Mind/Body

Gurdjieff taught, and left it for us to verify by our own experience, that we have 3 brains!

Head brain,
Feeling (emotional) brain
Moving/instinctive brain.

Lifting weights connects the thinking center (brain) to the moving center (brain) thus allowing a fuller perception and intelligence.
The connection is more powerful if the movements are done with conscious sensation of the body, consciously.

ref: In Search of the Miraculous, chapter 6, page 107 "The most complete knowledge of a given subject possible for us can only be obtained if we examine it simultaneously with our mind, feelings, and sensations."

Quotes from In Search Of The Miraculous: Fragments Of An Unknown Teaching -2

Quotes from In Search Of The Miraculous: Fragments Of An Unknown Teaching.
(Page/Paragraph/Sentence)

Centers

348/0/3
"It means that a definite work of the thinking center is connected with a definite work of the emotional and moving centers…Everything is connected and one thing cannot exist without the other."

348/3/3
Often therefore, the sole possibility of making the other enters work in a new way is to begin with the moving center; that is with the body."

362/4/2
"You must understand that a man's will can b e sufficient to govern one center for a short time. But the other two centers prevent this. And a man's will can never be sufficient to govern three centers."

Octaves

130/3/2
"We neither understand nor see what is going on around and within us, either because we do not allow for the inevitability of descent when there is no ascent, or because we take descent to be ascent. These are two fundamental causes of our self-deception."

134/1/
"The possibility of artificial, that is, specially created, 'additional shocks' gives a practical meaning to the study of the law of octaves and makes this study obligatory and necessary if a man desires to step out of the role of passive spectator of that which is happening to him and around him."

134/2/
"The 'man-machine' can do nothing. To him and around him everything happens. In order to do it is necessary to know the law of octaves, to know the moments of the 'intervals' and be able to create necessary 'additional shocks.'

135/3/
"You must understand and feel this law in your selves. Only then will you see it outside yourselves."

Shocks

193/1/4
"The second volitional 'shock' and transmutation become physically possible only after long practice on the first volitional 'shock,' which consists in self-remembering, and in observing the impressions received. … Right development on the Fourth Way must begin with the first volitional 'shock' and then pass to the second 'shock' at mi 12."

Centers/Energy

193/4/1
"The centers of the human machined work with different 'hydrogens.' This constitutes their chief difference."

195/5/1
"The thinking or intellectual center is the slowest of all the three centers we have examined up to now."

194/1/3
"The intellectual center is never able to follow the work of the moving center. We are unable to follow either our own movements or other people's movements unless they are artificially slowed down. Still less are se able to follow the work of the inner, the instinctive functions of our organism, the work of the instinctive mind which constitutes, as it were, one side of the moving center."

194/6/0
"It is the lower centers that are undeveloped." And its is precisely this lack of development, or the incomplete functioning, of the lower centers that prevents us from making use of the higher centers."

194/12/3
"But in ordinary conditions the difference between the speed of our usual emotions and the speed of the higher emotional center is so great that no connection can take place and we fail to hear within us the voices which are speaking and calling to us from the higher emotional center."

196/0
"Thus in order to regulate and accelerate the work of the lower centers, the primary object must consist in freeing each center from work foreign and unnatural to it, and in bringing it back to its own work which it can do better that any other center."

196/3/0
"In order to regulate and balance the work of the three centers whose functions constitute our life, it is necessary to learn to economize the energy produced by our organism, not to waste energy on unnecessary functions, and save it for that activity which will gradually connect the lower centers with the higher."

Energy

179/3/1
"---every normal man has quite enough energy to begin work on himself. It is only necessary to learn how to save the greater part of the energy we possess for useful work instead of wasting it unproductively."

179/4/
"Energy is spent chiefly on unnecessary and unpleasant emotions, on the expectation of unpleasant things, possible and impossible, on bad moods, on unnecessary haste, nervousness, irritability, imagination, daydreaming, and so. Energy is wasted on the wrong work of centers; on unnecessary tension of the muscles out of all proportion to the work produced; on perpetual chatter which absorbs an enormous amount of energy; on the 'interest' continually taken in things happening around us or to other people and having in fact no interest whatever; on the constant waste of the force of 'attention;' and so on, and so on.

179/5/0
"In beginning to struggle with all these habitual sides of his life a man saves an enormous amount of energy, and with the help of this energy he can easily begin the work of self-study and self-perfection."

Quotes from In Search Of The Miraculous: Fragments Of An Unknown Teaching.

Quotes from In Search Of The Miraculous: Fragments Of An Unknown Teaching.
(Page/Paragraph/Sentence)

Imagination:
220/2/1
"In reality Kundalini is the power of imagination, the power of fantasy, which takes the place of a real function. When a man dreams instead of acting, when his dreams take the place of reality, when a man imagines himself to be an eagle, a lion, or magician, it is the force of Kundalini acting in him.

Energy

179/3/1
"---every normal man has quite enough energy to begin work on himself. It is only necessary to learn how to save the greater part of the energy we possess for useful work instead of wasting it unproductively."

179/4/
"Energy is spent chiefly on unnecessary and unpleasant emotions, on the expectation of unpleasant things, possible and impossible, on bad moods, on unnecessary haste, nervousness, irritability, imagination, daydreaming, and so. Energy is wasted on the wrong work of centers; on unnecessary tension of the muscles out of all proportion to the work produced; on perpetual chatter which absorbs an enormous amount of energy; on the 'interest' continually taken in things happening around us or to other people and having in fact no interest whatever; on the constant waste of the force of 'attention;' and so on, and so on.

179/5/0
"In beginning to struggle with all these habitual sides of his life a man saves an enormous amount of energy, and with the help of this energy he can easily begin the work of self-study and self-perfection."

130/3/2
"We neither understand nor see what is going on around and within us, either because we do not allow for the inevitability of descent when there is no ascent, or because we take descent to be ascent. These are two fundamental causes of our self-deception."

195/5/1
"The thinking or intellectual center is the slowest of all the three centers we have examined up to now."

194/1/3
"The intellectual center is never able to follow the work of the moving center. We are unable to follow either our own movements or other people's movements unless they are artificially slowed down. Still less are se able to follow the work of the inner, the instinctive functions of our organism, the work of the instinctive mind which constitutes, as it were, one side of the moving center."

194/6/0
"It is the lower centers that are undeveloped." And its is precisely this lack of development, or the incomplete functioning, of the lower centers that prevents us from making use of the higher centers."

194/12/3
"But in ordinary conditions the difference between the speed of our usual emotions and the speed of the higher emotional center is so great that no connection can take place and we fail to hear within us the voices which are speaking and calling to us from the higher emotional center."

196/0
"Thus in order to regulate and accelerate the work of the lower centers, the primary object must consist in freeing each center from work foreign and unnatural to it, and in bringing it back to its own work which it can do better that any other center."

196/3/0
"In order to regulate and balance the work of the three centers whose functions constitute our life, it is necessary to learn to economize the energy produced by our organism, not to waste energy on unnecessary functions, and save it for that activity which will gradually connect the lower centers with the higher."

188/3/0
"It has been explained before that in ordinary conditions of life we do not remember ourselves, we do not remember, that is, we do not feel ourselves, are not aware of ourselves at the moment of a perception, of an emotion, of a thought or of an action."

Effort

232/8/2
"Only super-efforts count."

232/10/0
"…it is better to die making efforts to waken than to live in sleep."

282/1/1
"When self-deceit is destroyed and a man begins to see the difference between the mechanical and the conscious in himself, there begins a struggle for the realization of consciousness in life for the subordination of the mechanical to the conscious. For this purpose a man begins with endeavors to set a definite decision, coming from conscious motives, against mechanical processes proceeding according to the laws of duality. The creation of a permanent third principle is for man the transformation of the duality into the trinity."

Symbols

282/5/2
"… a symbol can never be fully interpreted. It can only be experienced, in the same way for instance, as the idea of self-knowledge must be experienced."

Self Observation

107/3/3
"The most complete knowledge of a given subject possible for s can only be obtained if we examine it simultaneously with our mind, feelings, and sensations."

117/1/5
"Both consciousness and the different degrees of consciousness must be understood in oneself by sensation, by taste. No definitions can help you in this case and no definitions are possible so long as you do not understand what you have to define."

117/6/2
"… you do not remember yourselves. You do not feel yourselves; you are not conscious of yourselves. With you, 'it observes' just as 'it speaks,' 'it thinks,' 'it laughs.' You do not feel: I observe, I notice, I see. Everything still 'is noticed,' 'is seen.' … In order to really observe oneself one must first of all remember oneself."

118/0/3
"only those results will have any value that are accompanied by self-remembering. Otherwise you yourselves do not exist in the your observations."

Atlas, Beelzebub

What do we have now?

Human Action

Faith, Love, and Hope

Faith of consciousness is freedom

Faith of feeling is weakness

Faith of body is stupidity.

Love of consciousness evokes the same in response

Love of feeling evokes the opposite

Love of body depends on type and polarity.

Hope of consciousness is strength

Hope of feeling is slavery

Hope of body is disease.

Quoted from "All and Everything" by G. Gurdjieff

page 361

ISBN: 0-89756-022-1

Awakening to One's Real Self - The Gurdjieff Approach

See you at the seminar!

Shifting Levels of Abstraction Disingenuously

I've been reading Steve McConnell's Code Complete 2nd edition. This is a book that I've had on my shelf for at least 13 years (1st edition). I should have read it in detail a long time ago.  In chapter 6 he talks about designing classes.  He explains the value to effective programming of having the class's interface present a consistent [level of ] abstraction.

He summarizes with this checklist:
Abstraction

    * Does the class have a central purpose?
    * Is the class well named, and does its name describe its central purpose?
    * Does the class's interface present a consistent abstraction?
    * Does the class's interface make obvious how you should use the class?
    * Is the class's interface abstract enough that you don't have to think about how its services are implemented? Can you treat the class as a black box?
    * Are the class's services complete enough that other classes don't have to meddle with its internal data?
    * Has unrelated information been moved out of the class?
    * Have you thought about subdividing the class into component classes, and have you subdivided it as much as you can?
    * Are you preserving the integrity of the class's interface as you modify the class?

This concept of class design has parallels in design of organizations, and in the structure of a conversation or document meant to educate or persuade.

The profound personal insight that came to me from pondering the larger implications of class design, keeping in mind the principles of Objectivist Epistemology, was how I deliberately shift level of abstraction in a conversation by asking about details that appear to contradict the principles that the speaker is talking about.  My ostensible purpose is to give the speaker a chance to anchor their concepts in reality, in sensation, but many times I pick an example that I know can't be explained by the principles I'm hearing discussed.

The result is to confuse the speaker and derail the conversation.

Example: I ask what is more valuable (to whom!); the individual or the collective (society)?
I hear the reply "Well that depends on the situation. What if the individual breaks a law that was passed because we (society) just says so?"

This is a sudden drop in the level of abstraction, introducing undefined terms, that cloud the discussion: What is the purpose of law? Is it an objective law? Is it just? What is the definition of justice?  Is "...we just say so..." really a reason for anything? These terms are derivative from the concepts of individuality, and the conditions for life. If they are used as floating abstractions, logically broken from their conceptual derivation then they have no meaning. They fog the discussion. We need to take a detour to define them properly.

Epistemology

You my anticipate that the point I'm leading up to is that the difference, if there is one, is a matter of "what is the basis of knowledge." Ayn Rand and Gurdjieff both had a lot to say about this. I intend to explore the record on this as we continue.

As a good philosopher you probably recognize that the basis of knowledge is sensation followed by perception, organized by conception. So what are the essential differences between Objectivist Epistemology and Gurdjieff's knowledge? What are the Mystical Parallels. Perhaps Mystical is a misnomer?

First of all Gurdjieff insists on a wider scope of sensation that Ayn Rand acknowledges....

In The Beginning, the Body.

"Howard Roark laughed.
...
He felt his shoulder blades drawn tight together, the curve of is neck, and the weight of the blood in his hands." ("The Fountainhead", first page.)

Then the other descriptions: lying on the grass after a day in the quarry, the drink of cold water, floating in the sea close to Gail Wynand's yacht.

"The Fountainhead" is rooted in the embodied experience!

Then we have "In Search of the Miraculous" page 146, 2nd paragraph: "mental photographs" that include sensations, postures, tones of voice, facial expressions. All the elements of the embodied experience, self-remembering.

I'm torn between listing more examples and posting this as is. For a Gurdjieffian nothing more is needed, but an Objectivist would want more clues.

Initial Setup

For a long time, maybe 15 years or so, I've wanted to write a book about the parallels between the writings of Ayn Rand and the writings of G.I. Gurdjieff as found in his books and as reported by Ouspenski.

I will probably never write the book, but I want to get the ideas of these parallels out to interested people, hence this blog.

I'll try to document my ideas with references but I won't let the lack of easily accessible reference material stop me from writing from my memory of what I read, perhaps 10, 20 or 30 years ago.

Comments are welcome. I'll refrain from wiseacreing in this blog and if I catch myself I'll clean it up. If I don't, the wise will be warned.

Spiritual Survival in a Radically Changing World-Time

William Patrick Patterson's book is incredibly valuable to a sincere seeker. It is the most concise formulation of basic transformational experiences that I have ever read! The book is a powerful, compelling invitation to the Fourth Way! He probes deeply into behaviors that I had never noticed or always taken for granted -- cuts me to my heart! The Gurdjieffian view provided by Patterson of current issues evokes a deep re-evaluation of my own opinions and values!

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Consciousness

In Arnold's encyclopedia of body building he has some general tips. One that I recall is that he stressed the importance of sending the attention, flowing energy, into the muscles being exercised. I need to find the precise quote.

Impeccability and Gurdjieff

The Life and Teachings of Carlos Castaneda by William Patrick Patterson is informative, intriguing, and it led me to further reading of the books in the extensive bibliography. William Patrick Patterson provides the links between the history of esotericism and Carlos Castaneda. The additional historical essay included in the book, gives the historical context of Don Juan's sorcery from the perspective of the Catholic Church.

After I read this book I researched further and found unmistakable parallels of Gurdjieff's words in Carlos Castaneda's works. For example: See the chapter titled "The Measurements of Cognition", page 119, in The Active Side of Infinity, and then the last page, page 1183, of All And Everything. Both books talk about complete, embodied awareness of our personal impending deaths as the source of our salvation. Castenada had introduced the idea of "Death as an advisor" in Journey to Ixtlan, but I hadn't made the connection to earlier teachings until I read William Patrick Patterson's new book.

Count Alfred Korzybski

"The map is not the territory."

I first came across the Count in A. E. Van Vogt's "World of Null-A."  I ordered his "Science and Sanity" from the state library system. I built a structural differential and presented it to my 8th grade english class, thereby earning the remark in my year book from my english teacher, Mrs. Murphy, that I was "... the first student to teach her a new word, epistemology."  

Recently it occurs to me that the "null-A pause" to allow cortical-thalamic integration to occur sounds like bringing the cerebral cortex into connection with the sensations of the body?

I need to go back and re-read "Science and Sanity"