Inner Octaves, M. Conge
First Encounters with Mr. Gurdjieff
Every being, at its own level, should form the bridge between what is above it and what is below. We should try to find these three levels in ourselves. Mr. Gurdjieff came to bear witness — to remind, to announce, to connect, to prepare — to do whatever was needed in order to make this link possible.
The Struggle in the World of the Soul
(from a letter to a student — Paris, January 28, 1967)
…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. …The aim is to enable us to live an ordinary life consciously.
Our ultimate task is by a transformation of our being, and the appearance of a Presence …to allow higher forces to pass through us at last, and to illumine the darkness of our lower nature.
To shy away from that or to seek anything else would be, as Mr. Gurdjieff has written, to misjudge what is expected of us, and to betray ‘the hope sown from Above’. That requires a a total conversion of our thinking, then of our feeling, and finally of our very substance; for, if the transformation does not involve our very flesh, nothing will be accomplished.
Yes , we must allow two worlds to unite.
…The cause of our always being carried away is to be found neither in the world around us, nor in our functions, but in an innermost weakness that we must learn to recognize. The struggle must, little by little, take place in this intermediate world — the world of the soul — between our two natures. It is there that the Great Battle with oneself takes place, and that battle will take years.
Opening, William Segal
Section II, The Structure of Man
Each man/woman stands midway between the alpha and the omega of the universe. Shaped and determined by earth forces to which he cannot help but react, he is, at the same time, beckoned by a call coming from higher forces. Between the pull of the earth and the Silence, he is made to comprehend and respond to the cosmos above and to the ones below.
No Energy Is Isolated
Every creature is …in movement, constantly changing and inevitably related either upward or downward, no single one existing in isolation. Energy passes down from above in ceaseless movement, like water spilling over a dam, sustaining life in a methodical, foreordained way. There is also an inverse exchange, from lower to higher. With man this depends on the factor of consciousness. ..
…When one first begins to work with conscious attention one discovers that … body, feelings, and mind function inefficiently and disharmoniously. Yet the simple awareness of misalignment may introduce an element capable of binding the disparate parts into an integrated whole. With sustained awareness comes a heightened sensitivity, openness, a quiet mind. Man’s structure becomes receptive to the advent of fresh, vivifying energies descending from a mysterious source. This creates a field, where higher energies can transform the lower.
…unless the highest in the universe is unveiled through the intermediary energy of conscious attention, the ultimate human purpose will not be fulfilled.
The Reality of Being
106. A particle of the highest
We live in two worlds. The reaction of our functions to impressions is our contact with the world below. Our perception of the fine energy in us represents the contact with the world above. We are also inhabited by two simultaneous but opposite movements—one toward the outside, the other toward the inside. … The role of our Presence is in connecting the two worlds.
…I am a particle of the highest. Through sensation I can know this.
11. Conscious Effort
When I have a feeling of my Presence, I am connected with higher forces. At the same time, I am connected with lower forces. I am in between. I cannot have a sense of myself without the participation of the lower forces that work in me. A conscious attention means something that is between two worlds.
The Moon, G.I. Gurdjieff
(unpublished, except in C. Wertenbacker’s The Enneagram of G.I. Gurdjieff)
“…this line from the Absolute to the Moon …exists in man. The representative of the Absolute in man is full consciousness, about which our knowledge is incomplete. We do know, however, that the effort to free oneself from identification creates a corresponding amount of free attention. The presence of free attention in a man is a second-order representative of the Absolute; it is a foretaste of what he might eventually come to know as full consciousness.
“The Moon in man is sensation. …that part toward which a man who wishes to work has a primary responsibility, …sensation in man is the growing part of his inner cosmos. The Ray of Creation inside man extends from free attention to sensation.”
“Just as the Moon …requires vibrations from Earth for the growth of its atmosphere, the Moon inside a man requires particles of free attention for the growth of its atmosphere. Sensation is the atmosphere of being. No growth of being will take place without a corresponding, prior growth in sensation.
“Of course, when we apply the term growth to sensation, we must understand that it refers to …sensation … of the entire inner structure …as well. In lifting his arm, everything on the other side of intention is sensation. A man must be able to radiate particles of free attention from the moment an intention enters his bloodstream and neurological system.
“This work on sensation is the infrastructure of being.”