# A Gurdjieff idea about humans and the world



## Pablo (Sep 1, 2005)

One idea I find really interesting which Gurdjieff spoke of which is also taught in many other traditions is that humans are a microcosm of the world so the same laws and rythms flow through people as the whole world, so one way of understanding the world at large is to understand yourself because the same laws abide throughout nature, this is the method taught in many other traditions but Gurdjieff said that it is also very helpful to study the outside world and get to know its universal laws and features then try to find those same features within your self.

He used to say that humans are a whole system and we have a sun and a moon within us and a question he would ask people to ponder is what part of you is the sun and what part of you is the moon? because if you can understand what they are and what role they play in you then you can understand the whole cosmos. I dont know the answer to this im not sure about the sun but I have a few ideas by thinking about the nature of the moon and what it does for life on earth perhaps there is a part of our minds which does the same for life within ourselves reflecting energy?


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## Guest (Apr 28, 2008)

I would totally agree with this fella on this subject, DEFINATLY. 
There is a ritual I use called "calling the light" it involves a complex visualisation of watching the sun in its orbit going round us east to west and then the moon from new moon, to full ,to dark etc....As the cycle changes we identify each phase and law etc of the sun and the moon and try to find those sparks and cycles within our self and our life.Its a beautiful process which also really makes you feel so totally connected and protected by nature and also it makes us more aware of nature as a living being ,an enlightened being,and our relationship with it in its fullest expression.

Spirit.


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## Pablo (Sep 1, 2005)

Yeah the more I look into things like this the deeper things get and I realise now that there is so much more to knowing yourself and studying yourself than I first thought. I thought you could study the ego and study the way your body works and meditate and you would know yourselfr but things go so much deeper when you start to look at your own rythms and study natures laws within yourself. Im really liking the Gurdjieff fourth way approach at the moment , it goes to such incredible depth and explains so much that other approaches just leave out or consider irrelevant, I just finsished reading his main book called "Beelzebubs tales to his grandson" and never have I read such a strange, original and lifechanging book, I cant say I really undersatand that much of it at the moment as it is full of red herrings and is very cryptic so it is more of an intellectual exercise rather than a process of transformation at the moment, but if you ever get interested in this way Spirit you should have a look at the book "In search of the Miraculous" by P. D. Ouspensky because that is the book which really gets you into what it is all about.


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## Guest (Apr 29, 2008)

It was a combination of my buddhist practice and my witchy self that took me deeper into this sort of thing,I think once youve done with the studying the ego stuff etc.as you mention ..then youre free to go ever deeper into other things..reality takes on a multidimensional interest and it goes on forever.Thats why I love this work so much because our "spiritual self" ,well we are infinite, therefore there is an infinite potential for learning ,i never get bored and as you go on with it ,it does take you ever deeper and theres allways somewhere new to take it.I know a few buddhists who take their buddhist practice in this way ,studying it through our relationship with nature,because we are aiming to make a pure land out of the world.
I have to be careful with books,if i read to many they distract me from my own path..I like to concerntrate on my experience then i know ill absorb it better,and i also know its my experience and not somone elses.....though I absolutly LOVE to read and I LOVE books..Ill need a library shelf in my house soon enough..there are so many books that i havnt read yet but want to..im also writing several books...im very disorganised..,I usually buy a book and read it all in the same night lol,so I might give it a look ,thanks.

Spirit.


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## Pablo (Sep 1, 2005)

I read a lot of books but I no longer look for answers to my problems from them which is a good thing I think, my practice of healing is so simple now that even important books cant intefere with its process so im not too worried any more about being led astray. Most of the things I study about Gurdjieff and the fourth way is more out of curiostiy rather than looking for the "truth" as such because I know the truth wont be found in any book and wont be found using the thinking mind at all, but what Gurdjieff has to say about a lot of things facinates me, he says his way is infact the original Christianity which Christ was taught and the more I understand what he says the more I agree with him, in many ways it is very similar to Buddhism but there is also a lot of emphasis on each person having to pay for their existance and evolution through conscious labour and suffering which brings in the western spirituality aspect so it encourages working and action within the normal world and developing a permanent "I" and not running away into seclusion or simply bathing in non-duality like some eastern gurus promote. I am starting to wonder whether Gurdjieff was really sent for some higher purpose as it seems like too much of a coincidence that he appeared during the time of the world wars, he used to say that his work was only possible because of the turmoil of those years as people were being shocked into trying to face up to who they really are and what they are doing and all you needed was a handful of conscious people to change the world.


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## Guest (May 2, 2008)

I dont think its possible to develop a permenant "self", I know there is no permenant "self" ,can you find it? unless you realise that the self is not actually a self ,then you live from your heart,the mind stops coming and going ,picking and choosing and finds balance ,there is found infinity,but thats beyond all ideas of permanance or impermenance,maybe hes talking of the true self,its confusing when we try to use language for this.Im ghessing he means whole intergrated "BEING".
I dont get led astray by books as such,its just that I get very into books and it distracts me from my experience a bit for a while,though sometimes it amplifies my own experience and its usefull ,it depends.Buddhist books for example,especially long texts,when I read them ,something I earler understood completly with my heart gets confused because those texts can be to intellectual and then like you say im trying to "get at it" with my mind.....
Sometimes ill come across a book and "know" that im meant to buy it/read it,so I tend to let that process happen by itself,all the books I have are because I was led to them or they were given to me.....

Spirit.


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## Pablo (Sep 1, 2005)

Spirit said:


> I dont think its possible to develop a permenant "self", I know there is no permenant "self" ,can you find it? unless you realise that the self is not actually a self ,then you live from your heart,the mind stops coming and going ,picking and choosing and finds balance ,there is found infinity,but thats beyond all ideas of permanance or impermenance,maybe hes talking of the true self,its confusing when we try to use language for this.Im ghessing he means whole intergrated "BEING".


What Gurdjieff is saying is that most people believe that they have a self but in reality they have many selves within them which are all competing for attention, so within each of us there is a whole group of people screaming to be heard, so in a way we are all fragmented and slightly schitzophrenic. This is an idea which is now more and more popular in psychiatry with Freud first saying we are divided into three but later psychotherapists saying there are actually many more parts than that within us and mental illmess is when one self is at war with another part. Now Buddhists more or less say that all that is just ego which is not real and melts away when you see the truth of its non reality, but Gurdjieff is saying yes that might be true but within the world you live through your self and your ego so also what he aims for in his work as well as a realisation of non duality and a shift from the ego as being the master to being a servant is a fusion of all the seperate selves within a person so in the end there is one original self which has one aim and direction which isnt fragmented and isn't pulling in different directions, which is why it is combination of both eastern and western spirituality. Like you say it is easy to confuse meanings when you talk out this sort of thing but Gurdjieffs meaning of integrated being I think is slightly different than Buddhist one because it involves a integration of the ego self as well as a transcendece of it


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## Rozanne (Feb 24, 2006)

Interesting. Byron Katie says that in order to make peace with the world we need to make peace with ourself first.

I notice that when you do the Work it seems to sometimes mediate between the critical superego and the intuitive id part of the self. I'll give you an example. She says we tell ourselves lies. Like: "I need more friends I wish I had more friends". The mind SAYS that, while in reality, the self is avoiding people and finds people stressful. So at that moment in time, the truth is actually that the person doesn't want to see people and would rather avoid them. That is how they are acting and that says more about their deepest need at that moment in time. So by realising the mind superimposes on "wishes" and "desires" which are more to do with how we "should feel", you can accept, well actually I really feel like THIS right at this moment. And then after you accept those real feelings, like wanting to avoid people, or eat something naughty, you can start inquiring on it, from a place of greater acceptance. Instead of just battling the self and sayin it "should be different", accepting the self more, and then going from there, more in syncronisation with self-care and understanding, that is beginning to act from a place of love instead of fear.

I'm going to re-read this thread again about the selves...


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## Pablo (Sep 1, 2005)

Yes I think you are right that many of our wishes are ideas about how we "should feel", that is something big I think and I sometimes wonder if nearly all of what I do is based on an idea of what I "should" be doing rather than from a deeper place. I haven't spoken that much about the different selves in this thread but it is a big part of the Gurdjieff work and also that of Alchemy I think, it is interesting to notice it in yourself I always notice it when I have to choose a movie from the video shop as I can spend hours trying to decide which one to get with many conflicting feelings and opinions and im always conflicted about food like chocolate.

When it comes to studying and understanding your different selves I think it is an impossible and worthless task to try to sit down and try to identify each individual self so you know it, Gurdjieff says that the best we can do is come to place where we can really see how fragmented and divided we really are, so we see our fragmentation rather than understand it and by seeing that fragmentation it humbles you and strikes a big blow to your self importance and idea as a integrated person, so only when you see your inner poverty and contradiction in the cold light of day can the real work of transformation start.


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## Rozanne (Feb 24, 2006)

Oh yeah...haha...thing is when you've actually been dissociated from your identity, you don't need to try to see you are fragmented.... I cycle through different states of being, lots of them based purely on imagination. There is no person here. It's one of the reasons I don't like to be around people. I am afraid they will notice how empty I am, discover the barren internal landscape of my soul and reject it. Have been internally dead for about 20 years.

For a long time, I avoided going near people in case I hurt them just by being empty. It was like I was worried of seeing them react to my internal death. I thought people would be horrified by the emptiness of it. Like it would actually wound another soul if they saw my internal abyss. As they say, when you look into the abyss, the abyss looks into you. Maybe this is something psychotic, feeling like a black hole, I don't know.


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## Guest (May 6, 2008)

Pablo said:


> What Gurdjieff is saying is that most people believe that they have a self but in reality they have many selves within them which are all competing for attention, so within each of us there is a whole group of people screaming to be heard, so in a way we are all fragmented and slightly schitzophrenic. This is an idea which is now more and more popular in psychiatry with Freud first saying we are divided into three but later psychotherapists saying there are actually many more parts than that within us and mental illmess is when one self is at war with another part. Now Buddhists more or less say that all that is just ego which is not real and melts away when you see the truth of its non reality, but Gurdjieff is saying yes that might be true but within the world you live through your self and your ego so also what he aims for in his work as well as a realisation of non duality and a shift from the ego as being the master to being a servant is a fusion of all the seperate selves within a person so in the end there is one original self which has one aim and direction which isnt fragmented and isn't pulling in different directions, which is why it is combination of both eastern and western spirituality. Like you say it is easy to confuse meanings when you talk out this sort of thing but Gurdjieffs meaning of integrated being I think is slightly different than Buddhist one because it involves a integration of the ego self as well as a transcendece of it


Hi Pablo,just breifly because hayfever is melting my brain or something...never had it before. :? ...this is actually spoken about in buddhism, this intergration is the fourth dhyana.Thats actually what buddhist meditation aims to do in the first few monthes of meditation.We identify all of the differant selves,the fractured personality,the splitting ,the scattered energies....conflictions.. and then we aim to intergrate them into one whole being..or true self,true individual....You can be a true individual without living from a self ego point of veiw.Dharmachari sabhutti [an ordained buddhist member of the fwbo]talks about this to some degree in his book,buddhism for today.That book really helped me to look and see my scattered personality,the inconsistent psychological patterns that were destroying my life,I felt like ten differant people before I started buddhist practice,I pushed, I pulled ,I was either this or that ,black or white ,all or nothing.....so confusing,i invalidated my own reality with this inconsistent trend....and ended up not knowing who the hell I was....thankfully I found intergration.
I think this guy takes the truer genuine christrian ideas like you say,with a nice flavour of buddhism ,so its not necarsarily something hes come up with ,but hes teaching very good practice ,its not actually disimilar from my own practice and ive never read anything about this guy accept what youve written.

Spirit.


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## Rozanne (Feb 24, 2006)

_well how do ya do it???_ Integrate the self I mean!


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## Pablo (Sep 1, 2005)

Rozanne said:


> _well how do ya do it???_ Integrate the self I mean!


Good question 

I could tell you what other people say about it but until I have done it myself and proved what they say is correct I cant claim I know the answer, unfortunately I dont think one process like meditation or therapy really does it, but things like that can help take out the conflict and destructive energy between the selves..... we probably need somebody who knows to show us the way in person


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## Rozanne (Feb 24, 2006)

I believe depersonalisation is a psychic punishment inflicted on us by the Universe for not considering other people's feelings and experiences interesting enough to get us out of our own lives. If we are too confined to our own drama, the result is only going to be conflict. If we are absorbed in the wonder of others story...a never ending mystery, we look out into the universe as one unified entity.

I believe it works like that!..."""""""all beings look out onto the world from the view-point of limitation""""""...somewhere in that exists a beautiful vulnerability!!!!!


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## Guest (May 7, 2008)

Rozanne said:


> I believe depersonalisation is a psychic punishment inflicted on us by the Universe for not considering other people's feelings and experiences interesting enough to get us out of our own lives. If we are too confined to our own drama, the result is only going to be conflict. If we are absorbed in the wonder of others story...a never ending mystery, we look out into the universe as one unified entity.
> 
> I believe it works like that!..."""""""all beings look out onto the world from the view-point of limitation""""""...somewhere in that exists a beautiful vulnerability!!!!!


I was in the middle of reading your post Rozzane when I accidently clicked the back button,when I came back to finish reading it ,it was all differant,lol.In a way youre still inbvalidating yourself with your editing...you ask how do you acheive intergration,what you wrote above was beautiful and a great starting point....but you have to accept you for who you are,you have one self wrtiting something and another going "no dont say it like that ,what will people think?,write this instead...."...no consistency with yourself.A wonderful woman called Maggie[who was a bodhisattva and very psychic] once said to me when I was very ill with DP-"You only need to be true to yourself,thats all".Those words stuck with me throughout my recovery.Yes we need to find harmony with the universe,act from a point of veiw of unified awareness...but we cant do that untill we can be in harmony with ourselves.
There are no hard or fast rules here as to how to acheive it,like you say we all have a story and though we are all interconnected in that journey,our journeys are differant.Identifying where we are in contradiction with ourselves,where we are invalidating ourselves.our reality...and so creating alternate realitys[new storys,differant selfs,differant PERSONAS ] is KEY.
We may choose to see our story through a lens of fantasy because we have created an alternate reality to how it ACTUALLY is because the way it is or was is to painful or confusing to accept..like with "splitting" for example.
Also others may have done this to us..created a perfect fantasy of idealised parenthood,totally diffewrant to how the reality of it actually was/is......my mother did this to me.She would say "oh your so independant,so strong,you didnt need me" I swallowed every word of it ,when infact ..I did need her as every child needs a mother but to remember it in thaty idealised way was far easier than actually seeing ,accepting and addmitting that sjhe just didnt care.So I and she created an alternate reality.
You have to learn how to be real again,intergration comes qwite naturally after that.
And Pablo is right ,it can be psychological intergration ,spiritual etc....they are all saying the same really on differant levels.

Sometimes I sence some resentment and anger towards me from people on this board because I say something and yet cant give them all the answars,I dont have them all ,I can only share my experience from what ive learned so far and from where from where I am right now with my journey.I only came back here to give advice where possible if I xsan be of any help however small ,but sometimes I see and feel people resent that for some reason.

Spirit.


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## Rozanne (Feb 24, 2006)

I'm afraid of being myself in case people hate me...then I am not myself so people hate me anyway...well at least the thing they hate is false..


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## Guest (May 7, 2008)

Ask yourself if they do actually HATE you...or is it you that just THINK that they hate you.Try and come up with an alternative scenario..see it from there point of veiw as well as your own..what are the reasons that you feel people hate you?
How many people have actually said that they HATE you ,Do you know for cirtain that they hate you....

Spirit.


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## Pablo (Sep 1, 2005)

Rozanne said:


> I believe depersonalisation is a psychic punishment inflicted on us by the Universe for not considering other people's feelings and experiences interesting enough to get us out of our own lives. If we are too confined to our own drama, the result is only going to be conflict. If we are absorbed in the wonder of others story...a never ending mystery, we look out into the universe as one unified entity.
> 
> I believe it works like that!..."""""""all beings look out onto the world from the view-point of limitation""""""...somewhere in that exists a beautiful vulnerability!!!!!


I think most people are confined within their own drama but the difference between people with dp and people without is that people without dp include the outside world within their drama but it is still just an extention of their own mind so it is all still largely projection which is why many of the traditions say that life is just a dream because the importance and value of everything in the outside world is generated from the mind just like dreams are. So the only difference between people with dp and not dp is more to do with the outside world not being safe enough to include in our mental drama but both sets of people are still confined in it. Im not sure if im explaining myself well so ill reply again tomorrow when im thinking a bit clearer.


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## Rozanne (Feb 24, 2006)

Spirit said:


> Ask yourself if they do actually HATE you...or is it you that just THINK that they hate you.Try and come up with an alternative scenario..see it from there point of veiw as well as your own..what are the reasons that you feel people hate you?
> How many people have actually said that they HATE you ,Do you know for cirtain that they hate you....
> 
> Spirit.


Who knows, I simply lack trust probably something to do with my mother being sociopathic? Who knows!


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## Guest (May 7, 2008)

Rozanne said:


> I'm afraid of being myself in case people hate me...then I am not myself so people hate me anyway...well at least the thing they hate is false..


You just whine too much... lol. You're a smart cookie, find other smart people who are chilled and accept you for you (Pity that most people ill judge with ease). If you aren't with people who aren't on the same wave leagth... you aren't gonna work. You were so so funny when you did your voices with me... although I felt uncomfortable while around other people (when you were doing on the swings in that park, and those people where there with their kid)... I was just scared of what they would think of "me" not you... I loved how you could just be "you" and you didn't care what others though... I still can't do that even now i'm some what better. It's one of the best things about ya =) So quit whining and be yourself ;P. (Easier said then done I know!).

I beleive you get confused with some rights and wrongs... what do you think about that?


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## Guest (May 7, 2008)

Spirit said:


> Ask yourself if they do actually HATE you...or is it you that just THINK that they hate you.Try and come up with an alternative scenario..see it from there point of veiw as well as your own..what are the reasons that you feel people hate you?
> How many people have actually said that they HATE you ,Do you know for cirtain that they hate you....
> 
> Spirit.


That's what my Cognitive Behavioural Therist would have said as well: If you got no evidence... don't assume the worse... fook it assume they all love ya and have a huge ego! =D.


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## Rozanne (Feb 24, 2006)

What did Gurdjieff write about empathy and human difference?


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## Pablo (Sep 1, 2005)

Rozanne said:


> What did Gurdjieff write about empathy and human difference?


Gurdjieff said that nobody in the world knows how to be a Christian and how to love your neighbour (which is pretty evident if you ask me) and that people should first try to love something more simple like plants and animals before you try to love humans while you work on yourself. One of his beliefs was that "You have to become a good egoist before you become a good altruist" and what he meant is that you have to develop your own essence and true personality before you can think about trying to help anybody else and most of what people call emphathy is largely egotism and self indulgance. Most of the human passions and drives like empathy and love are largely just false personality substitutes for the real thing which comes from your essence and not from your personaility.

Human difference is a tricky one but I think he saw most people as machines who are imitating outer forms, but there is a possibility to become free from this and unique in your own right, infact he used to say that everybody including himself falls into a certain category of idiot


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## Rozanne (Feb 24, 2006)

Pablo said:


> Rozanne said:
> 
> 
> > What did Gurdjieff write about empathy and human difference?
> ...


....my thought is that we could mathematically map why people have difficulty not being idiots...we are living under some form of veil of ignorance and that's what allows us so many erroneous and unwarrented feelings of separation and "uniqueness"...in the face of a reality that isn't personal.

Why is one man's universe more important to him than another man's universe? 

The first challenge is, if someone's hates us and we empathise with them, we are looking at ourselves from their view-point of hate
Secondly, we are stuck with ourselves but not necessarily stuck with others! So we can "discard" or "reject" others...it looks bad to write it like this, but I think it is what is actually going on in the world! It's pretty well known that people who are ill or depressed often lose friends because people don't want to know them when they are ill, only when they are having fun.

Say Ann Frank, sitting in her attic one day was a bit bored and decided, heck, I'm going to try to empathise with Hitler....let's see if I can do it and forgive him.
Would she be able to do it?? Would Ann Frank be able to sympathise with Hitler's view-point and emotions of disgust at the Jewish people? The "Christian value" is to do just that, to love your enemy, and treat your neighbour as yourself.... It seems like we are cornered into a position where in order to forgive the human race, we would actually have to identify with everything wrong in the world and all of the pain/anger/hostility/hate/rage/murderousness.


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## Pablo (Sep 1, 2005)

Rozanne said:


> Why is one man's universe more important to him than another man's universe?


He says that most peoples universes are not developed properly in the right way, each person has the potental to develop properly but because of their surrounding circumstances they dont, so he is more along the lines of the Gnostics that something has gone wrong within the devlopment of us. He teaches that man is on the earth to fulfill a higher purpose and that purpose is to devlelop your body/mind complex so you filter higher energy down to the earth and create a meeting of the horizontal earth energy and verticle high energy, almost like a living energy conductor, and if you dont do this then you have missed the boat so to speak and your life has not been worth a whole deal. So everybody has the mustard seed of the kingdom of god within them but it hasn't been watered or looked after properly so it hasn't bloomed. So the man whose universe has matured properly is more important to the function of the whole world as he has done what he was put on the earth to do.



> The first challenge is, if someone's hates us and we empathise with them, we are looking at ourselves from their view-point of hate
> Secondly, we are stuck with ourselves but not necessarily stuck with others! So we can "discard" or "reject" others...it looks bad to write it like this, but I think it is what is actually going on in the world! It's pretty well known that people who are ill or depressed often lose friends because people don't want to know them when they are ill, only when they are having fun.
> 
> Say Ann Frank, sitting in her attic one day was a bit bored and decided, heck, I'm going to try to empathise with Hitler....let's see if I can do it and forgive him.
> Would she be able to do it?? Would Ann Frank be able to sympathise with Hitler's view-point and emotions of disgust at the Jewish people? The "Christian value" is to do just that, to love your enemy, and treat your neighbour as yourself.... It seems like we are cornered into a position where in order to forgive the human race, we would actually have to identify with everything wrong in the world and all of the pain/anger/hostility/hate/rage/murderousness.


In order to forgive the human race you do have to admit to yourself that everything wrong with it can bloom within you so every person has a potential angry murderer and psychopath within them so its more to do with seeing and understanding how things have gone wrong and feeling sad about that, so for example Anne Frank could have possibly seen that Hitler was psychopathic and looked within herself and seen too that she could have become a mass murderer given the wrong circumstances so therefore she could forgive Hitler without becoming like him. If you are rooted in a stable self then I think it is possible to empathise with somebody without taking upon their emotions as your own, taking somebody elses issues and them dominating you is more to do with having immature boundaries like children have rather than a mature empathy, but to have empathy you do have to know your own pain/anger/rage/muderousness but that doesnt mean that you have to be identified with it because to be identified with something means that that is all you are at that moment so it is possible to see those things without them taking over who you are.

AlsoI think most of the Christian sayings are not understood properly, for instance "love your enemy" is more an instruction about how those people who are your enemy can show you much more about yourself than your friends can so your enemies give you much more opportunity for friction and growth, I dont think its an instruction to actually go and tell your enemy that you love them.


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## Guest (May 8, 2008)

Rozanne said:


> [ It's pretty well known that people who are ill or depressed often lose friends because people don't want to know them when they are ill, only when they are having fun.


Yeah, I was discussing this yesturday with Darren in an hour of need[thanks Darren].......what a "coincidence"..



> in order to forgive the human race, we would actually have to identify with everything wrong in the world and all of the pain/anger/hostility/hate/rage/murderousness.


YES thats right.
People are enbarrased about other peoples suffering ,a part of them feels ashamed and disgusted that real suffering actually happens to people,that it exists.They would rather carry out their pretend samsaric dillusion-what they call existence-meaningless and shallow,get lost in their self/ego through mindless bullshit,and ignore it in the hope that "one day it will get better"...IT WONT ...we are connected therefore how can we be trully happy whilst others are suffering,as their story interweaves with our own.....People have to OPEN there hearts and embrace all of reality,identify with every little peice,aversion is hatred and hatred causes suffering,ignoring suffering is aversion/hatred....the oposite is like I said shallowly living for self fufillment,greed which is destroying the earth...
The world is beautiful its some people that are the problem..like the weather...its not a "bad" day coz its raining and cloudy,its just raining and cloudy....we can love people in all their emotions and nature in all its moods...the only reason we can emphasise with others in the first place is because we are not really seperate and everything is born out of that union..


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## Guest (May 8, 2008)

You're welcome.


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