Return Chapter#15 Chapter#17

Chapter#16

Consciousnes of matter.
An interesting event "transfiguration" or " plastics"? "Events are not against us at all." How to strengthen the feeling of "I".
Final Draft#4





The main ideas:(1) Once again Ouspensky describes Gurdjieff's extraordinary powers "transfiguration" or " plastics", similarly to chapter #13 & also also the article "On the Road" (I'm not sure about this), (2) Consciousness of matter. See Teilhard de Chardin in the Notes,(3)More explonation of esoteric cosmology. (4) Several diagrams of "Table of Hydrogen",and discussion of "Levels of Beings".
Quotes from Richard Liebow:"Stay down and take the 9 count" (1-27-03.) Also during the same meeting Richard said something like this "I don't have the energy to respond to that question, I'm not Mother Theresa, but please save your question I might be able to answer it later on." During this time the idea of "Black Holes" were also discussed, but he dissmissed the subject and went back to his favorit subject effiviency: "plan your work and work your plan!". His other favorite saying was "We have only one problem and that is the scattered tendencies of our mind." Therefor our effort must be a daily practice. Do it like in the 12 step progarm "One Day at a Time."
Objectives: Regarding the first Oblogonial striving Richard wanted us to improve our eating habits. Don't eat indiscriminatly. that is not an option for us. Also he talked about what is Super Effor,and the strenghtening our "I" via Super Effort.
Exercise from Needleman: When you handle money, remember yourself always and everywhere. By saying it to yourself "I'm handling money!!!!"

Outline Points
  1. Historical events of the winter 1916-17. The Russian Revolution of 1917 refers to a series of two popular revolutions in Russia, and the events surrounding them. These revolutions had the effect of completely changing the nature of society within the Russian Empire and transforming the Russian state, which ultimately led to the replacement of the old Tzarist autocracy with the Soviet Union.
  2. G's system as a guide in a labyrinth of contradiction, or as "Noah's ark."
  3. Consciousnes of matter.(See Teilhard de Chardin’s "Evolutionary Philosophy" below.)
  4. Its degrees of intelligents.
  5. Three-, two- and one-storied machines.
  6. Man composed of man, sheep, and worm.
  7. Classification of all creatures by three cosmic traits: what they eat, what they breathe, the medium they live in. Yes you can classify things any which way you want to, but so what? Not too long ago dolphins were miss classified as fish, but fish also breathe oxygen; all living beings breathe oxygen. We all have to maintain a slow fire in us called LIFE.

  8. Man's possibilities of changing his food.
  9. "Diagram of everything living."
  10. G. leaves Petersburg for the last time.
  11. An interesting event-"transfiguration" or " plastics"? David Sinkovich a member of Richard Liebow's group suggested that G.'s fisical transformation can be construed as shapeshifting: Shapeshifting, transformation, or metamorphosis is a change in the form or shape of a person. An example of animal shapeshifting is the octopus contorting body shape and changing its color. Animal metamorphosis is a permanent change built into the animal's life-cycle. It is a common theme in myth and legend and a popular theme in science fiction and fantasy stories. Some conspiracy theories claim that alien reptoids are capable of shape-shifting. Scientifically shapeshifting is not considered possible for humans. An other thought: It was common at least in the 1920's in the USA and other places to pretend that you're somebody very rich from the MiddleEast and swindle people. A lot of the con artists changed their identity and ran up huge bills in hotels also spending a lot in restaurants. Similarly later on Mr.G. had a special place in a Paris cofe where he entertained people. Mr. Needleman believes that some people have the capability to change their appearence. He saw once done this by Lord Pentland.
  12. A journalist's impressions of G.
  13. The downfall of Nicholas II. Nicholas II was a mediocre czar completely cut off-guard by events, and it cost him and his whole family their lives.
  14. "The end of Russian history." There's no end to Russian history.

  15. Plans for leaving Russia.
  16. A communicaton from G.
  17. Continuation of work in Moscow.
  18. Further study of diagrams and of the idea of cosmoses.
  19. Development of the idea "time is breath" in relation to man, the earth and the sun to large and small cells.
  20. Construction of a "Table of Time in Different Cosmoses."
  21. Three cosmoses taken together include in themselves all the laws of the universe.

  22. Application of the idea of cosmoses to the inner processess of the human organism.
  23. The life of molecules and electrons.
  24. Time dimensions of different cosmoses.
  25. Application of the Minkovski formula.Time goes beyond four dimensions. The Minkovski formula= [sqrt(-1) * ct], denot time as the fourth "world" coordinate.
  26. Relation of different times to centers of the human body.
  27. Relation to higher centers.
  28. "Cosmic calculation of time" in Gnostic and Indian literature.

  29. "If you want to rest, come here to me."
  30. A visit to G. at Alexandropol.
  31. G.'s relationship with his family.
  32. Talk about the impossibility of doing anything in the midst of mass madness.
  33. "Events are not against us at all."
  34. How to strengthen the feeling of "I".
  35. Brief return to Petersburg and Moscow.

  36. A message to the groups there.
  37. Return to Piatygorsk.
  38. A group of twelve foregathers at Essentuki.


Notes:
Teilhard de Chardin’s(1881-1955) Evolutionary Philosophy According to Teilhard, Consciousness and Matter are aspects of the same reality and are called the "Within" and the "Without" respectively. Evolution is the steady increase in the "Within" or degree of consciousness and complexity, through a number of successive stages: the various grades of inanimate matter; life or the "Biosphere"; man or thought or mind, the "Noosphere" (Teilhard's cosmology reflects the Christian anthropocentric bias in having man as the first progression from inanimate matter through primitive life and invertebrates to fish, amphibia, reptiles, mammals, and finally man; always an increase in consciousness. With man a threshhold is crossed - self-conscious thought, or mind, appears. But even humans do not represent the end-point of evolution, for this process will continue until all humans are united in a single Divine Christ-consciousness, the "Omega Point" (so-called after the last letter of the Greek alphabet - hence the Hellenistic statement attributed to Christ (but unlikely to have been said by him, as he would not have known Greek - "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end"). Teilhardian cosmology thus revolves around the idea of an evolutionary progression towards greater and greater consciousness, culminating first in the appearance of self-conscious mind in humankind, and then in the Omega point of divinisation of humanity. Teilhard refers to "Centeredness" as a characteristic of the universe on all levels. Each corpuscle of matter has a centre "within", its principle of organisation. The more complex the being, the greater degree of centreity. Teilhard teaches that Centreity is the true, absolute measure of being in the beings that surround us, and the only basis for a truly natural classification of the elements of the universe. The axis of evolution stretches from the lowest degree of centreity to the highest, and entities having the same degree of centreity constitute "isopheres", forming universal units of the same type of being. So pre-living entities are ordered on Earth in the lithosphere, the hydrosphere, and the atmosphere. Organic beings make up the biosphere, and thinking entities (which in Teilhard's system solely means man) the noosphere. When ranked in their natural order, the whole family of isopheres will define at the heart of the system a focus-point of universal synthesis, the Centre of centres, Omega [Activation of Energy, pp.10-13, 102; Beatrice Bruteau, Evolution towards Divinity, p.138],

René Guénon(1886-1951) is undoubtedly one of the luminaries of the twentieth century, whose critique of the modern world has stood fast against the shifting sands of recent philosophies. His oeuvre of 26 volumes is providential for the modern seeker: pointing ceaselessly to the perennial wisdom found in past cultures ranging from the Shamanistic to the Indian and Chinese, the Hellenic and Judaic, the Christian and Islamic, and including also Alchemy, Hermeticism, and other esoteric currents, at the same time it directs the reader to the deepest level of religious praxis, emphasizing the need for affiliation with a revealed tradition even while acknowledging the final identity of all spiritual paths as they approach the summit of spiritual realization. We had a very good class with Needleman and we studied Guenon.The Transcendent Unity of Religions: The traditionalist or "perennialist" perspective began to be enunciated in the 1920s by the French philosopher Rene Guenon and, in the 1930s, by the German philosopher Frithjof Schuon. The Harvard orientalist Ananda Coomaraswamy and the Swiss art historian Titus Burckhardt also became prominent advocates of this point of view. Fundamentally, this doctrine is the Sanatana Dharma--the "eternal religion"--of Hindu Vedantists. It was formulated in ancient Greece, in particular, by Plato and later Neoplatonists, and in Christendom by Meister Eckhart (in the West) and Gregory Palamas (in the East), and is also to be found in Islam in the form of Sufism. Every religion has, besides its literal meaning, an esoteric dimension, which is essential, primordial and universal. This intellectual universality is one of the hallmarks of Schuon's works, and it gives rise to many fascinating insights into not only the various spiritual traditions, but also history, science and art. The dominant theme or principle of Schuon's writings was foreshadowed in his early encounter with a Black marabout who had accompanied some members of his Senegalese village to Switzerland in order to demonstrate their culture. When the young Schuon talked with him, the venerable old man drew a circle with radii on the ground and explained: "God is in the center, all paths lead to Him."
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) an American social philosopher. His first book, The True Believer, published in 1951, was widely recognized as a classic. This book, which he considered his best, established his reputation, and he remained a successful writer for most of his remaining years. At age seven, and for unknown reasons, Hoffer went blind. His eyesight inexplicably returned when he was fifteen. Fearing he would again go blind, he seized upon the opportunity to read as much as he could for as long as he could. His eyesight remained, but Hoffer never abandoned his habit of voracious reading. He was completely self-educated. His work was not only original, it was completely out of step with dominant academic trends. In particular, it was completey non-Freudian, at a time when almost all American psychology was confined to the Freudian paradigm. In avoiding the academic mainstream, Hoffer managed to avoid the straightjacket of established thought. Hoffer was among the first to recognize the central importance of self-esteem to psychological well-being. While most recent writers focus on the benefits of a positive self-esteem, Hoffer focused on the consequences of a lack of self-esteem. He found in self-hatred, self-doubt, and insecurity the roots of fanatacism and self-righteousness. He faunf that a passionate obsession with the outside world or with the private lives of other people is merely a craven attempt to compensate for a lack of meaning in one's own life.Ralph Colby one of our ex group member suggested to include Hoffer.
Frithjof Schuon (1907 – 1998) was a metaphysician, poet, painter, Sufi, and a leading figure of traditional metaphysics. Along with René Guénon and Ananda Coomaraswamy, Schuon is regarded as one of the three founders of the Traditionalist School. Frithjof Schuon is best known as the foremost spokesman of the religio perennis and as a philosopher in the metaphysical current of Adi Shankara and Plato. Over the past 50 years, he has written more than 20 books on metaphysical, spiritual and ethnic themes as well as having been a regular contributor to journals on comparative religion in both Europe and America. Schuon's writings have been consistently featured and reviewed in a wide range of scholarly and philosophical publications around the world, respected by both scholars and spiritual authorities. A considerable number of scholars of religion today who work with religious pluralism and esoteric mysticism regard Schuon as one of their most influential teachers.


Review question for Chapter Sixteen (Developed by R.Liebow):
  1. Are you becoming convinced that events are not against you at all?
  2. What are you doing to strengthen your feeling of "I"...? (Seeing challenges as opportunities.)
  3. What do you think that portrait of G. with his black curly hair and wearing a black frock coat signifies?
  4. How well are you able to adapt yourself to any kind of work--to any kind of business?
  5. Do you really believe that a baked potato is more intelligent than a raw potato?
  6. Do you accept the suggestion that every object--a pebble, a blade of grass, a worm--possesses some degree of intelligence?
  7. Do you really believe that your perceptions of feeling move 30,000 times faster than your thoughts?
  8. Regarding the story of G. on the train leaving Petersburg for the last time: Was he physically transformed or was it just an hallucination?
  9. Do you perceive this system of ideas as some kind of Noah's Ark?
  10. Do you accept the suggestion that every living creature feeds on other living creatures--and serves as food for still other living creatures?
  11. Do you accept the suggestion that every living creature possesses within itself its own unique dimension of time and projects onto its fields on activity its own subjective conception of time?
  12. Do you feel that G.'s relationship with his father may serve as some kind of a model for how one ought to relate to other human creatures?
  13. Why do you suppose G. places so much value and importance and necessity of difficult situtations, challenging relationships, and mass madness?
  14. Are you in the business of collecting knowledge and collecting people? And what do you do with the knowledge of the people you collect?
  15. Are you really more intelligent than a baked potato?
  16. Do you think that people that grow up in a small village like Alexandropol are any better off than those of us who struggle with the challenges of life in a big city?
  17. War or no war, do you always make a profit?
  18. Are you a puppet--or a puppeteer?
  19. Can you eat water and breathe fire?
  20. In your opinion, is there any chance that the kind of social upheaval that was happening in Russia in 1917 could happen in the United States of America any time soon?

Glossary:
Alexandropol:City in Armenia, situated on a plateau in the Caucasus Mountains at a height of over 1,500 m/4,920 ft, 85 km/53 m northwest of Yerevan; population (1996) 120,000. Industries include textiles, metalworking and engineering. There has been a settlement on the site of Gyumri since medieval times. The modern town was founded in 1837 as the fortress of Aleksandropol. The city was twice virtually destroyed by earthquakes, in 1926 and 1988. Gurdjieff was borne in this city.
Piatygorsk: is a city in Stavropol Krai on the Podkumok River in the Southern Federal District of Russia, about twenty kilometers from Mineralnye Vody. The name Pyatigorsk means "five mountains" in Russian and is so called because of the five peaks of the Beshtau (which also means "five mountains" in Turkic) of the Caucasian mountain range overlooking the city. It was founded in 1780, and has been a health spa with mineral springs since 1803. The Russian poet Mikhail Lermontov was shot in a duel at Pyatigorsk on July 27, 1841. There is a museum in the city devoted to his memory.
Essentuki:Yessentuki or Essentuki(Russian: Ессентуки́) is a town in Stavropol Krai, Russia, located at the base of the Caucasus Mountains. The town serves as a railway station in the Mineralnye Vody—Kislovodsk branch, and is situated 43 kilometers (27 mi) south-west of Mineralnye Vody and 17 kilometers (11 mi) west of Pyatigorsk.

Additional Notes: A breath is 3 seconds. In a normal state, a man takes about twenty full breaths in a minute. The "breath of organic life" is twenty-four hours.It is thought that the earth takes a breath once every year!?

Things probably to be moved: (1) Some of you may have had the experience of gradually or even suddenly realizing that you have been thoroughly deceived by somebody or something. For weeks, months, years--sometimes even decades--you have believed somebody or something was one way, only to find out that such was not the case at all. Life usually affords us at least a few such experiences.
(2)As Janet Norman would say (She is a member of our group) Ouspensky here seems to confuse the map with the teritory.
(3) SPACE-TIME :In our three-dimensional (3-D) space, we have three "degrees of freedom" to move. We see objects that occupy space exclusive of each other. We also experience time.
Dana once in our meeting said "I Let things come to me". Also Vincent said "To endure is all"