I have been asked to comment on this question. It is a very complex question, and it is far in the past. Mr. Ouspensky died in 1947 and Mr. Gurdjieff died in 1949, and I was born in 1951, so I knew neither man personal as an adult or as a child within this incarnation. I am however an ardent student who has never ceased from studying the subjects that interest me. This has always included all of the sciences as well as the religions and spiritual disciplines that have reached the earth. When I first met my first teacher in the work, who had known Mr. Gurdjieff as a teenager and whose parents were some of his first followers in New York during the 1920s, she said something to me and I replied. She said, "if you are looking for a Guru, you're coming to the wrong place, because I am not a Guru." I replied, and I repeat verbatim, "That's good, because I am Guru-proof". This has always been true of me, but I took Mr. Gurdjieff as my teacher, and he IS my teacher. Not was, not will be, but IS. I have also read every published word of Mr. Ouspensky as well as some of the unpublished documents which are at Yale.
Now I have to go and enter life and meet my obligations. The great thing about a blog is that it can be edited, so as soon as I get an opportunity, I will continue to ask and meet the question, as it is an extremely important and revealing question. Remember that there are within us elements of the Tramp, Lunatic and Obyvatel, in varying proportion, and most of us are drunk on Moonshine or schizophrenic (literal translation -- broken soul) or madder than Hatters. We all have buffers within us so that we do not see our complications. But I will try to take myself by my own hand and with a gentle affectionate compassion I will address our question... in a little while. I am a patient man, and I abide by that virtue -- I know delayed gratification and how to remain hungry and thirsty.
Mr. Ouspensky was an incredible man, blessed with a towering intellect and a decided realization that the world was wrong, and that somewhere was an underground stream of perfect knowledge and tradition. He claims, as I do, that he was never a child or an infant -- that he was born quite old. This is not to say that he did not wear the mask of a child, but that he saw through it, and felt that the loneliness that I felt when I was a child among children. I speak for myself when I say that I could find no Child or children who were interested in the subjects I was interested in, so I learned to wear the mask of a child and perhaps I even enjoyed; in fact I certainly enjoyed some of the aspects of being a child, like playing on a swing or playing tag or taking other childlike risks when the adults weren't around to speak the poisonous words "be careful."
As Mr. Ouspensky grew, he began to search. He joined the theosophical foundation and became one of its rising stars. He had a method of oration that drew people to him. He could expound on the most sublime and elusive subjects with incredible clarity. He had an almost flawless memory and could recite almost anything that passed before his eyes or ears. He therefore drew large crowds who listened to his lectures, mostly about the most abstruse subjects concerned with the destiny and fate of man, and the hidden knowledge which he had sought after.
He became a journalist and did quite well, having his own byline and writing about whatever suited him. Therefore his journalism was much praised and respected. At a certain point in his life he reached a crux point; he was convinced that somewhere in the world there still remained authentic schools of knowledge and of learning which have been made invisible but permanent, and which contain all the knowledge and wisdom of mankind all the way back through the mists of recorded history. With his stipend from the newspaper he gathered his things and went on a long journey through India and Ceylon and many other places. He spoke with many gurus and visited many so-called schools. Some of these were real and some were phony, and being incredibly astute Mr. Ouspensky could taste the difference. The problems with the real schools where that one needed to submit one's entire outer life, at least for a time, and retreat from the world and its distractions in order to come to some real results. As Mr. Ouspensky was a journalist first, he could not agree to any such terms, and so he moved on. He used a number of narcotics and drugs that were available at the time which opened many doors which otherwise cannot be opened. However, when these doors have been shown to you and opened, one should no longer need the drug to find the door and to open it. Ouspensky knew this, so like Rene Daumal, these were not addictions but experiments.
It can be said that he both found what he was looking for as well is that he did not find what he was looking for, because he did not submit to any particular discipline or guru, and upon returning to Russia he was greatly discouraged. He planned another trip, but in his time back at home he gave a series of lectures on the topic of "In Search of The Miraculous", which drew thousands wishing to hear of his discoveries and adventures.
Now this was in 1913. In 1912, Mr. Gurdjieff began his outward teaching in Moscow and then later in St. Petersburg, gathering disciples and students around him very carefully, picking types to work with. When he got wind of Mr. Ouspensky, he asked his students to read everything that Ouspensky had written and to make a report to him about Mr. Ouspensky's strengths and weaknesses -- his knowledge and understanding and lacks thereof. This his students did, and Mr. Gurdjieff decided that he could use Ouspensky to further his aim, which at this time was left unrevealed. He told one of the Russians, a certain Dr., to "inveigle" Mr. Ouspensky -- that is, To pique his interest, which the good doctor did. After causing Mr. Ouspensky a great deal of trouble he arranged for a meeting for Ouspensky with Mr. Gurdjieff.
At this meeting, which is well recorded, Mr. Gurdjieff played all of his tricks of placing obstacles in a man's path, which he has to cross in order to meet Mr. Gurdjieff. Mr. Ouspensky left the meeting with an incredible feeling of peace and love and dancing feet. He told his then girlfriend that what he had been looking for all over the world he had now found at home in Russia with this man -- Mr. Gurdjieff.
Now Ouspensky was introduced to one of Mr. Gurdjieff's groups, and allowed to join. Mr. Gurdjieff allowed no note taking or writing down of anything that was said or spoken of in the groups, but Mr. Ouspensky told Mr. Gurdjieff that his outer life was that of a journalist, and unless he were permitted to write it would not be able to follow. Mr. Gurdjieff gave him permission tacitly that he could write down whatever he could commit to memory, but not to write in the presence of the others or while in the group, so Mr. Ouspensky, with his prodigious memory, would run home and quickly write down everything that he could remember. This was the beginning of the book that Mr. Ouspensky called "Fragments of an Unknown Teaching."
The book became ISOM, and it is a journalistic report of Mr. Ouspensky's time with Mr. Gurdjieff. Mr. Ouspensky had some fixed ideas -- one of the most compelling was the notion of his desire to know the future and his concepts of recurrence, which he had taken from Nietzsche. Mr. Gurdjieff frustrated this question and refused to answer it to Mr. Ouspensky's satisfaction. Even in the moment where Mr. Gurdjieff sees Mr. Ouspensky enter the Café in a sad face and offered to answer him any question that was put to him, Mr. Gurdjieff already knew what Mr. Ouspensky would be asking. It was about recurrence, and although Mr. Gurdjieff answered him with great clarity, he only used it to show how easily Mr. Ouspensky was turned from sad to happy. Mr. Ouspensky was a man number 3-2-1, and those who really knew him knew of him as a really pleasant person, good to be around -- as Mr. Gurdjieff says, good to drink whiskey with, and with a deep sentimental nature. But at the same time, Mr. Ouspensky was in a kind of trap-- he wanted to become conscious but he did not want to suffer conscience, and he was something of a dualist; what I mean is that he did not want to work with the body -- he loved to ride horses but he did not like the movements which Mr. Gurdjieff taught, and he completely balked at what Mr. Gurdjieff called duliotherapy -- which is crudely translated as slave therapy -- where a man submits his will completely and absolutely in order to develop real will of his own -- which replaces the confluence of desires and aversions that constitute a man as he is mechanically driven from the outer world. This submission, which is the exact translation of the word Islam, was something that Mr. Ouspensky could not submit to, and in addition, during a trip to Finland, after three years work with Mr. Gurdjieff, he was granted a taste of what he had been asking for -- objective consciousness. This was preceded by his taking it upon himself without consulting Mr. Gurdjieff, a series of fasting and breathing exercises and other such procedures.
When Mr. Gurdjieff noticed Ouspensky in this state, he communicated to him telepathically that Mr. Ouspensky had disobeyed Mr. Gurdjieff's teachings, and he told him that finally, Ouspensky had gotten exactly what he wanted and he might as well enjoy it -- but it scared Mr. Ouspensky to the core, and Mr. Gurdjieff puts certain conditions upon him if he wished to continue in Mr. Gurdjieff's company. In Mr. Ouspensky's constellation of character attributes and flaws, he could not accept these conditions, and mistakenly referred to them as Mr. Gurdjieff moving in a religious direction; the kind of obedience that he had been asked for by gurus of the real schools in India, and which he could not accept. Now he was brought to a barrier. Every man in the Work reaches barriers, which if he allows them to turn him aside, stops everything in a dead stop.
So Ouspensky began to separate from Mr. Gurdjieff, with a resentment -- which is from the French and means "to feel again". Eventually Mr. Ouspensky settled in England, having his escape from the Russian Revolution paid for by a wealthy English woman, and he set himself up as a professional teacher of the Work, which he called the System. He refused to acknowledge Mr. Gurdjieff except by his first letter, "G". This did not happen until 1924, right before the accident of Mr. Gurdjieff's. Mr. Ouspensky even hosted Mr. Gurdjieff when he visited England, but was personally insulted when Mr. Gurdjieff did not let him translate but instead brought a secretary/translator whom he insisted was better at translating into English than Ouspensky. This crushed Mr. Ouspensky's self-esteem and made him look like a student in front of his own students. That was probably the breaking point.
Whereas Mr. Gurdjieff's aim was never work with a single person or group of people, which he called his guinea pigs or lab rats, but his aim was to bring a dispensation of spiritual insight which is superior to any other before given to mankind. In every age man is given a spiritual impulse which begins with a warning and which is followed by a solution. As this enters into the world the solution is forgotten, and the warning is disregarded, and all that is left is a dribble of the teaching which is no longer teaching, but becomes the subject of discussion and argument and dispute.
This is already happening to Mr. Gurdjieff's Work, and it is by law, that is -- lawful. It happens here on WITW, as well as anywhere else where Mr. Gurdjieff's ideas are spoken about. The ideas are not the Work. The principles are not the Work, and Mr. Ouspensky, who had a very magnetically attractive personality and who taught only through lecture and in answering questions centripetally, has formed a bridge towards Mr. Gurdjieff. We have much to thank him for, but he was also a weak man -- who became a professional philosopher/teacher.
His entire life was spent lamenting his break with Mr. Gurdjieff, and his sentimentality was only increased by his constant and increasing use of alcohol. Finally, with a reasonable degree of medical certainty, he suffered a series of strokes which left him rather helpless and defenseless. He died in a period of great sorrow, trying to regain a sense of where he had been by revisiting old places. He forever wished to return to Russia, but it was not to be.
Ouspensky is neither a man to disregard or hate; neither is he a man to love unabashedly. As I have said, he was in possession of a towering intellect and a prodigious memory and in his meetings with those who became interested in the ideas, he was essentially flawless -- his answers are an extraordinary accomplishment, but at the same time, he could not submit and he met a barrier he could not cross. Sadly, Mr. Gurdjieff was obligated by a very high law under which he served, so that he could not avoid placing that barrier across Mr. Ouspensky's path.
You see, conscious love is not sentimental. The light is not kind, and the truth is indigestible. Part of our Work is to create new stomachs, which can handle truths about ourselves that otherwise would cause us to run screaming like the painting, "The Scream."
Now, I am interested in your impressions of my attempt to meet the question honestly and from the deepest place in me that I can reach just now. Love of the Work -- Richard
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
WITW#6: Africa. A New Impression
I have been all over the world, as a musician, but haven't until last week stepped foot on the continent of Africa. I read anthropology and all manner of disciplines, and it is said that Africa was the birthplace of mankind.
But it was hearsay and I am a skeptic. Then I came to south Africa, and as I stepped off the plane and my feet found the ground I KNEW. The impressions have been SO deep that I spent the first entire week weeping at the brotherhood of Man. Here, as opposed to the United states where I live and where I have called New york City my home for 50 years, I came in contact with a different reality. I cannot describe the impressions except to say that I am irrevocably changed. I have been eating such rich food of these impressions that I am staggered by the depth of them, and the new understandings that they have given me. My compassion has been increased twenty fold, and I now say (striking my chest), "I Man", (Striking gently the chest of another man black or white) and saying "You Man", and I then say "Human" as I pass my arm across the horizon, to suggest that we are ALL on the same level.
The time is different here also. Now does not mean the now of New York. There are three nows here. "Right Now" is the closest to the "now" of NY, but not quite, because the "Now" of NY is an hour ago. "Now-Now" is "shortly" and "Just Now" means anytime in the future, but it will be done. A little like Jamaica, where "soon come-little while" means what "Just now" means here, but not quite. There is an irrepressible natural buoyant joy here, both in the blacks and in the whites, many of who feel a deep guilt from Apartheid, but it is SO much more respectful than the racial issues which exist in the US. The shame many whites feel here is nothing like the resentful false crap of the rainbow political farce that exists in America.
Another man said to me that this is the home of rhythm, and it is true beyond experience. When I told him that I felt the natural joy in even those with nothing he said that the best music was born of oppression, and I said instead, the music is in SPITE of oppression. Unlike mathematics, where a negative number times a negative number equals a positive number; a negative emotion does not negate another negative but multiplies the negative.
I have come to see that negative against negative is like a knot in a rope; pulling on the ends of the rope in the attempt to undo the knot seems to make it smaller, but only tightens it and makes it harder to untie, where the action required is to push the ends together and take the small fingers of the child inside the knot and loosen it. Then and only then can it really be undone. We cannot add anything in the Work, only remove the filth and untie the knots.
In Yoga there are three Granthis (knots) which bind the sense of identity (Ahamkara) to the worldly figure, and these three knots need to be undone before freedom can be achieved. The first Granthi is with the physical body; the second with the E-motional body, and the third with the Mental body.
When these identifications are cut or untied; there arises a natural freedom -- the lesser and greater freedom. The bodies do not die but then live not as slaves but as free men -- the "Three Brothers" Mr. Gurdjieff wrote about and then burned in 1934, when he had a bonfire built and burned all of his papers -- to the tears of Olgivana deHartmann and Madame deSalzmann. Oh, what we may have lost. The library at Alexandria perhaps?
All I know is that I am in Africa, and spend my time in two places, two worlds...outer and inner richness I cannot explain or describe. And there are two places in the studio building where I am working right next to each other -- the studio where we are making music, and next to it, an anechoic room where it is silent and dark so that it makes no difference whether your eyes are open or closed. I have spent much time there alone, and like Napoleon after he slept in the great Pyramid at Giza, and came out white as a ghost and never told what he experienced till his dying day, when he was asked, "Now that you are dying, would you like to tell us about your experience in the Pyramid?" and he began to say "Yes... but oh never mind, you would not believe me", and then he died...
Something has died in me, and I do not miss it one iota.
But it was hearsay and I am a skeptic. Then I came to south Africa, and as I stepped off the plane and my feet found the ground I KNEW. The impressions have been SO deep that I spent the first entire week weeping at the brotherhood of Man. Here, as opposed to the United states where I live and where I have called New york City my home for 50 years, I came in contact with a different reality. I cannot describe the impressions except to say that I am irrevocably changed. I have been eating such rich food of these impressions that I am staggered by the depth of them, and the new understandings that they have given me. My compassion has been increased twenty fold, and I now say (striking my chest), "I Man", (Striking gently the chest of another man black or white) and saying "You Man", and I then say "Human" as I pass my arm across the horizon, to suggest that we are ALL on the same level.
The time is different here also. Now does not mean the now of New York. There are three nows here. "Right Now" is the closest to the "now" of NY, but not quite, because the "Now" of NY is an hour ago. "Now-Now" is "shortly" and "Just Now" means anytime in the future, but it will be done. A little like Jamaica, where "soon come-little while" means what "Just now" means here, but not quite. There is an irrepressible natural buoyant joy here, both in the blacks and in the whites, many of who feel a deep guilt from Apartheid, but it is SO much more respectful than the racial issues which exist in the US. The shame many whites feel here is nothing like the resentful false crap of the rainbow political farce that exists in America.
Another man said to me that this is the home of rhythm, and it is true beyond experience. When I told him that I felt the natural joy in even those with nothing he said that the best music was born of oppression, and I said instead, the music is in SPITE of oppression. Unlike mathematics, where a negative number times a negative number equals a positive number; a negative emotion does not negate another negative but multiplies the negative.
I have come to see that negative against negative is like a knot in a rope; pulling on the ends of the rope in the attempt to undo the knot seems to make it smaller, but only tightens it and makes it harder to untie, where the action required is to push the ends together and take the small fingers of the child inside the knot and loosen it. Then and only then can it really be undone. We cannot add anything in the Work, only remove the filth and untie the knots.
In Yoga there are three Granthis (knots) which bind the sense of identity (Ahamkara) to the worldly figure, and these three knots need to be undone before freedom can be achieved. The first Granthi is with the physical body; the second with the E-motional body, and the third with the Mental body.
When these identifications are cut or untied; there arises a natural freedom -- the lesser and greater freedom. The bodies do not die but then live not as slaves but as free men -- the "Three Brothers" Mr. Gurdjieff wrote about and then burned in 1934, when he had a bonfire built and burned all of his papers -- to the tears of Olgivana deHartmann and Madame deSalzmann. Oh, what we may have lost. The library at Alexandria perhaps?
All I know is that I am in Africa, and spend my time in two places, two worlds...outer and inner richness I cannot explain or describe. And there are two places in the studio building where I am working right next to each other -- the studio where we are making music, and next to it, an anechoic room where it is silent and dark so that it makes no difference whether your eyes are open or closed. I have spent much time there alone, and like Napoleon after he slept in the great Pyramid at Giza, and came out white as a ghost and never told what he experienced till his dying day, when he was asked, "Now that you are dying, would you like to tell us about your experience in the Pyramid?" and he began to say "Yes... but oh never mind, you would not believe me", and then he died...
Something has died in me, and I do not miss it one iota.
WITW #4: A Heated Argument Groups vs. Loners
Jim Turner and I were discussing the act of learning to walk. As infants we watch the people around us and because we see them walking eventually we begin to try to stand up and walk ourselves. This is an arduous learning process; so much so that I often turn it on its head and state that in learning to fall I had to first learn to stand up. In any case, toddlers walk and fall incessantly–they climb stairs with the same foot until they master the complex movement patterns required to walk up a flight of stairs using both legs. I like to lose. I prefer it as a conscious choice, because losing consciously is better than BEATING the other guy. And what's the FIRST thing they teach in any martial arts class -- how to fall. Learn to fall and one can learn to roll right back up. Now back to our show... There are those who learn to walk because they live among other people who can walk, or...
Then there are the “wild–children”. It is a matter of historical fact that children have been found that may have been abandoned and taken care of by animals and to grow up to be healthy human beings with the exception of the fact that they cannot walk–they often walk on all fours; they cannot speak beyond a certain kind of grunting and animal sounds. One such child found in France and studied over many years was impervious to temperature, and would sleep naked in the snow with no ill effects. But he could not walk without an intense process of learning, and in learning to talk, these "wild" children (in there past 200 years quite a few have been found), very little beyond rudimentary garbled language skills could be taught them.
How does this relate to The Work?
Well, I am speaking to the Group Despisers and Group Deniers and Loners who think that they can learn and practice the Work via books and other materials. You may gather loads of "information", and even think you understand some of the diagrams and lectures given by Gurdjieff, but you don't and you CAN'T be in a teaching that at every turn commends every reader to locate others who ARE IN the Work, and where there are senior people who know how to "WALK".
i am sorry kids, but anyone who continues to argue against the concept that a group is necessary (not forever, but for a long time - it's a school for adults) and that one must find others in the Work IN PERSON are fooling themselves and are warts on this site. They can talk, but when they read any literature regarding the Work and the absolute and invariable law that one must submit one's will to others, and especially a senior member who knows how to walk, they must have felt nausea reading those sections or perhaps they used a magic marker to delete the strict instructions which are given to EVERYONE WITH NO EXCEPTIONS.
I took a magic marker and the Ouspensky Book "Fragments of an Unknown Teaching "ISOM" and I blacked out EVERYTHING BUT THE ACTUAL WORDS OF "G". Turned out that I still had 90% of the book intact. This was when people would quote G and attribute it to O. I researched and verified FOR MYSELF what was said by "G", and the reportage written by "O". My first teacher asked me to bring it in and was floored that I had gone to so much trouble to differentiate what "G" said and what "O" said.
Not a "super-effort" but a determined one to get things delineated properly, and IF YOU HAVE NEVER BEEN OR ARE NOT CONNECTED WITH THE WORK YOU AREN'T IN THE WORK. Sorry, you may be able to talk a blue streak, but you can't walk, skip, leap or run. Every piece of advice that fouls the air around here is from people who are AFRAID. Of what? I don't know and I don't care, but even the "Objective Way" is not what you think it is. The Staircase isn't what you think it is, and the inner WORK ISN'T WHAT YOU THINK IT IS.
Even crawling is stupid if done alone. Find and go to a school, or you are just a worthless new age delinquent.
WITW#3: The Enneagram of the Sun
Please cut and paste to view the video.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Order in the Solar System principally depends upon the Sun, which has been seen as the representative of the Deity throughout the entire history of man. Now, scientists are studying the Sun more closely, with various satellites and we have found that the Sun produces Music, as well as containing within it the figure of an Enneagram. I doubt that anyone not connected with the work would understand the figure. But it blows my mind.
This should be startling at least. Completely flabbergasting anyone who does not serve the Sun and its representative, Great Nature, as humble servants.
Above, I have placed a URL to a video which was created by the European Solar Agency (credit: ESA). In combination with NASA. It is extraordinary, how many different nations contributed to this effort.
But it is revealing secrets of the Sun which have never before been known. How then, did Mr. Gurdjieff know about the Enneagram, which is part of the musical structure of the Sun?
In the above video, which is about the music produced by the Sun, the Enneagram appears at 1 min. and 31 seconds in chapter 4 of a movie that lasts about a half an hour and if one watches the entire movie the Enneagram is shown at 13 min. and 21 seconds.
One should note that the Enneagram is upside down and all the lines are curves with the outer solfege closer to the surface whereas the triangle which points downwards is arched considerably towards the center of the magnetic field of the sun.
The Enneagram which is shown does not contain the inner circulation and appears upside down. This should be made clear so that the Enneagram because the Enneagram which is shown during the film also uses curved lines because they are adhering to magnetic forces and magnetic fields within the Sun, but for anyone in the work who has looked at or studied the Enneagram, it should be easy to see.
Also in this video, it is shown how the sun wobbles between 2 tones, and as more and more lines are added you finally get a perfect image of a sunflower. To me, this is simply mind blowing. And Mr. Gurdjieff introduced the Enneagram to his students sometime between 1914 and 1918.
It is sometimes said that we either serve the Sun and Solar System or we serve the Moon. Here it is shown in an undeniable manner, that the Sun contains all the patterns which affect the Earth.
I would like to hear comments from any of the other members of What Is the Work?, after viewing this very short but illuminating video. I do not fully understand it, and think it presents myriad questions to us who follow the work. Thank you.
WITW#2: Some strange sayings of Mr. Gurdjieff
We are told by Mr. Gurdjieff that we must keep both the Wolf and the Sheep in us alive unto death, or Rascooarno. What does he mean by that, and how do we reconcile these two natures, when so many in the work want to be "good" people?
"I have good leather to sell, for those who wish to make shoes". Again, how are we to understand this strange statement?
"Big Angel/Big Devil" What does THIS mean?
"Angel can only teach one thing, Devil can teach everything" What position does this place us in in terms of our personal aims, morals and ethics?
"I Make Ore, it is for Others to Refine". How much can we trust the teaching? And how do we differentiate between different metals, and what they might stand for?
"All Pleasure is Shit". Is this literal? Are we to believe in this axiom?
"By Teaching Others You Will Learn Yourself". Who then is competent to "teach" or "pass on the teachings?"
"He is God and I am God! For all and in everything we have the same possibilities and impossibilities" Do any of us believe that, and if so, does it also apply to ourselves?
Others may have other peculiar sayings they wish to explore, or take one from above and work with it, sharing your inquiries and findings.
Thanks,
--RL
Blogs from WITW #1 Conscious Suffering
One of my favorite quotes, from "Boyhood with Gurdjieff" by Fritz Peters, pg 96:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
He went on, then, to say that life was a “two-edged sword.
“In your country, you think life is only for pleasure. You have saying in your country: “pursuit of happiness”, and this saying show that people not understand life. Happiness is nothing, is only other side of unhappiness. But in your country, in most of the world now, people only want happiness. Other things also important: suffering important because is also part of life, necessary part. Without suffering man cannot grow, but when you suffer, you think only of self, you feel sorry for self, wish not to suffer because this make you feel not comfortable, make you wish escape from thing that make you feel bad. When man suffer, he feel only self-pity. Not so if real man. Real man also sometimes feel happiness, real happiness; but when he also feel real suffering, he not try to stop this thing himself. He accept this because he know is proper to man. Must suffer to know truth about self; must learn suffer with will. When suffering comes to man must make intentional suffering, must feel with all being; must wish with such suffering that it will help make conscious; help to understand.
“You have only physical suffering, suffering of body because of pain in leg (Fritz had hurt his knee). This suffering also help if you know how to use for self. But this is suffering like animal, not important suffering. With other suffering, suffering in all self, is possibility understand that all people suffer this way, is possible also understand how depend on Nature, on other people, on everything, for help in life. Cannot live life alone.
Aloneness–not loneliness, which is bad thing–but aloneness can be good thing for man, very necessary for life, but also necessary learn not live alone because real life depend on other human being and not just on self. Now, you still boy, cannot understand what I talk–but remember thing; remember for time when you not thank me because I save life.” (Gurdjieff had returned just in time to treat Fritz's knee, which threatened his life through infection).
He went on, then, to say that life was a “two-edged sword.
“In your country, you think life is only for pleasure. You have saying in your country: “pursuit of happiness”, and this saying show that people not understand life. Happiness is nothing, is only other side of unhappiness. But in your country, in most of the world now, people only want happiness. Other things also important: suffering important because is also part of life, necessary part. Without suffering man cannot grow, but when you suffer, you think only of self, you feel sorry for self, wish not to suffer because this make you feel not comfortable, make you wish escape from thing that make you feel bad. When man suffer, he feel only self-pity. Not so if real man. Real man also sometimes feel happiness, real happiness; but when he also feel real suffering, he not try to stop this thing himself. He accept this because he know is proper to man. Must suffer to know truth about self; must learn suffer with will. When suffering comes to man must make intentional suffering, must feel with all being; must wish with such suffering that it will help make conscious; help to understand.
“You have only physical suffering, suffering of body because of pain in leg (Fritz had hurt his knee). This suffering also help if you know how to use for self. But this is suffering like animal, not important suffering. With other suffering, suffering in all self, is possibility understand that all people suffer this way, is possible also understand how depend on Nature, on other people, on everything, for help in life. Cannot live life alone.
Aloneness–not loneliness, which is bad thing–but aloneness can be good thing for man, very necessary for life, but also necessary learn not live alone because real life depend on other human being and not just on self. Now, you still boy, cannot understand what I talk–but remember thing; remember for time when you not thank me because I save life.” (Gurdjieff had returned just in time to treat Fritz's knee, which threatened his life through infection).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)