“For a man of Western culture, it is of course difficult to believe and the accept the idea that an ignorant fakir, a naive monk, or a yogi who has retired from life may be on the way to evolution, while an educated European, armed with “exact knowledge” and all the latest methods of investigation, has no chance whatever and is moving in a circle from there is no escape…..
What do you expect? People are machines. Machines have to be blind and unconscious, they cannot be otherwise, and all their actions have to correspond to their nature. Everything happens. No one does anything.
“Progress” and “civilization” in the real meaning of those words, can appear only as the result of conscious efforts. They cannot appear as the result of unconscious efforts. And what conscious efforts can there be in machines? And if one machine is unconscious, then a hundred machines are unconscious, and so are a thousand machines, or a hundred thousand, or a million. And the unconscious activity of a million machines must necessarily result in destruction and extermination. You do not yet understand and cannot imagine all the results of this evil. But the time will come when you will understand.”
— G. Gurdjieff, quoted in “In Search of the Miraculous,” P. D. Ouspensky
My Comment
I’ve been fascinated with the influence of Gurdjieff on western artists in the early part of the twentieth century – pianists, painters, and writers (Katherine Mansfield and Aldous Huxley among them), including a large number belonging to the Harlem Renaissance.
Scholars generally dismiss Gurdjieff as a charlatan, or at best, obscurantist. Quotes like the one above don’t help. What can Western science (which wasn’t solely Western, of course, but that’s another story) possibly have to learn from “fakirs, monks, and yogis” ?
More later.
Interesting , very Interesting , some food for thought for the evening hike. I want to read some more of this guy ,but you are right a lot of his work has been classified as that of a charlatan.
I have found it very useful.
It’s a common mistake to reject something because the person behind it is flawed in some way.
That’s the fallacy behind the trend toward debunking biographies…
I have Jewish friends who listen to Wagner..
One of my favorite writers is Kipling (despite his often chauvinistic attitudes)..
Chesterton is dismissive of Hinduism and the east (and quite ignorant of them too) but I still love his writing..
I think one of the best columnists around is Joe Sobran – I am told he is considered anti-Semitic. I still read his columns and I reserve judgment on that…he’s a Catholic, and it may be his critics are so used to hearing only like minded opinions, his views grate…and grate all the more because of the religious point of view.
Frankly, I don’t give a damn.
If someone has something to say that strikes me as helpful, true, striking, or moving, I will listen.
I don’t believe in any intellectual caste systems
Another good Gurdjieff quote, along somewhat similar lines:
“Fairness? Decency? How can you expect fairness or decency on a planet of sleeping people?”
Western science has embraced string theory. String theory suggests that everything is reducible to “strings” vibrating at various frequencies. Gurdjieff taught the ray of creation. The ray of creation suggests that the universe starts with matter at the absolute highest density of vibrations and descends in octaves to matter with the lowest density of vibrations.
You might be interested in a new book – Spiritual Survival in a Radically Changing World-Time. It is by William Patrick Patterson who has written 7 books on the Gurdjieff Work. His thesis is that “technology is relentlessly reordering and redefining the way we live.” Technology is man’s rational part. “To understand it we must first understand ourselves…it can spur us to awaken to a new integration of body, senses and mind.”
Hi Ann –
That sounds very interesting. Will check it out as soon as I get a chance.
I don’t think people always see how the way they think and react changes radically with each major technological breakthrough. The internet, for example.
I don’t think we’ve fully assessed its impact on the psyche. I think it’s turned our lives into a kind of fishbowl that’s extraordinarily stressful..
and its also created the occasion for very addictive and violent interactions through it.
So I appreciate any positive views of it..
I tend to see the darker side of these changes.
But I’m not a Luddite..quite the contrary..