http://www.metafilter.com/18947// Comments on MetaFilter post Comments on 18947 Tue, 06 Aug 2002 04:51:21 -0800 Tue, 06 Aug 2002 04:51:21 -0800 en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 60 http://www.metafilter.com/18947/ <a href="http://www.lumen.org/intros/intro20.html">George Ivanovich Gurdjieff. </a> Charismatic and controversial, infamous for introducing the <a href="http://www.duversity.org/ideas/enneagram.html" title="To be fair to Gurdjieff, the enneagram as we know it comes from Oscar Ichazo and Claude Naranjo, new age gurus and cult leaders of some notoriety">enneagram</a>, claimed by the <a href="http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/gurdjieffsufi/" title="Both teachings address the identity of man in terms of our disastrous sense of self. Gurdjieff pupils learn an elaborate and compelling set of teachings on false personality and multiple ''I's'' set against the background of the machinery of the centers. The general idea is that for most of us, nobody's at home because our internal landscape is in total disarray. To add to the confusion, our fragmented beings are continually bombarded by external stimuli via the five senses. We live in a state of kaleidoscopic fascination, and the moments of our lives are drained away to little purpose. The Sufi's similarly fight against the Nafs (ego) and maintain an arsenal of techniques to overcome and even reverse the ill effects of its utter mastery over us. We have eternal selves which are continuously in the divine presence, but stranded on this sad planet, we have forgotten this aspect of our existences and the connection to these higher selves has become attenuated. Both systems teach that there are higher functions within us that may be activated after a great deal of hard work on this problem of identity. ">Sufis</a>, linked to the little known <a href="http://www.yezidi.org/english/articles/gurdjieff-yezidism-2.html" title="The common assumption, as is often made regarding Gurdjieff's teaching, is that Yezidism is syncretist, a reconciling of differing beliefs and practices. An alternative view is that Yezidism is itself an ancient teaching: Yezidis themselves maintain that their religion is one of the oldest in the world. Veil after veil has been drawn over it to protect it from being destroyed by the missionary conversion-frenzy of later religions. The most recent dissimulation, the Islamic-Sufi veneer added by Sheikh Adi and his successors in the middle of the twelfth century, has served to disguise the Yezidis with a form that was at least somewhat recognizable, even if disapproved of, by Muslims in whom temporal power resided.">Yezidis</a>, (More <a href="http://www.yezidi.org/english/articles/gurdjieff-yezidism-1.html" title="The word Yezidi is used as the name of a tribal group (several tribes, really) and a religion practiced by that tribe. The first time the name appears in writing is in the eleventh century A. D. There are many theories about its origin, each being more or less likely for different reasons, so it is not known when they first were called Yezidis or why. Some consider the name stems from Ized (angel, God) or Yazata (worthy of worship), words found in the Avesta, the sacred writings of the Zoroastrians and the Parsees. Most Muslim writers believed the Yezidis are admirers of the Umayyad Caliph Yazid ibn Mu'awiya who was responsible for the death of the Prophet's grandson, Hussein. The younger son of Caliph Ali by the prophet's daughter Fatima, Hussein refused to swear allegiance to Yazid when he became Caliph. In 680 A. D., on his way from Medina to join supporters of Ali's family, Hussein was intercepted in the desert by agents of Yazid, and killed. Because of the belief in the Yezidis connection with Yazid (who was hated by the Shi'ites, the "partisans of ali, and not well thought of by sunnis either), yezidis were hated and persecuted. there was, indeed, in the kurdish mountains a religious movement which venerated yazid and the umayyad dynasty, but it isn't known if the yezidis were part of it.>here</a>), <a href="http://www.bmrc.berkeley.edu/people/rhodges/html/G-baker.html" title="Long and comprehensive version">Gurdjieff</a>--and his <a href="http://www.bmrc.berkeley.edu/people/misc/School.html" title="Short and condensed version">school</a>--have their detractors, whether <a href="http://www3.bc.sympatico.ca/st_simons/arm04.htm" title="Who is George Gurdjieff, and why is he having such a massive indirect impact on our churches today? Why in particular are 'post-charismatic' Roman Catholics, especially well-meaning nuns, becoming caught up in his questionable practices? The Rev. Dr. Robert Innes, Lecturer in Systematic Theology at St. John's College: Durham, England, tells us that the man credited with bringing the Enneagram to the West is George Gurdjieff, a Greek-Armenian from what is now the Republic of Georgia. While still a teen, Gurdjieff became immersed in occultic practices such as astrology, mental telepathy, spiritism, table turning, fortune telling and demon possession. Gurdjieff claimed that while he was in Afghanistan in 1897, he visited a monastery of the esoteric Sarmouni sect where he learned their mystical Sufi dancing, psychic powers and the Enneagram.">religious</a> or <a href="http://skepdic.com/gurdjief.html" title="George S. Georgiades was a Greco-Armenian charismatic con man who was born in Russia but made a name for himself in Paris as the mystic George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff. In Russia he established what he called ''The Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man'', which he re-established in France in 1922. It was at his Institute that Gurdjieff promoted a litany of preposterous occult and mystical notions about the universe, which he claimed he was taught by wise men while traveling and studying in Central Asia.">skeptic</a>. His ideas can be <a href="http://www.nccabq.com/~neil/art.html" title="Only help him who is not an idler. respect every religion. i love him who loves work. we can strive to be able to be christians. don't judge a man by the tales of others. consider what people think of you—not what they say. take the understanding of the east and the knowledge of the west—and then seek. he who can take care of what belongs to others may have his own. conscious suffering has any sense. it is better to be temporarily an egoist than never to be just. practice love first animals, they are more sensitive. by teaching others you will learn yourself. remember that here work is not for work's sake but is a means. he can be just who is able to put himself in the position of others. if you have not by nature a critical mind your staying here is useless. he who has freed himself of the disease of ''tomorrow'' has a chance to attain what he came here for. blessed is he who has a soul, blessed is he who has none, but woe and grief to him who has it in embryo. rest comes not from the quantity but from the quality of sleep. sleep little without regret. the energy spent active inner work is then and there transformed into a fresh supply, but that spent passive work is lost for ever. of the best means for arousing the wish to work yourself is to realize that you may die at any moment. but first you must learn how to keep it in mind. ">difficult </a>, abstruse and are ultimately beside the point. His thesis can be reduced to <a href="http://www.promart.com/G.quotes.html" title="Go out one clear starlit night to some open space and look up at the sky, at those millions of worlds over your head. Remember that perhaps on each of them swarm billions of beings, similar to you or perhaps superior to you in their organization. Look at the Milky Way. The earth cannot even be called a grain of sand in this infinity. It dissolves and vanishes, and with it, you. Where are you? And is what you want simply madness? Before all these worlds ask yourself what are your aims and hopes, your intentions and means of fulfilling them, the demands that may be made upon you and your preparedness to meet them. A long and difficult journey is before you; you are preparing for a strange and unknown land. The way is infinitely long. You do not know if rest will be possible on the way nor where it will be possible. You should be prepared for the worst. Take all the necessities for the journey with you.">this</a>: We are asleep, mere machines, acting from habit rather than volition. The goal then is to wake up and stay awake. And that is where the <a href="http://4thway.com/stella/Work-visual.htm" title="A cartoon--An eye candy soundbite--why I'll bet even jennak can relate!">Work</a> comes in. ( A bit more within)</a> post:www.metafilter.com,2002:site.18947 Tue, 06 Aug 2002 04:49:35 -0800 y2karl Gurdjieff Sufis Yezidis self-observation self-remembering Ouspensky FourthWay secrets esoteric Mysticism http://www.metafilter.com/18947/#316147 Actually, the work involves exercises, <a href="http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/1236/selfremember1.html" title="Try to divide your attention and see yourself, your organism, in your surroundings. Try to see the relationships between yourself and the world around you. And try to see the relationships between the things outside yourself which you observe. A rich new world of experience will open up for you. The more you can stand aside and look at yourself together with whatever attracts or repels you at the moment, the more you will awaken. This is called looking objectively on your relationship to your surroundings. ">self-remembering</a> or <a href="http://www.breath.org/self-observation/" title="Gurdjieff believed that because of our conditioning and education most of us live our lives as unconscious automatons. Oblivious to our own real potential, our essence, we are totally ''identified'' with our personality, our self-image, and with whatever thoughts, feelings, images, daydreams, or sensations capture our attention at the moment. Because we so quickly and mechanically say ''I'' to each impulse as it arises, says Gurdjieff, especially those impulses that support our self-image, we believe we are masters of ourselves, seldom noticing our own inner fragmentation and our lack of will and choice as a result of this fragmentation. We lose ourselves at every moment in one or another aspect of our lives, out of touch with the remarkable wholeness that is our birthright. ">self-observation</a>, for one example, the "<a href="http://kesdjan.com/exercises/iam.html" title="For the correct understanding of the significance of this first assisting exercise, it is first of all necessary to know that when a normal man, that is, a man who already has his real I, his will, and all the other properties of a real man, pronounces aloud or to himself the words ''I am,'' then there always proceeds in him, in his, as it is called, ''solar plexus,'' a so to say ''reverberation,'' that is, something like a vibration, a feeling, or something of the sort.">I am</a>", for another. These could even be described as meditations except they are active, involve some doing, rather than passive and contemplative. Gurdjieff's greatest disicple and interpeter was<a href="http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/1236/index.html" title="Remember yourself always and everywhere. P. D. Ouspensky"> P. D. Ouspensky</a>, whose<i><a href="http://www.promart.com/ISOTM.html" title="Everybody must have an aim. P.D. Ouspensky"> In Search Of The Miraculous</a></i> is the introduction wherein first most meet Gurdjieff and his thought. The <a href="http://www.gurdjieff.org/" title="There do exist enquiring minds, which long for the truth of the heart, seek it, strive to solve the problems set by life, try to penetrate to the essence of things and phenomena and to penetrate into themselves. If a man reasons and thinks soundly, no matter which path he follows in solving these problems, he must inevitably arrive back at himself, and begin with the solution of the problem of what he is himself and what his place is in the world around him. G. I. Gurdjieff ">Gurdjieff International Review</a> is the best all around site on the man and his thought. One caveat--as Gurdjieff's teachings were oral and experiential, his teaachings have remained largely estoreic and unwritten. Many schools contend, unfortunately some are outright cons and cults. disinformation has links concerning these, among others in their great <a href="http://www.disinfo.com/pages/dossier/id132/pg1" title="Don't follow leaders, watch the parking meters... Bob Dylan">Gurdjieff page</a>. comment:www.metafilter.com,2002:site.18947-316147 Tue, 06 Aug 2002 04:51:21 -0800 y2karl http://www.metafilter.com/18947/#316151 welcome to y2karl day on metafilter. comment:www.metafilter.com,2002:site.18947-316151 Tue, 06 Aug 2002 05:00:12 -0800 johnnyboy http://www.metafilter.com/18947/#316152 [cheerleader post] Great post Karl. Thanks. I'll take this sort of thing over Newsfilter <i>any </i>day. *goes off to read* [/cheerleader post] comment:www.metafilter.com,2002:site.18947-316152 Tue, 06 Aug 2002 05:03:28 -0800 stavrosthewonderchicken http://www.metafilter.com/18947/#316154 <i>welcome to <a href="http://tigtail.org/L_View/TVM/B/NAmerican/b.%20post%20WW%20II/warhol/M/warhol_three_stooges.jpg">y2karl</a> <a href="http://tigtail.org/L_View/TVM/B/NAmerican/b.%20post%20WW%20II/warhol/M/warhol_spam.jpg">day </a>on metafilter.</i> comment:www.metafilter.com,2002:site.18947-316154 Tue, 06 Aug 2002 05:08:57 -0800 y2karl http://www.metafilter.com/18947/#316157 I love sorts of thing. By the way I was complimenting you karl, enlightening as usual, great post. comment:www.metafilter.com,2002:site.18947-316157 Tue, 06 Aug 2002 05:19:36 -0800 johnnyboy http://www.metafilter.com/18947/#316174 I understand Bill Murray was a student of his teachings. comment:www.metafilter.com,2002:site.18947-316174 Tue, 06 Aug 2002 06:14:41 -0800 engelr http://www.metafilter.com/18947/#316182 Nice link. Gurdjieff is frequently compared with <a href="www.castaneda.org">Carlos Castaneda</a> and may have been one of his influences. Many of their ideas are similar, and both enjoyed scandals after their deaths related to their sexual lives and false aspects of their personal histories. comment:www.metafilter.com,2002:site.18947-316182 Tue, 06 Aug 2002 06:31:33 -0800 rushmc http://www.metafilter.com/18947/#316188 I was reading about Gurdjieff when I was 8. I was a weird kid. comment:www.metafilter.com,2002:site.18947-316188 Tue, 06 Aug 2002 06:41:47 -0800 Marquis http://www.metafilter.com/18947/#316194 Boy, does this bring back memories. I've always preferred the interpretations of <a href="http://www.gurdjieff.org/hunter1.htm">Maurice Nicoll</a>, and his Commentaries are very helpful in understanding what Gurdjieff was on about. Also, both <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0877288097/ref=ase_4thwaybooks/104-2727747-3463158">Beryl Pogson</a> and <a href="http://www.gurdjieff.org/heap.htm">Jane Heap</a> wrote very good books on the the Work life. The women in the Work are often overlooked, but both these books, especially Pogson's, provide marvelous insight. And of course, as with any movement, you should beware of <a href="http://www.rickross.com/groups/fof.html">false prophets</a>. Especially if they beat you. comment:www.metafilter.com,2002:site.18947-316194 Tue, 06 Aug 2002 06:50:47 -0800 kittyloop http://www.metafilter.com/18947/#316195 Gurdjieff didn't invent it. He described it. Here is another description: Students are with their masters ten years before they presume to teach others. Nan-in was visited by Tenno, who, having passed his apprenticeship, had become a teacher. The day happened to be rainy, so Tenno wore wooden clogs and carried an umbrella. After greeting him Nan-in remarked: "I suppose you left your wooden clogs in the vestibule. I want to know if your umbrella is on the right or left side of the clogs." Tenno, confused, had no instant answer. He realized that he was unable to carry his Zen every minute. He became Nan-in's pupil, and he studied six more years to accomplish his every-minute Zen. <i>There is only one Way.</i> comment:www.metafilter.com,2002:site.18947-316195 Tue, 06 Aug 2002 06:52:42 -0800 ewkpates http://www.metafilter.com/18947/#316207 <a href="http://www.disinfo.com/pages/article/id802/pg1/">alex burns</a> also wrote a pretty thorough article on <a href="http://www.disinfo.com/pages/article/id1762/pg1/">gurdjieff and peace studies</a> (and also linked to an interesting article on <a href="http://www.gurdjieff-legacy.org/40articles/money.htm">gurdjieff &amp; money</a> :) btw, this <a href="http://www.beastbay.com/beastbay/1018022164/index_html">cracked me up</a> for some reason, <blockquote>"Gurdjieff spoke with great fondness of the 'games' his father played on him as a child; games designed to shock the mind of the child onto a higher plane of awareness. The father would surprise the sleeping child in the early hours of the morning, force him to strip and go outside in the chill morning air where he was then doused with buckets of cold water."</blockquote>take it to the <a href="http://www.beastbay.com/beastbay/956167542/index_html">maat</a>! keke :) oh, and <a href="http://www.globalserve.net/~sarlo/RatingsR.htm">sarlo's guru rating service</a> (gurdjieff is up there with j.krishnamurti!) comment:www.metafilter.com,2002:site.18947-316207 Tue, 06 Aug 2002 07:06:18 -0800 kliuless http://www.metafilter.com/18947/#316214 I have read every single word of "Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson". I understood about five of them. "Meetings with Remarkable Men" is a great read all round tho' (and Peter Brook made a <a href="http://us.imdb.com/Title?0079542">film</a> of it (which I haven't seen, actually)). comment:www.metafilter.com,2002:site.18947-316214 Tue, 06 Aug 2002 07:15:22 -0800 PinkStainlessTail http://www.metafilter.com/18947/#316266 I started reading Beelzebub's tales as a result of reading about the guy on disinfo.com, in fact. I got through the intro just fine - despite continual assurances from the writer that I wouldn't. I only got about 50 pages into the actual book. It's an allegory of sorts. Beelzebub is a space alien that is responsible for our "idea" of what the devil looks like. The tales to his grandson are tales of his "exile" on Earth, told after his return to Space Alien society. I have difficulty reading alternative versions of the bible particularly since I don't believe in the original book. comment:www.metafilter.com,2002:site.18947-316266 Tue, 06 Aug 2002 08:14:23 -0800 jaded http://www.metafilter.com/18947/#316284 <i>Beelzebub is a space alien that is responsible for our "idea" of what the devil looks like</i> Sounds like he was a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345347951/ref%3Dnosim/mythopoeicsociet/104-4129859-1206306">Clarke fan.</a> comment:www.metafilter.com,2002:site.18947-316284 Tue, 06 Aug 2002 08:42:25 -0800 stuporJIX http://www.metafilter.com/18947/#316286 more likely, stuporJIX, it's the other way around... comment:www.metafilter.com,2002:site.18947-316286 Tue, 06 Aug 2002 08:46:52 -0800 jaded http://www.metafilter.com/18947/#316589 Beelzebub is a bit better described as a instrument whereby Gurgieff could introduce an external, 'objective', impartial point of view into the narative. On one level the book is offered as a criticism, of more or less, all of humanity. From Beelzebub's perspective we have an opportunity to see the 'normalcy' of human culture that we have habituated to. On this level it is an almost merciless attack on the present knowledge and values of humanity. There is a motive for this attack. It has been said that the knowledge of the variety offered by this system is not readily appreciable by just anyone. The proper 'state' of the student is seen to be as necessary as the information itself to understanding. When asked what most characterized a man as ready to begin to approach these ideas Ouspensky replied that he must have found all of life's normal sources of answers lacking. Politics, Religion and Science for example. He must have exhausted these possibilities and must then feel within him(her)self a real need for a method of a higher order. On a fundamental level it is not a system for 'believers'. From this point of view we might then re-evaluate the role of Beelzebub. There is no way for comment:www.metafilter.com,2002:site.18947-316589 Tue, 06 Aug 2002 14:17:41 -0800 randomnfactor http://www.metafilter.com/18947/#316668 Ah, let me add <a href="http://www.awakenings.com/properties/tree.html" title="The enneagram and the Kabbalistic Tree of Life ">Gurdjieff And The Kabbalah</a>, <a href="http://www.gurdjieff-legacy.org/40articles/christianity.htm" title="I do not know what you know about Christianity, answered Gurdjieff, emphasizing this word. It would be necessary to talk a great deal and to talk for a long time in order to make clear what you understand by this term. But for the benefit of those who already know, I will say that, if you like, this is esoteric Christianity.">Gurdjieff &amp; Christianity</a> and <a href="http://www.esotericlinks.com/miraculous.html" title="Homer Simpson: Whoo Hoo! ...Wait a minute--Oh, crap! this is a Buddhist link. What kind of a rip off is this? Where's the b00bies?">Gurdjieff and Sexuality</a> for your syncretic completist pleasure. comment:www.metafilter.com,2002:site.18947-316668 Tue, 06 Aug 2002 15:45:16 -0800 y2karl http://www.metafilter.com/18947/#316676 <i>We are asleep, mere machines, acting from habit rather than volition.</i> In other words, we are all <a href="http://www.kottke.org/plus/misc/ryanandjacob.txt">fakes</a> comment:www.metafilter.com,2002:site.18947-316676 Tue, 06 Aug 2002 15:53:57 -0800 kindall http://www.metafilter.com/18947/#316815 the asleep and need to wake stuff is pretty much what existentialism is/was all about. i make this banal observation only because i've just finished mary warnock's book "existentialism" and want to recommend it. it is excellent - clear, sensible, witty, intelligent, interesting etc etc. comment:www.metafilter.com,2002:site.18947-316815 Tue, 06 Aug 2002 18:52:12 -0800 andrew cooke http://www.metafilter.com/18947/#320476 Gurdjieff's teachings were responsible for Peter Murphy (of "Bauhaus" fame) converting to Sufi Islam some time back. So I've been told. comment:www.metafilter.com,2002:site.18947-320476 Tue, 13 Aug 2002 00:15:56 -0800 laz-e-boy