/lit/ - Literature

Gurdjieff said, “You are nothing but the body, and when the body dies you will die. Only once in a while does a person survive – one who has created soul in his life survives death – not all. A Buddha survives; a Jesus survives, but not you! You will simply die, not even a trace will be left.”

What was Gurdjieff trying to do? He was shocking you to the very roots; he was trying to take away all your consolations and foolish theories which go on helping you to postpone work upon yourself. Now, to tell people, “You don’t have any souls, you are just vegetables, just a cabbage or maybe a cauliflower” – a cauliflower is a cabbage with a college education – “but nothing more than that.” He was really a master par excellence. He was taking the very earth away from underneath your feet. He was giving you such a shock that you had to think over the whole situation: are you going to remain a cabbage? He was creating a situation around you in which you would have to seek and search for the soul, because who wants to die?

And the idea that the soul is immortal has helped people to console themselves that they are not going to die, that death is just an appearance, just a long sleep, a restful sleep, and you will be born again. Gurdjieff says, “All nonsense. This is all nonsense! Dead, you are dead forever – unless you have created the soul….”

Now see the difference: you have been told you are already a soul, and Gurdjieff changes it totally. He says, “You are not already a soul, but only an opportunity. You can use it, you can miss it.”

And I would like to tell you that Gurdjieff was just using a device. It is not true. Everybody is born with a soul. But what to do with people who have been using truths as consolations? A great master sometimes has to lie – and only a great master has the right to lie – just to pull you out of your sleep.

God exists because you are not aware of yourself. God exists because you have not made any contact with your own center. The moment you know yourself, there is no God and there is no need of any God. In fact, I am in absolute support of Friedrich Nietzsche: ‘God is dead.’

“The second part of his sentence is even more significant, “God is dead and man is now free.” That second part has not received much attention from the philosophers, from the mystics, from the psychologists, but the second part is the most important; the first part is not much. In fact, the first part is basically wrong. God cannot die – fictions never die. The moment you know they are fictions there is no question of their death. Neither are they born, nor do they die. God was never born in the first place – how can he die? Death is the other extreme of birth.

“So the first part is not very important, but that has been given much importance by theologians, because they became afraid: “This is sacrilegious, to tell people that God is dead. That means that now no religion is needed.” They became afraid for their own business. But they forgot the second part which is more important. It has tremendously significant implications. It means that God was a bondage, God was a retardedness, God was out of fear. God was not a treasure, but a heavy, mountainous weight on your heart and on your growth.
Once God Is Removed, Man’s Possibility to Grow and Blossom Is Absolutely Free.

The moment a child starts becoming part of your society he starts losing something immensely valuable; he starts losing contact with existence. He becomes more and more hung up in the head. He forgets all about the heart, and the heart is the bridge which leads to being; without the heart you cannot reach your own being, it is impossible. From the head there is no way directly to being; you have to go via the heart. And all societies are destructive to the heart; they are against love, they are against feelings. They condemn feelings as sentimentality. They condemned all lovers down the ages for the simple reason that love is not of the head, it is of the heart, and a man who is capable of love is sooner or later going to discover his being. Once a person discovers his being he is free from all structures, from all patterns. He is free from all bondage, he is pure freedom.

Every child is born innocent, but every child is made knowledgeable by the society. Hence schools, colleges, universities exist; their function is to destroy you, to corrupt you.

Maturity means gaining your lost innocence again, reclaiming your paradise, becoming a child again. Of course it has a difference, because the ordinary child is bound to be corrupted, but when you reclaim your childhood you become incorruptible. Nobody can corrupt you, you become intelligent enough. Now you know what the society has done to you. You are alert and aware, and you will not allow it to happen again.

>>15142007
Philosophy is more or less a linguistic phenomenon: a question of language and grammar, hair-splitting and shadowboxing. It is not concerned with reality at all. It talks about reality. But remember, to talk about reality is one thing and to move into reality is quite another. Philosophy is talk, religion is experience.

“My interest is in religion, not in philosophy at all.

“Noah Webster’s neighbor came into the pantry and found him kissing the pretty chambermaid.

“’My, Mr. Webster!’ she exclaimed. ‘I am surprised!’

“’No, my dear,’ said Mr. Webster with a reproving smile. ‘You are astounded, I am surprised.’

“It is only a question of words: the reality is put aside. Webster is a linguist, a great grammarian. He changes the words, he says, ‘No, my dear, you are astounded. You are using the wrong word when you say ‘I am surprised’. You are astounded, I am surprised.’

“The emphasis – you see the emphasis – is no longer upon the act of kissing the pretty maid, the emphasis is on the wrong word or the right word.

“Philosophers go on and on with words, and words have their own way. One word brings another word, and so on and so forth. You can go on and on ad infinitum. There is no end to words. You can fabricate, manufacture new words. And you can create such a fuss about words. You can mystify people. Philosophy is a mind trick, a very sophisticated trick but a mind trick.”