Gurdjieff’s Emissary In New York: Talks and Lectures with A.R. Orage 1924-1931
Our hope is freedom, the capacity to separate “I” from “It.” —Tuesday, 13 December 1927
Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, Maurice Nicoll- Vol. 2
…The object is to reach… influences, which can heal us and give new life. If there were no other influences, if visible life on Earth were all that exists, if there were no Ray of Creation, there would be no Work… and everything would be without hope. Everything would be fixed and mechanical. No one could change himself. —Birdlip, March 25, 1944
Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson
“As regards the ‘marble tablet’ that by chance remained intact since the time of… the Great Ashiata Shiemash… I happened… to see and read what was engraved on it…
Hope of consciousness is strength. Hope of feeling is slavery. Hope of body is disease…
‘And as regards the… sacred being-impulse, Essence-Hope…
” …this being-impulse, in its distorted form, finally adapted itself to the whole of their presence (and) this newly formed, maleficent “hope”…has taken the place of the being-impulse of sacred Hope…
” ‘In consequence… they always hope for something, and this constantly paralyzes all the possibilities that appear in them… that could perhaps still destroy in their presence their hereditary predisposition to the crystallization of the consequences of the properties of the organ kundabuffer…
“…I must, I think, clarify for you at somewhat greater length the inner impulse they call ‘hope’…
“Thanks to this abnormal hope of theirs, a singular and very curious disease, with the property of evolving, arose and exists among them even until now—a disease called ‘tomorrow.’
“This strange disease, ‘tomorrow,’ has brought the most terrifying results, particularly for those unfortunate three-brained beings there who chance to learn, and become categorically convinced with the whole of their presence, that they possess some very undesirable consequences, and that in order to be delivered from these consequences, it is indispensable for them to make certain efforts, which they even know just how to make, but never succeed in making, on account of this maleficent disease, ‘tomorrow’…
“This disease, ‘tomorrow’… not only… totally deprives them of all possibility of removing from their presence the crystallized consequences of the properties of the organ kundabuffer, but also… hinders most of them in honestly discharging even those being-obligations of theirs that are quite indispensable in the established conditions of ordinary being-existence.
“Thanks to this disease, ‘tomorrow,’ the three-brained beings there… almost always put off ‘until later’ everything that needs to be done at the moment, being convinced that ‘later’ they will do better and more.
” Even those unfortunates who… become aware through their Reason of their complete nullity, and begin to sense it with all their separate spiritualized parts, and who happen to learn what being-efforts must be made, and how to make them, in order to become such as is proper for three-brained beings to be—even these beings, by putting off ‘from tomorrow till tomorrow,’ almost all arrive at the point that one sorrowful day there arise and are manifest in them those forerunners of old age called ‘feebleness’ and ‘infirmity’…
“…in many of them, toward the end of their planetary existence, most of the consequences of the properties of the organ kundabuffer… atrophy of their own accord, and some of them even entirely disappear, thanks to which these beings begin to see and sense reality a little better.
“In such cases there appears in the common presence of these favorites of yours a strong desire to work upon themselves—to work, as they say, for the ‘salvation of their souls.’
“But needless to say, nothing can result from such desires of theirs simply because it is already too late… and although they see and feel the necessity of making the required being-efforts, yet for the fulfillment of these desires they now have only ‘ineffectual yearnings’ and the ‘lawful infirmities’ of old age. —Chapter 26 – The legomonism concerning the deliberations of the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash under the title of “The Terror of the Situation”
Gurdjieff’s Emissary In New York: Talks and Lectures with A.R. Orage 1924-1931
…Your wish alone to develop will avail nothing. It may remain a dream. You may intellectually judge it worthy, but lack the corresponding emotion; or you may approve intellectually and feel correspondingly, but have no practical ability. The same is true in the case of love, if it does not induce the three-fold activity necessary. And still more so, especially in these days, of faith. No one of these three can any longer evoke Sphinx like action.
On what then can we count?…
What situation is there that alone can evoke the resolution sufficient to enable us to choose and then move along the right (line)…
The answer is: self-hatred. This is the most powerful, and for us the only surviving, motive force… —Tuesday, 28 April 1931
(To) the… statement… that the only hope of development was hatred of our present mechanical state(,) Orage pointed out that this ignored the (dynamic) between ourselves as we are, and as we would be if fully developed; that is, as we should be. Hatred alone is not enough; there must also be love of what we are designed to be; that is, aspiration. The statement… gave only the negative side, hatred, which should be counter-balanced by love.
The danger of the (statement) was that, left alone, it leads to melancholia and despair. To the seven deadly sins the Eastern Church added an eighth, which was well known in Hindu philosophy: spiritual despair, incurred by those so unfortunate as to fall out of love with themselves as they are, without falling in love with themselves as they should be… —Tuesday, 26 May 1931
Aspiration is hope plus effort. Neither one alone constitutes aspiration. It is because of this double nature of aspiration that it was symbolized in ancient times by the two wings of the eagle on the ox. One wing was hope, the other effort. —Tuesday, 7 April 1931