Questioning

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)

  

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.

 

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?