Am ''I'' doing something wrong?

[Oxajil]

I write this because I don't quite know what I'm doing is right or not and my brother has told me I can't do this without a group and that the SOTT forum would be a great place to ask my questions.

I'm a person, as I have probably said before, that likes to meet people and let them meet eachother (if they are interested) and so they can learn from eachother.

For example there is this man, who I recently have met and is interested in these things (aliens, ufo's and such). In a conversation, we both had different opinions. Let me tell you that he is a person that wants all the answers immediately. I said to him, that you can't just sit there and do nothing, you should really do something if you want to achieve something! Instead of being active in forums where people only ''think'' and argue and do nothing else! It also felt like I was talking to many I's of him, this moment he says he disagrees with me, and the other moment, he says he agrees, on the same thing. Not saying I don't have the many I's Gurdjieff talks about, I have them and I try to control them. But I don't know what I'm doing is right! He said to me, that there is just too much reading material and it is very overeacting, ''the truth will come'' he said. He said ''To be honest, I don't want to read anything, only because of one thing which is even more important than knowing all those things: Would you still be living? It's just too much''.
And from writing this, I think the mistake I made was, having the thought of hoping that he might be listening and actually start reading. But this is also quite selfish of me. The conversation was very tiring for me aswell, 'cause he kept going and I kept going.

Yesterday I showed the conversation to my brother and he said, that I shouldn't have written these things to him. He showed me this quote by Gurdjieff:

Gurdjieff:
''If a man in spite of this tries to transmit what he hears in groups to his friends he will very quickly be convinced that attempts in this direction give entirely unexpected and undesirable results. Either people begin to argue with him and without wanting to listen to him expect him to listen to their theories, or they misinterpret everything he tells them, attach an entirely different meaning to everything they hear from him. In seeing this and understanding the uselessness of such attempts a man begins to see one aspect of this restriction."The other and no less important side consists in the fact that it is very difficult for a man to keep silent about things that interest him. He would like to speak about them to everyone with whom he is accustomed to share his thoughts, as he calls it. This is the most mechanical of all desires and in this case silence is the most difficult abstinence of all. But if a man understands this or, at least, if he follows this rule, it will constitute for him the best exercise possible for self-remembering and for the development of will. Only a man who can be silent when it is necessary can be master of himself.''
"But for many people it is very difficult to reconcile themselves to the thought that one of their chief characteristics consists in undue talkativeness, especially for people who are accustomed to regard themselves as serious or sound persons, or for those who regard themselves as silent persons who are fond of solitude and reflection. And for this reason this demand is especially important. In remembering about this and in carrying it out, a man begins to see sides of himself which he never noticed before.''

What Gurdjieff says here, was exactly what I was seeing, from his side and from my side. But now I'm wondering when to be quiet? I have this dutch forum going on, where I translate material from the sessions and from the glossary.

Is this wrong of me? Simply because they maybe can understand it differently than what it actually means? From what G. said ''or they misinterpret everything he tells them, attach an entirely different meaning to everything they hear from him''.

Two other persons that I have met are now reading the Wave, one of them said, that when she reads it she can feel somekind of ''wave'' going on inside her and that she recognizes many things, like those children that actually feed off of their emotions. The other said she was reading the wave with her mouth open for two hours. So I guess what I'm trying, to advice people this material to them, isn't always wrong. But I am still wondering about this forum of mine. Could I be a unit to them?

For myself, I am reading the Wave and am reading In search of the miraculous.

 

[Zadius Sky]

For example there is this man, who I recently have met and is interested in these things (aliens, ufo's and such). In a conversation, we both had different opinions. Let me tell you that he is a person that wants all the answers immediately. I said to him, that you can't just sit there and do nothing, you should really do something if you want to achieve something! Instead of being active in forums where people only ''think'' and argue and do nothing else! It also felt like I was talking to many I's of him, this moment he says he disagrees with me, and the other moment, he says he agrees, on the same thing. Not saying I don't have the many I's Gurdjieff talks about, I have them and I try to control them. But I don't know what I'm doing is right! He said to me, that there is just too much reading material and it is very overeacting, ''the truth will come'' he said. He said ''To be honest, I don't want to read anything, only because of one thing which is even more important than knowing all those things: Would you still be living? It's just too much''.

Sounds like the guy really wants everything handed to him. When he said "I don't want to read anything," that should give you an idea of what choice he already made. Once he made that choice, you can't do anything about that or try to convince him of anything. Let him go his way, and you to yours.

And from writing this, I think the mistake I made was, having the thought of hoping that he might be listening and actually start reading. But this is also quite selfish of me. The conversation was very tiring for me aswell, 'cause he kept going and I kept going.

I think he was feeding on you, and you on him. osit.

But now I'm wondering when to be quiet?

Are you trying to convince other people? Sometime we need to be conscious of ourselves, and ask ourselves why we need to try to convince other people. That is the tricky part. C's has said: "an STS vehicle does not learn to be an STO candidate by determining the needs of another." I think you can ask yourself what is your goal or aim. Is one of them is getting other people to believe what you believe? I'm not saying that you are. Just saying be conscious of your aim when talking about 'unknown' or other topics with other people.

I hope this might be of some help.

fwiw.
Z

 

[kenlee]

I said to him, that you can't just sit there and do nothing, you should really do something if you want to achieve something! Instead of being active in forums where people only ''think'' and argue and do nothing else! It also felt like I was talking to many I's of him, this moment he says he disagrees with me, and the other moment, he says he agrees, on the same thing. Not saying I don't have the many I's Gurdjieff talks about, I have them and I try to control them.

I think that’s it’s very good that you recognize the dfferent “I’s in this other man and (eventually) was able to see the same things in yourself as well. But you cannot control them. They control you. See this. This will shed inner light on your inner mechanism.

The difficulty is seeing these different internal states in ourselves while at the same time interacting with the other person, whose internal states are also changing. Each internal state, each ‘I’, has it's own moods, postures, opinions,, attitudes, etc. The hard part is seeing this in ourselves while we are seeing it in someone else. I think it takes a certain quality of energy (consciousness) to give us the ‘inner ableness’ to see this in ourselves while we are interacting and the 'horse is kicking.' It might take a lesser quality of energy to see it only after the interaction or if we can only see it in others and not in ourselves.

I think the problem began when you tried to convince the other man of something and not being sensitive to his state of mind. Obviously he had his opinions (as did you) and you both were looking for a ‘sounding board’ to bounce your opinions off of for validation (although there is nothing wrong with having a 'sounding board' as long as you are both sincerely asking for the truth). But it often happens where you both may start out looking for real answers but your desire to “be right” overwhelms your desire to know. To be able to see if a person is really asking and to be able to say only what needs to be said to help that person takes a great understanding and control of oneself and an understanding of other people.

So it’s good you recognize this after your brother gave you an excellent quote from the book In Search Of The Miraculous by Ouspensky! It reminds us to know our own machines first. Also, consciously making a choice to not give into our mechanical manifestations (such as mechanical talking) is an excellent way to see ourselves.

Imagine you are in a room and everything you did someone else did in the exact same way, at the same time you did it. You sit, they sit, you talk, they talk, you stand they stand and so on. You would not like it.
Oftentimes we see in others first what we see in ourselves last. So you could have been seeing your own self importance in the other guy and you didn’t like it so you wanted him to agree with you (as he did with you) so that you could both stop seeing yourselves through the mirrored reflection of each other guy’s self importance!

The false personality only wants too see what it wants to see and it’s happy with itself. When someone does not agree with it, our false personality, our imaginary self image, sees its own self importance and it’s own inherent lack of control and powerlessness reflected off the other guy. It does not like to see that.

 

[Oxajil]

Sounds like the guy really wants everything handed to him. When he said "I don't want to read anything," that should give you an idea of what choice he already made. Once he made that choice, you can't do anything about that or try to convince him of anything. Let him go his way, and you to yours.

Yes you're right, I finally understand now, that what I was doing and what I have been doing, trying to explain people they are on the wrong track, that all these actions are very automatic of mine. Just like that diagram Gurdjieff made:

Automaton by external influences. > Desires produced by automaton. > Thoughts proceeding from desires. > Different and contradictory ''wills'' created by desires.

The desire of need to tell them what I would like them to do produces this kind of ''will''.
Although, I never really ''pushed'' them to do things, I only told them that there is more out there, than they actually think. But they should really try to find that out themselves. I guess I just gave too much information, they probably didn't ask for. And this could probably be ''determining the needs of another''.

Also this quote van Gurdjieff, I found very interesting on my questions:

During one conversation with G. in our group, which was beginning to become permanent, I asked: "Why, if ancient knowledge has been preserved and if, speaking in general, there exists a knowledge distinct from our science and philosophy or even surpassing it, is it so carefully concealed, why is it not made common property? Why are the men who possess this knowledge unwilling to let it pass into the general circulation of life for the sake of a better and more successful struggle against deceit, evil, and ignorance?" This is, I think, a question which usually arises in everyone's mind on first acquaintance with the ideas of esotericism.
"There are two answers to that," said G. "In the first place, this knowledge is not concealed; and in the second place, it cannot, from its very nature, become common property. We will consider the second of these statements first. I will prove to you afterwards that knowledge" (he emphasized the word) "is far more accessible to those capable of assimilating it than is usually supposed; and that the whole trouble is that people either do not want it or cannot receive it. "But first of all another thing must be understood, namely, that knowledge cannot belong to all, cannot even belong to many. Such is the law. You do not understand this because you do not understand that knowledge, like everything else in the world, is material. It is material, and this means that it possesses all the characteristics of materiality. One of the first characteristics of materiality is that matter is always limited, that is to say, the quantity of matter in a given place and under given conditions
is limited. Even the sand of the desert and the water of the sea is a definite and unchangeable quantity. So that, if knowledge is material, then it means that there is a definite quantity of it in a given place at a given time. It may be said that, in the course of a certain period of time, say a century, humanity has a definite amount of knowledge at its disposal. But we know, even from an ordinary observation of life, that the matter of knowledge possesses entirely different qualities according to whether it is taken in small or large quantities. Taken in a large quantity in a given place, that is by one man, let us say, or by a small group of men, it produces very good results; taken in a small quantity (that is, by every one of a large number of people), it gives no results at all; or it may give even negative results, contrary to those expected. Thus if a certain definite quantity of knowledge is distributed among millions of people, each individual will receive very little, and this small amount of knowledge will change nothing either in his life or in his understanding of things. And however large the number of people who receive this small amount of knowledge, it will change nothing in their lives, except, perhaps, to make them still more difficult. "But if, on the contrary, large quantities of knowledge are concentrated in a small number of people, then this knowledge will give very great results. From this point of view it is far more advantageous that knowledge should be preserved among a small number of people and not dispersed among the masses. "If we take a certain quantity of gold and decide to gild a number of objects with it, we must know, or calculate, exactly what number of objects can be gilded with this quantity of gold. If we try to gild a greater number, they will be covered with gold unevenly, in patches, and will look much worse than if they had no gold at all; in fact we shall lose our gold. "The distribution of knowledge is based upon exactly the same principle. If knowledge is given to all, nobody will get any. If it is preserved among a few, each will receive not only enough to keep, but to increase, what he receives. "At the first glance this theory seems very unjust, since the position of those who are, so to speak, denied knowledge in order that others may receive a greater share appears to be very sad and undeservedly harder than it ought to be. Actually, however, this is not so at all; and in the distribution of knowledge there is not the slightest injustice. "The fact is that the enormous majority of people do not want any knowledge whatever; they refuse their share of it and do not even take the ration allotted to them, in the general distribution, for the purposes of life. This is particularly evident in times of mass madness such as wars, revolutions, and so on, when men suddenly seem to lose even the small amount of common sense they had and turn into complete automatons, giving themselves over to wholesale destruction in vast numbers, in other words, even losing the instinct of self-preservation. Owing to this, enormous quantities of knowledge remain, so to speak, unclaimed and can be distributed among those who realize its value. "There is nothing unjust in this, because those who receive knowledge take nothing that belongs to others, deprive others of nothing; they take only what others have rejected as useless and what would in any case be lost if they did not take it. "The collecting of knowledge by some depends upon the rejection of knowledge by others. "There are periods in the life of humanity, which generally coincide with the beginning of the fall of cultures and civilizations, when the masses irretrievably lose their reason and begin to destroy everything that has been created by centuries and millenniums of culture. Such periods of mass madness, often coinciding with geological cataclysms, climatic changes, and similar phenomena of a planetary character, release a very great quantity of the matter of knowledge. This, in its turn, necessitates the work of collecting this matter of knowledge which would otherwise be lost. Thus the work of collecting scattered matter of knowledge frequently coincides with the beginning of the destruction and fall of cultures and civilizations. "This aspect of the question is clear. The crowd neither wants nor seeks knowledge, and the leaders of the crowd, in their own interests, try to strengthen its fear and dislike of everything new and unknown. The slavery in which mankind lives is based upon this fear. It is even difficult to imagine all the horror of this slavery. We do not understand what people are losing. But in order to understand the cause of this slavery it is enough to see how people live, what constitutes the aim of their existence, the object of their desires, passions, and aspirations, of what they think, of what they talk, what they serve and what they worship. Consider what the cultured humanity of our time spends money on; even leaving the war out, what commands the highest price; where the biggest crowds are. If we think for a moment about these questions it becomes clear that humanity, as it is now, with the interests it lives by, cannot expect to have anything different from what it has. But, as I have already said, it cannot be otherwise. Imagine that for the whole of mankind half a pound of knowledge is allotted a year. If this knowledge is distributed among everyone, each will receive so little that he will remain the fool he was. But, thanks to the fact that very few want to have this knowledge, those who take it are able to get, let us say, a grain each, and acquire the possibility of becoming more intelligent. All cannot become intelligent even if they wish. And if they did become intelligent it would not help matters. There exists a general equilibrium which cannot be upset. 'That is one aspect. The other, as I have already said, consists in the fact that no one is concealing anything; there is no mystery whatever. But the acquisition or transmission of true knowledge demands great labor and great effort both of him who receives and of him who gives. And those who possess this knowledge are doing everything they can to transmit and communicate it to the greatest possible number of people, to facilitate people's approach to it and enable them to prepare themselves to receive the truth. But knowledge cannot be given by force to anyone and, as I have already said, an unprejudiced survey of the average man's life, of what fills his day and of the things he is interested in, will at once show whether it is possible to accuse men who possess knowledge of concealing it, of not wishing to give it to people, or of not wishing to teach people what they know themselves. "He who wants knowledge must himself make the initial efforts to find the source of knowledge and to approach it, taking advantage of the help and indications which are given to all, but which people, as a rule, do not want to see or recognize. Knowledge cannot come to people without effort on their own part. They understand this very well in connection with ordinary knowledge, but in the case of great knowledge, when they admit the possibility of its existence, they find it possible to expect something different. Everyone knows very well that if, for instance, a man wants to learn Chinese, it will take several years of intense work; everyone knows that five years are needed to grasp the principles of medicine, and perhaps twice as many years for the study of painting or music. And yet there are theories which affirm that knowledge can come to people without any effort on their part, that they can acquire it even in sleep. The very existence of such theories constitutes an additional explanation of why knowledge cannot come to people. At the same time it is essential to understand that man's independent efforts to attain anything in this direction can also give no results. A man can only attain knowledge with the help of those who possess it. This must be understood from the very beginning. One must learn from him who knows"

Especially this part made it clear:

"He who wants knowledge must himself make the initial efforts to find the source of knowledge and to approach it, taking advantage of the help and indications which are given to all, but which people, as a rule, do not want to see or recognize. Knowledge cannot come to people without effort on their own part. They understand this very well in connection with ordinary knowledge, but in the case of great knowledge, when they admit the possibility of its existence, they find it possible to expect something different.

Knowledge, indeed, cannot come to those who don't put any effort on their own part and want everything on their plate! I thought they could, but whatever you try, they just can't. I know now that is wrong of me to try. Quite selfish..

Is one of them is getting other people to believe what you believe? I'm not saying that you are. Just saying be conscious of your aim when talking about 'unknown' or other topics with other people.

Not necesserily, wanting them to believe what I believe, it's just like, wanting them to read things, that ''I know'' would make them understand everything a lot better, but the thing is, they never asked me if I have such information or reading material for them. I do this out of myself, like I said before, it's more like some mechanical act of mine. I will try to be conscious of my aim now.

I think that’s it’s very good that you recognize the dfferent “I’s in this other man and (eventually) was able to see the same things in yourself as well. But you cannot control them. They control you. See this. This will shed inner light on your inner mechanism.

The first time I heard about different I's in a person, it made a lot of sense. 'Cause I have noticed this in everyone, of course, including myself, but particularly this one person, whom I'm quite close with. It's like he has many multiple charachters, he has an ''I don't care about her, I just do what I do.'' - will.
''I am so great and proud of myself'' - will.
''I don't like people who think they're everything'' - will [While saying before he is actually just that kind of person, or better to say, that I of him)
''I feel so stupid for doing that, I'm sorry / I missed you'' - will.
''Sorry that I don't say anything, I'm quite busy (with speaking to other girls).'' - will
And these different wills (I showed them with a sentence, so you know what kind of will I mean) are exactly how G. says ''created by desires''. So as you can read he has many different I's and I have tried to tell him this and it turned out in an argue (same mistake!!). In the end, he doesn't really get it, I told him that ''A search of the miraculous'' is a good book to read, that we could read it both and then talk about it. And he said to me that he had nothing to do (so I didn't pushed him into it). But I must say, maybe another mechanical act of mine?
First thing he said after reading was ''You know, I think I really did this 4th Way - thinking my whole life.'' And I don't really know what this means? If he has thought this 4th Way his whole life, why would he have so many I's then. Is it maybe because he just doesn't understand the concept?
Sometimes this is so hard, to really understand, if I'm maybe the person who made this so wrong.

I'm sorry for being so off-track.

The difficulty is seeing these different internal states in ourselves while at the same time interacting with the other person, whose internal states are also changing. Each internal state, each ‘I’, has it's own moods, postures, opinions,, attitudes, etc.

Yes, exactly!

The hard part is seeing this in ourselves while we are seeing it in someone else. I think it takes a certain quality of energy (consciousness) to give us the ‘inner ableness’ to see this in ourselves while we are interacting and the 'horse is kicking.' It might take a lesser quality of energy to see it only after the interaction or if we can only see it in others and not in ourselves.

Ye, it certainly takes a good being conscious-all-the-time concentration! It's hard, 'cause, you think you're actually keeping an eye on your I's and oops there you said something you did'nt want to say! It's hard, I guess it needs some kind of practicing all the time? I think I will get more answers after reading this book.

I think the problem began when you tried to convince the other man of something and not being sensitive to his state of mind. Obviously he had his opinions (as did you) and you both were looking for a ‘sounding board’ to bounce your opinions off of for validation (although there is nothing wrong with having a 'sounding board' as long as you are both sincerely asking for the truth). But it often happens where you both may start out looking for real answers but your desire to “be right” overwhelms your desire to know. To be able to see if a person is really asking and to be able to say only what needs to be said to help that person takes a great understanding and control of oneself and an understanding of other people.

Yes, you're right.

Imagine you are in a room and everything you did someone else did in the exact same way, at the same time you did it. You sit, they sit, you talk, they talk, you stand they stand and so on. You would not like it.
Oftentimes we see in others first what we see in ourselves last. So you could have been seeing your own self importance in the other guy and you didn’t like it so you wanted him to agree with you (as he did with you) so that you could both stop seeing yourselves through the mirrored reflection of each other guy’s self importance!

Yes this is also what my brother said once to me, when I had an arguement with him. He said, ''maybe you're having this arguement with me, because you are looking at yourself in the mirror!''

The false personality only wants too see what it wants to see and it’s happy with itself. When someone does not agree with it, our false personality, our imaginary self image, sees its own self importance and it’s own inherent lack of control and powerlessness reflected off the other guy. It does not like to see that.

Yes, this is also true.
Thank you, kenlee and Zadius Sky for your posts, it has certainly helped me to see better what is inside the robotic human ''personality''.