Doing maybe a presentation on Gurdjieff-advice appreciated!

[aragorn]

I've been asked to do a short presentation about Gurdjieff in six weeks, and I've promised to think about it. I'm writing this to ask for some advice from you guys, would this be a wise thing for me to do or will I do more damage than good in trying to present this with only having scratched the surface of Gurjieff's life work myself.

First some background:

I've recently become a board member of the Reiki association that my teacher has founded some years ago. The main thing this association is trying to do is to preserve and teach the original Usui teachings and methods in accordance to the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai tradition. This is the same guy who has taught me body work, Bioenergetics, Rolfing etc. that I've talked in some other threads, and with whom I've also had treatment session that has helped me immensely. So, in short I respect the guy highly and I'm forever grateful for the many ways he has helped me. We've had many interesting discussions 'off the record' and I've told him a great deal about the things Laura and others here on the forum have found out. We've talked a lot about Gurjieff too, which he is familiar with and respects highly. At one time he suggested that I would become a board member, because my ever questioning and curious mind would do good for the association. So I accepted.

The thing is, our association is having this pre-christmas party/gathering and it is a custom that someone does a short presentation on a subject. Since the subject of G. has come up on various courses, and almost all participants not knowing anything about him or his work have asked many questions, my teacher suggested that I'd do this years presentation about Gurdjieff. Now, as I said I've only scratched the surface myself having only read ISOTM and various discussions on our forum. So it's obvious that I can't grasp the whole picture of what G. is saying. And my teacher knows this. But he feels that it would be helpful for other to at least hear the "basics" about this remarkable man, since he is often forgotten in our modern times. And, he added, it would be a good opportunity for me too to broaden my understanding. I'm sure he could do the presentation himself, but I guess he wants to give me an opportunity here.

So, what do you guys think, is this a good or bad idea? If you think that it's okay for me to do this, it'll be a 45min presentation, then what would be good sources to read in this very short time I have to prepare? What aspects of G.:s work would be suitable and important for a 'basic presentation'?

Writing this I realize that I might be doing this only to please my teacher, to get his approval. But at the same time I think that I could learn a lot myself during this process and doing the presentation will be a lot of fun too! :)

Thanks in advance! :)

 

[Buddy]

Personally, I think it's a great idea. I would research the basic timeline historical stuff to contextualize G's life and work. Then I would make a list of his books, and using the chapter titles and a little summary of each, outline what kinds of issues he deals with and how he describes people in general.

Maybe even leave a bit of a teaser of some kind for people to explore further. :)

 

[obyvatel]

So, what do you guys think, is this a good or bad idea? If you think that it's okay for me to do this, it'll be a 45min presentation, then what would be good sources to read in this very short time I have to prepare? What aspects of G.:s work would be suitable and important for a 'basic presentation'?

Hi Aragorn,
I think it is a great idea. The SOTT podcasts on Gurdjieff/ISOTM can be a good source for an overview. They can be found here .
I think that ISOTM has many of the aspects of G's teachings covered. Maybe the psychological components of the teaching which are more practical in nature deserve more emphasis than the cosmological aspects which are more complex and abstract (though the law of 3 and law of 7 should perhaps be included). Analogy and allegorical stories may be a good way to introduce some concepts - like the carriage-horse-driver-passenger for the different centers, evil magician and the sheep for the state of sleeping humanity, house full of servants as an allegory of man's fragmented inner state etc. Personality and essence, identification, buffers, internal and external considering, self-observation, self-remembering - these topics come to mind. I think it will be a great exercise in tying together these various concepts in a 45 minute presentation format.
The forum has various threads which have tidbits of information about Gurdjieff as a person. For example, Laura's quote from "Life is Only Real Then When I Am" is very interesting - I think it is mentioned in the podcast as well. Patterson's "Struggle of the Magicians" has some interesting information about Gurdjieff's interactions with his students. Since the presentation is for a reiki association, this following excerpt about Fritz Peters' interaction with G from Struggle Of the Magicians could be interesting
[quote author=Struggle Of The Magicians pp 251]
As an adult Peters' most telling experience with Gurdjieff came in the late summer of 1945. Peters having had several near-death experiences in the Army, in a dangerous state of nervous exhaustion , sought Gurdjieff out in his Paris apartment. When Gurdjieff saw him, he cried out - "My son!" Later, slumped in a chair in the kitchen, Gurdjieff filled him full of "a violent, electric blue light", his hanbledzoin, to recharge Peters' energy and atmosphere.
[/quote]
All the best to you Aragorn for this interesting project of yours.

 

[Approaching Infinity]

If you're interested in reading the most up-to-date (and as accurate as is possible given the lack of reliable sources) biography of G, check out Paul Beekman Taylor's G.I.Gurdjieff: A New Life, published 2008.

I agree with obyvatel, stick to the psychological stuff and avoid the cosmological. However, if they're into science, check out the Basarab Nicolescu piece on the forum: http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=18025.0

 

[Nienna]

If you're interested in reading the most up-to-date (and as accurate as is possible given the lack of reliable sources) biography of G, check out Paul Beekman Taylor's G.I.Gurdjieff: A New Life, published 2008.

I agree with obyvatel, stick to the psychological stuff and avoid the cosmological. However, if they're into science, check out the Basarab Nicolescu piece on the forum: http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=18025.0

I agree with all that's been said so far so have not much to add. I think that you should do this as it would maybe plant some seeds and help yourself in the process, which is what STO is all about.

I would like to suggest Life is Real Only Then, When I Am by Gurdjieff for a look into his life.

Good luck, Aragorn.

 

[aragorn]

Thanks guys, you've been very helpful! I think I'm going to accept his offer. I wish there were more hours in a day though... :)

I don't know if this applies here, but when I'm doing a presentation I always try to start with the objective:

Like for example:
- What is the objective/goal of this presentation?
- What will you (maybe) learn from this presentation?
- Why would it be important for you/us to know/learn these things?
- How can learning these things be helpful to you?

So I think I'll be reading the suggested material (+podcasts) and try to first answer the questions above - and then build a rough framework or summary what I will include in the presentation. Maybe it would be good to present this summary/index to the audience too, before starting. So, I guess I'm saying that even though a history and a time line of G:s life would be interesting to present, I at least for the moment think that I want to get to the "core" of what is so special about his message - why should we look into G and his teachings. At least, this is what I find fascinating. Does this sound like a good plan?

Apropos, searching for 4th way material I've come across a lecture by someone named Rebecca Nottingham entitled. "The Fourth Way and Esoteric Christianity":

_http://books.google.com/books id=uQRTX666DHkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=rebecca+nottingham+fourth+way+esoteric+christianity&source=bl&ots=4uHjld0owI&sig=yp2zxQ062BWXTqO209CVJQrfRdk&hl=en&ei=-MelTN--IIuYOuG3hawC&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CDYQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Is anyone familiar with her writings, would it be a waste of time to read this? Just a thought, since this was freely available on the net.

If this presentation of mine turns out to be acceptable maybe I'll try to translate it into English - just so you guys can scratch your heads.

 

[Buddy]

Sounds like a good plan to me. :)

BTW, this is the first I've heard of Rebecca Nottingham, but here's an excerpt from a 61 page pdf that might give a peek at how she meshes the Work with Esoteric Christianity for those who may want to offer their evaluation:

Self-Observation is the foundational practice in the Work and it can evolve into a permanent perspective of awareness. Self-Observation is directed at your psychology. It provides illumination for your Work. What you see within yourself in the light of Self-Observation will give you information that you must have for transformation. You cannot reach self-transcendence if you have no self-knowledge. It takes tenacious and repeated efforts to practice Self-Observation correctly, that is, with enough objectivity to be uncritical about what you observe, and enough Conscience to motivate you to change your particular Wrong Work. The illumination from

Self-Observation will begin a change within your psychology as you see yourself in the light of Objective Truth.

It is only when you get to this point, after having learned, and practiced repeatedly, that you will know what the Work requires of you, and you will have to decide then if you want to continue.

Every bit of progress depends on your sincere effort so the continuing is always up to you. If you proceed in the Work you will feel worse before you feel better. You will observe, like a bound and gagged prisoner, while your Personality goes around acting in ways and saying things that in no way reflect what is most real in yourself -- Real I. You will sound insincere to yourself and you will feel disempowered. You will experience a feeling of psychological vertigo as you lose Acquired Personality before True Personality has had time to grow. But you will come to a point, intermittently at first, when the strength of Real I can direct Personality. Your Work Memory, which is the memory of everything that you have verified for yourself through your practice, will grow and gain clarity and have force.

You will find that this process of gaining something -- Consciousness -- requires mostly losing things, like the ordinary thoughts and emotions that make up the noise in your mind, so that there is a place inside that can hear. You will find that you have to Work your way up, through intentional effort, to a place where you can begin to receive illumination from Higher Consciousness. And what you will find is that the psychological position from which you can be receptive is characterized by Humility. Humility has no requirements and thereby enough inner silence to hear.

Be sure that this is what you are seeking -- To be humble and pure in heart and at the service of Goodness. If you are seeking personal power you will not find it in worldly terms in the Work.

Don't come to the Work expecting to be gifted with great transforming experiences. You will receive tools. You will have to use them yourself to create transformation out of effort -- WORK.

You will experience resistance internally and externally. You will no longer be going with the flow.

You will have turned around and so the flow will be going against you. Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, and Nicoll all called it esoteric Christianity so there is no reason to discard this description. If you understand that the esoteric teaching in Christianity is a teaching about Objective Truth then you can understand that all teaching from Objective Truth can be the same path from the same source throughout human history expressed in varied cultural and historical terms. Using the Christian teaching on the idea of self-transformation gives the Work a solid philosophical and ethical grounding that has been left out of the current generation of Gurdjieff schools and groups.

The Objective Truth contained in this Teaching can be verified through personal experience -- and the Work teaches you to verify everything for yourself.

Objective Truth is the same everywhere, all of the time, for everyone, and consequently verifiable.

Source: _http://www.authorsden.com/SampleWorksPDF/3594.pdf (61 pages)

 

[aragorn]

As a part of my presentation I'm planning to put a little table with Gurdjieff versus New Age philosophy in order to clarify what the main differences are. So far I've come up with these elements:


1) New Age: :

YCYOR, You create your own reality. By meditating or so called 'attracting' you can have anything you want in life: wealth, success, happiness, world peace. You are in command of your life, you are the creator. You can affect the universe; as below so above. There are no pragmatic goals, everything is achieved 'instantly' by this attracting of things. There are no restraints and the transition into enlightenment is a wonderful and smooth experience.

[Keywords: selfishness, self importance, in command, non-pragmatic, no restraint, wonderful experiences]

1) Gurdjieff:

Man is governed by the universal laws and planetary influences; as above so below. Ordinary man is not in command of his own life, he is a mechanical machine that can't DO anything, everything just happens. In order to succeed in the Work you must get rid of self importance. A true 4th way scholar exercises self restrain and channels his activities toward pragmatic goals which can benefit others. One of the most important things in The Work is to learn how to be externally considerate. Doing the Work requires a lot of hard work and sacrifices, and learning to know your complete helplessness is most of the part an unpleasant experience. You must 'die' before you can evolve.

[Keywords: unselfishness, not in command, pragmatic, restraint, externally considerate, unpleasant experiences, death]


2) New Age:

Evil and negativity shouldn't be thought of, there's no such thing!

2) Gurdjieff:

???


3) New Age:

Surrender your will to a belief system

3) Gurdjieff

?????????




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

These are just some quick thoughts and they need to be polished a lot, and they may be erroneous. So, if you guys have any ideas and thoughts regarding this I'd appreciate them highly!

Many edits: clarifying concepts

 

[Approaching Infinity]

1) New Age: :

YCYOR, You create your own reality. By meditating or so called 'attracting' you can have anything you want in life: wealth, success, happiness, world peace. You are in command of your life, you are the creator. You can affect the universe; as below so above. There are no pragmatic goals, everything is achieved 'instantly' by this attracting of things. There are no restraints and the transition into enlightenment is a wonderful and smooth experience.

[Keywords: selfishness, self importance, in command, non-pragmatic, no restraint, wonderful experiences]

1) Gurdjieff:

Man is governed by the universal laws and planetary influences; as above so below. Ordinary man is not in command of his own life, he is a mechanical machine that can't DO anything, everything just happens. In order to succeed in the Work you must get rid of self importance. A true 4th way scholar exercises self restrain and channels his activities toward pragmatic goals which can benefit others. One of the most important things in The Work is to learn how to be externally considerate. Doing the Work requires a lot of hard work and sacrifices, and learning to know your complete helplessness is most of the part an unpleasant experience. You must 'die' before you can evolve.

[Keywords: unselfishness, not in command, pragmatic, restraint, externally considerate, unpleasant experiences, death]

New Age: People "wish" and "imagine" what they want in their lives, assuming this will attract it towards them.
Gurdjieff: Man is fragmented. One part "wishes" one thing, another "wishes" for something else. Work on the self must be done in order to manifest these "wishes" into reality. Otherwise, imagination is just evidence of a predominance of desire over ability, as Orage put it. People assume they have the abilities and characteristics of states of consciousness that are actually levels beyond where they are, currently. The only way to achieve those higher levels is first through work to develop self-consciousness (knowledge of self), THEN comes objective consciousness, where those higher abilities have the ability to manifest.

2) New Age:

Evil and negativity shouldn't be thought of, there's no such thing!

2) Gurdjieff:

???

Good and evil must be looked for in every situation. By being situationally aware, we can determine what serves our aim and what doesn't.

3) New Age:

Surrender your will to a belief system

3) Gurdjieff

?????????

Develop your will to test your belief systems. Without a developed critical ability, we have no way of knowing if our belief systems (emotionally-inspired convictions) are justified and true, or not.

 

[aragorn]

Thanks AI, muchas gracias!

 

[aragorn]

Hi guys, I just got home from the 'Christmas party' I mentioned earlier in this thread. My presentation went...let's say decently. The main problem was that the one hour that I had for my presentation was way too little.

Well, I knew already in advance that I was a bit 'over my head' with this one. But I wanted to do it anyway, as a challenge and as a learning experience. As Gurdjieff himself put it, in order to understand the system you must learn and practise it - it can't be explained. I actually had that sentence in my first overhead folio (no modern gadgets were available, so I had to do it the old way). So, I explained to the audience that there's no way I can explain the ideas and the system exhaustively, but I hope that I can inspire someone to start learning it. And the truth is of course that I hardly know the basics myself.

So, anyway, after the first folio I read an excerpts from ISOTM where G. gives his pupils the task to try to explain the system to their friends and relatives. Further he explains to who the system is, to who it is suitable and who needs it (Luckily there's a Finnish translation of the book). In the English copy the pages here would be p.241-243. I shortly told about Ouspensky and his book and how O. couldn't get rid of his self importance, and thus thought that he knew the system better that Gurdjieff himself.

The next thing I had was a list or table with differences between the 'New Age' philosophy and Gurdjieff, pretty much accordingly what was in this thread (thanks AI for your input). At the point where I talked about how the New Age people don't have any pragmatic goals, that they are just 'navel gazing', and how the 4th way thinking is the opposite: you have pragmatic activities and goals to help others there was a question from the audience: "What are exactly these pragmatic activities according to Gurdjieff?" This question caught me by surprise and I felt badly prepared for this one. I tried to explain how the Work starts first with one self, only then can you help others. And by being on a higher level of being one self one can better help others. But the man was not satisfied with my answer, and rightly so! Don't know exactly what would have been the 'answer' to that one.

There where other comparison points and I found soon myself talking about the problematic with the YCYOR thinking, and how Gurdjieff stressed the idea of 'as above so below'. I also talked about how there's no free lunch and how not seeing/accepting the existence of any negativity in the universe can be a problem. I could sense strong resistance to these ideas among some in the audience. This got me a bit off balance for a moment. But in the talks afterwards some individuals thanked me for being so 'provocative'.

Okay, so the next thing I did was a quick walk through of Gurdjieff's biography, when he was born, where he studied and taught etc. At this point I had already used almost half of my time! So I had to kind of speed things up, which wasn't so good. I already sensed that most of the people in the audience didn't' have a clue of what I was talking about! I presented the turning point i G:s life, as presented in the SOTT podcast (many thanks for that!). When I revealed the big idea that came to G:s mind, the idea of self remembering and how to be reminded of it, I sensed that it was a sort of anticlimax - the idea sounded so 'boring' in the way I presented it. I wish I could have done better there. I also explained about how G. gave himself permission to use his abilities in scientific experiments; I read the part where he says about increasing the distant cosmic centers by the use of a medium. The 'channeling' theory raised some eyebrows, or this was my impression.

I tried to 'patch things up' in my next folio where I presented more closely the concept of self remembering (the allegory with the house and servants etc.). I think I should have explained better how one could apply this in the ordinary life, with giving up egoistic functions etc. but somehow I went through this too quickly. I did start to explain how G:s giving up his psychic powers could be compared with how the 'ordinary man' would give up...something. I soon realized that I didn't understand this point sufficiently. :(

The next thing I did was to present a diagram(which I did myself!) of the influences and the four ways (you can find it in the attachment pdf on page 6). I again read excerpts from ISOTM where G. talks about how the way starts, English copy pages 200-201. I realize that my diagram can have some mistakes, so feel free to point out them to me. The one thing I started to wonder was how the three other ways (fakir, monk, yogi) still leads to the esoteric center even though they are lacking. Is this correct? I think I've misunderstood this...

Then I presented the ideas of the magnetic center, how it is formed etc. And the three main centers and the higher centers. I don't think the audience understood much, it was too theoretical. Again, maybe I should have given them some practical examples. Well, I did give them one lousy one: how when you respond angrily to an email or something - that's when a program is running and the centers are functioning falsely.

At this point the chairman signaled me to wrap it up, so I knew there wasn't much time left. I quickly presented the concept of false I:s and buffers and the mechanicality of man. I had two folios of the universal laws and the 'answer' to G:s question no 1, what's the meaning of human life? Sadly, I had to skip these, but one from the audience wanted me to explain this to her after the presentation.

I ended with G:s last words to Mme Salzmann, where he talks about the importance of forming a nucleus of people. And how the Fourth Way appears when the demand arises. I actually managed to insert the comparison of Castaneda's petty tyrants and this demand that will arise (thanks again to the podcast). I stressed this point and asked the audience if they understood it; all of the heads turned sideways - no, they didn't understand it! Someone suggested that it was the same as if in 'when the pupil is ready, the teacher will appear'. I said that it was sort of the same thing, but not exactly. I said that maybe one could think of it as if in "If you live in paradise, there's no need to do any Work - you are already 'there'. But as we all know, right now our world is far from paradise - and maybe now IS the time of demand that G. talked about." Maybe I was over my head here, but I think some of them grasped the point - of course I'm not sure if it was correctly explained.

My overall impression was that these people were not comfortable with the idea that 'there's no free lunch' and that man is a machine that must do hard work to wake up. But that was to be expected of course. Some individuals did however agree with this and we discussed the ideas of G. some more during the evening. So, I felt that I had done some 'good' after all. One thing that I have noticed is that when one talks about how bad the world is, how there's a demand of improving things, exposing the lies etc. people DON'T AGREE that there's something wrong in the world!!! They live in their cosy lives where they don't' think about wars and murder and manipulation - they feel that the world is a pretty good place. So, there's no arguing with that kind of people.

Oh, and in my handout I did include a book list and links to this forum and the podcasts. So, if there's a wave of new Finnish members here, you know who to blame. ;)

I realize that this 'raport' is quite lengthy and I'm not sure if there's that much value to someone else. But I felt that it was important for me to recapitulate my presentation, and please, mirror away and point out flaws in my reasoning if you can find the time. Thanks for reading!

p.s. Later in the evening they asked me to sing. This was surely more my 'backyard' and I enjoyed very much doing the thing I know best, which is singing. :)

 

[aragorn]

Here's part 1 of my presentation, in Finnish only sorry!

 

[aragorn]

Here's part 2.

 

[aragorn]

And lastly, part 3. Any feedback from Finnish forum members are very welcomed!

 

[stellar]

Sorry Argon, I don't know any Finnish but you've clearly put alto of work into it.

It was not surprising that some people may not have 'got it', but we sort of see that every day in many ways, don't we? Change of tactic/approach on the subject?

IMO the most important thing about the presentation is that it was a lesson in how much more you need to learn to actually be able to speak of G's work. I for one am in the front line of this insufficient knowledge lineup.

There is no reason to think you have failed (just in case that crosses your mind) because it has taught you much about you.That is always a positive step OSIT .

Maybe it will become a personal goal so that if another time you are confronted with a question or few about G you will just 'sing out' some basic facts of crystallised knowledge.That would be neat. Well , just my 2c worth.

And I must not forget, KUDOS for the courage to do what you did ;)