Federico Balsa, one of the Seeker’s Café regulars, has chosen to record what he regards as wise or significant statements made by various memebrs of the Café during their regular Saturday morning meetings. What follows is a collection of those quotations.
| From Records of Gurdjieff’s Paris Meetings, 1943 quoted by Robin Bloor |
| ON THE TOPIC: “Ashiata Shiemash” |
| “In the beginning, the sexual act was only meant to be used for the purpose of reproducing the species. But little by little, man made it a source of pleasure. It was meant to be a sacred act. Let us hope that if Ashiata Shiemash establishes his order on Earth once more, it will again become a sacred act.” |
| Robin Bloor ON THE TOPIC: “Something which took place while Louise March was working directly with Gurdjieff, translating 1st series into German”. |
| Gurdjieff: “You believe? You believe Ashiata Shiemash?” Louise pondered the question for a few moments, taken aback, then answered him by saying, “Yes. I believe he was real.” “Not was,” replied Gurdjieff sternly. “Will Be”! |
| QUOTED FROM: STEVE ARONSON |
| ON THE TOPIC: PERMEABILITY |
| As with the larger universe, we also are multi-layered. What is ‘outside’ or ‘inside’ for us depends upon the level within us from which we are viewing: The physical body is ‘outside’ for the ‘interior’ sensations. The sensations may be ‘outside’ from the perspective of thought, when thought is not identified with the sensations. Thoughts and feelings may be ‘outside’ when experienced objectively from a standpoint of self-observation. Self-observation may be experienced as ‘outside’ from a state of Self-Remembering. In a state of Self-Remembering, one may experience deeper feelings or images that seem to instantaneously convey new layers of meaning and understanding that appear to arise from ‘behind’ the point of seeing. Each of these levels must be permeable to influences from both directions: from the layers outside and from the deeper levels behind. |
| QUOTED FROM STEVE ARONSON ON THE TOPIC: : “How important is the study of ideas and diagrams for a practitioner of the Fourth Way?” |
| (…) my sense is that the ideas and diagrams in Gurdjieff’s work are critically important….. … to give the formatory apparatus something useful to do while we can go and actually learn about the Work. |
| QUOTED FROM STEVE ARONSON ON THE TOPIC: : “What is the gist of the Gurdieff WORK ?” |
| “It’s in the practice; and my experience tells me the practice is grounded in the body. As long as I can feel myself in the body, I know I am incarnated in this body. Then, other direct experiences can follow.” |
| QUOTED FROM STEVE ARONSON ON THE TOPIC: : “How does the Gurdjieff Work compare to Psychotherapy?” |
| (…) “all the psychological systems, other than Jung and psychosynthesis, perhaps, address themselves to the discomfort of sleeping man and are designed to help sleeping man be less uncomfortable in his sleep.” “Gurdjieff’s psychology, like the psychology of the Gospels, sees the possibility of man’s evolution as a psychological entity above and apart from his mechanicality and life on earth. And so, it encompasses all of the others, but infinitely exceeds them” |
| QUOTED FROM STEVE ARONSON ON THE TOPIC: : “How does the Gurdjieff Work compare specifically to Jungian Psychotherapy?” |
| “The Jungians seem to have a sense of this, but it is much more fuzzy, poetic, not coherent and certainly not systematized, but they are working around the edge. There is a wish for people to find this inner world, but I don’t see anything in that system that gives the guidelines, the maps or the methodology that Gurdjieff does.” |
| QUOTED FROM ROBIN BLOOR ON THE TOPIC: : “Isn´t the Gurdjieff Work mainly geared for an elite of intellectuals?” |
| “The majority of serious Gurdjieff groups are not heavy with intellectuals. They have their share, that is all. They attract also musicians, artists and very practical men – artisans if you like. My group in the UK is led by a man who restores and repairs small bridges. He is not an intellectual. He is a very practical man and an expert carpenter.” |
| QUOTED FROM ROBIN BLOOR ON THE TOPIC: : “Why is it necessary to work in groups?” “Isn´t self realization an individual process?” |
| ” Work with others is necessary because it exposes our deficiencies”. |
| QUOTED FROM RICHARD WEBB ON THE TOPIC: “Why does your average man in the street need a spiritual search?” |
| A “man on the streets” most often doesn’t have the perceived resources or support, so he is ‘alone’ with his essence; here he needs to understand the ‘alone with the alone’ and begin to seek anew. A “man in the streets” is a man dealing with a lot of inner and outer conflict his core organic nature is being stressed by hazard, of which he must survive, or not, while most often in his current state he cannot overcome, so his character is exposed in all its glory and horror. For all these men – the man in all these states – intellectualism is an escape, a drug to numb while inflating himself hopefully to get some attention and help – a cry of desperation in darkness of the day and light of the midnight sun. |
QUOTED FROM ROBIN BLOOR ON THE FOLLOWING TOPICS
What is the distinctive nature of Gurdjieff Groups? Can they be accessed by the “ordinary man-in-the-street” (i.e. someone who is not an intellectual with time and educational resources to devote to metaphysical enquiries)
Why is it necessary to work in groups?
How do you explain the existence of politics that lead up to splits in Gurdjieff Groups?
“The majority of serious Gurdjieff groups are not heavy with intellectuals. They have their share, that is all. They attract also musicians, artists and very practical men – artisans if you like. My group in the UK is led by a man who restores and repairs small bridges. He is not an intellectual. He is a very practical man and an expert carpenter.”
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“Work with others is necessary because it exposes our deficiencies”
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“Group splits and politics are normally the result of inflated egos”
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“It is not simply the case that anyone can lead a group. Neither is it the case that all members of a group have mastered their egos. In truth it seems that very few have. With some groups entropy sets in and they cease to have any usefulness or purpose – as with all other organizations in the world “
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“The collective will of a group is far stronger than any individual will of any member.”
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QUOTED FROM RICHARD WEBB ON THE FOLLOWING TOPICS
What do we mean by the expression: “the man in the street”. Is it the same idea that Gurdjieff conveys when he speaks of “mechanical man” or “man between quotation marks?
Is philosophical or intellectual enquiry a possible path to true understanding? If not, why not?
A “man on the streets” most often doesn’t have the perceived resources or support, so he is ‘alone’ with is essence; here he needs to understand the ‘alone with the alone’ and begin to seek anew.
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A “man in the streets” is a man dealing with a lot of inner and outer conflict his core organic nature is being stressed by hazard, of which he must survive, or not, while most often in his current state he cannot overcome, so his character is exposed in all its glory and horror.
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For all these men – the man in all these states – intellectualism is an escape, a drug to numb while inflating himself hopefully to get some attention and help – a cry of desperation in darkness of the day and light of the midnight sun.
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Groups have to ebb and flow like the rivers of life, they, from a Sufi point of view, arise when and where needed and then dissolve and move to where and whom necessary whereas the community or ‘line’ always remains ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–
Group work reinforces the recognition of one’s true brothers and sisters – a pupil makes the teacher ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-The – teacher is there to bring the pupil to his/her beginning in the shortest possible time. —————————————————————————————————————————————————————–Groups arise when and where the pupils are. The teacher appears when the pupil is ready.————————————————————————————————————————————————————
QUOTED FROM STEFFAN SOULE ON THE FOLLOWING TOPICS
What is the distinctive nature of Gurdjieff Groups?
The Fourth Way has the technology to awaken the dormant functions of Conscience,
SEEKERS´QUOTES: FIFTH INSTALLMENT
(Dcember 16, 2019)
QUOTED FROM: STUART GOODNICK
ON THE TOPIC: “The Interface theory of Perception in the light of Kundabuffer”
“Even though we have a conceit that our minds and our perceptual systems are somehow giving us a true picture of the world, the reality is that (and it´s a reality that is provable mathematically) we´re no different from the beetle, it´s just that we have more complex representations that we negotiate in our worlds and our lives”