Zigzag Idiot and the ladder of Objective Reason

[Zigzag Idiot]

Maurice Nicoll was the first to be given permission from both Gurdjieff and Ouspensky to become a Teacher of “The Work”.He passed up the opportunity to study with Carl Jung and instead went to France and spent a year with Gurdjieff. Nicoll was a Scottish physician. I get amused at his describing how prevalent self deception is,,,,

I well know as a medical psychologist the awkward point where I had to say to the patient: ‘Yes—I can see you have been badly treated, never appreciated, never properly understood. You have told me all that very clearly. But do you think that it is possible that you are not quite the ideal person that you seem to imagine yourself to be, and that there may be some quite serious faults in yourself?’ Now you can all imagine the haughty look, the frozen smile, the magnificent rising from the chair—and the slamming of the door—without, of course, the fee being paid. Yes—but what has happened. . . What has been touched? What would you call it? Whatever you call it, it is this factor that prevents self-change...If he sees for himself something of this factor in him, which is so formidable and the source of so much violence, then it is not aroused antagonistically. He sees himself: he begins to accept what he would never have accepted from another. It is in this way that the Work deals with this otherwise intractable factor in Man.” V. 3, pp. 1165-1166

Another excerpt from Nicoll,,,,

COMPASSION II

“It is impossible to endure one another’s unpleasant manifestations in the right sense of the meaning of the word unless we see our own unpleasant manifestations and know them and accept them...(We) begin to realize our own helplessness, so we can endure the helpless- ness of others.” V. 3, 

 

p. 832

From Psychological Commentaries On the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky by Maurice Nicoll

[Zigzag Idiot]

A talk Almaas gave over 30 years ago.

“MOST SPIRITUAL PATHS, including the Diamond Approach, involve a certain paradox of realization. We practice, we do exercises, we become responsible for our own liberation, and, at the same time, we know from our experience that realization often happens without being directly connected to the practices that we engage. By exploring this paradox, we can come to understand the relationship between our own intention to wake up and the action of grace. We can come to appreciate the relationship between our own responsibility for our experience and the view that God or Being or true nature makes freedom happen."  -  A. H. Almaas, Runaway Realization, ch. 1

[Zigzag Idiot]

              Weekly planner 
Sunday

A day to rest, Sideways Sunday. Spend some time horizontal in bed, on couch or stretched out on the ground. It feels good to lay on the earth.

Monday 

It’s all about responsibility. Pay bills, etc.. 

Tuesday

Wear your coonskin cap day.

Local bowling alley closed down. Bummer,,,,

Wednesday 

Throw horseshoes and use mouthwash.

Thursdays

A day devoted to considering a life more oriented towards chastity, scholarship and good nutrition. Considering is enough. To admit with brutal honesty that I’m the way I am and see no use in wasting effort the other 6 days of the week being torn over these matters. Good enough. 

Friday

T.G.I.F.     Let’s bust some glass!!! Feels good. Maybe some old dishes or something,,, 

Also, reflect some. Do I need to take care of any business at weeks end? 

Saturday 

Wild card day! Jokers wild!
Go bananas yet remain my expressionless, deadpan self. I may not show it but inside, in my inner world,,,, Life is better than it was twenty years ago. I’m more content and grateful.

If the spirit moves me. Speak my truth. Even if it’s cringeworthy.

Edited October 28 by Zigzag Idiot

[Zigzag Idiot]

                                   Precept

Note: See how this word/phrase promotes  dualistic analysis 
 

Dictionary

Definitions from Oxford Languages ·

noun: precept; plural noun: precepts

1. 

a general rule intended to regulate behavior or thought.

"the legal precept of being innocent until proven guilty"

What is a precept in simple words?

A precept is a rule or direction, often with some religious basis, dictating a way you should act or behave. Precepts are little life lessons that are usually passed down to children by authority figures such as parents, teachers, or religious figures.

[Zigzag Idiot]

   Sycophant

noun

ˈsi-kə-fənt 

Definition of sycophant

as in flunkey

a person who flatters another in order to get ahead be careful not to mistake sycophants for true friends

Synonyms & Similar Words

Relevance

flunkey

bootlicker

flunkie

toady

lickspittle

suck-up

minion

brownnoser

fan

henchman

parasite

flunky

devotee

admirer

sponge

slave

yes-man

fawner

apple-polisher

pupil

partisan

idolator

disciple

apparatchik

hanger-on

worshiper

lackey

     I’m curious why ‘ass-kisser’ wasn’t listed,,,?            Rather crude but seems synonymous.

I became interested in this word because I’ve  always been susceptible to flattery.
Seeking approval from others and receiving approval, admiration, compliments etc.,, is a component of my shadow. My insecurities or need to be reassured which is linked to the condition of doubt/fear. Enneatype six, counterphobic

• Two parts- my insecurity which seeks reassurance.
• my overconfident self which will flatter others as a way to gain their approval or loyalty maybe,,,?

[Zigzag Idiot]

FYi
Dog-pecker gnats are different from fleas and chiggers. Chiggers are the worst. For humans with tender skin, they're awful. They’re so small  you rarely see them. Fleas are at least 10 times bigger than chiggers. Dog-pecker gnats are a species unto themselves and are just a tad larger than fleas. 

Ticks are blood-suckers that aggravate country folks. Ticks hitch rides on mammals and grow until they reach the size of a peanut m&m. Ticks spread Lyme disease and others diseases. A friend of a friend picked tics and saved them until he had a large jar of the big juicy dog ticks. On the last day of school, he poured them down the hallway so they could be enjoyed and stepped on by all the jubilant schoolchildren excited for the arrival  of summer vacation.

[Zigzag Idiot]

The tone of your conversation.

What does it tell you?

 Can people be too serious? Yes.

Am I too irreverent? At times, yes. What does it cost me? Credibility. What does seriousness do for us? It makes us brittle and self-important. I’ve always been too serious except for when I express myself with the written word.

Martin Butler recently pointed out how it’s somewhat dangerous to speak about expressing negatively and the subsequent results. 
People truly do not see themselves but yet they know themselves better than they know others. Here’s the catch,,, We all have a blind spot that other people can see better than we can. This adds to our feeling of knowing. 
Some people are absolutely certain about their own awareness and will not consider the perspective I’m bringing, out of a deeply entrenched fear. It’s a mistake to force these people or insist in some way, that they listen. Self inquiry is just that. Work on yourself, not others. This message pushes the boundaries a little bit doesn’t it?

Root causes and the effects of cynicism contrasted with lightheartedness,,,,,,,  Something I often think about.

 That’s all for now.

[Zigzag Idiot]

Blessed is he who has a soul

Blessed is he who has none, but

woe and grief to he who has it in embryo.

 

Woe is man  human is woman

man and woman are a completion of each other as well as a torture

                        Poetry

 

For a sorcerer, reality, or the world we all know, is only a description that has been pounded into you from the moment you were born. The reality of our day-to-day life, then, consists of an endless flow of perceptual interpretations which we have learned to make in common. I am teaching you how to see as opposed to merely looking, and stopping the worldis the first step to seeing.
      The sorcerer's description of the world is perceivable. But our insistence on holding on to our standard version of reality renders us almost deaf and blind to it. When you begin this teaching, there is another reality, that is to say, there is a sorcery description of the world, which you do not know. As a sorcerer and a teacher, I am teaching you that description. What I am doing with you consists, therefore, in setting up that unknown reality by unfolding its description, adding increasingly more complex parts as you go along.
      In order to arrive at seeing one first has to stop the world. Stopping the worldis indeed an appropriate rendition of certain states of awareness in which the reality of everyday life is altered because the flow of interpretation, which ordinarily runs uninterruptedly, has been stopped by a set of circumstances alien to that flow. In this case the set of circumstances alien to our normal flow of interpretations is the sorcery description of the world. The precondition for stopping the world is that one has to be convinced; in other words, one has to learn the new description in a total sense, for the purpose of pitting it against the old one, and in that way break the dogmatic certainty, which we all share, that the validity of our perceptions, or our reality of the world, is not to be questioned.
      After stopping the world the next step is seeing. By that I mean what could be categorized as responding to the perceptual solicitations of a world outside the description we have learned to call reality.
     
      A man goes to knowledge as he goes to war, wide awake, with fear, with respect, and with absolute assurance. Going to knowledge or going to war in any other manner is a mistake, and whoever makes it will live to regret his steps.
      When a man has fulfilled those four requisites there are no mistakes for which he will have to account; under such conditions his acts lose the blundering quality of a fool's acts. If such a man fails, or suffers a defeat, he will have lost only a battle, and there will be no pitiful regrets over that.
     

* * *

A man of knowledge is one who has followed truthfully the hardships of learning, a man who has, without rushing or without faltering, gone as far as he can in unravelling the secrets of power and knowledge. To become a man of knowledge one must challenge and defeat his four natural enemies.
      When a man starts to learn, he is never clear about his objectives. His purpose is faulty; his intent is vague. He hopes for rewards that will never materialize for he knows nothing of the hardships of learning.
      He slowly begins to learn--bit by bit at first, then in big chunks. And his thoughts soon clash. What he learns is never what he pictured, or imagined, and so he begins to be afraid. Learning is never what one expects. Every step of learning is a new task, and the fear the man is experiencing begins to mount mercilessly, unyieldingly. His purpose becomes a battlefield.
      And thus he has stumbled upon the first of his natural enemies: fear! A terrible enemy--treacherous, and difficult to overcome. It remains concealed at every turn of the way, prowling, waiting. And if the man, terrified in its presence, runs away, his enemy will have put an end to his quest and he will never learn. He will never become a man of knowledge. He will perhaps be a bully, or a harmless, scared man; at any rate, he will be a defeated man. His first enemy will have put an end to his cravings.
      It is not possible for a man to abandon himself to fear for years, then finally conquer it. If he gives in to fear he will never conquer it, because he will shy away from learning and never try again. But if he tries to learn for years in the midst of his fear, he will eventually conquer it because he will never have really abandoned himself to it.
      Therefore he must not run away. He must defy his fear, and in spite of it he must take the next step in learning, and the next, and the next. He must be fully afraid, and yet he must not stop. That is the rule! And a moment will come when his first enemy retreats. The man begins to feel sure of himself. His intent becomes stronger. Learning is no longer a terrifying task.
      When this joyful moment comes, the man can say without hesitation that he has defeated his first natural enemy. It happens little by little, and yet the fear is vanquished suddenly and fast. Once a man has vanquished fear, he is free from it for the rest of his life because, instead of fear, he has acquired clarity--a clarity of mind which erases fear. By then a man knows his desires; he knows how to satisfy those desires. He can anticipate the new steps of learning and a sharp clarity surrounds everything. The man feels that nothing is concealed.
      And thus he has encountered his second enemy: Clarity! That clarity of mind, which is so hard to obtain, dispels fear, but also blinds. It forces the man never to doubt himself. It gives him the assurance he can do anything he pleases, for he sees clearly into everything. And he is courageous because he is clear, and he stops at nothing because he is clear. But all that is a mistake; it is like something incomplete. If the man yields to this make-believe power, he has succumbed to his second enemy and will be patient when he should rush. And he will fumble with learning until he winds up incapable of learning anything more. His second enemy has just stopped him cold from trying to become a man of knowledge. Instead, the man may turn into a buoyant warrior, or a clown. Yet the clarity for which he has paid so dearly will never change to darkness and fear again. He will be clear as long as he lives, but he will no longer learn, or yearn for, anything.



      He must do what he did with fear: he must defy his clarity and use it only to see, and wait patiently and measure carefully before taking new steps; he must think, above all, that his clarity is almost a mistake. And a moment will come when he will understand that his clarity was only a point before his eyes. And thus he will have overcome his second enemy, and will arrive at a position where nothing can harm him anymore. This will not be a mistake. It will not be only a point before his eyes. It will be true power.
      He will know at this point that the power he has been pursuing for so long is finally his. He can do with it whatever he pleases. His ally is at his command. His wish is the rule. He sees all that is around him. But he has also come across his third enemy: Power!
      Power is the strongest of all enemies. And naturally the easiest thing to do is to give in; after all, the man is truly invincible. He commands; he begins by taking calculated risks, and ends in making rules, because he is a master.
      A man at this stage hardly notices his third enemy closing in on him. And suddenly, without knowing, he will certainly have lost the battle. His enemy will have turned him into a cruel, capricious man, but he will never lose his clarity or his power.
      A man who is defeated by power dies without really knowing how to handle it. Power is only a burden upon his fate. Such a man has no command over himself, and cannot tell when or how to use his power.
      Once one of these enemies overpowers a man there is nothing he can do. It is not possible, for instance, that a man who is defeated by power may see his error and mend his ways. Once a man gives in he is through. If, however, he is temporarily blinded by power, and then refuses it, his battle is still on. That means he is still trying to become a man of knowledge. A man is defeated only when he no longer tries, and abandons himself.
      He has to come to realize that the power he has seemingly conquered is in reality never his. He must keep himself in line at all times, handling carefully and faithfully all that he has learned. If he can see that clarity and power, without his control over himself, are worse than mistakes, he will reach a point where everything is held in check. He will know then when and how to use his power. And thus he will have defeated his third enemy.
      The man will be, by then, at the end of his journey of learning, and almost without warning he will come upon the last of his enemies: Old age! This enemy is the cruelest of all, the one he won't be able to defeat completely, but only fight away.
      This is the time when a man has no more fears, no more impatient clarity of mind--a time when all his power is in check, but also the time when he has an unyielding desire to rest. If he gives in totally to his desire to lie down and forget, if he soothes himself in tiredness, he will have lost his last round, and his enemy will cut him down into a feeble old creature. His desire to retreat will overrule all his clarity, his power, and his knowledge.
      But if the man sloughs off his tiredness, and lives his fate though, he can then be called a man of knowledge, if only for the brief moment when he succeeds in fighting off his last, invincible enemy. That moment of clarity, power, and knowledge is enough.

      Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow it, you must not stay with it under any conditions. To have such clarity you must lead a disciplined life. Only then will you know that any path is only a path and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you to do. But your decision to keep on the path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. I warn you. Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary.
      This question is one that only a very old man asks. Does this path have a heart? All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. They are paths going through the bush, or into the bush. In my own life I could say I have traversed long long paths, but I am not anywhere. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you.
     
      Before you embark on any path ask the question: Does this path have a heart? If the answer is no, you will know it, and then you must choose another path. The trouble is nobody asks the question; and when a man finally realizes that he has taken a path without a heart, the path is ready to kill him. At that point very few men can stop to deliberate, and leave the path. A path without a heart is never enjoyable. You have to work hard even to take it. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy; it does not make you work at liking it.
      I have told you that to choose a path you must be free from fear and ambition. The desire to learn is not ambition. It is our lot as men to want to know.
      The path without a heart will turn against men and destroy them. It does not take much to die, and to seek death is to seek nothing.


      For me there is only the traveling on the paths that have a heart, on any path that may have a heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge for me is to traverse its full length. And there I travel--looking, looking, breathlessly.

This is an excerpt from Castaneda’s work by the way,,,,,

Edited December 1 by Zigzag Idiot

[Zigzag Idiot]

I read The life and Teachings of Carlos Castaneda years ago. Written by William Patrick Patterson, it became the fruit of his investigation into the mystery that surrounded the life of this brilliant trickster.

Long story short, Castaneda reworked his understanding of the Gurdjieff work into neo-shamanism. 
Reading this years after I was drawn in and hypnotized, in a sense by Castaneda’s books about “sorcery” he supposedly learned from a modern indigenous Mexican shaman named Don Juan Matus. 
I kind of see William Patrick Patterson as the ‘Krishnamurti’ of one of the main Gurdjieff lineages. Like Krishnamurti of the Theosophical movement in the early 1900’s, Patterson walked away from a position of power and urged others to figure it out for themselves. This is completely my paraphrasing of Patterson’s relation to ‘The Work’. So, take this with a grain of salt,,,,

[Zigzag Idiot]

Here’s my dream that I had night before last. 

Catching a ride back to my parents house from town. I packed a suitcase while there which took a while. Hiking the five miles back into town through cow pastures and occasional woods. I came upon an intersection a short way from the city limits. An older man was throwing a toggle chain around a semi truckload of logs. He asked for my help. While doing this we noticed some Angus bulls had gotten out on the highway. 

Someone shouted the Question. What are those bulls doing out on the highway? Turning to the bulls I asked them. Then I turned back to the questioner and shouted “they said they’re excited about going and seeing a newborn litter of puppies up the road a ways next to the fence on the right of way.,,, Everyone became happy and started laughing. I woke up then, laughing.
 

[Zigzag Idiot]

Sometimes, which is most often,,,,, always, but not,,,,,,,

When I express myself. It opens a doorway of a compulsive need to keep on expanding on the original idea until it becomes lost among the many ideas which gathers in the storm of my mind.

This is a neurotic condition in which one has left the realm of Being and has entered into this form of consciousness, that's a mess.  

A person of Being can self-observe. With some space within this self-inquiry. He can say to himself, "You poor bastard. Get out of your head and be an Ordinary Idiot once more.  Suzuki Roshi pointed out. "Zen mind is beginners mind". It is there where you become quiet inside, again.

These guys are way too serious, but the message is beautiful.

 

[Zigzag Idiot]

 

 

Not too long ago I interjected my opinion/answer into a discussion on another journal. It was kinda rude of me to that.,,,, Just blurt out my unsolicited opinion. The uncomfortableness I felt afterwards helped me to 'see' myself. Or as is said in fourth way jargon,, Observe one of my "I's" making itself known. There was a form of inflation or self importance that needed to display its cleverness or knowledge. This is a very common occurrence here in the forum. Often there is someone needing to one-up the others in a discussion. I see this in myself at times. It could be related to spiritual materialism. You could also say it's a zen devil characteristic that comes about quite often from egoistic tendencies that are not recognized in oneself. Seeing these types of communication can be a good way to work on Oneself. It's not a comfortable thing to see in oneself. But if you turn a blind eye and let self deception cover it up, you're just bullshiting yourself. Not everyone has this tendency in their expressions. Some have it more than others and sometimes it manifests rather innocently but in hindsight or from others reaction to your lack of 'skillfull means'. It can be observed. Take heart from the insightful saying, "awareness is cureative" over time,,, or in the long run. There is no one -time across the finish line of enlightenment or realization. Many people have this stance in their views of self or Self or no-self in their self deceptive view of themselves as a realized or awakened.  It is being blinded by one's own clarity and I'll go out on a limb and say it's every damn one of you and me as well. It is what fairly new people in the work of actualization use to prop themselves up. So if this hits you in the gut,,, hooray for you! In this truth that won't let you bullshit yourself. Sit with this and gain a greater awareness  and understanding over time. You'll be a more forgiving person for having seen actions like this in yourself. It is advised in the work literature to not criticize yourself. Don't beat yourself up. That's often very difficult for many people. Myself included. This work will humble you. 

Have a good day and try to be lighthearted.