I have a neuroscientist friend, who believes that, not only is free will an illusion, but so is consciousness. I trend to think of the "I" as like a car with passengers all taking turns to be the driver. Often the 'I's fight to drive as the car moves. Even if the 'system' failed, Gurdjieff left a valuable legacy that maybe can be refined with our new knowledge of the brain and the Universe. He did the best he could at the time and should always be remembered and respected for that.
Indeed... I am convinced that he was right. In my experience many people in our age of "reality poverty" probably don't even have any flashes of consciousness in a lifetime.
What if people in the car want to go in different directions, and what if the car is going only in direction of the driver at that moment, so are then those other people in the car just passengers? It’s important to always remember yourself, so you could be the driver as often is possible and for longer is possible. By doing that, sooner or later passengers will leave the car, the only passengers that will be left are the ones who represents your true “identity”. That was one of the main points of Work, to reduce the number of your “Passengers” and to be the “Driver” most of the time, it’s not possible for “You” (you as a pure will) to drive all the time, but it’s better for you that driver’s seat is replaced by passenger who represents your “true” indentity. But ofc, in order to drive car with real people, it needs a lot of work, identity’s roles reduction or purifing yourself needs a lot of work.
@@serousetrick ... Everyone is both a driver and a passenger. The 'other people' become the driver when needed. When they fight over who is driving the result is chaos and the car crashes _(psychosis/misery)._ When all the people agree on the direction that's beneficial for them all the result is balance _(sanity/happiness)._ The "True You" (pure consciousness) doesn't drive... it *_observes_* (witnesses) the journey, but in many (most) people it's asleep most of the time. It's only an analogy of course ... reality is much more complicated. Yes it need work. All worthwhile things do. Take care, stay awake and be happy.
DrQuadrivium Great points, but one question, you said that “true” you don’t drive, it only observes. Does it mean that when you are fully awaked, and when you get to driver’s seat, the car stops? No, it’s not. Life never stops, not even when you die. There are moments when “true you” is driving, and by being more true only real people/your born characters traits will stay as a passangers. Ofc, there is a long way to reduce unnecessary parts of yourself.
" Gurdjieff said " You are nothing but the body, and when the body dies you will die. Only once in a while does a person survive - one who has created soul in his life survives death - not all. A Buddha survives; a Jesus survives, but not you! You will simply die, not even a trace will be left.” What was Gurdjieff trying to do? He was shocking you to the very roots; he was trying to take away all your consolations and foolish theories which go on helping you to postpone work upon yourself. Now, to tell people, “You don’t have any souls, you are just vegetables, just a cabbage or maybe a cauliflower” - a cauliflower is a cabbage with a college education - “but nothing more than that.” He was really a master par excellence. He was taking the very earth away from underneath your feet. He was giving you such a shock that you had to think over the whole situation: are you going to remain a cabbage? He was creating a situation around you in which you would have to seek and search for the soul, because who wants to die? And the idea that the soul is immortal has helped people to console themselves that they are not going to die, that death is just an appearance, just a long sleep, a restful sleep, and you will be born again. Gurdjieff says, “All nonsense. This is all nonsense! Dead, you are dead forever - unless you have created the soul….” Now see the difference: you have been told you are already a soul, and Gurdjieff changes it totally. He says, “You are not already a soul, but only an opportunity. You can use it, you can miss it.” And I would like to tell you that Gurdjieff was just using a device. It is not true. Everybody is born with a soul. But what to do with people who have been using truths as consolations? A great master sometimes has to lie - and only a great master has the right to lie - just to pull you out of your sleep."
For a better understanding of Gurdjieff's work people should read Maurice Nicoll's "Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky".
more and more are being recorded in the last years, over a thousand books have been published concerning Gurdjieffs Ideas - these ideas are now beginning to be shared on a much more widely scale than before
Hmm ? One should question what is meant by “being” “unconscious”? When you are just “knocked out” and in the “Subconscious”? Logic should now be questioning our use of Quintessential Languages when referring to the Human connectivity and Mind!? This is not a criticism By myself, but just enabling continuity flow with our Living human requirements.
so where was the 'external consideration' for the boy or his guests choice?? ya Gurdjieff seemed kinda all over the place..but thats y he was REAL-because he knew he cldnt keep his HUMANITY from showing..Watts enjoyed alcohol alot from what i have read too - he understood that no matter what you cant escape dealing with being human. sometimes no matter the intellect-the animal must speak.
I guess just because someone has started a system it doesnt mean they are perfect. In factbit could be said the system is created precisely because of the condition of us humans
Leo is by far and away the most advanced human that ever lived. The man in the video said it for himself. No one really understood what Gurdjieff stood for. Too much mystery means that the teaching never gets passed on. That is exactly what I have suspected.
His drinking habits might explain reason of his death (liver cancer), which makes me wonder how someone evolved beyond mechanical living can't overcome drinking and smoking habits? So far, by researching his legacy, according his classification I would put Gurdjieff in man 4. category nothing higher than that. He traveled a lot, collected and repackaged some old knowledge he found, but not practiced himself. Also, do you know anyone who become man 5,6 or 7 by applying this knowledge? It has been over a century so far, someone should done it by now.
@@___Hermitage If you don't respond to non-entity like me, who do you respond to? What is the name of entity you respond to? Also do you remember exact moment when you start felling superior to people from your surroundings? Btw. me superior to you is modus operandi of man no. 1.
@@aleksa99se Yes, I remember, I can't have been more than 18 months old, they put me in some kind of cage with the other children at the "kindergarten," and I saw this other boy, snot pouring out of his nose (already at this point I was frustrated with the adults for not allowing me to pursue more improving things) -- you should have seen him, smacking away at this toy with a plastic hammer, totally ignorant of his physical body's most basic functions, and God, the contempt I felt for him -- man such as you could not imagine it.
"that's the sort of thing that gurdjieff could do, huh?", says miller in awe and admiration. what's so great about making a 13 year old schoolboy dead drunk, 'out on his feet', 'not knowing what he's doing', 'skating around', 'doing everything automatically', and 5 hours later later vomiting?
Because Gurdjieff knew that the boy would be so immersed and so properly trained in his role as a kind of waiter that the alcohol would not affect him doing his job. It was only later until the boy stopped behaving automatically that he returned to himself and the fact that he was drunk. Of course we could discuss the ethics of serving a child strong liqour but that's besides the point. The point is that Gurdjieff's understanding of human beings were so great that he was capable of thinking of tricks like this.
I think there's not a deep motivation behind this story. It's the sort of thing people who are fond of drinking would do, especially when they're drunk.
First of all, those were other times. And Gurdjieff had a way of twisting our concepts of morality , of giving some shocks that were fundamental to break our prejudices. From what i heard, he was always puzzling people's minds so that they could perceive new things, so they could leave their mechanical movements and step into something new. If the boy had a clear memory of that, perhaps it was an advance for him.
Fuck Gurdjieff. He was a selfish prick who knew not to call himself master. The story about jeandon stayinding firm in his position is more impressive. You use the gifts god gave you to help people and that’s it.
Replying to myself after a year, now I see how presumptive my comment was then before reading anything about Gurdjieff yet forming a judgement with the limited data conveyed over a small anecdote and disregarding it as meaningless.
Why insist that someone who saved your life should drink heavy liquor against his will ? As an alternative give the liquor to a young boy which makes him sick, wow what a mystic.
Jos Noorhoff my sentiments exactly. I used to really like Gurdjieff, but I have a lot of doubts. They say judge people by their actions, not their words. This is another example of someone who wanted an excuse for a party, perhaps was an alcoholic, and not having much empathy for others. Sorry, not for me.
Robin. Well, to start with, it was Gurdjieff's own negligence that resulted in the car accident that, he nearly died from. Whether it was from overwork or sloppy application of his own teachings, I do not know, but this whole incident would have been a sore point for him. For him to then almost insist that someone ingest alcohol or any thing, against their wish, is a tell tale sign of moral confusion. Then , to order a quite young person to drink, said alcohol, which resulted in some sickness and possible trauma, is quite akin to child abuse. So there you have it.
Gurdjieff believed 'everything happens'. You obviously disagree with that but I agree with Mr G.... The 'car accident', like all else in life, happened. Man deludes himself in thinking he makes anything happen, for in reality we have no idea of whom we are. If you think you 'know thyself', and can make judgements, about past events involving people you have never met, I suggest you take over the world, rather than comment on Mr Beelzebub!
Robin. The other side of "Everything happens..." is "Life is only real, when I am". When we are truly present to it. I am an advocate of much of G's teaching and practices, I was simply applying rational thinking to the accounts of the past I have heard. You will recall, I trust, that I did not speak with certainty on the matter. I said "I fear" he is deluded, in the sense of over-estimating his own level of mastery of "Awakeness". Good day to you.
