Rundown

[Buddy]

Hi Crystla24

If you work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, this looks like a perfect setting for your purposes. If you do a very good job at what you do, then Gurdjieff would probably very much like to talk to you. :)

G was very favorable towards anyone who had a job or business or specific task that they did very well. The following quote comes from the reference Heimdallr supplied:

[quote author=ISOTM]
Gurdjieff:
...understanding is essential, and reading can be useful only if you understand what you read. But, of course, no book can give real preparation. So it is impossible to say which is better. What a man knows well" (he emphasized the word "well")—"that is his preparation. If a man knows how to make coffee well or how to make boots well, then it is already possible to talk to him. The trouble is that nobody knows anything well. Everything is known just anyhow, superficially."

Ouspensky:
This was another of those unexpected turns which G. gave to his explanations. G.'s words, in addition to their ordinary meaning, undoubtedly contained another, altogether different, meaning. I had already begun to realize that, in order to arrive at this hidden meaning in G.'s words, one had to begin with their usual and simple meaning. G.'s words were always significant in their ordinary sense, although this was not the whole of their significance. The wider or deeper significance remained hidden for a long time.
pg. 27
[/quote]

There are two angles from which you can Work on Self-remembering or anything else you want to understand. First, I'd advise to understand the concept of Self-remembering from the glossary if you have the link, then I'd avise to start paying much more attention during work hours.

The first angle could be to develop a completely integrated understanding of your role in the economy - local and wider, due to the nature of the "system" you are participating in. IOW, you could start noticing how every single thing you say and move you make links to the final product and continues distribution through the "system" and eventually come back to you - no matter the delay times involved. You could also start noticing the logistics involved in coordinating everything from the simplest task you perform to the most complicated.

The second angle could be to start noticing how mechanical and mostly predictable everything you do and everything that happens just happens because the system was already set up before you entered it. And notice how you depend on this mechanical nature of everything so that every single moment of your life doesn't require a lot of inventive thinking in order to make the right decision or to take the next step. How many work-related thought and movement sequences are repeated over and over - during the course of an hour, a day, a two-day period, a week and etc?

Granted, this is a lot, but it is necessary to start where we are, no matter where and when that is.

In this context, the practice of Self remembering can be enhanced by noticing yourself as you react to something that just happened. What just happened? What was your reaction to it? Why did you do what you just did in response to what just occurred? What did you assume to be the meaning of what just happened. And so on...

Does this make any sense?

 

[Crystla24]

Hi Crystla24

If you work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, this looks like a perfect setting for your purposes. If you do a very good job at what you do, then Gurdjieff would probably very much like to talk to you. :)

G was very favorable towards anyone who had a job or business or specific task that they did very well. The following quote comes from the reference Heimdallr supplied:

[quote author=ISOTM]
Gurdjieff:
...understanding is essential, and reading can be useful only if you understand what you read. But, of course, no book can give real preparation. So it is impossible to say which is better. What a man knows well" (he emphasized the word "well")—"that is his preparation. If a man knows how to make coffee well or how to make boots well, then it is already possible to talk to him. The trouble is that nobody knows anything well. Everything is known just anyhow, superficially."

Ouspensky:
This was another of those unexpected turns which G. gave to his explanations. G.'s words, in addition to their ordinary meaning, undoubtedly contained another, altogether different, meaning. I had already begun to realize that, in order to arrive at this hidden meaning in G.'s words, one had to begin with their usual and simple meaning. G.'s words were always significant in their ordinary sense, although this was not the whole of their significance. The wider or deeper significance remained hidden for a long time.
pg. 27

There are two angles from which you can Work on Self-remembering or anything else you want to understand. First, I'd advise to understand the concept of Self-remembering from the glossary if you have the link, then I'd avise to start paying much more attention during work hours.

The first angle could be to develop a completely integrated understanding of your role in the economy - local and wider, due to the nature of the "system" you are participating in. IOW, you could start noticing how every single thing you say and move you make links to the final product and continues distribution through the "system" and eventually come back to you - no matter the delay times involved. You could also start noticing the logistics involved in coordinating everything from the simplest task you perform to the most complicated.

The second angle could be to start noticing how mechanical and mostly predictable everything you do and everything that happens just happens because the system was already set up before you entered it. And notice how you depend on this mechanical nature of everything so that every single moment of your life doesn't require a lot of inventive thinking in order to make the right decision or to take the next step. How many work-related thought and movement sequences are repeated over and over - during the course of an hour, a day, a two-day period, a week and etc?

Granted, this is a lot, but it is necessary to start where we are, no matter where and when that is.

In this context, the practice of Self remembering can be enhanced by noticing yourself as you react to something that just happened. What just happened? What was your reaction to it? Why did you do what you just did in response to what just occurred? What did you assume to be the meaning of what just happened. And so on...

Does this make any sense?
[/quote]


I have always been a perfectionist. I always get jobs, perfect them, and then in 2 years I am so bored 'cause I am not learning anything new and move on to the next that keeps my interest. My current job is local government and I am a supervisor and every single action does reach the public or on up to the state. I have the whole public in love with me as well as the state beckoning me to work for them, 'cause I already have perfected this job. This job is different though, because it is growing and I always have room for new ingenuity, and has kept my attention to a point. I started with a disaster in complete chaos and set up all the mechanical behavior knowing that in the future it would pay off and I would have a good setting to think about my purpose in...kinda crazy, but I reached my goal and I am happy, but being constantly alone I feel like I need some of that outside perspectives just to keep from going off too far in my own tangents. When I first started on about some of this stuff in another posts a few months ago, I came to the conclusion that my fate was being determined on where I needed to be to learn anything (coming subconsciously) and I take what I can learn from and move on from what I cannot. Sometimes something I can not learn from now, indeed comes back in the future, with new knowledge to the topic I can learn from it. IDK, I have analysed every reaction to every action I make on a physical and spiritual level. I was trying to say once before that I was very well able, in my job, charisma, social and romantic relations; because I watch and perfect every move I make and think about every consequence to everything I do before I do it. And apparently I got to sounding like a narcissist, but I am calm and collected and do not draw attention to myself most of the time. It is hard to sum up all of my thoughts into collective forum posts because really there are a lot of my thoughts in every direction. I am not good at expressing my inner emotions and my anxiety levels rise as I start to talk about them, I apologize if I do seem overbearing to anyone...it is also exciting to be able to have conversations like these all together :)

 

[Crystla24]

Also, in the Ouspensky quote, "This was another of those unexpected turns which G. gave to his explanations. G.'s words, in addition to their ordinary meaning, undoubtedly contained another, altogether different, meaning. I had already begun to realize that, in order to arrive at this hidden meaning in G.'s words, one had to begin with their usual and simple meaning. G.'s words were always significant in their ordinary sense, although this was not the whole of their significance. The wider or deeper significance remained hidden for a long time."

About understanding G. one had to begin with their usual and simple meaning. Everytime I come to some mind-blowing conclusion (to me), it turns out it was so simple to begin. Some of life's lesson's have just some of the simplest, most basic answers. Afterward it always hits me that I am still asleep or else I would have seen it before, and all of my seeming Epiphanies always slap me back into place from getting too cocky; because of the sure simplicity of the answers I find and how ignorant I feel I was for never knowing all along.

 

[Buddy]

I can relate to a lot of what you have just said. Indeed, 'the truth of something' is often more simple - deeper and more elegant - than we initially think; especially when we approach an issue with the intellectual center only - which is common.

I think the little I's concept is useful to many people and can be traced to archaic origins, but is not really necessary to participate in the Work:
_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus

From a linguistic perspective, in order to communicate or even do self-talk, it is necessary to set up an object and ourselves as subject. We say "I" to everything and every moment. We think of ourselves as a single being because we have a body, a name and a memory that is all served by this linguistic convention. Such is our illusion about ourself - or most everyone anyway, OSIT.

According to the Work, the reality is that we are more like a collection of fragments. From the time we are born, we learn behaviors and behavior patterns that serve certain purposes. Today, we go from talking to Dad to talking with sister, from washing the dishes to lounging on the couch, to going to bed, to getting up and everything we do is a smooth transition of one learned sequence to another just like making long sentences can be done by placing previously learned fragments together side-by-side.

The Work leads to a visceral understanding of all this and suggests an alternative to dying the way we live. The alternative is to fuse all the components of ourselves into a single coherent whole. In this way, all the various "I"'s can be one Self; all the various "wills" can be one will, etc., etc.

If you can, I highly recommend the Wave as well as all the other material previously mentioned. While G's work is the cornerstone here, the Wave actually serves as the background context for most of our discussions. :)

 

[anart]

I ran across this quote on facebook today of all places and thought I'd share it.

If you ask a man whether he can remember himself, he will of course answer that he can. If you tell him that he cannot remember himself, he will either be angry with you, or he will think you an utter fool. The whole of life is based on this, the whole of human existence, the whole of human blindness. If a man really knows that he cannot remember himself, he is already near to the understanding of his being.

 

[Buddy]

Paraphrasing a quote I read somewhere, this is somewhat similar, but addresses the idea of being conscious:

If you ask a man if he is conscious, he will say "of course I'm conscious". And for a brief moment he will be. That is, his level of consciousness will indeed be slightly higher than a moment ago and will consequently aid his ability to recall this moment. However, as this moment passes into the next, this question/answer exchange will fade into memory and the man will return to his previous state none the wiser. Yet, the memory remains and will likely be considered as "proof" of the matter.

 

[Crystla24]

I am starting into the third volume of the wave, so I have got a pretty good idea of things so far. And just reading materials here and there that catch my eye, I read various C material I hadn't reached yet.

Paraphrasing a quote I read somewhere, this is somewhat similar, but addresses the idea of being conscious:

If you ask a man if he is conscious, he will say "of course I'm conscious". And for a brief moment he will be. That is, his level of consciousness will indeed be slightly higher than a moment ago and will consequently aid his ability to recall this moment. However, as this moment passes into the next, this question/answer exchange will fade into memory and the man will return to his previous state none the wiser. Yet, the memory remains and will likely be considered as "proof" of the matter.

I had read in that other thread about people getting "caught in the swiftness" of what they can achieve and they lose the incredible value of what they are actually learning. No matter where we are on this "path", I think it can be taken for granted and lost as memory considered proof. Memory fades too, you don't want to lose what you have found by thinking it is safe in memory, that's why it is a good idea to try and incorporate these things into your life and live them and make them a part of who you are. I don't want to be "none the wiser" because I take any of this granted. I have a bad memory and one of my worst fears is forgetting things I have learned. I started to write down some of it, just for my own references back. But I think I do need to slow down a bit and fully absorb my experiences instead of moving right on to the next and losing value of my past thoughts. Thanks everyone for the advice, tips and links forward. I did come here to try and validate some of what has been going on with me, 'cause as I am getting deeper it makes me nervous that there is a thought in the back of my head saying "it's all in your head". And I think it is a simple fear, but having feedback positive or negative, helps center me a little. At this point I think I need to slow down some, so I don't get my self worked up. I can only handle reading pieces of the wave at a time, 'cause half-way through each chapter makes me stop and fully process, that I am learning tremendous amounts. And I imagine that reading Ouspenky and Gurjieff will also have this same affect, I down want to speed through it all, I want to savour the value and process it all fully. This place here has been the only grasp to "real" reality that I have found feels where I need to be to learn much more. I hope one day I can be as centered and helpful as many of the people I have come across here.

 

[Palinurus]

Seems to be a wise decision if you really want 'to walk the talk' as the saying goes.
Personally, I spent about four years reading around here before I dared to jump in and join actively what goes on - and I found out it has some sort of multiplier effect in so far as organizing your understanding more coherently - not only mental but across the board in all directions. fwiw.
Anyway, glad you decided to stick around...

 

[Buddy]

I had read in that other thread about people getting "caught in the swiftness" of what they can achieve and they lose the incredible value of what they are actually learning. No matter where we are on this "path", I think it can be taken for granted and lost as memory considered proof.

Yep. The 'feel good' value of conceptual knowledge vs the incredible richness of experiencing it. Maybe we sometimes get so busy 'planting' that we forget to linger in the moment to appreciate what has grown.

Memory fades too, you don't want to lose what you have found by thinking it is safe in memory, that's why it is a good idea to try and incorporate these things into your life and live them and make them a part of who you are.

Indeed. Starting the Work from the ground up lets you structure your experience and stay anchored (feet on the ground). The Doctrine of the Present may have future reference value.

I don't want to be "none the wiser" because I take any of this granted. I have a bad memory and one of my worst fears is forgetting things I have learned.

You're not alone there. A few forum members have expressed this as well.

I started to write down some of it, just for my own references back. But I think I do need to slow down a bit and fully absorb my experiences instead of moving right on to the next and losing value of my past thoughts.

While skimming some material once, I read something that gave me a bit of a shock, and ironically, I'm kicking myself for not memorizing it or writing it down.

The author asserted "...we write down what we don't want to know". Or perhaps it was more like "...we write down what we feel we cannot know." That rings a bell somewhere, but it was more useful to me as a signpost. Now, I write nothing down. If what I'm learning is only a fragment because I have nowhere to fit it or nothing to peg it to, and I'm really interested in it, I'll go to the beginning and start from the ground up.

If I lose interest while reading or studying, I stop until I can resume with interest. Otherwise, from the point of view of quality of awareness, I can practically feel "the sun going down". If I continue past that point, I think the concept of "state dependent recall" applies, because I'm definitely experiencing a change in my state that affects the quality of recall.

Thanks everyone for the advice, tips and links forward. I did come here to try and validate some of what has been going on with me, 'cause as I am getting deeper it makes me nervous that there is a thought in the back of my head saying "it's all in your head". And I think it is a simple fear, but having feedback positive or negative, helps center me a little. At this point I think I need to slow down some, so I don't get my self worked up. I can only handle reading pieces of the wave at a time, 'cause half-way through each chapter makes me stop and fully process, that I am learning tremendous amounts. And I imagine that reading Ouspenky and Gurjieff will also have this same affect, I down want to speed through it all, I want to savour the value and process it all fully. This place here has been the only grasp to "real" reality that I have found feels where I need to be to learn much more. I hope one day I can be as centered and helpful as many of the people I have come across here.

Take your time. There's no one around to rush us up.