Post by sh on Jan 5, 2012 2:56:53 GMT -5
The following is from "The Occult."
The essence of Gurdjieff's doctrine can be summed up in an image taken from that remarkable novel The Haunted Woman, by David Lindsay. A woman goes to buy a house from a man she has never met. They are, on the whole, indifferent to one another, having, apparently little in common. But as she walks alone across the hall, she sees a flight of stairs leading to an upper region of the house. When she goes up them, she finds herself in a part of the house that ceased to exist a long time ago; the scenery outside the window is different. And when she sees herself in a mirror, she is also different, somehow more mature and developed; she has 'realised herself.' The 'self' she is looking at in the mirror is the person she might have become, so to speak, if circumstances had been ideal for the development of her inner qualities.
Her host, the man from whom she may buy the house, also wanders up the stairs, and finds her there. He is also changed, and these two 'realised' people fall in love. However, when they descend again to the lower part of the house, they have totally forgotten everything about the upper storey, which now no longer exists. And when, accidentally, they again find themselves together in the upper storey, they rack their brains for some method by which they can overcome this amnesia, and remind themselves about the other regions of the house.
Lindsay has created an image of the basic problem of the artist and the mystic. In the moments of 'higher consciousness' there is always a feeling of 'But of course!' Life is infinitely meaningful; its possibilities are suddenly endless, and 'normal consciousness' is seen as being no better than sleep. For, like sleep, it separates man from reality.
When man gets this feeling of 'reality,' he knows that nothing in the world could be so important as keeping it. He tries every possible method of reminding himself not to forget, not to stop fighting to achieve it. What is more, in this state of intensity, it becomes clear that it can be achieved. He sees now as something that is self-evident that he possesses a true will, the ability to focus clearly on an objective and then to achieve it in the most economical way. But then he descends back to his lower storey, and can only remember dimly that he had a vision. The sleep comes back.
-f
The essence of Gurdjieff's doctrine can be summed up in an image taken from that remarkable novel The Haunted Woman, by David Lindsay. A woman goes to buy a house from a man she has never met. They are, on the whole, indifferent to one another, having, apparently little in common. But as she walks alone across the hall, she sees a flight of stairs leading to an upper region of the house. When she goes up them, she finds herself in a part of the house that ceased to exist a long time ago; the scenery outside the window is different. And when she sees herself in a mirror, she is also different, somehow more mature and developed; she has 'realised herself.' The 'self' she is looking at in the mirror is the person she might have become, so to speak, if circumstances had been ideal for the development of her inner qualities.
Her host, the man from whom she may buy the house, also wanders up the stairs, and finds her there. He is also changed, and these two 'realised' people fall in love. However, when they descend again to the lower part of the house, they have totally forgotten everything about the upper storey, which now no longer exists. And when, accidentally, they again find themselves together in the upper storey, they rack their brains for some method by which they can overcome this amnesia, and remind themselves about the other regions of the house.
Lindsay has created an image of the basic problem of the artist and the mystic. In the moments of 'higher consciousness' there is always a feeling of 'But of course!' Life is infinitely meaningful; its possibilities are suddenly endless, and 'normal consciousness' is seen as being no better than sleep. For, like sleep, it separates man from reality.
When man gets this feeling of 'reality,' he knows that nothing in the world could be so important as keeping it. He tries every possible method of reminding himself not to forget, not to stop fighting to achieve it. What is more, in this state of intensity, it becomes clear that it can be achieved. He sees now as something that is self-evident that he possesses a true will, the ability to focus clearly on an objective and then to achieve it in the most economical way. But then he descends back to his lower storey, and can only remember dimly that he had a vision. The sleep comes back.
-f