George Gurdjieff

[Aspiraling Wizard]

On 12/12/2019 at 9:55 PM, Zigzag Idiot said:

You just have to discover for yourself, I would say.

 

Ocke de Boer- In his own words: "Gurdjieff was and is a very big guy in the Fourth Way, but he did not invent it."

http://www.higherbeingbodies.com/about-the-author.html

 

I try to observe my tendency towards hero worship. This is a lifelong behavioral tendency of mine. From Captain Kirk and Mr Spock, Yoda, L. Ron Hubbard, Ken Wilbur, Eckart Tolle, Cynthia Bourgeault, ALi Almaas, George Gurdjieff, Ocke de Boer, Hunter Thompson, George Washington,,,, etc.,,

 

 

Waitaminute, waitaminute.......L. Ron Hubbard?!?!?!?!?!

[Alex bAlex]

1 hour ago, Aspiraling Wizard said:

Waitaminute, waitaminute.......L. Ron Hubbard?!?!?!?!?!

Anything.... Wrong?  ??

[Zigzag Idiot]

 

          @Aspiraling Wizard Yeah, ? lol I'm afraid so,,, 

Thats an indication of how far gone I was 25 years ago  as a Scientologist at roughly 25 years old. Things change,,,

@Alex bAlex ? Thanks for being a placeholder.

[Alex bAlex]

@Zigzag Idiot Dude I am happy that you make it out ?

It might sound ridiculous but sometimes when you are cornered and you don't know anything how to move forward, there's someone there willing to help you, you know...

I've been closed to join, lucky me, I have watched some documentaries about and say pass when I have been called for their testing ... 

[Zigzag Idiot]

Gurdjieff was a good example of a multifaceted being. He would often play a role provoking others in some way to 'help'people in their work on themselves. He looked after and more or less supported several couples and families that had followed him out of Russia. He fathered some children out of this bunch of followers who were fleeing the War as well as some other followers from France and the U.S.. Gurdjieff was a Mystic but was definitely not a Saint. He was a good business man and entrepreneur. From trading and selling Persian rugs to being a silent partner in a restaurant when he settled in Paris. He was a Musician and a Teacher of Dancing. Gurdjieff also drank like a fish.  I wouldn't rule out that he was an alcoholic by today's measure.

Although Gurdjieff speaks highly of Christianity and of Jesus Christ, there are also many stories of his making fun of Catholic priests, even shouting at them on occasion. For example, his niece Luba reported in her Luba Gurdjieff: A Memoir with Recipes, "My Uncle never taught us how to go to church, or pray, or anything like that. And he never liked priests or the nuns. When we were out driving and he saw a priest, he would say, 'Shoo! Son of a bitch.'"

[Aspiraling Wizard]

20 hours ago, Zigzag Idiot said:

Gurdjieff was a good example of a multifaceted being. He would often play a role provoking others in some way to 'help'people in their work on themselves. He looked after and more or less supported several couples and families that had followed him out of Russia. He fathered some children out of this bunch of followers who were fleeing the War as well as some other followers from France and the U.S.. Gurdjieff was a Mystic but was definitely not a Saint. He was a good business man and entrepreneur. From trading and selling Persian rugs to being a silent partner in a restaurant when he settled in Paris. He was a Musician and a Teacher of Dancing. Gurdjieff also drank like a fish.  I wouldn't rule out that he was an alcoholic by today's measure.

Although Gurdjieff speaks highly of Christianity and of Jesus Christ, there are also many stories of his making fun of Catholic priests, even shouting at them on occasion. For example, his niece Luba reported in her Luba Gurdjieff: A Memoir with Recipes, "My Uncle never taught us how to go to church, or pray, or anything like that. And he never liked priests or the nuns. When we were out driving and he saw a priest, he would say, 'Shoo! Son of a bitch.'"

Gurdjieff was actually more Christ-like than most so called saints.

Edited August 24, 2020 by Aspiraling Wizard
Typo

[Aspiraling Wizard]

On 8/20/2020 at 3:47 PM, Zigzag Idiot said:

 

          @Aspiraling Wizard Yeah, ? lol I'm afraid so,,, 

Thats an indication of how far gone I was 25 years ago  as a Scientologist at roughly 25 years old. Things change,,,

@Alex bAlex ? Thanks for being a placeholder.

You made it out and I'm happy for you! I was in a similar situation and I still struggle with deprogramming myself because I was exposed to so much truth at times in my affiliation with this particular group(doubt I would be into Leo/Actualized if I never hung out with these people) and yet it got so stale, corrupt and ideological to a dangerous degree. It can happen to anyone and it's happened to VERY smart people.

[Zigzag Idiot]

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.

[Petals]

@Zigzag Idiot I saw you in the Ralston book thread. I often thought that Ralston is sometimes somewhat 'Gurdjieffian' if I may say so. I was just thinking - with all these other teachings around, where does one put Gurdjieff? One can't help but try to fit teachings into some scheme. So Ralston is ultimately about understanding that the self is a conceptual fabrication and thereby going beyond it and realizing your 'true nature'. But Gurdjieff is not about that. What do you think when I say that Gurdjieff is not about Ultimate Truth as is Ralston but about self-development, self-mastery, ego-development, maybe ego-transcendence (plus a lot of 'science' and cosmology)? Isn't it interesting that he contradicts the 'highest teachings'? G says we should forge our individuality while Buddhism is about 'no-self' and Hindu masters say that the individuality is due to false identification. G says we should have 'will', while Christians or bhaktas proclaim 'Thy Will be done'. G says we should be able to 'do' while Hindu sages say that taking yourself to be the doer is bondage. In short, I get the sense that G is not about the Absolute but about the relative, not about Being but about Becoming? How plausible is it that he never heard about Advaita Vedanta or didn't care about it? What to make of G and all this? What do you think about this? Maybe I am wrong in my assessment. It would be nice to read what you think. 

(But that's also so appealing about G. He doesn't say 'it's all illusion, get over it'. He sees a purpose to life on earth which is embedded in an overall cosmic evolution/involution.)

(ps.: I am not at all an expert in G's teachings, I mostly just read Lee van Laer's blog which I like.) 

Edited September 10, 2020 by Petals

[Zigzag Idiot]

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"

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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).

[Petals]

@Zigzag Idiot Thank you! I am going to have a look at AH Almaas. One other almost funny aspect is that G is about attaining some kind of individualized immortality whereas Hinduism/Vedanta is trying to avoid just that. But I get the sense that there is some kind of significance to the term 'self-remembering', that it has levels to it that are hard to understand from below a certain level of development. Maybe on a higher level it is somewhere near 'enlightenment' or 'self-realisation'.

This may be a book that can give some clarity on all the different teachings and traditions.https://www.amazon.com/Womans-Gurdjieff-Maharshi-Krishnamurti-Anandamayi/dp/1879514079  but I haven't bought it yet.

Edited September 10, 2020 by Petals

[Zigzag Idiot]

@Petals That book looks interesting. I may order it myself sometime. 

 

On 9/10/2020 at 11:31 AM, Petals said:

But I get the sense that there is some kind of significance to the term 'self-remembering', that it has levels to it that are hard to understand from below a certain level of development. Maybe on a higher level it is somewhere near 'enlightenment' or 'self-realisation'.

I just made a post specifically about Self Remembering in The Fourth Way thread recently started.

 

Books that I,ve enjoyed from specific women's perspectives who were students of Gurdjieff -

https://www.amazon.com/Undiscovered-Country-Spiritual-Kathryn-Hulme/dp/0955909082/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

https://www.amazon.com/Gurdjieff-Women-Rope-1935-1939-1948-1949-ebook/dp/B086SGN1JK/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Women+of+the+Rope&qid=1599982267&s=books&sr=1-1

 

[Zigzag Idiot]

Found a Gurdjieff material blog spot with very many interesting links within it.

http://mastergurdjieff.blogspot.com/2014/?m=1

@Petals  Rereading that great material you shared last April revealed to me a degree of my own  somnambulism of which I’m still under the influence of at times. Even though I’ve had awakenings in the past, I’m still prone to naps,,,,