Lies, damn lies, & Holy Scripture (part 2?)

[Cosmos]

from wich former forum member are you talking about when you talk about BS?

 

[Mountain Crown]

from wich former forum member are you talking about when you talk about BS?

By not revealing that, Lilou was being externally considerate osit.

 

[anart]

from wich former forum member are you talking about when you talk about BS?

By not revealing that, Lilou was being externally considerate osit.

Yes, I don't think the specific identity is relevant to the conversation.

 

[Mrs.Tigersoap]

Mrs T., I understand your program, I have it too. But that's just all it is, however. Consider for example what a big leap is to believe that sharing a feeling about someone, based on their actions and/or words, would cause them damage. What will most likely happen is that your observation/feeling will be filed or discussed and give others the opportunity to share their observations of said someone, and perhaps the person will be observed more closely.

I was under the (now obviously wrong) impression that by networking about this sort of stuff, you meant starting a thread on the forum! The damage to the person was then not such a big leap in my mind, even if the suspicion turned out to be wrong. I'm still concerned about some sort of bias that could unconsciously develop (since we have seen that it can work that way in the cognitive science books) as a result of such 'priming'.
Still, I think I would feel very bad if s.o. would be monitored more closely because of me, especially if he turned out to be a nice person who did not deserve it at all. :/

Again, I'm not talking about blatant cases of crossing boundaries (I don't know if I can name him, but I remember E*oq**st who was writing totally out of line PM's and that I would of course report right away) and, but more of 'impressions', feelings and hunches.

And networking here can also mean sending a note to a mod or an administrator with your concern. That's how I see it now, at least...

If something seems off, I will not assume that the mods know already.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Alana! :)

 

[anart]

Mrs T., I understand your program, I have it too. But that's just all it is, however. Consider for example what a big leap is to believe that sharing a feeling about someone, based on their actions and/or words, would cause them damage. What will most likely happen is that your observation/feeling will be filed or discussed and give others the opportunity to share their observations of said someone, and perhaps the person will be observed more closely.

I was under the (now obviously wrong) impression that by networking about this sort of stuff, you meant starting a thread on the forum! The damage to the person was then not such a big leap in my mind, even if the suspicion turned out to be wrong. I'm still concerned about some sort of bias that could unconsciously develop (since we have seen that it can work that way in the cognitive science books) as a result of such 'priming'.
Still, I think I would feel very bad if s.o. would be monitored more closely because of me, especially if he turned out to be a nice person who did not deserve it at all. :/

You're missing the point, I think. No one is going to treat anyone differently if we get feedback about them that is a bit negative. All that happens is we pay more attention to see what's going on. Just because one person has a negative reaction to another person does not mean anything specific - in fact - it can say more about the person 'having the reaction' than the original person of interest! The point is to network - to be open and honest with your impressions and to trust that it will be handled in the correct way to the benefit of all, which it always is. Of course, the other side of that coin is realizing that our own reactions often indicate issues that we need to work on as well - which is really valuable and important - and another reason we should openly and honestly share them with a moderator to get more input.

 

[Alana]

Mrs T., I understand your program, I have it too. But that's just all it is, however. Consider for example what a big leap is to believe that sharing a feeling about someone, based on their actions and/or words, would cause them damage. What will most likely happen is that your observation/feeling will be filed or discussed and give others the opportunity to share their observations of said someone, and perhaps the person will be observed more closely.

I was under the (now obviously wrong) impression that by networking about this sort of stuff, you meant starting a thread on the forum! The damage to the person was then not such a big leap in my mind, even if the suspicion turned out to be wrong. I'm still concerned about some sort of bias that could unconsciously develop (since we have seen that it can work that way in the cognitive science books) as a result of such 'priming'.
Still, I think I would feel very bad if s.o. would be monitored more closely because of me, especially if he turned out to be a nice person who did not deserve it at all. :/

You're missing the point, I think. No one is going to treat anyone differently if we get feedback about them that is a bit negative. All that happens is we pay more attention to see what's going on. Just because one person has a negative reaction to another person does not mean anything specific - in fact - it can say more about the person 'having the reaction' than the original person of interest! The point is to network - to be open and honest with your impressions and to trust that it will be handled in the correct way to the benefit of all, which it always is. Of course, the other side of that coin is realizing that our own reactions often indicate issues that we need to work on as well - which is really valuable and important - and another reason we should openly and honestly share them with a moderator to get more input.

Exactly.

And sometimes a person is going through tough times but doesn't know how to ask for help. "Off behavior" might reveal that. And we could start a conversation, and hopefully, help.

 

[Voyageur]

[quote author=anart ]
[...] The point is to network - to be open and honest with your impressions and to trust that it will be handled in the correct way to the benefit of all, which it always is. Of course, the other side of that coin is realizing that our own reactions often indicate issues that we need to work on as well - which is really valuable and important - and another reason we should openly and honestly share them with a moderator to get more input.
[/quote]

Not speaking for you Laura, yet remembering your written struggles; with only a very limited network then, was Frank. It seems to me that it took years of weighing niggling feelings, always present, yet doubts, too. Also, can’t help being struck by the feeling that, with such a limited network at that time, the lesson was a long, hard earned process, with many painful associations along the way. This happens, if finally noticed, in many of our daily lives, both internally and externally, with self; the hardest, with family, friends and associates. This is a whole lot harder when we have no one but ourselves to network with, which can lead to false, egocentric thinking as well. My sense also registers, as anart said, being “open and honest with your impressions”, might have played a big part in coming to objective conclusions about Frank; likely a whole lot more here too.

Another impression is that what we see and hear in one another on the forum, if not thought out, can cause leaps of false impressions, when perhaps not known is a personal struggle being worked on, if internally seen, or dialogue not yet rationalized, brought forth or not shared in the forum main, such as personal correspondence with mods. As such, it is possibly one’s “own reactions”, also as anart said, is well worth bearing in mind as part of the discerning process.

[quote author=Alana]
And sometimes a person is going through tough times but doesn't know how to ask for help. "Off behavior" might reveal that. And we could start a conversation, and hopefully, help.
[/quote]

Think this too, yet starting the conversation sometimes can feel not externally considering, when in reality however, it can be important to do so, if discerned in a beneficial way, as part of a conscientious network to help one in their struggles or general thinking and programs, which many members and of course the moderators are thankfully pretty good at doing.

 

[Laura]

Not speaking for you Laura, yet remembering your written struggles; with only a very limited network then, was Frank. It seems to me that it took years of weighing niggling feelings, always present, yet doubts, too. Also, can’t help being struck by the feeling that, with such a limited network at that time, the lesson was a long, hard earned process, with many painful associations along the way. This happens, if finally noticed, in many of our daily lives, both internally and externally, with self; the hardest, with family, friends and associates. This is a whole lot harder when we have no one but ourselves to network with, which can lead to false, egocentric thinking as well. My sense also registers, as anart said, being “open and honest with your impressions”, might have played a big part in coming to objective conclusions about Frank; likely a whole lot more here too.

Exactly so. And you can spend years trying to "get it", all the while getting more and more tangled up in all kinds of engagements including legal that are terrible to sort out. So, for me, my preference is to figure it out as quickly as possible and that means getting a LOT of feedback.

In the case of the author of the "Lies, Damn Lies...", there was already a growing series of entanglements and I'm just glad we got out of that web as quickly as we did. It could have been a lot messier.

While I'm on the subject, let me say something else here. Recently, I received an email asking about someone who is no longer active on the forum, who used to be a mod. Since I knew the correspondent well enough to trust him, I just said that there was a "break in relations." Obviously, this was not announced publicly on the forum. Why? The main reason is that when someone gets disaffected and wants to go away, that's fine. No pressure is put on them to stay in any way. What's more, we make it easy. The ONLY ONES THAT GET DISSECTED IN PUBLIC are the ones who go on the attack and make it necessary to defend ourselves against their lies (because the ones that attack always lie it seems, or at least, seriously twist the truth).

Therefore, if someone disappears from the forum and is missed, and someone asks about them and I offer a reason for their absence, it is possible that there has been a break in relations but that it is, if not amicable, at least not hostile. And no, I'm not going to publish a list of their failings or inability to get it, or their weaknesses, or all the details about how we became aware that there was a need for the parting of the ways. If any one of you just chooses to go your own way, I'm sure you would appreciate that we take this approach and are not going to analyze you once you are gone; at least not publicly.

Oh, certainly, usually when we are in the "discovery" phase, it gets a lot of discussion either here or on the mod's forum, and some of it might be useful as teaching examples, but we try to do that without directly referencing a specific individual. Or we discuss it in a session, and in rare cases, where the behavior is egregious, may talk about it but without publishing names.

We've lost more than 8 mods over the past couple of years and I can tell you this much: 4 of them showed definite signs of some sort of brain chemical imbalance such that when they received a correction or even a mirror on the mod's forum, or here, they simply turned against everything and pronounced our methods as being evil, mean, cult-like. That is, everything was fine until a flaw of theirs was pointed out (or they secretly agreed with a pathological type who was exposed). 2 others, unfortunately, are dealing with other brain disorders: early onset Parkinson's type conditions. These last two are very sad and we are doing all we can. 1 individual was just simply exposed as predatory, using us for an easy life while pretending to "do the work."

But none of these have gone on the attack, so there is no reason to produce the material to defend ourselves. I hope that all of you appreciate that we do keep the confidentiality of those who behave decently. But, as you know, when someone starts lying about us and defaming us, I can, will, and do, defend the group and everyone in it with whatever it takes to give the lie the truth.

 

[Peam]

Never the less, I'm saddened by the loss of a forum member.

He no longer seems to be in the members list, and he hasn't posted for over eight months, but it says he last logged on 6 days ago.

So I was wondering, is he still a member of the forum but no longer in the FOTCM?

 

[Laura]

Never the less, I'm saddened by the loss of a forum member.

Yes, I'm saddened to see anyone who gets stuck before a barrier. It really is exactly as Gurdjieff described it:

"The struggle against the 'false I,' against one's chief feature or chief fault, is the most important part of the work, and it must proceed in deeds, not in words. For this purpose the teacher gives each man definite tasks which require, in order to carry them out, the conquest of his chief feature. When a man carries out these tasks he struggles with himself, works on himself. If he avoids the tasks, tries not to carry them out, it means that either he does not want to or that he cannot work.

"As a rule only very easy tasks are given at the beginning which the teacher does not even call tasks, and he does not say much about them but gives them in the form of hints. If he sees that he is understood and that the tasks are carried out he passes on to more and more difficult ones. {And I admit that this is very much the way I work but not because I got it from G, but because it is they way I handled my children.}

"More difficult tasks, although they are only subjectively difficult, are called 'barriers.' The peculiarity of barriers consists in the fact that, having surmounted a serious barrier, a man can no longer return to ordinary sleep, to ordinary life. And if, having passed the first barrier, he feels afraid of those that follow and does not go on, he stops so to speak between two barriers and is unable to move either backwards or forwards. This is the worst thing that can happen to a man. Therefore the teacher is usually very careful in the choice of tasks and barriers, in other words, he takes the risk of giving definite tasks requiring the conquest of inner barriers only to those people who have already shown themselves sufficiently strong on small barriers. {Unfortunately, as we have learned, even people who have shown themselves strong on small barriers, can still be halted before the barrier of acknowledging their own lies to the self, the structure of their own false personality and its projected image that they believe is the real self. Sometimes people that I don't think are going to make it over the barrier actually do, and sometimes the ones I think have it together and it shouldn't be any problem (because that is the false self they have carefully cultivated in my presence) just fall flat on their face. Thankfully, I have a network and the overall success of that in predicting what will be a particular outcome is excellent. The joke around the house is "if Laura feels sorry for someone, watch out!" So, I concede my blind spot and listen to others.}

"It often happens that, having stopped before some barrier, usually the smallest and the most simple, people turn against the work, against the teacher, and against other members of the group, and accuse them of the very thing that is becoming revealed to them in themselves.

{This is the MOST interesting phenomenon and it proves true time and time and time again. People really can't accept that MOST of the thoughts going on in their heads (if not ALL), their emotional reactions, their likes and dislikes, their reasons for doing this or that, are all a load of BS, just narrative created by System 2 to explain why System 1 does what it does. Hopefully, all of ya'll are up to speed on the Cognitive Science board posts and know exactly what I am talking about; the extraordinary scientific support for the ideas of Gurdjieff that has been revealed over the past 20/30 years or so.

In any event, the way this usually manifests is that someone's System 1 feels a certain way due to programming. It can be a very strong feeling. Like the need to be "nice" or not be loved. This is actually a big one because we are programmed from birth to "be nice" and to not give voice to anything negative, much less feel it!

So, they perceive the way we work here as "not nice" in one way or another. This generally gets narrated in their heads as "you are trying to force everyone to think the same way." Or "you are trying to induce group-think" or "hive-mind" or whatever.

And of course, it is all because they have been caught out in a big lie to the self or others (or both) and the only way they can retain their feeling of being right is to insist that everyone else is wrong and "here's why." }

"Sometimes they repent later and blame themselves, then they again blame others, then they repent once more, and so on. But there is nothing that shows up a man better than his attitude towards the work and the teacher after he has left it. Sometimes such tests are arranged intentionally. A man is placed in such a position that he is obliged to leave and he is fully justified in having a grievance either against the teacher or against some other person. And then he is watched to see how he will behave. A decent man will behave decently even if he thinks that he has been treated unjustly or wrongly. But many people in such circumstances show a side of their nature which otherwise they would never show. And at times it is a necessary means for exposing a man's nature. So long as you are good to a man he is good to you. But what will he be like if you scratch him a little?

{Indeed, this really strips away the mask: when you say to someone "Okay, you don't agree so hit the road, don't let the swinging door hit you on the way out." Either the person is okay with that, which is fine and suggests that maybe they can return to the work after they have some more experiences, including, perhaps, a bankruptcy, or they just aren't suited and know it, which is also fine.

But with the pathological, it's altogether different. What usually happens is that the person is aghast that I (we) have not converted to their way of thinking, have not acknowledged that they are right in all points, and have not changed our ways to suit them and fallen all over ourselves acknowledging their superior insight.

Naturally, we take a small advantage of knowing how the pathological types always and invariably react to try to provoke them to see what is under the mask.}

"But this is not the chief thing; the chief thing is his own personal attitude, his own valuation of the ideas which he receives or has received, and his keeping or losing this valuation. A man may think for a long time and quite sincerely that he wants to work and even make great efforts, and then he may throw up everything and even definitely go against the work; justify himself, invent various fabrications, deliberately ascribe a wrong meaning to what he has heard, and so on."

{Which is fine because they basically cull themselves from the group and, as the Forum Guidelines specify quite carefully what this forum exists to do, the sooner they leave the better for the rest of us.}

"What happens to them for this?" asked one of the audience.

"Nothing—what could happen to them?" said G. "They are their own punishment. And what punishment could be worse?

True. And it is for this reason I am always sorry to see someone who can't get over the "barriers" which amounts, in the end, to self-importance: believing that the self-image one has created is the real self and that it must be so because they thought it.

 

[Eongar]

Self must be humble oneself to realize that he/she can fall into self-importance. To me sometimes it happens, sometimes sin of pride. I believe I know, until I start to think and then I realize I do not know much. One does some progress does not mean it wise than other people, because progress is gradual, and if we are in a world STS is because we learn many many things. I think everyone should have this every day of we life a quote from Bertrand Russell:

In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things You have long taken for granted. -

And that includes oneself.

 

[Joe]

Then, I compound my error here by recalling the good impressions I had of him, feeling sorry for him

The pity thing is a very important one. Pity can be evoked for many reasons, depending on the person, but most of them are not objective. You can feel sorry for someone based on data that you have gleaned and actually thought and networked about. Most often however, we find ourselves feeling sorry for someone based on no data at all, just on a "feeling" that we have, or, as a result of a demonstrative show of "poor me" from the person themselves that is usually an effort to manipulate in some way or other. Getting caught up in such a dynamic usually doesn't help anyone.

 

[Joe]

What if this someone is more on guard while around the elders, showing a different face in their presence than when he/she interacts with you?

That is, in fact, something that happens very often.

 

[zhenqing]

Wow, it's been such an informative thread. I'm so glad I've found it. Everything suddenly have become so much clearer.

People should remember that just because someone is associated with us here, or have spent time with us here, it does not automatically make that person some sort of wise and advanced individual. The fact is, very often, people come here because they are trying to escape from life and they think we won't figure it out. Or they are trying to worm their way into a position of dominance and think I was born yesterday. And still other situations involve people we feel are sincere but who are having a great difficulty of some sort and they come to spend time working on themselves. Others come because they really ARE pretty wise and we just simply enjoy their company. And some come simply because they are working on a project that we are supporting, though we know in advance that they are not, and never will be, able to do "The Work." But their expertise or services are needed.

So, it's not a good idea to make assumptions. Each and every one of you should evaluate your own interactions with such individuals and if you get a red flag, you should tell us about it.

I've also made that mistake, at least when it comes to my perception of some people. I definitely needed to read this, and maybe others who missed it will too.

Thank you Laura for that quote from Gurdjieff. Your own notes were incredibility helpful. I've read ISotM twice - some parts even three times - but it seems like it's never enough.
I'm currently reading Trapped in the Mirror, and I've already noticed how improved my perception of myself, my programs and other people has become. It seems like I also need to acquaint myself more with Cognitive Science board.
So much to learn! :)