In the meeting September 13th, we discussed the concept of consciousness and used experiementation to explore the experience of subjective consciousness, or what Gurdjieff called self-remembering. If we try, we can remember ourselves in the midst of our own activities, which expands our state, and enhances our experience. "Why do I not remember myself more regularly, even continuously?"...
[read more] In the meeting September 13th, we discussed the concept of consciousness and used experiementation to explore the experience of subjective consciousness, or what Gurdjieff called self-remembering. If we try, we can remember ourselves in the midst of our own activities, which expands our state, and enhances our experience. "Why do I not remember myself more regularly, even continuously?" In our next meeting, on October 12, we will explore and experience the barriers to higher states of conscoiusness.
Awakening
Awakening is the topic of our Fall Series of Public Discussions. The ideas of G. I. Gurdjieff may sound academic or abstract, but the 'Work' he shared is a practical means to see our current condition, to recognize our state, and thereby, to awaken to the direct experience of life. He said there are four states available to us: sleep; a 'waking state,' in which we do the many things we learn to do, and react in conditioned ways to external stimuli; subjective consciousness, in which we become aware of ourselves in the context of our lives and the world around us, and begin to develop a kind of subjective conscience; and, objective consciousness, about which we can know very little in our waking state.
Early in the last century, this man shocked audiences by saying that man is a machine, an automaton, or robot...a tern quite new at the time. He said most people pass a majority of their lives in a kind of 'waking sleep,' growing up, raising families, having careers, winning aclaim, all without becoming fully realized beings. This perhaps seems quite rediculous at first, until we accept his challeng to observe ourselves. Then we notice how we become immersed in a project and "come to" minutes or even hours later, wondering where the time has gone. Instead of recognizing the quality of even this moment of relative consciousness, something in us reorients and dives us back into the next task. We wonder, where did this day go? In fact, we seem to seek diversions for our attention, and avoid quiet. We seem to be most aware of ourselves, to have the most vivid memories, only of moments of great dissappointment or danger or other external shocks. Must greater self awareness be limited to these occassions?
Gurdjieff said that in the waking state we can have flashes of subjective consciousness, or self consciousness, and in a stable state of self consciousness, we can have flashes of objective consciousness. The primary obstacle to our awakening is the conceit that we already posess consciousness and all that this implies. And, the trick that nature plays is that, when we ask ourselves sincerely, "am I conscious," for a moment, we do indeed become relatively more aware of ourselves. This is itself a clue to a means for awakening.
The ideas that Gurdjieff taught are a means to know ourselves, to understand how we are constructed. They provide a conceptual framework within which to better understand what we have already seen about ourselves, a context within which to accumulate new observations. As we verify for ourselves the state of our mechanism, it may bring remorse. We can turn the energy this brings, the wish to be more conscious, toward increasing the frequency and duration of these moments of presence. If we can learn to observe ourselves without judgement, we can even experience a kind of peace or fullfilment. The effort can allow us to experience this life more fully, and better prepare for the next.
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