Redux of Fourth Way Introduction @ UCSB

There's a story involved which represents my introduction to Gurdjieff's Work, called The Fourth Way. As freshman at UCSB, I was in the book store early and often. I ran across a small compilation of lectures by a man named Ouspensky, perhaps Gurdjieff's most famous student, and a huge intellect who eventually wrote a book called The Fourth Way, really a compendium of G's lectures which are considered the basic layout of his Theory of All and Everything.

But to introduce this work, Ouspensky would say there are 3 basic ideas necessary to understand in order to even stand a chance of being in the Work. 1: Man cannot do. 2: Man lies about everything 3: We are not 1, but we are legion (meaning a person is not properly identified as a single individual, but a legion ~ an alignment with many others including those who work with the Enneagram which was one Gurdjieff's principle tools used in self-observation. ...

Now, I stood there and read his Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution, and at the end was a challenge give regarding a reader personally verifying their being awake or not, present or not. Given any destination mapped to time and space, one simply commits themselves to staying conscious the entire trip and then when they actually reach the destination, and if a person is awake at that moment, that's a fairly rare and humongous achievement. So, the trip back to my dorm was as short 1/4 mile past all the other dorms and the eucalyptus trees which form a forest in which UCSB is built, right on the coast, at Goleta Point. My dorm wasn't more than 100 yards from the ocean.

And so I set out, and then 2 weeks later, I suddenly had the experience of waking up, or being conscious, as Gurdjieff puts it as Self-Remembering. I've been in this work now for 35 years, and believe when I say that is a beast (story) of a different nature. At any rate, Self-Remembering simply means a conscious effort at retaining a small percentage of one's attention to be directed by one's will and that direction inward to one's self. For everyone, this begins with a persistent failure with maintaining the state. And that is what Gurdjieff tells everyone, that somebody could ask men if they were awake and the very asking of that question produces a shock to the mind, in effect waking them up. And for a short moment or two, that person looks and in looking finds he/she is awake and thus responds I"m awake only in the very next moment they cease being awake and go back to sleep.

The point here is that being awake is a specific conscious choice and effort. Evolving one's consciousness to a HIGHER level or state, requires some consciousness to being with, and makes sense that it would require a higher conscious effort than currently being made in order for any positive results to occur. And finally, this is what all that other stuff is designed to support. It really is the only value that means anything in life, because if you're awake, what are you? Well, most people exist exactly as that, as a machine. The point here being that I certainly made it home that night in UCSB. How did that happen if I was asleep. We're all machines with mechanical functions to move, emote, think, etc., but none of which have anything to do with consciousness or Self. G called us 3 brained beings. But, the first step in G's work, is called Self-Observation, but that is only valuable insofar as a person builds up a psychic photo album of themselves expressing various different identifications within their own minds. This will possibly give rise later to a series of identifications leading ultimately to a permanent "I".


So, that was making a long story short! LOL Hope it helped you understand my earlier words, thanks for asking for this clarification.

Excerpt from FB TNM, on POWER

A few words about POWER...

omg ... who let the fruits out! LOL.

I can relate to Burt's existential pain but it seriously didn't unfold in my life until the day my father died, in my arms, when I was around 11. And then, a year later, leaving the Lutheran faith, when I was confirmed a member of the church. Such crap, completely launched me into a pessimistic search tho for the rest of my life. But before all the drama, I have recollections of being completely content and happy as a child. But, life clearly was holding something back later, and to a significant degree ownership was a key in reclaiming power, and yet for the strength of the value being discussed here, people saying things like "The point of power is to reclaim the authority over your emotions, recognize every emotion as one you are choosing to engage and to truly FEEL each one as it is present."

I mean, with all due respect, that is patently false. The point of power? Power doesn't have a point. But, I'm certainly willing to accept the influx and skew which communications like these naturally find occurring to them. Still, that may be a way that Shondra words her relation to power, but I would respectfully disagree with it just because it conceals power's reality in the main. But she's got a point as far as her point engages power in this ownership narrative. And then, of course, this is what I value most about these threads. Getting the opportunity to remind myself that what I say and what others hear are similar only to the degree that I've managed to understand and listen to the person I'm speaking to. Without that feeling regarding another person and how they use language, most everything I say will end up being misinterpreted. This, of course, was a large part of the breakdown in Emily's relationship, insofar as, and for whatever reason, commitment as a fundamental element to relationships seems only now to be breached. And that is a good thing ... to be cherished, like a milestone ... and let me be standing strong when I say that such moments are literally new beginnings and not opportunity's to raise red flags and get emotional, stressed, and/or unhappy. Dive in, dive deep, explore, letting things be just the way they are ... letting yourself assess things much later after a circumference as been obtained with respect to the issue at hand. Take your time, enjoy the trip. Take notes so the next time you have tickler to keep your focus spot on.

~ I Feel Them Calling

I Feel Them Calling

To Shamanic Priestesses
with modern femininity and fun
strange spellings of their names
and a great emergence that I feel

Their calling

Here is there answer
in reply to the heart calling
That you are.
But have not found me.
Even when I've drawn so close
I need to be found now.

Like the 1st time.

Can you run me down
make your medicine great
Shaman woman

in the healing scent of your flower
I breathe in.

12/21/2016, rjd

~ The Power and Gift of a Mother

The Power and Gift of a Mother

She was always there.
Turning Doomsdays' perfect Storms
Into last night's dreamscape
Nothing so powerful celebrates
Talking together, a joy will erupt
Beginning in a stiffened inhale
There's always a 'milk through the nose' exhale
maybe better calm, may descend
Life has grace with a tandem
polyamory is fashion king.
Sacred space our residence.
higher to lower is a relationship
between our inner and outer
as is often the case
I feel drawn to music 
more often than not
Sister yelled spoiled disgust
against better judgement
can't deny our irrationality

12/2016

~ San Francisco

San Franciso

Sun lights a Golden Gate
The wayward backdrop
to her incandescent smile
and a memory of romantic love
A confident woman of beauty and grace
Dreaming of her supermoon
and a magicians hypnotic gaze.

Her life remains a hilly place.

2016/12