CH 48 PART THREE of Real "I" and a CLEAN SHEET

[James Wyly]

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CH 48 PART THREE of Real "I" and a CLEAN SHEET

Chapter 48: From the author

From the author

PART THREE

Beelzebub's Tales
to His Grandson

REAL "I"

Here it will not be
superfluous to point
out that the Institute
for the Harmonious Development
of Man has among its fundamental
tasks the aim, on the one hand,
of educating in its pupils
each of the independent
personalities I spoke of,
first separately and then
in their reciprocal
relationships,
according to the
needs of their
subjective life
in the future,
and on the other
hand, of begetting
and fostering in each
of its pupils what every
bearer of the name of "man
without quotation marks"
should have—-his own
"I."

For a more exact, and
so to speak scientific,
definition of the difference
between a real man, that is,
a man as he ought to be,
and a "man in quotation
marks," such as almost
all contemporary people
have become, it is
appropriate to
quote here what
was said about
this by Gurdjieff
himself in one of
his lectures.

What he said was this:

"For the definition of man,
according to our point of view,
no contemporary knowledge, whether
anatomical, physiological, or
psychological, can help us,
since each of the
characteristics
it describes is
inherent to one
degree or another
in every man and
applies equally
to all, and
consequently
this knowledge
does not enable
us to determine
the exact difference
between people that
we wish to establish.

"The measure of this
difference can only be
formulated in the
following terms:

"'Man is a being who can
'do,' and 'to do' means to
act consciously and by

one's own initiative.

"And indeed every more or
less sane-thinking man,
capable of being at all
impartial, must admit
that never before has
there been, nor could
there be, a fuller or
more exhaustive
definition.

"Suppose that we provisionally
accept this definition, the
question inevitably arises
can a man who is a product
of contemporary education
and civilization do anything
at all himself, consciously
and by his own will?

"No . . . we answer at
once to this question.

"And why not? . . .

"Simply because, as the
Institute for the Harmonious
Development of Man categorically
affirms and demonstrates on the
basis of its experiments,
everything without
exception, from
beginning to end,
'does itself in
contemporary man,
and there is nothing
that a contemporary 
man himself does.

"In personal, family, and
social life, in politics,
science, art, philosophy,
and religion, in short, in
everything entering into the
process of the ordinary life
of a contemporary man,
everything from
beginning to end
does itself, and
not a single one
of these 'victims
of contemporary
civilization'
can 'do'
anything.

"This experimentally proved,
categorical affirmation of the
Institute for the Harmonious
Development of Man, namely,
that the ordinary man can
'do' nothing and that
everything does itself
in him, coincides with
what is said of
man by contemporary
'exact positive science.'

"Contemporary 'exact positive
science' says that a man is a
very complex organism developed
by evolution from the simplest
organisms, and now capable of
reacting in a very complex
manner to external
impressions.

"This capacity for reaction
in man is so complex, and the
reflex movements can be so far
removed from the causes evoking
and conditioning them, that to
naive observation the actions
of man, or at least some of
them, seem quite 
spontaneous.

According to the ideas of
Gurdjieff, the ordinary man
is really incapable of the
slightest independent or
spontaneous action or
word.

"He is entirely the result
of external influences.

"Man is a transforming machine,
a kind of transmitting station
of forces.

"Thus from the point of view of
the totality of Gurdjieff's ideas
and also according to contemporary
'exact positive science,' a man
differs from animals only in
the greater complexity both
of his reactions to external
impressions and of the
structure of his
perceptive system.

"And as for that which is
attributed to man and is
called 'will,' Gurdjieff
completely denies the
possibility of its
existence in the
common presence
of the ordinary
man.

WILL

"Will is a certain combination
obtained from the results of
definite properties specially
elaborated in themselves by
people who can 'do.'

"In the presence of ordinary
people what they call 'will'
is exclusively the resultant

of desires.

REAL WILL

"Real will is the sign of a
very high degree of being in
comparison with the being of
the ordinary man. And only
those who possess such
being can 'do.'

"All other people are simply
automatons, machines, or mechanical
toys set in motion by external forces,
acting only insofar as the 'spring'
placed in them acts in response to
accidental surrounding conditions—-
a spring that they can neither
lengthen nor shorten, nor
change in any way on
their own initiative.

"And so, while recognizing great
possibilities in man, we deny him
any value as an independent unit
as long as he remains such as

he is today.

In order to emphasize the
absence of any will whatsoever
in the ordinary man, there can
be added here a passage from
another of Gurdjieff's talks,
in which the manifestations
of this famous will
attributed to man
are picturesquely
described.

Addressing one of the
people present,
Gurdjieff said:

"You have plenty of money,
luxurious conditions of existence,
and universal esteem and respect.
At the head of your well-
established business
concerns you have
people who are
absolutely
reliable and
devoted to you,
in a word, your
life is a bed of
roses.

"You dispose of your time
as you please, you are a patron
of the arts, you settle world
questions over a cup of
coffee, and you even take
an interest in the development
of the latent spiritual forces
of man. You are not unfamiliar
with matters of the spirit, and
you are quite at home with
philosophical questions.
You are well educated
and widely read. Having
extensive knowledge in a
variety of fields, you are
reputed to be an intelligent
man, adept at resolving any
problem whatever. You are
the very model of culture.

"All who know you regard
you as a man of great will,
and most of them even ascribe
your success to the result of
the manifestations of this
will of yours.

"In short, from every point
of view, you fully deserve
to be imitated and are a
man to be envied.

"In the morning you wake
up under the influence of
some oppressive dream.

"Your slightly depressed mood,
though rapidly dispelled on
awakening, has nevertheless
left its mark a certain
languidness and
hesitancy in your
movements.

"You go to the mirror to
brush your hair and carelessly
drop the brush, you have only
just picked it up, when you
drop it again. You then pick
it up with a shade of impatience,
and so you drop it for the third
time, you try to catch it in
the air, but . . . an unlucky
blow of your hand, and the
brush makes for the mirror,
in vain you try to grab it . . . too late!

Crack! . . .

There is a star of
cracks on that antique
mirror of which you were
so proud.

"Damn! Devil take it! You
feel a need to vent your
annoyance on someone or
other, and not finding
the newspaper beside your
morning coffee, the servant
having forgotten to put it
there, the cup of your
patience overflows and
you decide that you
cannot stand the
fellow any longer
in the house.

"It is time for you to go out.
As the weather is fine and you
haven't far to go, you decide
to walk. Behind you glides
your new automobile of the
latest model.

"The bright sunshine somewhat
calms you. A crowd that has
collected at the corner
attracts your attention.

"You go nearer, and in the
middle of the crowd you see
a man lying unconscious on
the pavement. A policeman,
with the help of some of
the 'bystanders,' puts the
man into a taxi to take him
to the hospital.

"Thanks merely to the likeness,
which has just struck you, between
the face of the taxi driver and the
face of the drunken monk you bumped
into last year when you were
returning, somewhat tipsy
yourself, from a rowdy
birthday party, you
notice that the accident
on the street corner is
unaccountably connected
in your associations
with a cake you ate
at that party.

"Ah, what a cake that was!

"That servant of yours,
forgetting your newspaper
today, spoiled your breakfast.
Why not make up for it right
now?

"Here is a fashionable Café
where you sometimes go with
your friends.

"But why did you suddenly
remember the servant? Had
you not almost entirely
forgotten the morning's
annoyances? But now . . .
how very good the
cake tastes with
the coffee.

"Look! There are two young
women at the next table.
What a charming blonde!

"You hear her whispering to
her companion, as she glances
at you 'Now that's just the
sort of man I like!'

"Do you deny that on
accidentally overhearing
these words, perhaps said
out loud for your benefit,
the whole of you, as is
said, 'inwardly
rejoices'?

"Suppose that at this moment
you were asked whether it had
been worth while getting worked
up and losing your temper over
the morning's annoyances, you
would of course answer in the
negative and promise yourself
that nothing of the kind
would ever occur again.

"Need I mention how your mood
was transformed while you were
making the acquaintance of the
blonde you were interested in
and who was interested in you,
and what your state was during
the whole time you spent with
her?

"You return home humming some
gay tune, and even the sight
of the broken mirror only
elicits a smile from you.

"But how about the business
on which you had gone out
this morning? . . . You
only now remember it.
Clever . . . well,
never mind, you
can telephone.

"You go to the phone and
the girl connects you with
the wrong number.

"You ring again, and get the
same number. Some man informs
you that you are bothering him,
you tell him it is not your fault,
and what with one word and another,
you learn to your surprise that you
are a boor and an idiot and that
if you ring him up again . . . then . . .

"A rug slipping under your feet
provokes a storm of indignation,
and you should hear the tone of
voice in which you rebuke the
servant who is handing you a
letter!

"The letter is from a man you
esteem and whose good opinion
you value highly.

"Its contents are so flattering
that, as you read, your irritation
subsides and gives way to the
'pleasant embarrassment' of a
man listening to a eulogy of
himself. You finish reading
the letter in the happiest
of moods.

"I could go on with this
picture of your day—-
you free man!

"Perhaps you think
I am exaggerating?

"No, it is a photographically
exact snapshot, taken from life."

While speaking of man's
will and of the different
aspects of its supposedly
autonomous manifestations,
which for contemporary so-
called "inquiring minds"—-
but in our view, naive
minds—-serve only as
material for wiseacring
and self-adulation, it
will do no harm to
quote what Gurdjieff
said in yet another of
his talks, because the
ideas he brought on that
occasion may well throw
light on the illusoriness
of that will which every
man is supposed to 
have.

A CLEAN SHEET

He spoke as follows:

"A man comes into the
world like a clean sheet
of paper, which immediately
all around him begin vying
with each other to dirty
and fill up with education,
morality, the information we
call 'knowledge,' and with all
kinds of ideas of duty, honor,
conscience, and so on and

so forth.

"And each and all claim
immutability and infallibility
for the methods they employ for
grafting these branches onto
the main trunk, called man's
'personality.'

"The sheet of paper gradually
becomes dirty, and the dirtier
it becomes, that is to say, the
more a man is stuffed with
ephemeral information and
notions of duty, honor, and
so on, which are dinned into
him or suggested to him by
others, the more 'clever'
and worthy he is
considered by those
around him.

"And seeing that people look
upon his dirt as merit, he
himself inevitably comes to
look upon the dirtied sheet
of paper in the same light.

"And so you have a model
of what we call a 'man,'
to whom such words as
'talent' and 'genius'
are frequently 
applied.

"And the temper of our
'genius' when he wakes
up in the morning is
spoiled for the whole
day if he does not
find his slippers
beside the bed.

"The ordinary man is 
not free in his life, in his
manifestations, or in his
moods.

"He cannot be what he
would like to be, and
what he considers himself
to be, he is not that.

"Man—how mighty it sounds!
The very name 'man' means
the 'acme of creation', but
how does this title fit
contemporary man?

"And yet man should indeed
be the acme of creation, since
he is formed with and has in
himself all the possibilities
for acquiring exactly similar
data to those of the
Actualizer of all that
exists in the Universe.

"To have the right to the
name of man, one must 
be one.

"And to be a man, one
must first of all, with
an indefatigable persistence
and an unquenchable impulse of
desire issuing from all the
separate independent parts
constituting one's entire
common presence, that is
to say, with a desire
issuing simultaneously
from thought, feeling,
and organic instinct,
work on an all-round
knowledge of oneself,
while struggling
unceasingly with
one's subjective
weaknesses, and
afterward, taking
one's stand upon the
results thus obtained
by one's consciousness
alone regarding the
defects in one's
established subjectivity
as well as the means for
the possibility of
combating them,
strive for their
eradication without
mercy toward oneself.

"Speaking frankly, contemporary
man as we can know him if we are
capable of impartiality is nothing
more than a clockwork mechanism,
though of a very complex
construction.

SENSE AND AIM OF
ARISING AND EXISTENCE

"A man must without fail think
deeply about every aspect of his
mechanicality and understand it
thoroughly, in order to appreciate
fully the meaning of this
mechanicality and all the
consequences and results
it implies, both for his
own further life and for
the justification of the
sense and aim of his
arising and existence.

"For a man who wishes to study
human mechanicality in general
and make it clear to himself,
the very best object of study
is certainly himself with his
own mechanicality, but to study
this practically and to understand
it intelligently with all one's being,
and not 'psychopathically,' that is,
with only one part of one's entire
presence, is possible solely by
means of correctly conducted
self-observation.

"And as regards the possibility
of conducting self-observation
correctly, without the risk of
incurring any of the maleficent
consequences that have resulted
all too often from people's
attempts to do this without
proper knowledge, it is
necessary to warn you, in
order to avoid excessive zeal,
that our experience, supported
by a great deal of exact information,
has shown that this is not as simple
a thing as it may appear at first
glance. That is why we take as
the groundwork for correctly
conducted self-observation
the study of the mechanicality
of contemporary man.

"Before beginning to study this
mechanicality and all the principles
of correctly conducted self-observation,
a man must decide, once and for all,
that he will be unconditionally
sincere with himself, that he
will shut his eyes to nothing,
will shun no results wherever
they may lead him, fear no
inferences, and impose no
limits upon himself in
advance, furthermore, in
order that these principles
may be properly perceived and
assimilated by each of the
followers of this new
teaching, an appropriate
form of 'language' must be
established, since we find
the existing form quite
unsuitable for such a
study.

"As regards the first condition,
it is necessary at the very outset
to give warning that a man,
unaccustomed to thinking and
acting along lines that
correspond to the
principles of self-
observation, will need
great courage to accept
sincerely the conclusions
reached and not lose heart,
but submit to them and continue
to follow these principles with
the crescendo of persistence
that this study obligatorily
demands.

"These conclusions may, as is
said, 'upset' all the convictions
and beliefs deep-rooted in a man,
as well as the whole order of his
usual thinking, and in that event,
he may be robbed, perhaps forever,
of all the pleasant 'values dear
to his heart' which have
hitherto made up his
calm and serene life.

"Thanks to correctly conducted
self-observation, a man, from
the very first days, will
clearly grasp and recognize
without question his complete
powerlessness and helplessness
in the face of literally
everything around 
him.

"With the whole of his being
he will be convinced that
everything governs him,
everything directs him.
He neither governs nor
directs anything at all.

"He is attracted or repelled
not only by everything animate
which has in itself the capacity
of arousing one or another
association in him, but even
by entirely inert and
inanimate things.

"If he frees himself of all
imagination about himself and
of all self-calming—-impulses
which have become inherent in
contemporary people—-he will
recognize that his whole life
is nothing but a blind reacting
to these attractions and
repulsions.

"He will see clearly how his
so-called 'world outlook,' his
opinions, character, taste, and
so on, have been molded—-in short,
how his individuality has been
formed and under what
influences it is liable
to be changed.

"And as regards the second
condition, that is, the
establishment of a
correct language,
this is indispensable
because our recently
adopted language, which
has acquired, as it were,
'rights of citizenship,'
and in which we speak,
write books, and convey
our knowledge and ideas
to others has, in our view,
become quite worthless for
any more or less exact 
exchange of opinions.

"The words that make up our
contemporary language, owing
to the arbitrary meaning people
put into them, convey only
indefinite and relative
notions, and are thus
taken by ordinary people
'elastically.'

EDUCATION

"In producing this abnormality
in the life of man, a large part
was played, in our opinion, BY
THAT SAME ABNORMAL SYSTEM 
OF EDUCATION OF THE RISING
GENERATION.

"And it played a large part
because by compelling the young,
as we have already said, to repeat
like parrots the greatest possible
number of words, teaching them to
differentiate one from another
only by their sound, as though
the real pith of their meaning
had no importance, this system
of education has resulted in the
gradual loss in people of the
capacity to ponder and reflect
upon what they are talking
about and upon what is
being said to them.

"Having lost this capacity and
at the same time needing to
convey their thoughts more
or less exactly to others,
they are obliged, in spite
of the endless number of
words already existing in
each of the contemporary
languages, either to borrow
from other languages or to
invent always more and
more words, so that
finally, when a
contemporary man
wishes to express
an idea for which
he knows many apparently
suitable words, and chooses
one that seems according to
his mental reflection to be
the most fitting, he still
instinctively feels uncertain
whether his choice is correct,
and unconsciously gives the
word his own subjective
meaning.

"Owing to this already automatized
habit and to the gradual disappearance
of the capacity to concentrate his
active attention for any length of
time, the ordinary man on saying or
hearing any word involuntarily
emphasizes and dwells upon one
or another aspect of the idea
conveyed by the word, invariably
limiting the whole meaning of the
word to this one aspect, that is
to say, this word, instead of
including all the implications
of the given idea, expresses
only the first meaning that
happens to come to him,
depending upon the
automatic associations
flowing in him. Hence
every time the contemporary
man hears or utters one and
the same word in the course
of conversation, he gives it
a different meaning, often
quite contradictory to the
full sense conveyed by 
the word.

"For any man who is to some
extent aware of this, and has
learned more or less how to
observe, the conversation of
two contemporary people is a
'tragicomic feast of sound'
which becomes particularly
evident when others join it.

"Each of them puts his own
subjective meaning into all
the words that have become
centers of gravity in that
so to say 'symphony of words
without content,' which to the
ear of this impartial and
informed observer is simply
what is called in the ancient
'sinokooloopianian' tales of
The Thousand and One Nights,
'cacophonous, fantastic
nonsense.'

"While conversing in this way,
contemporary people imagine that
they understand one another and
are even certain they are
communicating their
thoughts to one
another.

"We, on the other hand, relying
upon a mass of indisputable data
confirmed by psycho-physico-chemical
experiments, categorically affirm
that as long as contemporary people
remain what they are, that is,
'ordinary people,' they will
never, whatever they may be
talking about among themselves,
and particularly if the subject
is abstract, understand the same
ideas from the same words, nor
will they ever actually
understand one 
another.

"That is why in the ordinary
contemporary man, every inner
experience, even a painful one,
that might oblige him to think
and lead him to logical results
which could be very beneficial
to those around him, remains
unexpressed and is only
transformed into a so to
say 'enslaving factor'
for himself.

"For this reason, the isolation
of the inner life of each individual
is increased, and as a consequence
the 'mutual instruction' so
necessary to people's
collective existence
is disappearing more
and more.

"Owing to the loss of the
capacity to ponder and reflect,
whenever the average contemporary
man hears or uses in conversation
any word familiar to him only by
its sound, he does not pause to
think, nor does he even ask
himself exactly what is
meant by this word, since
he has already decided, once
and for all, that he knows it
and that others know it too.

"Perhaps a question does arise
in him when he hears an entirely
unfamiliar word for the first time,
but in this case he is content
merely to substitute another
word with a familiar sound,
and then to imagine that he
has understood it.

"To bring home what has just
been said, an excellent example
is provided by a word very often
used by every contemporary man—
the word 'world.'

"If people could grasp all that
goes on in their thoughts every
time they hear or say the word
'world,' most of them would have
to admit—-if of course they were
willing to be sincere—-that the
word carries no exact notion
whatever for them. Simply
catching by ear the accustomed
sound of this word, the meaning
of which they assume they know,
they say to themselves, as it
were, 'Ah . . . world . . . I
know what that is,' and
serenely continue on
their way.

"If someone deliberately drew
their attention to this word
and knew how to get them to
say just what they understood
by it, they would at first be
plainly embarrassed but, quickly
pulling themselves together, that
is to say, quickly deceiving
themselves and recalling the
first definition of the word
that came to mind, they would
present it as their own,
although, in fact, they
had not thought about
it before.

"And if one had the authority
to oblige a number of contemporary
people, even from among those who
have received what is called a
'good education,' to state
exactly how they each
understood the word 'world,'
they would all 'beat about the
bush' so much that one would
involuntarily recall castor
oil with a certain tenderness.
For instance, one of these
people, who among other
things had read up a few
books on astronomy, would
say that the 'world' is a
multitude of suns surrounded
by planets at colossal distances
from each other, forming together
what we call the 'Milky Way',
beyond which, at immeasurable
distances and beyond the limits
of space accessible to our
investigations, are
presumably other
constellations and
other worlds.

"Another, interested in
contemporary physics, would
speak of the 'world' as a
systematic evolution of matter,
beginning with the atom and going
up to the very largest aggregates
such as planets and suns, he would
perhaps refer to the theory of the
similitude of the world of atoms
and electrons and the world of
suns and planets, and so on in
the same strain.

"Still another who, for some
reason or other, had made a
hobby of philosophy and read
all the mish-mash on that
subject, would say that
the 'world' is only the
product of our subjective
picturings and imaginings,
and that our earth, for
example, with its
mountains and seas,
its vegetable and
animal kingdoms, is
all a world of
appearances, an
illusory world.

"A man acquainted with the
latest theories of polydimensional
space would say that the 'world' is
usually considered as an infinite
three-dimensional sphere, but
that in reality a three-
dimensional world cannot
exist as such, and is only
an imaginary cross section
of another four-dimensional
world, from which comes
everything proceeding
around us and into
which everything
returns.

"A man whose world view is
founded on the dogmas of religion
would state that the 'world' is
everything existing, visible
and invisible, created by
God and dependent on His
Will. In the visible world
our life is brief, but in the
invisible world, where a man
receives reward or punishment
for all his deeds during his
sojourn in the visible world,
life is eternal.

"One bitten with 'spiritualism'
would say that, side by side with
the visible world there exists
another, a 'world' of the
'beyond,' and that
communications have
already been established
with the beings populating
this world of the 'beyond.'

"A fanatic of theosophy would
go still further and say that
seven 'worlds' exist which
interpenetrate each other
and are composed of more
and more rarefied matter,
and so on.

"In short, not a single one
of our contemporaries would
be able to offer an exact
definition, acceptable to
all, of the real meaning
of the word 'world.'

"The whole inner life of the
ordinary man is nothing but an
'automatized contact' between
two or three series of
associations made up of
impressions previously
perceived by him and
fixed in each of his
three differently natured
localizations or 'brains,'
through the action of some
chance impulse arising in
him. When these associations
reappear, that is to say, when
corresponding impressions are
repeated, one can see that
under the influence of some
accidental inner or outer
shock, impressions of the
same nature are repeated
in another localization.

"All the particularities of
the world view of the ordinary
man and the characteristic features
of his individuality ensue from and
depend on the sequence of impulses
arising in him at the moment of
perceiving new impressions, and
also on the automatism
established for starting
the process of repetition
of those impressions.

"And it is this that explains
the incongruity, which can be
observed even by the ordinary
man, of the various associations
having nothing in common that flow
simultaneously in him during his
passive state.

"These impressions are perceived
in a man's common presence by means
of three apparatuses in him which act
as perceivers of the seven what are
called 'planetary center-of-gravity
vibrations,' found in him as in all
animals.

"The structure of these three
perceiving apparatuses in man
is the same for each part of
the mechanism.

"They resemble clean wax
gramophone 'disks', and on
these disks or, as they might
otherwise be called, 'reels,'
all the impressions received
are recorded, from the first
days after a man's appearance
in the world, and even before,
during the period of his
formation in his mother's
womb.

"And the different apparatuses
constituting this general mechanism
also possess a certain automatic
device, thanks to which newly
entering impressions, in
addition to being recorded
alongside similar ones
previously perceived,
are also recorded in
chronological order.

"Thus every impression
experienced is recorded
in several places on several
reels, and on these reels it
is preserved unchanged.

"These impressed perceptions
have the property, on contact
with vibrations of the same
nature and quality, of, so
to say, 'rousing themselves,'
and an action is then repeated
in them similar to the one that
evoked their first arising.

"And it is this repetition of
previously perceived impressions
that engenders what is called an
'association', and the parts of
this repetition that enter the
field of a man's attention
condition what is called
'memory.'

"The memory of an ordinary man,
compared with that of a man who
is harmoniously developed, is
very imperfectly adapted for
the utilization during his
responsible life of his
store of previously
perceived impressions.

"With the aid of his memory,
an ordinary man can use and
keep track of only a tiny
part of his whole store of
impressions, whereas the
memory proper to a real
man keeps track of all
his impressions without
exception, no matter when
they were perceived.

"Many experiments have been
made, establishing with indubitable
exactitude that every man in certain
states, as for example in a certain
stage of hypnosis, can remember
everything that has ever
happened to him down to
the most minute particular,
he can remember all the
details of his surroundings
and the faces and voices of
the people near him even in
the first days of his life,
when he was still, according
to people's notions, an
unconscious being.

"When a man is in one of these
states, it is possible, by
artificial means, to set
in motion the reels
hidden in even the
most obscure corners
of his mechanism. But
it also happens that
these reels begin
unwinding of
themselves
under the
influence
of some overt
or hidden shock
evoked by some
experiencing,
whereupon there
suddenly rise up
before the man long-
forgotten scenes,
picturings, faces,
and so on."

Gurdjieff

continued in PART FOUR