Doing

[JGeropoulas]

This morning, I found renewed inspiration reading these thoughts about "doing" in the Esoterica Glossary (under "4th Way"), so thought I'd post them as a fresh reminder of what we're all trying to "do".

Doing cultivates one’s seed of free will and increases being so that something that was previously not even on the map of possibilities may become actualized.

Doing is a creative act, rooted in seeing and in having an aim and requiring struggle, faith and wakefulness.

Doing requires being--having an aim and internal consistency.

Doing and being mutually reinforce each other.

Doing requires going against the flow of habit.

Reacting to something that absolutely requires reaction is not doing because it involves no free will or creative contribution to the universe.

Doing involves an internal struggle--friction between yes and no--which holds the possibility for new crystallization.

Mechanical “doing” without conscious effort does not change one, it merely perpetuates habit.

Doing requires choosing something higher than compulsion or external necessity in favor of one's destiny.

Doing which is done through faith in knowledge--in seeing the unseen--is the most significant.

Doing needs a higher aim, a creative purpose which is of service to an esoteric principle.

Doing can well take place on the fully personal plane, and does not have to involve changing the world.

Doing is a more open and interactive process than just pushing through an agenda to get what one wants.

Doing requires taking a stand and drawing a figurative circle around where one stands.

 

[edgitarra]

Thanks for sharing JGeropoulas! Good reminder. I find very interesting the aspects of "doing". The more I try to understand things related to it, the more I see that non-anticipation is incredibly important in this case. Because it seems that anticipation is a close sister of daydreaming, if not "twins".

 

[JGeropoulas]

Thanks for sharing JGeropoulas! Good reminder. I find very interesting the aspects of "doing". The more I try to understand things related to it, the more I see that non-anticipation is incredibly important in this case. Because it seems that anticipation is a close sister of daydreaming, if not "twins".

Interesting you mention non-anticipation. The first sentence is what really drew me into reading the rest:

Doing cultivates one’s seed of free will and increases being so that something that was previously not even on the map of possibilities may become actualized.

I took that to mean that doing has the potential to bring about results that are beyond our imagination or that we have never even considered. Keeping that in mind should help us avoid getting trapped by our (limited) anticipations.

 

[Mikey]

Thanks for the reminder! It is important though to add that G emphasized that Doing (with a captial letter) is something very far from us. This is difficult to accept, since we are 'doing' stuff all the time. But G said that regular 'doing' just happens, and if a man achieves something, then it is purely by accident. After which one lies to oneself that everything was fully intended and could not have gone wrong -- whereas it could have gone wrong just as easily

It seems that we have the possibility of Doing only when we have fully, viscerally seen in shock, that we are unable to Do. This may sound a bit paradoxical at first but makes sense when you think about it in terms of problem solving: You only can solve a problem if you have thoroughly seen it and studied it.

 

[edgitarra]

It seems that we have the possibility of Doing only when we have fully, viscerally seen in shock, that we are unable to Do. This may sound a bit paradoxical at first but makes sense when you think about it in terms of problem solving: You only can solve a problem if you have thoroughly seen it and studied it.

Yes that is entirely true! What you just said is so similar to Dabrowski's TPD, which amazes me as I am reading it now. Seeing that we are unable to Do, among other things starts the melt of the internal organization of the human being. First of all we have to "melt" inside in order to start reorganizing things, to build something on the right foundation.

Off topic a bit, I've been experiencing lately very big shocks, because of certain situations, and because of constantly questioning myself, and as a result, I started to be like a child in the emotional way, feeling new nuances, new intensities of emotion, being more in touch with myself, more open to myself. Something changed in my being, but I cannot give it a name. It is very interesting.

 

[Archaea]

Thanks for the reminder! It is important though to add that G emphasized that Doing (with a captial letter) is something very far from us. This is difficult to accept, since we are 'doing' stuff all the time. But G said that regular 'doing' just happens, and if a man achieves something, then it is purely by accident. After which one lies to oneself that everything was fully intended and could not have gone wrong -- whereas it could have gone wrong just as easily

It seems that we have the possibility of Doing only when we have fully, viscerally seen in shock, that we are unable to Do. This may sound a bit paradoxical at first but makes sense when you think about it in terms of problem solving: You only can solve a problem if you have thoroughly seen it and studied it.

This reminds me of a quote:

"The first lesson of power is that you don't have any."

 

[Martina]

Thank you for encouragement. :)
I'm having problems especially with going against the flow of habit.

 

[Mark7]

Good stuff! I would say that doing is also linked with Intentional Suffering, and Doing is doing what "IT" doesn't like, and not doing what it does like.

 

[JGeropoulas]

Thanks for the reminder! It is important though to add that G emphasized that Doing (with a captial letter) is something very far from us. This is difficult to accept, since we are 'doing' stuff all the time. But G said that regular 'doing' just happens, and if a man achieves something, then it is purely by accident. After which one lies to oneself that everything was fully intended and could not have gone wrong -- whereas it could have gone wrong just as easily

It seems that we have the possibility of Doing only when we have fully, viscerally seen in shock, that we are unable to Do. This may sound a bit paradoxical at first but makes sense when you think about it in terms of problem solving: You only can solve a problem if you have thoroughly seen it and studied it.

Good point, which was simultaneously discouraging and encouraging--because in recent months, I've often been made painfully aware how little unified "will" I have to actually "do".

 

[JGeropoulas]

Off topic a bit, I've been experiencing lately very big shocks, because of certain situations, and because of constantly questioning myself, and as a result, I started to be like a child in the emotional way, feeling new nuances, new intensities of emotion, being more in touch with myself, more open to myself. Something changed in my being, but I cannot give it a name. It is very interesting.

That describe a lot of my experience in recent months.

 

[JGeropoulas]

Good stuff! I would say that doing is also linked with Intentional Suffering, and Doing is doing what "IT" doesn't like, and not doing what it does like.

But what constitutes this "IT"? Bodily appetites? Emotional reactions? Mental programs? The wants of all our little "i"s? Without some kind of discernment, seems we're doomed to mechanically becoming just the equally-imbalanced reverse image of all our previous imbalances. How do we discern between "IT" and our developing "I"?

 

[Mark7]

Good stuff! I would say that doing is also linked with Intentional Suffering, and Doing is doing what "IT" doesn't like, and not doing what it does like.

But what constitutes this "IT"? Bodily appetites? Emotional reactions? Mental programs? The wants of all our little "i"s? Without some kind of discernment, seems we're doomed to mechanically becoming just the equally-imbalanced reverse image of all our previous imbalances. How do we discern between "IT" and our developing "I"?

The "IT", the predator's mind, includes those mechanical processes your described. It is the automatic seeking after comfort and avoidance of pain. All this is tied in with the concept of the "Organ Kundabuffer", or so it seems:

http://glossary.cassiopaea.com/glossary.php?id=731&lsel=S

[...] We could say that mechanical suffering is rooted in subjectivity and consideration for self. Intentional or conscious suffering is on the other hand rooted in internal struggle for objectivity. It is choosing the higher in the place of the lower, choosing external considering in the place of internal considering, for example. Of course before this makes sense, there must exist some sort of taste for differentiating between these.

So it comes to be that the illusion of being virtuous because one happens to feel pain must be sacrificed, whereas the internal struggle towards objectivity must be embraced. Man's natural complacency and mechanicality, not to mention the General Law, will offer all the adversary one might wish for. In Gurdjieff's words, the Creator's joy is in creation struggling towards truth. This joy cannot be without the struggle, just as there cannot be free will without the presence of alternatives.

In chapter 7 of "Insearch of the Miraculous" G. discusses the concept of 'remembering the self', which seems to be a constant struggle to remain truly conscious amidst the constant undertow of unconscious thinking.

...for you can know it [consciousness] only when you have it. And when you have not got it, you can know that you have not got it, not at that very moment, but afterwards. I mean that when it comes again you can see that it has been absent a long time, and you can find or remember the moment when it disappeared and when it reappeared. You can also define the moment when you are nearer to consciousness and further away from consciousness. But by observing in yourself the appearance and the disappearance of consciousness you will inevitably see one fact which you neither see nor acknowledge now, and that is that moment of consciousness are very short and are separated by long intervals of completely unconscious, mechanical working of the machine.

I notice the above in myself, being on 'autopilot' and then catching myself. So how do we know? How to maintain an objective compass? I can only say that having an aim helps, daily reading, prayer, networking, and diligence/practice are things that help me, fwiw.

 

[Alada]

Thank you for encouragement. :)
I'm having problems especially with going against the flow of habit.

Yes, thanks here too, it’s a good reminder. The problem with going against habit sometimes is if we try to tackle the big ones, and fail or succeed for a while only to fall back again. It happens for us all but can be discouraging, frustrating! Maybe better to tackle smaller habits first, a few at a time, and gradually work up the scale to move on to include larger problems.

It might seem silly at first, to make one’s aim what might seem like only a very small habit. But you can come to see even in this, that it can be far more difficult than we might at first suppose. Yet the tendency is often to jump ahead and try to tackle some big themes right away (and all at once!), only to get completely stuck in our tracks when we see that we cannot DO. But I guess at least we learn to see this for a fact in trying and failing, whereas most of the time we never even notice that everything just ‘happens’, the idea that we cannot ‘Do’ makes no sense. So all is not lost, at least you got to see something of the scale of the problem!

Baby steps is the way, I think.

 

[edgitarra]

Baby steps is the way, I think.

Definetely! The big things are composed by small ones ! It is of course not enough to work with a small particle(a.k.a habit) and expect already change, but all the small things are interconnected to create the bigger ones. So working with tiny steps can affect simultaneously other areas of the person

 

[Menna]

It seems that we have the possibility of Doing only when we have fully, viscerally seen in shock, that we are unable to Do

Yes, if you cause harm to yourself or another and see the horror of your machine have remorse then they next time you are put in the same situation you hopefully will remember your mistakes and DO differently. The pain or the shock of the wrong doing I believe is a force that pushes one to self remember and in that moment thoughts/ideas can change this leads to different actions this leads to a change in events. One might make a mistake again but you will learn new information because you did it differently some times it takes more than one or two attempts to actually Do. Even if you are advanced in the work and can self remember in some situations there are so many variables one can not foresee all the dynamics of the situation however one can get closer to their aim/protect themselves more and more with new knowledge from past mistakes though it might take multiple attempts to reach your aim but the protections can improve from the first attempt. I also think its harder to DO when their are multiple people involved or the situation involves multiple steps.