MARCH 14 — GEORGE GURDJIEFF QUOTES
WHAT IS PONDERING?... IT IS THINKING WITH THE THINKING PART OF EACH CENTRE
"I spoke to Orage about the difficulty I had in remembering what was said at the meetings and the difficulty of doing anything. He said, ‘The time has not come yet for you to “do”. It is necessary to ponder everything that Gurdjieff says, to learn and prepare yourself.’ I asked, ‘What is pondering?’ He replied, ‘From one aspect it is thinking with the thinking part of each centre — mental, emotional, and moving.
"In the New Testament it says, “Mary pondered all these things in her heart”. It means to go over them, weigh them.’ When I began to try to ponder I realized that I had never ‘pondered’. I had only milled over something with part of my emotions. So, remembering what Gurdjieff had said about me I began to recall what I had heard about sleep; ‘Awake, thou that sleepest!’ says the prophet, ‘Now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept,’ says Paul.
"According to the Sufis, the Christ that rose in the body of Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the Ass of Desire. In the Mahabharata, one of the great heroes is called ' ‘Conqueror of Sleep’. The Greeks spoke of the body as the ‘Tomb of the Soul; and in the Orthodox Church they sing at Easter, ‘Christ is risen from the dead. He has conquered death by death, and given life to those that were in the tomb’."
~ CS Nott “The Teachings of Gurdjieff - A Pupil's Journey”
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BEFORE, YOU WERE INTERESTED IN CHEAP THINGS
Questioner: I noticed that before, my negative emotions came most of all in my relations with people. I was violent and disagreeable when saying things to people. For some time I have been trying to struggle against this. But I fall into indifference and I do not know how to change my state.
Gurdjieff: It is not necessary to change, it is very well. In you is growing a reappreciation of values. Before, you were interested in cheap things. And that which was not interesting had no value to you. Now what has value for you is that which was not interesting to you before. This is the reason.
~ George Gurdjieff "Paris/Wartime Meetings"
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WE VERY SELDOM WATCH ONE CENTER FROM ANOTHER
"What then is our consciousness, our memory, our critical faculty? It's very simple. It is when one center specially watches another, when it sees and feels what is going on there and, seeing it, records it all within itself.
"It receives new impressions, and later, if we wish to know what happened the previous time, if we ask and search in another center, we will be able to find what: has taken place in the first center. It is the same with our critical faculty—one center watches another. With one center we know that this thing is red, but another center sees it as blue. One center is always trying to 'persuade another. This is what criticism is.
"If two centers go on for a long time disagreeing about something, this disagreement hinders us in thinking about it further. If another center is not watching, the first continues to think as it did originally. We very seldom watch one center from another, only sometimes, perhaps one minute a day. When we sleep we never look at one center from another, we do so only sometimes when we are awake.
"In the majority of cases each center lives its own life. It believes everything it hears, without criticism, and records everything as it has heard it. If it hears something it has heard before, it simply records. If something it hears is incorrect, for instance, something was red before and is blue now, it resists, not because it wants to find out what is right but simply because it does not immediately believe. But it does believe, it believes everything. If something is different, it only needs time for perceptions to settle down. If another center is not watching at the moment, it puts blue over red. And so blue and red remain together and later, when we read the records, it begins to answer: "red." But "blue" is just as likely to pop out."
~ George Gurdjieff "Views from the Real World"
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YOU ASK QUESTION FROM ONE STREAM, I ANSWER FROM OTHER
Monday, May 3, 1937
[Before lunch.]
GURDJIEFF: Now Russians feast for fifty days until this day when He go up—Ascension Day. Such custom is. For everything in life there is custom—only in Europe and America not know. America have custom only for foxtrot.
[At table.]
I glad some of you went to service Russian church, participate in such good thing, for feeling experience. All Christian church ceremonies derive from old Greek church. Once in Jerusalem I saw such ceremony as must always remember. There were nine different kinds Christians all together in one place for Christians, even Abyssinia. This Greek ceremony open up all your feeling, you forget why is, for whom is, you forget even Christ—such knowledge they have for composing ceremony, for psychology of people.
ALICE; Bible also taken from Greek?
GURDJIEFF: Of course. Everything Christian came from old Greek, then they spoil All, all comes from Greek. Even from before time when was Bible. Your Bible is new book, composed four or five hundred years after by fisherman. And you know what understanding have fisherman.
ALICE: But before fishermen, what happened to knowledge?
GURDJIEFF: Nothing happened.
ALICE; But where was it?
GURDJIEFF: Was with initiate people, as always. They always go in one stream, it still flows today. You ask question from one stream, I answer from other, then you go back your stream with answer. Before there was nothing for man in ordinary stream, but fishermen who knew nothing, so nothing could tell but their wiseacrings. You remember the two streams I write about? Difference between two streams is the difference between interpretations of events on earth. One make elephant from fly, the other make fly from elephant. Events have two explanations—one for mankind, one for me. My stream is initiate-ism. You know what is in hypnotism. With that you can make water of wine for some people. For others you can make wine of water. I tell about my stream. What happen before not interest me. Remember my chapter on Maralpleicie—also Konuzion and poppy seeds, This is what happened before.
MISS GORDON: But there have been messengers like you. GURDJIEFF: Many such there are, even you have in America. For English and Americans they are something, but for me they are merde, objective sense...
What you learn from bible you wish believe, but your bible is one thing and my bible is quite another. Nobody now believe in Christian thing, not with inner world, especially young ones. Nobody but English old maid and your American Lesbians. In General, man over there not believe. Your bible is hodgepodge.
~ "Gurdjieff and the Women of the Rope"