Study and Discussion of the Moving Center

[annp]

Thanks Alada - that was a great reminder. I have not been good about doing the warm-up exercises, but will make a concerted effort to do so in future. It certainly has kept me from getting to a deep meditative state. It's amazing how blind we can be to our own ways of avoidance. :(

This has been a great thread. I am one of those people who does everything fast - and never realized that I was using this as a way of avoiding my feelings. It's like if I moved fast enough, I could outrun all my emotions.

The past week, I have been consciously trying to slow down and feel. It has been quiet enlightening and intensely uncomfortable as well. So I know it is important. In fact, quite a few things have been surfacing, so much that I could not even post about it earlier. I actually had to stop while trying to write last night because my whole body started to shake and I spontaneously went into one of those shaking episodes that Peter Levine describes in the book In an Unspoken Voice. Not sure what it coming up - but am working to move through it. Am still having trouble writing about it now - interesting and a bit scary...need to breathe!!! Seems the most important things are the most difficult sometimes.

 

[beetlemaniac]

After thinking about it, and reviewing the data, I would say that the most distinctive trait of man number one (though there may be several levels here, depending on the individual) is the lack of autonomous developmental dynamisms. In not having enough contact and practice with their emotional and intellectual centers, He/She becomes the clear example of a parrot. Survival through imitation, repetition and lower instinct functions are the norm, they can follow the "rules" and that helps them fit the standarts and survive in the environment but there are not enough autonomous processes.

I'm more inclined to think that man number one is less willing to start any kind of real work on himself since there isn't enough work of the emotional and intellectual centers to bring the necessary conflict and awareness to make the autonomous factors emerge, and so maybe the development potencial of man number one is mainly limited to life lessons which helps them grow their emotions and intellect step by step.

Dabrowski explain that even when sensual and psychomotor OEs are present (they can be highly active and enthusiastic, and may be impulsive and competitive) development with them alone is somewhat limited...

I've been thinking in similar terms. In "Transcripts of Gurdjieff's Meetings 1941-1946", he says the following, for example:

There are three aspects that you are able to see in different friends of yours - where is to be found their centre of gravity, their individuality. Of your three friends, one has his centre of gravity in his mind; another is like a cow with centre of gravity in his body; the third is like an hysterical woman, he manipulates for everything. ... There isn't a better illustration for the emotional centre than the hysterical woman. She feels everything, even what doesn't exist. (p. 61)

You have a weakness, a sickness; you must not think with your feeling; you must think with your head. To think with your feeling is a weakness, a sickness. The beginning comes from feeling and the centre of thought is only a function. But the centre of gravity must be the thought. And now you can know what is individuality. It is when your centre of gravity is in your thought. So, if your centre of gravity is not in your thought, you are not an individual, you are an automaton. It's a simple explanation. Every man should try to accustom himself to being an individual, an independent person, something, not merde (excuse the word), not an animal, dog, cat. It is a very simple symptom. If you concentrate your being in your thought, you are an individual; there are many degrees among individuals, but that isn't important for the moment. You are an individual when you have your centre of gravity in the thinking centre. And if it is in another centre, you are only an automaton. It can be in your body and in your feeling, but when you work you should always have for aim to be in your thought. And this do consciously. If you do not, everything does itself unconsciously in you. Your work should be exclusively to concentrate yourself in your thought. It's a simple explanation. (p. 75-76)

I think an example of this is super-efforts and the stop exercise. If your centre of gravity is moving centre, the idea is to move it to your head (will?), to force the body to do what YOU tell it to, not what it wants. It also meshes well with the triune brain theory, having the centre of gravity in the highest brain regions (neocortex).

Thanks for the quote from Gurdjieff. It has helped me start using my intellectual center properly, by applying it to my daily life. Also, Ana's post quoted above had me stumped for quite some time. Then I realise my problem, I was reading the word "autonomous" to mean "automatic", which is pretty symbolic of my state I think. That means I wasn't even getting the real meaning of the Positive Disintegration theory, when I read it last. Funny how obvious mistakes in our "language translation" or "dictionary" pass by undetected so easily.

The Parable of the Carriage also makes much more sense, overall I think my understanding of the centers has increased thanks to this thread. Thanks again everyone!

Mod's note: Edited to fix the quotation boxes

 

[mabar]

Hi, … I had been coming to this thread (to post other exercises that might help to those that are strongly moving oriented center from the question Laura made: “that might force the intellect to come into play to observe the action and/or the emotion related to it.” … but I end leaving, first because after reading it for the first time I ended more confuse and second because while reading the excerpts for a second time I found myself a little stuck and a little more confused, I realized that I needed to accept that I still have issues from a trauma I had/have ---it sounds nice to put it in the past, but that is not the case unfortunately, because I really wanted to get over it, and fortunately, I supposed, because I am realizing that it needs to work more around it. To “get over it” in my thinking is like wishing to disappear it, and from what I had been understanding lately, is that I had been wasting energy in illusions rather to use it more appropriate.
While reading the excerpts I found myself identify in many paragraphs from the unbalanced centers, the one that “awoke” the memory was this one:

The emotional center working for the thinking center brings unnecessary nervousness, feverishness, and hurry into situations where, on the contrary, calm judgment and deliberation are essential.
The thinking center working for the emotional center brings deliberation into situations which require quick decisions and makes a man incapable of distinguishing the peculiarities and the fine points of the position. Thought is too slow. It works out a certain plan of action and continues to follow it even though the circumstances have changed and quite a different course of action is necessary. Besides, in some cases the interference of the thinking center gives rise to entirely wrong reactions, because the thinking center is simply incapable of understanding the shades and distinctions of many events. Events that are quite different for the moving center and for the emotional center appear to be alike to it. Its decisions are much too general and do not correspond to the decisions which the emotional center would have made. This becomes perfectly clear if we imagine the interference of thought, that is, of the theoretical mind, in the domain of feeling, or of sensation, or of movement; in all three cases the interference of the mind leads to wholly undesirable results. The mind cannot understand shades of feeling. We shall see this clearly if we imagine one man reasoning about the emotions of another. He is not feeling anything himself so the feelings of another do not exist for him. A full man does not understand a hungry one. But for the other they have a very definite existence. And the decisions of the first, that is of the mind, can never satisfy him. In exactly the same way the mind cannot appreciate sensations. For it they are dead. Nor is it capable of controlling movement. Instances of this kind are the easiest to find.

Whatever work a man may be doing, it is enough for him to try to do each action deliberately, with his mind, following every movement, and he will see that the quality of his work will change immediately. If he is typing, his fingers, controlled by his moving center, find the necessary letters themselves, but if he tries to ask himself before every letter: 'Where is "k"?' 'Where is the comma?' 'How is this word spelled?' he at once begins to make mistakes or to write very slowly. If one drives a car with the help of ones mind, one can go only in the lowest gear. The mind cannot keep pace with all the movements necessary for developing a greater speed. To drive at full speed, especially in the streets of a large town, while steering with the help of ones mind is absolutely impossible for an ordinary man.

Not quite impossible, I did it for around at least 6 years everytime I drive and it has been less and less by the passing years, and I end up avoiding freeways, avenues, bridges, tunnels, every way that use constant speed, I rather go the other way around stopping at every corner, even if people criticized me or take more time, family did not understand my behaviour, I began to keep distance from friends because I did not want to drive large distances and certainly not at night. And in those years I did not tell anyone either. (Self steem issues). There were moments when I did not recognize where I was, I certainly did not want it to be there driving (whenever it was and obviously, as I understood, every center were everywhere else instead where they should be). Its been quite difficult to try to get out from this hole, that sometimes look like a precipice of kilometers of depth, depending of my state of mind, but it is needed to do it in another thread.

--

One of exercises I thought it might help is with food, if you are into the Paleolithic diet, you can try to mix ingredients that you certainly you would not mix and then eat them, or you can use other ingredients that might be included in the Paleolithic diet but you don't eat them because you do not like the taste or texture and try them or you can always go … exotic, I once tried to eat fried beef testicles, but I felt uncomfortable mostly because I was eating testicles rather than the taste and texture from them. And to make the exercise more … intense –like the “stop” exercise?, you can go to a restaurant in which certain attitudes done at home can't be done in a public area, I ate them at a fancy restaurant that throwing up wasn't an option.

 

[whitecoast]

Like some in this thread, I used to think of "man 1" in terms of a "physically focused" and in that sense active person; going by Gurdjieff's description, I also do not seem to be "man 1" 'in the fullest sense', as in someone who 'learns everything like a parrot or a monkey'. Nevertheless, "lopsidedness" varies in strength and character - and there is something that can define "man 1" that is very clear in me:

A moving center type may tend to rely on senses, as in "if I do not see it, it is not so" or "if I see it, I see it as it truly is." This is not limited to physical senses but can extend to intuitions, ESP and the like, which are in part functions of the intelligent part of the moving/instinctive center. With man 1, experience takes precedence.

Sensing, including "mental sensations" (here I mean sensations connected with or arising from, in general, all manner of psychological processes concerning thoughts, feelings and experiences) - it has been at the center of my focus for as long as I can remember - the forms vary, as well as the things connected to it, but there it is - the elephant in the room regarding all my prior thoughts on my "type".

My motivations (and the actual root of my interests) have very often been "sensate" - only not physical sensation but the above-mentioned. Everything from daydreaming, fantasies, gaming, reading and watching fiction - to music and especially sound in itself - and generally doing things - much, perhaps most, was all along all about this.

Boredom or lack of interest in a subject was typically all about not experiencing such "sensation" connected to it. (I suspect higher maths became hopeless in large part for pretty much this reason)

I'm very much in the same boat as you, in terms of tending to revel in impressions. I think it's worth keeping in mind that impressions are mental and emotional as well, so the fact that you tend to savor a particular drama, fact, or other 'sensate' may not in itself indicate it comes from the moving center. ;)

For a moving center dominated man, the response though quick is less likely to have much of an emotional flavor. It is more likely to be a response which is sort of dry and may seem to be superficially intellectual. He is more likely to search his memory banks to pick out what he thinks is an appropriate response, working chiefly through his formatory apparatus. In many cases the lack of depth would become discernible as compared to a more studied and deliberate response of Man 3. An intellectual man may wait longer to process the information and may even ask more questions to gather more data before giving a response.

That describes me very well in life, as opposed to when I sit down and work on some intellectual problem. "Pondering" for me is often about "sensing" what "seems" right rather than analyzing things, kind of simply stalling, "digging around" repetitively in the mind, until there is a coherent impression. Not always, but still all too often - this became a deeply ingrained habit in my teens, when I became less spontaneous, more inhibited, more stuck in my head and less in touch with my body (along with my emotions).

I'm a little confused. Are you saying that a moving center predominance is your current default style in life, but in your teen years you were less spontaneous and more inhibited/cerebral, and therefore more intellectually dominant?

In a book by Neal Stephenson called Anathem, one of the characters comments on how thinking very much feels like a quantum computation - where we have all sorts of digging and depthwork going on in our heads (our neuronal structures in superposition with millions of other possible arrangements), processing information, until somehow the whole wave function collapses and we come to a clear and crystallized conclusion about the problem we've focused on, like Athena emerging fully formed from the head of Zeus.

For some reason this style of thinking seems really, really general and commonplace in creative problem-solving (the only exceptions I can really think of involve kinesthetic reasoning and arithmetic). This makes me think this style isn't exclusive to having a moving center predominance, though I'm unsure how to verify this.

Have you considered the possibility that, instead of the moving center being involved in certain types of thinking, it may just be the instinctive/moving subsection of the intellectual center that is handling certain work? It is a subtle distinction, but it may prove important. I remember in high school science I could do unit conversions in science equations more or less intuitively and rapidly in my head, but eventually things got so complex that I had to adopt the visual/symbolic style of unit-cancelling (sorry if this comes out as jargon). Looking back with what I know how, I think I may have transferred labor from the instinctive/moving aspect of the thinking center to the more abstract/thinking aspect of the thinking center. This could just be hair-splitting, but if G felt it was important enough to remark that some higher perception/psi abilities could have been the thinking part of the moving center (instead of being part of the actual mental center), the inverse (moving part of the thinking center) could have relevant implications elsewhere.

 

[cubbex]

Getting back to food for the feeling centre, a couple of things occurred to me.
Animal companions, can be enormous sources of emotional currency. My dogs are awesome; I give thanks for them every day.
Human mates, more difficult, sometimes you are doing well to break even emotionally, but as a field for self-sacrifice, sans pareil, and just isolating sex, ( moving-centre people make magic lovers ); if you can't make emotional mileage here, you're pretty unlucky. ( missionary position only, please )

What... I mean hehe dude I just lold at your post. What do you mean here?

Also I thought emotional food was experience, not just being happy.

Oh, and there are those situations when you feel like receiving illumination or something like that, like a higher feeling... maybe that's true love or true happiness.

 

[Psalehesost]

I'm very much in the same boat as you, in terms of tending to revel in impressions. I think it's worth keeping in mind that impressions are mental and emotional as well, so the fact that you tend to savor a particular drama, fact, or other 'sensate' may not in itself indicate it comes from the moving center. ;)

I was looking at the big picture - in doing so, the significance of sensing in my inner life becomes clear. And when I say sensing, I mean sensing as distinct from both feeling and thinking.

I'm a little confused. Are you saying that a moving center predominance is your current default style in life, but in your teen years you were less spontaneous and more inhibited/cerebral, and therefore more intellectually dominant?

No - I became so throughout my teens, and since then it has to a significant extent stuck with me, though this seems to be lessening recently as emotional issues and trauma likely stored in the body are processed. Though in truth, though focusing a lot on thought, often I was not really thinking in the true sense of the word, and the inner focus was much of the time on sensation.

In earlier childhood I was, now looking back, more moving-oriented. And more present and active through my body. But as noted in this thread, man 1 can be quite inactive - the focus can be in the instinctive center more than the moving center. For me it can shift back and forth (and Gurdjieff notes that this is the way "the lower story" of the human machine works) depending on the circumstances - sometimes there comes a sudden focus on and drive towards action, at other times (currently most of the time, though this has recently been and is gradually lessening) there is predominantly the outwardly inactive focus on sensations.

The latter always stuck with me, and came to direct my decisions and mental focus - most of my inner life. It gained the upper hand and the intellect and feelings spun around following its whim.

In a book by Neal Stephenson called Anathem, one of the characters comments on how thinking very much feels like a quantum computation - where we have all sorts of digging and depthwork going on in our heads (our neuronal structures in superposition with millions of other possible arrangements), processing information, until somehow the whole wave function collapses and we come to a clear and crystallized conclusion about the problem we've focused on, like Athena emerging fully formed from the head of Zeus.

For some reason this style of thinking seems really, really general and commonplace in creative problem-solving (the only exceptions I can really think of involve kinesthetic reasoning and arithmetic). This makes me think this style isn't exclusive to having a moving center predominance, though I'm unsure how to verify this.

That's not what I mean - I don't refer to flashes of insight, to the appearance of thoughts. Though that can also occasionally occur. Rather, I mean a thoughtless, feelingless indecision that remains until the mind suddenly decides that "yeah, that (one of several options) feels best, I'll do it".

This has been an extremely efficient way of mismanaging my life for the past years, resulting in passivity, foot-dragging, misspent energy, as well as stunting creativity and problem-solving - by inhibiting the process of experimentation that follows genuine thought.

Though, on the other hand, there have also been - which has allowed some progress despite the above - some real intuitions arriving in the form of unexpected sensations that then, when inwardly examined, lead to a strong sense of direction. At best, these things go beyond what I can rationally know - and have a particular constancy.

But that is the exception - mostly it's been subjective nonsense and wasting of time and energy (and still is, far too much, though this is now actively struggled against) - it has been hard to come to see, and has only hit home in gradual steps.

Have you considered the possibility that, instead of the moving center being involved in certain types of thinking, it may just be the instinctive/moving subsection of the intellectual center that is handling certain work?

That would be another, related issue - the "thinking" I write of does involve the thinking center - since it is kept busy (comparing things presented to it) and can't properly focus on real work at the same time. Gurdjieff mentions the wrong work of centers, and I think this is simply the intellectual center being pulled and directed by, in this case, the instinctive center - instead of working independently and as it should.

 

[OrangeScorpion]

Yes, Man 1 could very well be physically lazy and spend his energy in daydreaming initiated by the moving center.

[quote author=ISOTM]
Daydreaming is absolutely the opposite of 'useful' mental activity. 'Useful' in this case means activity directed towards a definite aim and undertaken for the sake of obtaining a definite result. Daydreaming does not pursue any aim, does not strive after any result. The motive for daydreaming always lies in the emotional or in the moving center. The actual process is carried on by the thinking center. The inclination to daydream is due partly to the laziness of the thinking center, that is, its attempts to avoid the efforts connected with work directed towards a definite aim and going in a definite direction, and partly to the tendency of the emotional and the moving centers to repeat to themselves, to keep alive or to recreate experiences, both pleasant and unpleasant, that have been previously lived through or 'imagined.'

[/quote]

What is the difference between daydreaming iniciated by the moving center and daydreaming iniciated by the emotional center?

Can anyone give an example of each?

 

[cubbex]

Supposedly all center work in unison, so I suppose that instead on working the body or something productive, because of the lack of energy and laziness that person wastes his/her energy on fantasies and illusions. The difference for example of an emotional center daydreaming would be that the person has fantasies about some situation that relates with a particular emotion it's stuck on him/her. For example that person hates someone so he loses his time on daydreaming how much pain can cause that hated person, or someone falls in love and that person is daydreaming romantic situations...

The problem with daydreaming I think, is that the person that does that prefer to escape reality because it doesn't want to give the effort (or super-effort ) to the wanted purpose.

Well, I thought this was already explained on the post from Laura so I think quoting it will explain it to you, keep focused there's always the explanation to our questions.

"'Imagination' is one of the principal sources of the wrong work of centers. Each center has its own form of imagination and daydreaming, but as a rule both the moving and the emotional centers make use of the thinking center which very readily places itself at their disposal for this purpose, because daydreaming corresponds to its own inclinations. Daydreaming is absolutely the opposite of 'useful' mental activity. 'Useful' in this case means activity directed towards a definite aim and undertaken for the sake of obtaining a definite result. Daydreaming does not pursue any aim, does not strive after any result. The motive for daydreaming always lies in the emotional or in the moving center. The actual process is carried on by the thinking center. The inclination to daydream is due partly to the laziness of the thinking center, that is, its attempts to avoid the efforts connected with work directed towards a definite aim and going in a definite direction, and partly to the tendency of the emotional and the moving centers to repeat to themselves, to keep alive or to recreate experiences, both pleasant and unpleasant, that have been previously lived through or 'imagined.'

--------------

I have another question, related to the sex energy and center. Does everyone have the same amount of sexual energy?

 

[OrangeScorpion]

Well, I thought this was already explained on the post from Laura so I think quoting it will explain it to you, keep focused there's always the explanation to our questions.

'Imagination' is one of the principal sources of the wrong work of centers. Each center has its own form of imagination and daydreaming, but as a rule both the moving and the emotional centers make use of the thinking center which very readily places itself at their disposal for this purpose, because daydreaming corresponds to its own inclinations. The motive for daydreaming always lies in the emotional or in the moving center.

Thanks for your answer.

The theory is more or less clear but put the principles into practice is quite difficult for me… above all the imagination that comes by the moving center.

Fantasize that one can fly and imagine oneself flying over the buildings and so on... I wonder if this might be an example of daydreaming initiated by the moving center.

 

[cubbex]

;) Yeah we need to use the power of discerning, and struggle against our habits, then maybe we will see their real nature. Patience pays I think.

 

[Ðekel]

Prometeo,

regarding;

I have another question, related to the sex energy and center. Does everyone have the same amount of sexual energy?

i tend to go for; Do YOU as a being have the same amount of sexual energy, or any other type of energy all the time ?
if the answer is no, then the answer to your question would also be no.

another thing i was thinking was; Does everyone have the same amount of hairs on their body ?
again, even within one person's lifetime, the actual number of hair on their body is always in flux.

my two cents..

 

[obyvatel]

What is the difference between daydreaming iniciated by the moving center and daydreaming iniciated by the emotional center?

Can anyone give an example of each?

Hi OrangeScorpion,
From my personal experiences, the difference between daydreams initiated by the moving center or the emotional center lies in the underlying flavor of the activity which is carried out by the intellectual center.

In case of emotional daydreaming, the activity would have some emotion as the underlying motif. Anger at someone can cause daydreams that envision situations where the object of the anger is somehow accosted and made to suffer. Sentimental feelings related to suffering can manifest as imagination where one sacrifices oneself for others in a way that elicits gratitude and admiration. Romantic associations could also fall in this category if emotion rather than physical satisfaction is the more dominant theme.

Moving center oriented daydreams may include a more sensation oriented motif. Dreaming of great exploits in sporting activities could be an example. Physical confrontations with "bad guys" where one emerges victorious through physical skills would be another.

[quote author=OrangeScorpion]
Fantasize that one can fly and imagine oneself flying over the buildings and so on... I wonder if this might be an example of daydreaming initiated by the moving center.
[/quote]
Could be moving-center initiated as a daydream. Maybe it is accompanied by a sensation of lightness and/or a feeling of freedom. Dreams of flying happening during sleep without conscious input seems somewhat common for some people - it has been discussed a few times in this forum.

fwiw

 

[cubbex]

Thank you, I think that was pretty obvious. Maybe I didn't write it well, so the question it is, does everyone produces the same amount of sexual energy?

Didn't find a threat to post it so I'll try here.

I've been reading the part about the abuse of sex and about the energy of sex, being as I remember hydrogen si12, like the hydrogen of the emotional center 12. And it's interesting because reading the explication of the law of one (maybe some here know this) about the orange and yellow light, I now understand better what they are referring to. It looks like RA or whoever it is, was explaining on some answers the function of hydrogens on some cases, as it says that the orange ray (emotive ray) and the yellow ray (sexual energy) are needed to approach a higher light, that is the green and that I think it's the energy from the higher emotional center, as is known that the only center that can use that large accumulator of energy (maybe the sexual center or sexual energy) is the emotional center, so maybe as G says, that the sexual energy can be very useful in the work if you do not abuse of it. Don't know why Ra just didn't get to the point.

And talking about the abuse of energy, let me know what I didn't understand well. As I see it, when we are always abusing of it, nothing useful come from the acts produced of that abuse, but that can happen because the combination of the always positive face of the sexual center is combined with the negative sides of the lower centers. So for example whats "no" in the intellectual center, doesn't serve its purpose of discerning and his reaction of criticizing and disputing the incorrect information also creating new theories or ideas to complement the old ones; instead of it, likes to be using that negative aspect when it's not needed, like being always criticizing, become very sarcastic (to the point of being insulting and antipathetic) and always fighting and debating just for the love of it, not because you need to get an agreement, and creating subjective theories because you take the daydreaming and fantasy to a new level.

On the emotional side, when it's abused is when hate, sadness and other negative emotions instead of being painful they become really pleasant, those who punish others thinking they are doing good, preaching change that needs to be approached with violence, that being sad is the best and you believe that suffering for someone who does not deserve it, it's just yourself sacrificing believing there's romance when there's not, like on cases with a psychopaths where all that happens is just energetic feeding. Following dogmas because of your subjective fears, like love and light for the poor ones, like because of it you prefer to daydream and have fantasies.

And the moving center creating records, because the pain you feel for your body fills some kind of pride and the person believes that if he resists the unlikable is good even if that person is just doing unhealthy things, like not sleeping or exhausting itself to death, getting a cardiac arrest.

Usefulness at the end.

So, abusing of sex is like using that energy to follow what is not, of loving cruelty and evilness, to rather being awake be asleep? and could the abuse of sex combine the positive side of the lower centers too?

 

[whitecoast]

Thank you, I think that was pretty obvious. Maybe I didn't write it well, so the question it is, does everyone produces the same amount of sexual energy?

Didn't find a threat to post it so I'll try here.

I've been reading the part about the abuse of sex and about the energy of sex, being as I remember hydrogen si12, like the hydrogen of the emotional center 12. And it's interesting because reading the explication of the law of one (maybe some here know this) about the orange and yellow light, I now understand better what they are referring to. It looks like RA or whoever it is, was explaining on some answers the function of hydrogens on some cases, as it says that the orange ray (emotive ray) and the yellow ray (sexual energy) are needed to approach a higher light, that is the green and that I think it's the energy from the higher emotional center, as is known that the only center that can use that large accumulator of energy (maybe the sexual center or sexual energy) is the emotional center, so maybe as G says, that the sexual energy can be very useful in the work if you do not abuse of it. Don't know why Ra just didn't get to the point.

I'm also quite interested in using the sex center properly, and how to combat sex abuse. I was thinking of starting a thread on it, in fact, since it is (like you said) a bit tangential here.

Don Juan, from Carlos Castenada's book series, had a few interesting things to say about sexual energy in A Fire Within. You can find the relevant quote in this post: http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,4104.msg104150.html#msg104150

And talking about the abuse of energy, let me know what I didn't understand well. As I see it, when we are always abusing of it, nothing useful come from the acts produced of that abuse, but that can happen because the combination of the always positive face of the sexual center is combined with the negative sides of the lower centers. So for example whats "no" in the intellectual center, doesn't serve its purpose of discerning and his reaction of criticizing and disputing the incorrect information also creating new theories or ideas to complement the old ones; instead of it, likes to be using that negative aspect when it's not needed, like being always criticizing, become very sarcastic (to the point of being insulting and antipathetic) and always fighting and debating just for the love of it, not because you need to get an agreement, and creating subjective theories because you take the daydreaming and fantasy to a new level.

On the emotional side, when it's abused is when hate, sadness and other negative emotions instead of being painful they become really pleasant, those who punish others thinking they are doing good, preaching change that needs to be approached with violence, that being sad is the best and you believe that suffering for someone who does not deserve it, it's just yourself sacrificing believing there's romance when there's not, like on cases with a psychopaths where all that happens is just energetic feeding. Following dogmas because of your subjective fears, like love and light for the poor ones, like because of it you prefer to daydream and have fantasies.

...

So, abusing of sex is like using that energy to follow what is not, of loving cruelty and evilness, to rather being awake be asleep? and could the abuse of sex combine the positive side of the lower centers too?

I think you have a slight misunderstanding. To the best of my understanding, Gurdjieff's emphases (in ISOTM) on the sex center producing negative results when uniting with the negative aspect of lower centers wasn't meant to characterize all cases of sex abuse. I think it was just meant to illustrate how, even though the sex center is undivided, its unity with a negative aspect can produce negative associations (such as shame or disgust, if united with the negative emotional center) instead of associations that are pleasant or indifferent. In other words, those negative feelings or thoughts or sensations that come during the sex center's natural expression are a dead giveaway of sex abuse; discerning its unity with the positive part of a lower center is less straightforward. I think that's all he was saying with regard to negative unity.

The sex center can only produce entropy or wasteful results when united with lower centers, because ANY center that uses another's energy is not functioning optimally. Gurdjieff compared centers and their optimal hydrogens to engines and their type of fuel. Some engines function best with kerosine, while others uses more refined and fine fuels like gasoline or propane. Sex energy (SI 12) has a very high vibration and so the lower centers cannot use it properly or do anything useful with it. It lends to those lower functions the intense energy of vehemence, passion, and excessive exertion that is otherwise uncalled for in a situation.

Where did you find that quote on imagination, Prometeo? It would be interesting to learn more about the moving center and its role in hijacking proper intellectual function via somatic imagination.... ;D

 

[Oxajil]

Moving center oriented daydreams may include a more sensation oriented motif. Dreaming of great exploits in sporting activities could be an example. Physical confrontations with "bad guys" where one emerges victorious through physical skills would be another.

I think those kind of dreams can be emotional oriented as well. For example when one feels jealous/happy/depressed, the person might fantasize about being the great hero who beats all the bad guys and gets a lot of praise etc. So I think it's a bit literal to think that moving center oriented daydreams refer primarily to fantasies in which the body is the main focus, though I could be totally wrong. I was thinking more in these lines:

For example, let's say that for the first time you have to figure out how to walk to the busstation from your house. The first day you will pay attention to where you're walking, you will look at the signs to see where you have to go, you will watch your step occasionally etc. The second day, same thing. But after some days, you kinda know where the busstation is and how to get there, so the movement towards the busstation becomes somewhat mechanical. And when it does, the focus is not anymore on the roads and on one's movement, but can fly away in fantasyland, and you can start fantasizing about all kinds of things.

So this could be an example of a ''motive for daydreaming that lies in the moving center'': as the movement becomes a habit, one becomes inclined to daydream and as G. puts it, ''is due partly to the laziness of the thinking center.'' No mental effort is put anymore on the road/body, because you mechanically know how to get there. And I think in order to fight this laziness and ''its attempts to avoid the efforts connected with work directed towards a definite aim'', one could replace fantasizing with thinking about things that can help one reach one's aim, as in: what did I observe today, what can I do better etc. which would be much more productive, and of course to occassionally be aware of how one is moving.

I would guess that the same could apply to any movement habit.

Either way, I find it to be a complex subject! Fwiw.