Mechanical Center

[Al Today]

A man cannot see above his level. Just because they don't know of such a person does not mean such a person does not exist. They see the world from their level - not above it - to see above it is impossible.

Howdy Menna.

I don't think there is a chart of progress to show us where we stand. All we can do is continue to experience and learn what we are. To find the path in which we are to follow. If a person achieves a higher plane, methinks they would progress/transfer/ascend in a "twinkling of an eye". I have always said that I knew all that I need to know, I wouldn't be here. But I/We are here. And our Work is to understand ourselves and what surrounds us. To be of open mind to the "Truth", prepared for whatever Is...

 

[Menna]

I got away from the topic and my question and went off the road with alittle self pitty and doubt - Yes the forum helps as it has helped me already to understand. My question was can the magnetic center alone help one progress in the work without help from others - and the answer is no we need C influences to help us. Thanks - the rest was mostly noise my bad.

 

[RyanX]

My question was can the magnetic center alone help one progress in the work without help from others - and the answer is no we need C influences to help us.

Menna,

I think Alada already answered this question for you:

Maybe its not so helpful to see magnetic centre as a separate 'thing', an 'it'. When magnetic centre is forming/formed its not so much 'it' helping you as you helping yourself. The stronger it becomes is a result of your own efforts, the more you can then act consciously according to your aims, gradually less according to what the machine wants. Even so, still hard to put into practice and forms as part of a process, through efforts rather than being a 'thing' that you 'get' which will then fix things and make life easier via some kind of magical power.

It's the process of forming magnetic centre where one needs others to help. Alone we can do nothing, we can gather lots of information and ideas but we fall asleep all the time and forget to put them into practice. Or, when we try to put them into practice we do it in a wrong way, thinking that we are in fact working in the right way. So we need others, those that have gone before, who know the way and can guide us. Also those who can see us far better than we ever see ourselves and who can provide the necessary alarm clocks for when we once again fall asleep.

The Magnetic Center isn't a thing, it's a process. You could also think of it like a feedback loop too. The further along one progresses in esoteric Work, the more it strengthens a Magnetic Center, just as the Magnetic Center itself helps one progress in the Work. Working with others and networking is part of the process of forming a Magnetic Center. You just can't do it without the help of others. Think of it this way: The more effort you put into the network, coming up to speed on different topics, helping others with that knowledge, participating in projects, etc., the stronger the network becomes. Just as a stronger network helps you progress through the teachings you receive from others (like EE and diet for instance). Ultimately, you get back what you put into it.

At least that's my current understanding.

 

[truth seeker]

Sometimes we can keep ourselves busy with 'what if's' in order to avoid making decisions and doing what we need to do. Is it possible that's the case here? To me, there's no way that we can avoid making mistakes, no matter what choice we make. If we can view all experience as an opportunity to learn rather than lose what is essentially an illusion, we can find that there is much more to be gained or so I think. :)

 

[Mountain Crown]

It's my understanding that the Magnetic Center is a term used to refer to small I's working together for an esoteric aim. The more integrated a personality, the stronger the will to do, to be. - fwiw

 

[Buddy]

It's my understanding that the Magnetic Center is a term used to refer to small I's working together for an esoteric aim. The more integrated a personality, the stronger the will to do, to be. - fwiw

Thanks for that Jerry! That corresponds to my thinking as well. Enter intentional suffering --> which relates to that Aim in order for the suffering to actually be useful. Ordinary and unintentional suffering is simply not taking any of that valuable incandescent inefficiency and harnessing it toward a consciously desired Aim or end.

If I am off here, someone please adjust me. :)

 

[Mountain Crown]

It's my understanding that the Magnetic Center is a term used to refer to small I's working together for an esoteric aim. The more integrated a personality, the stronger the will to do, to be. - fwiw

Thanks for that Jerry! That corresponds to my thinking as well. Enter intentional suffering --> which relates to that Aim in order for the suffering to actually be useful. Ordinary and unintentional suffering is simply not taking any of that valuable incandescent inefficiency and harnessing it toward a consciously desired Aim or end.

If I am off here, someone please adjust me. :)

Sacrificing (giving up) mechanical suffering is one form of letting go of self-importance; it allows the integration and precedes intentional suffering.

 

[Mr. Premise]

It's my understanding that the Magnetic Center is a term used to refer to small I's working together for an esoteric aim. The more integrated a personality, the stronger the will to do, to be. - fwiw

I would modify that a bit. From what I understand of Mouravieff, once the magnetic center is fused there are no longer a bunch of small 'I''s. He describes the 'I's as little iron filings. When they are fused, it is like melting them together. The can no longer be separated off as little filings again.

 

[3DStudent]

It's my understanding that the Magnetic Center is a term used to refer to small I's working together for an esoteric aim. The more integrated a personality, the stronger the will to do, to be. - fwiw

I would modify that a bit. From what I understand of Mouravieff, once the magnetic center is fused there are no longer a bunch of small 'I''s. He describes the 'I's as little iron filings. When they are fused, it is like melting them together. The can no longer be separated off as little filings again.

Yeah and to add: it's called the magnetic center because it is like a magnet. It draws in the 987 little i's so they aren't flying around and influencing you.

 

[Alada]

My question was can the magnetic center alone help one progress in the work without help from others - and the answer is no we need C influences to help us.

The formation of magnetic centre, if you go back and read In Search of the Miraculous, is described as a process of discernment. One must learn to discern what influences are 'A influences' and which are 'B influences', its the process of ever greater refinement in one's ability to discern and so act/react upon them, or not, that grows and strengthens magnetic centre.

'A influences' arise from the sphere of life itself, are not connected in any way with the esoteric centre, which is a sphere outside of life. So for 'A influences' we might look to tv, media, literature, the arts, upbringing, education, culture, race, 'religion', nationality, social conditioning, political views and so on. They are influences formed by the process of life itself as it mechanically unfolds.

'B influences' are those that are in some way, or were once, connected with the esoteric centre. That is to say they are conscious influences that are created for a definite purpose. They convey objective truths, influences and ideas from the esoteric centre. As G describes it though, once these influences enter into the field of life, the realm of 'A influences', they begin to lose their force as it were. They begin to become distorted, misunderstood, and over time can become nothing more than 'A influences' themselves.

The first task in growing and developing Magnetic Centre is in learning to distinguish between these two types. What is the influence of 'the world', and what has come from outside and conveys some kind of truth or data that we can make use of.

If a person learns to recognise 'B influences', appreciates the value of them and the difference between these and 'A influences', then he may begin to think a certain way, make different choices, act differently. It may strengthen his resolve to find more 'B influences' and move further away from allowing 'A influences' to act upon him. This a person must do for themselves, which is where the thought that it is not the Magnetic Centre' that 'does' it, rather the person themselves. A developing Magnetic Centre may then begin to help a person discern more quickly, so in a sense it can help then, in that it leads one in a certain direction.

'C influences' come from outside of the sphere of life, they are conscious in origin. G states that 'C influences' are transmitted directly by oral transmission. But, times have changed so who knows. One wonders what G would have made of the internet and the possibilities there. Indeed, one might wonder in working with what the universe has put before us in the present day, where one might find the 'C's influence'? Or those in contact with same who are able to guide others?

Read the relevant passages from ISOTM for an accurate account of the above. And as others have mentioned, maybe look to what we have before us and learn to discern what is there.

 

[Buddy]

It's my understanding that the Magnetic Center is a term used to refer to small I's working together for an esoteric aim. The more integrated a personality, the stronger the will to do, to be. - fwiw

I would modify that a bit. From what I understand of Mouravieff, once the magnetic center is fused there are no longer a bunch of small 'I''s. He describes the 'I's as little iron filings. When they are fused, it is like melting them together. The can no longer be separated off as little filings again.

Yeah and to add: it's called the magnetic center because it is like a magnet. It draws in the 987 little i's so they aren't flying around and influencing you.

Thanks for these additions! :)

 

[Meg]

I'd like to say thanks as well. I've read about A,B & C influences, but as the way Alada explained them, they lept off the screen, it seems, and made sense.
It's the newer, clearer EE eyes, I think.

 

[Courageous Inmate Sort]

Alada, that was a great summary. I think this explanation fits well with the idea that the magnetic center, or the building of the magnetic center, is a process by which the frantic iron fillings (little Is) are brought together into a single iron piece (representing the Real I, if I'm not mistaken), and that this is done through the efforts of the individual in discearning A from B influences and acting on this new knowledge. Then C influences come in to complete the picture.

However, I couldn't quite grasp what Jerry meant:

Sacrificing (giving up) mechanical suffering is one form of letting go of self-importance; it allows the integration and precedes intentional suffering.

Although I can grasp why letting go of self-importance allows the integration, I don't understand how mechanical suffering relates to self-importance. Jerry, could you please expand on this?

Many thanks

CIS

 

[Menna]

Alada thank you no need to go back to ISOTM what you said makes perfect sense. Through our esotericaly educated decisions and be able to discern better the magnetic center strengthens/grows and then it leads us. So our choices and the magnetic center lead us hand in hand. But then it seems like a person and their magnetic center only leads them so far and that is where a shock or C influence is needed?

 

[Mountain Crown]

Although I can grasp why letting go of self-importance allows the integration, I don't understand how mechanical suffering relates to self-importance. Jerry, could you please expand on this?

Many thanks

CIS

Mechanical suffering is the false-self feeling a lack of pleasure. A need to be pleased is a sign of feeling important.

I currently understand mechanical suffering as an attachment to subjective states resulting from external influences beyond conscious control. Not being objective, any feeling of worth while in these states is vanity.

One could also say that self-importance has positive/negative expressions i.e., either grandiose or morose.

Related info:

[quote author=Cassiopaea Glossary entry on Suffering]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.[/quote]

[quote author=Cassiopaea Glossary entry on Identification]This is a nearly constant, universal feature of man's psyche. Identification takes place when some external item catches one's attention and one forgets all else. Identification is the mechanism which makes man a machine reacting to any environmental stimulus that may match his arbitrary fancy.

The 4th Way Work seeks to oppose man's tendency to identify which is automatic and routine, with the practice of self-remembering.* It is noteworthy that man loses any semblance of self-consciousness, forgets himself, when in a state of identification.

One can be identified with anything: A thought, an emotion, one's vacation plans, any social activity, the more emotionally involving, the greater the likelihood and extent of identification and self-forgetting will be.

* [my paraphrase][/quote]

[quote author=In Search Of The Miraculous]Another thing that people must give up is their suffering. It is very difficult also to sacrifice one's suffering. A man will renounce any pleasure you like but he will not give up his suffering. Man is made in such a way that he is never so attached to anything as he is to his suffering. And it is necessary to be free from suffering. No one who is not free from suffering, who has not sacrificed his suffering, can work. Nothing can be attained without suffering but at the same time, one must begin by sacrificing suffering. Now, decipher what this means.[/quote]

[quote author=Gurdjieff]Know that this house is of value only to those who have recognized their nothingness and believe it is possible to alter[/quote]

[quote author=Gurdjieff]Faith of consciousness is freedom.
Faith of feeling is slavery.
Faith of body is stupidity.[/quote]