Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson
Chapter 7 – Becoming aware of genuine being-duty
“This present period of your life is …for preparing yourself for the future—for the obligations becoming to a responsible three-brained being.
“So in the meantime, exist as you exist. Only do not forget one thing: at your age, it is indispensable that every day when the sun rises, while watching the reflection of its splendor, you bring about a contact between your consciousness and the various unconscious parts of your common presence. Trying to make this state last, think and convince the unconscious parts—as if they were conscious—that if they hinder your general functioning in the process of ordinary existence, then in the period of your responsible age they will not only be unable to enjoy the good that is proper to them, but also your whole presence, of which they are a part, will not be capable of becoming a good servant of our Common Endless Creator, and will thus be unable to pay honorably for your arising and existence.
Excerpt from a Letter from Mme. de Salzmann
to Christopher Fremantle (1950’s)
… in these difficult conditions …we may feel the absolute necessity for a help from above. We may make ourselves worthy for it. We may ask, pray for it in quite a different way. We may empty the place in us and around us of all the nonsense it is full of, and with our need attract the help which exists and can then be received….
There is no difference between a monastery and our world conditions (if we don’t forget our aim)…
Transcripts of Gurdjieff’s Meetings 1941-46
Meeting 28
(Q): I do not understand how it is possible to remember oneself in life. ..since even in the best conditions I do not achieve it…
Gurdjieff: The worse the conditions the better the result. It is for this that one must do. Do not consider the conditions; consider the moment of decision. …One cannot always self-remember. What counts is to do it consciously…
… You must put yourself in a quiet state—relaxed—and in this state settle your task. You try it. Ten times, a hundred times, you fail. You continue. You take trouble. Little by little you train yourself and you achieve it. …Remember yourself consciously. Consciously. That is to say, by your own decision…
…You must do an exercise to be more collected. Learn to collect yourself. Choose a good moment that seems propitious. Sit down. Let nobody disturb you. Relax yourself. All your attention—all your will is concentrated on your relaxation. You quieten your associations. After—only after, you begin….
Meeting 18
Gurdjieff: I will give you a sacred secret. You remember Beelzebub—there are two currents, two rivers. …You must now learn to live in both currents at once. There is the habitual current which is ordinary life in which you live, and … the other current, the second current, which is your interior life. Up to now you have had contact with yourself only when you were alone, quiet, now you must learn with others. When you are with a person, remain in your own current, in your interior current
The Reality of Being
133. Meditation is not contemplation
…it is first necessary to make order—to clean house—a task that requires complete attention. The body must become very sensitive and the mind completely empty, without any desire. Understanding comes not by an effort to acquire or become, but only when the spirit is still…
The highest form of intelligence is meditation, an intense vigilance that liberates the mind from its reactions, …without any willful intervention…
Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, Chogyam Trungpa
Introduction
In meditation practice we clear away the confusion of ego in order to glimpse the awakened state. …Ego is able to convert everything to its own use, even spirituality. …Thus ego tries to examine and imitate the practice of meditation and the meditative way of life. When we have learned all the tricks and answers of the spiritual game, we automatically try to imitate spirituality, since real involvement would require the complete elimination of ego, and actually the last thing we want to do is to give up the ego completely.
The Reality of Being
41. Only in Everyday Life
I must be present to my life if I wish to know what I am. When I open to forces of a higher level, I am able to participate at that moment, but staying there is not my role, my place…
…What is put to the test at the moment of manifesting is the feeling I have of myself. All our identifications are animated by an essential force. It is this that we have to confront. …We have to come back to this …to see that it is behind each of our masks. It is really our own force that is stolen from us by the affirmation of our individual self. We say “I” all day long. …“I,” “I,” “I.” We believe in our individuality, and this illusion supports our …striving to be something we are not, because we are afraid of being nothing.
At the same time, we are bearers of higher possibilities. In better moments we each feel ourselves as a particle of something greater. We carry in us a seed of this greatness. This is our value as human beings. …
…I see in myself the opposition of two lives, …Without this opposition I would not feel it, and I would not learn to see myself as I am. Only in the conditions of my everyday life can I study where my force and where my weakness lie…
Inner Octaves, M. Conge
The Struggle in the World of the Soul
The overwhelming urge to withdraw into the sitting exercise—to the point of becoming identified with the peace one finds there—is the inevitable temptation we all have to go through. The sitting exercise, deep relaxation, and the silence we find should allow us to make contact with very fine and much more conscious impressions only so that, afterward, we may descend once again into the life of manifestation with a new intelligence, an intelligence enlightened by this contact. It will never be a question of taking refuge in some ‘disembodied Himalaya’. The sitting exercise is not intended to produce any extraordinary state. Even though this may occur, that is not its purpose. The aim is to enable us to live an ordinary life consciously.