Zigzag Idiot

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  1. Evidence For I typed the above post this morning and just saw this. Synchronistic evidence for Rupert Sheldrakes Morphogenetic fields ,,,,?
  2. For kindred spirits and fellow introverts
  3. You're emanating from a good space and it's felt! Thank you for all the great pictures,,,,
  4. Hi Paul! In Arkansas,,, Its still in the family. I turned the operation over to my nephews this past July. This is the first winter in many years that I'm not responsible for a herd of Cows. I'm enjoying my freedom. It was wearing my body out. Glad to be free of the inescapable violence that's inherent in the occupation as well. I was brought up in A Church of Christ that considered Musical instruments and Sunday School to be too progressive and possibly sources of mischief making. Sounds like we have a lot in common. I've worked in the Sawmill Industry also off and on through life. Ive been a participant or had a front row seat to just about everything progressive liberals hate,,, although for years I've been a progressive liberal myself. Mostly in secret. Ive been immersed in blue - orange culture all my life,,,, Glad to hear from ya! In what part of the world was your farm life?
  5. Jesus taught Kenosis (Letting go) and Metanoia- Beyond mind (Change of mind and heart) Putting on new mind. Traditional translation of metanoia as repentance is a flat tire that won't roll. Much hinges on capacity for return to beginners mind. Beginners mind is return to Ordinary Idiot. Be empty. Be open. Be curious. Jesus- “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Sadhguru says- "You must not destroy, I do not know". Ordinary Idiot is not lost in worry. “If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few.” ― Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
  6. The following is a post I made in a Group study of Beelzebub's Tales To His Grandson just a couple of months ago. About the time I discovered Leo's videos. I may even be borrowing some of his languaging here,,, down below. I had to restrain myself but I'm sure I was a torture anyway to most of this group for always wanting to bring in Spiral Dynamics. If some of my assessments seem off, I welcome correction or other perspectives,,,, so feel free to chime in,,, Regarding the Tales being overweight in Patriarchy, misogyny, and other biases against the feminine. I've been pondering on the second tier of Spiral Dynamics as being Gurdjieffs intended territory of destination for his persistent readers. The first level encountered in the second tier is yellow. It has a multiperspectival approach to learning and gathering information and living in general. The yellow individual is more interested in understanding accurately someone's view than they are in labeling it. This multi-perspectival kind of awareness is key. It turns every offensive or seemingly ignorant perspective into a curiosity or a mystery to figure out or understand why it is that people perceive the way they do. But this requires the kind of impartiality that Gurdjieff is talking about. Enduring an injustice,, or being emotionally abused and tormented by someone for months or maybe years. Being shamed,,,,ostracized ,,,, and mocked. These situations grow us in terms of 'being', faster than anything, That is, if one isn't over-traumatized. But at the same time, the amount of intensity needs to be enough for one to be pushed into a kind of state that one has never experienced before. This experience reveals more of what being 'identified' is about. This is a part of developing second tier awareness. That's where green and yellow differ in terms of emotional suffering in connection with wanting to be a protector and an advocate of compassion for all apparently disadvantaged beings. From outward appearances green looks more 'spiritual' than yellow. That's because yellow has more impartiality that can be interpreted by some as cold and detached. People in yellow are not as apt to experience the feeling of pity toward others because they realize it perpetuates unnecessary suffering and is an attitude declaring the Divine to be inept. Empathy is one thing but pity is something completely useless. / End of book club post zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Gurdjieff often played an aggressive role when working with people. I've encountered Teachers of the Fourth Way who were prone to doing this. It's something I never plan to emulate. Don't think it's neccasary for one thing and can definitely create more problems than it addresses or resolves if it's done incorrectly. From what I've seen, mostly in relation to work on myself, life situations themselves have a way of showing up in a manner that at times seem,,, custom made. As alluded to in my well worn Maurice Nicoll quote which, by the way goes really well with Leo's video I shared above about Understanding Awareness. The essence of the idea of Karma-Yoga is to meet with unpleasant things equally with pleasant things. That is, in practicing Karma-Yoga, one does not seek always to avoid unpleasant things, as people ordinarily do. Life is to be met with non-identifying. When this is possible, life becomes one's teacher; in no other sense can life become a teacher, for life taken as itself is meaningless, but taken as an exercise it becomes a teacher. It is not life that is a teacher, but one's relation through non-identifying makes it become a teacher. Nothing can change being so much as this practice - namely, to take the unpleasant things in life as an exercise. (Maurice Nicoll, Commentaries, Vol. 1) Easier said than done,,,
  7. Two different phenomena- The thing about getting a 'download' from above while in the shower came from an irreverent Commercial Pilot. It was in the first 3 or 4 days of an online class of Christian Contemplatives about mindfulness. While outing himself for a blunder in Connection with his pilot duties he mentions kind of in passing that he 'received messages' while in the shower. It was like a bunch of connections just beneath the surface of awareness and when he mentioned it,,,, they rose above the surface and connected. It had the element of Remembering in it. This is a very subtle thing, though. I don't want to give the impression of thunder and lightning. Things like being free from having an attitude,,, are connected to its appearance/flow. Similar to that pressure that develops on your forehead. It's so subtle, it's dismissed at first or explained away,, it's just sinus pressure,,, A lot of time went by for me,, probably because I'm a certain kind of idiot. First became aware of the sixth chahra pressure around 2008. It came and went for years but stepped up a knotch about two years ago. Still very subtle. Not bliss blast. Anyway, The downloads also happen outside of a hot shower. Just seems like they happen easier there. These downloads can still get mixed up with my ego when it's around the subject of my chief feature. My psychological blind spot. I forgot what video was playing where Leo outed himself for having a blind spot. When I heard that, "It made my heart soar like a hawk" - As chief Oddskins says in the Movie Little Big Man. I found a good teacher! I think he was talking about the necessity for gathering knowledge from different perspectives or sources and needing more than one teacher because all teachers have a blind spot. I can tell that Leo is ahead of me in Realization and development. I'm grateful to have access to his articulations.
  8. "Being is more profound than meaning" - @ roughly 36:30 "Stop chasing after meaning and start pursuing Being." - @ the very end Being is an Existence, a Suchness Being means no reaction, no mental activity that defines who or what one is. In fact, Being is not an activity at all; it is an existence, a suchness, a thereness, a Presence that is not doing anything to be there. Since Being is itself existence, it does not need the mind to be there. It is like a physical object, which does not need the activity of mind to exist. Pearl Beyond Price, pg. 57 Being's Dynamism Realizing that our experience, both inner and outer, always reflects the action of our Being's dynamism means that, in principle, it is always possible to know whether we are aligned or not with the optimizing force of Being, to discern whether we are progressing, backtracking, or on idle. We don't need someone else to tell us. All the information we need is in our experience at each moment if we can perceive it clearly. Spacecruiser Inquiry, pg. 203 The Presencing of Being The reason we have the capacity to experience Being is that the self is an actual ontological Presence, a presencing of Being, not simply a construct, and this Presence has the capacity to be self-aware. Thus for the self to become directly aware of the realm of Being is for it to directly experience its own nature. The Point of Existence, pg. 14 This book has Interesting subtitle Transformations of Narcissism in Self-Realization There are several more excerpts about being - https://www.diamondapproach.org/glossary/refinery_phrases/being https://www.diamondapproach.org/glossary/refinery_phrases/being-living https://www.diamondapproach.org/glossary/refinery_phrases/being-pure https://www.diamondapproach.org/glossary/refinery_phrases/being-total https://www.diamondapproach.org/glossary/refinery_phrases/being-nonbeing https://www.diamondapproach.org/glossary/refinery_phrases/being-such There are still six more categories in Almaas Glossary webpages about Being They're easy enough to find If you're interested in pursuing being Losing your marbles is a prerequisite to Realization
  9. Why did Vincent Van Gogh cut off his ear? http://www.williamrunyan.com/article_content/Runyan_Why_did_Van_Gogh_Cut_Off_His_Ear.pdf
  10. I'm thinking about Chinese Astrology and personal work in relation to flow and the idea of being a Universal heretic this morning. And other stuff. Taken from: http://www.ichingwisdom.com/i-ching/cyclical-time-in-chinese-thinking/ In the first step you awake to your DRAGON, you vocation, your question, your participation in the cosmic work of the spirit, or as the Native American's call it, your "medicine". For this you have to leave your family and personal history, changing your dependencies into material for self actualization. The CAT does not care for the past family, only the future one. In the second step you have to find friends in the TIGER study groups and separate your spiritual way from the quest for survival (SNAKE). You look for those people who make it possible for you to pursue your spiritual way without looking for profit. With the honest HORSE you transcend your group and make your achievements useful to others. You do so by establishing a style of livelihood, of wealth, which allows others to strive like a BUFFALO to participate in spiritual life. Now with the RAT you must stand up for your truth by organizing your whole life around your vocation. You blend your material and spiritual life by the GOAT Ò the lunar capacity to seize the moment, the opportunity. By receptivity to the times you make useful to others what is meaningful to you. Then you must get into revelation by understanding the comical aspects of all religious traditions, like the eclectic MONKEY in a supermarket of new age publications. The purpose of your search for revelation must be to heal others, to bring them to their wholeness. This requires unconditional service symbolized by the PIG. This understanding of the PIG explains the statement found in hexagram 61 - Inner Truth - "Pigs and fishes. Good fortune." The highest achievement is no longer self-centered. You are in civilization and in spirit, a part of the New Earth in the sign of the DOG Ò Aquarius. You are, like the DOG, completely faithful to your path and to sacred history. You transcend your ego by announcing your truth in society like the ROOSTER without regard to the practical consequences.
  11. The Welcoming Practice The ideal time to use the practice is as close as possible to the upsetting situation. Even if this is not possible due to the particular circumstances in that moment, turn to the practice as soon afterward as you can. Initially you may find that methodically working through the three steps will take some time and concentrated effort, but as your conscious awareness increases the practice can be employed almost simultaneously while in the midst of challenging or troubling times. The Welcome Practice has three steps: Focus or ‘sink in’ to become aware and physically present to the particular experience or upset. Bring your attention to what is happening as sensation in your body. Without analyzing or judging yourself or your state, inwardly tune into what is happening as the physical embodiment of the experience. Don’t try to change anything at this stage – just stay present. This will help to avoid drawing mental-cognitive conclusions, and will also ground you in the body’s experience rather than repressing what’s arising. By engaging with this awareness to sensation over time it can help us become more attentive to moments of constriction and unconscious reactivity. Welcome and lightly name the response that is being triggered by the difficult situation (such as “fear” or “anger” or “pain”). Acknowledge the response as sensation, and recognize that in this moment, if the experience is not being rejected or repressed, it can be endured. Ever so gently, begin to say ‘welcome’ (such as “welcome fear”, etc…) Though this step is counter-intuitive and the impulse is most likely to try to push away the unpleasant emotion, Cynthia explains “…by welcoming it instead, you create an atmosphere of inner hospitality. By embracing the thing you once defended yourself against or ran from, you are actually disarming it, removing it’s power to hurt you or chase you back into your smaller self.” The flow of energy shifts almost immediately, becoming more spacious, and defenses can relax sufficiently to allow new perspectives or more positive responses to emerge. Transition to a ‘letting go’, whereby the intensity of the situation can recede. This enables the natural fluidity of sensation to come and then go. In the classic welcoming practice methodology there are then four statements that you can employ and recite to yourself at this stage: I let go of my desire for security and survival. I let go of my desire for esteem and affection. I let go of my desire for power and control. I let go of my desire to change the situation. As Cynthia puts it, “This is not a final, forever renunciation of your anger or fear; it’s simply a way of gently waving farewell as the emotion starts to recede.” From https://wisdomwayofknowing.org/resource-directory/the-welcoming-practice/ Theres a 30 minute video here also
  12. @kieranperez In regards to your brother. I've known some type 5 enneagram personalities (the observer) and it's very difficult to them to open up to family. Type 5's will often open up to complete strangers who they will never see again. Dont know if it applies.,,,
  13. Good luck, Spry. In his Ouspensky video, Leo gives a good guided imagery @ about 1:09 and points out internal images, internal dialogue,,, Has participants sense the face,,, body. i had forgotten that one. Relaxing the small muscles of the face is very effective. If remembered,,,, Small muscles of the face get contracted. What kind of mask of tension do find there. What kind of mask is there? We actors constantly become identified. Role playing is an exercise in the Work. Its healthy to go make faces in the mirror. All the world is a stage or a screen. We get mad. We need deep cycle and R.E.M. Sleep to restore body chemistry. Very important. What do you expect from an Idiot? Role Playing Exercises *** Role playing exercises are useful for getting beyond or free of our Identification with our Chief feature and our Self Importance. Our Chief Feature is the legacy of our Essence as it manifests through our Personality. Our Chief Feature has positive and negative manifestations which may help or hinder us on our search for Being. Most of us find it very hard to bear the Suffering and pain involved with trying to step outside of our habitual roles in life. Many of us tend to value honesty and playing an uncharacteristic role can make us feel uneasy when interacting with others. Role playing is valued in some areas of life, such as by con-artists and intelligence agencies and politics, and thus many of us may find it distasteful with its connotations of deception. In the context of the Work, we should set these feelings aside and consider what benefits to our Being will accrue if we attempt to play Roles temporarily in life that will help us step outside the mechanical constraints of our acquired Personality and our Self Importance. In the Gurdjieffian sense, a well rounded person is not Identified with their Personality and not consumed by their Self Importance, rather, they should be able to be all things for all people, as indicated by the quote from Beelzebub's Tales above. Of course, Gurdjieff never delineated the 27 types mentioned in Beelzebub's Tales or in his list of Idiots, which were toasted at his Paris dinners. Never the less, we can approach this subject by considering that the Law of Ninefoldness (the enneagram or the law of seven plus the two shocks) multiplied by the three types of man (physical, emotional, intellectual) gives us 27 basic types. A controversial typology based on 27 types has recently arisen and become popular under the name of the Enneagram of Personality. Neither wishing to promote nor disparage that system, I simply wish to point out that it may be of some benefit to some people in the Work who wish to explore the dynamics of their Personality and Essence further. It has close affinities to the character traits outlined by Carl Jung and his protégé Maurice Nicoll. Rodney Collin also had a typology based on the seven planets of Astrology. Thus there is a precedent for this type of endeavor in the Work. The Enneagram of Personality is a great tool for giving insight into our Chief Feature and into the features of other Types that we may wish to use as models for Role Playing. *** Role Playing Exercise Choose a Role, any Role. Choose a Role corresponding to a personality type that you dislike or that you admire. Seek out a social situation where you can exercise that Role. Prepare for the Role playing by studying the characteristics of the type. Use your powers of Visualization and Imagination to construct the outward behaviors and inner attitudes of that type. Wear clothes and groom yourself in an appropriate manner. Set yourself a time limit within which to perform the role. Prepare Affirmations to use during the Role playing that will encourage you to continue with the Role at those times when you feel yourself being overwhelmed by the demands of the Role and want to beat a hasty retreat. When you have returned to a safe haven, evaluate your performance. Repeat as necessary. *** Pondering on Roles Who is playing the Role? What is my preferred Role? Why am I afraid to take other Roles? What Roles in others do I dislike? What Roles in myself do I dislike? *** from: https://www.endlesssearch.co.uk/exercises_roleplay.htm The Endless Search © 2004 - 2017 Ian C. MacFarlane
  14. Disclaimer- Leo is NOT a Charleton. Leo has a gift for what he does. When reading HIGHER BEING BODIES I got tickled about Ocke's use of Golum in an allergory. I saw how it applied to me.
  15. I'm a liar and a hypocrite. I got diverted off Leo's video about Ouspensky last night and am just now trying to finish it. We're a multiplicity. Man is Legion. Arnold Keyserling- " We change every 5 minutes during the day." After moving to Paris, Gurdjieff referred to people as being a Taxi-cab hauling different people around. I'm a ship of Fools who are all fighting for the helm. It doesn't matter. It's ok. I'm observing it. I'm watching them. The Fools,,,, who speak through me. Alchemy is hot. It's hard to sit with/process.
  16. It's counterintuitive but experiencing a deeper love happens when we allow ourselves to let deep hatred rise to the surface. A special kind of hatred towards innocence. In that Almaas work helped me discover this phenomena and the way out of it. The guilt that returns with the pendulum is a part of the glue like nastiness of getting free of it. Hatred and the Beast In fact, when you experience the Beast, you might even experience yourself as a kind of devil, with horns, red eyes, a tail, and so on. Many people actually experience this structure explicitly. You feel as if you sprout horns and a tail and you’re full of fury and hate. You just want to annihilate. If you do act out your hatred, of course it is destructive. But many people believe that just feeling the hatred will be destructive. Feeling the hatred can lead some people to act out physically and to be destructive, and that needs to be avoided. But most people—unless they have difficulty knowing what behavior is appropriate—tend to resist acting out the hatred even as they begin to directly experience the Beast. Facets of Unity, pg. 49 Loving Light and the Beast The distrust that is fundamental to the egoic perspective is based on not experiencing the goodness of the universe. From this distrust arises what we call the Beast, the part of the ego that is not only frustrated and angry, but also hates what is good and positive. When you are experiencing the Beast, if there is any love, you hate it and want to destroy it. “Where has it been? Where was it when I needed it?” or “God is supposed to be all-loving, all-merciful, all-compassionate, but if that’s true, why am I suffering so much and why is the world such a mess?” This part of the ego has the consciousness of a young child and it can’t rationalize these things as adults do, consoling and explaining to themselves that, “God is testing me.” Even though a child might not conceptualize it, the thinking is something like, “If God isn’t here when I really need Him, God is no good. If I stay open and vulnerable, I’ll get clobbered again, so what good is He? I don’t want Him—I hate Him. He just makes more trouble for me—I trust and then I get hurt. I had better just depend on myself and forget about Him. No more trusting—that’s it.” Facets of Unity, pg. 48 Resolving the Beast Resolving the issue of the Beast has a salutary effect on the soul’s relation to her true nature. It opens up a deeper level of appreciation, love, and valuing of essence, and allows the soul to see it as sheer beauty, as what makes everything beautiful. Essence’s value becomes more objective, in the understanding that essence is valuable not because of what it does and gives to the individual soul, but because of its mere existence. True nature, the essence of the soul, is valuable, is worthy of appreciation and love, not because it gives her something, not because it adds to her, not because it liberates her, but because it is beautiful. The Inner Journey Home, pg. 286 The Beast The process leads to deep hurt and abandonment and the understanding of the origins of the Beast, or hatred of the good, in the early oral frustrations and deprivations. One of the steps in this process of working through is the recognition of how this issue depends partly on the reification of universal or divine Being. Being is personified; the soul’s relationship to it assumes the form of an object relation between a separate individual soul and a separate powerful entity one may call God. The Inner Journey Home, pg. 285 The Beast and Separateness The Beast turns out to be a particular crystallization of the ego principle, the conviction about and identification with separateness. Separateness is what truly opposes divine love, and the devil's hatred is the final natural outcome of such separateness. The Inner Journey Home, pg. 286 The Beast is Not an Ultimate or Eternal Form The soul suffused by divine love, forming an inseparable expression of its bountiful resplendence, is the divine offspring, the prince of light. The soul disconnected and alienated from Being, especially from its loving light, becomes the prince of darkness. It is important to see that even the Beast is the result of the reaction of the soul to her experience. It is not an ultimate form, nor an eternal one. Hence there is no eternal damnation, and no absolute evil. The Inner Journey Home, pg. 286 Transforming Hatred into Essential Power The Beast is a very specific issue related to the essential quality of Power. The essential Power of the soul is caught up in, and distorted by, the hatred and pride in the Beast structure. When you allow the black hatred is when you may feel yourself become the devil—a giant, black and powerful demon with tremendous pride and destructive hatred. You might tower over the city, looking at it and laughing. You might be filled with a powerful, destructive, cold, calm, and calculating hatred. You might experience the absolute insignificance of everything you see. Allowing this energetic structure to arise, and understanding its origins, illuminates deep issues about early levels of the soul’s disconnection from love. If you are able to feel the hatred without resistance or acting out, the hatred will transform into essential Power. This Power can penetrate the delusions that keep the ego’s reactivity in place and it can allow the soul to become still enough so that the quality of love can affect its state and its perception. Facets of Unity, pg. 50
  17. When I was 7 years old I awoke from a dream and knew without any doubt at all what the world felt like from a girl's perspective. Although being just a prepubescent girl in the dream, there was a nonspecific boy whom I felt great love for. Whenever in the past I've tried relating this dream, it was always twisted by others into a sign of repressed homosexuality. In my local culture there is a lot of polarity thinking. It's either this or that. In spite of the dream, as Ken Wilbur puts it, I'm a hard wired heterosexual. It doesn't help that my nature is somewhat androgynous and I'm a heretic who openly associates with gay people. This local culture, for the most part, when saying the name Obama or the term liberal, a negative tone is used and it is just assumed the listener is also of like mind. So, in spite of having the dream and being somewhat androgynous in attitude, I grew up as an ordinary man pig. Actually, I'm quite a horndog. That's kind of the rule for Adrenal types though. From Maurice Nicoll: THE FEELING OF NOTHINGNESS “When the Work says that a man must come to realize his own nothingness before he can be re-born, it does not mean that he must humble himself and so on, but that he must by long self-observation actually begin to realize that he is nothing and that there is no such person as himself. The object of this is to get into a position, psycho- logically speaking, between the opposites...Why is it so important to get somewhere into the centre of the pendulum and not swing to and fro? Because here, between the opposites, lie all the possibilities of growth. Here influences from higher levels can reach us. Here, in this place where one can feel one’s own nothingness (and where one is therefore free from contradictions), influences and meanings com- ing from higher centres, which have no contradictions, can be felt. Not regarding yourself as good or bad, not priding yourself on being just or otherwise, not thinking you are well-treated or badly-treated, not being caught by either movement through identifying, you come into this mid-position. This is not easy! With personality active, it is impossible.
  18. My chart has a yod. I need to find an astrologer who is good at interpreting Yod's
  19. Another good one Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience Legendary psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's famous investigations of "optimal experience" have revealed that what makes an experience genuinely satisfying is a state of consciousness called flow. During flow, people typically experience deep enjoyment, creativity, and a total involvement with life. In this new edition of his groundbreaking classic work, Csikszentmihalyi ("the leading researcher into ‘flow states’" —Newsweek) demonstrates the ways this positive state can be controlled, not just left to chance. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience teaches how, by ordering the information that enters our consciousness, we can discover true happiness, unlock our potential, and greatly improve the quality of our lives. https://www.amazon.com/Flow-Psychology-Experience-Perennial-Classics/dp/0061339202
  20. Law of Octaves or Law of seven - Golum is uncollected. Golum has no control. How to overcome being an unguided projectile or an 'unguided Golum'. Knowledge helpful for completing any kind of aim in spiritual work. Ted Nottingham 14 minutes: Longer 1 hour version
  21. Martin can be a little harsh,,, but he makes some good points.
  22. Fires of alchemy through an old metaphorical wood stove. Ocke points out how mostly the universal mishap with the fifth chakra, Vishuda, is that it is stuck open. I liken it to an old wood stove with the damper between the fire pot and the open sky being stuck open seized up. Most of us talk too much. Some worse than others. Some people suffer from cyclical rounds of word vomit. I feel for these creatures, I used to take it on part time, you might say. Anyway, a good many of us blow hot air until we're exhausted. Understanding essence types can answer why some people only have to talk a few minutes and they use up their days quota. Juxtaposed with someone who can rattle for hours and not exhaust their day's quota. But then the quiet one can accomplish tasks that completely intimidate the erudite extrovert. Through inquiry, I've found this to be the case, as Ocke wrote about in his book, Higher Being Bodies. When we become Master of our 'chimney damper', it's only a matter of time before our third eye blinks. Ajgna reaches it potential peak at 42 years. When it opens up we become paranormal.
  23. Yeah! Leo mentions Ouspensky in this one. The Youtube just above, from Ted Nottingham, has been a student of 'The Work', as its called. Gurdjieff, Ouspensky stuff. Maurice Nicoll, who I've referred to and have quoted some worked intensely in France with Gurdjieff for a couple of years and then was a student of Ouspensky for many years in England. Ocke de Boer is a Long time student and interpreter of Beelzebub's Tales To His Grandson, Gurdjieffs Magnum Opus. I don't recommend trying to read 'The Tales'. Read first the students and modern students books on 'The Tales' and of Gurdjieff. That is, if your drawn to this. If not, don't. I haven't made a dent in watching all of Leo's videos. I been hanging out with the Christian Contemplatives but I feel more at home here. In a way, the Contemplative Christian Movement seems a little bit gravity bound by the vast numbers of Evengelical Fundamentalist Churches. Or as Robert deRopp phrased it, the "Judeo Christian guilt cults". i think the future of Christian Practice will take the Modern and re-emerging Contemplatives 'discoveries' of Sitting Meditation and cultivating mindfulness. If if you want to try Gurdjieff, Read Meetings With Remarkable Men. Here's a sample about him trying to get through the Himalayas- "The first thing next day, with the consent of our consciences, degenerated like those of all contemporary people and corresponding exactly to the requirements of Hell, we killed all the goats, which only the day before we had regarded as our sincere friends and associates in overcoming the difficulties of the journey. After this admirable Christian-Mohammedan manifestation, one of us began to cut their meat into small pieces in order to roast it." Anyway, Hooray Leo! I'm only two or three years behind,,,,,
  24. Me too. Heres a link to the urtext http://a.courseinmiracles.com/#gsc.tab=0 also another favorite specifically about the 'mechanics of consciousness' STALKING THE WILD PENDULUM by Itztok Bentov - Definitely,,,, a favorite book Title. https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=stalking+the+wild+pendulum
  25. Birds of a feather A flock of seagulls or a murder of crows,,,,,? I've always been an abstract thinker myself. Often translating into being misunderstood. In youth this being misunderstood often propelled me into a downward spiral (psychic entropy) Understanding Wilburs description of the pretrans fallacy was good medicine for me. Having my attention dispersed spawns uncontrolled imagination and prerational imagination and downward spiral. Controlled or creative imagination can flower an awareness of synchronicity and finding personal meaning. Gurdjieff's writings showed me the value of being in a collected state (having attention collected) which is often determined by Directed attention vs. Dispersed attention. i have to adjust from Itoklanoz awareness into Fulasnitamnian awareness every morning when I get out of bed