IN SEARCH OF THE MIRACULOUS

P.D.Ouspensky (His findings as a pupil of Georges Gurdjieff)

Fragments:

1) Man is a machine, governed by external influences. Everything “happens”. Nobody “does” anything. In order “to do”, it is necessary “to be”. A man who does not know himself cannot keep his promise, for he is not one – there are many people in him. One in him promises today – another in him will go in another direction tomorrow; if a person cannot “be” in the whole sense, he cannot control his direction, nor be responsible for his actions. To stop being a machine, it is necessary first of all to know the machine. To not “know” oneself is a weakness, revealed by our “over-considering” others – i.e. having an attitude which creates the inner slavery, inner dependence to outside influence.

2) If one understood everything which one has read in his life, he would already know what he was looking for now. What a man knows WELL, that is preparation. To properly understand, one must get rid of false delusions, e.g. that he can do anything. All man’s deeds, actions, words, thoughts, feelings, convictions, opinions and habits are the result of external influences and external impressions. In his natural state, man is not creative nor consciously organizes his life. Everything is dependent on everything else, everything is connected, nothing is separate. People are what they are, so everything is as it is. Nor can people really understand each other, nor can they tell the truth to each other nor even be sincere with themselves. Therefore nobody ever understands either himself nor anyone else. To tell the truth is the most difficult thing in the world – to speak the truth one must know what the truth is and what a lie is, and first of all within oneself.

3) Much of our life, movements, actions, etc. are beyond our control, being the result of planetary influences. Everything that happens on a big scale is governed externally, either by accidental combinations of influences or by general cosmic laws. Accidental influences, through the processes of developmental understanding, can be diverted or transformed into something relatively harmless. Regarding general cosmic laws e.g. fate, the esoteric meaning of substitutional sacrifices suggests one way of self-processing. All work on oneself consists in choosing the influence, if any, to which one wishes to subject oneself.

4) As to reincarnation, the ‘man-machine’ - within whom everything depends on external influences, with whom everything happens; who is now one, the next moment someone else, and the next a third - has no enduring future of any kind; grass bends to the prevailing wind and dust returns to dust. In order to be able to speak of a future life, there must be certain crystallization, a certain fusion of man's inner qualities, a certain independence from external influences by the essence of the person. If there is anything in a man able to resist external influences, then this very thing may also be able to resist the death of the physical body. This surviving ‘spiritual body’ is only obtained by means of fusion, i.e. through terribly hard work and struggle. If the spiritual body is not reincarnated in another physical body, then in the course of time it also dies. Fusion, inner unity, is obtained by means of 'friction', by the struggle of 'yes' and 'no' in man whereby, gradually, permanent traits (crystallization) begin to form within the essence. Until crystallization of the essence of a person is achieved, sacrifice and renunciations and privations are necessary disciplines to gaining understanding of oneself.

5) Knowledge, like everything e1se in the material world, is itself material and thereby finite. In the natural progression of things, knowledge becomes concentrated in a few people (who sense its value and search it out) rather than being diffused overall, and hence by concentration knowledge then gives great results.

6) The four bodies (rooms) of man:

1^st body - Carnal Body - “carriage” (body) - Physical

2^nd body - Natural body - “horse” (feelings/desires) - Astral

3^rd body - Spiritual body - “driver” (mind) - Mental body

4^th body - Divine body - “master” (I/consciousness/will) - Causal body

7) The four ways of acquiring immortality:

i. the way of the fakir - struggle to develop will/power over the physical body; however, after acquiring this power, one may have neither the necessary feeling nor intellect to condition or control one’s power toward a transcending purpose.

ii. the way of the monk. - the way of obedience, of religious feeling, of religious sacrifice (concentration on the second room, on feelings). Subjecting all other concerns to one's emotion, i.e. to faith, he develops unity in himself, will over the emotions, and in this way reaches the fourth room - but at the impairment /underdevelopment of his physical and thinking capabi1ities

iii. the way of the yogi - the way of knowledge, mind. Since his body and emotions may remain undeveloped, he is unable to make balanced use of his attainment. Very few yogis develop sufficient knowledge/understanding to sense what is lacking and what must be done to acquire full rounding and direction.

iv. As opposed to the ways of fakir, monk or yogi, all of which focus on one ‘room’ to the underdevelopment of the other two, the fourth way involves dealing with one’s life work in a normal fashion excepting one must do nothing that one does not understand (unless under controlled experiment). Work proceeds concurrently in all three ‘rooms’, through physical, emotional and mental exercises usually under the guidance of a mentor, or school. This way is also known as “the way of the sly man”, wherein one comes to know knowledge outside the ken of a specialist.

8) Man changes consciousness hour by hour. At one time X is in charge, at another time Y is tyrant. The “man-machine" has no permanent and single “I” - he is always changing and his "I" is a moving thing. Hundreds and thousands of separate small I's exist, very often unknown to each other, or hostile and fighting for control of the “whole”. Man is a plurality named “Legion”. Hence one makes decisions but doesn't carry them out. Man is compared to a house in which there are a number of servants but no master.

9) Evolution of man is the development in him of those powers and possibilities which never develop naturally by themselves, i.e. mechanically. Man cannot conquer nature. In living, in reproducing, in degenerating, in dying, in decomposing, man equally serves the purposes of nature. The evolution of large masses of humanity is opposed to nature's purposes, but a small number may evolve as exceptions, which is of interest not to nature but only to the individuals concerned; personal evolution is the result of conscious struggle. (It does not concern nature as to whether there is one less or one more mechanical man).

10) Man develops along two lines - the line of knowledge and the line of being, and both lines must develop in balance. People who have not evolved in the line of being do not have the understanding whereby such knowledge as they acquire can be contexted and put to use. Their being is either asleep, or impaired (unable to contextually expand) or immature. A person may have knowledge but no power to do, i.e. to bring his knowledge into use, or for sound results. On the other hand, if being outweighs knowledge a man has the power to do, but does not know it nor, functionally know how to proceed (His being is aimless and unsupported by knowledge thus his efforts are useless as in the case of the uneducated shepherd anointed king). A weak yogi is one who knows a great deal but can do nothing, i.e. a man who does not understand what he knows, or who cannot discern between one kind of knowledge and another.

Development of being without knowledge results in a stupid saint, i.e. one who could do a great deal but doesn’t know what to do, nor the cause and effect of actions, thus he will act in accordance with subjective feelings rather than informed understanding. When understanding cannot bridge knowledge and being, both lines will be impaired. The thinking apparatus (one center) may possess knowledge, but understanding (three centers) only appears when man’s essence (being) also feels and senses what is connected with the knowledge.

11) Seven gradations of the concept “man”. (The concept of human relativity)

A) Mechanical humanity

i. center of gravity of psychic life is in the moving center - the physical moving and instinctive functions outweigh the emotional and thinking functions

ii. the man of feeling, the man whose emotional center of gravity outweighs the moving and thinking aspects

iii. the man centered in reason, theory, mentality as opposed to physical or emotional aspects.

B) Advanced humanity

iv. born as one of the above 3 types; evolved with balanced psychic centers as a result of disciplined efforts as opposed to accident. He has a permanent center of gravity consisting of his ideas and discipline, already begins to know himself and whither he is going.

v. a crystallized entity which, if previously a balanced iv, can theoretically progress to vi or vii; otherwise blocked (the fakir, monk or yogi).

vi. similar to vii but some of his properties are not yet permanent.

vii. possessor of everything a man can aspire to – i.e. will, consciousness, permanent and unchangeable “I”, individuality and immortality - the ultimate goal.

Similarly other matters can be graded by seven levels, from base to purified e.g. knowledge, consciousness, art, religion, science, philosophy, etc.

12) The Law of Three (or law of Three Forces; or Three Principles or Trinity [as opposed to Dualism]). All phenomena are fundamentally created by three forces - the active (or positive), the passive (or negative) and the neutralizing. For example, were a man to want to work on himself in order to change certain of his characteristics, to attain a higher level of being, the three creative elements are:

i. His desire, or initiative is the active force;

ii. The inertia of his habitual psychological life resisting his initiative is the passive/negative force;

iii. New knowledge pointing to the advantage, necessity and form of work neutralizes the inertia and promotes activation of the now unified trinity of forces toward the desired, willed creation.

Phenomena may on the surface appear simple but in reality are complex combinations of such trinities. E.g. the three forces of the Absolute, constituting one whole, separate and unite by their own will and by their own decision, and at the point of junction they create phenomena, or worlds. These worlds, created by the will of the Absolute, depend entirely upon this will in everything that concerns their own existence.

13) Know Thyself: In order to be able to help others, one must first learn to help oneself. Only a conscious egoist can help others. Nothing is possible as long as a person remains a slave both inwardly or outwardly. Liberation from inner slavery - i.e. ignorance - involves self-knowledge and understanding of one’s own self, how one works/functions. Without this self-understanding one will a1ways be the plaything of the forces acting upon one.

Understanding of self comes via self-observation - a process of analysis, followed by recording in one’s mind what has been observed, and determining to which center (sensory, intellectual, emotional, instinctive, sexual) the observed phenomenon belongs. This type of self-study is prerequisite to informed change or willed effectiveness and can point to such problems as one's inappropriate center handling matters (emotional center acting in lieu of intellectual center; mechanical reading where the moving center “reads” without the intellectual center being engaged - hence no memory of the material; relying on a “gut” feeling in decision making, vrs informed, critical analysis). One's own habits and operational modes have to be recognized and analyzed, to determine control points (am I in control of my habit, or does my habit control me? Am I in control of my emotions and memories or do they control me? Am I apathetic as to outcomes or too lazy to inform myself?)

14) Conscious awareness, as opposed to mechanical machining, commences with "remembering oneself” e.g. I observe, I notice, I feel, I see - in other words, to observe oneself one must first of all “remember” or become aware of one's commencement point, of feeling the “I” of oneself willing focus on an issue. In the process of knowing thyself, it is essential to observe yourself in the analytical/recording processes - a kind of distancing from the process itself for better observation. The usual, mechanical observation process is:

I à the observed phenomenon.

When one’s attention is directed both towards the phenomenon and oneself, as in “remembering” oneself, the process is:

I ßà the observed phenomenon.

And when properly executed, there is no weakening nor obliterating of the attention directed on the phenomenon as one concurrently observes oneself in action. This technique minimizes the mechanical, or sleepwalking component wherein much of our lives are lived, (living in the mechanical state is the reason why one remembers so little content of one’s life).

15) In right knowledge one’s self-study must proceed as a parallel line with the study of the world. Laws are the same for both the microcosm and the macrocosm, and some aspects can be learned about the self by learning about the world. One of the fundamental laws of the universe is the law of seven or the law of octaves, wherein everything consists of vibrations. Within the 7 tone scale on which all energy/matter is based, there is required - at certain points - an additional 'shock' of energy from outside the octave to ensure completion of the octave (to do things). In man, the "shocks" necessary to acquire relative levels of consciousness and being are progressively refined elements of air, organic sustenance and sensation. Relatively, in importance, we could survive for several days without food, 2/3 minutes without air, and not at all without the vibrant, resonant life-spark of sensation.

16) The 4 states of consciousness for man (ordinary man, i.e. man #1, #2 and #3, lives in the two lowest states of consciousness only):

i. sleep

ii. what ordinary man calls “clear” or “waking state of consciousness” wherein he spends the non-sleep part of life (walking, talking, working, killing, etc.) In effect this is an altered state of sleep, but more dangerous than real sleep as it does not have the damage-restrictive quality of passivity associated with natural sleep.

iii. self-remembering, or self-consciousness, or consciousness of one’s being; focused introspection.

iv. objective state of consciousness, in which a man can see things as they are. Flashes of this state are occasionally experienced by ordinary man. In religious terms referred to as enlightenment. An acquired state beyond self-consciousness, resulting from long and difficult work on self leading to inner growth.

The chief obstacle in the way of acquiring self-consciousness consists in people thinking that they already possess it. How does one escape from the sleep/near-sleep states and acquire self-consciousness leading to enlightenment? First by acknowledging one’s real status; second by associating with others on the same quest; third, by hiring an awake person to awaken them and keep them in that state until it becomes natural to them. Afterwards, self-study and self-observation can drive self-change and the state of vigilant wakefulness, and ultimately enlightenment. Our inner psychic processes (our inner alchemy) transform under the light of introspective awareness. If a man is lucky he may have a trusted someone near him who can help clarify his understanding (of himself, for starters). Essential sincerity is required to find an exact and infallible basis for judging rightly first oneself and then other people. And this sincerity must be learned, and best, learned with the help of a trustworthy other.

One of the main hurdles to a man’s continuance of his main work is “identification” with diversions, desires, habits (the person so identifies with the pipe as to become the pipe), greed or projections - when “identifying” one is unable to self-remember in sincerity, and so long as one identifies or can be identified, one is the slave of everything that can happen to him, such as the opinions of others or the self-deceptive fear of not being “sincere” with others, which oft times is, in truth, one’s weakness to control self.

17) Evil does not exist for subjective man at all - there are only different conceptions of good. Nobody ever does anything deliberately in the interests of evil, for the sake of evil. Everybody acts in the interests of good, as he understands it. And everybody understands it in a different way. In man’s ignorance and sleep he considers his own good to be the only good and all the rest as evil. Apart from this, the only possible permanent idea of objective good and evil for man is connected with the idea of his personal evolution, i.e. his development through conscious efforts, the change of his being, the creation of unity in him and the formation of the permanent “I”. (Whatever helps him awaken/enlighten is good, whatever prolongs his sleep is evil). Hence good and evil really exist only for a relative few, those who have an aim and pursue that aim. (As for good and evil, so for truth and falsehood more so, as on top of selectivity the latter are also under the temporary utility of whichever transient “I” just happens to be in control at the moment, tempered by such acculturated “buffers” as gained through education and social necessity e.g. concepts of morality, duty and social purpose, which control a man’s actions, words, thoughts and feelings automatically without the necessity of will). And if a man is to supplant buffers with will, it may be necessary, in the time during which his will is developing, to obey the will of another, such as a guru or teacher. The consciousness of one’s relative nothingness, alone, can conquer the fear of subordination to the will of another (nothingness in the sense of realizing oneself as not having a specific quality or virtue to “lose”, but only the maya of such aspect).

18) Will, fate and accident: Fate is the result of planetary influences which correspond to a man’s type, but practically never affects one's life since fate only applies to a man's essence, the voice of which, as one becomes educated and enculturated, is drowned out by personality. Essence is the native, guiding truth in man; personality is the maya illusion that the necessary circumstances of this temporal life - into which one is born and by which one is surrounded - is the real and permanent. Culture creates personality and concurrently culture is the result of personality. The whole of our life, all we call science, philosophy, art and politics, is created by our personality, i.e. what is “not our own” in us. The element that is “not his own” differs from what is man’s “own” by the fact that it can be lost, altered or taken away by artificial means. In certain schools and religions there are exercises, hypnotic processes or narcotics which are used to separate one's personality from one's essence, and it happens that a man full of varied and exalted ideas, loves, patriotism, convictions, tastes, etc. may suddenly, under the influence of the separation agent, prove quite shallow - his essence has not evolved and, essentially, he is an empty vessel. It is only from the essence that a man’s real “I” - his individuality - develops and matures. The obstacles to the growth of essence are contained in personality, and personality's chief defense against the awareness/intrusion of essence is its social and enculturating “buffers”. Yet a certain amount of personality, in the form of information and knowledge “not his own”, is required by the essence as building material (otherwise one is subject to the knowledge-deficient “ways" of the fakir and monk). Concurrent development of essence and personality is the goal. Without the internal guide of essence, a man while physically alive may for all intents and purposes become dead. The effects of fate (via the essence) are less harmful than the effects of accident (one being controlled by outside influences i.e. personality) only in the sense that it is possible to take fate into account - it is possible to know the tendencies of one’ s own fate beforehand and to that extent prepare for the future. The downside to the effects of fate can be ameliorated by understanding and compensating for its general laws (analogous to understanding and and dealing with personality “buffers”). In this manner one can develop a will which to some extent is capable of both withstanding the influence of accident and “working the stream” relative to fate's tendencies.

19) All psychic processes are material. There is not a single process that does not require the expenditure of a certain substance corresponding to it. If this substance is present, the process goes on. When the substance is exhausted, the process comes to a stop. Bad moods, worry, doubt, fear, irritation, the expectation of something unpleasant - each of these emotions in reaching a certain intensity can, in half an hour, consume all the substances required for tomorrow's main work, and leave one inwardly arid for a long time.

20) Commencement of the “way”. The results of influences whose source lies in the area of esoteria, religious systems, philosophical doctrines, art, etc. collect together in a man, forming, within, a certain whole and, with time, a magnetic center which attracts kindred influences and nourishment. If there is no strong resistance on the part of the other sides of a man's personality, the magnetic center begins to influence the man’s orientation and direction. With the force of sufficient accumulation and development, a man comes to understand the idea of his personal intentional "way" and begins to focus his search for it. In time he may meet another man who already knows the way who is connected directly or through other people with a center existing outside the law of accident, from which proceeds the ideas which created the magnetic center. The special influence of the teacher, in that it is direct and conscious, proceeds through oral transmission. The man is now on the stairway to the "way"- the intentional passage from life to “way”. Ascending the stairway with the help of his guide, and sometimes even doubting the process, eventually with resilience the man passes the threshold and secures his “way” and will not so easily lose the results of his efforts as before. Those processes apply to the ways of fakir, monk and yogi; on the fourth way, a man cannot ascend to a higher step without putting in his place a third man. And if others do not continue to ascend behind him, he may lose certain of the powers earlier earned in his own ascent.

The results of the work of a man who takes on himself the role of teacher do not depend on whether or not he knows the exact origin of what he teaches, but very much depends on whether or not his ideas come in actual fact from the esoteric center and whether he himself understands and can distinguish esoteric ideas – i.e. ideas of objective (to the essence) knowledge - from subjective (cultural, scientific and. philosophical) ideas.

21) The Kundalini effect, rather than being the commonly thought creative force, is actually the hypnotic power of imagination, or fantasy which takes the place of reality functions. Kundalini can act through all one’s centers and with its influence all the centers can be satisfied with the imaginary instead of the real situation as the latter may be too painful or horrific for the entity to face with sincerity. The Kundalini force keeps man in his present state of hypnotic sleep. Alone, it is almost impossible to awaken and stay awake. In a group or preparatory school of like-minded searchers, there is a higher probability of someone attaining a wakeful state, and awakening the others, with the added benefit of cross-pollenization of ideas. The level of intimacy/sharing in a group requires the security of complete confidentiality with one's associates, and absolute truth with the teacher.

22) Every successful effort a man makes increases the future demands made upon him.

23) The struggle against lying within oneself and the struggle against fears are the first positive works which a man begins to do.

24) If a man sees his fault but continues to justify himself, a small offense may destroy the result of whole years of work and effort.

25) Each man has a definite repertoire of “personality” roles which he plays in ordinary circumstances - a role for every kind of circumstance in which he ordinarily finds himself in life. But put him into even only slightly different circumstances where he is unable to find a suitable role and then for a short time he becomes himself. In this state he can come to know his essential being, and knowing it he can then work on it. (The paradox is between leading a quiet life - i.e. always within one's repertoire - or to take on difficult involvements wherein to gain knowledge of self.)

26) In order to be able to classify “types” of people, one must know one's own type and be able to 'depart' from it. In order to know one's own type one must make a good study of one's essential life, one's whole life from the very beginning; one must know why, and how, things have happened. (This is not the chronological life of the personality, but the more critically important life of the evolving essence). With such a perspective, as others tell their stories one can hear through their different voices and intonations as to when they are projecting their essence or the facade of an aspect of their personality. And unless one knows the truth of essence in oneself, one does not know where to try to discern it in another, so as to “know” the essence of the other.

27) Recurrence is a foregone certainty of mechanical man's present life (analogous to the concept of “eternal recurrence"). It occurs because of the hypnotic, habituated nature of normal existence, and at some stage a man must strive to break the repetition of responses and reactions which, if he could “see”, he would surely know would lead to recurrences of pain and loss. If one can change something essential in himself - i.e. if he attains something - this cannot be lost. There is a definite time a definite term, for everything. Possibilities for everything exist for only a definite time - one does not have all eternity in which to evolve, nor endless windows of opportunity. Inner growth, a change of being, depends entirely upon the work which a man must do on himself, and no one can “evolve” another's essence.

28) People frequently fear silence more than anything else. Our tendency to talk arises from self-defense and is based on a reluctance to see something, a reluctance to confess something to oneself, a sense of feeling/fearing the chaos encircling unless one can hear the echo of one's existence.

29) The aim of myths and symbols has been to reach man's higher centers (emotional and mental), to transmit to him ideas inaccessible to the intellect and to transmit them in such purified, virginal forms as would preclude the possibility of false interpretation. Myths were destined for the higher emotional center, symbols for the higher thinking center. Preparation for receiving ideas belonging to objective (esoteric) knowledge has to proceed by way of the mind, for only a mind properly prepared can transmit those ideas to one's higher centers without introducing elements foreign to them.

30) Religion is a relative concept - it corresponds with the level of a man's being. Religion is doing - a man does not merely think his religion nor feel it, he “lives” his religion as much as he is able, otherwise it is not religion but fantasy or philosophy. The prayer of subjective man (man #1, #2, #3) can give only subjective results - self-consolation, self-suggestion, self-hypnosis; yet in sincerely praying for improvement then his prayer can give an objective result in the sense that strength can be added to him, e.g. later he will more often notice when there is an opportunity to manifest the sincerely expressed and desired improvement, and he will be able to overcome his previous tendencies more easily.

31) There is nothing dead or inanimate in nature, there are simply different degrees of animation and different scales of time and life. Everything in its own way is intelligent and conscious, only this intelligence and consciousness is expressed in a different way on different levels of being - i.e. on different scales. “Time is the life-breath” and the duration of “life” of differing states varies on different time scales of existence, e.g. fractional seconds for atomic electrons, minutes for molecules, various terms for the cells of organic life, milliards for earth, eons for suns, etc. Each level “lives” in its own transient “state”, and having lived, its energy is reworked, transformed according to the will of the larger cosmos of which it is a component.

32) The work on self consists in subjecting oneself to voluntary suffering in order to be free from eternal suffering. But people are afraid of suffering. They want pleasure now, at once and forever. They do not want to understand that pleasure is an attribute of paradise and that it must be earned. If man gets pleasure before he has earned it he will not be able to keep it and that “pleasure” will be turned into the suffering or despair sensed upon one’s recognition of its loss. The way to pleasure is through self-sincerity and, in essence, this involves introspective “suffering” up front as the pre-payment for sustainable achievement.

33) Astrology can be of value if it is remembered that it deals with only one part of man, with his type, his essence -it does not deal with personality, nor with the acquired qualities of evolved being. In a given situation one man sees and does one thing, another man does another thing, a third - a third thing, and so on. And each acts according to his essential type, which itself is subject to fate’s tendencies.

34) As to the selection of a guru/teacher, a man's choice necessarily requires his waiting until he meets a guru whose specialty, or “way”, he is able to study, a specialty which suits his tastes, and his abilities. And it is also the task of the leader to see to it that people do not begin to work with him for whom his methods or his special subjects will be always alien, incomprehensible or unattainable. For instance, a teacher specializing in the way of the monk may not be appropriate for one seeking and qualifying for another way.

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