Session 2: Centers in Man
January 13th
Description:
It's appropriate that on the day celebrated as Gurdjieff's birthday we take up the study of centers, one of Gurdjieff's more profound contributions to the understanding of human nature.
A hundred years ago when he first put forward the idea that man had three "brains", and that each brain could by turns control the entire organism, this seemed nearly unbelievable. Although he also gave us the means for independent verification of this fact through self-observation, it has taken ordinary psychology nearly a century to verify much of what he had to say.
Gurdjieff put great emphasis on the need for a three centered experience. He described one center experience as hallucination and two centered experience as semi-hallucination. He said only three centers, working together, can present a true picture of reality.
The reason for this has to do with the law of threefoldness and the action of will. Put simply, will manifests by dividing itself into three parts and then, in Gurdjieff's words, "strives to reblend." The three centers; moving, emotional and intellectual, are the three primary channels for this reblending. If we are only sensitive in one center then the final reblending happens outside of us (using other channels) and consequently we are unable to see the whole. We only see a distorted part. We become, as Gurdjieff often said, "third force blind", which means we aren't able to see contradictions (one centered perception), or if we do see them (two centered perception) we can't see how these contradictions (dyads) are reconciled.
Here are some of the questions we will be addressing during this session...
- Are the different centers 'real' (in a physical sense: are there different brains), or is it just a convenient way of sorting out experiences? Do they correspond to the three evolutionary brains: Reptilian - instinctive/moving, limbic system - emotions, late mammalian brains - thinking?
- I am trying to picture what is really meant by ‘center’ (how I really see it). The image that comes to me is a hub that things revolve around. Is this a correct way to look at it? Is the feeling center the hub, which feelings revolve around?
- What are the further subdivisions of each of the centers? (moving part of intellectual center, intellectual part of emotional center, etc.) According to Bennett, each center exists in 3 worlds (Function, Being, Will), Ouspensky and Zannon describe the centers as having each 3 parts according to the role of attention: that seems to be strongly related, is that correct? Can a center be considered a ‘container’?
- How can I see/experience the workings of Higher Intellectual and Higher Emotional Centers? Is there a higher center in the Body?
- What is the role of Magnetic Center? Is it a separate center? What is its connection to other centers? Does conscience have a center?
- What is the sign (or taste) of the right working of centers? How are the centers connected? What are examples of ‘wrong work of centers’? How does one center intrude on the workings of another center? How do centers steal energy from each other?
- How does one go about observing centers? What’s the difference between one center observing another center and true self-observation?
- Work on 3 centers – where does it lead and why? Can different centers be in different worlds at the same time? Do pure feelings, thoughts and sensations exist on our level? All my feelings, thoughts and sensations seem to be mixed up.
- Why is the intellectual center called the “seat of Will”?
- What is a feeling? Is there a difference between emotions and feelings? How are they distinguished from thoughts or sensations? What about the idea of Basic emotions? Taste is known to be made up of the basic tastes saltiness, sweetness, sourness, bitterness and savoriness. Emotion could be made up of six basic types of emotions - sadness, happiness, disgust, surprise, anger and fear. It doesn't seem to go well with the claim that by emotion we can directly experience reality by entering into it.
- What does it mean that the negative emotions have no real center? Where are they then? How can they exert so much control over us/the other centers? Or is just meant that there is no reason for man to have them, and that in normal man they shouldn't exist?
- What does it mean that the Sex Center reconciles the Moving and Instinctive Centers? What does reconciliation of the Moving and Instinctive centers mean anyhow?
- Can we say that the Higher Emotional Center is the 'heart' of the kesdjan body, and that the Higher Intellectual Center is the heart of the mental body?
- In which of the 4 bodies do we have the unified working of the three lower centers (I mean moving, intellectual and emotional)? Is that a stage before the creation of the higher emotional center? This stage seems to correspond to Man no. 4 in the scheme of 7 men, so is it between the physical and kesdjan bodies?
- Does the Higher Emotional Center replace the Emotional Center upon forming a kesdjan body? Or is it really the same center, but working with finer energies? What is the exact relation between the Higher Emotional Center and the kesdjan body; do they form simultaneously, or are they different aspects of the same station (makam)?
- How can music and smell evoke such strong feelings? Gurdjieff states that real art can evoke objective feelings. Sometimes, while doing movements, feelings arise. How is this done?
- Is the formatory center where different I's exist, with each of them tapping into different centers? Would it be more accurate to say that there are many different secretaries rather than just one secretary? Does personality lie within the formatory apparatus? If so, where is essence? To what extent is it possible or desirable to work outside the formatory apparatus?
Reading List:
Deeper Man by J. G. Bennett - Chapter 3 on centers
This chapter is an excellent introduction to the idea of centers, how they function, how they are developed and how they are related to function, being and will.
A .jpg version of the chapter is available through this link.
is an excellent reference for many of the topics we will be covering. It can be ordered from Bennett Books through their web site at http://bennettbooks.org.
Nicoll on Centers:
Sadia directed my attention to this interesting piece on centers entitled:
The Secretary and the Three Bosses from Volume 5 of Nicoll's Commentaries.
It's particularly useful because it sheds light on certain aspects of the exercise for this week.
Gurdjieff on Centers:
Ouspensky gives an in depth account of Gurdjieff's description of centers
from In Search of the Miraculous pp 193-198
Gurdjieff on Educating Centers:
In this extract Gurdjieff talks about the need for the proper education of centers
from Herald of Coming Good pp 24-34
Gurdjieff on the formatory apparatus: (PDF)
In this short section Gurdjieff gives a detailed account of the functioning of what he calls the formatory apparatus. Understanding the formatory apparatus is vital for understanding the functioning of centers.
from Views from the Real World pp 128-135
Joseph Chilton Pearce Interview
This interview is from a non-Gurdjieffian perspective, but it comes to much the same conclusion as Herald of Coming Good. It's relatively short and well worth a look.
Table of Correspondences from the perspective of Centers:
This modified table of correspondences my be helpful in understanding how the different centers relate to energies, worlds, and other elements. Once again it differs in certain significant ways from the original table of correspondences. Trying to reconcile these apparent contradictions will aid in moving beyond a mechanical understanding of these topics.
Nicoll's Diagrams of Centers:
Contained in Nicoll's Commentaries are several interesting diagrams illustrating the parts of centers.