I caught a glimpse of a fellow restaurant patron’s wallet today during lunch at Thai Tom. Their ID flashed past as they whipped out some cash. And suddenly it struck me how absurd the underpinnings of our society are:
We carry around little pictures of our selves so that we can prove to people that we are really ourselves.
No wonder everyone is so fucking confused about who we are and what we are doing here.
I played three games of chess online today against the same opponent. Yet another faceless stranger half way around the world who soundly handed me my ass over and over again. But I realized today what chess is really about: chess is about the changing nature of agreements. Negotiation. If you do that, then I will be forced to do this. Most of the action in chess is just implied. Most of the failures you (I) make as a chess player are because you are failing to account for the implied action. That is, someone else has made an assumption about what your intentions are based upon how they perceive the configuration of pieces on the board. You act based on your own assumptions about probable versus possible moves and perceived patterns within your opponent. You must stay totally aware of both the moment and of its implications (dispassionately, without clinging to them) or you will falter.
I find myself wanting to celebrate the life I have made by constantly giving it away. What do I need it for? It doesn’t belong to me.
Guilt (the bad harm kind, not the good harm kind) arises, I think, when we have perceptions our own emotional responses, don’t approve of them and don’t know how to change them. I had something else to say about this, but it left me as I was falling asleep last night.
I am going to buy glasses tomorrow. I passed the vision test for my WA license last summer just fine without. But I have supposedly “needed” glasses ever since high school. And I have always meant to do it, but always managed to make financial excuses as to why not. But I have unraveled those hang-ups all but entirely lately through a carefully rigorous yoking of intention and action. I am also trying to only take symbolic action from now on. The purpose of getting glasses, therefore, will be to commit myself fully to clarity of vision and the ability to see into the heart of things.
When something is True, it is true on every level at once. Truth cannot, by its nature, be false when looked at in a certain light. If it seems false, then either your understanding of it is incomplete, or it is not the Truth.
When standing, always stand as though you are on top of a mountain looking out at the majesty of the world laid out before you.
- END -
ASSOCIATED CONTENT @TMBCHR (Auto-Generated)
- They’re only fighting cause they’re fertile
- Re: my time away
- The need for heroes
- Weird URL Request
- Mysterious places
20 Comments
I am going to start working on diction, tonality, body language, gestures, etc - all the classic oratorial type skills. I feel like that is really important and has been mostly lost nowadays. I am also working on becoming so aware of my body movements that every physical action, motion and reaction which I take throughout and ordinary day becomes deliberate, everything fully intended. Living and walking that way is a night and day difference from floating your way through everything.
Concentrating on body language will give you brain worms. You become hyper aware of others body language. The free flow is negated by thinking about it. You are an ever increasing awareness entity.Smile,alot. Respectfully, Dennis.
Someone I would very much like to see again recently told me that the truth is eternal. She said it more than once.
She is right. It is what remains after everything that has an end has passed.
-TS Eliot
Lies are ubiquitous in both man’s inner and outer life. Any work aspiring towards truth needs to deal with this state of matters. To begin to sort this out, we must distinguish between various forms of lying. The below draws on Mouravieff’s discussion of lying in the Gnosis series.
Lies can be classified in the following categories:
Necessary lies - There are situations where lying Is essential to survival or to capacity to function. Peter’s denying of Jesus is an archetypal example of this.
Useful lies - Disinformation and various misrepresentation are common in politics, business, advertising and so forth. These are often not direct demonstrable falsehoods but rather spins put on events. These, as well as various withholding of information, scheming and so forth are done for gain and essentially to serve the self at the expense of another. Functioning in the world requires one at least to be aware of this. Such actions are in principle antithetical to STO-oriented esoteric development, yet the seeker may be forced to have recourse to secrecy or disinforming either in professional life or in order to be able to maintain his quest in a world which is for the most part hostile to such endeavors.
Useless lies - People sometimes lie out of habit, give false impressions in order to please or be socially accepted, exaggerate their accomplishments and hide their failings, all in the context of regular small talk. Such lying is not necessary nor is it useful and it generally only serves to dissipate energy and subtly increase subjectivity.
White lies - Lying can sometimes be motivated by noble motives such as concern for others. This is the case for example when telling a sick person that the sickness not be fatal when in fact it is. Mouravieff compares this to attempting to perform a miracle with insufficient means. The word does not change the world.
Lies to self - Of all forms of lying, lies to self are esoterically the most harmful. This is the only form of lying which is never justified. One effect of lying to self is increasing the factionalization of little I’s, where one little I misleads another, thus going directly contrary to the goal of forging an internal unity. Another effect of lying to self, specially if the lie to self is believed by a large faction of little I’s, is weakening one’s faculty of discernment. Habitual lying to self promotes sleep and introduces internal noise conflicting with the signals from those parts of self which do not believe the lie to self. Deliberately lying to others is less destructive to integrity than lying to self, specially if the latter lie is believed and absorbed into the self.
There are various psychological techniques of influencing the self, such as NLP (neurolinguistic programming) and diverse techniques of suggestion and hypnosis. These can certainly be used for lying to the self but are not limited to this. Widespread use of these methods does run the risk of simply constructing more internal fantasies about the self, which is ultimately harmful. At the very least, one should know what effect one attempts to create and why.
Gurdjieff says concerning lying that in most circumstances, man lies or tells the truth mechanically, simply because he cannot do otherwise. Only when there is a measure of non-mechanical being and intentionality does lying or telling the truth become significant. Moral or ethical considerations do not apply to machines. One must have a degree of mastery over the self in order to make choices concerning honesty. All is predicated on the circumstance and the level of being of the participants. Within the Work, honesty is required; in the outside world, compulsive honesty can even be a form of hysteria and lead to all manner of trouble.
The question of truth and lies relates to entropy and creation through the fact that lying always introduces confusion and disorder into the system of the world. In a world that is based on lies and half-truths playing along with this is to a degree necessary. Lying generally introduces added separation between the one who lies and the one to whom one lies. As an internal phenomenon this is contrary to the Work. As an outside interaction, separating one’s inner life from another by lies can be vital.
Lies are a form of power over others. In terms of the STO/STS dynamic, lies are a tool of service to self. Lies are aligned with the principle of entropy simply because the more lies the world contains, the less organized and fragmented it becomes and the more energy is expended in maintaining all this complexity. This ties up energy which otherwise could be expressed creatively. This is true within the individual as well as at the societal scale,.
A lie can be seen as an indirect request for truth. In a situation of confrontation where lies are used as instruments, the defense consistent with the STO orientation is confronting the lies and spin with truth. Lies and their promoters can often be recognized by the fact that they tend to shift in response to circumstance and become entangled in their own contradictions while truth remains stable.
http://glossary.cassiopaea.com/glossary.php?id=894
This is very good:
Also awesome:
It seems like a lot of lying comes from people attempting to manipulate perception. Think of a stage magician or a movie director. Are they liars or are they directing people’s perception in such a way as to reveal another kind of truth?
Sensing Exercises
Sensing Exercises are pre-eminently associated with Gurdjieff. Many Seekers in the Gurdjieff tradition will be disappointed to learn that Sensing exercises are previously known in the Hindu tradition as the Tantra practice of Nyasa. Nevertheless, it is an obscure tradition and Gurdjieff’s introduction of it to the West is a welcome and extremely important development. In fact, it may be one of the most important things he introduced to the West, and it is an essential element in all of Gurdjieff’s teachings. Proficiency in Sensing is one of the most fundamental tasks to accomplish in the Gurdjieff Work. The Movements are quite often accompanied by sensing exercises.
Sensing Exercises refers to the ability to take in Impressions generated in and by our Physical Center. These include the sensations of touch, pressure, heat, cold, position and balance of our physical Being. Modern science has identified about 21 different types of nerve receptors (see the table on the right) that relay consciously perceivable information to our Instinctive brain.
The Sensations for every part of our body occur in a region of the brain called the neo-cortex. This area has been dubbed the Homunculus. When we learn to Sense we are exercising our brain and learning to control the flow of energy and consciousness. Learning to Sense our body is an essential and basic task of the Gurdjieff Work. All of the Work exercises require Sensing the body all of the time. Sensing is the quintessential exercise for including the physical center in all three centered exercises. Get to know it well and strive to include it in all your Work on Self Remembering.
………………..more
http://www.endlesssearch.co.uk/exercises_sensing.htm
My best Keanu Reeves impression….Whoa.
I’ve always tried to put a name on why 95% of the time I can’t tell a good lie for love or money but at the other 5% of the time it’s a finely honed reflex.
I think that lies serve a few purposes for us. We all think that we are a single entity, an unchanging core being. But in reality we are a conglomeration of competing internal story’s and competing programing which just seem to get along (most of the time).
Internal lies, those to ourselves that color our perceptions could be thought of as peace treaties between these different parts of our internal programing.
When you are lying with others all you are trying to do is directly alter their perception of a current situation
99.9% of everything is lies. I mean how much do we really know about anything? Some people are just better at making us believe them.
How long does a lie have to be believed before it no longer becomes a lie?
I used to be more of a proponent of the “story-driven life” you could say. But I have found that the major flaw with that approach is that it tends to distance you from the story. You become more of an author or a reader when what needs more to be done is to be an actor and a director: a performer making decisions that suit the moment’s demands, as opposed to a long-running storyline.
I have found that stories tend to get you caught in their nets. You begin to believe your own lies. I’ve become more interested in erasing personal history, letting go of possessions, realizing that after each turn, it no longer matters how the pieces *used to* be arranged on the chessboard.
I was thinking about this as well with a lot of New Age and Scientology-based therapies: where you consciously relive and reactive memories in order to release them. I get what they are after and it may have its uses, but if you are trying to let something go, of what use is it to continually recall it into your consciousness?
I agree, I don’t think that you should dwell on it. Once you realize that you and those around you are grand story tellers then you gain an awareness of it.
I would think that most people have no awareness that this is what they are doing. Once you become aware of it you can become the director and the actor in your own story, not character in an endless drama.
Erasing personal history, letting go of possessions and seeing the impermanence of present and past configurations are all great practices.
I agree, this is just trapping people withing their own story structures. New Age and especially Scientology don’t want want people to be spiritually or even emotionally mature. They want to keep their follower hungry and infantile, repressed and reliant on the symbiotic nature of the relationship. It takes a very strong, and more importantly aware character to say
” that was my life then, I see it clearly. But from this day forth I am something different, something of my own choosing”
I do not not know that this is necessarily the case. It is kind of a broad statement which cannot be backed up. The techniques these practices are built on are all entirely sound.
I am not just trying to be a ballbuster here, but I believe that real strength comes from even letting that go…
No balls are being busted. Its all cool.
I don’t see how all of these techniques are sound. Sound to what effect? What is the aim of New age and Scientology practice?
Seriously look at it, why would that system want people to be spiritually mature? Especially Scientology.. starts of saying that it wants to help people, next thing its $10,000 to level up.
Freedoms just another word for nothing left to lose… so they say. There is real strength in letting everything go of course. but who is going to do that… really.
First of all, I think we should define which “techniques” we are talking about. I am talking about drilling down to the nature of habit formation, associations, assumptions, etc. Scientology deals with these things in a very similar way to how I have been outlining, but does so in a symbolic and social context. But then, I have clothed them in a social and symbolic context as well - just a different one.
Second, tell me what spiritual maturity is. How do you know when you have it? How can you tell when someone else has it?
A *system* itself has no wants. People have wants. People want to be spiritually mature. What does that mean? How does a system of thought and practice enable or prevent people from achieving their wants? What is the nature of a want?
You seem to be suggesting that helping people and money are incompatible. A way to explode this assumption: if someone were to give you $10,000 right now, would that be helping you? What if you were about to blow $10,000 on some object or activity which would definitely harm you, and then someone instead stole that money? Would that be helping you?
Money is a symbol of intent. If your intent is to change yourself and your life, money is one of several symbols which may be leveraged to help you marshal the intent required to take action. It is not, itself, intrinsically wrong to do so. However, that does not mean it is the most direct method. Nor does that necessarily mean that they *are not* taking advantage of people in Scientology. But the notion of whether or not they are is strictly a matter of perception and not a matter of absolute fact.
People who want to be free? People who have tried everything else and found them lacking? People who are tired of clinging to their old worn out ideas, emotions, habits, identities, lives?
I’m going to define new terms or defend viewpoint that I don’t believe in. Spiritualy mature is just a concept. I would think that it points to a state where you make your own decisions and are not reliant on dogma or scripture or what someone else may have once done or said.
I don’t think that there is a need to tell when someone else has it, or even if you have it. If your content and not always chasing the next new thing then I suppose you have it.
How about the wants of the people that designed the system? who says that they are compatible with your wants? What I am saying is
As far as what is a want… well that is another question altogether. Why are people motivated to seek these things out. What motivates anybody to do anything? Free will?
Just look around at how easily people are manipulated into wanting things.
But will they do it?
Whose problem is that? Mine?
Well said, Tim. It’s not your problem. It’s not a problem at all. Either I will do it or I won’t. Either you will do it or you won’t. If someone else changes and I don’t, it does *me* very little good, ultimately. Maybe they become more or less attractive to me; I vibe off their energy more or less…but my energy has not changed. If *I* change, and someone else doesn’t, same thing just in reverse. If we both change, then perhaps we can begin to connect with each other on an equal level…as real humans.
But neither of us can change the other, ultimately.
It’s like collegiate wrestling, sort of. It’s a team sport, but it’s not. When you’re on the mat against an opponent, it’s all on you. The rest of the team can cheer you on and the coach can shout for you to go for the take-down or do any of a number of other techniques, but…it’s all on you. Perhaps we’re all in that situation, each and every one of us: wrestling against the habitual, false, accidental and programmed self, there’s no one else in the match but you.
Even if - and especially when - no one changes at all, we can STILL connect with each other on an equal level as real humans.
In fact, we have nothing else. For all our theorizing, our beliefs: we have nothing else but other people and recognizing ourselves and one another as real humans and treating them thusly.
> Only when there is a measure of non-mechanical being and intentionality does lying or telling the truth become significant.
Check out this mindfuk… oh boy!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigner%27s_friend
Skip, you are being censored. Go find another place to play those games. Or try actually contributing to THIS conversation instead of shoehorning everything into your political agenda.