New book by Madame de Salzmann: The Reality of Being

[RflctnOfU]

Re: New book by Madame de Salzmann

I'm a bit skeptical about de Salzmann, too. Besides Henderson's book, there are other references, for example in Beekman Taylor's "Gurdjieff's America". After Gurdjieff died, she did a few things that in my mind were quite dubious. First of all, she put a call out to as many students of G as possible to collect notes and transcripts of his talks, as well as book manuscripts. Once they were in the Gurdjieff Foundation's possession, she had them all locked away. No one that is not 'up there' in the hierarchy of the group has access to these. Thus, there are no complete copies of Gurdjieff's manuscript of "Meetings with Remarkable Men". All that we have is the published version, which has been edited. "Life Is Real" has also been edited, but luckily Solita Solano was smart enough to leave all her notes and papers (which included a complete MS of "Life Is Real") to the Library of Congress, ensuring they were in the public domain. A comparison of the MS to the published version shows some complete changes of meaning (Henderson documents a few of these in his book) in certain passages. So we have no real way of knowing which meanings were changed in "Meetings". She also started teaching the movements only in fragments, keeping the complete versions secret.

Do you know where I might aquire the MS for "Life is Real"?? I've had for a while the "Two early Typescripts" - I think from fourthwaybooks.com

That's the one I was referring to. (The longer of the two is from Solano's papers.)

Oh. Thanks :)

Kris

 

[kenlee]

Re: New book by Madame de Salzmann

Also, Orage was intimately involved with getting Beelzebub put into English - the Tales are 'for' the English speaking world, specifically, Americans.

Kris

Well, here's one of Orage's statements from a collection of his Aphorisms and Observations:
_http://www.gurdjieff.org/orage5.htm

Time is the most important thing next to awareness. The flow of time through us gives us an opportunity to extract what we can. Time is the three-fold stream flowing through our three centers. We fish in time's 'ever-rolling' stream; what we catch is ours, but what we don't is gone. Time does not wait for us to catch everything in the stream, but if we catch enough we shall have enough to form the higher bodies—and thereby become enduring.

In the above quote note how he views time as a "three-fold stream flowing through our three centers." So right here this gives me the impression that Orage sees time as something linear (and not cyclic) and as something external to us. However, as I understand it, Gurdjieff spoke of time in Beelzebub's Tales in terms of the "unique subjective". Yet Orage gives the impression, or at least gives me the impression in his quote that time is something objective and that it's something external to us "flowing through our centers." So if Orage was involved in any of the English translations of Beelzebub's Tales, then I wonder how his subjective understandings (his quote above on the nature of time being just one example) might have significantly changed in a subtle or not so subtle way any of the essential meaning of the translated work?

 

[RflctnOfU]

Re: New book by Madame de Salzmann

Also, Orage was intimately involved with getting Beelzebub put into English - the Tales are 'for' the English speaking world, specifically, Americans.

Kris

Well, here's one of Orage's statements from a collection of his Aphorisms and Observations:
_http://www.gurdjieff.org/orage5.htm

Time is the most important thing next to awareness. The flow of time through us gives us an opportunity to extract what we can. Time is the three-fold stream flowing through our three centers. We fish in time's 'ever-rolling' stream; what we catch is ours, but what we don't is gone. Time does not wait for us to catch everything in the stream, but if we catch enough we shall have enough to form the higher bodies—and thereby become enduring.

In the above quote note how he views the "flow of time" as a "three-fold stream flowing through our three centers." So right here this gives me the impression that Orage sees time as something linear (and not cyclic) and as something external to us. However, as I understand it, Gurdjieff spoke of time in Beelzebub's Tales in terms of the "unique subjective". Yet Orage gives the impression, or at least gives me the impression in his quote that time is something objective and that it's something external to us "flowing through our centers." So if Orage was involved in any of the English translations of Beelzebub's Tales, then I wonder how his subjective understandings (his quote above on the nature of time being just one example) might have significantly changed in a subtle or not so subtle way any of the essential meaning of the translated work?

Orage spoke of this. To paraphrase: "G won't talk about the meaning of the book at all. His job is to write it. Ours is to understand. He only talks about the sense of it. The amazing thing is how well the sense carries through the translation process. All I can do is make sure the sense isn't obscured."

I would recommend C.S. Notts "The Teaching of Gurdjieff - A Journal of a Pupil". He recounts the process of the book coming into form.

FWIW, in BT's the word formula for time is the "Ideally-Unique-Subjective-Phenomenon"

Kris

 

[anart]

Re: New book by Madame de Salzmann

I'm a bit skeptical about de Salzmann, too. Besides Henderson's book, there are other references, for example in Beekman Taylor's "Gurdjieff's America". After Gurdjieff died, she did a few things that in my mind were quite dubious. First of all, she put a call out to as many students of G as possible to collect notes and transcripts of his talks, as well as book manuscripts. Once they were in the Gurdjieff Foundation's possession, she had them all locked away. No one that is not 'up there' in the hierarchy of the group has access to these. Thus, there are no complete copies of Gurdjieff's manuscript of "Meetings with Remarkable Men". All that we have is the published version, which has been edited. "Life Is Real" has also been edited, but luckily Solita Solano was smart enough to leave all her notes and papers (which included a complete MS of "Life Is Real") to the Library of Congress, ensuring they were in the public domain. A comparison of the MS to the published version shows some complete changes of meaning (Henderson documents a few of these in his book) in certain passages. So we have no real way of knowing which meanings were changed in "Meetings". She also started teaching the movements only in fragments, keeping the complete versions secret.

It's my understanding that Gurdjieff made that her prerogative when he put her in charge of when (and whether) his unpublished works were published. Considering G's take on knowledge and there being only a certain amount that can't be spread out to everyone, I think it rather makes sense that she tried to limit distribution of random people's notes about meetings with G. One thing that is beyond doubt is that very few people could have taken accurate notes and written accurately about G's words and meanings during meetings since, as we know, people bend everything to their own personal understanding. I think that is why G made the comment about Ouspensky's memory being so good after reading ISOTM - most people's memories are not, but Ouspensky had a remarkable intellectual capacity, despite his lacking in other areas. Quite frankly, it sounds like deSalzmann was trying to do what she could do to keep the information 'pure' and as unadulterated as possible, though, obviously any efforts along those lines are ultimately doomed to fail, since the nature of this reality is entropic and people will do what people will do.

 

[anart]

Re: New book by Madame de Salzmann

Also, Orage was intimately involved with getting Beelzebub put into English - the Tales are 'for' the English speaking world, specifically, Americans.

Kris

Well, here's one of Orage's statements from a collection of his Aphorisms and Observations:
_http://www.gurdjieff.org/orage5.htm

Time is the most important thing next to awareness. The flow of time through us gives us an opportunity to extract what we can. Time is the three-fold stream flowing through our three centers. We fish in time's 'ever-rolling' stream; what we catch is ours, but what we don't is gone. Time does not wait for us to catch everything in the stream, but if we catch enough we shall have enough to form the higher bodies—and thereby become enduring.

In the above quote note how he views the "flow of time" as a "three-fold stream flowing through our three centers." So right here this gives me the impression that Orage sees time as something linear (and not cyclic) and as something external to us. However, as I understand it, Gurdjieff spoke of time in Beelzebub's Tales in terms of the "unique subjective". Yet Orage gives the impression, or at least gives me the impression in his quote that time is something objective and that it's something external to us "flowing through our centers." So if Orage was involved in any of the English translations of Beelzebub's Tales, then I wonder how his subjective understandings (his quote above on the nature of time being just one example) might have significantly changed in a subtle or not so subtle way any of the essential meaning of the translated work?

Orage spoke of this. To paraphrase: "G won't talk about the meaning of the book at all. His job is to write it. Ours is to understand. He only talks about the sense of it. The amazing thing is how well the sense carries through the translation process. All I can do is make sure the sense isn't obscured."

I would recommend C.S. Notts "The Teaching of Gurdjieff - A Journal of a Pupil". He recounts the process of the book coming into form.

FWIW, in BT's the word formula for time is the "Ideally-Unique-Subjective-Phenomenon"

Kris

I would suggest that you not take Orage's word as gospel, since it is obviously not.

 

[Approaching Infinity]

Re: New book by Madame de Salzmann

I'm a bit skeptical about de Salzmann, too. Besides Henderson's book, there are other references, for example in Beekman Taylor's "Gurdjieff's America". After Gurdjieff died, she did a few things that in my mind were quite dubious. First of all, she put a call out to as many students of G as possible to collect notes and transcripts of his talks, as well as book manuscripts. Once they were in the Gurdjieff Foundation's possession, she had them all locked away. No one that is not 'up there' in the hierarchy of the group has access to these. Thus, there are no complete copies of Gurdjieff's manuscript of "Meetings with Remarkable Men". All that we have is the published version, which has been edited. "Life Is Real" has also been edited, but luckily Solita Solano was smart enough to leave all her notes and papers (which included a complete MS of "Life Is Real") to the Library of Congress, ensuring they were in the public domain. A comparison of the MS to the published version shows some complete changes of meaning (Henderson documents a few of these in his book) in certain passages. So we have no real way of knowing which meanings were changed in "Meetings". She also started teaching the movements only in fragments, keeping the complete versions secret.

It's my understanding that Gurdjieff made that her prerogative when he put her in charge of when (and whether) his unpublished works were published. Considering G's take on knowledge and there being only a certain amount that can't be spread out to everyone, I think it rather makes sense that she tried to limit distribution of random people's notes about meetings with G. One thing that is beyond doubt is that very few people could have taken accurate notes and written accurately about G's words and meanings during meetings since, as we know, people bend everything to their own personal understanding. I think that is why G made the comment about Ouspensky's memory being so good after reading ISOTM - most people's memories are not, but Ouspensky had a remarkable intellectual capacity, despite his lacking in other areas. Quite frankly, it sounds like deSalzmann was trying to do what she could do to keep the information 'pure' and as unadulterated as possible, though, obviously any efforts along those lines are ultimately doomed to fail, since the nature of this reality is entropic and people will do what people will do.

Yes, I can see her motivations. But ironically, by trying to keep the information 'pure' and unadulterated, she ended up adulterating the work she DID publish... Basic entropy, and exactly as Gurdjieff predicted in his works.

 

[anart]

Re: New book by Madame de Salzmann

Yes, I can see her motivations. But ironically, by trying to keep the information 'pure' and unadulterated, she ended up adulterating the work she DID publish... Basic entropy, and exactly as Gurdjieff predicted in his works.

Bingo - and considering that he chose her to do it, it really gives you an idea of how difficult keeping and spreading a true, pure, signal is in this reality. (osit)

 

[obyvatel]

Re: New book by Madame de Salzmann

I read this book slowly. There are some parts that I found useful. However, there did not seem to be enough material to fill up close to 300 pages. The oft quoted "First Initiation" packed more power than this whole book at least for me. She did not publish the book - her close followers and family used material from her notebooks to write the book. Reading this book indeed felt like reading someone's personal notes most of the time rather than a carefully and compassionately written book on 4th Way Work intended to help others.

Just my take on it.

 

[dugdeep]

Re: New book by Madame de Salzmann

I read this book slowly. There are some parts that I found useful. However, there did not seem to be enough material to fill up close to 300 pages. The oft quoted "First Initiation" packed more power than this whole book at least for me. She did not publish the book - her close followers and family used material from her notebooks to write the book. Reading this book indeed felt like reading someone's personal notes most of the time rather than a carefully and compassionately written book on 4th Way Work intended to help others.

Just my take on it.

I find it amazing that both you and anart are underwhelmed by the book because I am having the complete opposite reaction. I'm finding every paragraph to be dense with meaning. Is it possible that this book willl resonate with a certain 'type'? Or am I just ascribing something to it that isn't actually there?

 

[Ollie]

Re: New book by Madame de Salzmann

I read this book slowly. There are some parts that I found useful. However, there did not seem to be enough material to fill up close to 300 pages. The oft quoted "First Initiation" packed more power than this whole book at least for me. She did not publish the book - her close followers and family used material from her notebooks to write the book. Reading this book indeed felt like reading someone's personal notes most of the time rather than a carefully and compassionately written book on 4th Way Work intended to help others.

Just my take on it.

I find it amazing that both you and anart are underwhelmed by the book because I am having the complete opposite reaction. I'm finding every paragraph to be dense with meaning. Is it possible that this book willl resonate with a certain 'type'? Or am I just ascribing something to it that isn't actually there?

I tend to agree with you dugdeep - although it is only recently that that I've found the 'words' to mean anything to me, and that's through concentrating on specific topics only. :)

Initially, my reading of it was similar to obyvatel's, and hence was - to a degree - dismissed by me.

 

[obyvatel]

Re: New book by Madame de Salzmann

I'm finding every paragraph to be dense with meaning. Is it possible that this book willl resonate with a certain 'type'?

I do not know the answer to your question. My subjective impression is that the book did not help "ground" the ideas presented in a real practical way. One recurring theme from the book was about feeling the lack of inner unity/attention/presence and "staying in front" of this lack, and thus suffer consciously. IMO, the book did not contribute significantly towards learning "how" to do this. I did not expect a "how to" manual but the book promised an experiential journey.

From the foreword of the book,

[quote author=Reality of Being]
Readers should be forewarned about certain unusual characteristics of this book. There is almost no description of either the reality of being or Gurdjieff's teaching on how to live it. Indeed, like him in his later years, Mme. de Salzmann consistently refused to discuss the teaching in terms of ideas. When asked a theoretical question, she would invariably demur, saying "You have to see for yourself". For her the idea alone, the concept without experience, was not enough - truth could not be thought. ... So instead of presenting a vision of the ultimate destination, this book is more like an account of an actual journey, including routes traveled and landmarks encountered along the way.

Jeanne de Salzmann had her own way of speaking, and not only her distinctive choice of words and capacity to shock. Listening to her, one had the impression that she knew precisely what she wished to say and how she would say it. This is confirmed by the notebooks, which show a remarkable clarity and consistency in her thinking over forty years.
[/quote]
That "recurring clarity and consistency" made the "account of an actual journey" seem less real at least for me. It seemed that the account was from someone who had figured it all out and was speaking from a lofty height without helpful tips about how to engage in the daily battle for the quest of presence. I could also be somewhat biased/influenced by my past experience with several eastern spiritual texts which seemed to be written from a similar vantage point.

Different people learn in different ways. It is quite possible that this book would help some people learn - as you have been experiencing. For me, Laura's writings (Amazing Grace, Wave) read like a real experiential journey which show "routes traveled and landmarks encountered" . Also for me, the psychology and cognitive science related studies and body-centric learning practices demonstrate the inner lack of unity and a way to struggle with it at a level I can relate to.

fwiw

 

[anart]

Re: New book by Madame de Salzmann

I find it amazing that both you and anart are underwhelmed by the book because I am having the complete opposite reaction. I'm finding every paragraph to be dense with meaning. Is it possible that this book willl resonate with a certain 'type'? Or am I just ascribing something to it that isn't actually there?

No, I doubt you're ascribing something that isn't there - it's probable that she's simply presenting things in a way that you've not considered before and, thus, it is helping you to understand things in a new way. That's a good thing.

It seemed that the account was from someone who had figured it all out and was speaking from a lofty height without helpful tips about how to engage in the daily battle for the quest of presence.

That's interesting because I didn't find that to be the case at all. In fact, it was her hesitancy of thought, her uncertainty at times and her vacillations that I found less than compelling. I was looking for a certainty that only shone through periodically, but that makes sense with this being excerpts from her personal journal. When her certainty did shine through it was great reading. All in all, I found it to be watered down, when I expected more power to come through in her writing, but we all read these things from our own point of view and understanding, as always.

 

[RflctnOfU]

Re: New book by Madame de Salzmann

anart, you still haven't answered my question. Have you read the Tales??

Kris

 

[obyvatel]

Re: New book by Madame de Salzmann

It seemed that the account was from someone who had figured it all out and was speaking from a lofty height without helpful tips about how to engage in the daily battle for the quest of presence.

That's interesting because I didn't find that to be the case at all. In fact, it was her hesitancy of thought, her uncertainty at times and her vacillations that I found less than compelling. I was looking for a certainty that only shone through periodically, but that makes sense with this being excerpts from her personal journal. When her certainty did shine through it was great reading. All in all, I found it to be watered down, when I expected more power to come through in her writing, but we all read these things from our own point of view and understanding, as always.

I went through my notes and highlights from the book again ( read it some time back) and could not see the "speaking from a lofty height" perspective. The "speaking from a lofty height" part is a lie that I can now see my mind fabricated by associating the subjective impression of this book not being of much practical help for me with other books I had read in the past which had the lack of practicality aspect along with the lofty perspective.

While it is off-topic, I found Ravindra's quotes of Mme Salzmann in "Heart Without Measure" more powerful perhaps because they were more grounded in the context of Ravindra's struggles and questions. Guess my mind is more receptive to information presented in a certain way.

 

[anart]

Re: New book by Madame de Salzmann

anart, you still haven't answered my question. Have you read the Tales??

Kris

I've read them three times, Kris and listened to them as an audio book a few times as well.