Shocking the system - Conscious Pain and Suffering

[Cosmos]

So no use standing in a cold shower – for all the suffering it may produce – if the net result is the emotional centre looking for ways to then make itself feel better as a reward along the lines of one chocolate biscuit per minute of cold water endured.

Yeah, maybe instead of looking for things that will make you "suffer" in a pre-planned way, try to look for things that you would prefer not to go without. Or things that make you "uncomfortable" and the ones you usually leave for later. For example, everyday think about things you don't want to do the most, and try to do them first. Or think about treats or sweets you are looking for eating today, and in the last moment make an effort and don't do it. And then observe all the justifications and excuses in your mind why you do need this right now, or why you can leave this annoying thing for later. ;)

I agree. Although setting yourself goals like cold showering on the way, is certainly helpful in many ways, most of the shocks that are important also come from our everyday life and most often it can be found in the simplest of things. If we chose to take a close look at all our interactions and reactions with our social environment for example, as a chance to grow, we can see that there is almost in every instance a chance to use conscious suffering.

For example, you interact with somebody and you notice that you just got triggered and that you normally would now automatically get snippy and/or react inappropriately or would "eat it up".

Right there is the chance to use "conscious suffering" instead of mechanical suffering, to behave and act in that situation in a better way. Situations like this one (and there are many, many, in everyday life) are very beneficial to use for conscious shocks. In fact I think those small shocks are most often the more important ones. Life gives usconstantly chances, in every way imaginable, to use conscious shocks.

For example in such situations you can stop yourself and say to yourself:

"Ahh... I see... I just got triggered. How would I normally react now and how could I behave in this moment, the oppside way?" And then try to apply it in that moment.

As the others have said, it comes down to conscious suffering versus mechanical suffering. And Gurdjieff, Don Juan and others explained in great detail how that works.

Another important point to remember here is, that Gurdjieff explained explicitly that you really need a network of people (especially at the beginning) in order to "do the work". So just thinking about things beforehand that can shock you and applying them, without using it in the framework of "a teacher" or a network, does not work that well and often leads to bad results. The book "Strangers to Ourselves" makes that point also clear by stating basically that we need observations of ourselves, viewed from the outside, in order to "know ourselves".

 

[electrosonic]

Emitflesti, is it possible that you have used two different concepts interchangeably in your opening post? Allow me to clarify - I see parts of both "using shocks to increase polarisation" & "relinquishing desires by systematic withdrawal" used within your post and wondered whether you had considered the difference between the two?

Relinquishing desires in order to habitually condition your mind/body/consciousness to no longer expend valuable energy in obsessing over them is one thing; but shouldn't be confused with the concept of intentionally shocking the system in order to instigate an increase in polarity.

Before one attempted to 'self-shock' as it were, you may want to consider these 4 points:

First - in order to have a chance of increasing polarity, a shock to the system has to have an emotional/mental/spiritual impact. Physical pain itself will be ineffective without a concurrent emotional/mental/spiritual effect.

Second - the less control you have over the situation which is causing the shock, the greater the potential for the shock to be used as a catalyst for growth. When you feel in control of a situation, you are automatically diminishing the shock factor, and will feel significantly less impact than if the same situation were to be instigated by circumstances outside of your control.

Third - while a shock can assist one to increase in polarity, that increase can be made in STS just as much as it can be STO. The shock is the catalyst but it requires a core of STO behind it to use the catalyst successfully in order to increase in polarity. So there's no guarantee a shock will succeed to increase STO polarity anyway, unless the person has a natural bias towards STO.

Fourth - deliberately administering pain in order to achieve a shock, may incubate a desire for a situation in order to gain an end result, and this in turn may lead you to actually lose positive polarity rather than gain it.

Good luck with your quest.

 

[luc]

I agree. Although setting yourself goals like cold showering on the way, is certainly helpful in many ways, most of the shocks that are important also come from our everyday life and most often it can be found in the simplest of things. If we chose to take a close look at all our interactions and reactions with our social environment for example, as a chance to grow, we can see that there is almost in every instance a chance to use conscious suffering.

I agree. One feature of the Work - which is one reason why it's so difficult - is that we must always fight on multiple fronts; otherwise, we can actually do more harm than good. So for example, as others have said, if you muster willpower to take a cold shower, but then go back to 'normal' for the rest of the day, you will unconsciously compensate for it/reward yourself and make things worse on other fronts.

I think we need to be aware of this trap - if you achieve something, let's say you got more chores done on a day or managed to break a habit, don't think "now I deserve to be lazy/overeat/that others do some work for me because I already did my part", but instead continue in that spirit, and do the next thing that you don't like, do even more work etc. The goal is to remember ourselves more and more so that the Work is always 'on'. Conscious suffering can take many forms, and it can be quite different for different people - what is conscious suffering for person A might be stagnation/mechanical behavior for person B. This is also one of the reasons why a network is so important I think - each case can be very different.

 

[Muxel]

Sorry but I thought this thread was going to explore, in practical terms, what G described as "shocks" and "conscious suffering".

Taking cold showers and lifting weights?? How about "holding a glass of water with an outstretched arm until the practitioner's arm finally gives", I'm sure that would be good for raising your consciousness as well.

With all the richness and horrors of history up to the present, and to have G's worldly concepts interpreted in in such hobbyistic ways that can only come from one who enjoys middle-class comforts, is such a testament to the willing selfishness and ignorance of the human animal.

In short, it displays a complete lack of perspective if that is the only "pain" you can come up with.

 

[axj]

There isn't really a need for this harshness, Muxel.

Yes, as others have said, "conscious suffering" takes place primarily on the emotional level.

First and foremost, we need to recognize when emotional charges are triggered in us and instead of projecting this anger on the person who triggered it, we need to realize that this anger was in us all along. We are responsible, not the person who triggered it.

This is in fact one of the main challenges in intimate relationships and if both partners can learn to not project their anger charges on each other, the relationship can go to a whole different level.

Processing an anger charge (or healing an emotional wound/trauma) requires experiencing these uncomfortable emotions and the emotional pain of the wounds beneath them and then bringing the feeling of love/acceptance/approval to the hurting place inside .

For a long time, this emotional clearing and healing is what "conscious suffering" is about.

 

[T.C.]

Sorry but I thought this thread was going to explore, in practical terms, what G described as "shocks" and "conscious suffering".

Taking cold showers and lifting weights?? How about "holding a glass of water with an outstretched arm until the practitioner's arm finally gives", I'm sure that would be good for raising your consciousness as well.

With all the richness and horrors of history up to the present, and to have G's worldly concepts interpreted in in such hobbyistic ways that can only come from one who enjoys middle-class comforts, is such a testament to the willing selfishness and ignorance of the human animal.

In short, it displays a complete lack of perspective if that is the only "pain" you can come up with.

Pain is relative, Muxel. You seem to think you know what conscious suffering is, but your assessment of this thread is purely black and white and I don't see how you can profess Gurdjieffian principles when the understanding of the third force is totally missing from your knowledge base.

For someone who has had everything done for them all their lives, for example, the very thought of washing dishes can be painful.

The people here aren't supermen, they just want to learn how to be better human beings, and what that means. So we experiment. If our experiments don't live up to your expectations, maybe you need to change those expectations.

You have a tendency to be hyper-critical of what you perceive to be other people's short comings. If you wish to be a better human being, I'm sure you can use that tendency to create some conscious suffering in yourself.

 

[bjorb]

Conscious suffering simplified =

Confronting (trying to get ride of) your egoistic, selfish, self-importance, STS thinking/behavior in order to chance yourself for the better. (more Service To Others oriented)

It's painful because being honest with yourself isn't comfortable.

The Ego (self-importance) likes itself and will 'fight' to justify it's existence. (predator mind)

This struggle = conscious suffering.



[quote author= Muxel]Taking cold showers and lifting weights?? How about "holding a glass of water with an outstretched arm until the practitioner's arm finally gives", I'm sure that would be good for raising your consciousness as well.[/quote]

I think it would only be good to build discipline. Like axj said, conscious suffering primarily takes place on the emotional level.

 

[biala84]

From this what i read i see that the chaos affect You too :) You don't worry just try to see the things how they really are. I mean what You see and from that what did You learn just keep going :) Greetings

 

[BHelmet]

I would like to inject some rigor here. Nobody defined "pain" here yet unless I missed it. This goes on a LOT everywhere: people discussing things without ever clarifying what they are talking about, what their definitions are, etc.

I like to dig into my own sense of the meaning of words since using my inner definitions has the chance to expose my inner workings to myself. I do also like to look at other peoples definitions for added perspective.

So, I think pain, in the simplest most accurate terms to me = Disagreeable Sensation. Boom Done. This can be experienced by any of the centers. (Obviously there are many types and sources of pain as well as many gradients of pain but before those distinctions can be useful, the basics come first).

Conscious Pain would be, to me, pain that I am aware I am experiencing. I think I caught a whiff of some posters implying that conscious pain could be, or perhaps even needed to be intentionally self inflicted. I don't think that is true. Actually I think there is plenty of pain to become aware of that we are constantly subject to. In other words, I don't think I need to go looking for pain; it always finds me and is part and parcel of living.

Suffering is related to pain I am experiencing - but it has more to do with how long that pain is experienced and what can or can not be done to solve the problem. Suffering is about duration and, perhaps also, the lack of workable remedies.

I am just going to leave it at that for now.

 

[T.C.]

I would like to inject some rigor here. Nobody defined "pain" here yet unless I missed it. This goes on a LOT everywhere: people discussing things without ever clarifying what they are talking about, what their definitions are, etc.

I like to dig into my own sense of the meaning of words since using my inner definitions has the chance to expose my inner workings to myself. I do also like to look at other peoples definitions for added perspective.

So, I think pain, in the simplest most accurate terms to me = Disagreeable Sensation. Boom Done. This can be experienced by any of the centers. (Obviously there are many types and sources of pain as well as many gradients of pain but before those distinctions can be useful, the basics come first).

Conscious Pain would be, to me, pain that I am aware I am experiencing. I think I caught a whiff of some posters implying that conscious pain could be, or perhaps even needed to be intentionally self inflicted. I don't think that is true. Actually I think there is plenty of pain to become aware of that we are constantly subject to. In other words, I don't think I need to go looking for pain; it always finds me and is part and parcel of living.

Suffering is related to pain I am experiencing - but it has more to do with how long that pain is experienced and what can or can not be done to solve the problem. Suffering is about duration and, perhaps also, the lack of workable remedies.

I am just going to leave it at that for now.

Hi BHelmet

I completely understand where you're coming from. Your definition of conscious suffering is that one is conscious of one's suffering.

In in Work terminology, that's not what is meant by conscious suffering. What you are describing is the first step - it's a means to an end, not the end in itself.

The first step IS to become aware of one's suffering and become conscious of it. But then, that leads to the next step which is the realisation that a life lived automatically is full of suffering - and that's what we call 'unconscious suffering'. It doesn't mean that we aren't conscious of this kind of suffering though, it means that the cause of it is our unconscious mode of being and living. The irony is that the root of this is our desire for comfort and ease.

Then comes the next step, realising that you can choose between two kinds of suffering. You can continue to live your life automatically, unconsciously, 'in sleep', and thus endure the misery of unconscious suffering, which benefits nothing and no one. Or you can choose conscious suffering, which means struggling and fighting against your automatic tendencies and going through the pain of that, which can bring benefit to you, and others, and the world as a whole.

 

[nicklebleu]

Suffering is related to pain I am experiencing - but it has more to do with how long that pain is experienced and what can or can not be done to solve the problem. Suffering is about duration and, perhaps also, the lack of workable remedies.

I think the Stoics would beg to differ with that.

There is pain and there is suffering, and the difference lies in accepting what you cannot change. Or maybe it's more the difference between unconscious and conscious suffering - if you accept the suffering, meaning you make it conscious, it becomes more tolerable.

1) It’s not events that cause us suffering, but our opinion about events.

People often think stoic means “suppressing your emotions behind a stiff upper lip.” This is not what ancient Stoicism meant. The Stoics thought we could transform emotions by understanding how they’re connected to our beliefs and attitudes. Often what causes us suffering is not a particular adverse event, but our opinion about it. We can make a difficult situation much worse by the attitude we bring to it. This doesn’t mean relentlessly “thinking positively” — it simply means being more mindful of how our attitudes and beliefs create our emotional reality. We don’t realize that often we are the ones causing ourselves suffering through our thoughts. Have you noticed how people react very differently to exactly the same event, how some sink rapidly into despondency while others shrug it off? Perhaps we can learn to be more resilient and intelligent in how we react to events.

2) Our opinions are often unconscious, but we can bring them to consciousness by asking ourselves questions.

Socrates said we sleepwalk through life, unaware of how we live and never asking ourselves if our opinions about life are correct or wise.Yet we assume automatically they’re true. The way to bring unconscious beliefs into consciousness is simply to ask yourself questions: Why am I feeling this strong emotional reaction? What interpretation or belief is leading to it? Is that belief definitely true? Where is the evidence for it? We can get into the practice of asking ourselves questions and examining our automatic interpretations. The Stoics used journals to keep track of their automatic responses and to examine them.

3) We can’t control everything that happens to us, but we can control how we react.

This is another very simple and powerful idea from the Stoics, best presented by Epictetus, the slave-philosopher, who divided all human experience into two domains: things we control and things we don’t. We don’t control other people, the weather, the economy, our bodies and health,our reputation, or things in the past and future. We can influence these things, but not entirely control them. The only thing we have complete control over is our beliefs — if we choose to exercise this control. But we often try to exert complete control over something external and then feel insecure and angry when we fail. Or we fail to take responsibility for our own thoughts and beliefs and use the outside world as an alibi. Focusing on what you control is a powerful way to reduce anxiety and assert autonomy in chaotic situations; in my book, the stories of Rhonda Cornum, James Stockdale, and Sam Sullivan illustrate this idea — they all faced profound adversity but managed to find a sense of autonomy in their response to it. The Serenity Prayer also encapsulates this idea nicely.

8 Ideas I Wish I'd Learned in School

 

[Nienna]

I agree, nicklebleu.

As an example, Gurdjieff said that sincerity with everyone is a weakness. By this, he said that telling everyone what we think about them, what they said or did is not us trying to help the other person, but us wanting to tell them that we think they are wrong - a self-importance or right man program. By not telling someone how we think they are wrong is an act of conscious suffering. We suffer because we don't say exactly what we are thinking. We control ourselves - our programs - into being silent when we want to show someone else they are wrong and we are right; and, in doing so, suffer for many different reasons; such as not being able to voice our opinion and being able to show the other person how wrong they were and how right we were (which may not be the case), or knowing that the other person may suffer themselves in some way but it is something that they won't believe if we tell them so they must learn on their own, etc.

 

[bjorb]

[quote author= Muxel]In short, it displays a complete lack of perspective if that is the only "pain" you can come up with.[/quote]

Figuring out and learning to differentiate between the different sets of unconscious suffering and conscious suffering is a real ongoing struggle and journey.

I fail to see why you are angry. In fact, the questions emitflesti asked about how to provoke conscious suffering aren't that far off from mine when I first discovered the 4 way teachings.

I didn't really want to respond on your angry comment, since T.C. already pointed you out to it and I assumed you would give it a proper reaction, but since that didn't happen.

To my observation you seem to be tormented by being angry a lot of times, and that certainly can't be easy. So also for your sake, try to discover why this is. And if part of it isn't simply unconscious suffering.



[quote author= emitflesti]Can pain also be a 2-way street?
Are some people enslaved with pain to the STS profile because they don't want to accept their own pain, so they would rather ignore, bury, or give it away to somebody else which unknowingly leads to torturing somebody else, hence the endless cycle of suffering and entrapment?[/quote]

Yeah, happens all the time I think. Dealing with trauma's is painful, so people can indeed rather ignore or bury it instead of confronting it.

It results in a death emotional center. Meaning you are so completely out of touch with your own feelings that soul-exploring becomes impossible.

Hence them becoming stuck in a time-loop, or endless cycle like you call it. Because they are trapped by trauma.



[quote author= emitflesti]Can some people be liberated with pain to the STO profile because they have the strength, courage, compassion, empathy, and awareness to see both the Darkness/Light, Good/Evil, Subjectivity/Objectivity in the world? They realize that one cannot exist without the other.
[/quote]

Pain liberates when it teaches you lessons. And through that we learn to differentiate between conscious suffering (Soul suffering) and unconscious suffering (suffering deprived from the Ego)

Through this process we indeed get a better understanding to see the lessons within, which is, to realize that one cannot exist without the other and how they can compliment each other (STO/STS)


[quote author= emitflesti]Currently I am being my own guinea pig and trying experiments on myself for shocking my Mechanical System to experience conscious pain in a safe manor that shocks the predatory/mechanical mind without harming the body.

So far, here's all I have come up with:
1) Taking Cold Showers -
2) Weightlifting –
[/quote]

I think that would be mainly good for building discipline.

I think approaches like this are more helpful:

https://thecasswiki.net/index.php?title=Thinking_with_a_hammer
In FotCM usage, the term "thinking with a hammer" means approaching the object of thought from all angles. The hammer also implies hammering against one's beliefs and prejudices, creating internal friction by being critical of the thought process itself.

Thinking with a hammer is, in a sense, the opposite of habitual thinking. Thinking with a hammer means forging new paths and connections as opposed to forcing things to fit within the grooves of existing categories. It is expanding one's mind to be at the measure of the questions instead of shrinking the questions to fit the mind's habits. Thinking with a hammer cannot take place in a state of sleep. It needs an application of will and going against one's internal resistance.

[quote author= emitflesti]Right now I'm taking baby steps, so I'm trying to look for exercises that are NOT so extreme at the present moment.
Thanks![/quote]

''The Work'' is more about having the right kind of mindset. The 4th way teachings have a lot to offer.

https://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,33092.0.html (see 4th way)

Or maybe you already started reading them, in any case. It's certainly a life study. I find myself reading those books again and again and I still don't understand it fully. But through super-effort we can make progress.

 

[Alejo]

Hi all,

To add to this conversation, I also think that as G said, the first step should perhaps be an observation of oneself. The reason this is particularly important is because we might jump into a voluntary suffering dynamic for the sake of suffering. Which will build will and discipline, but might miss making the larger more long lasting changes hoped for.

I recall G speaking about the concept of "a chief characteristic " that is particular to everyone. Everyone has a specific feature that sort of defines their behavior. And this determines what kind of suffering they could go through in order to achieve certain goals. For there's also people who are "addicted" to their suffering and in fact seek to remain within painful situations.

One of the concepts that always helps me in defining this is the one of "doing what it doesn't like". And in those cases (of people addicted to their suffering) perhaps avoiding the suffering and letting go of it is what might amount to the concept of "doing what it doesn't like". And that, to me, is the appropriate kind of suffering.

Now, I'm not discouraging working out or cold showers. Both those activities are quite beneficial in themselves. But all I'm saying is, if you were someone who already enjoys cold showers and working out. That type of suffering might not achieve a great deal.

Just my two cents.

 

[BHelmet]

I would like to inject some rigor here. Nobody defined "pain" here yet unless I missed it. This goes on a LOT everywhere: people discussing things without ever clarifying what they are talking about, what their definitions are, etc. g for pain; it always finds me and is part and parcel of living.
----etc etc

Hi BHelmet

I completely understand where you're coming from. Your definition of conscious suffering is that one is conscious of one's suffering.

In in Work terminology, that's not what is meant by conscious suffering. What you are describing is the first step - it's a means to an end, not the end in itself.

The first step IS to become aware of one's suffering and become conscious of it. But then, that leads to the next step which is the realisation that a life lived automatically is full of suffering - and that's what we call 'unconscious suffering'. It doesn't mean that we aren't conscious of this kind of suffering though, it means that the cause of it is our unconscious mode of being and living. The irony is that the root of this is our desire for comfort and ease.

Then comes the next step, realising that you can choose between two kinds of suffering. You can continue to live your life automatically, unconsciously, 'in sleep', and thus endure the misery of unconscious suffering, which benefits nothing and no one. Or you can choose conscious suffering, which means struggling and fighting against your automatic tendencies and going through the pain of that, which can bring benefit to you, and others, and the world as a whole.

Hi T.C. - First off, my intention in this post was to kick the conversation to a deeper level. Judging by your post, I think I succeeded. A person can talk about pain or suffering but WHY does a person call it pain or suffering? What IS the nature of pain or suffering? That said, I agree with everything you are saying here. The deeper causes and mechanisms of suffering are important to suss out. Yes, we seem to have a default "unconscious mode of being and living". I think it is necessary to analyze the pain and suffering in order to really consciously choose or our choices may just revert to the default mode.

Consciously choosing discomfort because it is not the default mode is not necessarily the answer. (especially for the masochist ;D) There were monks who consciously chose bodily mortification to combat certain natural bodily functions they viewed as "sinful" but this didn't necessarily bring consciousness or holiness. Doing the opposite of the mechanical default can become just as mechanical. This is akin to the forces of sleep redoubling their efforts once we start to wake up. I think it is also possible to consciously choose your mechanical suffering, to add an additional twist to it.

But yeah - there are several steps and levels to this that one who desires to awaken must become aware of, I totally agree.

And yeah - there is that key "I like/I don't like" (it-is-all-about-me) mode of assessing pain/suffering that stems from the unconscious programming which has to be addressed by each individual.