Immortality

[Number 6]

Hi!
First time poster on this forum, long time reader.
I was just wondering about the view on immortality in the work of Gurdjieff versus the C's.
I couldn't find any posts about this, but if it is I apologize.
Anyway, the C's said in the Wave that when a person dies (not an OP) the soul goes to 5th density for contemplation and recycling.
This indicates that every person that has a soul is immortal and is reincarnated back into the loop so to say to learn more lessons.
But, as I read the "In search of the miraculous", Gurdjieff said that no man is immortal and could only grow a soul if they could wake up from the mass hypnosis and the mechanical state and even then in the "forth room" the soul would die after a certain period of "time". I hope I got this right, but anyway I got kind of confused. Is this to say that Gurdjieff was wrong his view about immortality or am I missing the obvious here? Any thoughts?
Thanks.

 

[memeontheroof]

Hi I just started reading In search of the miraculous myself and I came to the exact same place in the book and stopped. I have to admit it made me so depressed and disheartened that I came to the forum to do some research and hopefully to find out more. I was so startled that I actually posted something as so far I have only been reading.

 

[anart]

Hi I just started reading In search of the miraculous myself and I came to the exact same place in the book and stopped. I have to admit it made me so depressed and disheartened that I came to the forum to do some research and hopefully to find out more. I was so startled that I actually posted something as so far I have only been reading.

Well, it's a complicated subject and I admit that I don't know the answer. Gurdjieff's take is that unless a person fuses a singular 'I', creating a part of himself that is solid and unchangeable, that there is nothing created that can be immortal. There is nothing but false personality, programs and mechanical reactions. There is, in fact, no 'man' there at all - thus there is nothing created in that incarnation that could possibly be 'immortal'.

Is this the objective truth? Perhaps, but, perhaps the devil is in the details. When one considers the idea that time as we know it does not exist, then infinite possibilities open up, regarding learning, incarnations and what is or is not 'carried over'.

Our understanding of incarnation itself is so limited by our linear view of reality, that we are blind.

I have often wondered if Gurdjieff didn't push this aspect of his teaching so hard because it is such a strong part of human nature and programming to think that 'the afterlife' will make everything okay, that it will all work out, which reduces the motivation to Work. I've often wondered if this wasn't his way of stepping on the biggest corn of all - that human predilection to procrastination in all things, and to 'assuming' that we are all somehow 'special and protected'. To reach his students (and us), who were so deeply lost in a dream state (as most of us are now as well) it would have been quite brilliant to make it brutally clear to them that there is nothing without Working to create it. Nothing. That a person will cease to exist without extraordinary efforts and progress in becoming Real - the Work is done only with super efforts, ordinary efforts result in nothing.

Perhaps he knew that progress made in one lifetime can accelerate learning in another, or perhaps he was even very well aware of the possibility for multiple simultaneous incarnations and how that would effect Everything. Perhaps, knowing this, he also knew that the most valuable lifetime that exists is the 'present' one, where attention is focused 'now', so to reach his students he made it very clear that in order to become immortal, one must first become Real.

Or, perhaps, he was telling the literal truth - it certainly is within the realm of possibility and it certainly makes sense, from a certain perspective. If he is telling the literal truth, then what does that mean? How does that change anything other than our own consideration of what is and what is not 'a given'? Ultimately, the fact remains that this is our life - this lifetime is where our attention and energy is currently focused and what else is there to do but to strive - in all and everything - to become Real? What else is there?

I don't think there is any reason to become depressed or disheartened due to the removal of a comfortable assumption (though I understand how easy it is to become so). The C's once said, "don't mourn the loss of an illusion" - so - whether Gurdjieff was speaking an objective truth or a metaphorical one, the situation we are currently in remains the same. All we have is this life, this 'time' to do what is in us and what is before us to do - to strive to burn away all those aspects of our false personality that limit us and keep us prisoner here - to strive to Give in the objective sense of the word.

That is what is before us - no matter what - and that is the promise, the struggle and the miraculous nature of human existence.

Apologies for the length, but it really is a complicated subject and I won't, for a minute, presume to know the exact answer. fwiw.

 

[Buddy]

I also agree that it's a difficult question. I found this little Sufi tale interesting to think about, though. It would seem to emphasize the importance of what we can build of ourselves while in the current lifetime:

One day the Master asked, "What, in your opinion, is the most important of all religious questions?"

He got many answers:

"Does God exist?"
"Who is God?"
"What is the path to God?"
"Is there a life after death?"

"No," said the Master. "The most important question is: 'Who am I?'"

The disciples got some idea of what he was hinting at when they overheard him talking to a preacher:

Master: "So then, according to you, when you die your soul will be in heaven?"
Preacher: "Yes."
Master: "And your body will be in the grave?"
Preacher: "Yes."
Master: "And where, may I ask, will you be?"

 

[daco]

This sufi tale sound like zen tales.

 

[Gonzo]

Great Sufi tale. It really speaks to the question of which part of the person belongs to the body, which to the soul and whether there are other components (spirit, for example. Is it different than the soul?).

Perhaps as anart suggests, it could come down to whether G meant it literally. Perhaps, if each soul is an individual expression of the divine cosmic mind, then when the body dies and the soul hits 5D for contemplation, it is considered a new creation in the next incarnation, carrying only a plan to achieve lessons and possibly some remnant energy from earlier incarnations. If this could be, then it would mean the soul ends and begins anew, but with a new lesson plan.

Very interesting question. I do wonder if it is a bit paradoxical in that we could never fully comprehend from our 3D mind, and so, to invest too much energy in trying to solve it could amount to significant distraction from the 4th way. OSIT.

Gonzo

 

[Johnno]

This sufi tale sound like zen tales.

Yes, I've been reading a bit of both over the past few months and there seems to be a lot of similarities. Not just in the tales.

Hi I just started reading In search of the miraculous myself and I came to the exact same place in the book and stopped. I have to admit it made me so depressed and disheartened that I came to the forum to do some research and hopefully to find out more. I was so startled that I actually posted something as so far I have only been reading.

There's five pages of discussion over on this thread.

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=6399.0

Apologies for the length, but it really is a complicated subject and I won't, for a minute, presume to know the exact answer. fwiw.

No need to apologise, it was a good post. Gurdjieff spoke of "The disease of tomorrow." and he really hammered home of how the best time to work was now not later. I think he also regarded any talk of the afterlife as useless.

 

[ScioAgapeOmnis]

Some thoughts - perhaps the Work brings you closer to what your Soul is, kinda unifies the physical and non-physical into one. In other words, the conscious and subconscious begin to communicate and become "one". If you're just a machine then whatever your soul is, it is not "you", so of course when you die, if all that you were is a mechanical personality, this will die permanently, and like the sufi master says, "you" go to the grave. But if you have a unified "I" and open yourself up to infinity and begin to merge with your "destiny", it can allow you to become the "you in the future" and Be your "higher self", so when you die, you take a lot of it with you?

 

[Third_Density_Resident]

Hello SAO

I think your interpretation is an excellent one.

I have often pondered what G. meant when he spoke of immortality and only gaining this if you fuse a singular "I". I always thought that modern evidence completely contradicted what G. said about nothing surviving death unless a single "I" was fused, since there are numerous well-documented near-death experiences (NDEs), even extremely vivid NDEs of criminals or materialistic people who were hardly doing any kind of Work during their lives. (It should be noted that 95% of such people totally changed their way of living afterwards.) Since such evidence was probably non-existent in G's time, since he didn't have the benefit of people being resuscitated and recounting what they experienced while clinically dead, I concluded that G. was most likely wrong on his point about immortality, since scientific data has to take precedence over any theory.

However, over the last few years I have changed that viewpoint and see G. speaking of something else when he referred to immortality, and I think that Anart has a good point, but also what you have just said also seems very possible, and even "reconciles" what for a long time seemed to me to be a contradiction.

 

[go2]

Or, perhaps, he was telling the literal truth - it certainly is within the realm of possibility and it certainly makes sense, from a certain perspective. If he is telling the literal truth, then what does that mean? How does that change anything other than our own consideration of what is and what is not 'a given'? Ultimately, the fact remains that this is our life - this lifetime is where our attention and energy is currently focused and what else is there to do but to strive - in all and everything - to become Real? What else is there?

I don't think there is any reason to become depressed or disheartened due to the removal of a comfortable assumption (though I understand how easy it is to become so). The C's once said, "don't mourn the loss of an illusion" - so - whether Gurdjieff was speaking an objective truth or a metaphorical one*, the situation we are currently in remains the same. All we have is this life, this 'time' to do what is in us and what is before us to do - to strive to burn away all those aspects of our false personality that limit us and keep us prisoner here - to strive to Give in the objective sense of the word.

Anart, I want to thank you for your questions and your answers on how we are to be Real even though we have questions and doubts. It seems those capable of Work must give up the comfort of certainty, as I always have another question and more doubt, at least so far.

I doubt a distinction between “objective truths” and “metaphor” is useful. “Metaphor” is one way of understanding or arriving at an “objective truth”. The human desire for the certainty of measure in this scientific age leads men and women to demand historicity and empiricism of all and everything.

How can we measure love? How are we to understand immortality? The Tradition conveys such “esoteric truths” by metaphor, allegory, and parable. The attempt to literally explain an “esoteric truth” can lead to deflection from understanding esoteric or the inner truth of woman and man.

An example of this sort of deflection came to me early in life with the focus on the historicity and literalness of The Passion of the Christ. The literal understanding is only context for the “esoteric truth” of The Passion of the Christ as a metaphor or allegory for death and rebirth of what we understand as self. Perhaps, this reborn self has the capacity to understand immortality or even to be immortal. Mr. Gurdjieff expresses this ‘objective truth” with a vivid metaphor, “growing our horns”. He was an earthy teacher, and I doubt he was speaking literally.

Anyway, I don’t want to nitpick, but I thought clarification of this point might be useful, as it has been a obstacle of communication between those who are literal minded and those who also Work with metaphor.

*my bold

 

[Approaching Infinity]

I've wondered about the same question over the last several years. There's some interesting information in the Ra material. They say that for 50% of the population reincarnation is "unconscious and automatic" and that for the other 50%, it is more conscious.

The incarnation pattern of the beginning third-density mind/body/spirit complex begins in darkness, for you may think or consider of your density as one of, as you may say, a sleep and a forgetting. This is the only plane of forgetting. It is necessary for the third-density entity to forget so that the mechanisms of confusion or free will may operate upon the newly individuated consciousness complex.

Thus, the beginning entity is one in all innocence oriented towards animalistic behavior using other-selves only as extensions of self for the preservation of the all-self. The entity becomes slowly aware that it has needs, shall we say, that are not animalistic; that is, that are useless for survival. These needs include: the need for companionship, the need for laughter, the need for beauty, the need to know the universe about it. These are the beginning needs. [I think these would be the "higher" needs associated with the borderline between level II, and level III in Dabrowski's system.]

As the incarnations begin to accumulate, other needs are discovered: the need to trade, the need to love, the need to be loved, the need to elevate animalistic behaviors to a more universal perspective. [level III and level IV.]

During the first portion of third-density cycles, incarnations are automatic and occur rapidly upon the cessation of energy complex of the physical vehicle. There is small need to review or to heal the experiences of the incarnation. As, what you would call, the energy centers begin to be activated to a higher extent, more of the content of experience during incarnation deals with the lessons of love.

Thus the time, as you may understand it, between incarnations is lengthened to give appropriate attention to the review and the healing of experiences of the previous incarnation. At some point in third density, the green-ray energy center becomes activated and at that point incarnation ceases to be automatic.

Questioner: When incarnation ceases to be automatic I am assuming that the entity can decide when he needs to incarnate for the benefit of his own learning. Does he also select his parents?

Ra: I am Ra. This is correct.

21.9 Questioner: At this time in our cycle, near the end, what percentage of the entities incarnating are making their own choices?

Ra: I am Ra. The approximate percentage is fifty-four percent.

Perhaps "reincarnation" is a universal among humans. However, for OPs, it is an automatic process with soul-pool characteristics. If the only thing acquired in life is a series of habits, these will form a very slight crystallization which won't have much integrity within the human soul pool. Perhaps only these habits will carry over into a next life, but there will be little transfer or growth of "essence". The process becomes less automatic for non-OPs, with more of a lesson plan, reincarnating with others who have achieved a certain degree of crystallization. But even then, this is all governed by choices made at higher levels. I think as humans approach higher levels of self-mastery (level IV and V), the reincarnation process is probably more consciously directed, with greater merging between lower and higher selves, more awareness of one's "mission", etc. All just speculation on my part, of course!

 

[banjoechef]

I have often pondered what G. meant when he spoke of immortality and only gaining this if you fuse a singular "I". I always thought that modern evidence completely contradicted what G. said about nothing surviving death unless a single "I" was fused, since there are numerous well-documented near-death experiences (NDEs), even extremely vivid NDEs of criminals or materialistic people who were hardly doing any kind of Work during their lives. (It should be noted that 95% of such people totally changed their way of living afterwards.) Since such evidence was probably non-existent in G's time, since he didn't have the benefit of people being resuscitated and recounting what they experienced while clinically dead, I concluded that G. was most likely wrong on his point about immortality, since scientific data has to take precedence over any theory.

I wonder if the NDE's are actually a complete and definite disconnection of the instinctual center, which would mean organic death, or if there would still be somewhat of a connection between centers, thus allowing a whole repertoire of data for visualization similar to dreaming but maybe not accompanied with physical brain activity. That would reconcile the issue with G's theory.

Just an idea here, no reference to any real data