1 Great Nature in Ch 48 1

[Shiemash51]

1 Great Nature in Ch 48 1

Any time we talk about Gurdjieff 

and his ideas over the internet, this
has all the appearance from every 

angle imaginable in terms of ordinary 

life of itself as total lunacy! We do not 

realize this because we are mixing the 

kind of "seriousness" that we are used 

to in life with the real seriousness that 

is necessary in terms of the fourth way. 

Our, so-called, "seriousness" regarding 

the fourth way is really our ordinary 

soap opera seriousness that we have 

become accustomed to due to our 

arising in the abnormal conditions 

of ordinary life.

"At the moment it is not yet clear 

to you," Gurdjieff once said, "that 

people living on the earth can 

belong to very different levels,
although in appearance they look 

exactly the same. Only you do not 

realize at present that the difference 

between these levels is far greater 

than you might suppose. You take
different things on one level, far 

too near one another, and you 

think these different levels are 

accessible to you."
--Gurdjieff, page 26, In Search Of

A perpetual motion machine can be 

a reactive-mechanicality machine,
always reacting, reacting, reacting, and 

never amounting to anything original, or 

transcendent. Nothing is voluntarized, 

but is, rather, all involuntary reaction. 

There is absent in a machine such as 

this any objective sense of remorse 

about its own reactive mechanicalness.
Such a machine follows the law of the 

animal. It is a form of self-calming to 

attack others who offend them by 

reacting to them instead of 

struggling to understand but 

such struggle is too much work
and discomfort for the animal. 

Mullah Nassr Eddin, if you can 

imagine someone like him with
understanding of "life wisdom" 

existing in America, may as well 

have said it in this way:

"Circle the wagons before a 

nail becomes like a requiem!"

Enforcement of "rules of the organization" 

are another way to circle the wagons and 

these rules are set up as requirements 

divorced from reality.

Group work in Philadelphia is 

according to plans that are different
than the aims of those who are 

organized in exoteric circles.

Aim for those members in higher 

levels of work is a common one based
on revelation shared between them.

It is in God, in the
depths of ourselves, that
the light of consciousness
unites everything and can 
shine such a light as to 
shed the skin of an energy 
system made up of early 
childhood fears, worries,
repressions and mechanical 
guilt complexes. Mechanical 
guilt complexes can appear
archetypal like spidery
armed alien creatures 
that enwrap a person.

Now, try to make an 
exception without the 
participation of any of 
the subjective emotionality 
that has become fixed in you,
picture to yourself with your 
thought apart from the usual 
"identification" and at such 
a moment of self-remembering
of yourself as a human being 
apart from identification, 
for example, with what can
be called "make-work-contingency-

plans-for-martial-law," which, at

various times throughout the

history of America, has become 

the dominant inherency of 

contemporary people in 

America, you might stir such 
a thing as Real Conscience 
that, in fact, and if only 
for a moment, this might 
happen to you, that you could 
have any experiencings at all, 
whether of joy, sorrow, hope, 
disappointment, and so on, that 
you could have all those cares, 
stimuli, strivings, or in 
general any of the impulses 
that constrain you to act, to 
attain something or other, and 
to strive toward some aim or 
other, it is just this 
totality of "experiencings," 
as they might be called, arising
and flowing automatically in
the ordinary man, which, on
the one hand, make up and
sustain his life and, on
the other hand, leave him
neither the possibility
nor the time to see and
feel reality, in short, to 
see himself "in the face" 
which, ordinarily, he 
cannot and must not do, 
for he would, so to say, 
"get out of his depth."

Is it not so?

Precisely that such a "moment
of consciousness" may not arise, 
Great Nature, having become convinced 
that in the common presence of most
people there are no longer any
factors for meritorious
manifestations proper to
three-centered beings, has
providentially and wisely
protected them by allowing
the arising in their common
presence of various consequences
of those properties unbecoming
to them which, in the absence
of proper actualizations,
permit them not to 
perceive or sense 
reality.

And Great Nature was constrained
to adapt herself to such an
abnormality, in the objective
sense, because owing to the
conditions of ordinary life
established by men themselves,
the deterioration in quality of
the radiations required of them
for higher common-cosmic purposes
insistently demanded, for the
maintenance of equilibrium, an
adaptation in the number of
arisings and in the duration
of these lives.

Thus it is clear that life
is given to men not for
themselves but for
serving these higher
cosmic purposes, and
that is why Great Nature
watches over this life so
that it may flow in a more
or less tolerable form, and
takes care that it should not
prematurely cease.

Do not we also—-we three-
brained beings of the Earth—-
feed, watch over, look after, 
and make the lives of our 
sheep and pigs as 
comfortable as
possible?

Do we do all this because
we value their lives for
the sake of their lives?

No!

We do all this in order
to slaughter them one fine
day and to obtain the meat
we need, with as much fat
as possible.

In the same way Nature takes
all measures to ensure that
we shall live without
seeing the terror,
and not hang
ourselves,
but live long,
and then, when
we are required,
she slaughters us.

In the established conditions
of the ordinary life of people,
this has already become an
immutable law of Nature.

There is in our life a certain
very great purpose and we must
all serve this great common
purpose—-in this lies the
whole sense and
predestination
of our life.

All people without exception
are slaves of this "Greatness,"
and all are compelled willy-nilly
to submit, and to fulfill without
condition or compromise what has
been pre-destined for each of
us by his transmitted heredity
and his acquired being.

"For most people, even for
educated and thinking people,
the chief obstacle in the way
of acquiring self-consciousness
consists in the fact that they
think they possess it, that is,
that they possess self-
consciousness and
everything connected
with it; individuality
in the sense of a permanent
and unchangeable I, will,
ability to do, and so on.
It is evident that a man
will not be interested if
you tell him that he can
acquire by long and
difficult work
something which,
in his opinion, he
already has. On the
contrary he will think
either that you are mad
or that you want to deceive
him with a view to personal
gain."
--Gurdjieff
--ch 8, ISO

"For example, suppose that the
question of our inability really
to sense various genuine terrors,
in particular the terror of our
own death, should become a
'burning question of the day,'
as occurs from time to time with
certain questions in contemporary
life, then in all probability
everybody, ordinary mortals
as well as those called
'learned,' would offer a
categorical solution
which they would not
doubt for a moment and,
'spluttering at the mouth,'
would set about to prove that
what in fact saves people from
experiencing such terrors is 
just their own 'will.'

"But if this is conceded,
why does not this presumed
will protect us from all the
little fears that assail us
at every step?

"In order to sense and understand
what I am now saying with your
whole being, and not merely
with that 'mind-fornication'
of yours, which to the
misfortune of our
descendants has
become the dominant
inherency of contemporary
people, picture to yourself
the following:

"Tonight, after the lecture,
you go home, undress, and get
into bed but, just as you are
pulling up the covers, a mouse
jumps out from under the pillow
and, scuttling across your body,
disappears into the folds of the
blankets.

"Admit candidly, does not a shiver
actually run through your whole
body at the bare thought of
such a thing?

"Is it not so?

"Now please try to make
an exception and, without
the participation of any of
the subjective emotionality
that has become fixed in you,
picture to yourself with your
thought alone that such a thing
might happen to you, and you will
then be amazed that you would react
in such a way.

"What is so frightening about this?

"It is just an ordinary house mouse,
the most inoffensive of creatures.

"And so I ask you, how can all
that has been said be explained
by that 'will' which is presumed
to be in every man?

"How is it possible to reconcile
the fact that a man is terrified
by a timid little mouse, the most
frightened of all creatures, and by
thousands of similar trifles which
might never even occur, and yet
experiences no terror in the face
of the inevitability of his own
death?

"In any case, to explain such
a flagrant contradiction by
the action of the famous
human 'will' is
impossible.

"When this contradiction is
considered soberly, without
any preconceptions, that is,
without any of the ready-made
notions of various so-called
'authorities'-—whose wiseacrings
have taken hold of people on
account of their naïveté and
'herd instinct,' not to
mention the results
arising in their
mentation from an
abnormal education—-
it becomes perfectly
obvious that all these
fears from which there
does not arise in a man
an impulse, as we said,
to hang himself are
expressly permitted
by Nature to the
extent to which
they are indispensable
for the process of our
ordinary existence.

"And indeed without them—-
without all these, in the
objective sense, 'flea bites,'
which appear to us as
'unprecedented terrors'—-
we could not have any
experiencings at all,
whether of joy, sorrow,
hope, disappointment, and
so on, nor could we have all
those cares, stimuli, strivings,
or in general any of the impulses
that constrain us to act, to attain
something, and to strive toward 
some aim.

"It is just this totality of
'childish experiencings,' as
they might be called, arising
and flowing automatically in
the ordinary man, which, on
the one hand, make up and
sustain his life and, on
the other hand, leave him
neither the possibility
nor the time to see and
feel reality.

"If the ordinary contemporary
man were somehow to sense, or
to remember if only in thought,
that at a definite known date,
for instance tomorrow, a week,
or a month, or even a year or
two hence, he would die and
die for certain, what would
remain, one asks, of all that
until then had filled up and
constituted his life?

"Everything would lose its sense
and significance for him. What
would be the importance of the
decoration he received yesterday
for long service and which had so
delighted him, or that glance he
just noticed, so full of promise,
from the woman who had long been
the object of his constant and
unrewarded longing, or the
newspaper with his morning
coffee, and that deferential
greeting from his neighbor on
the stairs, and the theater in
the evening, and rest and sleep
all his favorite things—-what
worth would they all have?

"Certainly they would no longer
have the significance which he
had given them before if a man
knew that death would overtake
him only in five or ten years.

"In short, to look his own death
'in the face' the ordinary man
cannot and must not do, for he
would, so to say, 'get out of
his depth' and in clear-cut
form the question would arise
before him 'Why then should 
we live and toil and suffer?'

"Precisely that such a question
may not arise, Great Nature,
having become convinced that
in the common presence of most
people there are no longer any
factors for meritorious
manifestations proper to
three-centered beings, has
providentially and wisely
protected them by allowing
the arising in their common
presence of various consequences
of those properties unbecoming to
them which, in the absence of
proper actualizations, permit
them not to perceive or sense
reality.

"And Great Nature was constrained
to adapt herself to such an
abnormality, in the objective
sense, because owing to the
conditions of ordinary life
established by men themselves,
the deterioration in quality of
the radiations required of them
for higher common-cosmic purposes
insistently demanded, for the
maintenance of equilibrium, an
adaptation in the number of
arisings and in the duration
of these lives.

"Thus it is clear that life
is given to men not for
themselves but for
serving these higher
cosmic purposes, and
that is why Great Nature
watches over this life so
that it may flow in a more
or less tolerable form, and
takes care that it should not
prematurely cease.

"Do not we also—-we men—-feed,
watch over, look after, and
make the lives of our sheep
and pigs as comfortable as
possible?

"Do we do all this because
we value their lives for
the sake of their lives?

"No!

"We do all this in order
to slaughter them one fine
day and to obtain the meat
we need, with as much fat
as possible.

"In the same way Nature takes
all measures to ensure that
we shall live without seeing
the terror, and not hang
ourselves, but live long,
and then, when we are
required, she
slaughters us.

"In the established conditions
of the ordinary life of people,
this has already become an
immutable law of Nature.

"There is in our life a certain
very great purpose and we must
all serve this great common
purpose—-in this lies the
whole sense and
predestination
of our life.

"All people without exception
are slaves of this 'Greatness,'
and all are compelled willy-nilly
to submit, and to fulfill without
condition or compromise what has
been pre-destined for each of
us by his transmitted heredity
and his acquired being."
--Gurdjieff
--ch 48, from the author
--Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson