Gurdjieff’s Emissary in New York
Talks and Lectures with A.R. Orage 1924-1931
…In the absence of pondering all impressions go into either intellectual (positive) or instinctive (negative) deposits, and leave the emotional (or neutralizing) center vacant. Pondering is the food of the emotional center… pondering includes clarity (thinking center) with emotional element (emotional center) which is the seat of essence…
What is weighed in pondering—as against what is weighed in thinking—are our experiences of preference and disinclination in the emotional center; likes against dislikes, pleasure against displeasure, relative to the criteria of being. —Tuesday, 10 September 1929
…Pondering should never “take time.” It should be done consciously. Self-observation is to use a part of the brain never before used, and so to train it that pondering may be done consciously. It might be analogous to say that breathing takes too much time. —Monday, 28 November 1927
All undirected thought is waste of time, organism and energy, the daily ration. In the intervals when not thinking of anything, think of something… “The material of pondering is the forms of experience, and requires thinking in forms.” —Monday, 14 November 1927 – notes taken by M.E.B. from Orage’s lecture in New York
…A verbal thought by definition is one which can be formulated, that is, it can be accurately expressed in words…
A form-thought, on the other hand… has actual substance and dimensions. It cannot be adequately reproduced by a verbal pattern… (W)ords can… merely… suggest a form-thought; never… reproduce or embody it. Our error as hearers lies in conceiving that the words used to represent a form-thought are intended to be a direct embodiment of the thought, and not merely an indication of its presence.
…(A) form-thought represents something more than an intellectual process. The emotional center must be engaged. There must be an entrance of being into the process, or the thought remains merely intellectual or verbal. In thinking in forms, the thinker does not merely ruminate about something, but he actually places himself emotionally in the thick of the situation. He dramatizes. The thought does not remain a mere hypothesis or intellectual conception. It becomes real—the difference between thinking about something and thinking something…
If then it is impossible to formulate a form thought in words, how can it be communicated?…
Gurdjieff’s book is an illustration… The words are used consciously as an intellectual shock whereby the emotion is aroused, so that the being is sufficiently expanded to assimilate the thought or idea… This is the method of parable. It is the method employed by great teachers again and again…
Another… method… attempts… to represent in simultaneity the various aspects of a thought… From the various formulations, antagonistic and erroneous… expressed almost in simultaneity, the hearer might make out the form of the underlying thought. But he would never reach the thought if he relied on any of the formulations as its embodiment… —Tuesday, 10 September 1929 – the communication of form-thoughts
What is a real formulation? Formulation is the expression in words of the essence. That is of one’s reality. Formulatory center is usually in the service of the personality, the emotions, likes and dislikes and of the sensations It is necessary to peel off these superimposed crusts until we uncover what it is that we essentially like and think about a subject. —Tuesday, 7 April 1925
Formulating (is) (t)he act by means of which the formulatory center is divorced from its slavery to the lower three centers… and placed in the service of the higher emotional and intellectual centers. That it may become the scribe… of these centers… —Monday, 19 April 1926
Meetings With Remarkable Men
Professor Skridlov
(Father Giovanni) ‘Understanding is acquired, as I have already said, from the totality of information intentionally learned and from personal experiencings; whereas knowledge is only the automatic remembrance of words in a certain sequence.
‘Not only is it impossible, even with all one’s desire, to give to another one’s own inner understanding, formed in the course of life from the said factors, but also… there exists a law that the quality of what is perceived by anyone when another person tells him something, either for his knowledge or his understanding, depends on the quality of the data formed in the person speaking…
‘I must tell you that in our brotherhood there are two very old brethren; one is called Brother Ahl and the other Brother Sez. These brethren have voluntarily undertaken the obligation of periodically visiting all the monasteries of our order and explaining various aspects of the essence of divinity.
‘…And so these brethren, Ahl and Sez, constantly travel from one monastery to another and preach there…
‘The sermons of these two brethren, who are to an almost equal degree holy men and who speak the same truths, have nevertheless a different effect on all our brethren and on me in particular.
‘When Brother Sez speaks, it is indeed like the song of the birds in Paradise; from what he says one is quite, so to say, turned inside out; one becomes as though entranced. His speech “purls” like a stream and one no longer wishes anything else in life but to listen to the voice of Brother Sez.
‘But Brother Ahl’s speech has almost the opposite effect. He speaks badly and indistinctly, evidently because of his age…
‘The stronger the impression made at the moment by the words of Brother Sez, the more this impression evaporates, until there ultimately remains in the hearer nothing at all.
‘But in the case of Brother Ahl, although at first what he says makes almost no impression, later, the gist of it takes on a definite form, more and more each day, and is instilled as a whole into the heart and remains there for ever.
‘When we became aware of this and began trying to discover why it was so, we came to the unanimous conclusion that the sermons of Brother Sez proceeded only from his mind, and therefore acted on our minds, whereas those of Brother Ahl proceeded from his being and acted on our being.
‘Yes, Professor, knowledge and understanding are quite different. Only understanding can lead to being, whereas knowledge is but a passing presence in it.. ‘One must strive to understand; this alone can lead to our Lord God.