Zigzag Idiot

'Self Remembering' in the Fourth Way is kind of like how 'Love' is spoken of in ACIM in that, it is so all encompassing that a particular definition cannot really be given. It can be spoken of as a practice and also as a state of Consciousness and yet more. It's spoken of as a practice in conjunction with self observation which is the term more often used than self Inquiry. Yet, these two taken together might also be described by some as Self Inquiry from a Fourth Way perspective. Below is from Ian C. MacFarlane's - https://www.endlesssearch.co.uk/ It begins with a quote from Beelzebub's Tales To His Grandson and also ends with one, mixed with Gurdjieff's quirky sense of humor. "In the temples for men, namely in the 'agoorokhrostinis,' beings of the male sex of the given region or district performed in turn appropriate 'mysteries' while in a particular state called 'self-remembering.' (40) Self Remembering All-Brains-Balanced-Being-Perception In Gurdjieff's own words, Self Remembering could be described thus - "There are moments when you become aware not only of what you are doing but also of yourself doing it. You see both ‘I’ and the ‘here’ of ‘I am here’- both the anger and the ‘I’ that is angry. Call this self-remembering if you like." (Views From the Real World) Here is another description of Self Remembering from Mme Ouspensky - "What is the first characteristic of self-remembering? In this state is not center. He is not separate. Sitting in a room, he is aware of the whole room, of himself as only one of the objects in it. He is likewise aware of others and does not put himself above them or criticize or judge. This is not love, but it is the beginning of love. In this state a man has no self as he is usually aware of it. It is quite impossible for him to consider or become negative, for the moment he does so the state will vanish." (Robert de Ropp; Conversations with Mme Ouspensky: 1939-40 at Lyme; Farwest Press, 1974) Here is a quote from Beelzebub's Tales - "And just as nothing could be accomplished by the beings of their planet of former epochs, who, becoming responsible beings had even attained in respect of Being at least to what is called ‘self-remembering,’ then all the more, nothing effective can be done, devised, or actualized by beings with that Reason which the beings of this contemporary society possess and who in respect of Being are only perfected to the degree which our dear Mullah Nassr Eddin defines by the notion expressed in the following words: ‘Look! Look! He already begins to distinguish mama from papa!’" (41)

@seeking_brilliance I'm trying to reconcile the second reply with with the standard answer of what comprises the four different paths. The second A.I. Answer- The Fourth Way is a path to the ultimate truth in philosophy. The First Way focuses on identifying and analyzing the premises of various arguments, evaluating their validity or invalidity. The Second Way concerns the principles underlying all that exists, including logic itself. The Third Way looks at what should be rather than what is. The three traditional ways of the Fakir - focus on the body the Monk - devotion; focus on the emotions the Yogi- thee way of the mind/intellect The Fourth Way works simultaneously on the three centers - Hara; belly center/instinctive center 4th and 5th chakras/lower and higher emotional center 6th and 7th chakra Intellectual center and higher intellectual center. The work of the Fourth Way is carried out in the living of everyday life working on the three centers simultaneously, using life and life situations as one's Teacher with the Law of attraction setting the ciriculum-One's being attracts one's life which some see as Karma playing out. Note: My inclusion of the chakras should be taken with a heavy dose of salt. In the Fourth Way though it is commonly taught that there is a higher emotional center and a higher intellectual center that they are already completed but until the emotional center is purified, we remain disconnected from them. Having a hard time matching them,,, I may push the button on the AI again in another week or two and see what it says then. Thanks for sharing,,,

In the past when I heard others trying to resolve a difference in their understanding someone might eventually have an insight and say "Oh, ya know, this may just be in the semantics. I think this applies to some of what you've brought up. Looking into the semantics or different usages of phrases or words have resolved some of my disparities concerning Gurdjieff's Work juxtaposed with other systems. Also reading AH Almaas books have helped me quite a bit here. This is not to say I've resolved all my disparities. I would do better to be reading Lee van Laer's blog than spending time on some other sites while online,,, ? A few minutes ago I copied this from the comments section of this blog- http://nondualcafe.blogspot.com/2014/04/gurdjieffs-system-simplified-in-page.html Lenny in AustinJanuary 7, 2017 at 3:51 AM i have always been confused as to gurdjieff's higher being bodies vs non-dualist "there is no Self to have a "higher-being-body" Reply Replies Dean PJanuary 10, 2017 at 1:42 PM Thanks for the comment. It's true, that has always been a confusing point for me as well when reading through Gurdjieff's material, and his instistance, for example, in Beelzebub, to 'create' or 'coat' a higher being body. The method he proposes in Beelzebub mainly concerns 'conscious labour and intentional suffering' and bearing the manfiestations of others, which he calls 'a big thing'. The idea that man starts out with 'no soul' (but needs to create one) is prevalent throughout most Fourth Way material. As you point out, in contrast, the Nondualist position is generally that the personality/'I' self (ego) is an illusory thought-construct that has no permanent or real existence, and that the Self as Absolute exists only (in all and as all, including the play of phenomena). The only way to marry these two ideas into harmony would be to take the view that Gurdjieff's idea of needing to 'create a higher-being-body' serves as 1) a motivation to actually practice and move one out of his/her state of sleep, and 2) stabilise one's orientation in/as the Self (not the false "I"). In effect, there is no 'creation' going on, but a rediscovery and stabilising of one's being in/as being-consciousness-bliss or the real Self. This stabilising and gathering could be seen as 'creating' a higher-being-body, but not in the sense of creating something new out of nothing (which would be the tempting, but unfortunate conclusion that most Gurdjieff students would be aiming at, and still falls under the bondage of duality-- there now being a separate albeit "higher" individual floating around that is autonomous from the whole).

I'm fine with moving it if the Moderators choose to. A fellow Actualizer, @seeking_brilliance, recommended here or the Actualization thread.

The specific intent or situational practice of - 'not reaching any conclusions ' has been very helpful for me at times when strong emotions are trying to take over. Like when a part of me is really wanting to put a judgement on others or a situation. But it's only helpful to the degree that I remember that intent. As Red Hawk puts it- Sometimes I eat the Bear but sometimes the bear eats me. The Bear perhaps being the painbody in Eckart Tolle speak. Not reaching conclusions seems to help cultivate a spaciousness that compulsive overthinking stands out in contrast to and can then be easier let go of. In my experience of it,,, Wait a minute! Did I just reach a conclusion about the benefit of not reaching conclusions? ?

Ive been busy. Been meaning to start a thread on the Fourth Way in the Self Actualization Forum. I’ve fallen behind in reading others journals too. Ill probably get caught up in a day or two.

What Does It Mean to Have Peace of Mind? by Dr. Jim Rosen ©2020 Dr. Jim Rosen It means that you express the feeling of peace toward yourself and toward your brothers and sisters. You are not at war with the world or yourself. You are not in a state of conflict with yourself and others. You want to learn and grow. Indeed, you strive to learn and grow. But you do not point the finger at your own mistakes or those of others. You look right past the mistakes to the inner beauty. You recognize that the outward picture of a person is just that. So you look past the picture and see the spark of goodness in all. And because you do, you see with clarity what we really are. And you give peace and gratitude to what we really are. When you stray from peace and gratitude, you renew your focus on what is real and good in us. And you do it with patience.

Great replies and advice from @Ananta and@Farnaby . What they said rang true with me when I read this thread just now. As someone who couldn't let go of an unrelenting hatred toward a couple of people years ago, after 6 or 7 years I finally recognized how poisonous hatred was in relation to my inner life. it was this recognition that @Ananta mentioned that helped me over a hurdle in this process. A process where I forgave but then the hatred and unforgiveness returned many many times before it began to stick. Thought I would pass on this practice. This first one I just found and is very brief and to the point. The second video is the one I usually pass on for anyone wanting to learn this practice. A Course In Miracles helped me with practicing forgiveness as well. Forgiveness or overlooking others transgressions could almost be said to be the primary theme in this Course/book. Good luck,,,

A new aquaintence of mine shared his enthusiasm with me regarding the band Pantera. I brought up this video today and the idea of SD level Red came to mind.

First let me say that I'm not in opposition to anyone here but I've had a similar phenomena for roughly 12 years. It has been something which comes and goes. When I took up a Centering Prayer meditation practice in 2017 it became more persistent and seems to correlate with when my state becomes closer to the state of nonconceptual awareness. Also another subtle phenomena often comes into play more whenever this happens. Hameed Almaas gives an explanation for this, possibly.. In the quote I use of his, the phrase of the Diamond Guidance is used in explaining this. Long story made short, the Diamond Guidance is simply another name for the Holy Spirit so this may be a little confusing. I won't get into the reason for him more or less interchanging these phrases. I also need to say what I've just said isn't 100% accurate but if you hold these things loosely in the category of possibilities, over time the exactitudes may fall into place. Maybe not,, You can be the one to eventually decide. But the phenomena definitely has a very subtle throb or pulse to it, in the forehead. Opening of the Forehead by the Diamond Guidance Usually the Diamond Guidance operates as a presence in the center of the forehead. When it arises in support of discrimination and understanding, we become aware of an expansion as space opens up in the forehead. With that expansion comes a sense of peacefulness; the Black aspect at the center of the forehead opens and we feel stillness and spaciousness. When the Diamond Guidance arises in this peacefulness, we feel a delicate presence, a pulsating energy that possesses a sense of clarity and transparency, an intelligence, an illumination. This delicate, pulsing, breathing presence appears as understanding, as insight, as intuition. As the forehead opens, we feel the Diamond Guidance as a tingling, an energetic throbbing—but very delicate, very soft, very subtle. If we are not attuned, we might dismiss it as just a physical twitch. Or if there is a lot of blockage, as is often the case in the early stages of our development, the diamond might feel hard. Due to the blockage, it can't get through, so it feels almost like a rock. But if we are relaxed and open, we feel it as a softness, a delicacy. Spacecruiser Inquiry, pg. 226 https://www.diamondapproach.org/glossary/refinery_phrases/forehead This is just one of six quotes from this page. If you think this has something to do with what you have going on, you can dig more into his Teachings just by looking into these phrases you encounter in the Glossary. Maybe read one of his books. His book Spacecruiser Inquiry may be the most relevant having to do with this phenomena.

@diamondpenguin I appreciate your assessment. ??‍♂️

The raising of consciousness should maybe also concern giving a fair hearing to voices of reason. Those which counteract the highminded guilt trippers on the left which tend to mostly just outrage the more seemingly practical minded identified with Orange worldviews. Those in Orange who are constantly triggered by the out of touch bleeding hearts found so often entrenched in SD Green. I don't mean to dramatize or convey cynicism in saying this. Both sides have valid points and each could use more informed, diplomatic representatives to find the common ground. The fantasies promoted by Disney animations that anthropomorphize animals are perhaps a case in point which confuse so many and create an unnecessary sharp divide. I admit my languaging here is somewhat biased against the left. This admission is given to hopefully add balance and forego editing what I've expressed. I tend to side with the bleeding hearts just as often if not more than I do those of the Orange pov. of which I'm out of and perhaps more familiar with. Please, speak your mind,,,

AH Almaas from 1986,,, "Here's looking at you kid",,,,

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@seeking_brilliance Good idea,,,

@Alex bAlex I saw after the fact, you were quoting song lyrics,,, Re:So it's a drug like a lie and meditation like truth? Doesnt it seem in general that everyone lies about their meditation practice but they tell the truth about a lot of things when they're unbondried under the influence of drugs?

Mdma is the pure substance. It's crystalline in nature, like lsd but it's categorized as a stimulant. Extasy and Molly are slang for a combination peddled which can vary with a mixture of amphetamine included in it If I'm not mistaken.

Insight seems to be synonymous with understanding. In the Fourth Way, it is said that understanding is achieved through a combination of work on knowledge and work on Being. I'm not sure where to put a thread for the Fourth Way. I guess I could in with the Journals. Any opinions from the Moderators?

I believe there is probably a good percentage of Actualizers who, if they were just to settle in to reading 'The Commentaries ' will begin to actually enjoy how Nicoll expresses himself in these ideas. Those who have a Christian background and were confused and disappointed with the fundamentalists literal interpretation of the Bible may find Maurice Nicoll's book THE NEW MAN very interesting. His writings have helped me to reconcile the disparities in my mind of what Christianity actually represents. Below is just a little sample to hint at what it offers. I have yet to read his book THE MARK. THE NEW MAN AN INTERPRETATION OF SOME PARABLES AND MIRACLES OF CHRIST by MAURICE NICOLL ALL sacred writings contain an outer and an inner meaning. Behind the literal words lies another range of meaning, another form of knowledge. According to an old−age tradition, Man once was in touch with this inner knowledge and inner meaning. There are many stories in the Old Testament which convey another knowledge, a meaning quite different from the literal sense of the words. The story of the Ark, the story of Pharaoh's butler and baker, the story of the Tower of Babel, the story of Jacob and Esau and the mess of pottage, and many others, contain an inner psychological meaning far removed from their literal level of meaning. And in the Gospels the parable is used in a similar way. Many parables are used in the Gospels. As they stand, taken in the literal meaning of the words, they refer apparently to vineyards, to householders, to stewards, to spendthrift sons, to oil, to water and to wine, to seeds and sowers and soil, and many other things. This is their literal level of meaning. The language of parables is difficult to understand just as is, in general, the language of all sacred writings. Taken on the level of literal understanding, both the Old and New Testaments are full not only of contradictions but of cruel and repulsive meaning. ,,,,,, In the psychological teaching of the Gospels, a man is not taken as what he appears to be, but as what he most deeply is. This is one reason why Christ attacked the Pharisees. For they were appearances. They appeared to be good, just, religious, and so on. In attacking the Pharisees, he was attacking that side of a man that pretends, that keeps up appearances for the sake of outer merit, fear, praise, the man who in himself is perhaps even rotten. The Pharisee, psychologically understood, is the outer side of a man who pretends to be good, virtuous, and so on. It is that side of yourself. This is the Pharisee in every man and this is the psychological meaning of Pharisee. Everything said in the Gospels, whether represented in the form of parable, miracle or discourse, has a psychological meaning, apart from the literal sense of the words. Therefore the psychological meaning of the Pharisees refers, not to certain people who lived long ago, but to oneself now—to the Pharisee in oneself, to the insincere person in oneself, who, of course, cannot receive any real and genuine psychological teaching without turning it into an occasion for merit, praise and award. Later on we will study the meaning of the Pharisee in oneself more fully. ,,,,,,

I referred to it earlier in Christian Resources Today I found the good copy. Thought I should give it, it's own space. 1400 pages condensed into 130 pages. Many good quotes here. https://inner-world-books.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Gems_of_Wisdom.pdf Maurice Nicoll UNCRITICAL SELF-OBSERVATION “Remember that it is said that self-observation must be uncritical. You do not observe yourself in order to criticize yourself. If you do so it will at once stop self-observation and lead to internal considering. . . . In self-observation we do not try to analyze—i.e. find the causes and origins of different ‘I’s in us—but seek only to become conscious of them.” V. 2, p. 560, 571 UNCRITICAL II “The Observing ‘I’ in the sense of the Work does not take sides with anything. It merely records what you are doing, what you are saying, at different moments, through the action of different ‘I’s, and does not say that this is better or this is worse. Observing ‘I’ is not shocked by anything. It is not a kind of Grandmamma or Grandpapa in you, but is quite pure and simple...It will have its own uncritical, gentle memory of all the different sides of you... We have to acknowledge and accept all sides of ourselves, because only through the acknowl- edgement, the acceptance, the consciousness of all sides of ourselves can we advance at all.” V. 2, p. 722, 724 THE VALUE OF SELF-OBSERVATION III “Self-Observation clears a space in your mind so that you can see things coming in and going out. If the energy which was about to go into a negative emotion is prevented from doing so, it may pass on and may create a moment of Self-Remembering. All this means that you have brought the Work up to the point of incoming impressions.” V. 1, p. 199 From page 15 of https://inner-world-books.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Gems_of_Wisdom.pdf

@fridjonk Thanks, Bud.? It was a fun day with some rich experiences despite it raining heavy all day. I slept like a rock last night. I appreciate the tip and I understand In theory about the cold shower but with the hot water valve right there handy, I seem unable to force myself to do that. Kind of like with people who Sky dive,,, Why jump out of a perfectly good airplane? ?? There are certain mountain creeks around where I live that are always ice cold which I use for shock therapy, though. ?. Maybe one day I'll be able to make my hand turn that hot water valve off at home.

Gurdjieffs magnum opus deals extensively with the history of Atlantis and how it's remnants after what he called the second Transalpanian perturbation became the seed for the ancient Egyptian civilization. There is world full of students of The Tales that are more scholarly than I am. Why no one is extrapolating more and making a deal out of this, ,, I don't know? Graham Hancock does, I guess but his overall interests makes his contributions by their nature obviously spread thin. But what he's referring to here, I believe is a correlation and perhaps a complementary confirmation ,,, which is being unraveled with increasing speed. It seems maybe the tide is beginning to turn in how this is all being viewed by the majority with the the more conventional view,, maybe,, In "Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson" Gurdjieff spoke of the existence of the earths specific very small second moon ( which then later in the early seventies was declared as a fact by modern Astronomers and scientist. My expression of 'the facts' about this is very loosely gathered,,,in the spur of the moment,, A little bit of text from Beelzebub's Tales To His Grandson “The point is that when the second Transapalnian perturbation occurred to that ill-fated planet, then, besides its chief continent Atlantis, many other large and small terra firmas entered within the planet and, in their place, new terra firmas appeared on the surface of the planet. “These displacements of the parts of the common presence of that ill-fated planet then continued for several days, with repeated planetary tremors and with such manifestations as could not fail to evoke terror in the consciousness and feelings of beings of every kind.