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BRLSI BELIEF LECTURE SERIES To some an irrelevance, to others vital sustenance. Belief is a touchstone to the human predicament. An unquenched thirst for spirituality coexists with numbing materialism. Thinning congregations in some communities belie proliferation in others. In some ecstatic, in others vacuous. What is belief? Why does it bind, why does it divide? This New Series offers no pulpits; we seek speakers whose subjects will interest no less the Unsure than the Believer – they should fascinate all.
The Fourth Way: Gurdjieff & Ouspensky as Heralds of New Age Thinking Janie Thomas BRLSI Member There are questions as to the spelling of these two names, so I shall simply to refer to Gurdjieff and Ouspensky as G and O. The Fourth Way is about levels of psychological evolution; ways of self development. I hope to show you that G and O take the best of New Age thinking deeper and further. What is the Fourth Way? G had a deep philosophy, which can be taken on different levels. It can be summarized in the Laws of 3, and Laws of 7 - natural cosmic laws which he described, as being united in the Enneagram or ‘Diagram of Nine’. Georges Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (or G) was born in Armenia in 1877. He trained as a priest and as a physician. In the East, priests are responsible, unlike ours, for the development of man, and sometimes one is ill from a disruption in the purpose of one’s soul, which priests understand. From 1900-1912 he travelled in Asia, Africa and India with a community of truth seekers, in finding ancient wisdom, and then they went to Tibet and Egypt looking for old scrolls. In 1913 he started a school in Moscow. He moved to St Petersburg, then through war-torn Europe with hundreds of people, funded from repair workshops; then to London and New York to see where the school could operate. It was finally set up at Prieuré near Fontainebleau, just outside Paris, and called ‘The School of Harmonious Development of Man’. Others followed in London and New York. G wrote three books: Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson, seeks to eradicate a lifetime of wrong learning and is to be read three times; Meetings with Remarkable Men, preaches a lot of his doctrine, and may be seen as autobiographical; Life is Real Only Then When I Am also distils the essence of his practise. He died in 1949. Petr Demianovich Ouspensky (or O) was born in Moscow in1878. A childhood genius, he had read all natural science and psychology by the age of 12. He thought that ‘Professors were killing science and priests were killing religion’, so rather than go to university, he wrote books. In 1914, he met G in Moscow, and later in St Petersburg, and had written Tertium Organum and nearly completed A New Model of the Universe before those meetings. Tertium Organum takes Kant’s philosophy and tries to define why science cannot define dimension and why learning takes you into a new dimension, which needs explaining. He then wrote In Search of the Miraculous (published 1947), which relates his meeting with G and the importance to him of G’s philosophy. In 1922 O founded the London school and thereafter dedicated his life to its teaching. He also published Conscience, The Search for Truth, and The Fourth Way. He died in 1947. G’s philosophy starts with the idea that man is ‘asleep’, not consciously aware; a machine. That is the biblical message we are not prepared to understand and don’t want to know. Man is not one person, but is many ‘I’s, which he sees as just one, although they are multiple; each with a different ‘I’ to deal with say, his mother or his job - or many different things. We can all see this in our own experiences. Each ‘I’ acts in response to past happenings, we are not in control. Man is a three-brained being, unaware of his special weaknesses or of which ‘I’ is in control; indeed, he can be five-brained, and could become seven-brained. Government is by dead people with no shame, who control those who are asleep. To change, one must consciously work and initially suffer in order to gain a soul. G says few will want to start this work, since the search for unknown truth can be a little foxing to start with, but that in the end all you lose is your suffering. Concerning States of Consciousness.
These ‘Four Bodies of Man’ can also be described in a Christian way.
(Another analogy of these Four States or Bodies might be a carriage, drawn by a horse, led by a driver, but without a master; the body, the feelings, the mind and the conscious ‘I’ or will are not connected. We are automatons, working in response to external influences, whose desires produce thoughts, leading to different and contradictory wills. When the ‘I’ becomes conscious will, thinking functions obey, with intelligence, and work through the emotional powers, and desires commands the body. Thus the master directs the driver, who drives the horse, which draws the carriage.) G also describes 4 Levels of Being: mineral, vegetable, animal and human - all present commensurately; 3 Types of Food: physical food, drink, air; and impressions, each of which can nourish or poison. O describes 3 Influences: 1. the life influences of health, safety, security and wealth; 2. the more abstract, objective influences of literature, religion, philosophy (which can with diligence produce a magnetic centre and grow). 3. the psychological influences which come from group study. We have seen, in levels of psychological evolution to full consciousness, that before Level 4, man is asleep, unconscious, prone to accident. At Level 4, man is described as a good householder, working towards consciousness, and from there to Level 7, man is conscious and can do.(Jesus was at Level 7.) G sees also 4 Types of Men. The ‘good householder’ is practical, disciplined, who might consider study, or obedience. The ‘lunatic’ has false values, but is unaware of that, and thus dangerous. The ‘tramp’ is undisciplined in romance and thought, and so is unfocused. The ‘Hasnamuss’ (from Turkish) man starts as both of the last 2, and becomes a cheat, a tyrannical and cruel abuser of others for his own ends. Three ways of improving consciousness are those of the Fakir, like Simon Stylite, through physical discipline; of the Priest, through devotion; and of the Yogi, through knowledge and wisdom. The Fourth Way combines these three ways, throughout life, using appropriate centres and without leaving the world, as the Three other ways tend to do. Everything works in 3s - combining negative and positive, and joined by a neutralising force. Many unconscious ‘I’s are on the positive side of the triangle, the false personality that we try to become is on the negative side, and the two are neutralised by our essential nature. These evolve through work on ourselves. The many ‘I’s become negative, but mediated by our nature with a permanent ‘I’, in a strength of knowledge. New Age Thinking At a recent seminar on ‘Monastic Life in the 21st Century’, Body, Mind & Spirit was described as the latest debasement of humanity. Perhaps, but a Christian perspective might see it as inclusive. I would see it as the lowest level of New Age Thinking. Sir George Trevelyan (1906 –96) was a visionary. In early life he was a furniture designer. While a teacher at Gordonstone, he founded the New Age Movement. In 1942 he attended a lecture on Anthroposophy, which drew him from agnosticism to spiritual awareness, and in 1947 he started Attingham College in Shropshire, specialising in holistic education. He founded the Wrekin Trust in 1971 and wrote four books. His first was Vision of an Aquarian Age (1977). Trevelyan noted the observations by the artist John Ruskin that our physical perceptions are based upon Newton’s principles of Gravity, without questioning how the apple or the tree got there. He said our whole understanding of nature should be based upon the notion of Polarities: the Polarity of Gravity, which draws towards the centre of the earth; and the Polarity of Levity, which ‘sucks’, rather than pulls, the trees upwards, pulling them up towards the light. G. presented these phenomena as a Law of 3 or Triad – the tree being sucked up being the Active Force, its anchorage to the earth being the Passive Force, and life itself, at its point of junction, being the Neutralising Force. Man as a Three-Centred Being G. extends this Triad to man. In physics we have forgotten the Neutralising Force, which makes it tick. To take these manifestations again as a Triad
we see Man as a Three-Centred Being. Those centres are Instinctive (digestion, breathing, heartbeat) and Sensory (running etc) known as Gut (8, 9 & 1), Feeling or Heart (2, 3 & 3), and Thinking or Head (5,6 & 7). It may be noted that Gut acts 30000 times faster than Heart, itself 30000 times faster than Head. This triad incorporates into the Enneagram
a nine-point diagram of personality types, the weaknesses they try to avoid, and their unconscious tendencies (see illustration … ). It is a universal explanation, which G. said would answer all of one’s questions, even in a desert. There are nine personality types, of which three come from the Gut (8,9 & 1), from the Heart (2,3 & 4), and from the Head (5,6 & 7). G. encouraged his students to use the correct part of the correct centre for the appropriate activity. He warned against the uselessness of guilt; He said all justification was a lie. The Enneagram is found to explain why things happen, a life-changing experience. Sloth (9) is said by John Albury (Brief Lives) to be the worst sin. It is found to be connected to Fear (6) and Deceit or Jealousy (3). Sin should be seen as ‘missing the mark’, falling off one’s path but is better handled with action than self blame. The Enneagram can be demonstrated with some examples.
(1) Reformer, anger. Unconscious movement from 1 (expressed as 1¸ 7) follows the path: 1 ® 4 ® 2 ® 8 ® 5 ® 7® 1 (9) Peacemaker, sometimes represented by the elephant, will avoid conflict. (6) Loyalist will always want to represent others, not wishing to stand up on his own. They are often delightful people, brilliant thinkers, but whom one couldn’t persuade into a courageous leadership role because their frailty is fear. (3) Status Seeker, the heart person, avoids failure and will measure everything. (1) Reformer is a sometimes represented by the terrier, who never lets go and avoids anger. (4) Artist avoids ordinariness and will create a conflict just to be interesting. (1) Reformer will move to (4) Artist, the anger to envy, or will move the other way to (7) Generalist will seek to avoid pain. Drug addicts and alcoholics are mostly (7)s. (8) Leader has to lead and moves before he thinks or feels. He avoids weakness, and tries thus to appear strong, though in fact he is kind with a heart of gold. Thus (8) Leader will move to (2) Helper, a heart person, who will avoid need; look after others’ need, not see his own. The opposite can occur where (2) Helper will move under stress to (8) Leader and become totally bossy. Conversion G. perceived the natural world, society and life indeed, as moving unconsciously downhill, creating wars in the process, and that the only remedy was to become conscious, possible only in a group or school, and only if one accepts that one is asleep. Conversion works with opposites (see illus. 4); thus (9) leaves laziness for diligence,(3) abandons deceit and jealousy for truthfulness, (6) fear finds courage, preferring that direction rather than the (unconsciously) slothful direction to (3) deceives himself unprofitably and goes back up to (9) and does nothing about it - and on and on. One can study and work and observe oneself in a conscious manner which O. called Self-Remembering. Thus (1) Reformer leaves anger for serenity, an Alcoholic (7) becomes sober, a Thinker or Inventor (5) abandons stinginess and avarice and becomes detached. Similarly pride (2) should yield to humility, which in turn should move to equanimity (4) and back up to serenity (1). The Speaker played a recording of Sir George Trevelyan discussing refinement and changing one’s level of being. Goethe was once asked, ‘Can you tell me what is the secret of life?’ He replied, ‘that which the plant does unconsciously, do consciously.’ How do we look at plants, and their metamorphosis, or transformation? We may consider a plant as all one leaf, a stem leaf, a single organ, which works by metamorphosis downward into gravity, and upward into an invisible sea of colours which refine it into the spiritual glory of the leaves up in the corolla. Incarnated into our material world, we forget that we belong to a higher world. Where light and dark meet - colour is born. Think back to our Levels of Consciousness, all asleep, all in darkness, but it’s all there. We just have to want it. Although this is a Series on Belief, in all this there is no question of faith or belief. This system teaches one to verify everything that one feels. In this way can one come to something. G. does not condemn faith or belief; he’s saying that if you work at it, it will be shown to you. The permanent ‘I’ that is gained is a different being. Discussion (Brian MacKinnon) These ideas are not entirely those of G. They may be found in the teachings of Omraan Mikhael Aîvanhod, born in 1900 in Bulgaria, who was a contemporary of G. living in France and was teaching just the same, though in a different way, from 1936 to 1986. G, himself travelled extensively, searching after truth and ancient wisdom. He would never claim to be the originator of these ideas, and described himself as their channel, and said to O. that if he had had O’s brain he would have been a really good teacher. (BMcK) I didn’t intend criticism; just to say that this man with whom I studied for 20 years was for me very enriching, as indeed are G’s dances, which I am studying in Bath. I didn’t talk about G’s dances. G tells us not to talk about what we don’t know. Perhaps next time we could have a lecture from you on G’s sacred dances, because G. did indeed study at ancient schools and monasteries in Tibet. All ways are good which lead to higher consciences. It was recently reported that in 250 BC there were 60 Essene schools in the north of Scotland, each with 1000 members, so we’ve lost an awful lot. (Reggie Duquesnoy) G’s philosophy was not new. Zen Buddhism, all Scriptures have the same teaching, wouldn’t you say? Yes, but without G.’s pilosophy, I might not have listened well enough. Did your experience as a landscape gardener lead in any way to you spiritual path? That’s a difficult question. I ran my practise for some 25 years, until I became concerned that commercial details were overreaching the spirit of creating beauty. I learned art and landscape architecture to make life more beautiful, and found I was condoning less ugliness, and so it gave itself up from the inside. I went to study related subjects in America, but on my return, other plans took over, and led me to this. I would recommend the dark night of the soul to you all. (John Bulman) I found many of your metaphors unfamiliar and rather bewildering. But your final quotation - you don’t have to believe anything, and that it is the essence of living, which is the secret of life that you actually just experience - a very Zen idea. The secret of life and metaphor is really very simple; often one must travel through complicated metaphor to find that simplicity. Martin Sturge
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