Often one new word that I had not heard before altered the whole picture and I was obliged to rebuild for myself everything I had built up before. I realized very clearly that a great deal of time must pass before I could tell myself that I could outline the whole system correctly. And it was very strange for me to hear how people, after having come to us for one lecture, at once understood what we were talking about, explained it to others, and had completely settled and definite opinions about us. I must confess that, at such times, I often recalled my own first meeting with G. and the evening with the Moscow group. I also, at that time, had been very near passing a ready judgment on G. and his pupils. But something had stopped me then. And now, when I had begun to realize what a tremendous value these ideas had, I became almost terrified at the thought of how easily I could have passed them by, how easily I could have known nothing whatever of G.'s existence, or how easily I could have again lost sight of him if I had not asked then whether I could see him again.

~ P. D. Ouspensky
In Search of the Miraculous pp. 64

Theme for this weeks topic:

The theme for this week is:
Observing the hierarchy of control
When you come up to a stop light and it turns red, what made it turn red? If it was a relay, what controlled the relay? If a microprocessor controlled the relay, what controlled (programmed) the microprocessor? If it was a programmer, What guidelines controlled the programmer? What controlled the formulation of those guidelines. and so on.

See if you can trace the line of control all the way back to some starting point.


Exercise for the week:

If you were able to picture in great detail the highest level of development you will come to in this lifetime, what would you look like?

 

Session 4: Gurdjieff's Man #1 to Man #7
January 27th


Description, from Bennett's book "Deeper Man" pp 140:
The first three kinds of men in Gurdjieff's system, Men Numbers 1, 2, and 3, correspond to people like us and the people we know. Because we tend to live in a way that is dominated by the working of one center, all our actions and perceptions are liable to be lopsided and incomplete. We can have no real picture of either ourselves or the world. Most of our life is lived in World 48, under all forty-eight laws. Man Number 4, who is able to maintain a balance between all three centers, is able to live in World 24. He has something established in him which is free of the dependent laws of World 48, and he can be said to be the “man of the way,” the man who is seeking in a practical way. He is able to balance his outer life (lived under the laws of World 48) with his inner life (lived under the laws of World 24). He has accepted “work” as a guiding principle of life and this has built a “center of gravity” in him corresponding to World 24. But although he has entered the natural world of man, he has gained nothing that cannot be lost. Only when the second body, the body kesdjan, has been formed in him and is able to function independently of his physical body will he be firmly established.

Man Number 5 is firmly established in World 24 and is able to come under the laws of World 12. Gurdjieff described him as the man who is “fully himself.” All that he knows, the whole of him knows. What he sees is seen by the whole of him. He does not have to draw on anything outside of himself in order to be himself. He has reached the unity of being, will and function that escapes us in the lower worlds. Being able to exist in World 12 he is able to form the “higher-being body,” or higher part of the soul, which gives him a direct instrument of the will. In this further transformation he becomes Man Number 6.

Man number 6 goes beyond the particulate or individual will. He is really able to enter into others. This means that he as able in his own experience and action to enter into the higher process by which the will that is one becomes many. All will is will, but to realize this requires a strength of being that is far beyond us. With this strength, Man Number 6 is able to enter into the workings of World 6. The events of that world become a reality for him. He is involved in the creation of destiny. If we say that he is under the direction of a will that is higher than his own, and that he has become free of his own will, this will appear to our thinking as a privation where his individual freedom has been superseded by the workings of a juggernaut. It is not like that. World 6 is not impersonal in the sense of lacking individuality. It is the world out of which can come the creative working of individuals.

In Gurdjieff’s notion of “objective reason” there is hidden a very profound understanding of reality. Objective reason is in contact with the working of essential laws. These laws are not laws as we know laws, that is, limitations to do with the conditions of existence. Essential laws are the very spirit of creating; to do with the marriage of the limed and the unlimited. In them the reconciling force is the will of God. Objective reason is in fact the power of entering into the working of these higher laws. They are not laws “outside” to be studied but to be participated in through purity of being. When objective reason is taken to its fullest heights, man becomes Man Number 7. He is infused with the energy of love and can enter into the workings of World 3. This it the limit of what is possible for a created being, and Gurdjieff calls this gradation of reason the “sacred anklad.” Here the creation has reached its highest point of return and created beings have become divine. But we have to try and understand this in terms of the whole purpose of the creation and not simply as the development of a particular kind of being in whom we have a subjective interest. There must be, in the scheme of things, an ultimate point of return. Here man, life, and the universe become united in a common act of service*.

*Footnote: The real meaning of worship, for example, is this return to the source. We do not praise god by giving him applause for his cleverness, but by entering into the “uphill” stream of evolution. Worship is absorption into the community that is whole.

Questions:

  1. Are people combinations of 1, 2 & 3 - can they fluctuate?
  2. If reaching man #4 or #5 is an attainment that can be ‘lost’ - can this be analogous to ‘stations’ vs ‘states’?

Reading List:

Gurdjieff's description of Man #1 to Man #7
from In Search of the Miraculous by P. D. Ouspensky

 

Table of Correspondences for Gurdjieff's Man #1 to Man #7:
This table takes a look at different systems from the point of view of Gurdjieff's Man #1 to #7. It both introduces and resolves certain conflicts with the other tables we have used.