herald Wrote:Gurdjieff never endorsed "In Search of... "Fragments of an Unknown Teaching" or, of the adversary who ditsoted his work; he was cordial.

herald Wrote:In my hardback edition of Witness, Bennett recants his decision to study with Ouspensky, and returns to work with G.

herald Wrote:If you misattribute one more quote I will report this post.

herald Wrote:I found again a misappropriated quote here. This one heartlessly attached to John Bennett:

It is from James Moore (whoever he is)
"Gurdjieff: The Anatomy of a Myth (Rockport, Massachusetts: Element Books, 1991), p. 176."

herald Wrote:Not Bennett!
BUT-Here is an actual quote from Bennett in the same comical essay/misinformation piece you probably googled that from:

"I do not believe that the scandalous tales told of Gurdjieff are true..."

herald Wrote:Please stop lying...

(08-21-2016, 06:03 PM)Aion Wrote: Well, I was viewing the website of the writer of "The Three Dangerous Magi" and found this:

Quote:The matter of 'dangerous magi' has not been entirely understood. 'Dangerous' refers, of course, to 'danger' to the status quo (particularly to established religious doctrine, and the need for 'three new wise men' to bear witness to a 'new star' in a highly dangerous time), and more subtly, to the risks involved in keeping company with such teachers -- although as should be clear from my writing in the book, I am of the view that such 'danger' is chiefly to one's own ego and its precious needs to control one's small world.

That doesn't really sound like he actually viewed them as dangerous black magicians so I will obviously have to read the actual book if I am going to get an accurate idea of what he is actually presenting. Do you know of any online copies?

If anything, from his write-up on the book it seems that he and I share the same view of many of these individuals not exactly having 'full enlightenment' or the sort, but who are interesting individuals of 'crazy wisdom'. I admit, I have a penchant for the crazy wisdom, so maybe I am already doomed, I am sorry if that is the case, my friend.

http://www.ptmistlberger.com/the-three-dangerous-magi.php

(08-22-2016, 04:03 AM)YinYang Wrote:

(08-21-2016, 06:03 PM)Aion Wrote: Well, I was viewing the website of the writer of "The Three Dangerous Magi" and found this:

Quote:The matter of 'dangerous magi' has not been entirely understood. 'Dangerous' refers, of course, to 'danger' to the status quo (particularly to established religious doctrine, and the need for 'three new wise men' to bear witness to a 'new star' in a highly dangerous time), and more subtly, to the risks involved in keeping company with such teachers -- although as should be clear from my writing in the book, I am of the view that such 'danger' is chiefly to one's own ego and its precious needs to control one's small world.

That doesn't really sound like he actually viewed them as dangerous black magicians so I will obviously have to read the actual book if I am going to get an accurate idea of what he is actually presenting. Do you know of any online copies?

If anything, from his write-up on the book it seems that he and I share the same view of many of these individuals not exactly having 'full enlightenment' or the sort, but who are interesting individuals of 'crazy wisdom'. I admit, I have a penchant for the crazy wisdom, so maybe I am already doomed, I am sorry if that is the case, my friend.

http://www.ptmistlberger.com/the-three-dangerous-magi.php

I don't know of any online copies of the book. You won't be doomed if you plunge into this saga, quite the contrary, it's a marvellous education full of twists and turns! Magic, suicides, spies, political intrigue, Nazis, rape...you name it! They should make a movie about this, it would be a blockbuster! It would just require an excessive cast.

The only lingering mistery is how anyone can still take Gurdjieff seriously after James Webb's thoroughly researched expose, may he rest in peace, along with a large collection of memoirs and biographies of those who were there in the flesh, works of other researchers, and of course Ouspensky's tell-all memoir In Search of the Miraculous.

Quote:There is one more issue here that needs to be looked at. Why does a being choose to incarnate into a situation where he will feel different in any way, where he will become angry? Why does he choose to subject himself to those catalysts? It would seem to me that it is likely that you both have this issue of self-acceptance. Sometimes one needs the catalyst of anger in order to be challenged to look at one’s
feelings more deeply, to uncover the love, and to nurture that.

There is a story told about a spiritual teacher named Gurdjieff. This Gurdjieff had a spiritual community in France; and living in that community was a man that was intensely disliked by all, including himself. He was slovenly in his personal habits. He was rude and abusive to others. He did not do his share of the work. Finally, feeling the dislike that surrounded him, he packed up and left. Gurdjieff went after him and begged him to come back. The man said, “No,” at which point Gurdjieff offered to pay him to come back. The people in the community were aghast. They said, “How can you bring him back?” Gurdjieff said to them, “He is the yeast for the bread. How can you learn about compassion and forgiveness when you live here in a community of such perfect harmony—beyond this one man—that you have nothing to be compassionate about, nothing to forgive? You need him to help you learn compassion.”


One who chooses to incarnate into a situation where one lives with anger is choosing that situation to prod oneself, one might say, to learn a deeper level of forgiveness and compassion. Of course, one starts with the self, finding acceptance for that anger in the self so that one may not judge that in others, but may love that, and all aspects of all beings. How does one love another’s anger? It is not the anger that one is loving, it is the spirit of the being itself, which is pure and holy and beautiful. The being is not its anger nor its greed nor its fear. And yet you constantly create this duality, and so much of your work is to move beyond that.

Quote:Most of you have heard me say that we are all beings of light, even those who manifest very little of that light; even those who are very negatively polarized and in the conscious levels of self would affirm their desire to serve negativity. Even those who feed off the fear and pain of others, at some level, are servants of the light. It is well to move past the duality of seeing them in such sharp contrast as good and evil; servants of love or ones against love.

Some of you have heard me tell a brief story about the spiritual teacher Gurdjieff, that in his community there was a man who was very
unpleasant to others. He did not do his share of the work. He spoke in a harsh way to others. He was arrogant and prideful. He even smelled foul and did not take care of his physical body. Nobody wanted his presence. The others in the community were in great accord with each other and everything ran smoothly except for this one unpleasant being.

He got tired of the way people were treating him and one day he packed up and left. Gurdjieff went after him and asked him to come back. The man, of course, refused. Gurdjieff then offered to pay him to come back. Those of the community were aghast at
this: “How could you pay him to come back? We were well rid of him.”

Gurdjieff said, “He is the yeast for the bread. How would you learn compassion without a catalyst for that compassion? How would you learn nonjudgment without a catalyst for that non-judgment?”  Granted, there are negatively-polarized entities. There are those who thrive on the fear and pain of others. There are beings that are mired in deep misunderstanding, and yet, even their negative polarity and misunderstanding is a service. How would you learn without such catalysts?

When you can begin to view such misunderstanding and negativity as another way of service to the light, you begin to view such individuals differently. For most of them, it is not their intention to serve the light, although for some that may be true. No being
whose intention is to serve the light will willingly do so through causing harm and pain to others. So it is
not their intention; but nevertheless, they do serve the light by offering you the catalyst that you need for your own learning.

Quote:I ask this instrument to move deeper into a trancestate. There is a story told about the spiritual teacher, Gurdjieff. There lived in his community a man who was rude. He did not do his share of the work. He even smelled badly because he did not bathe. He became tired of others’ negativity toward him and he left. Gurdjieff went after him and asked him to come back. While others paid to live in the
community, Gurdjieff said to him, “If you will come back, I will pay you.” The man was reluctant at first, but he was greedy; and since Gurdjieff offered to pay him, he agreed and returned.

Those in the community were aghast. They said, “How could you invite him back? How could you pay him to come back?” Gurdjieff said, “He is the yeast for the bread. Here in this place where everyone is kind and generous with one another, how else will you learn compassion?”

Child, this yearning for perfection in you, this selfstriving to become what it already is, the fears, the patterns of reactivity, pride, all of it—these are the yeast for your bread. In the astral plane and beyond, you will practice discarnate skills, practice your
perfection. Why seek to practice that perfection within the incarnation? This does not mean that you do not aspire to perfection. But understand that the human is perfect in its imperfection.

Ra Wrote:Ra: I am Ra. The vibratory distortion of sound, faith, is perhaps one of the stumbling blocks between those of what we may call the infinite path and those of the finite proving/understanding.

You are precisely correct in your understanding of the congruency of faith and intelligent infinity; however, one is a spiritual term, the other more acceptable perhaps to the conceptual framework distortions of those who seek with measure and pen.

Gurdjieff (In Search of the Miraculous) Wrote:No 'faith' is required on the fourth way; on the contrary, faith of any kind is opposed to the fourth way. On the fourth way a man must satisfy himself of the truth of what he is told.

Gurdjieff (In Search of the Miraculous) Wrote:In properly organized groups no faith is required; what is required is simply a little trust and even that only for a little while, for the sooner a man begins to verify all he hears the better it is for him.

Quote:The methods and techniques employed by Gurdjieff in his teaching, especially the difficult physical and emotional demands he made on his students, adversely affected many of them. Some students experienced psychological breakdown, others the dissolution of their marriage. Gurdjieff was even accused of contributing to the suicide of certain students, although a causal connection was never ultimately proven.

Quote:As early as 1922, reports circulated in the press that Gurdjieff was a ‘black magician’ who hypnotized his students and caused them irreparable harm. The most sensational stories were more imagination than fact, but there is evidence from more credible sources that some of Gurdjieff’s followers experienced serious psychological damage. John Bennett was a student at Gurdjieff’s Institute at the Prieuré in Fontainebleau in 1923, and at the time witnessed an extraordinary state of tension there: “Some people went mad. There were even suicides. Many gave up in despair.” (2) In 1948, Bennett returned to study with Gurdjieff in Paris after an absence of more than twenty years. Again, the atmosphere surrounding Gurdjieff was charged and intense, with the effect being too powerful for many students. Bennett reports that several pupils were so shattered by their experiences with Gurdjieff that they required treatment in mental institutions.

Quote:Gurdjieff grew increasingly impossible, and the final straw was a terrifying experience when the couple were leaving Paris for New York in February 1929. Gurdjieff transfixed Jessie Orage with his gaze. He seemed to immobilize her, and she could not breathe; for a moment she was convinced that he was going to make her lose consciousness altogether. Then he spoke: “If you keep my super-idiot from coming back to me, you burn in boiling oil.”

Quote:In my own mind lies no longer any faintest doubt about Gurdjieff and his Institute. Signs of hoofs and horns are all over the place, and my deep and instant distrust, which increased with every day I spent there,  find confirmation now wherever I turn. Much, of course, remains inexplicable, and will always remain so. Gurdjieff, with reason, is aloof and inaccessible, and the full truth of his motive we shall never know. That it is wholly a self or selfish motive, I am convinced . . . The note of fear, rather than love, is too conspicuous to miss.

Quote:Sufi teacher Omar Ali-Shah writes: “The amount of confusion and damage which was caused and still is being caused by Gurdjieff and his followers can be measured only in terms of human suffering and pain.”

(08-25-2017, 04:45 PM)rva_jeremy Wrote: For what it's worth, I remember the Michael of "Messages from Michael" also saying that faith was undesirable. Additionally, the Buddhist author I"m reading a lot now, Chödrön, says faith is not desirable either.

I think faith has several connotations that are distinct. Blind faith, as in identifying so deeply with a rigid dogmatic system that it constrains your vision of what's possible, is certainly not something we would condone. But you do need faith in the sense that you are willing to believe in yourself despite any evidence to the contrary; that your desire for the best and highest can and will manifest through mechanics you cannot understand, but only feel.

The way we unify these divergent connotations is to focus on faith itself rather than faith in something external. Both Michael and Chödrön contrast faith with a kind of "find out for yourself" attitude, where spirituality is something you are inquisitive and open-minded about rather than something you reify as a matter of will. So in that sense faith is more about having faith in your own ability to tread the path, not about having faith in some concrete map of the path.