Me, a name I call Myself. What is the relationship between me, myself and I? Who am I, anyway? When I am aware of “myself” I hold an image which I tend to feel good about. I like my body overall, and I see that “myself” embodies ways of moving, habits, gestures and attitudes that … Read more
Knowledge vs Understanding Transmitting understanding is not the same as sharing knowledge. What, then, is understanding? And how do we convey it? Many of us sense an urgency towards the end of our lives to pass on what we have learned. In Meetings with Remarkable Men, Gurdjieff addresses the problem of trying to transmit to others … Read more
I’ve been thinking about the interplay between ego, fear and identification around the issue of vaccination. Just to be clear, I’m fully vaccinated. Yet I struggle with my own mistrust of vaccinations. I am not convinced getting the vaccine is the best thing to do. But what interests me is this interplay between ego, fear … Read more
For years I’ve wondered what is meant by Gurdjieff’s “active mentation,” or “three-centered thinking.” That is, thinking with all three centers: the mind, the emotions and the body. The Setup Here is an example of what might be called active mentation: It began with working on a new morning exercise concerning Gurdjieff’s Law of Three. … Read more
How old is the concept of demiurge and can we connect to it? Bennett’s use of the term demiurge preceded Sherborne, where I assumed he had made the term up. I had not read his Dramatic Universe. As his student, I understood he meant demiurge to be a force in the realm of angels. Mr. Bennett also … Read more
The term solioonensius, from Gurdjieff’s book All and Everything, seems to be at work in today’s world. This is one of many words Gurdjieff made up so that readers would come to new understandings without the associations we attach to familiar words. Solioonensius represents the notion of large catastrophic events which affect the human psyche, … Read more
OUSPENSKY AND SMALL ACCUMULATORS Before talking about Gurdjieff’s Great Accumulator, let’s review Ouspensky’s introduction to the Small Accumulators. The notion that we can collect and store energy in ourselves. To fill our small accumulators, we plug “leaks” – avoid gabbing, a certain tone of laughter, nervous gestures, spinning daydreams, etc. We each have our own … Read more