Martin Gurdjieff Practice Book

Inner exercises and sacred dances for the unfolding of consciousness
2. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-3-7562-5225-1
Verlag: BoD - Books on Demand
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 228 Seiten

This unique practice book elaborates in depth the Gurdjieff method and ways for a creative and harmonious training of body, soul, and spirit. This book informs intelligible about all aspects of the method. This can help to train one's perception and insight. An introduction to the teachings of Gurdjieff, his "sacred dances" also called "movements", and the famous symbol of the Enneagram complete the book. The exercises shown are build up modular, so that the development of consciousness can unfold harmonically. The experiences won by this process can contribute to a creative way of life for oneself and to the well-being of all other human beings.

Bruno Martin, born 1946, was a pupil of the late British mathematician, philosopher and life trainer John G. Bennett (1897-1974), who taught the Gurdjieff method. Bruno Martin teaches the method since 50 years in his seminars. His work with Eastern wisdom teachings and Western consciousness expanding techniques let him to his own understanding of the way of transformation. He wrote many books about Gurdjieff and other ways of perception of nature and the spiritual worlds - always in a practical way. His website: www.gurdjieff-work.de (German)

Autoren/Hrsg.

Martin, Bruno

Leseproben

2. The Energy of Experience
"Almost anything can be given to us, but not freedom." John G. Bennett The history of mankind shows that freedom is work. It must be fought for again and again (hopefully without war!). It is the same with inner freedom. "Inner freedom" does not only mean the "ability to do", it is only possible if we are also conscious - if we have woken up to reality. But what is "reality"? Isn't the world as we perceive it reality? In fact, it is a realm, a layer or level of the whole reality, but from a spiritual point of view, this "ordinary" world is relatively unreal or maya, illusion, as Indian sages or philosophers call it. The German word contains the beautiful image of working, weaving a fabric or knotting threads, so as to produce an artistic carpet or a woven, colorful cloth. This is a lot of work - and exactly this work, i. e. to weave one's own inner threads into a beautiful fabric, leads to self-actualization. Inner freedom is achieved when we recognize the illusions of the ordinary world of experience and see through their ineffectiveness, self-deceptions and attachments. A person who is identified with his outer personality, his person or "mask", is completely unfree. He is unconsciously dependent on all kinds of influences, on opinions adopted from others, on material things, and so on. Only with awakened consciousness and a "real I" we are able to think and act self-determined in the truest sense of the word. Unconscious experience - that is, what is constantly happening to me unnoticed - contributes little to inner growth. By this I also mean the "daily grind," the many automatic processes and behaviors, all the everyday activities like driving a car, going to a job, and so on. Most of the time these activities happen automatically, without real conscious participation. This point is not easy to understand because we are so caught up in these actions that we do not notice that they are more or less routine and we are not actually involved in them internally at all. Of course, these routines are important and necessary for the functioning of our society - I am happy when I can rely on the schedules of bus, train and plane! However, only the quality of conscious experience can I express in "me", to take into my being. When experience with me "happens" when I am "asleep" with my eyes open, as Gurdjieff calls this state, then the experience, however interesting, is of no use to my inner growth. But what is experience anyway? Every human being has a "lot of experiences". Everything we experience is an experience. We constantly take in sensory impressions, which are processed by the body and the neuron activities in the brain. We also store quite a bit of it and remember these experiences on occasion or through certain stimuli such as smells or feelings. However, most of the impressions we take in are stored unconsciously. This is also what brain research says. How "real" then can this "reality" be at all? A brain measurement, however, only says that sensory impressions leave traces in the brain. It cannot tell us anything about what we experience and what these experiences do in our brain and subconscious. Even less can it be used to evaluate the quality of an experience. Where and how is the special quality stored? Probably not only in the brain, but in the whole body, in every cell of the body. But what happens with conscious, with intentional experiences, which have a different quality than unconscious experiences? Conscious experiences have a more intensive effect, they have a different energy (see chapter 4) than the automatic and constant absorption of impressions from the inner and outer world of the body. Experiences as a whole are indeed not material, they have no material "substance", even if they leave traces in the physical, material body. But where are experiences processed and stored? Meanwhile, some scientific findings indicate that there is a kind of non-physical field that exchanges information with the body's cells. Scientifically, this is referred to as "epigenetics", i. e. there is information and experience that is not stored in the genetic code and yet has an influence on the genes. Thinking and feeling can therefore influence the production of hormones and neurotransmitters. Many stressful situations of a mother (even before a child has been conceived) can cause her child to be constantly under stress. The mother's experience is passed on epigenetically for instance under war situations the mother experienced. From this point of view alone, it is of great importance whether experiences happen to us and whether we allow positive or negative impressions and information to enter this field. With more alertness and attention we can filter some influences in such a way that they do not reach the sensitive information fields in our body at all. Fortunately, we do not need a "technical" instrument for this filter. We have the ability for intentional, conscious perception. The instrument for this is our consciousness - when it is awakened. Therefore, it is also important to understand how an exercise can "work" and what effect it can produce. All of the proposed exercises are primarily to become more aware. Inner exercises stimulate the "energy" of the experience. Therefore, with every consciously performed exercise, an energy and information transformation also happens, and that means it leaves traces on which one can continue to build each time. Gurdjieff has represented this kind of energy work by a simple picture. He describes the human body as a chemical factory. The body as a chemical factory Every chemical factory converts various simple substances into more valuable ones. For example, certain carbon compounds are converted into plastic bags. Man, too, is constantly "transforming" energies. He transforms a pizza into substances that provide corresponding energy to the body cells and the brain. However, for different needs, for example, for athletic activity, strained thinking or conscious perception, three basic and different types of food are necessary. The first food: The normal food is digested by the body's own processes and transformed into finer substances such as proteins, enzymes, hormones and into blood. In turn, other fine substances are produced in the cells, which alone are necessary for brain function. In fact, although the brain weighs just over a kilogram, it consumes more than 50% of the food we ingest. The transformed food thus gives us the strength or energy for body maintenance, but also for experience, reproduction, sex, thought, feeling and action. Conversely, the brain activity is also able to cause many changes down to the cells in shorter or longer periods of time. The second food Gurdjieff calls "air". In fact, the oxygen in the air plays an essential role in converting the food into body and cell energy. Moreover, we can hardly survive 5 minutes without air - even with diving training. Moreover, air is a carrier of "life energy" (the Qi or Chi in Daoist teachings), which can be transformed into the "cosmic energy" of consciousness. The third nourishment is the sensory impressions, which are also transformed into energies for the work of the brain, as we know today. Brain research has made it clear that all vibrations of the outside world, which we take in through the senses, are transformed in the nervous system and in the brain into what we call "perception". Sensory impressions are therefore also energies, electromagnetic vibrations. Gurdjieff says that without impressions we faster die than without food and air. Thus he emphasizes the importance of the energy we receive through sensory impressions for our consciousness. This makes the body more than a "chemical factory", it becomes a vital, living "biocomputer". Figure 1: The transformation of the three types of food in the Enneagram9 When the three "foods" are processed automatically in the body, they serve to sustain life. When sensitive and conscious energy is added, by eating with a certain attitude and with attentiveness, breathing and noticing which impressions we take in, a part of the three kinds of food is transformed into conscious energy. In this way, a new vibrational quality is created. So, if in the transformation of food, awareness and attention to the third food of sense impressions is added - then the "substance" of experience can emerge from it. This means that eating, breathing and perceiving are not only for the maintenance of the body, but go through further transformations, which are a bring forth "finer energy".2 You probably know the following situation. You parked your car in some street when you went shopping. You came back, walked down the street and didn't see your car anymore. You panic: "Maybe it has been stolen?" you think. You walk along both sides of the street, no car. But suddenly you see it. "How can that be? I've walked past it twice!" This thing happens frequently with different things. We just don't attach any particular importance to it. In fact, the change that happens between noticing and not noticing is such a habitual part of our lives that we do not consider its importance. If we did not wake up to the state of noticing, we would not be able to do anything at all. We would be forced to function in an automatic, mechanical way. Only then, when we notice, do we have the possibility of choice. Then we can also change the course of what we are doing. When we wake up into noticing, we have an opportunity to decide and do something. Therefore, an opportunity is an important thing. Opportunity is a moment when something...