THE GREAT WORK
OF CONSCIOUS EVOLUTION
There has been
throughout history, and there remains today, a small but vital thread of wisdom
concerning human potential and conscious evolution. This has been and is now
the material needed for real progress toward the realization of inherent human
abilities. This thread is not woven into the cloth of culture as a visible and
obvious one, but is of such rare and fine material that it is overlooked and
unknown by ordinary knowledge. This wisdom – this ancient teaching of
transformation to a more conscious being – has appeared many times in history
and has constantly and consistently given the method for conscious evolution.
In each culture, it quickly lost force and became distorted by socio-political
manipulation in the process of institutionalization. Yet it survives today and
offers to those who can receive it the ultimate opportunity in life.
In the late
19th and early 20th centuries, G.I.Gurdjieff set out to
find the sources of what he considered to be traces of real knowledge. He and
fellow seekers traveled extensively in the attempt to contact people who knew
about such fragments of wisdom, and from these years of search, and ultimate
success, Gurdjieff took upon himself the task of putting this vital information
into a system that could reach and help modern human beings. He considered this
to be of the utmost importance if a segment of humanity were to survive intact
under the conditions of increasing technological and cultural change. His aim
was that this teaching would help enough people to wake up from the hypnotic
sleep of conditioning into ever-narrowing channels. These people would serve as
active cells within humanity and preserve the inherent potential necessary for
real change. His life was devoted to this task and although his success is not
apparent for all to see, I am one who has received his message and profited
from his life of intentional suffering and conscious labor in this highest form
of striving. I also devote my life to this Great Work.
This essay
has as its aim to present a view of the human position as it is, in light of
the ancient wisdom, free from contemporary cultural prejudice, as it can be
verified by objective observation and experiment, as well as to present a
glimpse into human potential. It is understood that this view cannot be seen or
accepted by most people. It is for those who are prepared for participation in
the ultimate miraculous journey of human conscious evolution.
A New
A flood of darkness, like the flood of the Old
Testament, is sweeping over the human world. This flood is in the substance of
a world culture dominated by scientific materialism and technology and the
system perspectives that accompany it. This has set humankind on a very narrow
course which ignores the great potential inherent in the human creature and it
threatens to redefine it as a lopsided, dependent automaton within a mechanized
world. As in the time of Noah, it is obligatory for those who see the approach
of the immanent flood, to make an ark that can withstand the onslaught.
The New Ark
must try to save human potential. It cannot save old forms such as rigid
cultural systems with their religious and political prejudices. It cannot save
the universal patriarchal philosophies that belong to the past, not to the
future. Indeed, the very definition of a human being is being changed by
present circumstances and it is extremely limited. There cannot be a return to
former definitions nor can the emerging one be accepted. A meaningful
definition of the human creature should be based on real attributes and
capacities. It would be wrong to perpetuate delusion merely because the actual
condition may appear to be unflattering or painful to acknowledge. The present
wrong definition is based on the idea that humanity already possesses complete
consciousness and has the ability to direct its course. The smallest degree of
objective awareness undisputedly demonstrates that what is called “full
consciousness” is merely reaction to stimuli, very similar to that of a spider
weaving a web or a beaver building a dam. Human reactive behavior is more
complex and involves a greater range of capacity, but it is scarcely conscious.
It is conditioned response at a low level when compared to the potential of
real consciousness and action of will. Intelligence is at work as it is with
the spider, but consciousness beyond simple awareness is lacking.
The
realization that collective humanity is in a low state of conscious being is
not new. Most of the religions of the old world, though diverted by cultural
manipulation, began as an attempt to help people wake up to their potential to
be conscious creatures with conscience. The force of transformation is always
lost in this process, but it takes only minimal effort to discover in Hinduism,
Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and other religious systems, a teaching that
points to a higher state of conscious being than the ordinary conditioned
state. Some call this higher potential “enlightenment,” “awakening,”
“transformation,” or “salvation”. Jesus called it the
Apart from
religion, modern science has made helpful discoveries about the human brain and
its potential, although science is limited by its own incomplete assessments
and limited scope. Science is good at dissecting the material universe, but it
cannot comprehend the unity of whole systems in a dynamic universe. Science can
be a useful tool for human beings with values, with conscience, but at the same
time, without direction, it can run amuck and be a destructive tool, as is so
obviously the case in life at the present.
Gurdjieff
began the modern revolutionary study of humanity that provides the material for
the New Ark. His exhaustive efforts to create a practical method that bears
fruit, -- that helps individuals wake up from consensus sleep -- call for
continued and renewed application today. As has occurred with all
transformative teachings of the past, the tendency of many of Gurdjieff’s heirs
is to fashion a collective belief system or tribe. This was not Gurdjieff’s aim
for his Work. His aim was to build an
The almost
insurmountable problem in presenting ideas that actually help individuals
change their being, --help them to wake up to their real situation, -- is that
what can really help is offensive to the conditioned ego with its false sense-
of-self. People as a rule cannot hear the truth about themselves – that they
live in a low, conditioned state with no real choice as to what happens to them
– that they live in illusion, basing their self-image on false beliefs about
themselves and about the world – that they never really think, but that
thoughts occur to them automatically – that their emotional life is not under
the control of a permanent identity and wreaks havoc in their own lives as well
as in the lives of others, -- that their physical function is unhealthy and in
a state of peril, in constant conflict with the other centers, the intellectual
and emotional systems.
As Gurdjieff
demonstrated so well, a human being has three basic centers with functions:
1. A physical body * (
2. An Emotional Center
3. An
These three
centers do not work in harmony, but are at odds with each other in the modern
human. There is potential for balancing these centers to a point of unity where
they can contact and join with two already perfect higher centers: the
* Here, the
body is taken as one center, but it is actually made up of three centers. Thus,
there are five basic centers.
Patriarchal
Fundamentalism, Scientism, and Modern Culture
The
worldwide consensus consciousness is largely defined and determined by a blend
of ancient patriarchal belief systems with the modern scientific and technological
culture. There are, of course, degrees of indoctrination, but no person is
immune from these influences, and no person is able on their own to step aside
from them. Each person, in acquiring a sense-of-self that can function in the
human world, acquires at the same time an erroneous conviction that they
personally function at the apex of human consciousness. It would be considered
the height of absurdity to entertain the idea that there may be higher levels
of conscious function than that in which they have this sense-of-self, or ego.
Science is
a method, an application of intellectual inquiry. Science and technology
provide only intellectual tools which can bring knowledge but not
understanding. To expect more from science would be comparable to expecting a
computer to show compassion. Those who use these tools should determine how
they are used. But this is not the case. Modern technology has come into
existence in such a manner that there is no conscious or directing entity in
control. It happens. One thing leads to another. It is cumulative. The
technology grows exactly as any automatic organism grows. Here too,
intelligence is at work…but not consciousness.
The great
human problem is that it is increasingly dependent on the automatic culture
created by science and technology in all aspects of life. Humanity has
abrogated large areas of its potential to this intelligence without
consciousness and without conscience. Communications industries spread
techno-thought worldwide as news, gossip and rumor, and propaganda, occupying
minds with thought patterns and mindsets in ever-increasingly subtle ways. One
might ask, “Who determines and directs this all-pervasive culture?” Some say
…”the power-holder conglomerates!” But
they, too, are results and reactionary responses to the overall system which
created them. There is no conscious force controlling things. That is the
problem. And there is no solution. That is the reality. It cannot change except
as the weather changes, --by cause and effect, -- by mechanical, automatic
function.
Where does
this lead? How does humanity change?
Evolution
in nature is a process. It starts with an individual, not with the collective.
Yet, our concern is with conscious evolution. Conscious evolution, unlike
evolution in nature, can be accomplished very quickly if conditions are right.
It, too, must start with the individual, but it cannot just happen. It must be
directed. But by whom?
There is a history
of transformative teachings that have left guidebooks and maps for any who
could follow. From Patanjali to Gautama, from Socrates to Jesus, from Akhenaton
to Gurdjieff, from Rumi to Shakespeare…there are teachers who have awakened to
the higher human experience and have held up candles to light the way. Most
have been popularized for cultural purposes and diminished, but their force is
still available to anyone who earnestly seeks for it.
It should
be noted that as the technological world culture spreads, there is an automatic
reaction against it in the fundamentalist movements within all the patriarchal
religions. It is easy to see this reaction as a negative force in religions
other than one’s own. For example, it is
easy for Americans to see it in Islamic Fundamentalism. But in one’s own
religion and culture, there is blindness to the same force, as is evident in
the right wing political/religious blend that is growing in
It would be
naïve and futile to hope that humanity as a whole, as it is, could evolve into
its potential. It cannot, obviously. That is not how evolution works.
Collective humanity is as it must be, and it changes in the only way it can
change, - mechanically. Only cells within the collective body can become
conscious. This must be the aim and direction. To expect that culture,
especially the techno-culture born of science, can be changed to a consciously
active rather than an automatic reactive force is to dream an impossible dream.
The work of
conscious evolution is an individual matter, first and foremost, then small
groups can, as they have done throughout human history, exert a positive
influence on the collective, always indirectly. These influences ultimately
remain only in ritual form with little substance. Yet everything of value to
human conscious existence has come as a result of the influence of Esoteric
Teaching.
The Role of Religion
in Cultural Conditioning
Every
culture has one or more religions as a driving force behind it. Religion can be
seen as the projection of the human striving to understand the great mysteries
of life and death and the ultimate meaning of the universe. It is primarily
recognition of a force or forces beyond and above the capacities and powers of
the human creature, both individually and collectively. Religion, in this sense,
is logical, useful, and a stimulus to greater understanding and function.
However, the social and political application of religion in every known
culture weaves a fabric of anthropomorphic “spiritual” structure that is a
restricting pattern of life geared toward maintaining control.
Religion
has levels of function, many of which are contradictory. There is a great
division between theory and practice. Built into this contradiction is a device
that keeps it from being seen by its members. This is based on the capacity to
justify any distortion of theory if it does not conform to the aims of the
immediate situation. An example of this is the change from the Christian
teaching of love and mercy to the institutional oppression of the Inquisition
that killed thousands of human beings (mainly women) as witches. There are many
examples of this swing to the opposite in every religion. Today, it is
splitting the Moslem world apart, and wreaking havoc throughout the greater
world, in the use of terror in the name of Allah. This contradiction actually
serves to strengthen the extremes of religion on all sides. Every party must
use its idea of God as a weapon against the enemy.
Religion,
as a cultural enforcer, is an automatic conditioner. A person born into a culture
does not acquire religious belief through personal effort or examination, but
through inherited indoctrination on the part of the culture itself or by
accepted sub-cultural influences or family or community structures. There is a
scale of intensity within a culture that ranges from complete requirement of
conformity and severe punishment for heresy to relative freedom and abstention
from religion. However, even atheists and agnostics are not disconnected from
religious influences in culture, but are shaped by them.
Becoming Disillusioned
How is it
possible for a person to step aside from the universal conditioning governing
all human beings in order to get a reliably accurate view of one’s life and of life
in general? Imposed patterns and programming shape each person from the moment
of birth. The enculturation process is unavoidable and necessary. But during
the age of responsible adulthood, there may arise an opportunity in the life of
an individual when everything is shaken and a glimpse into the artificial and
unhealthy state of the human condition is unavoidable. For most people who get
this glimpse, it is so shocking and traumatic that they quickly retreat into a
state of denial, identifying with diversionary occupations and activities. For
a few, the greatest opportunity for real growth in consciousness and being
opens. It is to this minority that the ideas of this writing call.
Only a
person who has some capacity for active pondering can receive anything new, --
anything helpful. What is called “thinking” is associative mental reaction…it
happens… automatically. People “think” as they have been conditioned to think.
Thoughts are not one’s own and one does not direct them. There is no permanent
identity, but rather a changing menagerie of sub-personages within the
so-called “individual”. These changing sub-personalities depend on inner and
outer circumstances. The shift from one to another goes unnoticed, and each
calls itself “I”. One may say “I do” while a dozen others will never agree with
this vow. Each “thinks” according to its desires of the moment. There is no
indivisible identity, no individuality. Active pondering requires a certain
amount of objectivity, the ability to examine thoughts and ideas as if they
exist apart from one’s personal associative structure. Rather than following
the assumption that one already thinks at the highest level possible, one must
learn to think.
It is no
exaggeration to state that in no small degree, every human being in every
culture is conditioned and initiated into a hypnotic trance state that is
called wrongly, “full consciousness”. Of course, within this state there is a
scale of variation, including pathological deviations, as well as, perhaps,
genius, but no person exists apart from a culturally imposed context.
Enculturation, being necessary and the foundation for further evolution, must
not be thought of as a step that can be bypassed. Esoteric Teaching
acknowledges this basis but gives information and methods that affirm a higher
state which is the next step if humanity is to survive and serve its ultimate
purpose in the solar system.
Three Levels in Life
There are
three levels, or divisions within humanity. They can be called:
Level A
Level B
Level C
Level A
is totally occupied with ordinary life influences such as economics,
social interactions, politics, food and entertainment, sex, fashion, etc. The
vast majority of humans today live only on this level of interest, taking all
ideas and influences in their lowest meaning.
Level B
is made up of people who think that Level A influences are not
satisfactory for a basis of life. These people are drawn to ideas that
originally came from the higher level, Level C, but mixed with Level A influences
and became Level B. Level B is largely institutional religion, philosophical
literature and art, popular psychology and philosophy, or interest in ideas
above those of Level A without an understanding of their source or real
meaning. Level B includes what is known as occult, paranormal, metaphysical,
and “spiritual” systems.
Level C
is the
Preparation
The present
state of humanity, existing as a result of millennia of ever-narrowing
conditioning and mechanical complication, is pathological. At its basis is the
universal delusion that as it already is, it possesses full consciousness and
capacity. This view locks the door to real change because it sees no need for
it, only need for further exercise of present functioning. What is needed,
indeed required, for not only human survival, but for its potential to evolve
into a conscious force in the solar system, is a step toward further development
of inherent possibilities.
What can
bring about this change? Perhaps only a shock on such a large
scale that there is no alternative. All signs point to the building of
circumstances which will bring this shock. For those who can see the urgency of
the situation, the only direction must be to anticipate and prepare for this
inevitable shock.
The
preparation involves work toward understanding the actual present reality in an
objective sense, especially of one’s own self, in the midst of the pathological
drama, and effort toward separating this self from identification with the
obsolete patterns and forms that keep one attached. As long as one is
identified, attached, to the conditioned consensus consciousness of the
universal human definition, or even to local tribal structures, there can be no
movement toward an increase of understanding leading to conscious change.
All
evolution that occurs mechanically takes enormous periods of time along with
ever-changing conditions. In nature, it starts with individuals and spreads
gradually through a species. Conscious evolution, of which only human beings
are capable, also starts with individuals, but it can be accomplished very
rapidly if the force for it is strong enough. In humanity, this force does not
come from the collective, from culture, but it comes from the forgotten ancient
wisdom of human potential that has existed almost invisibly alongside cultures
throughout history. This ancient wisdom cannot be accessed directly because as
long as one is a slave to conditioned experience, this help is precluded.
Awakened
individuals and small groups have created methods that can break the hypnotic
sleep of mass humanity, in individuals. Many of these efforts took the form of
religious systems and very quickly lost force in social application. Yet, at
the heart of these teachings, the message remains in some degree, accessible to
those who go to the trouble to find it. The outer forms develop dogma and
ritual and forget the reasons behind them. The inner core is universal and
unchanging.
You Are Not You. Know
Thyself.
Each person
born into the human experience is born as Essence…what one truly is with all of
one’s potential. This Essence is immediately covered over by conditioning
carried out automatically and unconsciously by parents, and others. This
conditioning creates Personality, which is an artificial response, a group of
masks, created to attract and provide basic requirements such as the rewards of
food, protection, physical nurturing, pleasure and avoidance of pain, and
ultimately a psychological sense-of-self.
The
Personality, though necessary, is not what one is, but is what one has been
made to be by the environment in which one is born. For some time, Essence
plays a part in the forming of Personality, but soon the sense-of-self is
totally shifted to Personality. Essence remains an undeveloped and
undernourished aspect of each person…a forgotten child. Personality continues
to grow and develop scores of sub-personages with skills that range from ego-defense
mechanisms to specialized physical or psychological talents including social
acting. For most people, the Personality and its sense-of-self is all that is
needed or wanted, and even the idea that a vital part of one’s self has been
forgotten seems to be absurd. Only a minority of people ever suspect that
ordinary life and its values do not provide an answer to the question of
Meaning of Life for a human being. In the Gospels, the teaching that one can
enter the
Early in
each person’s life an imaginary state is universally created that has one
purpose – to save oneself from unpleasantness or disturbance in the
sense-of-self. One is divided into many “I”s.
Along with this comes the inability to see contradictions in oneself and to see only the emotion that is of the moment
according to the “I” that is operant. When another “I” comes, as it always
does, another emotion comes, too, and the first emotion is forgotten. These
emotions are never connected together since the little consciousness that
exists in one “I” has no remembrance of the small amount of consciousness in
another. The Work aims to make contradictory emotions conscious. This awareness
brings conscience and it is always unpleasant because one sees the falseness
one lives in – one sees where one is wrong now and that one has always been
false.
Cultural
life is designed to maintain an artificial and dependent identity in its
members. It has its own values which it enforces through institutions, social
conditioning, membership rewards, entertainment and fashion, and especially
through dogma and ritual. Indeed, all of human cultural life is designed to
enforce the given level of experience and to prevent individuals from gaining
access to the age-old wisdom that teaches evolution to a higher state of being.
Human
beings usually live a lifetime believing they know who they are…what they
are…and never get the opportunity to see that their “knowing” is not their own.
Life is something that has happened to them. Their mind, their thoughts, their
attitudes, their opinions, their beliefs, their days and nights are not their
own but are mechanical results. It has all happened as cause and effect in
life, - without choice, without conscious control. The realization of the truth
of oneself opposes the very structure of the human world as it is. Yet, this is
the only way for a person to live up to their potential to be a conscious being
with conscience.
Consciousness
Consciousness, the greatest
evolutionary aspect of a human being has been studied very little and is taken for
granted. Even so-called great thinkers have contributed little to the study of
consciousness. It is an example of one not learning what one thinks is already
known.
We know a little about only
two levels of consciousness –
1. Ordinary sleep.
2. The ordinary awakened state.
The awakened state is
wrongly considered to be a fairly constant condition in which normal people
function. Certain aberrations are acknowledged such as mental retardation or
mental illness, and substance-induced states, but present knowledge does not
concern itself with states such as those claimed by eastern thinkers or even
consider that there could be higher levels of human conscious experience than
that of consensus consciousness. It is generally considered that a person is
either asleep or awake and that is all that is possible.
A simple self-observation
reveals that waking consciousness has levels, which are affected by things such
as foods, rest, activity, events, etc. Ordinary consciousness is always in
flux. An occasional peak experience is not controllable and is seen as always
coming from external life. Drugs may open a door but prohibit entry.
Consciousness as we know it is at the mercy of habits of thinking and feeling,
of conditioning and the human social environment. There is little control over
the level of consciousness in a person at any particular moment.
Ordinary consciousness is
dependent on the operating basic urges, chemistry, and the ego (the feeling of
the self as a separate being). It is seen by evolved people as a kind of
sleep-walking. (There are many observances one can make that confirm this. For
example, you find yourself going into a room to get something but you do not
remember what... You were unconscious. Or, you notice that while doing an
activity an hour has gone by without notice. You were asleep. Or, while
reading, someone has been talking to you but you didn't hear.) So much of a
person’s life is occupied with mechanical habit that even complex activity can
be accomplished with a very low level of consciousness. Work-hour traffic is
full of drivers who are barely conscious, but are operating on what can be
called “automatic pilot.”
While it is
impossible to explain the waking state to a person in deep sleep, it is equally
impossible to explain higher consciousness to ordinary consciousness. Just as
dreams have a different language, time, and pattern from waking consciousness,
higher consciousness operates in its own specific manner.
Esoteric Wisdom teaches
that there are two higher states blocked from reception:
3. The state of
Self-remembering
4. Objective Consciousness
A human being has the
potential to realize inner powers that are presently not even imagined by
consensus knowledge. Higher functioning imparts information and understanding that
go far beyond language, formula, ordinary reason, and the physical senses. The
block preventing further development is the conditioned belief that as one is
there is full consciousness and understanding of oneself and of life. All of
the world cultures are based on this Grand Illusion, and each person, in one
way or another, is a slave to this definition. At the same time,
misunderstanding of the precursors to higher capacities leads to belief in
fantastic paranormal phenomena, external spirits, witch doctors and healers,
etc., along with the institutions that grow out of these misguided fantasies in
the form of charlatanism.
The two higher states
possible by way of extensive effort under the guidance of a teacher and school
with real knowledge, reconcile reception of dualistic impressions from life,
thereby overcoming negativity and violence through real understanding.
Consciousness is not
thought or psychic functioning. It is not feeling or emotion. It is given to every
human in a relatively small degree in the form of awareness of oneself within
the environment, though this is also minimal. This small amount of contact with
consciousness is shared with other creatures. Yet, for human beings there is
capacity for a much greater function of consciousness than simple
consciousness. This does not come mechanically as a result of living. If it
comes at all, it comes as a result of intentional effort directed by those with
understanding that “to make gold, one must have gold.” The higher consciousness
possible for an individual has to be the result of a break with the level of
ordinary consciousness. It is not concurrent with it. Greater consciousness can
be thought of as a state that already exists but is blocked by lower
dysfunction. For it to connect in oneself there must be a reversal of polarity
between the usual sense of oneself and the essential potentiality waiting
within.
Conscious evolution into
the state called “enlightenment,” the “Kingdom of Heaven,” “cosmic consciousness,”
or other inadequate terms, has to be accomplished through effort under the
guidance of the ancient wisdom about human potential that is called Esoteric
Teaching and is the inner meaning of the Gospels, Hindu religion, Buddhism,
Sufism, and other systems which have a transformative inner core.
Who can evolve?
It is
obvious to any somewhat objective observer of the state of collective humanity
that the masses live under the given cultural hypnosis. Few can be expected to
even entertain the possibility that they and all those they know are living in
a limited, low level of conscious being conditioned by inherited cultural
patterns. Indeed, it is universally accepted that when a person wakes up in the
morning, they immediately have and maintain throughout the day’s activity full
awareness and the capacity to choose behavior. With this erroneous belief comes
the conviction that each person is a consistent individual who is the same from
moment to moment, from hour to hour, and takes as proof the fact that the body
and the name remain constant. People may suspect that others have multiple
identities because they can see abrupt changes in them, but in oneself, one
believes there is always one “I” that is permanent and conscious. This error
prevents any further change.
Who can
evolve? Who can wake up to the reality of the human condition? First of all, it
is necessary to determine who cannot. Those who are identified with a culture,
a tribe, a philosophy, cannot begin to experience for themselves,
to think, to act, to be aware beyond conditioned definitions. This rules out the great majority of human beings living on
the planet today.
Only when a
person begins to actually see the patterns of limitation within collective
humanity can an increase of consciousness in any degree of objectivity occur.
This can grow only as a result of totally new insightful experience that
reveals the illusions on which ordinary human life is based. Coming to this
beginning is an unlikely event for any person. It takes a shock of enormous
impact and even this does not guarantee that the person can profit from it. Few
can. A person must already have a feeling that things are not as they should be
in life, a suspicion that vital components are missing, that the ordinary state
of humanity is blocked from being what it is designed to be.
Along with
the unease concerning the human condition, a person must make contact with
Esoteric Teaching, the ancient knowledge about human psychology and its
potential. Without help from outside oneself, one will remain deluded by life.
This knowledge can never be accepted by one who is identified with tribal or
cultural definitions, or even delusions of personal superiority of thought,
because it goes against the premise that as one is, one already has complete
consciousness and needs no further evolution. The cultural definition
perpetuates the belief that only more reason, more morality, more religion,
more social effort, more technology, etc. can change the state of the human
condition. Esoteric Teaching denies that exercise of these schemes can change
what needs change – the actual state of being and level of consciousness. It is
the height of folly to think that a person without help could receive the
knowledge and understanding required for a real change of being, even if they
stumbled upon it.
In order to
evolve, to transform, to change in truth rather than in fantasy, one must be
able to receive and use new information. This new information is not concurrent
with the conditioned knowledge one receives from life in culture. It is of a
totally different level of human thinking, feeling, and experience coming from
an opposite direction than the course on which collective humanity is set.
Thus, it is obvious that the new material must come from those who themselves
have evolved, and it must be made available by living persons who also are at
some level above the ordinary and possess real knowledge from the conscious
source. It cannot be contained in literature or other strictly intellectual
formulas. It can be received gradually as the capacity for it is acquired under
the constant guidance of a teacher who knows what is to be done. Methods are
unique to the individual type of person, the environment for learning, and the
time frame which is possible. The teacher can steer the student away from the
inevitable paths leading into imagination and gullibility and offer reliable
assistance when needed. Yet, the student must do the work from personal
initiative and build a structure of proof, of understanding, that is one’s own.
The student is instructed to believe nothing, but to test everything for
oneself. The Work is not a belief system. Faith is not required other than in
the form of enough trust to continue. Hope should be based on real possibilities.
In the Work, love means consciousness.
No person
can, without help, begin to see beyond the conditioned structure on which their
sense-of-self is built. The universal conviction that accompanies each
personality is that its own state of consciousness is complete and equal or
superior to all others. This is not easily acknowledged and surpassed. This
self-righteous quality is inoculated into the very idea of oneself during the
acquisition of a personality and is the last consideration one would allow into
this sense-of-self. That is why Esoteric Teaching must at first be directed
from outside oneself, gradually, as the capacity for seeing the actual truth of
oneself is cultivated. If an ordinary person prematurely saw the unbalanced,
false structure on which their sense-of-self is built, they would collapse into
madness. Yet, this abrupt reversal of being is the next step in human
evolution. It is the death and rebirth that is the heart of all esoteric
teaching of transformation.
The Work
The system of
transformation introduced by Gurdjieff is called the
The two obligatory
practices in Fourth Way Work are self-observation and self-remembering.
There can be no permanent definition of these terms because they are both too
large and they evolve with the person who applies them. In the beginning of
Work, there are explanations given that can provide a framework for efforts,
but the mind always assumes understanding when there is only exposure. So it is
necessary to start while being monitored by someone who is further along in
these practices and can guide the development. The goal is for the individual
to reach a point of being able to proceed with this work alone because it must
be eventually made one's own. By oneself, however, at first, the imagination
will inevitably carry one away from the right course. This way is specific and
must be focused. It cannot be mixed with personal or collective associations
from life. This way is unattached to any culture.
One obstacle to clarity
in both these practices is the sense of familiarity the beginner has with the
terms. Each person does have similar experiences but there are vital components
missing in them and they do not provide the material for conscious Work. These
practices come from the
The
Work explains and helps one affirm that there are 5 lower centers within every
human being:
1. Instinctual Center (given physical
function) includes all the systems of normal physical function such as
circulatory, digestion, nervous, respiratory, etc.
2. Moving Center (learned physical
function) All learned physical responses and behaviors.
3.
4. Emotional Center is almost entirely
made up of an artificial “center” filled with negative emotions. What are
called positive emotions are counterfeit feelings which can switch to negative
emotion in an instant. Real Positive Emotions have no
opposite, no negative component, and are either present or absent.
5.
These centers have little real connection and
often work against each other. There are two higher centers that are blocked
from contact with the lower centers, but are fully complete and waiting to be
connected. This Work is to prepare lower centers for a connection with the two
higher centers within each human being:
6. Higher Emotional Center
7. Higher
These two
higher centers understand and unify the human system and contain everything
needed for living in the state of order that has been called the
The aim for
a person in this Work is not "happiness", that illusive phantom that
is so yearned for in ordinary life. The aim in the Work is for Understanding which is accompanied by
Meaning. There is a
certain very real joy and fulfillment which comes with progress in
understanding but it cannot be properly labeled as happiness. One can
experience this joy even in times of suffering and "unhappiness"
because it is not dependent on the pleasure of one or more 'I's
or of their circumstances. It is a joy that is whole and includes what is seen
as negative by these lesser sub-personalities. This joy in understanding comes
with the presence of Real I which is not limited by
the dimensions of the conditioned ego.
In this
Work, the new state of being is not found in the ordinary conditioned world –
the world of language (confusion of tongues), -- the world of the senses
(desires, pleasures, pains, cares and anxieties, likes and dislikes, etc.), --
the world of social materialism (money, fame and tribal belonging, comfort, ego
power, etc.). It is not to be found anywhere in science and technology. This
state, called in a former time, the
While
“re-birth” is rendered lip-service in institutional Christianity, the keys to
understanding have been taken away by formal, crystallized doctrine and dogma
which steal the life, the spirit, from the true Teaching. It lowers the message
to the level of the values of the ordinary socio-political world. This
“anti-Christ” began with the collectivism of church authority and has subverted
the inner Teaching into structures that provide a satisfying substitute for
real change through membership and fellowship but neglect and ignore the
original message of change-of-Being, of salvation, of Eternal Life…of the most
practical and vital aspect of the Teaching which is the Kingdom of Heaven.
This Work
is not about making the world a better place, about political peace, neither is
it about making people better citizens and social creatures, nor about membership
cards to a “hereafter club”. The Teaching of the
Re-birth
does not mean that one must escape from the ordinary world, the “world of sin”,
but that one will change one’s understanding of it and live in it but not
belong to it. It means that one has overcome the world and has evolved
consciously and now lives a life of order, no longer in bondage to the false
values of the world.
How does a
re-born human live? Consciously, as a whole Individual, with
Will.
How does
one love God? By being conscious of Higher Purpose and
Meaning.
How does
one love one’s neighbor? By recognizing their position and condition as your
own and acting toward the “other” from this consciousness.
What is
“resurrection”? The rising of the dead (those who are without
spirit or Real Life) into Eternal Life. As one lives in conditioned
darkness in the world, one is “dead”. “Let the dead bury the dead.” The
prodigal son was “dead” until he “came to himself”. Christ is Life. Wherever
there is Life, there is Christ. Wherever there is Truth, there is Christ.
Christ is the Way of resurrection.
What is
Eternal Life? Not everlasting time. Life in time ends. Life in eternity is free
from time. Time is the horizontal line of the cross…eternity is the vertical
line. Eternal life is not identified with the conditioned happenings in time,
but is united with All and Everything in timeless
consciousness. This state is possible, and immediate, and real.
Mass-Marketing Spirituality. Caveat
Emptor.
New Age and
up-graded mainstream “spiritual” philosophies have adopted the technology of
mass-marketing. It is now possible to charge your “spiritual growth” on your
credit card and participate in seminars and retreats in person (lodging and
meals included in the price), or vicariously via video, or through
book-of-the-month installments. Some groups peddle an effortless state of
non-being (of course after one makes the effort to pay for the trip, seminar,
and blessings), and membership in an elite body of ascended and descended
masters. Fundamentalist Christian youth are now able to attend rock concerts
and “worship” to the pagan beat of drums and high-decimal acoustics with the
same emotional charge that drug-influenced mainstream fans enjoy, all in the
name of Christ. “Holy men and women, (mainly men)” are regular news pundits on
cable and satellite channels. The “language of spirituality” has been
incorporated into marketing slogans and politically correct pop-culture
clichés.
Actually,
religious marketing is nothing new. It may even be called the second oldest
profession.
A morass of
confusion awaits anyone who follows the call to search for answers to the
questions of meaning in today’s world. “Spiritual” con-artists are selling
their wares on the street corners, in books, videos, tapes, and pamphlets, and
especially on the internet. A peril (to them) of this availability is that the
media is also there to report abuse and expose the hypocrisy and charlatanism
that is so prevalent in these groups and their leaders. But if one is in the
market for a soul-development course, there is no shortage of bargain providers
eager to profit from your need. Many of these “paths” lead nowhere but some
lead to impoverishment and destruction.
The Work
teaches one to avoid all dogma and to take total responsibility for testing and
judging those who claim to offer enlightenment, salvation, or “spiritual”
powers. There is no end to human gullibility and those who profit from it. Even
real Esoteric Wisdom can be approached wrongly and distorted. The ego often
wears the garb of the saint and the scholar.
Because
counterfeit exists does not mean that the real thing does not exist. On the
contrary, counterfeit exists because there is the real thing. The reception of reality
depends to a great extent on whether a person wants it, or whether unreality is
preferred. Consensus consciousness is a low level of reality, but it is useful
as a foundation for development when the aim for a person is the higher.
Ordinary, simple consciousness is given. The higher must be earned. That is why
it is called, The Work.