He said, She said

Overheard recently in my neighborhood mystically-bent coffee-shop.

>
>She said:
>"Regarding the approach of Mr. Nyland
>(Fourth Way teacher and student of
>Mr. Gurdjieff), we were taught to make
>a wish to make an effort to Work.
>Let me explain it to you."
>(and then, she did...)
>
>He replied:
>"This was not at all the specific approach
>as explained by Mr. Nyland."
>

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A couple, perhaps irrelevant to you, comments:

Of course, this kind of banter happens all the time between so-called students of mystical teachings, religions, philosophies, etc.

The one who is apparently (according to himself, sometimes even alone) "supposed to know" tells those who apparently (according to themselves, and most of the time to everyone else) "don't know", his particular version of "the Secret", and STILL they don't get it.

There he is, sitting at the front of the class, with all his nearest and dearest sitting around him in a large circle, arranged from his most favorite - sitting, let's say, to his left - to his least favorite - who is now sitting to his right (funny that) - and he whispers "the Secret" into his most favorite's anxious and willing ear, now straining to receive "the entire undiluted message", who then whispers it to the next, who then whispers it to the next, etc., etc., until "the Secret" has travelled all the way around the room.

Now what?
Has everybody "gotten it"?
Hardly.

But later, there is an abundance to argue over (er, discuss), even for months and years after the "one who knows" has finally left the stage and can no longer "clear up the mess", er, matter.

It's NOT that the "one who was supposed to know" didn't know - though, maybe he didn't.
It's NOT that the listeners didn't get it - though, probably they didn't.

It's that the followers happily - not "getting the full message" - and literally spend the rest of their short lives, willingly arguing over (discussing) the true and real MEANINGS of what the originator actually said, as though through that faux-effort, that imaginary effort, they each will come to a greater understanding, though of what they have almost no idea.
Hardly.

Of course, all this kind of nonsense happens all the time.

What if "the ways" are just roadblocks, to keep otherwise "promising people" from searching any further - digging any deeper - into the mystery?

"Hardly!!"

The problem of so-called 'lineage groups' OR 'the telephone game'

All teachings and religions put much importance on the idea of lineage, believing (quite wrongly - but then, how could they possibly know this!?!) that if MY current teacher was in a group led by a person who was in a group (and so on and so on...) that originally was led by the Mr. Mainman Hisself, that *therefore*, MY current group/teacher MUST be valid, relevant, useful to my higher possibilities.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

This waking-up game, this enlightenment game, is a solitary affair from the beginning to the end, and this understanding is the Alpha and Omega of actually achieving anything. Why? Because - and you can never really get away from this - it's the classic "Telephone Game")

No matter WHAT the originator/dominator tells his first small group of friends - who absolutely are there in the first place because they are and must be passive to his teaching and authority (because if they were truly, genetic alpha mammals, they would never be there in the first place even if they believed, somehow, the originator/dominator actually knew some secret(s)), primarily (which is always the case in such "groups/congregations") because they not only WANT to be led/dominated, they NEED to be led and dominated, i.e., told what to do, and what to think... ("thinking" being the main operative word there.)

But, again, it's always a "telephone game" because what the originator tells them outright, is ALWAYS just a minuscule part, *at best*, of what he knows and understands at the time, and no matter how intently the group listens to what he says, they MUST miss the best parts ("best" being the extremely important word here - because the "best" is never revealed!), and in the end of the inevitable movement of this supposed "new information" (thought energy) they've just heard throughout their automatic/mechanical/associative "thinking process" it will not only NOT be precisely what they were told, it will be quite different. And if you want a law to conform yourself to this piece of news, it's this: that which is seen only partially, is not just seen "incorrectly", it's seen as >>something else<<. That's why, in the "telephone game" the 13th person in the circle, hearing only a piece of the originators message, doesn't see the original message at all, but SEES/HEARS something else entirely.

In this thing - waking up, enlightenment - unless you originate the information yourself, you can not know if what you're repeating is the thing itself, or something else entirely - NOR CAN YOUR LISTENERS.

Lineage is absolutely irrelevant in this master game, this search for the miraculous, no matter what you've been previously told. AND, anything you have previously been told, can only have an ill effect upon your objective possibilities, though you can almost never realize this, ONCE you've been duly "sworn in and suited up" to the status of "member". Just as, rather than actually going to Paris can be delayed, almost indefinitely - and quite happily so by many people - by reading large coffee-table picture-books about Paris, joining email lists discussing the wonders of Paris, corresponding by telephone and email with actual living Parisians, and dreaming about walking the streets and visiting the sights and points-of-interest (which you now can see in your "mind's eye", thanks to the multitudes of picture books - authored by Parisians AND non-Parisians - which were eagerly soaked up with characteristic vim and vigor.)

Even if an originator/dominator tells enough about "the secret(s)" to someone, and he/she apparently "wakes up", it IS NOT NOR CAN BE the fault of the other guy. Now, there is a new originator/dominator walking around, who not only WOULD NOT, but COULD NOT, repeat the same metaphorical/symbolical stories he "got from" playing his earlier telephone games, but would absolutely - if and only if he had the interest in doing so (passing on something to other living humans - which is NOT a given in any case) - invent new and even (to him) MORE INTERESTING expressions of the mystical journey.

The (REALLY big) questions

Recently posted onto a Fourthway email list were the following "big questions" (there are certainly more, but these were but a few important to Fourthway students):
> What is the growing end of one's own descending octave?
> Also there is an ascending octave. What is this with in me?
> What is the yearning for consciousness, the hope, love and faith of consciousness?
> What does this really mean for me in my life?
> How do I start the process of finding my way to understanding more fully?

The writer did not attempt to answer these questions, as is usually the case for a variety of reasons they would explain if pressed to provide some.

Here are a few comments about all that.

These are, apparently, the kinds of questions one should be asking (and not limited to those studying Gurdjieff, but anyone properly interested in the "lifelong pursuit"), and not just occasionally, but consistently, even continuously, in the way a gymnast walks their 4-inch wide balance beam, or even a tightrope-walker traverses their 1/2-inch wide wire, always checking all the centers, the entire system-that-we-are, the system-that-one-is, as consciously as possible.

Unfortunately for very many people, perhaps even some here, deviations (falling) can occur at any time, but because they have not yet "hit the ground", they in their continuing imagination still believe they "on their way".

One sign that falling is already occurring, is believing the metaphors they "admire" (and think they are studying), are reality. The metaphors - regarding what man is, where he lives both externally and internally, what his capacities and potentials are, all that - substitute for most people AS acceptable reality. That is, that they know the stories, the metaphors, is an acceptable substitute for being the reality they point to.

This is never easy to accomplish, but oh so easy to believe the stories as fact, even if "not yet verified".

One surprising thing that relative awakening reveals, or results in, is the quickening of the "letting-go" of metaphors, stories about themselves, in favor of, as it were, actually ANSWERING all those questions that have apparently sustained one for so many years.

It is no longer satisfactory to merely ask "the hard questions", but to understand why they were even asked in the first place, why they attracted you to their hoped-for resolutions, and why it's taken so very long to move beyond the beliefs.

In other words - though saying this will raise hackles in some - asking the questions, ruminating over the questions, speculating about the questions, is a poor substitute for moving past their inbred need to do so. That is, reaching levels of certainty (regarding those questions/metaphors) about all things previously considered, "the really big questions".

Testing the waters

Whenever a (budding) revolutionist sticks his head above line-level, he always risks revealing himself to someone in the city, to Life ("as he knows it"), due to the "reflectivity" of all such efforts and his still-inexperienced skills and talents in that regard, but that does not stifle his more-overpowering need to continue to test the world, to See All; in fact, it stimulates even further attempts to See without Being seen.

This is the source of the real essence need to break rules that the city has established - long before he arrived here - and is the beginning of something that can grow, if not unduly stifled, by being revealed "once too often!" and becoming a societal criminal of one sort or another, or worse, an overly inhibited human that has essentially lost the innate power to think for himself, do for himself, explore the world and the universe. (A pity? Perhaps, perhaps not.)

So-called, "testing the waters" is built-in to the organism, and is the need to branch out, to grow, to evolve, that society, civilization, peer and power-possessing groups seek to squelch as soon as possible, if not even sooner - by "teaching" the human what is "acceptable" and absolutely "un-acceptable".

But, testing the waters can flower into moving the nervous system above the line, and eventually out of sight, of both the city, AND Life - to become what one really IS, an Individual, Real I. Ordinary "i's" (ordinary humans, moment by moment) can only test the external world, and some become outcasts, criminals, exiles. Real I no longer needs to test the external world, but ONLY himself - that is, all that which is below or at line level in him. In this he feeds his higher nervous system, and this continual feeding gestates the "new man", and if he doesn't die physically, too soon, this New Being, which will not only outlive the death of the body, may even outlive the life of the planet that gave birth to him - or, as Gurdjieff suggested, "become immortal within the limits of the solar system."

When a Revolutionist (no longer just a rookie) has succeeded establishing a base camp above the line, he comes with nothing but his own genetic capacities, but as time proceeds, and skills mature, he develops methods for remaining above the line, even while participating in the life of the city - maintaining a home, paying bills, interacting with others, holding a necessary job - while not giving away his position as a full-fledged revolutionist observing the world from his detached position.

Modern man

Modern man - in any age - is continuously engaged in attempting to solve all the mysteries that naturally surround him, but he has only two methodologies: thinking about his life, and/or thinking about his self. All teachings, systems of thought, religions, philosophies, arts, sciences, and similar verbal attempts, are nothing more than one or the other, or a synthesis of both.

Modern man is thus condemned to spend eternity - such as only he can know it - circling around this same point: that of the unsolved mystery.

The only way a "modern man" can move forward with all this, to move into the future, as distinct from remaining glued to the present/past, is by inventing a third methodology.

There is no "my life". There is no "my self". And the continual forgetting of this by that which is "thinking about it", is the very definition of "modernity". Once a human evolves to the point where he begins to consider his life and himself, from his personal point of view, he reaches "modernity", which is the status quo of all humanity, the highest level of evolution possible for "modern man".

All so-called, pre-moderns all the way back to uncivilized savages with a functioning mental circuit - the capacity to think and talk - must occupy their minds (and not just their entire mind, but that particular part that can grow and expand) thinking about their lives and their selves, that is, they can only think about personal points of views about everything.

The third methodology extends first from the intentional merging, fusion, of "my life" with "my self", creating a third possibility that can not occur accidentally, and even if some external circumstances evoke that seeming temporary result, it can not be maintained, because there was no initial moment of intention. What starts accidentally continues accidentally, bound by all the laws of the universe which govern the continuance of the status quo.

Thus, are all humans linked in Time, from a common point wherein was first inculcated the concept of the other, and another means to deal with it - besides the instincts and capacity for independent movement - via the thinking circuitry. This occurs in all humans, in all ages through teaching ("others") by frequent instruction or repetition; it is, simply, indoctrination - in the same way the young are inculcated with a sense of duty.

Humans are taught their sense of "myself", and their sense of "my life", and that is the chief impediment to the growth of the nervous system into higher circuits.

Knowing

It's not that somebody "knows" something or "understands" something you don't - not jesus, not buddha, not gurdjieff, not jung - but that you need to reorganize, restructure, rewire your nervous system, somehow, in order to reach in there and pull out what you want/need when you want/need it.

It's all in there.

And the forms that "knowledge" takes, is almost irrelevant, because all "knowledge" is fungible, due to differences in language, primarily, and the way in which thought is interpreted by the one "knowing" it. This, of course, accounts for the extraordinary differences (complexities) in the many, many teachings that have existed and do exist today. The "names" for things, including obviously, all intangibles, are really just variances in the way people talk about them, depending upon their language of choice, and the time of the day/year/century.

Knowledge

The ordinary quest for knowledge of everything under the sun, save one, inevitably leads to more and more talk.

The proper investigation of man, is mind, which inevitably leads to less and less talk.