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- Thursday, June 14, 2007
Wednesday, June 13, 2007yet a bit more on my favorite subject, negativity The question of chief feature comes up when we discuss negativity. My friend Kathy (see yesterday's comment) frequently refers to this oft--forgotten aspect of the work. She sees it as a central question.
There's no doubt that an understanding of how chief feature manipulates us, and how it manages to remain invisible as it causes us anguish and keeps us in a state of fear, is helpful in beginning to understand that we don't have to be that way. I forget that sometimes, so I'm glad she's around to remind me. One of the most compelling things about the work that Ouspensky and Nicoll did with Mr. Gurdjieff was that they continually reminded us that we have a right to not be negative. That is to say, negativity as we experience it is not a natural state for men. It looks like it is, because the world is immersed in a sea of it at most times, but that is a delusional impression. The world is also paved with an enormous amount of asphalt and concrete, but that is not a natural state. We have just come to accept it as one as we continue to destroy the environment which sustains us. Jared Diamond had some pretty interesting things to say about that in his book "Collapse." Basically, no matter how degraded an environment becomes because of man's interaction with it, to the current inhabitants, it looks normal. So no matter how depraved our inner conditions are, by the time we get there, they seem to be entirely logical. The conditions, whatever they are, seem to be irrevocable and inescapable. And to compound matters, we engage in an elaborate inner dialog to sustain that impression. Why is that? Why don't we want to believe that there is an alternative? I've been pondering that. Simply put, sleep cannot see sleep. From within our negativity, from within our hypnosis, there is no alternative, and there is not even the possibility of doing much more than imagining one. Chief feature, buffers, denial -- put them all together, they are powerful. We don't have to be that way. But in order to find anything else, we have to actually believe it is possible and wish for it. Oddly enough, when I tell people that there is a way to begin to understand one's inner negativity, understand where it originates, and feed oneself so that one can begin to extinguish it, no one seems very interested. I have not figured this one out yet. All around me, I see people who are angry, depressed, frustrated. They snap at each other, they feel unfulfilled in life, they don't get what is wrong with them. A lot of them ask me why I am happy most of the time, especially at work, where we are all under a lot of pressure and the situation keeps changing in unpleasant ways. In order to tell people why I am like that, I would have to tell them everything, and that takes a way long time. No one is patient enough to listen. Besides that, no one wants to know all of this. Hearing that you would have to undertake a long-term work involving meditation and self-study seems too complicated to them. They want to get rid of their negativity by turning on the TV. And of course, that works, if only for a little while. Perhaps we could say that the first step is to take responsibility for our negativity. This is exactly what alcoholics learn to do when they want to recover from alcoholism. And in the end, speaking as a long time experienced alcoholic who has been in recovery for over 25 years, I can tell you that negativity is an equally addicting substance. It's powerful, it's exciting, it can be fun. I have watched people fall in love with their own negativity until it consumed them. It feeds on and ultimately destroys their essence. Negativity works the same way as alcohol, in that it creates an incredibly powerful denial mechanism to keep itself alive. That is because this state keeps itself intact by feeding on higher energies that belong to other parts. It is strictly parasitic. Like all parasites, it is not particularly concerned with the effect it has on the host, as long as it can earn its livelihood. Taking responsibility involves taking a cold, hard look at the negativity and admitting that it is ours. First we have to take possession, and we never do that. Take a look -- isn't it true? Whenever we are negative, it is because of what someone else did, isn't it? One can undertake a work that will lead one out of this mess. That much is certain. But, as I said before, people just don't want to. Their negativity is so much a part of what they are that they cannot conceive of themselves without it. It preserves their separation from everyone around them, from the rest of the world, and reinforces the ego. This makes them feel important. And for most people, that's what it's all about. May your trees bear fruit, and your wells yield water. Thursday, June 14, 2007change Human beings love the idea of change. Often we use this special word, "progress," to describe change, and accept it as having an unconditionally positive meaning.
I am not sure it is appropriate to refer to the word progress as either positive or negative. It means change of state, or a transition from one form or moment to another. The entire universe is engaged in this activity at all times, and it is only mankind that imposes the perception of "good" or "bad" on this process. It seems highly unlikely that planets, animals, or microorganisms have any idea that what is taking place from moment to moment is good or bad. It is all just true. Human beings are in love with the idea of change. This idea is bandied about a great deal. Politicians, psychologists, social and mechanical engineers, doctors, lawyers, and so on all talk about the need for change. But what we end up with is not actual change; instead, we collectively endorse a hypnotic state which convinces everyone that change is taking place, while everything resolutely continues to proceed exactly as it always has. Lyrics from the song "We Won't Get Fooled Again" by one of my favorite rock bands, the Who, come to mind: "Meet the new boss: same as the old boss." This certainly takes place in an outer sense. As Gurdjieff pointed out, "civilization" has not really progressed in many thousands of years. The technological trappings of man's existence have become more sophisticated, but men still kill each other and destroy everything around them with little regard for common sense. Just the other day, for example, I drove past the local Costco store. For five years now it has been surrounded by several acres of woodland. All of that was torn down in one or two brief days over the last week. In the process, hundreds of trees were cut down. Tens of thousands of individual plants of various kinds were destroyed--in fact, the number is probably closer to the hundreds of thousands, and perhaps even millions. We can be certain that hundreds of small animals and millions of insects lost their homes. Billions, perhaps even trillions, of microorganisms were destroyed as the environment changed from one of cool, dark, moist woodland to a smoking, barren wasteland that looks like an entire division of the Nazi army just rolled over it in tanks. Soon this devastated landscape will be paved with concrete and asphalt and yet another shopping center will be born. Never mind the fact that 80% or more of the landscape here in the Edison, New Jersey area is already paved, destroyed, and crammed full of redundant shopping centers. People call this "real estate development." I call it habitat destruction. It can be guaranteed: no one ever stopped to think about the fact that billions of individual lives were destroyed in this process. The fact that it amounted to a holocaust of unimaginable proportions to this many organisms never entered the minds of the people who are making the money doing it. If we stopped taking processes like this for granted for even a moment and consider them, we would see how unbelievably arrogant man is. To us, we are the only thing that matters. Even more striking is the manner in which man runs about wailing and moaning if nature returns the favor. Anything that happens to other organisms is "progress." When we are destroyed by a natural event-- for example, an earthquake, or a tsunami -- it is a "tragedy." Let us now reverse the focus and discuss inner change. "Inner change" are the perpetual buzzwords of spiritual work, but the entire psychology of our organism is designed to prevent it. No one actually wants any inner change.
Every form eventually falls into this trap when it is practiced. Chief feature, which we were discussing yesterday, is the central point around which a man's being revolves in his ordinary state, and it is fundamentally opposed to change. Its entire existence is devoted to various means of self preservation. It manages to produce an enormous number of circumstances where what presents itself as change is actually a clever way of preserving the status quo. It is the hypnotizing factor that keeps everything real in us proceeding in a repetitive circle around it. It looks like everything is going somewhere, but it keeps deflecting back upon itself. In order for real change to take place, a tear-down on the scale of what happened outside Costco last week in Edison, New Jersey would have to take place. The entire habitat of the ego, along with every organism that it supports, would have to be destroyed. In this particular case, the analogy is reversed -- something that was built needs to be torn down so that the organisms can begin to grow again. In seeking inner change, we're seeking to get back to the green- that which is alive, organic, and vibrant within us. Jesus Christ said, "I bring not peace, but a sword." In light of our resistance to change, it's worth thinking that one over. Download 1.48 Mb. Share with your friends:
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