Gurdjieff On the Nature of Man

[caballero reyes]

Quote of Laura:« on: December 05, 2013, 02:24:27 PM »


"Such is the nature of man, that for your first gift—he prostrates himself;
for your second—kisses your hand;
for the third—fawns;
for the fourth—just nods his head once;
for the fifth— becomes too familiar; for the sixth—insults you;
and for the seventh—sues you because he was not given enough."

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

According to my understanding of this line of human behavior, this is due to the Law of seven or the Law of octaves. Our behavior, our actions can not go in a straight line. the universe is curved. We do one thing and then do the opposite. we can only do linearly the notes DO, RE MI, then we have to make a change, a semitone. The notes vibrate at different frequency and gives the necessary curvature and this has practical application in our behavior.

 

[obyvatel]

[quote author=Gurdjieff]
"Such is the nature of man, that for your first gift—he prostrates himself;
for your second—kisses your hand;
for the third—fawns;
for the fourth—just nods his head once;
for the fifth— becomes too familiar; for the sixth—insults you;
and for the seventh—sues you because he was not given enough."
[/quote]

The first 5 steps describe the process of habituation. There is the empirical observation that the same originally pleasurable stimulus when repeated often enough leads to decreasing levels of satisfaction. Some psychologists call it "hedonic adapation".

The sixth and seventh steps describe a reversal of the basic original impulse. While this is not studied in such a complex context as G's, there is a phenomenon of "hedonic reversal" where a stimulus initially causing one reaction changes to its opposite reaction after certain repetitions - like initial anxiety of parachute jumping becomes a thrill after habituation. Hedonic reversal is explained by psychologist Richard Solomon who proposed an "opponent process theory" where a stimulus is said to evoke two opposing internal reactions. The primary reaction is stronger in the beginning but as the stimulus is repeated often enough and at certain periodicity, the opposing secondary reaction gets stronger. Here is the pdf link to Solomon's paper.
Solomon describes the secondary process to be
- slower to develop compared to the primary process after the introduction of the stimulus
- slower to decay back compared to the primary process after withdrawal of the stimulus


The process described in Solomon's thesis follows the dynamics of addiction. In case of "help" as outlined by G, it is possible that similar dynamics are at play. If the process is allowed to unfold mechanically, it would take the form as represented by G. And this experience and observation of G while working with men perhaps led him to say

[quote author=G]
You not know how to give. You only let others take. Let them take, you do no good: you lose and they get dependent. Not easy to give. Learn how to give, then you make other people free.
[/quote]

Perhaps one aspect of this lies in helping by creating conditions in which change becomes possible rather than providing the main impulse for the change in the form of help?

 

[David]

[quote author=Gurdjieff]
"Such is the nature of man, that for your first gift—he prostrates himself;
for your second—kisses your hand;
for the third—fawns;
for the fourth—just nods his head once;
for the fifth— becomes too familiar; for the sixth—insults you;
and for the seventh—sues you because he was not given enough."

[quote author=G]
You not know how to give. You only let others take. Let them take, you do no good: you lose and they get dependent. Not easy to give. Learn how to give, then you make other people free.
[/quote]

Perhaps one aspect of this lies in helping by creating conditions in which change becomes possible rather than providing the main impulse for the change in the form of help?
[/quote]

Or simply some men become junkies, dependent on the fix for their desires, hopes and dreams, which were never their own to begin with, and what junkie would not curse some dealer, if he was not given enough for his fix.

The high of hope, the delirium of desire, and the dream of dreams for ones walking sleep.

‘Your holding out on me G, I need a fix for my trip... expletive... expletive.’

Well... maybe so.

 

[Menna]

"Such is the nature of man, that for your first gift—he prostrates himself;
for your second—kisses your hand;
for the third—fawns;
for the fourth—just nods his head once;
for the fifth— becomes too familiar; for the sixth—insults you;
and for the seventh—sues you because he was not given enough."

You can see the imbalance in this quote first the pendulum starts all the way on the too nice side then by the fourth gift its closer to the middle (where it should have been to start) and then by the seventh it has swung all the way to the too mean side now this is alot of work alot of energy. The cognitive psychology research helps paint this picture. First an unrealistic projection on another and the need to be liked then resentment starts and you see your projection has turned and you become cold then you get upset because this person who you treated like a god is actually a human being and you get more angry because the sacred cow/illusion that you have created blew up in your face and instead of looking in and asking why this has happened you project more and blame the other and seek revenge. What did the other do? and then this action mess's up the others psyche if its not strong and its a domino effect god it can be such a mess. This is the main reason why I believe the work should be done so that there is no more poison. You don't need a cure/antidote if their is no poison but there will always be while we are here.

Perhaps one aspect of this lies in helping by creating conditions in which change becomes possible rather than providing the main impulse for the change in the form of help?

I believe this is one and the same and that one can't foresee what "the main impulse" for the change will be. By creating conditions for change you are helping you are probably providing "the main impulse" by simply creating the right conditions at this point let the person interact with the universe.

 

[Muxel]

In case of "help" as outlined by G, it is possible that similar dynamics are at play. If the process is allowed to unfold mechanically, it would take the form as represented by G. And this experience and observation of G while working with men perhaps led him to say
[quote author=G]
You not know how to give. You only let others take. Let them take, you do no good: you lose and they get dependent. Not easy to give. Learn how to give, then you make other people free.

Perhaps one aspect of this lies in helping by creating conditions in which change becomes possible rather than providing the main impulse for the change in the form of help?

It's the "give a man a fish" thing. We should not be so filled with hubris to think we know precisely how to save someone, and it's a violation of free will to save someone who is not "asking" to be saved. But we can inspire others; we can be a well from which others draw their strength and courage and it costs us nothing. Even the therapist cannot save his client directly, he is only the way-shower who aids and prods his client toward healing.

("Let them take": I also read that as providing positive reinforcement for that in others to which we should rightly be opposed. Going against our natural instincts to feed what's bad in others. Giving our energy toward the running of the Matrix.)

 

[Buddy]

In case of "help" as outlined by G, it is possible that similar dynamics are at play. If the process is allowed to unfold mechanically, it would take the form as represented by G. And this experience and observation of G while working with men perhaps led him to say
[quote author=G]
You not know how to give. You only let others take. Let them take, you do no good: you lose and they get dependent. Not easy to give. Learn how to give, then you make other people free.

Perhaps one aspect of this lies in helping by creating conditions in which change becomes possible rather than providing the main impulse for the change in the form of help?

It's the "give a man a fish" thing.

That's what I was thinking too.

 

[obyvatel]

Is it an aim of self-development to be full of appreciation and expecting nothing so that we are always at the stage of the "first gift"?

From the 4th Way perspective of self-development, I think there is a need for being aware of the principle of reciprocal feeding or "one hand washes the other". A "gift" puts one under an obligation. In G's example, there is no sense of obligation for mechanical man who simply demands more and gets angry if he does not receive. But how we deal with the obligation is important. In life, some people have an automatic reaction to reciprocate - when given a gift they immediately want to give a return gift, to settle the scores so to say.

When responding to gifts of a more conscious nature, fawning, prostrating oneself, or acting sycophantically is a wastage of energy. Sometime the gift could be of a nature that we cannot immediately pay back in kind. We may realize that we simply do not have the ability to do so. Acknowledging this deeply can strengthen our wish to work harder. We can choose to reciprocate in ways that are possible for us at present while constantly reminding ourselves of the obligation we are under. As our level of understanding and being grows, it becomes clearer how we can pay back the gifts that we have received. OSIT

 

[Muxel]

I agree with you obyvatel, in fact, I was thinking about it earlier and surmised that I had a "responsibility" to these people who have given to me consciously. "Obligation" is more apt. And the danger lies in my tendency to become habituated, which would lead me to take and take and expect more and eventually cause my relationships to wane. And it is therefore upon me to "remember my obligation" so that the impulse to give would be within me. And then yes, I would be able to reciprocate in one way or another, sooner or later, in the best way my intellect knows how.

This "responsibility," or "obligation," is like an inner attitude. I might think, Oh, X is lackluster toward me today, when in fact there were countless instances in the recent past when X showed how much he/she cared about me and was concerned for my wellbeing. So it is almost a crime for me to take offense at X in the present moment. (On another note, I like to remind myself that I have a "duty" to the world and to everyone who has shown me unexpected kindness and/or compassion in the past, and if ever I am to fight for something in this life, it would be for Them. If there is something for which I would not see the world burn, it is Them.)

 

[Mike]

As I've said a number of times in the Spirit Release videos, so much research is needed. And it needs to be good research, with some basic controls over the material, yardsticks, etc, as minimal as they might be in the beginning. But all attempts to do this were stymied and sort of died on the vine at the turn of the century with the clamp-down by materialist science and the ridiculing and destruction of any legitimate scientist who turned their attention to these crucial topics. I would even suggest that a large part of the reason for the many, many attacks on me and my work is because I take this approach. Not only are you not allowed to study the paranormal if you are a scientist, if you are a student of the paranormal, you are not allowed to introduce scientific methods! You must either preach the religion of science or the religion of religion. And of course, from my perspective, that is crazy.

I was reminded of the above when reading this article about the amount of money, estimated at a billion $ over the years between the US and Soviet Union, that went into research into mind control and related topics, etc. That's not even counting private and corporate money that could have been spent. They had to have delved into non-mainstream topics like SRT, but not to help people, but further their agenda. Sad - could you imagine a billion $ being used for research for all people and for the sake of knowledge instead of control and power and what we might be able to discover?

_https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/1b0b3d97df54

Revealed: The Soviet Union’s $1 Billion ‘Psychotronic’ Arms Race with the US

During the Cold War, the Soviet scientists vied with the US to understand mind control, remote viewing and non-local physics, according to a new review of unconventional research in the USSR

During the Cold War, the US and the Soviet Union battled on many fronts to demonstrate their superior technical and scientific achievements. Some of these battles are well known and well documented, such as the race to put a human in space and then on the Moon.

Others are much less well known. One of these battlefronts was in unconventional research—parapsychology (or psychotronics as the Soviets called it), mind control and remote influence and the such like. Some of the US work on these topics is now public and has famously become the basis for various books, TV documentaries and for the Hollywood film “The Men Who Stare at Goats”.

But much less is known about the Soviet equivalents. Today that changes thanks to the work of Serge Kernbach at the Research Center of Advanced Robotics and Environmental Science in Stuttgart, Germany. Kernbach provides an overview of Soviet efforts in unconventional research between 1917 and 2003 based on publications in Russian technical journals and recently declassified documents.

He shows how Soviet research evolved more or less independently of work in the western world but focused on many of the same unconventional themes as secret US programs. And he shows how the Soviets and the Americans used what little they knew of each other’s work to create a self-sustaining cycle of funding. This psychotronic arms race cost as much as $1 billion and only ended in the early 21st century when the funding bubble burst.

Kernbach begins by pointing out that research in the USSR could only be done with government support, unlike research in the west which could be privately funded. So the Soviets had a considerable bureaucracy to manage unconventional research and to fund it, albeit with a certain cyclical character as it fell in and out of favour.

Over the years, the Soviets focused on a number of areas, many of which mirrored US efforts. For example, the US Project MKULTRA, was a 20-year CIA program that studied ways of manipulating people’s minds and altering their brain function.

The Soviets had a similar program. This included experiments in parapsychology, which the Soviets called psychotronics. The work built on a long-standing idea in Soviet science that the human brain could receive and transmit a certain kind of high frequency electromagnetic radiation and that this could influence other objects too.

Various researchers reported that this “human energy” could change the magnetisation of hydrogen nuclei and stimulate the immune systems of wheat, vine and even humans. They even developed a device called a “cerpan” that could generate and store this energy.

Like MKULTRA, this program also included a study of the effects of electromagnetic waves on humans and led to the development psychotronic weapons, which were intended to alter people’s minds.

Kernbach also describes significant Soviet research on non-local signal transmission based on the Aharonov-Bohm effect. This occurs when a charged particle is influenced by an electromagnetic field, even when it is confined to a region where the field strength is zero.

Soviet scientists appear to have called this effect “spin-torsion” and built a number of devices to exploit it. But just how successful this was isn’t clear and this line of work appears to have been killed off in 2003.

One thing that Kernbach’s analysis lacks is any detailed discussion of the results of these programs. Consequently, it’s hard to escape the sense that this research is steeped in jargon and pseudoscience

All this research required substantial investment, says Kernbach. Numbers are difficult to come by but he concludes that Soviet spending on unconventional research must have reached the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars and may have hit $1 billion.

It certainly matched US spending and on projects such as MKULTRA this was in the hundreds of millions. “Soviet and US costs are comparable at least on a level of separate programs,” he says.

Although Kernbach says much of this research was discontinued in 2003, it is not clear whether Russia (or the US) has ongoing programs in these areas. However, Kernbach says there are as many as 500 researchers in Russia that are still active in the field of psychotronics (as measured by the numbers still attending conferences on this topic).

What’s also clear is that a significant amount unconventional research is still classified in Russia. “For instance, documents on experiments performed in OGPU and NKVD — even 80 years after — still remain classified,” says Kernbach (OGPU was the secret police force of the Soviet Union between 1922 and 1934. It evolved into the NKVD, which included the organisation that later became the KGB.)

Kernbach’s review merely scratches the surface of all this. There’s obviously significantly more to the Soviet work on unconventional research than he is able to reveal.

For the moment we’ll have to wait to find out whether that will ever be made public. And whether it was matched by similar programs in the West.

 

[obyvatel]

If I may ask for your opinion on something Laura, in 30 Years Among The Dead, there are many "souls" which seem rather spiritually ignorant and mechanical. But they persist after death. Are those simply assemblies of thought-forms which have yet to leave 3D for 5D to de-compile in the "second death"? Because they certainly don't seem to be the type of hardy soul that Gurdjieff says is forged through intentional suffering and self-remembering. Mysterious world, this one.

I don't mean to try and answer the question that you addressed to Laura - but here are some thoughts on the same topic. In Gurdjieff's scheme, man can potentially have multiple bodies. Next to the physical body is what he calls the kesdjan (astral) body. The "hanbledzoin" referred to in the previous post which serves as the connection between the feeling and thinking parts is also said to be the "blood for the kesdjan body". If the kesdjan body is fully formed and coated, then it is said to exist within the planetary sphere after the death of physical body. This kesdjan body or second being body is different from the soul or third being body. While the kesdjan body, if formed and coated, can survive the death of the physical body within the sphere of the planet of its arising, the soul, if formed and coated, can survive within the sphere of the solar system of its arising.

G talks about some interesting properties of the kesdjan body. For one, it is not localized in space as the physical body. It also cannot apparently exist forever by itself if certain developmental level (required gradation of reason) is not reached and it needs to attach itself to something which could be a physical body or "other kesdjanian arisings". So the eartbound "soul" could correspond to G's concept of kesdjan body which has not developed itself to some level.

fwiw

Not only that, but Gurdjieff seems to have been feeling his way toward a clearer exposition of psychopathy and ponerology which is what I was sort of hinting at in the first post. And I don't think he ever got there, not even in B'sT.

I think that the observations of the ancients about souls - or lack thereof - were quite good and accurate, the only problem was the language they used to express these things changed over time and misunderstandings entered in. To say that a person is not born with an individuated soul but must grow it is an interesting observation about a person occupying a mechanical physical body where the animal nature is strong and dissociation and ponerization are strong influences, but it really says nothing about whether or not they "have" a soul. It just speaks about whether that soul is able to fully "drive" the body. And in most people, that rarely happens.

At the same time, the Cs have said there are other types that do not have individuated souls at all - Organic Portals. So it seems to me that this type could easily be confused with the mechanical person with a soul and the conclusion drawn that nobody is born "with a soul" as Gurdjieff - possibly based on ancient teachings - concluded.

Here is some more info on soul-stuff according to J G Bennett, a student of Gurdjieff who was also a seeker in his own right.

[quote author= Bennett in The Study of Man]
It is nearly 40 years ago when I first heard that Gurdjieff - I think it was reported to me - in one of his lectures in the Prieuré had replied to the question "Has man got a soul?"
"No, he has only the raw material of a soul".
And then they said to him "But does it mean that he has nothing at all until he gets a soul?"
and he said "No, everyone has got a soul, only, until this is organized, it is like a kind of cloud; a cloud that floats about inside the body, and wherever that cloud is, there is the centre of interest".

When I heard this talk of Gurdjieff's I was very struck, because it seemed to me that this was a really serious way of talking about the soul that I had not come across before. I felt that there was equal difficulty in saying that every human being had a completely formed soul as in saying that man had no soul. The reason why the first was difficult to accept is that it is so seldom m that anyone shows much sign that they had a soul. And the other is difficult to accept because one cannot possibly feel that there is nothing in man except his body. And I could not feel that there was also any senses any conviction whatever in the idea that the soul is some kind of immaterial principle that was somehow sitting in the middle of the body and telling it what to do, but without any contact with it. Such ideas about the soul as if it were either wholly formed from the start and indestructible - which is the orthodox view that has been taken over from the Greeks - or if one thinks of the soul as nonexistent, just a myth, or if one thinks of it as an immaterial principle that has no real connection with the body - all seem equally unacceptable. But it seemed to me very plausible to say like Gurdjieff that the soul is a sensitive cloud that moves about inside us, and wherever it happens to be, that is where we are because that is where our interest is concentrated. If the soul happens to pass into our feelings, then we are all feeling; if it drifts into our thoughts, then our interest is in our thoughts; if it goes into our stomach, then we have interest only in food. I think that, as far as I can remember, these are the very things that Gurdjieff said in that lecture, which unfortunately I have never been able to get hold of in written form.
[/quote]

Question comes what is this "unformed sensitive cloud" that is the raw material for the soul made of? Bennett's hypothesis is that this material comes from a "soul stuff pool" analogous to the material of earth which provides the content of the physical body. The soul stuff pool material, like the material that comes from the earth, varies in quality. It can contain elements which are capable of more or less conscious experiences and this in turn is related to the energies contained.

[quote author=Bennett in The Study of Man]
Long after I heard that lecture - but also from a starting point given by Gurdjieff - I came to the conclusion that one must think in terms of different [energies] connected with how things work. Since these include ourselves, it seemed to me that this soul stuff, or soul cloud, must be made of energies which are sensitive and which are capable of being conscious under certain circumstances, and which can somehow attract experience and hold it. Some of you may have heard me talk about this many years ago, and I remember I used to speak of it rather as if the soul stuff were like a kind of sticky material, say like fly-paper when things happen to us, something gets caught on this soul stuff and gets stuck there. So it gradually gets loaded up with all our experiences; so that, instead of having the simplicity of its primitive state, it becomes loaded with the traces of past experiences until it can take up no more. After that, we go on using over and over again, all these old traces as they are stimulated by different impressions from outside.

I said that this soul stuff that I am talking about loses its primitive, simple quality as a result of picking up experiences that come to it from the outside world. But is it really in a pure state at the beginning; when it first enters at the moment of conception? After I had studied this and compared these ideas with what has been written by many people, about their experiences and the various traditional ideas it seemed to me one must say that this soul stuff does not enter in a pure state: but does carry with it something from the soul-stuff Pool from which it came. So that it can vary in quality, in the way that iron ore varies; that is, it can be soul-stuff with a rather higher percentage, of conscious energy; or soul stuff with a greater percentage of sensitive or even merely automatic energy. { these terms sensitive and automatic energy are defined precisely in other places by Bennett; I intend to elaborate on these ideas later }.

But it also will bear traces of its origin. At some time or other this same soul-stuff material has entered into other formations it has formed part of other beings; after their death it has dissolved and re-entered into the-pool. Here I must tell you that what struck me and sort of brought this into focus for me, was something familiar to everyone and that is the scene in the last act of “Peer Gynt” where Peer meets the Button Moulder. The first time I came across that this seemed to me to correspond so exactly to this notion of a pool of material out of which the soul-stuff is drawn into the new being and will carry with it some traces of previous states of existence. These traces may have very varying degrees of intensity; sometimes they may even be actual memories. So that people can have [memories] that appear as if they actually lived previously under some ether conditions. And this of course gives rise to a false - in my opinion - notion of reincarnation, as if the whole of the soul-stuff is always a completely formed entity, drifting from life to life, such an idea which does not accord with our experience and which has produced in the West all sorts of false suppositions.
[/quote]

The idea of a cloud of material with varying quality (related to energy) coming from a soul pool stuff fits with the organic portal hypothesis as well as the C's comment about soul imprints that can develop in certain non-living things with a certain degree of complexity of organization - like Atlantean crystals and our computers.

This soul-stuff material is not conditioned by time in the same way as the earthly material composing physical bodies is conditioned. This material belongs to a dimension (?) of time which Bennett calls "eternity" and it is the same dimension where Carl Jung's archetypes or the Platonic thought forms reside. In Jung's schema, the archetypes interact with life as we know it through openings where the collective unconscious comes into contact with the personal unconscious.

The term crystallization was used quite a bit by Gurdjieff. I think this term crystallization refers to the organization of the soul stuff material according to its capacity. For earthly materials, the crystallization process progressively eliminates impurities as crystals take their characteristic shape. But impurities of a certain kind which can mimic the characteristics of the regular material can be part of crystal structures (eg in the electronic industry, deliberate introduction of such impurities is called doping in the silicon crystal) and changes the properties of the crystal. When applied to soul stuff crystallization, spirit attachments can perhaps be looked at as such an analogous process. Certain predispositions or traumas can create openings where certain type of soul stuff material (spirits) can take residence.

 

[caballero reyes]

These parts from Olga de Hartmann post 1924

Quote
When I came back to myself, my first thought was, "Did I die or not? How will everything be now? And what about the Institute?' I saw that I was alive, and I decided to close the Institute for many reasons.
First of all, there are very few people who understand. I gave all my life for my Work, but the result from other people in general was not good and that is why I think it is not necessary for those few to sacrifice their lives here. And I don't wish to continue as I have done until now: All my life I gave up all my money to other people, but now I have decided to close the Institute. Forgive me. I wish now to live for myself and tell everyone that the Institute is closed.


Quote
However, we ourselves con- tinued to live at the Prieure. Tension increased more and more. But we could not really believe Mr Gurdjieff actually wished us to go, as we had followed him for so long, in spite ofevery kind of hardship. Finally, he made conditions impossible, and one day in June, after a very strained and difficult conversation, we could do nothing but go. I was very unhappy and upset, and Mr de Hart- mann, who was so much more sensitive and individualistic by nature, could not endure it and was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

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

Olga de Hartmann and husband 's attitude does not seem of smart people, but common people, who have had no education for harmonious development. I do not think they have understood the teachings of his master.

 

[CrimsonEagle]

"Such is the nature of man, that for your first gift—he prostrates himself;
for your second—kisses your hand;
for the third—fawns;
for the fourth—just nods his head once;
for the fifth— becomes too familiar; for the sixth—insults you;
and for the seventh—sues you because he was not given enough."

So, I suspect that these last few paragraphs - especially the last six lines - distill what G intended to discuss at length in the last unfinished chapter. Most likely he was talking about the "man in parentheses", the man without a soul, mechanical man or, perhaps not?

Funny, the way I was reading this was,

Such is the nature of man, that for your first gift—he prostrates himself;

The man see's the teacher as one whom holds great wisdom. He is enamored with the teacher to the point of outright worship. (First gift being the teacher agreeing to work with them?)

for your second—kisses your hand;

As the teacher begins to teach, the student is still in a state of near worship, kissing the teachers hand at every gem passed on.

for the third—fawns;

The student still has great respect for the teacher and will lavish praises to his wisdom.

for the fourth—just nods his head once;

Nod's once......I do this at my job when I understand what is needed.
I think that at this point, the student thinks he understands what the teacher is trying to teach. Although he still has respect for the teacher, he thinks he is more "on level".

for the fifth— becomes too familiar;

The student now thinks himself to be equal with the teacher.

for the sixth—insults you;

The student now thinks himself to be superior to the teacher and will point out the teachers "ignorance".

and for the seventh—sues you because he was not given enough.

Student does not advance and blames the teacher for not giving enough of himself. The fault is the teachers, not the students own ignorance.

As to who this was directed toward. Not really sure, could be any and all. If I am reading correctly, it seems that he was becoming frustrated. Would he become frustrated with any of those type men listed, or which would seem more likely to me, become frustrated with his students who showed potential?

I'm cant say I am sure on any point. May not even be close. Just posting some of my musings that crossed my mind while thinking about this.


Edit=Quote

 

[Laura]

That's how I understood it, CrimsonEagle. And that is also what I have experienced on numerous occasions.

 

[caballero reyes]

« Reply #101 of Crimson Eagle on: Today at 02:02:26 PM »

< Student does not advance and blames the teacher for not giving enough of himself. The fault is the teachers, not the students own ignorance >

------------------------------------- -------------------------------- -----------------------------------
Gurdjieff was a teacher with a well-defined purpose, necessarily had to foresee that. I wonder what powerful force opposed to it. It must have been a semitone in the scale of practical life could not overcome and had to close the school.

 

[beetlemaniac]

"Such is the nature of man, that for your first gift—he prostrates himself;
for your second—kisses your hand;
for the third—fawns;
for the fourth—just nods his head once;
for the fifth— becomes too familiar; for the sixth—insults you;
and for the seventh—sues you because he was not given enough."

So, I suspect that these last few paragraphs - especially the last six lines - distill what G intended to discuss at length in the last unfinished chapter. Most likely he was talking about the "man in parentheses", the man without a soul, mechanical man or, perhaps not?

Funny, the way I was reading this was,

Such is the nature of man, that for your first gift—he prostrates himself;

The man see's the teacher as one whom holds great wisdom. He is enamored with the teacher to the point of outright worship. (First gift being the teacher agreeing to work with them?)

for your second—kisses your hand;

As the teacher begins to teach, the student is still in a state of near worship, kissing the teachers hand at every gem passed on.

for the third—fawns;

The student still has great respect for the teacher and will lavish praises to his wisdom.

for the fourth—just nods his head once;

Nod's once......I do this at my job when I understand what is needed.
I think that at this point, the student thinks he understands what the teacher is trying to teach. Although he still has respect for the teacher, he thinks he is more "on level".

for the fifth— becomes too familiar;

The student now thinks himself to be equal with the teacher.

for the sixth—insults you;

The student now thinks himself to be superior to the teacher and will point out the teachers "ignorance".

and for the seventh—sues you because he was not given enough.

Student does not advance and blames the teacher for not giving enough of himself. The fault is the teachers, not the students own ignorance.

As to who this was directed toward. Not really sure, could be any and all. If I am reading correctly, it seems that he was becoming frustrated. Would he become frustrated with any of those type men listed, or which would seem more likely to me, become frustrated with his students who showed potential?

I'm cant say I am sure on any point. May not even be close. Just posting some of my musings that crossed my mind while thinking about this.


Edit=Quote

Just a thought: A mechanical man who only knows how to take but does not understand that to receive more he must give back, in whatever form possible for him.