Chapter#17

August 1917. “Schools are imperative”. Super-effort. Version #3

The main ideas in this chapter are:(1) The extraordinary time spent in Essentuki. (2)Supper Effort, (3)The stop exercise, (4)Subjective and Objective Ways, (5)Astrology & Types.
Notes from Richard Liebow's meetings:Can you separate the teacher from the teaching? (01-27-03)
"We all want to flant our knowledge so sometimes we ask questions to show it." One of his other favorite saying was "10 minutes of planning saves 10 hours of doing." The 4th Way uses shock, negativity, and suffering of ordinary life, so one could come to the Real Life. He also asked us to read the book After Many of Summers Dies the Swan.by Aldous Huxley.
Qoute from the chapter:"You must realize that the chance to meet some kind of school is very rare - "I mean to meet a school in real life, not in books or in theory"; "and if one meets a school, generally there is no other." In our school on Monday nights, Richard would say "We all bring something to the party". Stricly speaking our Monday night meetings weren't really a school more likely as Richard used to say it's a kindergarden (a preleminary school). As of now only two of us left Gretchen Larsen and myself. Lately David Tan from Los Angeles joins us.
Objectives(Celok):Increase Being:It is not possible to get to being directly. One way to increase your "being" is by Supper Effort. See Super Effort definition below.

**Outline Points**
August 1917. The six weeks at Essentuki. G. unfolds the plan of the whole work. “Schools are imperative”. “Super-efforts”. It's not just working harder. Yes we must go the extra mile, but it's not enough. We must go all the way and accomplish what we said out to do,it relly means what AA says: "Half measures avail us nothing!" So, half ass work is not an opption, otherwise this whole Gurdjiffian system remains nothing but hot air. One moment of weakness and all the work we have done will be for norhing. It evaports like fart in the wind. The unison of the centers is the chief difficulty in work on oneself. Man the slave of his body. Wastige of energy from unnecessary muscular tension. G. shows exercises for muscular control and relaxation. The “stop” exercise. The demands of “stop” G. relates a case of “stop” in Central Asia. The influence of “stop” at Essentuki. The habit of talking. An experiment in fasting. What sin is. G. shows exercises in attention. An experiment in breathing. Realization of the difficulties of the way. Indispensibility of great knowledge, efforts, and help. Is there no way outside of the “ways”? The “way” as help given to people according to type. The “subjective” and “objective” ways. The obyvatel. What does “to be serious” mean? Only one thing is serious. How to attain real freedom. The hard way of slavery and obedience. What is one prepared to sacrifice. The fairy tale of the wolf and the sheep. Astrology and types. See the Glossary. A demonstration. G. announces the dispersal of the group. A final trip to Petersburg.

For our review of the content of Chapter Seventeen we address some of these questions:

Are you becoming more sensitive to the plan of the whole work?
Do you really believe schools are imperative?
Do you really believe that only super-efforts count?
Do you really believe that our minds are the slaves of our bodies?
Do you use any of G.'s methods for releasing excess muscular tension?
Do you ever pretend that someone has given you a command to STOP?
Do you ever give yourself a command to stop all unnecessary talk?
Do you believe that periodic fasting may be beneficial to your health?
Is sin really too much or too little of anything?
Do you consider it important to control the flow of your attention?
Do you ever experiment with yogic type breathing exercises?
Do you really believe that great knowledge, efforts, and help are essential in order for you to live a full long rich wonderful life?
Do you really believe that there is no way out of the terror of your situation other than the ways of the fakir, the monk, and the yogi?
Do you really believe that you are victimized by your reactions to external forces?
When did you last make a super-effort?
Do you accept the suggestion that you must work very hard to burn up the poisonous substances that collect in your nerves and muscles?
How often do you feel your pulse beating throughout your entire body?

Notes:
Ludwig Wittgenstein(1889-1951)born in Vienna, Austria. When it comes to the discussion of God. At one point our mind is just begins to trash as Ludwig Wittgenstein would of said "we are verbaly idling". He has been something of a cult figure but shunned publicity and even built an isolated hut in Norway to live in complete seclusion. His sexuality was ambiguous but he was probably gay; how actively so is still a matter of controversy. His life seems to have been dominated by an obsession with moral and philosophical perfection, summed up in the subtitle of Ray Monk's excellent biography Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius. His concern with moral perfection led Wittgenstein at one point to insist on confessing to several people various sins, including that of allowing others to underestimate the extent of his 'Jewishness'. His father Karl Wittgenstein's parents were born Jewish but converted to Protestantism and his mother Leopoldine (nee Kalmus) was Catholic, but her father was of Jewish descent. Wittgenstein himself was baptized in a Catholic church and was given a Catholic burial, although between baptism and burial he was neither a practicing nor a believing Catholic. The Wittgenstein family was large and wealthy. Karl Wittgenstein was one of the most successful businessmen in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, leading the iron and steel industry there. The Wittgensteins' home attracted people of culture, especially musicians, including the composer Johannes Brahms, who was a friend of the family. Music remained important to Wittgenstein throughout his life. So did darker matters. Ludwig was the youngest of eight children, and of his four brothers, three committed suicide. As for his career, Wittgenstein studied mechanical engineering in Berlin and in 1908 went to Manchester, England to do research in aeronautics, experimenting with kites. His interest in engineering led to an interest in mathematics which in turn got him thinking about philosophical questions about the foundations of mathematics. He visited the mathematician and philosopher Gottlob Frege (1848-1925), who recommended that he study with Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) in Cambridge. At Cambridge Wittgenstein greatly impressed Russell and G.E. Moore (1873- 1958), and began work on logic. When his father died in 1913 Wittgenstein inherited a fortune, which he quickly gave away. When war broke out the next year, he volunteered for the Austrian army. He continued his philosophical work and won several medals for bravery during the war. The result of his thinking on logic was the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus which was eventually published in English in 1922 with Russell's help. This was the only book Wittgenstein published during his lifetime. Having thus, in his opinion, solved all the problems of philosophy, Wittgenstein became an elementary school teacher in rural Austria, where his approach was strict and unpopular, but apparently effective. He spent 1926-28 meticulously designing and building an austere house in Vienna for his sister Gretl. In 1929 he returned to Cambridge to teach at Trinity College, recognizing that in fact he had more work to do in philosophy. He became professor of philosophy at Cambridge in 1939. During World War II he worked as a hospital porter in London and as a research technician in Newcastle. After the war he returned to university teaching but resigned his professorship in 1947 to concentrate on writing. Much of this he did in Ireland, preferring isolated rural places for his work. By 1949 he had written all the material that was published after his death as Philosophical Investigations, arguably his most important work. He spent the last two years of his life in Vienna, Oxford and Cambridge and kept working until he died of prostate cancer in Cambridge in April 1951. His work from these last years has been published as On Certainty. His last words were, "Tell them I've had a wonderful life."
Karl Popper(1902 – 1994), was an Austrian and British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics. He is counted among the most influential philosophers of science of the 20th century, and also wrote extensively on social and political philosophy. Popper is perhaps best known for repudiating the classical observationalist-inductivist account of scientific method by advancing empirical falsifiability as the criterion for distinguishing scientific theory from non-science; and for his vigorous defense of liberal democracy and the principles of social criticism which he took to make the flourishing of the "open society" possible.(Soros'es favorite philasophor)
Bertrand Arthur William Russell,(1872 – 1970), was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician and advocate for social reform. A prolific writer, he was also a populariser of philosophy and a commentator on a large variety of topics, ranging from very serious issues to the mundane. Continuing a family tradition in political affairs, he was a prominent anti-war activist for most of his long life, championing free trade between nations and anti-imperialism.[1][2] Millions looked up to Russell as a prophet of the creative and rational life; at the same time, his stances on many topics were extremely controversial. Russell was born at the height of Britain's economic and political ascendancy. He died of influenza nearly a century later, at a time when the British Empire had all but vanished, its power dissipated by two debilitating world wars. As one of the world's best-known intellectuals, Russell's voice carried great moral authority, even into his mid 90s. Among his political activities, Russell was a vigorous proponent of nuclear disarmament and an outspoken critic of the American invasion of Vietnam.In 1950, Russell was made a Nobel Laureate in Literature, "in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought".
Jacques Derrida 1930–2004, French philosopher, b. Algeria. A professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, he has attempted to take apart, or "deconstruct," the edifice of Western metaphysics and reveal its incoherent foundations. In Of Grammatology (1967, tr. 1976), for example, Derrida contends that Western metaphysics has judged writing to be inferior to speech, not comprehending that the features of writing that supposedly render it inferior to speech are actually essential features of both. He argues that language only refers to other language, therefore negating the idea of a single, valid "meaning" of a text as intended by the author. Rather, the author's intentions are subverted by the free play of language, giving rise to many meanings the author never intended. Derrida has had a major influence on literary critics, especially those of the "Yale school," including Paul de Man, Geoffrey Hartman, J. Hillis Miller, and Harold Bloom. These deconstructionists, along with Derrida, dominated the field of literary criticism in the 1970s and early 1980s. Derrida's writings include Writing and Difference (1967, tr. 1978), Margins of Philosophy (1972, tr. 1982), Limited Inc. (1977), The Post Card (1980, tr. 1987), Aporias (tr. 1993), and The Gift of Death (tr. 1995).
Glossary:
Astrology Astrology sees mankind as being not only influenced by hereditary factors and the environment, but also by the state of our solar system at the moment of birth. The planets are regarded as basic life-forces, the tools we live by as well as the basis of our very substance. These planetary forces take on different forms, depending on their zodiacal position and on the way they relate to one another.
The aspects formed between the planets describe these relationships, the positions of the planets in relation to the place of birth tell us of their expression in the spheres of life depicted by the astrological houses. By interpreting the roles of these players (the planets) and their qualities (the elements, signs and houses) and creating a synthesis, astrology is able to present a complete and comprehensive picture of the person and his potential, based on the natal horoscope.
Essentuki:is a town in Stavropol Krai, Russia. It is located at 44°2'N 42°51'E, at the base of the Caucasus Mountains. It was founded in 1798 and was granted town status in 1917. Railway station in the Mineralnye Vody—Kislovodsk branch, 43 km south-west of Mineralnye Vody and 17 km west of Pyatigorsk.Population: 81,758 (2002 Census).
August 1917:he Russian Revolution (1917) was a series of economic and social upheavals in Russia, involving first the overthrow of the tsarist autocracy, and then the overthrow of the liberal and moderate-socialist Provisional Government, resulting in the establishment of Soviet power under the control of the Bolshevik party. This eventually led to the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922, which lasted until its dissolution in 1991. It resulted in the overthrow of the autocratic rule of the Tsars and the building up of socialism in the USSR.
sin:sin is a term used mainly in a religious context to describe an act that violates a moral rule, or the state of having committed such a violation. Commonly, the moral code of conduct is decreed by a divine entity (such as Yahweh or Allah in the Abrahamic religions). An act that is regarded by theologians as a transgression of God's will.
Additional Notes: Meditation is also important! Gurjieffian premis:The material world is primary. This, however does noyt mean that there's no spirit. It does mean, however, that real world actions have consequences, so we can't rely on Jesus, Allah, Buddha, Moses Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. Our mess is real and we have to face it. I don't know where I got this.
There's no point in the work when we can say that we've arrived. It is always a process, knowing that is forever unattainable. Knowing in the Hegelian sense is similar to the Gurjieffian "Understandin" It is something you do . It is an act. A presence of mind. The experience of thinking is self presence. One is being present with oneself, being self awere. This self consciousness it is a huge cosmic accomplishment. Every serious reader of Hegel can bear vitness to an intaxicating of such moment.