In Search of the Miraculous
There are periods in the life of humanity, which generally coincide with the beginning of the fall of cultures and civilizations, when the masses irretrievably lose their reason and begin to destroy everything that has been created by centuries and millenniums of culture. Such periods of mass madness, often coinciding with geological cataclysms, climatic changes, and similar phenomena of a planetary character, release a very great quantity of the matter of knowledge…
The crowd neither wants nor seeks knowledge, and the leaders of the crowd, in their own interests, try to strengthen its fear and dislike of everything new and unknown. The slavery in which mankind lives is based upon this fear… —Chapter 2
This Fundamental Quest – Henriette Lannes
Our fears are many, and generally we find it difficult to know their causes…
Our fears paralyze us, make us inert. … Our fears are predominantly emotional and physical. It is difficult for us to detach ourselves because we cling to them. We maintain images that feed our fears. But… looking at this image production that enslaves us, we discover that the head… is without fear.
No longer trying to escape, we recover our aim, which is to know ourselves and to know these imaginary monsters that take so much of our strength. With a shift of inner attitude, our fears devour us less. Our liberated attention helps us anchor ourselves in a living bodily sensation… —Fears
G.I. Gurdjieff Paris Meetings 1943
Gurdjieff: …I can always be afraid, but this fear must not take over completely. It must remain localized somewhere in the function where it appeared. It must not have any influence over the rest. My body was afraid, but not me; whereas you, you yourself become fear – your whole presence is nothing but fear.
This happens because your head is not independent, not detached, not free from the rest. Your head is your ‘self’. It is your Reason. That is where your intelligence is. This is your individuality. Everyone has a body, everyone has feeling, but rare are those who have a head that lives an independent life—free, never influenced. Only the head can be just; only the head can be impartial. The head must have the initiative, whereas with you at present, it’s all the rest that has the initiative. And the rest is shit, a piece of meat.
For you, at present, the head must be… a watch man, always turned inward to see with inner sight and to know these two parts: body and feeling. It must watch with a strong attention, but without tensing, and know where the impulses come from… Only then will it be able to play its role, which is to direct, to initiate. —Thursday, June 9
Gurdjieff’s Emissary in New York:
Talks and Lectures with A.R. Orage 1924-1931
…Fear is induced by a picture produced with the emotions, and your reaction is the same to the picture as if it were real, the thought that it is real makes your reactions such…It is the mental picture combined with thought that creates fear imagery. —Mrs. Hares Notes – imagination and thought
Gurdjieff Early Talks
The Meaning of Life – (Originally read as “Pure and Impure Emotions”)
A sentiment can only be conquered by another sentiment—a stronger, superior sentiment A soldier dies for his country not by habit of obedience, or duty, but because the sentiment of fear has been conquered by superior sentiments.
Reason provokes thoughts whose images evoke feelings which conquer a special sentiment. Reason has no limits—only humans have limits. True reason is the inner aspect of a being…
Each sentiment has a reason for being. Certain ones are important for knowledge, others hinder; though theoretically all emotions serve knowledge. For example, fear: certain relations are known only through fear; that is nature’s way of controlling the forces of life: fear of hunger makes one work…
The Reality of Being
…By its very nature fear is inevitably opposed to our entire search. But what is the basis for fear in us?
…In fact, fear only arises at the moment the thinking fixes on the past or the future. If our attention is in the active present, to think of yesterday or of tomorrow is simply inattention, an inattention that engenders fear. When we give our total attention to the present, when we are wholly present, fear does not exist. —74. Free of fear and illusion
This ordinary “I,” our ego…desires, fights, defends itself, compares and judges all the time… This “I” always wants to possess more… Why does the “I” have this exaggerated need to be something, to make sure of it, and to express this at every moment? It has a fear of being nothing. Is not identification, at its core, based on fear? —119. The affirmation of my self
Transcripts of Gurdjieff’s Meetings 1941-1946
Question: …I have not found a means of struggling against this fear.
Gurdjieff: One must decide: “All or nothing.” It is simple, all or nothing. If you know your past nothingness, then decide; either you want to transfer this nothingness into something, or you will perish… This is the means of liquidating your fear… The all or nothing can end your fear. Either something will happen or you will perish like a dog. You should not exist as you are. You are a source of evil in the world, for your nearest and for everyone. Either you will cease to be such a source in order to acquire a real individuality, real not fantasy, or—perish. Have you understood? It is a new “Justice”… —Meeting Twenty
Teachings of Gurdjieff: a Pupil’s Journal, C.S. Nott
(G:) ‘…We try not to see ourselves because we fear we shall suffer remorse of conscience. There are many dirty dogs in us, and we do not want to see them. Sincerity may be the key to the door through which one part may see another part… —New York and Fontainebleau 1923-5
Inner Octaves, Michel Conge
But I am paralyzed with fear. I am not yet fully convinced that, no matter what, I am eaten alive. When this becomes indisputable, I will dare to turn in the other direction; and when I understand that this sacrifice is possible only if I consent to it… I will begin to serve.
To serve means… serving as food, serving as a passageway, serving this return… for the sake of evolution…
…If I manage to see what I am afraid of and why, I know that what awaits me on the other side is a state of freedom, a state without fear… —What Evolves?