Divided Attention and the Search for Self

Stephen Aronson

 

Introduction: Gurdjieff’s Contribution—Divided Attention

The four century old conflict between religion and science has fragmented our ability to integrate the reality of consciousness with the discernible laws governing the measurable Universe. There is a Ghost in the Machine that, until acknowledged, will continue to be the missing link in our understanding of the true nature of both the Universe and ourselves as a sentient part of the Creation.

 

G.I. Gurdjieff advises that “one of our tasks is to connect the science of the West with the wisdom of the East. This means for us practically that we have to connect the ideas and general structure of the Work by making parallels with similar scientific ideas that exist at present.”

 

Gurdjieff told Ouspensky

“ …. the study of oneself must go side by side with the study of the fundamental laws of the universe.”

“In right knowledge the study of man must proceed on parallel with the study of the world, and the study of the world must run parallel with the study of man. Laws are everywhere the same, in the world as well as in man.”

“The parallel study of the world and of man shows the student the fundamental unity of everything and helps him to find analogies in phenomena of different orders.”3

 

By bringing the recognition of relativity to the search for Self, both the world of spirit and the world reachable to science, can be blended through the scientific method of observation, experimentation and confirmation.

 

Gurdjieff, like other messengers throughout time, advised that the foundation of this understanding required one to Know Thyself and that through meditation lay the pathway to the mystery of this Self, as well as a deeper understanding of the Universe of which it is a part.

 

Meditation as a means of transformation can be found in all traditions, but in the experience of the author, the integration and wholeness of Gurdjieff’s approach seems uniquely suited for the modern Western culture with its emphasis on rationality. Acknowledging the difficulty for man’s search imposed by the complexity of the modern world, Gurdjieff said his teaching brought the possibility of more rapid psycho-transformation than traditional Ways and could be practiced in each and every moment within the flow of daily life, The foundation of this approach lies in Gurdjieff’s modern version of “divided” attention.

 

This exploration represents the subjective experiences of the author in his search for Self through the guidance of Gurdjieff’s work, particularly the practice of divided attention.

 

Beyond Conditioning—The Mystery of Interior Sight

There is a deep level of mystery that is discernible even in ordinary life. We can occasionally realize “what we are thinking,” occasionally recognize we are “lying to ourselves,” see our “daydreams,” experience an insight that shifts our orientation. Something lies within our psychological experience that appears to operate from beyond the conditioned neurological-biochemical-material three “brains” within the body. This ‘something’ appears unexpectedly for brief moments, offering the possibility of escape from the trap of a conditioned ‘mind.’ Part of the illusion created by our programed reactions is the belief that we operate out of this ‘freer’ something on a regular basis. In fact, the moments spent in this ‘freer’ state are rare and brief. Meditation is the pathway to strengthening and training of this ‘higher’ something, or our connection with it. Without this as foundation, there is no possibility of freedom sufficient to begin to know thyself.

 

Studying these processes, learning what is and what is not possible, requires attention. How to bring the correct quality of attention, for sufficient duration, to focus in the correct direction with an understanding of what to look for, is a process that can only be discovered by the individual through solitary effort. Direction for the study of one’s interior experiential world requires the training of a special type of attention.

 

Qualities of Attention

According to Gurdjieff, attention comes in three basic varieties or qualities. The most prevalent is a mechanical attention with no real ‘will’ of its own. It is free floating, undirected and distributed like heat. It will be automatically pulled towards the nearest, strongest attractor at the moment, then fall, over and over, again toward the next thing that “captures” the attention. It is mechanical because there is no plan or intent behind it. Buddhism calls this “monkey mind.” Everyone knows, and has wrestled with this level of “distractibility.” We say, “The lights are on but nobody is home.” Often we cannot recall afterwards what it was we were listening to, looking at, thinking during this period of random association, nor what happened to trigger it. This is the normal state of attention the vast majority of time.

 

Occasionally, an attractor of sufficient interest engages us emotionally and we are “caught,” “riveted,” held by our interest for long periods of time, sometimes even “against our will.” This is a focused attention out of the ordinary. We can experience this with a book, a movie, a morbid situation, a car crash, sexual images, something fascinating to such a degree we become oblivious to our surrounds, even to the point of not hearing our name called. This type of attention can be called emotional. It has an aim, but the aim comes from the fascination with the attractor. It is not predetermined ahead of time, or held in place, by one’s own will.

 

The third, and most rare, type of attention is that which is directed by one’s own decision prior to the contact with the object of attention. A continual effort must be made to maintain the focus of attention against the pull of the mechanical and emotional levels. Attention must be sustained by the force of one’s own choice and effort. It is usually brief in duration, and must be continually renewed.4 What seems to lie behind the effort to focus directed attention is the mysterious ‘something’ that can occasionally ‘see’ into the mind and feelings from beyond the usual conditioned habits.

 

Training Attention

In traditional meditation, it is this ‘something’ that is engaged to initiate and direct its focus on a mantra, using the mantra as ‘home base,’ its point of stability. By choosing this focal point, the directed attention is engaged. The frequent mechanical drift away from the mantra is sooner noticed and a directed return of attention to the focal point easier to reinitiate. The mantra is typically a sound, image or sensation, such as the breath or prayer of a neutral to positive emotional quality.

 

Making this quality the object of attention decreases, or even eliminates for a while, negative thinking and feelings that trigger physiological stress responses in the first and second brain. With this hiatus in the usual flow of conditioned experiences, negativity, worry, complaining, planning, reviewing conversations past or rehearsal, the three ‘brains’ begin to quiet and the experience of relaxation begins. This respite in psychosomatic tension is beneficial for health and trains a person to learn to use directed attention for relief from conditioned thinking and reactions to life, real and imagined. Practiced for a long time, the resultant tranquility may lead to deeper understanding of one’s hidden nature, and in some traditions, to degrees of liberation from illusions of life and ordinary self.

 

Restructuring the Brain

Psycho-neurological research has confirmed that the underlying mechanism for learning rests on the plasticity of the brain. When presented with new information or experiences, the brain literally begins to rewire neuronal connections to accommodate the new task. If that rewiring does not take place, there is no learning. Our brains are continually altering their physical structure in response to experience. The brains of meditators reflect changes from the activity and are different from the brains of non-meditators. We not only change our minds, but we literally change our brains to do so. Because of this fact, the great meditative traditions have found a way to transform their practitioners into types of people different from the ordinary.

 

Through meditation the attention can become steadier, more capable of sustained focus, less susceptible to being continually drawn in to conditioned pathways organized around worry, resentment, living in the past or future. One is better able to focus on what is actually happening in the moment with less mental/emotional overlay from memories of the past or speculation about the future, which distort the accuracy of interpreting the actual moment at hand.

 

Divided Attention

To bring a practice that offered the possibility of more rapid psycho-transformation and could be practiced in the flow of daily life, Gurdjieff suggested using directed attention, as is done in other practices, but rather than a single focal point, dividing attention onto two or more points simultaneously as is also done in some Buddhist practices. Using the interior of the body as a starting point, attention can be grounded in one or more locations by engaging sensation as the link. Holding open a space between the director/observer of attention and one or more sensitized points inside the body, allows an experience of the observer as distinct from the body. Attention can then be directed onto thoughts, feelings, and attitudes, simultaneously while holding open this space. The experiential distance between observer and observed allows the possibility of noticing qualities of subjectivity within the thoughts, feelings, attitudes, interpretations that make up the stream of activity typically understood as ‘oneself.’ As the limitation and subjectivity of the content of these psychic processes are recognized, deeper levels of sincerity and objectivity can arise. Knowing thyself means first learning what is not thyself, but rather a mechanical pattern of psychological/emotional/muscular reactions and responses to the conditioning mechanism of life. A separation of the wheat from the chaff requires an instrument of separation.

 

Gurdjieff also suggests using the potential of divided attention to look ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ at the same time, what his pupil Peter Ouspensky called a double-headed arrow. 6 How else could one discover a more accurate understanding of why one’s life is the way it seems to be than by learning to watch oneself in life, in the moment, as if one were watching another person? By developing directed attention to watch what we believe constitutes ‘oneself’–the interior psychological/emotional responses described above–while at the same time watching the world immediately outside interacting with this ‘oneself, the interaction between life and one’s responses become visible. The pattern of one’s life becomes understandable as dependent on the pattern of one’s thoughts, assumptions, attitudes, interpretations of meaning. The subjectiveness, arbitrariness, unnecessariness of many of these reactions becomes apparent. With the seeing of these links from this different perspective, something may begin to change. A different relationship, a different understanding begins to form.

 

The experience of working with divided attention focused on our outside movements and vocalizations, simultaneously with our interior psychological states, brings into view the question of what is directing the directed attention? What is making the decisions regarding the objects of focus? What is absorbing and learning from the new impressions flowing in from this new observational system? Can attention be directed deeper to see the source of its direction?

 

The Mysterious Something and Sense of Self

Life is experienced through sensory organs, hormonal fluctuations labeled as ‘emotion,‘ electromagnetic activity of thoughts, images, memories–the building blocks of ‘reality’–are all internal phenomenon experienced by …….. by what? I use the term ‘myself,’ but what do I really understand about this ‘something’ I call myself? The question is critical. This ‘myself’ is the instrument that perceives, interprets and reacts to its beliefs about what is ‘real,’ including its sense and assessment of itself. If there are flaws in this instrument, its conclusions about ‘reality,’ as well as itself, will be incorrect. If the instrument may not be trustworthy, how can the instrument investigate itself? Is there anything within, other than the instrument? What is even raising the question? Is the instrument doubting itself?

 

Our multi-layered, three ‘centered’ system of thinking, feelings, sensing is differentially sensitive to different electromagnetic frequencies outside and inside ourselves, has three interactive, but distinctively different components with different functions in different arenas of data collection. One of the powers of directed divided attention lies in the potential to “see,’ and therefore ‘meditate’ intentionally, in all three ‘brains,’ or ‘centers’, simultaneously. Among the names Gurdjieff gives this power are Active Mentation and “‘all-brained-balanced-being-perceptiveness’.”7 This experience can confirm experientially that the idea of our being ‘three brained’ beings is literal, and not only metaphorical.

 

If the question of “Who am I” is to be pursued, clues must be sought in all three ‘brains,’ as together, they comprise a more ‘whole’ picture of ‘what is.’ Literally, to become more of ‘One Mind’ requires capacity to see into the interaction of all three areas of functionality, each with the world it looks into, and simultaneously their interaction with each other.

 

Divided Attention—A New Instrument

For a useful contemporary analogy we could use the Hubble Telescope. The instrument is comprised of sub-instruments, each collecting data from different frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum which can then be overlapped to show a more complex picture of “what is out there.” There is always more data to discover if there is an instrument to ‘see’ into the frequency that carries that additional level of information.

 

Since a human being has different ‘instruments,’ each of which bring information from different levels of vibration “out there” and “in here,”—to know oneself demands a capacity to discriminate, reconstruct and combine these different data streams to form a more ‘whole’ picture. The external sensory system automatically does this through the body and nervous system. What we experience as “the world outside” depends on what levels of the electromagnetic spectrum our sense organs can capture.

 

Then, to connect the dots into patterns of meaning, data must pass through the interpretive filters of feeling and thinking. To understand who I am, requires noticing how my interpretive filter works, where it is more or less trustworthy depending on its conditioned biases. Turned inwards towards the question of who I am, produces conflicting opinions and feelings about ‘myself.’ How can I see my own biases? What instrument can discern that?

 

Using again the Hubble telescope as analogy, each of the separate brain-instruments returns its data to a central location where it can be combined. Our brain as a whole automatically sees an integrated picture, not its fragmented components. When attention is intentionally divided and directed to collect data from each of the separate areas of brain functionality, and that data is returned, simultaneously, back to the single point which has directed the multi-dimensional viewing, a combined ‘picture’ of the three levels of ‘reality’ can be consciously perceived in the moment. Discrepancies and similarities between the overlapping views can be discerned. A higher level of discrimination and interpretation can then appear with this improved, multi-layered image. One can begin to see patterns of interaction, consistencies and inconsistencies between the impressions and interpretations of the ‘three brains.’

 

Accepting One’s Fragmentation

To know who I am, requires an ability and willingness to see the discrepancies between these different world views of each of center. We all know the state of “being of two minds” or recognizing “my heart and head to not agree” or the “spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” If I don’t recognize that my three brains each have their own agenda, rarely communicate with each other, then I cannot understand my contradictions or incapacities. Worse, if I do not see my own fragmentation, then I will only self-righteously notice inconsistencies in others.

 

The major source of input for this multi-brained sensory experience is, of course, the world of people, events and landscapes outside our physical bodies. This ‘outer world’ that appears so real and solid to us is actually as multi-layered as our interior experiential domain. Our eyes receive light from the sun, reflected off the surfaces. These reflected photons are transformed into visual images in our brain. Sound is the auditory ‘image’ formed in the brain from the transformation of pressure waves moving air molecules against our eardrums. Smell and taste are experiences of nearly infinite mixtures of molecules touching the interior of our nose and mouths. Touch is a tactile ‘image’ processed through pressure against the skin. All these ‘impressions’ are then transformed into electrical impulses. The ‘meaning’ of this image depends on our interpretation. If the three centers do not coordinate their perspectives, if there is no central ‘location’ where their individual contributions can be experienced as an integrated whole, significant errors in interpretation of self and others are inevitable with little chance of correction.

 

A New Attitude

The search for Self necessitates a way of watching the interplay between apparent ‘events’ in the world outside and the interior reactions and interpretations of the assumed ‘meaning’ of those events. Ideally, this two field ‘watching’ should occur simultaneously, although it can also be recombined intentionally again for later viewing. The experience will inevitably produce surprising results. Many of these results will not conform to the current ‘image’ of myself. I must be prepared to discover I am not the person presumed in the image.

 

The necessity to do so, Gurdjieff calls the “individual collision” defined as the shock experienced between what is anticipated and what actually happens and says this should lead to the “Divine property … impartiality.” and “a correct evaluation of the essential significant of their own presence, ….. [and] … corresponding place for themselves in these common-cosmic actualizations.”

 

To search for Self requires acceptance that one does not know the Self and that the current image of ‘self’ is erroneous. This practice requires effort, persistence, and tolerance for surprising or uncomfortable discoveries. This requires a change in attitude, a quality of impartiality to the subjective reactions encountered in the psychic world. If these building blocks of attributed meaning are incomplete or distorted, the meanings ascribed to be the basis of one’s life will be capricious and accidental.

 

A Scientific Approach to Inner Search

One of the problems in the search of knowledge of Self, is the ease of self-deception, satisfaction with ideas read or talked about but without personal confirmation. The practice of directed, divided attention can provide conditions for such confirmation. It is a practice modeled on the ‘scientific method’ of repeated observation and experimentation before an idea is accepted as a predicable means of organizing perception. The first way to begin to explore one’s understanding of reality is to temporarily suspend belief in whatever has not been personally confirmed. This is not to say that we can experience everything that may be true, but rather to challenge oneself to discriminate between what is personally experienced and information heard or read about. What do I actually know for myself from my own experience? The rest is hearsay, even if some of it is actually true. This is prerequisite for what Gurdjieff calls ‘Pondering,’ an activity which is engaged by men practicing Being-Partkdolgduty, all messengers from above, higher-being-bodies and endlessness himself.

 

Experience is foundation for Understanding. For example, what do I personally understand about the Sun? I have read a lot. I have seen video and heard scientists talk about the Sun and its processes. But, what do I personally understand through direct experience? I understand it is a very bright light, too bright to look at unless directly on the horizon or behind clouds. It looks circular and flat. It moves across the sky and changes rising and setting positions along the horizon as the seasons change. It hurts my eyes if I try to look directly at it. I feel heat on some days that seems to be related to this round bright light. That’s it. That is all I personally understand through direct experience. All the rest is theory and hearsay. The information obtained by scientific instruments may be correct, but I have not personally confirmed it.

 

If I want to know myself, I must bring this same attitude of separating what I have been told or thought about myself from what I can actually verify. Impressions must be viewed without bias.

 

If something is perceived, it is part of the landscape surrounding the perceiver. If I ‘sense’ the interior of my right foot, there is a clear impression that, although this is my foot, “I” am not my foot.

 

The foot is part of my body, but is not the ‘me’ that is sensing it. If there is a noticing of an attitude, mood of appreciation or disinterest, these are ‘feeling states’ in the emotional world. “I” am aware of them, but if noticed as a phenomena existing in the moment, if understood within the context of its history and how it has been triggered in the moment, it is clearly not me, the ‘perceiver.’ If a thought is noticed, inner talking heard in the head, a daydream forming, and is recognized as a separate and temporary activity in the ‘mind,’ then it can be recognized as separate from the observer of it. Buddhism offers the observation that, “I have a body, but I am not my body. I have feelings but I am not my feelings. I have thoughts but I am not my thoughts.” When the three data streams from body, emotions and thoughts converge into a multi-layered image within the receiving ‘Hubble Telescope’ of our deeper perspective, the recognition of what I am NOT can begin to penetrate and change the understanding of this mysterious question. Whatever can be noticed in my world of sensation, feeling and thought, is NOT the ‘me’ having the experience of it. By eliminating what is not me, but rather phenomena now perceived within my expanded sphere of attention, I begin to back into the deeper mystery.

 

As Above So Below

The current search in Cosmology for a Unified Theory of Everything, can study the ‘physical body’ of the Universe, the functioning and mutual influence of material objects and posit the energy patterns and underlying laws hidden from view, which organize what can be seen, weighed and measured. If Man is a ‘something’ composed of at least three ‘levels,’ so must the Universe be a something composed of multiple levels.

 

What has organized and holds the contents of the Universe in their patterns is only partly understood.11 Currently there is a search for presumed ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ that is hypothesized to make up the bulk of its invisible mass and energy. This may or may not exist, but what is currently lacking in consideration of a Unified Theory of Everything is the question of ‘subjective experience,’ consciousness in its different levels. As our material form occupies a certain level of the electromagnetic spectrum, our emotional and conceptual instruments must be presenting phenomena at higher vibrational levels above the material. Then there is the central observational location, activated by divided attention, into which flow data from three different levels of the Universe. From this level, attention can be directed to illuminate and decode information embedded at lower frequencies. This appears to be a fourth level that can view and understand the levels below it.

 

Since we know enough about ourselves to recognize layered conscious dimensions of our experience, there must also be vast dimensions of ‘invisible’ conscious layers of encoded information within the Universe. Either that or our consciousness comes from beyond the known Creation. The question, “Who Am I” now seems related to the question, “What is the Universe?”

 

The Mystery of Attention

A further question now appears. All the above described has been experienced through the medium of Attention. Through willing myself to engage in prolonged practice of intentional-directeddivided-attention, the above discoveries and conclusions have appeared before my ‘inner eye.’ I have directed attention first into my body’s interior to sense its ‘feel’ from the inside. Having discovered that my observational platform is different from the material body it is exploring, I turn my attention to observe thoughts, voices and images moving inside my mind. I can watch them come and go. When attention is prevented from becoming attached to them, I realize I am inside my brain watching its cognitive activities. Again, “I” seem to be something watching these phenomena. There is the sense of a little distance from what is being observed. With another effort, I can move directed attention into my chest and solar plexus. Here I have the potential to become aware of feelings, moods, shifting of emotions. With sufficient practice, these can be observed from a bit of distance also. The Buddhists are correct. I have a body, feelings and thoughts, but “I” am not these phenomena.

 

What then is this “I” which continually appears in my self description? What is my true nature?13 Can I use attention to see where the attention is being directed from? My attention seems connected with this ‘director.’

 

A different question must be asked first. What is ‘Attention?” There is no apparent source of light inside body and brain, so how is it I can ‘see’ anything? There are no interior sense organs to ‘hear’ thoughts, ‘see’ dreams, ‘feel’ feelings or ‘sense’ the interior of my body. It is dark inside the sphere of attention when it is focused inside me, yet attention ‘illuminates.’ There seems to be a different sort of multi-sensory light, a ‘dark light’ that illuminates whatever it is within its focus. What kind of light is this?

 

We have many phrases that recognize this phenomena. “Now I see!” “The light bulb just went on.” I had an “insight.” “Don’t you see what I mean”? Whatever I turn my attention towards comes into my sphere of awareness and then I see it. I become aware of it or I remember it. Whatever my attention is not focused on is lost ‘sight’ of. It leaves my awareness. Degree of awareness seems dependent on the circumference and brightness of the beam of attention. It seems that where my attention is, there I am. If I learn how to divide attention into different directions simultaneously, I can be in two or more places at the same time. The energy of attention seems to be a form of light! I must be directing light inside my brain and body to be able to ‘see’ the inner world of thought, sensation and feeling.

 

This mysterious light of attention brings something into the field of awareness. First it was not noticed and did not exist at the moment in my experience. Then suddenly it appears, as if out of nowhere. Since what exists for me experientially in any given moment is limited to the sphere and brightness of my attention, we can say attention brings it into existence for me. It ‘creates’ in awareness, an image of this something. Then, with more attention, more about this something comes into awareness. Attention has divided it into different constituent parts for my experiencing. Then, with more attention, it may take new form, new perspective, turn into new understanding, new knowledge. Attention creates, divides and reconfigures. It is as if Attention eats, digests, then recombines to create something new from the parts it dismembered. As my body digests food, the processes of attention seem like digestion for the observer of these processes.

 

What then can I understand about Attention? It seems like light. It can be directed, divided, expanded and focused. It can act like a transformer, disclosing increasing details, relationships, changing knowledge and understanding. In the act of directing and dividing attention, I know that I am deciding the direction of the Attention, performing the movement and receiving the information about the incoming impression, often watching it change its meaning under my gaze. How am I doing this? How am I directing the light? The light seems part of me. My wish is its command. It goes where I want it to, stays there as long as I can maintain focus. It brings back information which transforms understanding. Are Attention and I the same? Am I just so close to it I can’t distinguish it from me? How am I doing this? How am I directing the light? There must be an aspect of ‘I’ above the energy level of light. What is above the quantum realm of light? Light appeared with the Creation. Is the abode of the being of the Director beyond the Universe?

 

What Am I?

What then am I? I seem to be both within and without the sphere of awareness, sometimes directing attention, most times just looking. If Attention is light, then the light is connected to me. I am connected to the light. All I know at this point is that I am both director and receiver of the dark light of Attention. I can’t see myself. I can see that I am not any of the phenomena perceived in the beam of attention. I am not the body, or the feelings, or the thoughts, all of which I had believed represented who I was. I seem to have no materiality, only consciousness. What level of the Universe have I awoken into? There seems to be nothing here, yet everything that exists for me is here. In the light of this darkness, all I know is that, I AM.

 

In its essence, intentionally directed divided attention facilitates simultaneous perception into multiple levels, suggesting that the inner psychological world of man may become a bridge between the outer world of the senses and the underlying dynamics of a living, intelligent Universe. Gurdjieff says that we have within ourselves the potential to experientially participate in this interchange, if we can awaken from the sleep of illusion and inattention to which we have been conditioned, because “the difference between each of them and our common great Megalocosmos is only in scale.”

 

Gurdjieff says in the last chapter of his published works, “And thus, every man, if he is just an ordinary man, that is, one who has never consciously “worked on himself,” has two worlds and if he worked on himself, and has become a so to say “candidate for another life,” he has even three worlds.”

 

The desire to know “who I am” seems now to be a manifestation of the first two worlds, the interest of personality in its relation to the world outside its body. In the third world, interest in an individual i-ness seems to disappear. Whatever this sense of enlarged awareness may represent, it does not seem to have a name or any interest in assigning one. Divided attention is Gurdjieff’s offering to us of a path to our potential for another life.

 

 Illustration

 

Stephen Aronson (saronson@maine.rr.com)

 

Footnotes

1. Koestler, Arthur; The Ghost in the Machine, The MacMillan Company, New York, 1967

2. M. Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff & Ouspensky, v.3 p 665

3. Ouspensky, Peter; In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching; Harcourt, Brace & World, 1949, pp 89, 122

4. P.D. Ouspensky, The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution;Knopf, 1974 pp108-111

5. Scientific American, “Neuroscientists and the Dali Lama Swap Insights: An Encounter with His Holiness the Dali Lama and the Scientific study of Meditation;”http://scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?d=neuroscientists-dalai-lama-swap-insights- meditation, July 30, 2013 and Mind & Life Institue: http://www.mindandlife.org/

6. Ouspensky, Peter; In Search of the Miraculous, Harcourt, Brace & World, 1949, p 119

7. Gurdieff, G. I.; Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson: An Objectively Impartial Criticism of the Life of Man, Penguin Compass, Arkana, 1999

“the active mentation in a being and the useful results of such active mentation are in reality actualized exclusively only within the equal-degree functionings of all his three localizations of the results spiritualized in his presence, call thinkingcenter, feeling-center and moving-motor-center. p 1042

and

“So, when I finally became a responsible being, I decided that before making my choice among the mentioned sacred ways, I would bring my planetary body into the state of the sacred ‘Ksherknara.’ that is, into the state of ‘all-brained-balanced-beingperceptiveness.’ and only when already in that state, to choose the way for my further activities.” p 354

8. Gurdieff, G. I.; Beelzebub’s Tales, pp 755-56

“ …. Likewise, an all-round awareness of everything concerning these sacred laws also conduces, in general, to this, that three-brained beings irrespective of the form of their exterior coating, by becoming capable in the presence of all cosmic factors not depending on them and arising round about them–both the personally favorable as well as the unfavorable–of pondering on the sense of existence, acquire data for the elucidation and reconciliation in themselves of that what is called, ‘individual collision’ which often arises, in general, in three-brained beings from the contradiction between the concrete results flowing from the processes of all the cosmic laws and the results presupposed and even quite surely expected by their what is called ‘sane-logic’; and thus, correctly evaluating the essential significant of their own presence, they become capable of becoming aware of the genuine corresponding place for themselves in these common-cosmic actualizations.

“In short, the transmutation in themselves of an all-round understanding of the functioning of both these fundamental sacred laws conduces to this, that in the common presences of three-brained beings, data are crystallized for engendering that Divine property which it is indispensable for every normal three- brained being to have and which exists under the name of ‘Semooniranoos’; of this your favorites have also an approximate representation, and they call it ‘impartiality.’

9. Ibid., see below topics Pondering pp 364, 674, 738, 755, 1124, Meditation pp 25, 310, 355, 660, 1043, 1131, 1151, 1156, 1162-63, 1186 Mentation pp 777, 1047, 1162, 1165, 1172, 1186

10. Ibid., pp 687, 1166-69, 1209

11. The Thunderbolts Project, http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/

12. Aronson, Stephen; “Are We the Universe?” The Gurdjieff Club, Moscow, Russia

The technology of our new century excites the possibility of probing ever more deeply into the mystery of existence. As cosmologists search for a theory to unify the energies underlying the material universe, neuroscientists peer into the patterns of energies flowing through the human brain looking for clues to the enigma of consciousness. The two directions of search appear opposite, one outward and the other interior, but is that so? Is that possible? Can a ‘unified field theory’ of everything, exclude anything ‘existing’? Can we unify our understanding of the universe without the inclusion of ourselves? Where within a unifying understanding, will we place life and consciousness? The ’isness’ of both commands inclusion in the search for the ultimate source of All. Without the fact of both, there would be no one to pose the question.

Consider. If life is not an inherent property of the universe, where did the life energy come from?11 Divided Attention and Search for Self

If life is not an inherent property of the universe, universal throughout, then our “life energy” comes from a dimension outside the universe. Either, the universe itself is ‘alive,’ or the universe is ‘livened’ by something beyond the universe itself.

If the capacity for the subjective experience of ‘sensation’ is not inherent in the fabric of the universe, then where did the reactivity to surroundings, displayed by all life forms and confirmed by all humans, come from?

If intelligence, consciousness, awareness, wish or capacity for will, is not inherent in the fabric of the universe, then where does our intelligence, consciousness, awareness, wish and capacity for will come from? Either, our subjective experience is part of the energies constructing and maintaining the universe, or, whatever we are, lies outside the universe and manifests through penetration. If so, where then is that ‘place’? Either, the universe is conscious, aware and has capacity for will, or, consciousness enters the universe from ‘somewhere’ beyond what we know and call ‘the universe.’ Either ‘we’ are the universe, or, we are something beyond the universe.

Either “I” am the universe or I am something beyond the ‘universe, imbedded within it, interpenetrated by it, and imbued with its inherent properties or, perhaps, there is no ‘or.’ Perhaps both are true.

We make our world by ascribing to it ‘meaning.’ It is to us what we decide, or are conditioned to believe, it means. The origin of ‘meaning’ lies outside what we call ‘the world,’ in the invisible, psychological realm of our hearts and minds. Since man exists in the universe and consciousness exists in man, we cannot unify the universe without accounting for consciousness. The search out, and the search in, must be two sides of the same journey.

Stephen Aronson 2010

13. deSalzmann, Jeanne, The Reality of Being: The Fourth Way of Gurdjieff, pp 170-76

14. G.I.Gurdjieff, Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson, p 775

15. G.I. Gurdjieff, Life is real only then ,when “I Am,” pp 169-170

 

REFERENCES: A few of the many sources that influenced the author

A Course In Miracles, Found ation for Inner Peace, 1975

Bohm, David, Thought as a System, Routledge, London and New York, 1994

____Wholeness and the Implicate Order, Routledge, Classics New York and London, 2002 Bennett, J.G. Deeper Man, Claymont Communications, Charles Town, WV Buzzell, Keith, Man- A Three-Brained Being, Fifth Press, Salt Lake City, 2007

____Reflections on Gurdjieff’s Whim, Fifth Press, Salt Lake City, 2012

____A New Conception of God: Further Reflections on Gurdjieff’s Whim, Fifth Press, Salt Lake City, 2013 De Salzmann, Jeanne, The Reality of Being: The Fourth Way of Gurdjieff, Shambhala, Boston & NY 2010 Goswami, Amit, Physics of the Soul, Hampton Roads, VA, 2001 Gurdjieff, G.I., Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson: All and Everything, First Series, Penguin Compass Arkana 1999

____Life is real only then, when “I am,” All and Everything, Third Series, Arkana Penguin Books, 1991

Koestler, Arthur; The Ghost in the Machine, The MacMillan Company, New York, 1967

Krishnamurti, J., The Awakening of Intelligence, Penguin Books

____Krishnamurti’s Journal, Harper & Row,Publishers, San Francisco Malin, Shimon, Nature Loves to Hide: Quantum Physis and the Nature of Reality, a Western Perspective, Oxford University Press, New York, 2001

____ The Eye That Sees Itself, Morning Light Press, ID, 2004 Mind & Life Institue: http://www.mindandlife.org/

Nisargadatta Maharaj, Sri; I Am That, Acorn Press, Durham, NC 1982 1973

Ouspensky, P. D., In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching, Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. New York, 1949

Scientific American, “Neuroscientists and the Dali Lama Swap Insights: An Encounter with His

Holiness the Dali Lama and the Scientific study of Meditation;” http://scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?d=neuroscientists-dalai-lama-swap-insights- meditation, July 30, 2013

The Thunderbolts Project, http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/

Tolle, Eckhart, The New Earth, Dutton, 2005

Wertenbaker, Christian, Man in the Cosmos: G.I. Gurdjieff and Modern Science, Codhill Press, 2012

 

 

Thanks to Keith Buzzell and the Fifth Press for use of an illustration in Reflections on Gurdjieff’s Whim, A New Conception of God, Further Reflections on Gurdjieff’s Whim. The yellow highlighted area is my addition.

 

Questions & Answers

 

Aronson (referring to the accompanying diagram): So, I just want to take you on a brief tour of this before taking questions and answers. I want to thank Keith Buzzell, Bonnie Phillips and Fifth Press for allowing me not only to use this illustration, but to add two columns of my own.

 

What we have here is the Ray of Creation (pointing to left side of the illustration). World One Absolute, World Three The Holy Sun Absolute, the entry into existence at World Six, Okidanokh All Suns, then our Sun World Twelve, first generation of suns early galactic forms, down to the Earth, down to the Moon.

 

Here we have (referring to the column marked “Hydrogen Table”) Gurdjieff’s representation of digestion. Starting with the greatest densities, minerals, organic food, water, air, and up at Hydrogen 96 what Keith Buzzell believes are enzymes, what Gurdjieff called the rarefied gases, active elements.

 

And then he (Gurdjieff) says, above that, (indicating column titled “Forms of Energy”) are the psychic and spiritual energies that science knows nothing about. But–we can know something about that, because it’s inside us. Maybe we are it.

 

So, at level 48, where impressions come in, there seems to be the level of our ordinary consciousness, which seems to be facilitated by ionic wave forms traveling around the nervous system. That’s the explanation. Seems to me it must be a little more complex. And then, up at Hydrogen 24 seems to be where images form, we are able to create pictures. Think about your childhood house right now. There is the picture. How did you do that?

 

Hydrogen 12–this could be the level of attention, because we know that attention looks down on all these other phenomena, thinking and imaging, so it has to be higher. What we seem to be looking at, in term of what modern science knows, is that here we have the ionic wave flow in our nervous system (pointing to ordinary thought at H48), but this may very well be electromagnetic fields (pointing to images at H24) generated by all these ionic waves working together. And above that is the level of photonic action. Ionic waves, electromagnetic field, photons–so we are now at the quantum world. And then, whatever directs attention …. well …. is that the electromagnetic force itself or something else? Will, attention, images, mechanical thinking (pointing to column “Search for Self”)–digestion of air, digestion of impressions (pointing to column “Three Foods of Man”).

 

So, if you follow (the illustration) across horizontally, that seems to be what level of the Universe each of those levels represents …… and they are all in us. But also, we know that we contain crystals and molecules (pointing to the bottom of the Ray of Creation column) elements of the Earth in our body ….. all the way up to what might be the level of stars, maybe up to the Big Bang. So, maybe what a human being is, through these three levels of digestion, we straddle the entire knowable Universe level by level. But, we don’t notice and take it for granted and, instead, we worry about who we are in relation to what we think other people may think about us.

 

So, I would love to have a conversation.

 

Participant: Thank you. It’s such a huge mystery, where do we … how’s it possible that we can see ourselves at all? From where do we see? I’m very much reminded of what Mr. Gurdjieff writes in Beelzebub. He sites his Teskooano on Mars, didn’t he? And also on the other planets to look down on Earth from there. And he also buried one Teskooano in the earth. I am also reminded of the statement by Meister Eckhart. He said, “The eye with which I see God, is the eye with which God see me.” And, I very much appreciate you bringing something of that mystery.

 

Aronson: But, we are that mystery! You are that mystery! It has seemed to me, for a while now, that the deeper inside we look, we see ourselves looking out at ourselves looking in. I think Meister Eckhart seems to be correct.

 

Participant: Thank you very much. What an extraordinary statement, exposition on all your thinking and working on this. What strikes me is that one of the things Madam de Salzmann says is that the Attention is a Divine force. I hear that in the way you speak of it. And, what I think you would agree is, speaking of the power of a divided attention, that it depends on a certain intensity, I can’t just suddenly have a divided attention. Maybe that’s what Work is all about developing attention, one could say. And one of the things you didn’t speak of which did interest me, was how Gurdjieff defined attention in the third series. “The degree of blending of that which is in the same in the impulses of observation and constatation in one totality’s processes with that occurring in other totalities.” Could you help us with that?

 

Aronson: Well, the only help I know with that is the continual practice of divided attention which can, I think, lead to the experience of exactly what Mr. Gurdjieff has tried to describe. But, in all of that I keep coming back to the mystery of what is directing the blending? And what is the receiving point of all that directed blending? That seems to me to be the heart of the matter. So, thank you for that quote.

 

Participant: Thanks. I’m reminded of the wave-particle duality a little bit here. I feel there is this logical–and then again I may be sacrilegious in what I’m saying–there is a logical fallacy in saying, well, if I see it, then I must not be it. But, then if I see that I must be the thing that is not it, then I must not be that and so going backwards and backwards to a first cause, feels to me like being stuck in a particle frame of reference. Because, if we could say that consciousness was a phenomenon of a system and not an object, then would one not have to have an infinite regress? And, it seemed to me that’s what you were saying when you said that, “I am the ….. “, what I thought I heard you say that, “I must be the place where the three feeds of that information meet and blend together.” And so to have gotten to that place in your discourse, and then said, “But if I can see that, then I must not be that ….” again, this may not be what you actually did say. It may be my interpretation of what you did was. I felt like at that point, “Wait! Whoa”! So, tell me, did I miss something? Is that … Where do you work … is there anything in what I’ve said that makes any sense?

 

Aronson: Absolutely! And that would be a very reasonable conclusion from how I phrased this. But, although it does seem that, if I can see that, it is not me …. if I am the field of awareness, it is in me! I am it. There is nothing separate. And … a great trick … if I can divided myself … if there is a little narrow attention, and then I wake up and I put some attention here and then put some over there, put some more here….. in one sense I’ve divided. But now, if I’ve got looking posts out here everything in the middle is also visible. So, by dividing attention, particulate, we’re actually expanding attention, wave. And, like the difficulty with the third force, we are both particle-wave and … something else. The digestive process is a wave, waves up and down the electromagnetic spectrum, but maybe the place where I momentarily find myself seems particulate, because that is where it is and it’s bounded. But then later I find myself in other places. So, it seems as if nothing stays still. Everything is in motion. So, everything is a wave, but in the moment–also feel particulate.

 

Participant: So as you were talking, what I noticed in me was I ….. two things. One, there is a movement to what I would call reductionist thinking like, is it a particle or a wave? How does it all relate? So there is a part of me that wants to say this and a part of me doesn’t. So, what came up for me when you were speaking that I wanted to ask you about, was the question chaos which came up for me because it seemed like chaos was an opposite force from attention. Then what came up is a question around this was related to the problem that His Endlessness had to solve, which was the place of His existence, or Her existence, was deteriorating–chaos. In other words, leading to a running down. I wanted to ask you a question about that. ….. how you saw that, this chaos, in relation to attention. But then, I also went to the place of how attention may be related to somehow reconciling this running down with the order. Because, attention feels like an ordering to me emotionally. That there is an order happening and what our place in that might be.

 

Aronson: Do you have a couple of hours? (Laughter) Well, I guess when I cannot see a pattern it seems chaotic to me. I’m not a mathematician. I don’t understand fractals, but I can look at them. And it seems as if, as above, so below. That is as one gets far enough out, or close enough in, pattern re-emerges. There seems to always be information encoded in vibrations, whether we can read it or not. Attention is the light that can illuminate those patterns, but there has got to be something there to recognize them.

 

Participant: Thanks Steven, that was really good. The thing I kept thinking about at the beginning of your talk was that you were describing attention in self-observation forming an image of myself and then you took that self away and threw it away. And, I kept thinking that’s very paradoxical because you’re talking about observing yourself but every time you form an image of the self you’re observing, you surrender it. You consider it not yourself anymore. So, you’re really not observing yourself anymore. So, as you progressed in your talk and I was wondering how I can I resolve this language paradox, it seemed to me that in regards to attention, when I form an image of myself that is, as you say, more accurate … which I think is an interesting approach to take, I have inaccurate images of myself, I have accurate images of myself. But if none of them are myself, are any of them really accurate since myself is always the observer behind them anyway. But, I see that process in myself, I’ve seen it in my life, and I ask myself about what happens with my attention when it happens that suddenly an image of myself that I had been perhaps suppressing or denying or blind to, presents itself during a moment of self-observation and something happens. For me what happens is that I see identification and I see that part of my attention has been involved without me knowing it in maintaining something, and in that moment of this more accurate image, then there is more attention available. I was wondering if that was something that occurred to you in your description as well.

 

Aronson: I think for me, one of the amazing, enzymatic contributions Gurdjieff made is to apply relativity to all of this. In one way, I am all of this. There is nothing that is not part of me. There is nothing in the Universe that is not part of the Universe. You can’t separate anything in the Universe out of it. So, all these things I see are part of me. They are aspects of the personality, aspects of conditioning. But the problem is that when the attention becomes too weak and is magnetically drawn to these aspects, and my opinions about them, and then gets stuck to what is perceived, then whatever is present to observe, thinks that what It perceives is all that Itself is, or that what It perceives is It, Itself, in Its essence. I propose that It’ is not that in Its’ essence at all. In Its’ essence It is both that and this. And what we are coming to is to separate our sense of what we are, from these tiny, floating fragments, some of which may not be true at all, some of which may be. The problem is identification. An interesting word, actually. I have no idea if it really works this way, but a while back I saw that ‘dentification’ is the largest part of this word. That implies density, hardness. Then when you put the ‘I’ in front, I become this dense thing when I become ‘densified’ or i-dentified. So, we want to become dis-identified.

 

Participant: So, we all need dental work for ourselves! Root canals to free ourselves from ‘i-dentalfication. That’s not what I had planned to say! (Laughter) I have had a question for a number of minutes and it keeps changing every few seconds, so I am not sure what is going to come out.

 

Aronson: That’s the wave. (Laughter)

 

Participant: I’m going to particulate it now. Just to express gratitude for the presentation of ideas which I experienced as a kind of a process because I took your suggestion at the outset to inhabit myself and I found my attention being drawn back as you described the process. You described it with words intellectually, but it was a kind of case in point and very helpful.

 

One of the questions has to do with the presentation of this process in an intellectual form and an aspect of the spectrum that I think is maybe missing from this whole diagram which has to do with the various intelligences that are at work at different levels and the fineness of the material that they work with and therefore the quality of the intelligence they conduct. But, quality is easy to assess quantitatively when really there is a qualitative difference in these different intelligences. So, for instance the intelligence of an awakened heart and a real feeling quality is ineffable to the mind and the quality of the direct perception of much higher level of consciousness is unknowable even to the heart. So, the thing that came up for me was this event which was so often taught, which is that if I am seeing the thing, I know it is not me, which one would think would spur deeper looking in the search for myself and yet in that I’ve found a very subtle form of rejection of experience. And this is a pitfall that seems to be kind of a theme, connected with Russell’s talk as well. When I see the thing, I feel that in order to transcend it, I need to push it away somehow or I need to let it go in favor of something better. What is the alternative? There is some third possibility between identification and rejection, which is an integration, if you use that word. But a sense of the way in, is through. And when in connection with these intelligences at different levels that I encounter an emotion that is unpleasant, do I simply say, “Oh, it’s not me. Let me identify with the observer,” or do I inhabit it and begin to watch it transform under the gaze of my attention? It brings me back to a sense of what is real faith and what is real faith in? And, in a sense the faith is in that prime source of attention, that it has an organizing effect, an integrating and transformative effect, and I can trust and have faith that when I bring it to bear on all of my experience without exception, I’m integrating the totality of Self that is available. Does that make sense? That’s my question.

 

Aronson: Yes, every bit of it. My sense of the last part of the question is that all of it might have been building to, is no, not to merge into what is seen and not to push it away, but to bring what Gurdjieff call an impartial look. Even to extend a little pseudopod of attention into that ‘something’ to feel it, while keeping the rest of my attention outside it out here, so that can promote empathy, recognizing that part is just what it is, doing what it does. It’s part of the larger system. I just need not to think that that is ‘me.’ It’s that little thing floating around whatever this larger thing is, this ‘me.’ Of course, here we have to use words. And words and even symbols are insufficient for this. But for me, my intellect was the last thing to surrender. It didn’t want to be duped. It knows it is suggestible. It’s really recalcitrant in terms of faith. But this knows that. (Points to heart) This knows that. (Points to solar plexus) And this process was perhaps, the way my heart took my head and slowly, gently walked it through this process so it wouldn’t panic, until it got all the way up there (points to Worlds 12 and 6 in the illustration) and said, “Whoa! It’s a long way down.” (Laughter)

 

Participant: The movement towards my inner self is so much about recognizing who I am not. During the process of an inner separation, for example what is going on in the head, or worries or instinctive whatever … (pause) … to say with what is left seems to me to be entering very silent area in myself. Depending on the intensity of this silence (pause) and it is a silence which is not a silent point which is not narrow or which is not limited. And, within there, within here, there are so many things which are possible, which is impossible when this separation has not taken place. Compassion is possible as to something I receive when I am closer to myself within this silence. Acceptance is so natural in that silence, so it is impossible for me to distinguish between that acceptance of others and myself and attention and the silence. This wonderful disinterest for anything which is not, in the actual moment. There is another thing that is the concepts of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ is .. (pause) .. there is no room for it. It is not there. It is not a part of it. I think if I say anything more, I will speak less and less about what I’m trying to say.

 

Aronson: Perhaps I should emulate your feeling. I am reminded of Mr. Bennett’s interview with the Shivapuri Baba. He quoted the Shivapuri Baba as saying, “Go beyond the mind. Then you will see God.” In this place of silence there is no need for a name. That is totally irrelevant. I think the concern with name has to do with personality. Not only is there no name, there is no interest in a name. The wish is to just try to be impartial. Over the years I have learned what Faith is. I have absolute total Faith in the State of Presence. I no longer try to plan or think about what really I am going to do or what is going to happen. I know that all I need to do is monitor where I am in here (Points to head and chest), and the closer I can get to the place where Presence might enter, that is my job. I think of myself now as a doorman. I just stand here and try to hold the door open. When I fall asleep and then wake up, I just open it again. And, something comes through, and when that’s there, I just watch what happens. Steve does what he does and it carries a better quality because of the Presence inside of him.

 

I would say in conclusion that my sense is that the ideas and diagrams in Gurdjieff’s work are critically important to give the formatory apparatus something useful to do while we can go and actually learn about the Work. (Laugher and applause) It’s in the practice and my experience tells me the practice is grounded in the body. As long as I can feel myself in the body, I know I am incarnated in this body. Then other direct experiences can follow. We must work with the body.

 

Participant: That’s great. That’s great Steve. During all this conversation I was just sitting here wondering how we could find a way to see this conundrum because this is a gigantic conundrum. How do you talk about this? These states are so difficult to talk about. It struck me that now, it has been just about one hundred years ago, that Niels Bohr, and I don’t know how many of you know much about Niels Bohr, but Niels Bohr was one of the finest minds of the early twentieth century scientifically and philosophically. His conclusion has so much to do with what we are talking about here. He came up with what he called the Principle of Complementarity, which in effect said, because human beings have brains the way they have evolved, we can look at any phenomenon and ask questions about it relative to, “is it particle or is an expression of wave?” We can never ask both simultaneously.

 

We cannot ask both simultaneously. Many of the questions that folks have been focusing on here are questions we cannot ask simultaneously. But, that doesn’t mean they are not real. As Steve, and I think, emphasized so beautifully at the end when he pointed inside and said, “I know I am embodied!” The key that comes from Boor is experience–your own, personal, inner experience. When we have the experience of consciousness of a different kind, we can throw all kinds of words at it. Gurdjieff threw very few words at this. What he threw were stories, myths, experiences, one experience after another after another, to give us the taste, in our own world, of what it means to be in that state. So, my thanks to Niels Bohr. I think he gave us a very clear notion that what much of our possible confusion is here.

 

Aronson: And, thanks to Mr. Gurdjieff.

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