it possible for these periods of despair to disappear.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Nov 6, 2023 10:59:59 GMT -5
Question 10: Does the teaching of Mr. Gurdjieff form part of some historical school still in existence?
Was the knowledge that he possesses ever the property of a ruling caste?
And was there any kind of civilization founded on it? For example, was there in India a government in the hands of people who wished to put into practice the ideas of Mr. Gurdjieff?
Answer: Tibet is an example where, ten years ago, all government was in the hands of the monks.
But they couldn’t put my ideas into practice, because my teaching was not known to them.
My teaching is my own.
It combines all the evidence of ancient truth that I collected in my travels with all the knowledge that I have acquired through my own personal work.
Question 11: What is Mr. Gurdjieff’s doctrine about Necessity, Free Will and Death?
Can people in general become immortal or only some of them?
For those who have not acquired immortality, what will happen to them?
Does there exist for them something like reincarnation or eternal recurrence?
Answer: Yes and no.
Those people who have a soul are immortal, but not everyone has a soul.
A man is born without a soul, with only the possibility of acquiring one, and he has to earn it during his lifetime.
For those who have not acquired a soul, nothing happens to them.
They live and they die.
Individuals die, but the atoms live because in the world nothing ceases to live.
But even immortal souls exist in different stages.
Full immortality is quite unique.
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Post by andrew on Nov 7, 2023 20:06:26 GMT -5
You seen Shawshank Redemption? Remember the guy that took his own life after he had been released? People become 'institutionalized' by their perceived limitations ( even if this limitation is an illusion) Humans have enormous capacity to find comfort in the most awful/torrid of conditions....this comfort is basically addictive. In psychology, I believe they call it 'secondary gain' (someone correct me if I'm wrong). 'Secondary gain' explains so much about the way that people function. As I see it: ' belief causes emotion, causes expectation, causes reality'. "Limitation" applies to belief. "Illusion" applies to reality (perception / experience). To change reality, you have to change a precursor. The more basic the precursor the more definitive the change. If you don't change / remove / replace the belief, but act down the chain, the limiting belief will manifest again, in the same or a different manner. To me, "illusion" sounds pejorative, and misplaces the responsibility and the attention of the observer / experiencer. For example, as I understand it, there is no objective physical reality (there is no physical reality that exists independently, as a reference), and I wouldn't call the physical reality that I perceive / experience an "illusion", but "my subjective physical reality". This is why to say that we misidentify the real as false / illusory, and viceversa, and that getting "realized" is to identify real as real and false as false, doesn't sound right to me. This experience in the physical that we have isn't false nor illusory; it is that we don't understand it for what it is, and to fix it isn't a matter of wanting, or of a thunderbolt illumination, but can be only the result of growth that translates into a more differentiated understanding, a clearer "image" of reality. A first grader can't suddenly understand second grade material, and even less graduation level material. Yes, the word 'illusion' can be interpreted as pejorative or demeaning. There was a fella here for several years called TzuJanLi, who did not like that word at all (Hey Bob!). Tenka isn't a big fan of it either (right Tenka?) I'm okay with it in certain contexts, I think it can be a useful concept. It's not really meant to be used to describe 'the way things are', it's meant to be used as a way of inviting folks to question some of their beliefs, and to challenge their default unquestioned state of perception/experience. For example, many folks believe the world exists as part of an objective reality i.e that the world/the universe exists 'objectively' in a 'field' of time and space. And this belief informs their state of perception/experience. So someone might counter that by saying that 'objects are an illusion' or 'time is an illusion'. It's perhaps a lazy way of countering it, but personally, I think it can be useful at times...I could probably explain why if you were interested. |
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