‘Life is real only then, when
I am.’ G I Gurdjieff.
There are some ideas that, by their very nature, are truly life-changing.
These ideas are powerful and transformative. Certainly I have found that to be true
in my own life.
One such idea, which I write about regularly in this blog and elsewhere,
is ‘Self is illusion---only the person is real.’ Of course, an idea like that is not likely to change anything in or for you until you
understand its meaning and significance. Then you must internalize and
actualize the idea.
I first read some of the ideas of the Greco-Armenian
mystic G I Gurdjieff [pictured left] when I
was 19 or 20. I must say I couldn't understand what the hell he was on about.
To this day I have grasped only some of his philosophy, but two ideas forcefully
expressed by the man---as recounted by his most famous pupil
P D Ouspensky [pictured below right]---I do understand and know to be true. Those
ideas are as follows. First, a
person has no permanent and unchangeable ‘I.’ Only
the person himself or herself is ontologically real. Secondly, ordinarily it takes
a major crisis or some traumatic event to bring a person to a point of
self-surrender and complete transformation and to come to know and experience
their inner power as a person.
In 1912 Gurdjieff appeared
in Moscow where he introduced the ideas, teachings and practices that have
become known as ‘the Work.’ (To this day, Gurdjieff’s teaching is very much an
oral tradition transmitted under special conditions from person to another.
Such is the nature of so-called ‘occult’ [that is, hidden or secret, as opposed
to Satanic] or esoteric teachings.) In 1922 Gurdjieff began his work in France
but he also made several well-publicized trips to the United States of America.
He died in France in 1949. To this day there are Gurdjieff groups, societies
and foundations in many countries including Australia where I live. The Gurdjieff Foundation (known as such in the USA, and by the names ‘The Gurdjieff
Society’ in the United Kingdom, and ‘Institut Gurdjieff’ in France) is the
largest organization directly linked to Gurdjieff and was organized in the
early 1950s.
Now, before I go any further I need to deal, ever so briefly, with the issue of whether or not Gurdjieff was a fake, a fraud, a con man. Much has been written on the subject and there is more than a little evidence that Gurdjieff’s capacity for self-deception was exceeded only by his ability to deceive others. It’s rather ironic. A major theme of Gurdjieff was that we spend much of our lives in a state of hypnotic ‘waking sleep.’ In other words, we deceive ourselves and a result others as well. Perhaps Gurdjieff was no different, even if he did have considerable insight into the problem. Perhaps his deception was more conscious, even fraudulent. Perhaps he was just a clever hypnotist. That’s all I’ll say, because I really don’t know where the truth lies as respects the matter.
G I Gurdjieff and some of his pupils
However,
despite some lasting qualms about the man and his methods, I am very much of
the view that Gurdjieff had some very important and true things to say
including but not limited to the two ideas expressed above and discussed
further below. For starters, he rightly understood that most religions have
corrupted the teachings of their respective founders---teachings that are for
the most part psychological in
nature. He expounded the ancient wisdom that underpins all of the world’s
religions and mythologies. And he stressed the importance of constant self-awareness
and self-observation---that is, psychological wakefulness---without which there
can be no insight, no understanding, and no psychological mutation. However,
there are some ideas of his---for example, the idea that there exist higher
levels of consciousness and higher bodies---that I simply cannot accept.
As
respects the illusory nature of the self, the following quotations of Gurdjieff are
taken from Ouspensky’s book In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching, which
recounts his meeting and subsequent association with
Gurdjieff:
One of man’s
important mistakes, one which must be remembered, is his illusion in regard to
his I.
Man such as we know him, the ‘man-machine,’
the man who cannot ‘do,’ and with whom and through whom everything ‘happens,’
cannot have a permanent and single I. His I changes as quickly as his thoughts,
feelings and moods, and he makes a profound mistake in considering himself
always one and the same person; in reality he is always a different person,
not the one he was a moment ago.
Man has no permanent and unchangeable I. Every thought, every mood, every desire, every
sensation, says ‘I’.
Man has
no individual I. But there are, instead, hundreds and thousands of
separate small ‘I’s, very often entirely unknown to one another, never coming
into contact, or, on the contrary, hostile to each other, mutually exclusive
and incompatible. Each minute, each moment, man is saying
or thinking, ‘I’. And each time his I is different. Just now it was a thought,
now it is a desire, now a sensation, now another thought, and so on,
endlessly. Man is a plurality. Man's name is legion.
I have
said this so many times, but I will
say it again because it needs to be said again and again. Most of our psychological
and emotional problems, as well as problems in our interpersonal relationships,
arise because we tend to identify with any one
or more of those hundreds and thousands of separate ‘I’s, many of which are not
only hostile to each other but downright antipathetic. Over time these ‘I’s
solidify, so to speak, in our consciousness---indeed, they tend to set like
concrete---and we mistakenly believe that they actually are the real person
that each one of us is, one of the results being that we tend to perceive things from the completely subjective and distorted perspective
of our own self-images. This state of affairs, as Gurdjieff pointed out, is a
form of self-hypnosis, but we are all
very good at it. Sadly.
Of course, these
self-images (‘I’s and ‘me’s) are definitely not the real you, or the real me.
They are nothing more than images in our mind which we have conned ourselves
into believing are the real ‘me’ (that is, person) that we are. A timid person
identifies so closely with the ‘timid me’ in herself that she becomes and acts timid.
An angry person identifies with the ‘angry self’ in himself to such an extent
and on such a regular basis that he becomes a person who is angry much of the
time. And so it is. The point is this: there is no such thing as a ‘timid
person’ or an ‘angry person.’ In truth, it is simply the case that there is
timidity or anger ‘in’ the person such that they act and behave that way. Yet
it need not be that way. People have within them the power to change. Self
can’t change itself, but the person
can change.
Once we come to
understand that we are not any one of those hundreds and thousands of ‘I’s that
we generate from moment to moment, and start living from the power and presence
of the person each of us is, our lives will undergo a radical observation. We
need to see illusion for what it is---illusion. Self is illusion. See the truth
of that. Observe your illusory selves in operation. Notice how they clamour for
your attention. Each one of these ‘I’s is saying to you, ‘Buy me, identify with
me, be me.’ The truth is---we are not
any of those self-images. Only the person that we are is ontologically real.
So, next time the ‘angry self’ or whatever raises its ugly head, just watch it
come and go. Say to yourself (that is, the person that you are), ‘That self is
not me. It is not the person that I am. I choose not to identify with that
self. I let it go.’ And do just that.
Now,
the second idea referred to above, namely, that it
generally takes a major crisis or traumatic event to bring a person to a point
of self-surrender and complete transformation. Recovering alcoholics and other
addicts known this to be true. The founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, who had
read some of the writings of the great American philosopher William James
[pictured left], understood that ego deflation at great depth was essential for
real personal transformation and recovery. Most of us only change in a big way
when we are forced so to do. A spouse leaves us, convinced that we will never
change and fed up with the way we have been living for decades. Or we lose our
job or our finances. In the words of Gurdjieff, ‘Only conscious suffering has
any sense.’ I know that to be true. The suffering in my own life, and the pain
caused to others as a result, had no meaning or purpose but in the light of
recovery and a changed life the suffering does make sense. Well, at least up to
a point.
Of course, some people
still don’t change when those sort of things happen. Indeed, I have come to
believe that there is no one rock bottom. There is simply a bottomless pit for
each one of us. Some people keep falling and falling until death or insanity is
the result. Gurdjieff said, ‘Man lives his
life in sleep, and in sleep he dies.’ But it need not be the
case. We can and must ‘wake up.’
Self can’t change. The
person can. Let it happen now.
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