[MD] Essentialism and the MOQ

[Joseph Maurer]

Conscious awareness evolves at the fifth level through my remembered
good impressions increasing awareness. Only a conscious remembering of
myself can sort through what kind of impressions I have experienced.
Impressions, air, food are a conscious wake up call for a self
remembering of good that can lead me to enlightenment at the sixth and
seventh levels. Good before Truth.

Hi Joe,

Chin: Mind if I join in on this? Ham stopped talking to me, for whatever
reason. I did try to be polite in my conversation, but maybe I said
something to insult. I don’t know.

Joe: Fine by me.

Chin: In the schools that came from Gurdjieff”s works, I imagine like
anything else, there have been different developments. I think Ham may
have been right about it becoming “New Age,” but I feel fairly sure
this was not the intentions of what he and Ouspensky developed. I
think the “New Age’ aspects of Gurdjieff’s work began in the 70s and
80s by those followers who were looking for something myserious during
this period, the same who were turning toward Buddhism, and
transcendence through meditation.

Joe: I am not familiar with "New Age".  I have always been intrigued by 
Gurdjieff's writing since I was exposed to it in 1967.  It didn't make a lot 
of sense until I read Pirsig's works and thought about quality and morality.

Chin: In all the different searches for Truth or The Good, I prefer to look
for similarities as opposed to deny there is any Truth in any of them.
IMHO there is a degree of Truth in all, but it is more the way we take
them that questions this Truth. Most of Gurdjieff’s work was oral, and
was not offered publicly, but kept in the schools, as he and his
followers felt the public was not ready. Of course, this did offer
opportunity for followers to use his works for self-gains, so you
can’t consider all schools of thought to be true to his and
Ouspensky’s.

Joe: I am now reading The Theory of Celestial Influence by Rodney Collins. 
Again Quality in moral levels is superb, helps explain Collins' description 
of things taken from Ouspensky.


Chin: The one thing I see similar in this as with others is the course to
understanding, such as you say, “Self-remembering.” But, prior to self-
remembering in those followers who ‘seem’, at least to me, not to have
self-gaining intentions, would be the act of self-observing. This is
what I pointed to earlier in the conversation with Ham of Pirsig’s
mention of “self-reflection.”

Joe: For me the quality emphasized by Pirsig is a dictionary to understand 
much of what I had experienced from Gurdjieff'sd teachings.

Chin: Before you could reach a state of self-remembering in their teachings,
you have to first go through self-observation in order to reach your
real self. This in and of itself could take years, decades, and it
takes guidance, something similar to the guidance of the Zen Master,
and it requires the right guidance, honest and integrity guidance.

Chin: I would relate this loosely to the search for Quality, kinda
like “Right thinking, right action, right life. Like The Good, we know
what Quality is. Self-reflection or self-observation might simply be a
way to get past the phony personalities we have developed, to the real
personality, or real self, past what Pirsig calls SQ, and Einstein
called “predetermined prejudices.”

Joe:  Again: Thank You!  Pirsig.

Chin: Any more into this would be irrelevant, as most here are at least
trying to get away from the Dogmatic belief systems, but I like a
statement from someone I consider to be a Contemplative Christian,
Ralph Waldo Emerson;
“ . . . my friend suggested,--‘But these impulses may be from below,
not from above.’ I replied, ‘They do not seem to me to be such; but if
I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil.’ No law can
be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very
readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after
my constitution; the only wrong what is against it.” -- read Quality?

Chin: Pretty much what all this says to me is, if we are “a part of a whole,
a universe” (Einstein again), what created the universe also runs
through us. The Good, or morality would be natural, and the bad, what
is not natural in us, is not real. What is not real may come from
doubt, despair, or the mechanistic-unconscious nature of modern man
you spoke of.

Chin: This may be why I am intrigued with MOQ. Quality can run through man,
the world, the universe, and not need defining. It allows us to go
through our everyday lives, relate to each other, and improve the
world. If there is a purpose for man in the universe, IMHO Quality man
will come closer to reaching this purpose than man searching after
some mysterious truth of the universe.

Joe: I agree there are levels in existence which are undefined, and are in a 
moral order.  Thanks for the input, Chin!


----- Original Message -----
From: Joseph Maurer <jhmau at sbcglobal.net>
Date: Sunday, November 19, 2006 10:27 pm
Subject: Re: [MD] Essentialism and the MOQ
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org

> On Saturday 18 November 2006 12:27 PM Laramie writes to Joe:
>
> Good points.
>
> Do any of the seven orders proposed by Gurdjieff go beyond Pirsig's?
>
> Cheers,
>
>
> Hi Laramie
>
> Good question.
>
> I don't have a handle on the orders Gurdjieff proposes. A part of
> Gurdjieff's
> methodology is to examine a distinction between cosmic evolution
> and
> conscious evolution. Behavior based on cosmic evolution is
> mechanical. The
> force of cosmic evolution is so strong, it kind of forces me to go
> with the
> flow without much awareness of what I am doing. Conscious
> evolution leads to
> enlightenment. I have to remember myself. When I suggested to Bo
> that a
> possible explanation of the difference between Subjective and
> Objective
> experience is the difference between conscious and cosmic
> evolution he told
> me to keep thinking.
>
> Gurdjieff describes the movement up the octave as needing a shock
> between
> the third and forth levels, and between the seventh level and the
> start of a
> new octave.
>
> IMO proprietary awareness is mechanical. Conscious awareness is
> not
> mechanical. According to Gurdjieff nature provides the shock of
> air (breath)
> between the third and forth levels. An infant grows into a child.
> A child
> becomes accustomed to the shock of air with his food to become
> aware in the
> forth level. IMO air with food provides the mechanical shock for
> the
> proprietary awareness level.
>
> Conscious awareness evolves at the fifth level through my
> remembered good
> impressions increasing awareness. Only a conscious remembering of
> myself can
> sort through what kind of impressions I have experienced.
> Impressions, air,
> food are a conscious wake up call for a self remembering of good
> that can
> lead me to enlightenment at the sixth and seventh levels. Good
> before Truth.
>
> Joe
>
>
> > Hello Joe,
> >
> > Good points.
> >
> > Do any of the seven orders proposed by Gurdjieff go beyond
Pirsig's?
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Laramie
> >  ----- Original Message ----- 
> >  From: Joseph Maurer<mailto:jhmau at sbcglobal.net>
> >  To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org<mailto:moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
> >  Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2006 1:05 PM
> >  Subject: Re: [MD] Essentialism and the MOQ
> >
> >
> >  On Saturday 18 November 2006 10:26 AM Ham writes to Platt:
> >
> >  >snip<
> >
> >  According to Pirsig, existence is everything, and reality is
> simply a
> >  melding of all differences into Quality. We don't experience
> things this
> >  way, but we can pretend that differences don't exist. We can
> also delude
> >  ourselves into thinking that value is morality. We can be
> Pollyannas and
> >  view the world as a beautiful moral order. This isn't
> philosophy, it's
> >  poetic fancy. There is no metaphysical or scientific theory to
> support
> > such
> >  a view.
> >
> >
> >  Hi Ham, Platt and All,
> >
> >  Ham, when you state: "According to Pirsig, existence is
> everything, and
> >  reality is simply a melding of all differences into Quality."
> you have
> >  oversimplified Pirsig's view of evolution as 'melding'. IMO for
> Pirsig to
> >  propose evolution as moral he is proposing dimensions in
> existence rather
> >  than 'melding'. Value becomes morality as the analogue to a
> necessary
> > order
> >  in existence.  Disorder is a lack of value.
> >
> >  IMO there are 7 orders of existence. The Octave of sound, do,
> re, mi, fa,
> >  sol, la, ti is an example of this order. The color spectrum is
> another>  example. The beauty of music, painting, architecture is
> in the
> > relationships
> >  in this order in different mediums-- art. The law of seven is
> proposed in
> >  the esoteric literature of Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Nicoll, Rodney
> Collins,
> > as
> >  well as a law of three for each manifestation.  Pirsig sees
> four orders
> > of
> >  existence for morality.
> >
> >  Joe
> > moq_discuss mailing list
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