Questioning

The Challenges of our Technological World-Time

The Gurdjieff Journal Issue #57

The Challenges of our Technological World-Time Part I

Sri Aurobindo: The Man & His Teachings Part III

Gurdjieff & Dorothy Caruso Part I

Probe: Disappointed with Life & Yourself?

J. G. Bennett & The Inner Barrier Part IIIBook Review: Aristoxenus's Ghost

"Faith of Consciousness..." G.I. Gurdjieff

Seminar with William Patrick Patterson
Faith of Consciousness

May 25-28, 2012

Loyola Retreat House
Morristown, New Jersey

William Patrick Patterson explores the theme through guided active-being meditation, Conscious Body-Breath Impressions™, dialogue and interviews. The seminar is open to all levels of simplicity. No previous experience necessary.

The Retreat Center is located about 50 minutes from Manhattan. Because space is limited and past seminars have filled quickly, please make your reservation early. The total cost of tuition, lodging (double occupancy) and meals is $675 with reservations received by May 10, 2012. Afterward, the cost is $775. Space is reserved with a $375 deposit.

To reserve a space, send your deposit by mail or reserve electronically below. There is a small surcharge when using the latter.

To reserve a place by mail, send a check made out to Arete Communications to the following address:

Arete Communications

773 Center Boulevard #58

Fairfax, CA 94978-0058

 

Levels (What do you Want?)

Bod Dylan & The Doobie Brothers

What do you want? I mean, what do you really want?  Asking this question, a wise man I know once answered, “Transcendence.”

 ___________________________________________________________________

That resonates with me. And transcendence means to go beyond myself, to connect with something beyond the little world I’m familiar with.  To expand, open up; experience the freshness, the newness, and the uniqueness.

 So why do I settle for, and even celebrate, mediocrity? Perhaps I haven’t learned to recognize or appreciate different levels. The cultural conditions we have created for ourselves seem to teach us to prefer the louder, the more shocking, the outrage(ous) over any kind of subtle connection to something higher. And I say subtle connection because I have to be open to the new, be present, to allow the connection. It’s not familiar, if it was it wouldn’t be transcendent. And often, if it’s not a familiar impression I automatically reject it. I reject the new.

 So what does this have to do with Bob Dylan and The Doobie Brothers?

This summer we saw both Bob and the Doobies at a very nice local outdoor venue. The different quality of the experiences is what made me think of transcendence.

The first concert was Bob’s. While waiting for the show to start we chatted with several of the other members of the audience. One middle-aged couple told us this was their first Dylan concert. Without thinking long, and against my general principle of not giving advice (I do give advice but know that it is mainly just my ego talking and that no one wants any advice), I told them to leave behind all expectations they may have. That Bob would not chat with the audience, at all. That they would not hear any songs played “just like on the record”. That they likely would not be able to recognize what song was being played. My wife said, “Just listen to the music, listen with your body” I chimed in again, “Pretend like it’s some old blues guy you’ve never heard of. Open to the possibilities."

The wife seemed quite concerned, “He doesn’t talk to the audience?” The husband seemed less worried; he even had an air of being more interested than before.

I took my own advice (If you don’t take your own advice, who will?) and had a great time. I was taken out of myself several times. Things Have Changed, Simple Twist Of Fate, Ballad of a Thin Man. All new creations, and really alive. The Levee's Gonna Break and Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum, two of the last songs I would ever request, both created a vibe that was in some ways unrecognizable; sweet, insistent, searching, in the moment, not knowing what comes next. And Desolation Row just floated me into the ether. This was transcendence, and to me it seemed that transcendence was the aim of Bob and the boys, to ‘get there’, or at least be open to that possibility during every song. I certainly didn’t experience them ‘getting there’ every song, but when they did, Wow. As one reviewer wrote, “Bob and his cowboy band proved just how good live musiccan be when the musicians are dug in and their fearless leader does not mind taking it on the chin every now and then.”[i]

 Now I’m not a huge Doobie Brothers fan, never bought a record, but I appreciated their music having been in my twenties in their heyday and hearing their tunes a lot. My wife wanted to go and it sounded like it could be fun. I’m not overly familiar with their catalogue so anticipated enjoying being open to whatever was.

  The audience was very enthusiastic. The Doobies were energetic, active, charming, hardworking and so on, and the crowd ate it up. But it all seemed flat. It felt as if someone had put on the records at a nice loud volume and the singers were animatedly lip-synching. There was no life, no edge, and no exploration. It struck me that it was all at the same level. Working harder, faster, but not getting beyond the known. Not taking any chances. 

To me, there was a stark difference between this and the Dylan concert. The Doobies were good but they felt old and tired. It was all on the same level. Bob and the band were willing to fail, to search, to allow for unknown possibilities.

 

As somebody once said, "He not busy being born is busy dying."

---

[i] Charles Cicirella, http://www.boblinks.com/080511r.html#2, 8/5/11

 More Dylan content here.

 

Dylan "Everything Happens for a Reason?"

It’s All Good

Does everything happen for a reason? 

Cold-blooded killer, stalking the town

Cop cars blinking, something bad going down

Buildings are crumbling in the neighborhood

But there's nothing to worry about, 'cause it's all good
It's all good

They say it's all good

“It’s All Good”  Bob Dylan

I love how Dylan underplays things. One example is how he skewers the oft invoked, fuzzy notion of “Everything Happens for a Reason” in “It’s All Good.”

Listening to the song started me wondering about the “It’s All Good” attitude.

I hear it said a lot by certain ‘believers’. If one believes in an all-knowing, all-powerful (capricious?) God or is a New Age emotionalist, does this attitude come with the territory?

Even those inclined toward scientific materialism sometimes fall back on the “dismissal of debate” presumed in the phrase “Everything Happens for a Reason.” If pressed, they might agree that it refers to cause and effect, as in every effect happens from a cause.

Of course, it’s not a new notion. With an understanding that you can’t control events but can control your attitude, the ancient Greek Stoics cultivated the approach that life is an exercise to be used to increase one’s understanding. So maybe in that sense they would say “It’s all good.”

Is there another perspective?

Gurdjieff said that we live under the Law of Accident until we respond to a conscious influence. In other words, unless we are connected to something higher, everything just happens. It’s not all good (or bad). It’s just the mechanical playing out of cause and effect. But there is the possibility to approach life somewhat like the Stoics.

What does it mean to respond to a conscious influence? What is a conscious influence?

 And as Bob has asked, “What Good Am I?”

 

Gurdjieff & the New Age

What does New Age mean? Anything? How did it start? How did it become "a little bit of this and that and a whole lot of nothing?"   Interested in exploring this idea?  Click on this link to the most recent issue of The Gurdjieff Journal, (TGJ).

Gurdjieff's Reciprocal Maintenance (part two)

 What is the meaning of life?  “Why do we exist?” “What is our place?” Gurdjieff’s question was “What is the sense and significance of life on earth and human life in particular?“

My guess is that most people would fall into one of three camps regarding this question.

#1. Scientific Attitude: There is no meaning to the question. Life is an accidental valueless occurrence.

#2. Religious Attitude: God made the world and we are here to serve and worship an all-powerful God.

#3. Mainstream Attitude: I don’t care about such questions. I’m just trying to get by, make a living, have a little fun.

As I grew up something seemed wrong with the world and with me. It seemed that if one really believed #1 was true, what would motivate one to do anything? On the other hand, it didn’t make sense to believe #2 either. How could an all-powerful God be reconciled with the suffering and state of the world? So, like countless others, I drifted toward the third attitude. But not with any comfort.

When first coming across Gurdjieff’s answer it struck me as a revelation. Everything is connected. Everything supports everything else. Why would humans not also have a purpose?

Gurdjieff calls it Reciprocal Maintenance. There is a universal exchange of energies. On all levels. On all scales. What does this mean for us?

(to be continued)

  

Dylan-Direct Impressions

Three friends and I had gone to a concert in Louisville. The concert was fun, but nothing special. On the way back to Lexington someone remembered that it was time for one of the local FM stations to present the "album of the week." This was 1975 and at that time it was difficult to get a preview of upcoming releases so we were happy that our timing was so lucky. The radio was tuned and shortly it was announced that Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks would be played in its entirety.

I have a direct impression of sitting in the back seat of the car as we travelled east letting the songs wash through me. My body was relaxed and very still. Everyone was silent. We were all rapt. Time slowed. I was amazed as each song seemed to be better than the last. The quality of the album was so high, there were so many impressions, that as Lily, Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts ended I was sure the album was over. It had already been an incredible "meal", and dessert was still in the offing. There were still three more songs!

We arrived at our dorm in Lexington right after Buckets of Rain was over. I don't remember anyone speaking. Maybe a few words to affirm how great the album was. Bob was definitely back. We went to our rooms. The concert had vanished. Blood on the Tracks was imprinted. "And every one of them words rang true and glowed like burnin’ coal"

The Hard Light of Day

Many years ago I spent 9 months at a Gurdjieff school. One of my closest comrades there was Rod Moss. Afterwards we travelled together through Europe, Turkey, & Iran and I later stayed with him for several weeks in Melbourne where he lived at the time. Later he moved to Alice Springs. Here is a record of some of the work he has done in the intervening years. For more images click here.

Gurdjieff's Reciprocal Maintenance (part one)

 
 At the news about the Gulf oil spill, my daughter, who lived in New Orleans for six years (including Katrina), cried out, “What is wrong with us!?”

Wouldn’t most people just say it’s a tragically unfortunate accident, or blame BP or the government, someone? Are there some, the truly callous, who consider fouling our own nest and killing untold plants and animals just the cost of doing business? I don't know.

A real question. “What is wrong with us!?” Not them, us.

Gurdjieff asserts that we, as a species, are lop-sided in our development. It's easy to see that our technological expertise, our rationality, far, far outstrips our understanding, our emotional development, our being.

But is there more to this? Is something wrong with us?

I find it surprising that I give more and more credence to historical-spiritual points of view that say that long ago something happened to the human race, something that led to our current state of affairs.

I never understood the doctrine of original sin. How could that make any sense? It still seems a little crazy to me. But could it come from an intuition that has some basis in fact?

As I wrote in a another post Gurdjieff gives a different perspective in his great mythology All & Everything. He says that for certain reasons early in our history the Higher Powers implanted a something in Mankind to make us see reality upside down… later, the something was removed, but its effect still continues in us.

How is one to take this? Crazy talk? Purely symbolic? How could one possibly verify?

But isn't it a fact that something is wrong with us?

There are many trains of thought that could leave from this station. The one I want to follow is this: One of the main problems of humanity is that we don’t know our place in the world.

We don’t know why we exist. We don’t understand our role. We don’t have a clue about our place in the reciprocal maintenance of all and everything.

(to be continued)

Gurdjieff & 3-D

I’ve seen two of the recent 3-D movies and they reminded me of something. I don’t see in 3-D very often, almost never! I wonder if some of the thrill of 3-D in these movies is that seeing in three dimensions is a rare occurrence in our everyday life and the in-your-face aspect of the 3-D scenes really brings our attention to dimensionality. How soon will it be that the novelty wears off, and we don’t see the 3-D of 3-D movies?

When I interrogate my experience I realize I mostly see in zero dimensions, because I’m taken by the inner chatter that we laughingly call thinking. When my attention is pulled by something outside of me, when there is a single object focused on, I see in one dimension and at best I see in two dimensions.

Only when I have the experience of being present to my own body and present to what is outside of me, in other words, only when I remember myself, does the third dimension appear. To paraphrase Gurdjieff, everything becomes more vivid. In Gurdjieff’s terminology I move from the 2^nd state of consciousness, waking state, to the third state of consciousness, self-remembering.

Right now, am I aware of my body, and the screen, and the space between?

Am I in 3-D?

 For a much deeper look at what is behind this see the Present at the Creation essay at the Gurdjieff-Legacy website.

 

What Secrets Are in the Body?

 Some time ago I had the opportunity to attend a 4 day workshop exploring the F.M. Alexander Technique, which is an approach to understanding the body from the inside by learning to consciously experience movement.

During one of the sessions I was being ‘experientially instructed’ on how to stand up  from sitting in a chair and how to sit down. It’s amazing how much goes into such a “simple” movement. At one point a rush of energy went through my body. There was a feeling that something had been released. The energy was so strong that I passed out for the first time in my life. The instructors were concerned, but I felt great. Something was different.

Soon after I went to a wedding in which I had a supporting role. I had always been very nervous in such situations. But something had changed, there was no nervousness, I was able to play the role, and be aware of much more of the event.

The body is a mysterious creation. The Gurdjieff Work is the only spiritual practise that I know of that gives awareness of and through the body a major significance.

An extremely good blog about the Alexander technique can be found here.

Scientists Now (partially) Agree With Gurdjieff About Free Will

The headline of a recent Scientific American article here is Scientists say free will probably doesn't exist, but urge: "Don't stop believing!"  Why “Don’t stop believing?” Well, the gist is: We don’t have free will. We are influenced by everything. Our basic beliefs are our strongest influence.  If one comes to truly deeply unflinchingly believe that free will does not exist, then any kind of behavior is as good as any other. The researchers in the article found that even having someone read a single article about human behavior being determined results in measurably ‘worse’ behavior, “when people believe—or are led to believe—that free will is just an illusion, they tend to become more antisocial."

Also from the article, “…the findings reveal a rather strange dilemma facing social scientists: if a deterministic understanding of human behavior encourages antisocial behavior, how can we scientists justify communicating our deterministic research findings? In fact, there’s a rather shocking line in this Psychological Science article (one easy to overlook): If exposure to deterministic messages increases the likelihood of unethical actions, then identifying approaches for insulating the public against this danger becomes imperative. Perhaps you missed it on your first reading too, but the authors are making an extraordinary suggestion. They seem to be claiming that the public “can’t handle the truth,” and that we should somehow be protecting them (lying to them?) about the true causes of human social behaviors.”

How does this relate to Gurdjieff?

According to All & Everything, Gurdjieff’s great cosmic myth, early in our history the Higher Powers implanted a something in Mankind to make us see reality upside down, fearing that if we humans saw our real role and significance, we would commit suicide. Later, the something was removed, but its effect still continues in us. So, we believe we have many things, an indivisable “I”, consciousness, free will, etc. and blithely go along living our lives based on these beliefs. But science now is saying that there is no free will, and that if we lose our beliefs, our behavior will degenerate.

Is there a connection? Maybe, maybe not. Impossible to verify.

But Gurdjieff offers more to those who can take it in. He states that we can not “do” (no free will), we are asleep, and we have no unity. BUT, that we have the potential to develop them. He offers a “science of being.” He says, to paraphrase, Free will does not exist as we are. Do not believe. Verify for yourself. The Gurdjieff Work is a path of verification and development.

Am I busy being born?

"He not busy being born is busy dying" resonated with me as a young man dissatisfied with the world, but more so, dissatisfied with myself. Bob Dylan has a way of evoking feelings and questions I never knew I had. The words, the way he sings them, it feels right, and profound, but looking deeper, what does "busy being born" really mean?
The essay The Question of Rebirth from the Gurdjieff Journal  is the most succinct and deep exploration of that question that I have ever come across. To come to the realization that "I have to first awaken so that I can die, so that I can be born" is a major shift in thinking. Gurdjieff's message is stark, but in that starkness has a feeling of truth. But, to put oneself under the tutelage of a teacher? The rebel in me reacts. However, after the reaction dies down and I face the facts, its obvious to me that I can't do it by myself. And there is also resonance with "So it's a long path, but the only path worth taking, for its direction is vertical, ascending."

Truly, "he not busy being born
is busy dying."

from "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)  Bob Dylan

First Awakening

When I was about seven years old I was exuberantly playing with some distant cousins at their house. At one point I was alone in the back yard running around kicking a ball. I came to the stoop and stopped and looked back toward the long slope of the back yard. The sun was setting. My body vibrated. Time stopped. The experience, without the words, was that I existed, me! I had a body and I was on a planet that related to a fiery ball in the sky. When re-membering this the experience is as if I am there. It is my first memory of actually being in a body and of being conscious. Is this a common experience? 

Gurdjieff & Uncertainty

What is certainty? A fixed notion? Does being uncertain equal being in question? 

The lastest issue, #51, of The Gurdjieff Journal is now out. The cover essay, Certainty in a Time of Uncertainty delves deeply into these questions.

How to learn to be able to stand “on the cliff edge of the certainty of uncertainty?” 

Also a great piece addressing certainty/uncertainty by James Opie in the Spring 2010 issue of Parabola entitled “Does Something Within Us Know More Than We Do?” The article references Eric Hoffer’s “The True Believer.”

What Good Am I?

Listen:What Good Am I?

On first listening to Dylan’s Oh Mercy, this song was one of my least favorites.  It seemed to be what I considered at the time to be a self-pitying sentimental religious song.

Now it seems to me that there a possible deeper emotional impact to this song. It brings me in front of really wondering if "I" (whatever that is) am in any way really good? What is Good? Who or what am I? 

For some reason it also brings up the idea and experience of "original sin." A friend has several times reported working with kids and being appalled that, coming from a religious background, many of them consider themselves fundamentally “bad.” Presumably from the teaching of “original sin.” My friend, being a good “new-ager”, feels this is criminal. It probably is. But is there something to the notion that my behavior is somehow negatively programmed?

What good am I? I see that I don’t do that which I wish. Something isn’t right, but the doctrine of original sin seems somewhat crazy. Is there another point of view that could shed light on this important question? What about Gurdjieff’s teaching that long ago certain “sacred individuals” made mistakes that led humanity to have “unbecoming” predispositions? Seems somewhat crazy. Is it?

Here are the lyrics:

What Good Am I?  Bob Dylan

What good am I if I’m like all the rest,


If I just turn away, when I see how you’re dressed,


If I shut myself off so I can’t hear you cry,

What good am I?

What good am I if I know and don’t do,


If I see and don’t say, if I look right through you,


If I turn a deaf ear to the thunderin’ sky,


What good am I?

What good am I while you softly weep


And I hear in my head what you say in your sleep,


And I freeze in the moment like the rest who don’t try,


What good am I?

What good am I then to others and me


If I’ve had every chance and yet still fail to see


If my hands are tied must I not wonder within


Who tied them and why and where must I have been?

What good am I if I say foolish things


And I laugh in the face of what sorrow brings


And I just turn my back while you silently die,

What good am I?

Sacred Music

Listen in a new way

"If you wish to hear new things in a new way, you must listen in a new way. This is necessary not only in the work but also in life. You can become a little more free in life, more secure, if you begin to be interested in all new things and remember them by new methods. This new method can be understood easily. It would no longer be wholly automatic but semi-automatic. This new method consists in the following: when thought is already there, try to feel. When you feel something, try to direct your thoughts on your feeling. Up to now, thought and feeling have been separated. Begin to watch your mind: feel what you think. Prepare for tomorrow and safeguard yourselves from deceit. Speaking generally, you will never understand what I wish to convey if you merely listen."   G.I.Gurdjieff Views from the Real World

My experience is that I rarely actually listen, when there is thought, I’m identified with it, when there is feeling, the same. I don’t exist in my body enough to have a separation from my programmed thoughts and feelings.

Paradigm Shift

What is my point of view? 

Does it change? Why and how? 

The aim of this blog is to explore 

"the water I swim in", to see why 

I think, feel, sense and behave 

the way I do. And to work to open 

to new possibilities, to expand my horizons.....

A shift started in me when reading these words 

which stated the aim of the book I was about to begin:

"To destroy, mercilessly, without any compromises whatsoever, in the mentation and 

feelings of the reader, the beliefs and views, by centuries rooted in him, about everything existing in the world"

G.I. Gurdjieff,  All & Everything