I had to think about whether to type this up and send it out. It refers to the works of P.D. Ouspensky, who interpreted the system taught by G.I. Gurdjieff. Many decades ago, i was unable to really understand what Ourspensky was talking about. Now it seems i mostly do. But there is always the question of whether in such cases we are fooling ourselves. Here the guys offer a word of reassurance.
Wednesday, July 17, 2019
6 p.m. It is remarkable that I should be able to read The Fourth Way (though only on chapter two), understanding what he is saying, when previously I could not. And I didn’t even need to read all of A New Model of the Universe to see what I knew and what I did not.
7:50 p.m. Of course in one critical respect I am still where I was: What is my situation? Am I helpless, as described? Am I Man #4 due to work before I was born? (For, I always felt different from those around me.) But who, what, am I?
Isn’t it striking that it took so long for you to ask?
I can tell I’m being nudged. For one thing, I wondered if talking with you all these years has been the equivalent of years with a teacher.
Or a therapist.
Or a therapist. I feel like I didn’t begin at Ouspensky’s assumed starting-point, and I wonder if this is error of observation on my part, or change of conditions in 100 years [since he wrote it], or work I’d done previously, or work I’ve done since –
That is, you still don’t know who or what you are.
Correct.
Are you conscious?
How would I know?
Good answer. Are you sometimes conscious?
I think so.
Do you have continuity of consciousness?
Well, now, that is a good question. If I do, or to the extent that I do, it is because of this habit of talking to you and perhaps of talking to myself.
Ouspensky was wrong. Gurdjieff was wrong, or perhaps we should say was very selective in his exposition. There is more than one way to attain consciousness, only as he said it cannot be done on the 3D level alone, or in fact at all. But with the cooperation of 3D and non-3D, of course the potential for progress exists.
Still a big statement for me, to say that Gurdjieff was either wrong or incomplete.
Do you think he would want you using him as a prop?
I don’t want to fool myself into thinking that I am conscious when I am not. Never did want to. Yet it was difficult, because I can’t ever tell if I am being described.
Intent and access is the key. Access will wake you when you have fallen asleep, if that is truly your intent.
That’s a big statement. I’d love to spread that around, if not for fear that I would be misleading people.
The same old fear – we would have said bugaboo, if you had not been the one holding the pen.
Isn’t it appropriate to be careful?
It is. It is also appropriate to offer what you can offer, and trust people to follow their own judgment.
“Access will wake you when you have fallen asleep, if that is truly your intent.”
I’d really like to see this “big statement” discussed and amplified. My guidance implies it’s simple, that the ‘access’ is what I’m already working on: closer and better connection/communication with my ‘self,’ 3D and non-3D.
I can see that ‘intent’ is my (3D personality’s) area of work … but feel ‘access’ takes work at all levels. Comments?
Jim
I really like this one. My intent is to be as awake as I can as much of the time as I can–with my non-3D help. It makes real sense to me that attaining consciousness “cannot be done on the 3D level alone, or in fact at all.” So we’re creating (or not) our own “potential for progress” all the time, and I don’t doubt that.
I see the discussion on Thomas saying #99 relevant here. “When you, Frank, come to the practice of ILC with us, you come in blind trust. You expect, you confide (have confidence)…that the sources will be helpful. But you do not come in blind obedience–nor of course, should you…you use your judgment…”
I think that as part of the energy that makes up the vast impersonal forces, we have/carry a personal integrity that is us, that we maintain and apply–our signature. Permanently. How could it be co-opted? It’s the amalgam of all the nicks and scrapes of our unique experience, breathing in and out, being, abiding. I believe access to our greater awareness (being awake) just requires our consistent choice.
I hope that makes sense! LoL. Now I’m caught up in “the dude abides” and may have to go back and watch “The Big Lebowski” again.
Maybe we just need the reminder that Seth says any progress made is permanent progress.
Thanks, Jim, for the opportunity for discussion.
“ … as part of the energy that makes up the vast impersonal forces, we have/carry a personal integrity that is us, that we maintain and apply–our signature.”
Thanks Jane, while reading your post my guidance dropped some hints. TGU’s discussion of ‘vast impersonal forces’ has always resonated with me but what they ‘are’ (in 3D terms) seems/feels really vague … don’t know that TGU has ever given examples.
I picked up two things just now:
– ‘humanity’ (the qualities that make up being human) is a vast impersonal force. That VIF is much larger/broader than what we (here on earth?) see/understand as ‘human,’ but we are a definite part. Don Juan, Castaneda’s teacher, used the term ‘Spirit of Man’, which I suspect loosely ‘names’ our small(?) portion.
– each of us that chooses to ‘join’ the human VIP (join our essence with it?) makes up and defines it as a whole, living/manifesting it while applying our personal “signature.’
Seems like yet another ‘thing’ one could intend to access … as TGU points out this is a big universe!
Jim
Jim, I’ve been attracted to vast impersonal forces, too. I get that they are where we come from and return to–the “all that is” of 3D and non-3D. I’ve been mapping out how we used to think of life and death–e.g., you died and then it was heaven/hell. Now we’ve gotten where a lot of us think we die and are re-born on the karmic or reincarnational wheel. I think we’re shifting to we die and are doing something different–e.g., maybe we don’t necessarily reincarnate. Maybe we continue according to our awareness, moving towards vast impersonal forces. Our sense of connection works in tandem with them. I think they’re a connection to joy, too. Maybe that’s the vitality that the vast impersonal forces carry. Joy can be very personally triggered, but maybe its that vitality we connect to. I think this energetic shift that we’re in expands our sense of self as energy, our sense of life and death, of the bigger picture, and of things like channeling, too. So, channeling seems like information coming in as your own, but having greater clarity and authenticity of understanding than before. And there’s a way we’re living it, without the emotional enmeshment we lived through previously (maybe that’s just a sign of getting older!).
LoL. Sometimes I sound pretty out there to myself!
But basically, I think you and I are saying the same thing.
Jane,
Seems many of us here are ‘pretty out there” … makes Frank’s blog a place of joy to share our out-there-ness! 🙂
I’d say you and I are each (in our own unique way) working to ‘illuminate’ the same thing … a ‘thing’ vast beyond comprehension. As TGU says, what’s important is to find the way(s) that resonate with you.
Jim
“Are you conscious?”
“How would I know?”
Ask yourself: Is Consciousness present now?
Is there “something” (whatever that “something” is) that is both present and conscious that’s seeing these words?
And are consciousness and awareness the same thing then? (Some have defined each by the other.)
Is our higher self our consciousness? I think of it as always conscious and always aware of a bigger picture than I am.
While I’ve heard the words “consciousness” and “awareness” used interchangeably, I’ve also heard them used distinctly. In the end, they’re both words that point to that which is present here now, for which there are no words.
It’s easy enough to get lost in conceptual thought. When I look around this room, absent of conceptual thought, I don’t see a past, a future, or a problem. Just this. No more, no less. Such a mystery!
I don’t know what I am and I don’t know why I’m here. Learning to be at ease with uncertainty while simultaneously enjoying this fundamental sense of wellbeing (i.e., knowing that this is it; it is as it is, and all is well) is a gift beyond measure. It is the peace that passeth all understanding.
To Know this profound peace while simultaneously engaged in a human experience is . . . breathtaking! I am gratitude personified, receiving whatever life brings as the gift that it is. I am free. I am no-thing. I have no-thing. I know no-thing. No-thing to lose, and no-thing to gain. Everything comes . . . and everything goes . . . and I am the never-changing Knowing that remains.
Hello Kending Irene and thank you very much for telling it.
You`re blessed to have come thus far in Consciousness(a conscious creation It IS) – the perfect “state of Being.”
Only once in my lifetime(only One Life as you know)to have experienced the very same as you are telling about: “The Peace That Passeth All Understanding.”
B&B, Inger Lise
Hello Inger,
Thank you for your post.
You write, “You’re blessed to have come thus far in Consciousness.” I would offer a different phrasing for your consideration: “i” have not come thus far in Consciousness; rather, Consciousness has come thus far in “i”. It is all one “I,” one Consciousness, and no-thing/everything is an expression of It, not separate from It, including this physical body that I am looking at, which is yet another object contained within Awareness, within “I.”
When “i” began seeking, I thought “i” would reach enlightenment, or awakening, or whatever word you want to give it. In truth, “i” am not capable of awakening. It isn’t within my capacity to awaken. It is “I” that awakens to the illusory nature of “i.”
“Only once in my lifetime to have experienced the very same . . . ” What you’re referring to is a peak experience that came and went. I have had many peak experiences . . . and after each one came and went, what followed was a depressive state, along with the thought, “I lost it!” The difference between a peak experience and knowing your true nature is that the former comes and goes while the latter doesn’t. Once you know, you know.
All states, thoughts, feelings, sensations, perceptions, experiences, and objects come and go in Awareness. Whether you love them, hate them, resist them, try and hold on to them, or are indifferent to them, none of them remain. Can you point to one experience, state, thought, feeling, sensation or perception that has lasted your entire lifetime? No. Why? Because it doesn’t exist.
What I’m referring to is not a state. This is a source of great confusion for seekers and was certainly confusing to me as well, before seeking ended. We have a peak experience and then spend decades trying to get back to “it,” but there is nothing to get back to because what I am referring to does not exist in a conceptual past. It is ever present.
What I am pointing to is the “Knowing” or “Aware-ing Presence” that knows and is aware of all states that come and all states that go. When you recognize that all states come and go, you no longer try and hold on to the pleasant ones nor do you fear the unpleasant ones. Once you discover That which is ever-present, That which is Knowing all that arises, you have discovered your essential nature and seeking ends. This is it. And, all is well.
And, the myth that it’s all bliss after that is simply a myth. In the absence of all the unnecessary suffering that results from the confusion of being mis-identified as a separate “someone,” however, there is Acceptance, Peace, and Presence. No past or future, no regret or worry. The travel is lighter and more fluid, as this “I” welcomes everything that arises with curiosity. Nowhere to get to and nothing to accomplish. Doing happens, but not by a separate “someone.” Just an eternal now where peace pervades and all is well. It is heaven on earth.
Yes, blessed indeed!