Friday, February 14, 2014
The Ritual of Enlightenment.
(2)
(Generally speaking, I was polite to other people, but I had no desire to interact with them. I loved being alone.) So I read books. I discovered Ouspensky and The Fourth Way. Asleep?! Huh? I tested myself. I flunked. I was indeed 'asleep' most of the time! Hmm! I began trying to 'self-remember.' My favorite test was to try to remember that I was alive while shopping at the super market. Difficult! 'Dual Awareness' does not come naturally. It has to be learned. But I had a methodology: wear nylon panties while shopping. Try to use the feel of that 'alien underwear' as a reminder of 'being alive,' while at the same time concentrating on what to buy as I pushed my shopping cart around the store. The method worked pretty well, but there were frequent failures, each of which produced a kind of 'psychic shock' when I realized that I had 'forgotten myself.' And it was a shock. Every time. But I worked on it for months... years. I got pretty good at it, eventually, and the day finally came that whenever I switched my attention from whatever I was doing to 'remembering myself' there was no shock at all, just a smooth transition from one mental state to another. And back. And forth. And back. And forth... I was awake! I am still awake! Sip.
Gurdjieff taught that 'becoming awake' was the process of 'creating your soul.' 'Awakening' was 'Soul Creation.' He taught that you were not born with a soul, and that unless you 'created your own soul,' you would 'Die like a dog.'
Well, maybe.
My characterization is somewhat less 'esoteric:' 'Becoming Awake' is the process of creating a ritual. 'Enlightment' is a learned phenomenon.
(Generally speaking, I was polite to other people, but I had no desire to interact with them. I loved being alone.) So I read books. I discovered Ouspensky and The Fourth Way. Asleep?! Huh? I tested myself. I flunked. I was indeed 'asleep' most of the time! Hmm! I began trying to 'self-remember.' My favorite test was to try to remember that I was alive while shopping at the super market. Difficult! 'Dual Awareness' does not come naturally. It has to be learned. But I had a methodology: wear nylon panties while shopping. Try to use the feel of that 'alien underwear' as a reminder of 'being alive,' while at the same time concentrating on what to buy as I pushed my shopping cart around the store. The method worked pretty well, but there were frequent failures, each of which produced a kind of 'psychic shock' when I realized that I had 'forgotten myself.' And it was a shock. Every time. But I worked on it for months... years. I got pretty good at it, eventually, and the day finally came that whenever I switched my attention from whatever I was doing to 'remembering myself' there was no shock at all, just a smooth transition from one mental state to another. And back. And forth. And back. And forth... I was awake! I am still awake! Sip.
Gurdjieff taught that 'becoming awake' was the process of 'creating your soul.' 'Awakening' was 'Soul Creation.' He taught that you were not born with a soul, and that unless you 'created your own soul,' you would 'Die like a dog.'
Well, maybe.
My characterization is somewhat less 'esoteric:' 'Becoming Awake' is the process of creating a ritual. 'Enlightment' is a learned phenomenon.
