Awakening to The Calling

[anart]

It does if you wish to move forward in life -- spiritually, psychologically, economically, materially, intellectually, relationship-wise, health-wise (both mental and physical), education-wise, in every sense, you name it.

I'm very serious when I say this: You are in a very dangerous position right now, Andrew, and you really need to take control of your life as soon as possible. The more you delay, put off, avoid, etc, the harder and harder it will be to awake from the dream you are in. Such behaviour can and has developed into much more serious mental-health issues, from which many people never recover. Your life is too important to throw away. You have been born at this time for a very specific purpose, to experience the Wave. If you continue as you are, you will simply sleep through it.

Hi pepperfritz, I think some caution is warranted here. You are making these statements to Andrew - in fact, commanding him - to do or think certain things as if you know him/his situation and as if you know what is necessarily best for him. You cannot know such a thing. Only Andrew can know such a thing and making such forceful statements about what he should or should not do is rather 'determining the needs of another' - and simply not wise, nor ultimately helpful.

I understand your desire to offer guidance, but what if you are wrong? There is a responsibility to walk that thin line between relaying your understanding of things and in dictating to others what they should or should not do. It is really best in such situations, and on this forum in general, to offer information and allow others to do what is in them to do - not to 'tell' others what to do. As I said, there can be a fine line, but the flavor of your words in this last post leans much more closely to 'commanding' than to 'suggesting based on experience'.

 

[PepperFritz]

Hi pepperfritz, I think some caution is warranted here. You are making these statements to Andrew - in fact, commanding him - to do or think certain things as if you know him/his situation and as if you know what is necessarily best for him. You cannot know such a thing. Only Andrew can know such a thing and making such forceful statements about what he should or should not do is rather 'determining the needs of another' - and simply not wise, nor ultimately helpful.

I understand your desire to offer guidance, but what if you are wrong? There is a responsibility to walk that thin line between relaying your understanding of things and in dictating to others what they should or should not do. It is really best in such situations, and on this forum in general, to offer information and allow others to do what is in them to do - not to 'tell' others what to do. As I said, there can be a fine line, but the flavor of your words in this last post leans much more closely to 'commanding' than to 'suggesting based on experience'.

You are of course absolutely correct. I realize in retrospect that I got caught up in my feeling and concern for Andrew, because of a striking similarity to someone I knew in my past. And that is of course extremely unfair and, as you say, ultimately not helpful to Andrew. Not to mention narcissistic.

I think it would be best if my post were deleted, for that reason. I would delete it myself, but I know you do not always appreciate people doing that. So I will leave that decision to you.

Thank you, Anart. I will bear this in mind in future.

 

[vinny]

I think it would be best if my post were deleted, for that reason. I would delete it myself, but I know you do not always appreciate people doing that. So I will leave that decision to you.

I think it is ok to leave the post there, along with anart's observations. It still provides another lesson . This is all part of the process of trial and error, and sharing the results, for others to also learn from. So, maybe someone else will come along, read this exchange and recognise something that is applicable to them?

 

[Andrew]

You wonder what the root of your problem is. Most likely it is fear, and it is up to you to discover what it is that you're afraid of. Make a list of all of the things that you fear, then resolve to act in the face of those fears.

Pondering it over some I've come to realize that perhaps in part, fear of Humiliation may play a big role. Growing up I would do whatever I could to avoid Humiliation, so far to the point that I would sell myself out just to fit in to avoid my differences with my peers, even if I didn't agree with half of the things they were doing. So now I feel I've been conditioned to a point that, because I never truly acted from any part of myself, more so how others wanted me to be, I've lost any identity I may have once had. 19 years of that & the only thing that comes to my mind when experiencing people is automatically "what do they think of me?" and it sort of just triggers itself automatically as if to, based off of the data of their impression, I can change myself into someone they may deem acceptable - that was all fine and great once upon a time, but I know what I'm doing is detrimental to discovering any real truth about myself and no longer wish to act from that program. The difficulty lies in shutting it off.

Psychotherapy may not be something I can, anytime soon, go through so I guess facing Myself is going to have to do. It's becoming apparent that this may be the one aspect of life that I've never really given some thought to. Avoidance program I suspect and a dangerous one at that. I'm not sure how to exactly face myself though? Would writing down a list of fear's be a start to do so? Honestly, I'm not really sure what it means to "face" ones self...If I don't know myself, how can I face it? I feel this is perhaps an Elementary question but I have some confusion as to exactly what that means.

 

[PepperFritz]

I can only suggest that you become more familiar with some of the basic concepts of Gurdjieff's 4th Way teaching (the Work). The following entries in the Cassiopaea Glossary should shed a lot of light on the questions you are asking, and suggest methods of taking those "first steps". Diligent, objective observation of your "Machine" is key. If you have any questions about what you read, forum members can help clarify.

Programs

Identification

Little "I"s

Real I

Personality

Self-Remembering

Being

 

[Nienna]

[quote author=Andrew]Psychotherapy may not be something I can, anytime soon, go through so I guess facing Myself is going to have to do. It's becoming apparent that this may be the one aspect of life that I've never really given some thought to. Avoidance program I suspect and a dangerous one at that. I'm not sure how to exactly face myself though? Would writing down a list of fear's be a start to do so? Honestly, I'm not really sure what it means to "face" ones self...If I don't know myself, how can I face it? I feel this is perhaps an Elementary question but I have some confusion as to exactly what that means.[/quote]

If you have read Gurdjieff or Mouravieff, you know that observing yourself is the first step. And what we are trying to observe in ourselves are the programs/buffers that we have accumulated that make us behave the way we do.

A good way to know what you are looking for is to read the psychology books. Now, you seemed to shy away from the psychotherapy suggestion, which is also a good thing to look at. Psychology does not mean that you are nuts, it is just a way to see why you are acting as you do. The psychology books have been listed over and over again in different places here, but here is the list again:

The Myth of Sanity - Stout
Trapped in the Mirror - Golomb
Unholy Hungers - Hort
The Narcissist Family - Donald-Pressman and Pressman
The Drama of the Gifted Child - Miller

These books show you what to look for in identifying the programs you have been loaded with. However, you have to apply what you read to yourself. Just reading without actually applying it to yourself is absolutely a wast of time and money.

You have been given some very good advice from others. It's up to you what you do with it.

Good luck.

 

[Bobo08]

Psychotherapy may not be something I can, anytime soon, go through so I guess facing Myself is going to have to do. It's becoming apparent that this may be the one aspect of life that I've never really given some thought to. Avoidance program I suspect and a dangerous one at that. I'm not sure how to exactly face myself though? Would writing down a list of fear's be a start to do so? Honestly, I'm not really sure what it means to "face" ones self...If I don't know myself, how can I face it? I feel this is perhaps an Elementary question but I have some confusion as to exactly what that means.

I have to disagree with PepperFritz about focusing on the 4th Way concepts at this moment for you. It will only be more intellectualization, nothing different from the mysterious and esoteric that you have been pursuing so far. I think cleaning yourself up, psychologically speaking, is most urgently needed at the moment. To do that, I would suggest you read the recommended books on narcissism that Nienna posted. I would add Deep Therapy in the Fast Lane (online book: http://home.comcast.net/~riversrages/DeepTherapy/intro.htm) to the list.

It is unlikely that you will recognize how the books applied to you at the first round of reading. However, just keep at it and gradually you will be able to recover more and more memories and see it. It's important to try to pay attention to how you feel, how you act during your every day life. (You will not succeed most of the time but "try" is the operative word). Keeping a diary where you write down your thoughts, feelings will also help.

 

[Andrew]

Thank you everyone. Your feed-back has been very helpful.

 

[Buddy]

I have to disagree with PepperFritz about focusing on the 4th Way concepts at this moment for you. It will only be more intellectualization, nothing different from the mysterious and esoteric that you have been pursuing so far. I think cleaning yourself up, psychologically speaking, is most urgently needed at the moment. To do that, I would suggest you read the recommended books on narcissism that Nienna posted. I would add Deep Therapy in the Fast Lane (online book: http://home.comcast.net/~riversrages/DeepTherapy/intro.htm) to the list.

It is unlikely that you will recognize how the books applied to you at the first round of reading. However, just keep at it and gradually you will be able to recover more and more memories and see it. It's important to try to pay attention to how you feel, how you act during your every day life. (You will not succeed most of the time but "try" is the operative word). Keeping a diary where you write down your thoughts, feelings will also help.

I know that this has already been mentioned, but for the benefit of future readers of this thread, I would like to re-emphasize that any productive 'DOing' geared toward achieving (self-sustaining) independence will do loads for self-esteem, which is going to be needed for any kind of self-improvement efforts. Some sense of self-worth is necessary to overcome the inertia of laziness and/or apathy and I don't think it's possible to experience genuine self-esteem just by being alive in this world. I think one needs feedback that one is worth something to the world, universe, community, oneself or something.

Years ago, I was in love with my own thoughts and ability to think and BE in my own private world, that I easily justified extremes of personal laziness.
At some point, I realized that my development was simply unbalanced. My mind seemed to be growing, but physically and psychologically I was dying due to lack of growth and development in those areas.
It seems like those urges to 'do something' are like impulses and/or warnings coming from those dying, neglected parts. Over time, if one continues to neglect the responsibility to grow all of one's parts, one can easily gravitate towards bad habits like drugs, pornography addictions and other things to dull the pain within. Or so I think.

 

[anart]

Years ago, I was in love with my own thoughts and ability to think and BE in my own private world, that I easily justified extremes of personal laziness.
At some point, I realized that my development was simply unbalanced. My mind seemed to be growing, but physically and psychologically I was dying due to lack of growth and development in those areas.
It seems like those urges to 'do something' are like impulses and/or warnings coming from those dying, neglected parts. Over time, if one continues to neglect the responsibility to grow all of one's parts, one can easily gravitate towards bad habits like drugs, pornography addictions and other things to dull the pain within. Or so I think.

Hi Buddy, not sure how your post applies to what you referenced. Bobo08's point was that work on oneself almost always includes, or even begins with, a deep psychological understanding of oneself. You state that some sense of self-worth or self-esteem is necessary to start, yet without deep personal understanding, neither self-esteem or self-worth is possible. In fact, 'self-worth' without knowledge of oneself is dreaming. Perhaps I am misunderstanding your meaning?

 

[Buddy]

Hi anart,
It looks like I lost the major link to the quote due to a major rewrite of the 1st draft of my post.
The only thing left appears to be little more than a general agreement with the part about "It will only be more intellectualization...", to which I had originally intended to agree with.

I didn't mean to imply that "some sense of self-worth or self-esteem is necessary to start", though it appears I actually did. Rather, I meant to suggest that some was necessary to justify the minimum effort needed to get some initial results from self-improvement efforts - but I could be wrong.
It just seemed to me, that without at least some minimum amount of self-esteem from the feedback loop of being able to sustain oneself (or learning how to become independent of others financially), that one would not even be able to feel that digging into one's psychological issues would be 'worth the effort'. But that seems to be a generalization that should not be applied to any particular person.

When I view my post with this in mind: "In fact, 'self-worth' without knowledge of oneself is dreaming.", I see that I'm probably talking about the dream state.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

 

[Aiming]

Dear Andrew,

I can relate to your situation. I've had a period of about four years where I hardly did anything but dwelling in the esoteric and refusing to grow up and face reality and duty of all-day life. That was even before I encountered SOTT.
Even today, although I'm having my apprenticeship and doing a job to sustain me, I still have not grown up. I'm full of avoidance programs, full of laziness, full of deluding myself as to where I stand.
I'm going to work every day. That's what I've acomplished. But I keep avoiding going to my school and studying for my apprenticeship, telling myself it's too much, just too much pressure, too many duties at a time.
This now has its result therein that I won't be able to do my final exam in March. I shoulda studied and studied, but I was too lazy, I gave in to my programs and weaknesses. And I've got to postpone my exam now! (again: postponing, postponing, postponing -> a recurring theme in my life)
So it's a whole bunch of prgrams refraining me from doing what I ought to do. And I discovered it's got a lot to do with my childhood, my upbringing, the lack of love and the lack of support, which resulted in many weird twisted programs, running on and on and making me avoid my responsibilities.
Now just recently I felt a strong urge (and it was not for the first time) that I finally need to get my a** up and seek professional assistance, that is psychotherapy. And I finally acted and found a psychotherapist.
I've only had my first session, but this alone had me realize some main points where I am deluding myself, and I'm sure it'll be the beginnings of an understanding of how it all fits together, so I can finally get into real action (n not jus doin half of my duties).

So what I'm trying to say here, some people for whatever reason have a very hard time growing up, standing up to life, facing life and its responsibilities, and the longer they keep avoiding the more unpleasant consequences keep piling up and at some point the whole card house will tumble down.
So it's all about getting up, facing one's life with all its duties and responsibilities, it's about acting, each day anew, and trying trying and trying. And the funniest thing is: This is a step in life everybody has to go through, but somehow others did not have those difficulties.

Well, I wrote this for what it's worth, maybe it'll help you some to see you're not the only one having this particular lesson.
Andrew, I wish you all the best and good luck to you!

 

[Andrew]

[quote author=anart]
Bobo08's point was that work on oneself almost always includes, or even begins with, a deep psychological understanding of oneself. [... yet without deep personal understanding, neither self-esteem or self-worth is possible. In fact, 'self-worth' without knowledge of oneself is dreaming.
[/quote]

Hello Anart,
With the above in bold in mind, this may already be apparent, but just to clarify, before one even begins anything should a deep psychological understanding of ones self first be obtained? With this in mind, would the recommended psychology books be a good place to start, to having this deep psychological understanding?
Also, how do you feel about keeping G's practices in mind as we'll when undertaking the recommending reading? I want to take a break and focus solely on the self, as that's where major faults seem to be lacking, however I'm not sure if keeping G's practices in mind while doing so could be detrimental.

 

[anart]

Hello Anart,
With the above in bold in mind, this may already be apparent, but just to clarify, before one even begins anything should a deep psychological understanding of ones self first be obtained?

Hi Andrew,

It is my understanding, and has been my experience, that working toward a deep psychological understanding of oneself, and others, isn't necessary 'before beginning things' it IS beginning things. In other words, it is part of the Work, so if one can begin to understand not only the working parts of their machine, but the raw materials with which those parts were built; the reactions, the programs (which necessitates an objective psychological understanding) one is beginning the Work. The image of filling one's toolbox with the necessary tools to fix their 'machine' comes to mind. After all, YOU are the only one who has the power to do this - no external criteria, measurement or goal does anything at all and if there is one thing your real self knows, it is whether or not you're 'faking it'.

Of course other knowledge and understanding is also necessary and Gurdjieff goes into great detail about what a 'man' must understand or have experienced before, as G puts it, "one can talk to him".

With this in mind, would the recommended psychology books be a good place to start, to having this deep psychological understanding?

In a general sense, I would say so - reading and applying them, which takes time and energy and self-observation, is enormously beneficial.

Also, how do you feel about keeping G's practices in mind as we'll when undertaking the recommending reading? I want to take a break and focus solely on the self, as that's where major faults seem to be lacking, however I'm not sure if keeping G's practices in mind while doing so could be detrimental.

I'm not quite clear on what you mean by 'G's practices', so it is difficult to answer directly. Gurdjieff was working in a very specific time and space and with the people of that time and space. His Work was based on an attempt to 'step down' an ancient teaching and Universal understanding to a group of people with certain needs and certain windows open to learning.

Where we are now is not the same time nor space, thus adaptations are necessary - there are different 'windows open' - some larger, some smaller. If the goal is to be Real - then context is implicitly crucial, thus certain of Gurdjieff's practices would apply and others may not. Ultimately, it truly comes down to knowledge - of oneself and of all and everything - but without the knowledge of the self, 'all and everything' is lost in a lens colored by subjectivity - thus our recommendation to take the psychological readings very seriously and to apply them ruthlessly to oneself.

Of course, this is difficult to do without a network, but one can go quite a way toward that goal by simply studying in earnest and with sincerity.

Incorporating all of this reading, of course, takes a lot of time and energy, which brings to mind Mouravieff's statement that:

He who takes up esoteric work, says the Tradition, will greatly ease his task if he proves capable of thinking about it non-stop, like a lover who thinks of his loved one.

Simply meaning that if one is truly interested in awakening then that level of focus greatly eases the effort. So, yes, the psychological readings, in our 'space and time' will - if comprehended and applied - make an enormous difference. This is, after all, about 'cleaning your machine' and one needs the tools to do so.

At least, this is my current understanding ...

 

[PepperFritz]

Also, how do you feel about keeping G's practices in mind as we'll when undertaking the recommending reading? I want to take a break and focus solely on the self, as that's where major faults seem to be lacking, however I'm not sure if keeping G's practices in mind while doing so could be detrimental.

Andrew: It would be helpful (to an understanding of your question) if you were to indicate which SPECIFIC "practices" you have in mind....