Ordinary man cannot do. If I cannot ‘do’ and doing is done in me from above; although I must consent to this, how does this doing take place? Do I see any of what takes place? An energy, a vibration with matter of a different density enters my body and what occurs?
Tag Archive: spirituality
We have heard the expression “Lord Have Mercy”. But what does it mean? What would an act of Mercy be for me? Give me beauty, health, money? Would it be to bring happiness to others? Do I know what I’m asking for or do I expect that the Lord will just give me whatever I need in terms of mercy?
P.D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous
Gurdjieff: Take the ordinary God have mercy upon me! What does it mean? A man is appealing to God. He should think a little, he should make a comparison and ask himself what God is and what he is. Then he is asking God to have mercy upon him. But for this God must first of all think of him, take notice of him. But is it worth while taking notice of him? What is there in him that is worth thinking about? And who is to think about him? God himself. You see, all these thoughts and yet many others should pass through his mind when he utters this simple prayer. And then it is precisely these thoughts which could do for him what he asks God to do. But what can he be thinking of and what result can a prayer give if he merely repeats like a parrot: ‘God have mercy! God have mercy! God have mercy!’ You know yourselves that this can give no result whatever.
G.I. Gurdjieff, Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson
Holy God,
Holy the Firm,
Holy the Immortal,
have mercy on us
Jeanne de Salzmann, Reality of Being
In man it is the mind that is opposed to the body. The neutralizing force is the wish that unites them, connects them. Everything comes from the wish, the will. To represent God, it is necessary to represent these three forces. Where the three forces are reunited, God is. Where our attention is, God is. When two forces are opposed and a third unites them, God is here. We can say, “Lord, have mercy on me.” We can ask for help, to come to this in ourselves. The only help is this. Our aim is this, to contain, to unite these three forces in us . . . to be.
I need to open and receive the impression of a finer vibration. ?For this a new feeling needs to appear that allows the vibration to spread. This is why Gurdjieff had us say, “Lord have mercy,” which opens us to a feeling of our nothingness and awakens a deeper energy.
The exercise begins with the consciousness that I am here. I say to myself, “Lord have mercy,” each time with a sensation in the four limbs, successively-right arm, right leg, left leg, left arm. I do this three times, and rest for one or two breaths. Then I breath consciously, saying “I Am”: with “I,” I take in the active elements of the air and mix them with the result obtained in the four limbs, and with “Am,”" I exhale and distribute this into the sexual region. I repeat this second step three times.
I then recover the result from the sexual region and send it to the spine, exhaling with “Am.” I begin again the filling of the four limbs, remix with the active elements of air, recharge the sexual region, recover from the sexual region and send it to fill the solar plexus. And I do the same to fill the head. Then I feel the whole Presence “I Am” throughout the body
I nourish this Presence by taking the active elements from inhaling and sending them into the legs and the abdomen, then in succession the chest, the right arm, the left arm and the head. I make an inner act of engagement, saying to myself, “I wish to be. I wish and I can be. I will do everything to make this last for a specific time. I will take all necessary measures to crystallize in myself this result for being. I will do everything to be.”
Lord Pentland: But I don’t think that what is beyond self-observation ─ self-development ― is to mentally know what my weaknesses are, what my type is, and to be able to remember that and correct it. So what is beyond self-observation? You want to say? What is self-development?
Questioner: Transformation?
Lord Pentland: Yes. What is transformation? The work begins with self-observation. So what goes beyond self-observation? What practice?
Questioner: The power to see, to be separate from the observer, to lose the observer.
Lord Pentland: Yes. It’s true. It’s right. But you could put it very simply. What goes beyond self-observation is more self-observation. Being able to observe myself all the time instead of just at moments, which is seeing. Self-observation itself is a meeting point of the levels, the part that sees and the part that is seen. You understand me? And what goes beyond self-observation is to be responsible for self-observation, to be able to self-observe myself all the time, not just sometime.
Consciousness
“Faith of consciousness is freedom – Faith of feeling is weakness Faith of body is stupidity – Love of consciousness evokes the same in response – Love of feeling evokes the opposite Love of body depends only on type and polarity – Hope of consciousness is strength – Hope of feeling is slavery Hope of body is disease” Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson, G.I. Gurdjieff
Consciousness comes from above, not from below. I begin to see that what I need more than anything else is consciousness; not to do something but to see. Change comes of itself as a result of seeing, of consciousness.
In relation to the law of three, one thing in me opposes, another affirms; a muscle opposes an emotion. Where is the reconciling force, where is the master? Otherwise I am a slave to forces in disorder. I am not united, not whole, I am legion, I am not One.
When one practices voluntary suffering, what suffers? What results?
This morning while sitting I became aware that the “taste” of two people, with whom I spent about an hour the previous night, was still with me. Perhaps what Gurdjieff calls suggestibility.
Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson, G. I. Gurdjieff:
Of these abnormal properties the most terrible one for them is’suggestibility.’
The causes of the complete destruction or modification of this being-welfare for their tolerable existence—arising from the good customs and moral habits acquired in the passage of time—are once again to be found in the abnormal conditions of ordinary being-existence established by them themselves.
And the concentrated result of these abnormal conditions around them is a special property that arose not long ago in their psyche, and that became the basic cause of the aforementioned evil This property is called ‘suggestibility.’
Thanks to this strange property, only recently fixed in their psyche, all the functionings of their common presence gradually began to change, and as a result, each of these beings, particularly those who arose and reached responsible age during the last centuries, came to represent in themselves a peculiar type of cosmic formation which has the possibility of acting only if it is constantly under the influence of another formation similar to itself.
And indeed, my boy, at the present time all these terrestrial three-brained beings, taken both as separate persons and as large or small groups, must infallibly ‘influence’ or come under the ‘influence’ of others.
After having seen this suggestibility within me when sitting I went to McDonalds and while reading the paper came across a report titled Protest at military funeral ignites a test of free speech. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-08-30-1Afuneralprotests_CV_N.htm
I then realized that the subject of suggestibility and voluntary suffering had much wider implications that I had naively believed. In the news report the father of the slain soldier suffered great pain because the Phelps gang of religious nuts demonstrated against homosexuality at the soldiers funeral. The solder was not, by the way, gay. But the Phelps gang see soldier funerals as opportunities to demonstrate against their perception of sin.
The father sued Phelps and won several million. On appeal a higher court reversed the decision based on the right of free speech and the lower decision was overturned. The case now goes before the Supreme Court October 6.
My thoughts as questions relative to all of this are: 1. First amendment rights should not protect this sort of demonstration and speech. 2. How does one voluntary suffer such pain as Mr. Snyder, the father of the slain soldier being burried, did?
ASLEEP AGAIN
Immediately upon getting off the cushion I fell asleep; but I only discovered this when I returned to the cushion. In between I opened my eyes to see my cat Yoda out by the horses, Nakoma and Thunder. I called him away from them and returned to the cushion.
In sleep, “a dark and distant place in the universe” I had little possibility of being aware of the sensation of higher worlds. I was blind, deaf, was not conscious of smell, or physical movement. These happened but only for the body, not for Me.
In a state of sleep one does not know one is asleep. To understand this is to understand why wars are fought. To understand this is to see the world change. Fighting against wars or people is ineffective. We need to fight sleep. Neither war or people are the enemy. Sleep is the enemy of those who wish to awaken. But awakening means to come out of sleep into awareness of myself, my functions and of Life around me and of which I am only a part.
In Sleep I cannot know The Source-The Absolute-God-The Creator-The Uni-Being. To know this I must not sleep.
The first glimpses, in me, of the two streams (rivers) is disturbing. The first flowing; filled with all sorts of debris, rocks, ice, water. In the second, one can breathe. The waters are calm and supportive.
