Start at page 70 for reformat of pictures

Thursday, June 7, 2007

Aim

In a sense, the entire chapter of Ecclesiastes in the Bible is about this. Solomon discusses the fact that he achieved an enormous amount in the external world in terms of acquiring power and riches, but determined in the end that all of it was vanity. He concludes with a lofty aim indeed, a single aim which must transcend all other aims: to worship God.

I think that an aim of a real sort takes an entire lifetime to achieve. Of course there can be intermittent aims, mileposts on the way to the overarching intention, but in the end, there has to be an overarching intention, a single unifying principle that gathers a man's life together and points it in one direction.

In undertaking this kind of directed effort, many men are successful in the external world. We see them: they become leaders in politics, law, business, entertainment. You can just about find them all by counting off all the professions and the most successful people in them.

The difficulty with this kind of aim is that when a man puts his aim outside himself, he can only achieve things in an outer sense. That is to say, his aim exists outside him, in the world, and it keeps drawing material out of him in order to serve it. In this way he has an effect on material existence, perhaps even a powerful one, but his inner state remains relatively unchanged.

People go through whole lifetimes like this and abruptly wake up at the end wondering just what the hell happened to them.

Now, the idea of work on spiritual matters is generally understood, it seems, to change man's psychology, but this is a misconception. The ultimate aim of an inner work is to physically change the inner state. In the process of this physical change, many other things happen, and of course the psychology of a man changes, but the physical changes must come first.

So in our esoteric investigation, a real aim begins with the understanding of physical change, and everything else follows.

Where is the difference between this and external aims? The materiality of the inner, not the outer, world is changed. Thus, we see truth: everything is material. It is simply a question of which materiality we choose to affect, inner or outer.

It's very tricky. Because the outer world and its attractions are so utterly compelling, every effort to understand things from an inner point of view gets co-opted by the outer. Forms- religions, icons, idols, images- replace real inner study, and our sleep- lack of awareness of the nature of correspondence between the inner and the outer- hypnotizes us until we absolutely believe that our investment in outer conditions is changing us.

The direction of aim must change, and be pointed inwards. Then the entire process is inverted and a man or woman begins to draw material into the sphere of their inner solar system, rather than having it drawn off and depleted by the inexorable force of larger proximate bodies. One begins to consume one's life and it all becomes a completely extraordinary kind of food.

My own studies have led me to a specific set of aims in regard to these questions. The formulation- which must remain flexible- changes from time to time. This week, I formulate them thus:

Open the flowers.
Empty the vessel.

For those who are interested in such activities: they are lifetime aims, "big" aims. That is, do not expect to "achieve" these aims; merely expect to be working on them. In addition, don't set goals for what will "happen" if there is progress in these areas; simply engage here because this is where engagement can be attempted.

As to why, "Why" can grow only from engagement.

May your trees bear fruit, and your wells yield water.

Friday, June 8, 2007

What is the Gurdjieff work?

The intention of this blog has never been to regurgitate Gurdjieff and Ouspensky wholesale. You can go to plenty of other places on the web to get that kind of material.

To me, there seems to be an unfortunate impression abroad in the online Gurdjieff community that the Gurdjieff ideas are a sophisticated intellectual circus act, and that much of the important core of the Work can be located in Ouspensky's texts.

That's okay, for those who wish to believe that. However, the Gurdjieff work is not just a set of complex esoteric ideas cribbed out on sheets of paper. It is a living entity that breathes in and out through every individual that engages in it. There are as many versions of the Gurdjieff work as there are people practicing it, because every individual's work and aim belongs to themselves.

In this blog, I try to speak about personal practice, as derived from 25 and more years of actual struggle and experience in my own living work.

This means I try to speak directly about my own experience. It's not going to sound just like the material in the traditional body of the Gurdjieff literature. This blog is not about the Work in theory, it is the Work from the perspective of practice, as it is passed on in current practice. There is a significant difference, as anyone who joins the formal Work soon finds out.

If it resembles "new age" material, that is probably because new age efforts have some real material in them. I suppose outsiders might find it quite shocking to hear from someone on the "inside" (ha ha) that many, many people in the formal line of the Gurdjieff work study all kinds of new age ideas. They do new age stuff. They see new age movies and read new age books. Even some of my close friends in the Work do this.

Ach du Lieber! Quelle outrage?!

You know what? There's room for everyone out there, gang.

Here's how I see it.

One of the essential characteristics of inner development is to learn how to respect others and their efforts, not intentionally devalue them as inferiors of one kind or another.

Another essential characteristic is transparency and responsibility. People who wish to say something negative to someone else should be willing to stand there naked, to reveal their identity. To hide behind anonymity and judge is to avoid the essential question.

Take note, in this blog, you know who I am. I don't hide behind obscure pseudonyms. If we don't have the courage to be who we are, where is our Being?

And then there is the ultimate question of compassion and humility. People who have a real organic sense of self must try to avoid flinging their monkey poop at others

...being human, none of us succeed at this all the time. But-- poop ever in-hand-- do we understand that the effort to be present should be present?

There is a terrific in danger in believing that we know something about the Gurdjieff ideas and are hence somehow "above" other people. The moment any of us go there, we are living through ego, and we think that we are something.

It can hardly be described as a moment where we, as Gurdjieff repeatedly wished for all of us, fully sense our own nothingness.

News.

Recent events have provoked me to begin writing a major essay on our collective struggle against negativity, which is a task I have had in front of me for nearly a year now. I have repeatedly put it off because of its scale, and the fact that it will require me to lay bare much hard-won personal material.

This essay will be a follow-up to my 2003 essay on the enneagram and its esoteric implications, which is available by clicking on the link.

Stay tuned.

May your trees bear fruit, and your wells yield water.

Download 1.48 Mb.

Share with your friends: