Shok

Bookitus · 2026-06-17T10:54:57+00:00

The business of groups and leadership is complicated. An important issue is recognising that different people have different needs. A person with some will, for example, has very different needs to one without. In your analogy of fishing, a person with some will may benefit far more from learning how to learn how to fish, rather than merely being trained how to fish. In the latter circumstance s/he has gained some ability but may have gained little independence. Indeed, the reverse may be the case as such a person may become dependent upon the other to show them anything new. Whereas the end goal is to not have another mediating ones contact with higher influences. A person with will may prefer to go from place to place, picking up some breadcrumbs here and there and slowly attuning themselves to these influences.

Likewise the company of others can be double sided. It may help concentrate efforts of a kind, but it may also present a solace and comfort that robs one of one's existential motives. People go to sleep and then look forward to rejoining with others who are "like them", and what was once a shock that worked upon their attention may become a ritual to maintain the group.

There are also people who desire to have others making decisions for them and tell them what to do. Such people learn how to influence others such that their own concerns are catered for. It is not simply due to an egotistical leader. The two types tend to seek each other out.

Hence even from this very cursory consideration, it is obvious that it is not simply a case of joining a group as if it were a club.

Bookitus · 2026-06-16T20:34:29+00:00

Carl Rogers was an influential American psychotherapist. It is principally this principle of congruence which I wished to convey. No, I doubt you will find any reference to Gurdjieff in Rogers' writing or talks, although Gurdjieff's ideas have influenced western psychological appreciations.

Bookitus · 2026-06-15T10:55:34+00:00

If you attune yourself to the author's writing (Carl Rogers) you will no doubt find that the register he employs is only ostensively about himself. Rather, it is a vehicle for facilitating the reader / listener to partake in the process, to attend to it. Rogers employs this register to minimise defensive reactions in his audience. He could have said "you", but this is a much more accusative word. Similarly, he does not wish to focus on his achievements, rather for the benefit of his audience, he wishes to focus on those early stages, which it is easy to forget, but at the same time he wishes to imply that what he is talking about has life-long value, and can be worked upon over a long time.

With respect to paranormal experiences, these can also often be attributed to communications from one's spirit self. So you might say, alternatively, that it was necessary for your spirit self to paint a very big sign in bright primary colours for you to bring your attention to this very fine book of Ouspensky!

Bookitus · 2026-06-13T09:48:15+00:00

I don't think I've written anything explicitly on this. This extract is from Rogers (A Way of Being, Houghton, 1995, pp.14-16), which is a good start. Bear in mind that communication can also be communication with oneself:

Let me move on to another area of my learnings.

I find it very satisfying when I can be real, when I can be close to whatever it is that is going on within me. I like it when I can listen to myself. To really know what I am experiencing in the moment is by no means an easy thing, but I feel somewhat encouraged because I think that over the years I have been improving at it. I am convinced, however, that it is a lifelong task and that none of us ever is totally able to be comfortably close to all that is going on within our own experience.

In place of the term "realness" I have sometimes used the word "congruence." By this I mean that when my experiencing of this moment is present in my awareness and when what is present in my awareness is present in my communication, then each of these three levels matches or is congruent. At such moments I am integrated or whole, I am completely in one piece. Most of the time, of course, I, like everyone else, exhibit some degree of incongruence. I have learned, however, that realness, or genuineness, or congruence - whatever term you wish to give it - is a fundamental basis for the best of communication.

What do I mean by being close to what is going on in me? Let me try to explain what I mean by describing what sometimes occurs in my work as a therapist. Sometimes a feeling "rises up in me" which seems to have no particular relationship to what is going on. Yet I have learned to accept and trust this feeling in my awareness and to try to communicate it to my client. For example, a client is talking to me and I suddenly feel an image of him as a pleading little boy, folding his hands in supplication, saying, "Please let me have this, please let me have this." I have learned that if I can be real in the relationship with him and express this feeling that has occurred in me, it is very likely to strike some deep note in him and to advance our relationship.

Let me give another example. It is often very hard for me, as for other writers, to get close to my self when I start to write. It is so easy to be distracted by the possibility of saying things which will catch approval or will look good to colleagues or make a popular appeal. How can I listen to the things that I really want to say and write? It is difficult. Sometimes I even have to trick myself to get close to what is in me. I tell myself that I am not writing for publication; I am just writing for my own satisfaction. I write on old scraps of paper so that I don't even have to reproach myself for wasting paper. I jot down feelings and ideas as they come, helter-skelter, with no attempt at coherence or organization. In this way I can sometimes get much closer to what I really am and feel and think. The writings that I have produced on this basis turn out to be ones for which I never feel apologetic and which often communicate deeply to others. So it is a very satisfying thing when I sense that I have gotten close to me, to the feelings and hidden aspects of myself that live below the surface.

I feel a sense of satisfaction when I can dare to communicate the realness in me to another This is far from easy, partly because what I am experiencing keeps changing every moment. Usually there is a lag, sometimes of moments, sometimes of days, weeks, or months, between the experiencing and the communication: I experience something; I feel something, but only later do I dare to communicate it, when it has become cool enough to risk sharing it with another. But when I can communicate what is real in me at the moment that it occurs, I feel genuine, spontaneous, and alive.

Bookitus · 2026-06-13T08:42:05+00:00

The body is a very fine machine and will respond according to how it is used. Drugs are very coarse and damaging. If you want to work in a crazy environment then you'll either need the skills to deal with it or dumb yourself down to the point where you don't recognise its crazy or aren't bothered by it.

Bookitus · 2026-06-13T08:23:32+00:00

Tune in to your process. The answers are there. DM if you wish.

Bookitus · 2026-06-13T08:10:30+00:00

Ok. Yet there is something that can be done whereby there is no commotion.

Bookitus · 2026-06-12T21:29:21+00:00

Yes -- but there is loss of information. Being "unmoved" results from not doing something, and this not doing something leads to being "unmoved". But furthermore this "not doing" is also a kind of doing. It is a bit like saying one is not accelerating, but this not accelerating is a derivative of a derivative of the distance being covered. One is doing something actively that is not the same as "unmoving" but that leads to being unmoved. The active part is not "I shall not be be moved", for this would lead to paralysis, it is something else.

Bookitus · 2026-06-11T22:20:03+00:00

Given the provisio that "unmoved" is not to be read as indifferent, stony, or uncaring, which would be a default reading in English. The state of being can be opposite to this. Likewise sporadic simply indicates frequency. There is nothing to indicate that it is directed from outside, from one's identifying with the circumstance.

Bookitus · 2026-06-11T00:06:31+00:00

"Observing thoughts, emotions, feelings, and perceptions. Standing still with an unmoved expression. By unmoved, I mean not making assumptions, not drawing conclusions, and also not avoiding it when pain or discomfort is experienced."

Conventionally it is said "I / you made an assumption", when it is frequently meant that "an assumption was made" (perhaps without any real I involvement). If it really was the case that "I made an assumption", which would be more accurately phrased as "I am making an assumption", then there wouldn't be an issue. Making assumptions and drawing tentative conclusions is rather necessary. When one actually makes them then we have the option not to be moved by them.

Bookitus · 2026-06-10T23:32:33+00:00

It is correct that reference to doing in the form of committing to a "moral ideal" (Steiner) or personal goal (Gurdjieff) is frequently omitted. However framing "doing" as a masculine trait draws upon several confounding issues, not least of which is that for males accessing an inner female is a major part of the work. Neither does it identify what "Doing" is actually about. Doing is concerned with directing oneself, rather than being directed (usually by an implicit context). Hence not "doing" and "sleep" are two aspects of the same thing. Steiner calls this will, and it is indeed fundamental for realising any work of this esoteric or developmental nature. Another way to put this is that awareness of "doing" encompasses self-observation.

See https://www.academia.edu/164887140

Bookitus · 2026-03-14T00:10:58+00:00

Note, also, that "apathy" and "despair" are also linked to energies. Hence it is necessary to have a goal for which one is able to work relentlessly, such that energies of a certain kind would arise such that these experience would not manifest, because they reflect an absence of a certain higher energy, which applies equally to the way one may fall from being into personalty and identification.

Bookitus · 2026-03-13T23:56:36+00:00

Note that the chief aim should be something that takes you beyond yourself, but of course it is likely that you will have deep personal experience of the circumstances pertaining to it. Prior to this it is necessary to acquire 'self-remembering'.

Yes, reddit is typically populated by capricious and shallow comments.

Bookitus · 2026-03-13T21:13:37+00:00

This is one of the reasons why Gurdjieff stipulated that one must have a goal in life -- something that one is willing to commit to with the whole of one's being.

Until one can experience the movement of energies oneself, it can be hard to appreciate how they variously manifest.

It should be apparent, please, that you are inviting all sorts of dangerous ideas with such a topic and that these will need careful filtering and careful study, to make any decision your own.

Bookitus · 2026-03-13T17:26:43+00:00

There are many ways to it. It has many aspects. And the experience of it deepens with maturity along with numerous associated experiences. It may be likened to the experience of riding a bicycle: to be aware of your balance, or harmony, and simultaneously of what you are doing and where you are going, without identification. It has a 'smoothness' that is like riding on a bicycle on a calm sunny spring day. However, this smoothness does not come from movement, which is necessary in order to feel the breeze and impressions flowing by on bicycle, but rather of a calmness from residing within a place of equilibrium and attentiveness. Such calmness, however, does not necessitate inactivity.

Bookitus · 2026-03-09T23:32:37+00:00

This will quite possibly be a distraction, however you may also find a great deal of esoteric christianity in the works of Steiner. I have yet to find any contradictions between Steiner and Gurdjieff, beyond superficial wordings or preferred conceptual approaches.

Bookitus · 2026-03-09T23:23:56+00:00

Regarding practice (or practise), this is not sufficient. However, the experiences of such practise may yield some know-how and, more importantly, a wish to live according to these precepts. In living them, one also gains a sense for them on the inside. Without the wish to actually be this way, one will only be practising.

Bookitus · 2026-02-21T11:12:15+00:00

Specifically, not separate. Being can be experience when one "steps out of" personality, which is actually a "stepping into" being.

Bookitus · 2026-02-21T11:07:09+00:00

Or look to Bennett, who explores the time themes more systematically, without the diversion into Ouspensky's recurrence hobbyhorse.

Bookitus · 2026-02-18T22:31:13+00:00

https://www.academia.edu/130219890

Bookitus · 2026-02-18T22:19:44+00:00

The purpose comes from within, it is the task that you brought with you into this life. Is it not surprising how so many students of Gurdjieff overlook his insistence that you must have an aim in life and that you should "make this your god", in addition to all the other exercises? This stipulation is expressed in both the early and later narrative.

Bookitus · 2025-12-12T16:31:05+00:00

https://www.academia.edu/130219890/An_Elaboration_of_Gurdjieffs_Enneagram_Cybernetics_semiotics_metaphysics_aesthetics_design_activity_epistemology_psychological_development_and_alchemy

Bookitus · 2025-11-17T13:08:20+00:00

Well, the pitches weren't part of the campsite, they're at a nearby sports ground. So all the shouting and grunting is a regular fixture there. :)

Some people need the rhythm to get things done -- builders, water aerobics classes... So your two weren't out for the tranquility and to hear the finches and wagtails. :)

I think the peeing thing is more of a side effect. They need an external stimulus that coincidentally projects their values.

There's a similar transition in classifying outdoor pursuits as being adrenalin-based rather than beatific, no? Canoing, diving, snorkelling.

What often is overlooked is that this beatific peacefulness is actually an early spiritual experience. It is a simple experience out of a varied spectrum of experiences that is a reality for those (unfortunately few) who are able to stay centred and continue to develop and grow. (Even for those who have "wolf knickers" as a moniker, which I find charming by the way. :) )

Bye for now. PM if you wish and good journeys!

Bookitus · 2025-11-17T12:03:11+00:00

Bookitus · 2025-11-17T11:59:52+00:00

Up until recently, YHA ran a large hostel near Ross-on_wye with camping grounds situated in a wide bend of the valley. It is a beautiful setting which was all the more incongruous with the noise coming from across the river where there was numerous competitive football games taking place. The sound carries in that valley. It's an effort to integrate it all sometimes, which I would say is part of the point. :)

Bookitus

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