From "Life is Real..."
At about ten-thirty several of my old acquaintances came in, three of whom are considered there to be writers—and sitting down at my table they began to drink their morning coffee. Among them was one who had worked for me for a good many years on translations of my writings into the English language. I decided to take advantage of his coming to find out how the beginning of this last book of mine would "sound." I gave him the pages just written to translate, and continued writing. We both worked, while the others drank coffee and talked. At eleven o'clock, in order to rest a little, I asked the translator to read aloud what he had already translated. When he came, in the translation, to the expression used by me, "intentional suffering," I interrupted his reading, for he had translated the word "intentional" by the word "voluntary." As I attempted to explain the great difference between the voluntary and intentional suffering of man, there arose a general philological discussion, as is usual in such cases.
In the heat of the argument one of us was called to the telephone. He came back quickly and announced excitedly that someone wanted to speak to me personally. I learned from the telephone message that a telegram had just come from London saying that Mr. Orage had died that same morning. This news was so unexpected that at first I didn't even take in what it was about. When I grasped it, however, it fairly struck me. And it struck me especially because at the same time I remembered certain events connected with this day and with this person.
All at once, there began to be constated in my consciousness various conclusions which I had drawn in my past life, but which had not yet been formed into a conviction, concerning the fact of "noticeable coincidences" which take place in our lives. In this case, the strangeness of the coincidence showed itself noticeably in that, in this selfsame night, exactly seven years before, as the first of those ideas took form in me on which will be based the contents of the book begun today, I had dictated a letter to just this person and mentioned many of these thoughts. I had dictated an answer to a private letter from this person concerning the cure for his chronic disease, from which, it seems, he also died.
It was midnight on the 6th of November of the year 1927. I lay sleepless in a whirlpool of oppressive thoughts and, trying to think of something to divert myself a little from my heavy thoughts, I remembered by association, among other things, the letter received a few days before. On thinking of his letter, and considering his attitude of well-wishing, recently proven to me, I, quite without pity, woke up my secretary who was sleeping in the same apartment, and dictated the answer.
At that time Mr. Orage was considered to be, and indeed was, the most important leader in the disseminarion of my ideas in the whole northern part of North America. As in those days I was completely filled with thoughts about my own sickness, and almost entirely convinced of the possibility of regulating my health by means of intentional suffering, I, of course, advised him to do the same—but in a form corresponding to his individuality and the conditions of his ordinary life.
I shall not relate here about his further letters and our personal conversations in connection with his illness and my advice; I shall only point out that the essence of the cause of the failure of my advice can be clearly explained to every reader by the words occurring in one of the chapters of this third series, which come from his own mouth. Among the many unprofitable consequences of this event, namely, the death of Mr. Orage, unprofitable for me and my writings, was also that from that day on, just that 6th of November, for two months, in spite of my constant wish, and constant efforts, I was not able to add a single word to what I had written up to half-past eleven that morning. And I could not do so thanks to the awakening of one of those factors which arises without fail in the psyche of contemporary people, particularly in Americans, the totality of which causes even the budding of different impulses to become mechanical.
Contrary to the established habits of my former visits, on this stay of mine I had been avoiding all meetings with acquaintances living here, aside from a few people who corresponded to my aim. But now, each and every one of the great number of people who knew me here, and who learned through the papers or telephone conversations—a usual custom here—of the death of my close friend, Mr. Orage, thanks to the said action of the automatically arisen factor, considered it their duty to seek me out in order to express their so-called "sympathy."
And there came and telephoned not only people who were members of that group which Mr. Orage had led, but also people of whose existence I hadn't the faintest idea. Among these latter were many acquaintances whom, as it turned out, I had met only once and just by chance on my first visit here, eleven years before. Even in the mornings, when I came to the cafe to work, some Mister or Mistress or other would be sitting there waiting for me. And no sooner was the He or the She gone than another one would come to my table, and unfailingly with an obviously false, sad face.
Each one of these visitors would "burst" out at once with his "How do you do, Mr. Gurdjieff?" and follow it inevitably with the stereotyped phrase: "Oh, I am very sorry about Mr. Orage's death!"
What could I answer to this? The question of death is just that question which supersedes all the established and subjectivized conditions of bur life.
In this case, I could not use my usual means for keeping at a distance those visitors who disturbed me at my work. That would mean the immediate and thoughtless creation of new and eager disseminators of gossip to my discredit. Even before my arrival in America I had had the intention, as soon as I should begin the writing of this last book of mine, at the same time to make visits, as often as possible, to those states of North America in which groups of people were organized who were followers of my ideas. In this way, I calculated that simultaneously with the completion at the predetermined time limit of all the tasks I had set myself, I would have completed this last book, as well as the organization of everything required for the dissemination of the first series of my writings. And therefore, in order to change the circumstances which had arisen which were disturbing my work, I set off as quickly as possible, traveling first to Washington, then to Boston, and from there to Chicago.
But nothing helped—the same thing repeated itself everywhere!
It is perhaps a little understandable that people who knew me in the mentioned cities felt it necessary to express their sympathy to me, as they almost all had known Mr. Orage personally and also his relationship to me. But the fact that American acquaintances of certain far southern states of North America also began to do this—this was really "stuff and nonsense."
Among the people of the Southern states who expressed their world-famous "sympathy" were those who not only had never seen Mr. Orage but had never even heard of his existence. They had just learned a few days before that he had died, and that he had been one of my most important assistants. And thus, among the number of unexpectedly arisen circumstances which prevented me in this period from fulfilling the "Being-task" I had set myself, was suddenly and unexpectedly established this vicious weakness, which has gained citizenship in the general psyche of modern man—"to express sympathy."
It has just occurred to me that the thoughts which I expressed to a small group of people at a meeting in a suburb, in connection with the death of Mr. Orage, might serve as a better clarification of the meaning and significance of the whole contents of this chapter, and I have therefore decided to recollect these thoughts in my memory and to add them here.
• this meeting, while drinking coffee, we were speaking of the different habits which take possession of us in our childhood, and which enslave us also after the attainment of mature years.
• this moment there arrived one of their comrades, with a jolly, flushed face. Being late, he had probably been walking quicker than usual, and he had not reckoned on running into me. But as soon as he caught sight of me, the expression of his face changed and, coming up to me, he "burst" out at once with his sentence, learned by heart from the list of "sympathies."
• this point I could no longer contain myself and, turning to them all, said:
"Have you heard the peculiar intonation, not proper to him, with which your comrade who has just come has delivered his bombastic speech?
"Did you? . . . Good. Now then, ask him, that is, beg him, please, for once in his life to make an exception and to say honestly whether his 'inside,' that is, his real being, had any connection whatever with his spoken words.
"Of course it had none, and how could it be otherwise, for, in the first place, the deceased person concerned in this case was not a 'blood brother' of his and, in the second place, he could not possibly know or feel what attitude the person to whom he addressed his flowery speech had toward the event.
"His words were spoken quite mechanically, without the least participation of his being, and he said them only because, in his childhood, his nurse had taught him in such cases 'to lift the right leg and not the left.'
"But why be insincere even in those cases when there is absolutely no advantage in it for your being, not even for the satisfaction of your egoism?
"Is it not enough that our daily life is filled to overflowing with insincerity, thanks to the abnormally established habits of our mutual relationships?
"Unfailingly to express sympathy at the death of anyone or anybody is just such a vicious habit, instilled in childhood, thanks to the totality of which our half-intentional actions come to an automatic end.
"To express one's sympathy to someone in the case of the death of a person close to him was considered in ancient times an immoral, even criminal action.
"Perhaps it was considered so because it is easily possible that, in the being of that person who is being thus addressed, the process of the fresh impression of the loss of a close person has not yet quieted down, and by these empty words of sympathy he is reminded of it again and his suffering aroused anew.
"From such a habit, customary at the present time in the case of anyone's death, no one derives any benefit, and the person thus addressed, only great harm.
"Such habits, established in contemporary life, offend me especially, perhaps because I have had the opportunity of becoming acquainted with the customs used in the same cases in the lives of people who lived many centuries before us.
"Many thousand years ago, when a person died, for the first three days no one would be present at the place of this sad happening, except the priests and their assistants.
"Only on the fourth day there would assemble all the relations and relations by marriage, as well as neighbors, acquaintances and even strangers who wished to come.
"In the presence of all those assembled, the priests first conducted the religious ceremonies at the door of the house, and then, in the company of all, carried the dead to the graveyard, where they again carried out a special ritual, and then buried him.
"After that, if the deceased was a man, all the men returned to the deceased's house; if a woman, then all the women. All the others separated and returned home.
"Those people who had returned to the house of the deceased first of all ate and drank, but only that food the ingredients of which the deceased himself had prepared during his lifetime for this purpose.
"After this meal, they gathered in the largest room of the house, and set themselves down to the so-called 'Remembering Feast,' recalling to mind and relating only the bad and evil deeds of the deceased during his life.
"And this they did daily for three days.
"After this peculiar three-day procedure, or as one might now call it 'not leaving a good hair on his head,' or as they called it then 'washing the bone of the dead down to the white of the ivory,' all those who had taken part gathered daily in the house of the deceased for seven days, but this time in the evenings after their daily duties were finished.
"During these seven days it was no longer the custom to offer food, but many different sorts of incense were burned constantly in the same room in which the assembly took place, at the cost of the deceased or of his heirs.
"All present sat or kneeled quietly, and, in the well-known atmosphere called forth by the incense, they first chose from among themselves the worthiest by age and reputation, as leader. And then they began to give themselves up to the contemplation of the inevitability of their own death.
"At certain intervals, the leader would say to all present the following:
" 'Do not forget how he has lived, whose breath has not yet vanished from this place, how he behaved unworthily for a man, and did not accept the fact that he, as well as all others, must die.'
"After such an utterance by the leader, all those present had to sing together the following:
" '0 ye holy, higher forces, and immortal spirits of our ancestors, help us to keep death always before our eyes, and not to succumb to temptation.'
"I will not add more but will leave it to each one of you to decide for himself what advantage there might be if such a 'savage' custom could be established again.
"I hope that you now partially understand why just these 'expressions of sympathy' of yours affect my inner being almost in the same way as your American 'products' of nourishment affect the English system.
"It would be desirable for all, for God, for the deceased, for you, for me and even for the whole of humanity, if, at the death of any person, instead of the process of the expression of senseless words, the process of the real grasping of your own forthcoming death would take place in you.
"Only the complete realization by man of the inevitability of his own death can destroy those factors, implanted thanks to our abnormal life, of the expression of different aspects of our egoism, this cause of all evil in our common life.
"Only such a realization can bring to birth again in man those formerly present, divine proofs of genuine impulses-faith, love and hope."
At about ten-thirty several of my old acquaintances came in, three of whom are considered there to be writers—and sitting down at my table they began to drink their morning coffee. Among them was one who had worked for me for a good many years on translations of my writings into the English language. I decided to take advantage of his coming to find out how the beginning of this last book of mine would "sound." I gave him the pages just written to translate, and continued writing. We both worked, while the others drank coffee and talked. At eleven o'clock, in order to rest a little, I asked the translator to read aloud what he had already translated. When he came, in the translation, to the expression used by me, "intentional suffering," I interrupted his reading, for he had translated the word "intentional" by the word "voluntary." As I attempted to explain the great difference between the voluntary and intentional suffering of man, there arose a general philological discussion, as is usual in such cases.
In the heat of the argument one of us was called to the telephone. He came back quickly and announced excitedly that someone wanted to speak to me personally. I learned from the telephone message that a telegram had just come from London saying that Mr. Orage had died that same morning. This news was so unexpected that at first I didn't even take in what it was about. When I grasped it, however, it fairly struck me. And it struck me especially because at the same time I remembered certain events connected with this day and with this person.
All at once, there began to be constated in my consciousness various conclusions which I had drawn in my past life, but which had not yet been formed into a conviction, concerning the fact of "noticeable coincidences" which take place in our lives. In this case, the strangeness of the coincidence showed itself noticeably in that, in this selfsame night, exactly seven years before, as the first of those ideas took form in me on which will be based the contents of the book begun today, I had dictated a letter to just this person and mentioned many of these thoughts. I had dictated an answer to a private letter from this person concerning the cure for his chronic disease, from which, it seems, he also died.
It was midnight on the 6th of November of the year 1927. I lay sleepless in a whirlpool of oppressive thoughts and, trying to think of something to divert myself a little from my heavy thoughts, I remembered by association, among other things, the letter received a few days before. On thinking of his letter, and considering his attitude of well-wishing, recently proven to me, I, quite without pity, woke up my secretary who was sleeping in the same apartment, and dictated the answer.
At that time Mr. Orage was considered to be, and indeed was, the most important leader in the disseminarion of my ideas in the whole northern part of North America. As in those days I was completely filled with thoughts about my own sickness, and almost entirely convinced of the possibility of regulating my health by means of intentional suffering, I, of course, advised him to do the same—but in a form corresponding to his individuality and the conditions of his ordinary life.
I shall not relate here about his further letters and our personal conversations in connection with his illness and my advice; I shall only point out that the essence of the cause of the failure of my advice can be clearly explained to every reader by the words occurring in one of the chapters of this third series, which come from his own mouth. Among the many unprofitable consequences of this event, namely, the death of Mr. Orage, unprofitable for me and my writings, was also that from that day on, just that 6th of November, for two months, in spite of my constant wish, and constant efforts, I was not able to add a single word to what I had written up to half-past eleven that morning. And I could not do so thanks to the awakening of one of those factors which arises without fail in the psyche of contemporary people, particularly in Americans, the totality of which causes even the budding of different impulses to become mechanical.
Contrary to the established habits of my former visits, on this stay of mine I had been avoiding all meetings with acquaintances living here, aside from a few people who corresponded to my aim. But now, each and every one of the great number of people who knew me here, and who learned through the papers or telephone conversations—a usual custom here—of the death of my close friend, Mr. Orage, thanks to the said action of the automatically arisen factor, considered it their duty to seek me out in order to express their so-called "sympathy."
And there came and telephoned not only people who were members of that group which Mr. Orage had led, but also people of whose existence I hadn't the faintest idea. Among these latter were many acquaintances whom, as it turned out, I had met only once and just by chance on my first visit here, eleven years before. Even in the mornings, when I came to the cafe to work, some Mister or Mistress or other would be sitting there waiting for me. And no sooner was the He or the She gone than another one would come to my table, and unfailingly with an obviously false, sad face.
Each one of these visitors would "burst" out at once with his "How do you do, Mr. Gurdjieff?" and follow it inevitably with the stereotyped phrase: "Oh, I am very sorry about Mr. Orage's death!"
What could I answer to this? The question of death is just that question which supersedes all the established and subjectivized conditions of bur life.
In this case, I could not use my usual means for keeping at a distance those visitors who disturbed me at my work. That would mean the immediate and thoughtless creation of new and eager disseminators of gossip to my discredit. Even before my arrival in America I had had the intention, as soon as I should begin the writing of this last book of mine, at the same time to make visits, as often as possible, to those states of North America in which groups of people were organized who were followers of my ideas. In this way, I calculated that simultaneously with the completion at the predetermined time limit of all the tasks I had set myself, I would have completed this last book, as well as the organization of everything required for the dissemination of the first series of my writings. And therefore, in order to change the circumstances which had arisen which were disturbing my work, I set off as quickly as possible, traveling first to Washington, then to Boston, and from there to Chicago.
But nothing helped—the same thing repeated itself everywhere!
It is perhaps a little understandable that people who knew me in the mentioned cities felt it necessary to express their sympathy to me, as they almost all had known Mr. Orage personally and also his relationship to me. But the fact that American acquaintances of certain far southern states of North America also began to do this—this was really "stuff and nonsense."
Among the people of the Southern states who expressed their world-famous "sympathy" were those who not only had never seen Mr. Orage but had never even heard of his existence. They had just learned a few days before that he had died, and that he had been one of my most important assistants. And thus, among the number of unexpectedly arisen circumstances which prevented me in this period from fulfilling the "Being-task" I had set myself, was suddenly and unexpectedly established this vicious weakness, which has gained citizenship in the general psyche of modern man—"to express sympathy."
It has just occurred to me that the thoughts which I expressed to a small group of people at a meeting in a suburb, in connection with the death of Mr. Orage, might serve as a better clarification of the meaning and significance of the whole contents of this chapter, and I have therefore decided to recollect these thoughts in my memory and to add them here.
• this meeting, while drinking coffee, we were speaking of the different habits which take possession of us in our childhood, and which enslave us also after the attainment of mature years.
• this moment there arrived one of their comrades, with a jolly, flushed face. Being late, he had probably been walking quicker than usual, and he had not reckoned on running into me. But as soon as he caught sight of me, the expression of his face changed and, coming up to me, he "burst" out at once with his sentence, learned by heart from the list of "sympathies."
• this point I could no longer contain myself and, turning to them all, said:
"Have you heard the peculiar intonation, not proper to him, with which your comrade who has just come has delivered his bombastic speech?
"Did you? . . . Good. Now then, ask him, that is, beg him, please, for once in his life to make an exception and to say honestly whether his 'inside,' that is, his real being, had any connection whatever with his spoken words.
"Of course it had none, and how could it be otherwise, for, in the first place, the deceased person concerned in this case was not a 'blood brother' of his and, in the second place, he could not possibly know or feel what attitude the person to whom he addressed his flowery speech had toward the event.
"His words were spoken quite mechanically, without the least participation of his being, and he said them only because, in his childhood, his nurse had taught him in such cases 'to lift the right leg and not the left.'
"But why be insincere even in those cases when there is absolutely no advantage in it for your being, not even for the satisfaction of your egoism?
"Is it not enough that our daily life is filled to overflowing with insincerity, thanks to the abnormally established habits of our mutual relationships?
"Unfailingly to express sympathy at the death of anyone or anybody is just such a vicious habit, instilled in childhood, thanks to the totality of which our half-intentional actions come to an automatic end.
"To express one's sympathy to someone in the case of the death of a person close to him was considered in ancient times an immoral, even criminal action.
"Perhaps it was considered so because it is easily possible that, in the being of that person who is being thus addressed, the process of the fresh impression of the loss of a close person has not yet quieted down, and by these empty words of sympathy he is reminded of it again and his suffering aroused anew.
"From such a habit, customary at the present time in the case of anyone's death, no one derives any benefit, and the person thus addressed, only great harm.
"Such habits, established in contemporary life, offend me especially, perhaps because I have had the opportunity of becoming acquainted with the customs used in the same cases in the lives of people who lived many centuries before us.
"Many thousand years ago, when a person died, for the first three days no one would be present at the place of this sad happening, except the priests and their assistants.
"Only on the fourth day there would assemble all the relations and relations by marriage, as well as neighbors, acquaintances and even strangers who wished to come.
"In the presence of all those assembled, the priests first conducted the religious ceremonies at the door of the house, and then, in the company of all, carried the dead to the graveyard, where they again carried out a special ritual, and then buried him.
"After that, if the deceased was a man, all the men returned to the deceased's house; if a woman, then all the women. All the others separated and returned home.
"Those people who had returned to the house of the deceased first of all ate and drank, but only that food the ingredients of which the deceased himself had prepared during his lifetime for this purpose.
"After this meal, they gathered in the largest room of the house, and set themselves down to the so-called 'Remembering Feast,' recalling to mind and relating only the bad and evil deeds of the deceased during his life.
"And this they did daily for three days.
"After this peculiar three-day procedure, or as one might now call it 'not leaving a good hair on his head,' or as they called it then 'washing the bone of the dead down to the white of the ivory,' all those who had taken part gathered daily in the house of the deceased for seven days, but this time in the evenings after their daily duties were finished.
"During these seven days it was no longer the custom to offer food, but many different sorts of incense were burned constantly in the same room in which the assembly took place, at the cost of the deceased or of his heirs.
"All present sat or kneeled quietly, and, in the well-known atmosphere called forth by the incense, they first chose from among themselves the worthiest by age and reputation, as leader. And then they began to give themselves up to the contemplation of the inevitability of their own death.
"At certain intervals, the leader would say to all present the following:
" 'Do not forget how he has lived, whose breath has not yet vanished from this place, how he behaved unworthily for a man, and did not accept the fact that he, as well as all others, must die.'
"After such an utterance by the leader, all those present had to sing together the following:
" '0 ye holy, higher forces, and immortal spirits of our ancestors, help us to keep death always before our eyes, and not to succumb to temptation.'
"I will not add more but will leave it to each one of you to decide for himself what advantage there might be if such a 'savage' custom could be established again.
"I hope that you now partially understand why just these 'expressions of sympathy' of yours affect my inner being almost in the same way as your American 'products' of nourishment affect the English system.
"It would be desirable for all, for God, for the deceased, for you, for me and even for the whole of humanity, if, at the death of any person, instead of the process of the expression of senseless words, the process of the real grasping of your own forthcoming death would take place in you.
"Only the complete realization by man of the inevitability of his own death can destroy those factors, implanted thanks to our abnormal life, of the expression of different aspects of our egoism, this cause of all evil in our common life.
"Only such a realization can bring to birth again in man those formerly present, divine proofs of genuine impulses-faith, love and hope."
