THE SEVEN ASPECTS OF LOVE

“‘And none of them would, because in none of the ordinary beings-men here has there ever been for a long time, any sensation of the sacred being-impulse of genuine Love. And without this “taste” they cannot even vaguely describe that most beatific sacred being-impulse in the presence of every three-centered being of the whole Universe, which, in accordance with the divine foresight of Great Nature, forms those data in us, from the result of the experiencing of which we can blissfully rest from the meritorious labors actualized by us for the purpose of self-perfection.”

Beelzebub’s Tales, Chapter “The-Terror-of-the-Situation,” page 357

1  Love of God

This is the highest form of Love

2  Love of Neighbor

This is the second highest form of Love

3   Love of Self

Without this form of Love, no other forms exist

4   Love of Parents

“If a man does not love his parents, he cannot Love God.”

5   Love of Consciousness

This is the kind of Love that evokes the same kind of Love

6    Love of Feeling

This kind of Love evokes the opposite.

7     Love of Body

This kind of Love depends on type and polarity. A man cannot experience true and genuine Love if he had not first loved a woman, even if only once.

A Timeless Man

Today we celebrate another anniversary of the birth of George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff.

The man was so surrounded by mystery that we do not even know with exactitude when he was born. And in his own biography he made sure that none could trace his trail through the lands of the Middle and Far East and Northern Africa. And even when he was in the West, he disappeared from sight from May to September of 1935. None knows where he was and where he went during those months.

And even in death he was a mystery. When he was taken to the hospital to his appointed death, here is how he left his apartment at 6 Rue des Colonel Rènard in bright pajamas and smoking, against doctor’s orders, a Gauloise Bleu:

“He sat upright on the stretcher, and was carried away like a Royal Prince! All his family was clustered at the street door (the crusty old concierge was in tears!) and as they carried him across the pavement he made a little gesture, a sort of wave with his hands and said, ‘A revoir, tout le monde!’”And then hours later, in the America Hospital, the Royal Prince died like a King.

And reportedly, before his final death or Sacred Rascooarno, he uttered these words: “I leave you in fine mess.”

Who was this man?

To ask this question is like to ask who was King Arthur or Merlin the Magician or Mullah Nassr Eddin or Saint George or Al Khidir. He was one of those timeless men who weave their ways through time, tradition and myth.

Future generations will find difficult to separate the man from the myth he himself created for us.

But who was this man?

It does not really matter to find the answer to this question. We will never find it, anyhow. What matters to us is to ask the question he invited us to ask:

Who am I?

Beelzebu’s Tales Presents a New Approach to Religion

The aim of this post is to show that Beelzebub’s Tales presents a new approach to Religion. By Religion, I do not mean organized Religion, although being a Catholic myself I attend Mass and respect the Church. But by Religion here I mean the feeling of religiousness described in details on pages 522-623 of Beelzebub’s Tales. This feeling, we are told, is caused by cosmic events and it is the cause of many of the religion festivities appearing here on Earth, such as “Easter,” “Bairam,” “Zadic,” “Ramadan,” “Kaialana,” and many others. Mr. Gurdjieff said that we have lost this feeling and I know this has been the case for me. I had this feeling in my childhood and then lost it. How did I lose it? The answer is very simple: the strong formation of buffers throughout the years of living under abnormal conditions of being-existence.

In order to show that Beelzebub’s Tales indeed presents a new approach to Religion, I will have to go back to an exchange between Mr. Gurdjieff and a young Russian disciple. During his arduous journey from Russia to France, around 1921, and with an entourage of thirty disciples by his side, Mr. Gurdjieff made a brief stop in Constantinople, now Istanbul. Among his closest disciples was a young Russian man by the name of Tcheslaw Tchekhovitch, also known as Able Seaman Tcheslaw. Later Tchekhovitch would write a very interesting book entitled Gurdjieff A Master in Life which I recommend to all those interested in the practical aspects of the teaching of Mr. Gurdjieff. One exercise Mr. Gurdjieff gives to Tchekhovitch and that he mentions in his book is to keep a stupid smile for two hours every day. In his book Tchekhovitch recounts how one day Mr. Gurdjieff addressed him telling him, and I quote the exact words from page 46 of the book:

“There also exists a ‘fourth way’, based on the sacred impulse emanating from conscience, of which a germ is deposited in each human being. This leads to another specific form of teaching, a new approach to religion.”

What struck me the most when I read that pronouncement was the phrase– This leads to another specific form of teaching, a new approach to religion.

I have to confess that when I read this pronouncement the question that came to my mind was this: “Why is Mr. Gurdjieff saying this?” I knew that he never made idle statements and that behind everything he said there was also a purpose. The answer to my own question came very quickly. By the time I read this pronouncement I was already fully convinced that Mr. Gurdjieff had brought two teachings to humanity and I had written about this idea. The moment I read the pronouncement, I immediately realized that while he journeyed from Russia to France, Mr. Gurdjieff was seriously struggling with finding a new approach to the teaching he was bringing from the East to the West. He was not entirely satisfied with the way he has presented his teaching in Russia as faithfully recorded by Ouspensky in his book In Search of the Miraculous.  Something was missing in the presentation of his teaching. But now while journeying from Russia to France, his struggling was an inner struggle. However, he would have to wait until he was in France in order to end his inner struggle and finally find the new approach he was desperately searching for.

But finding this new approach did not come easily for Mr. Gurdjieff. Most often the resolution of an inner struggle, like the one Mr. Gurdjieff was going through, needs a shock to be resolved. Mr. Gurdjieff was in need of a shock, a big shock for that matter. This big shock came on July 8th, 1924 when while driving alone from Paris to Fontainebleau Mr. Gurdjieff has a near-fatal automobile accident. Against medical expectation he makes a slow and painful recovery. He then decides to change the approach to his teaching. About three years later Mr. Gurdjieff refers to this fact on the first pages of the Prologue of Life Is Real Only Then, When “I Am.” Here it is from page 3 of that book:

“For more than three years up till then I had been writing, almost day and night, with constant self-driving, the books I had resolved to publish.

I say with constant self-driving because, due to the consequences of an automobile accident which happened to me just before beginning to write these books, I had been very ill and weak, and therefore, of course, had not had the possibility tor any active action.

Yet I had not spared myself, and had worked very hard in such a state, chiefly thanks to the factors that formed in my consciousness, from the very beginning, the following idee fixe notion:

Since I had not, when in full strength and health, succeeded in introducing in practice into the life of people the beneficial truths elucidated for them by me, then I must at least, at any cost, succeed in doing this in theory, before my death.”

Mr. Gurdjieff becomes a writer. He now presents his teaching in book form. On December 6th, 1924, a few months after his automobile accident, he commences his magnum opus: Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson. Of course, it is a well-known fact that while he writes and writes, he also continues with the oral teaching; a fact that has been accounted for by the testimonies of many of his disciples in France.

Let us now go beyond what is already self-evident; that is to say, the fact that after his automobile accident in the summer of 1924 Mr. Gurdjieff finds a new approach to the presentation and deliverance of his teaching. Sometimes by going deeper we discover new things.

Let us ask the following questions: What is the true nature of the new approach Mr. Gurdjieff finds after his automobile accident? Is it only a matter of presenting his teaching in written form?

I think and claim that this is only the superficial aspect of the new approach he has found. I claim that after his automobile accident in 1924 Mr. Gurdjieff finds the answer to the question he has been struggling with during his journey between Russia and France. I claim that after his accident Mr. Gurdjieff felt he was missing something in relation to the exposition of the teaching he had given in Russia, as faithfully recorded by Ouspensky.

But what is this something that he finds missing in the teaching he presents in Russia? In order to address this question we have to go back to the statement Mr. Gurdjieff makes to Tchekhovitch in Constantinople and that he records in his book Gurdjieff A Master in Life. I will repeat it here:

“‘There also exists a ‘fourth way’, based on the sacred impulse emanating from conscience, of which a germ is deposited in each human being. This leads to another specific form of teaching, a new approach to religion.”

I already said that what struck me the most, when I read that statement, was the phrase “This leads to another specific form of teaching, a new approach to religion.” I claim that what Mr. Gurdjieff finds after his automobile accident in the summer of 1924 is “another specific form of teaching, a new approach to religion.”

While slowly and painfully recovering from his accident, Mr. Gurdjieff is also slowly and painfully discovering another specific form of teaching, a new approach to religion. This is the resolution to the inner struggle Mr. Gurdjieff carries with him during his journey from Russia to France, a resolution that he allegorically indicates in the short chapter of Beelzebub’s Tales with the title “A Change in the Appointed Course of the Falling of the Transship Karnak.” The slow and painful discovery process leads to the revelation of Beelzebub’s Tales. According to Orage the entire content of Beelzebub is revealed to Mr. Gurdjieff in a moment of ecstasies. Of course, it would take years to put the revelation into writing but the whole idea is there from the very beginning. And, as I will try to show now, the teaching in the book does represent a new approach to religion. One may say that the revelation is the result of the inner struggle Mr. Gurdjieff carried with him during his journey from Russia to France.

It has been reported that when asked about his strongest whim in life, Mr. Gurdjieff had replied that his whim in life was to bring a new conception of God. Yet there is very little about a new conception of God in the teaching delivered by Mr. Gurdjieff in Russia and faithfully recorded by Ouspensky in his book In Search of the Miraculous. As a matter of fact, the word God and a new conception of God are very rarely presented in Ouspensky’s book. Everything moves around the word and a conception of the Absolute. The fact is that the teaching given in Russia does not in any way represent “another specific form of teaching, a new approach to religion.” Here is a man who confesses to us that his second tutor is the Dean of a Russian Orthodox Cathedral and that his first confessor later becomes the abbot of the chief monastery of the Essene Brotherhood, and yet when this man presents his teaching for the first time in Russia, he rarely speaks of religion. Something is missing here. Maybe it was necessary to do it that way, given the audience and circumstances presented at the moment the teaching is given. But something is definitely missing. And this missing something is part of the inner struggle Mr. Gurdjieff carries with him during his journey from Russia to France.

All this becomes more to the point when we compare the languages in both books, In Search of the Miraculous and Beelzebub’s Tales. The language in Ouspensky’s book is highly scientific or techno-scientific. God is the Absolute and many of the most significant aspects of the teaching are presented in the form of tables and diagrams, the motion of the laws, the table of hydrogens, the enneagram and the Ray of Creation, the table of food, the table of time in different cosmoses and so on. That is probably the reason why the book had so much appeal to humanity today, because the language of today is the language of science. And that is probably why the great majority of people who came to the teaching of Mr. Gurdjieff did it through Ouspensky’s book.

That was my case and I am sure it has been the case for many here in this room. By the time I first read the book I already had a Ph.D. in electrical engineering which is the closest to have a Ph.D. in physics. My knowledge of engineering and physics resonated very well with the material contained in the book.

On the other hand, the language in Beelzebub’s Tales is more religious than that in Ouspensky’s book. This does not mean that there is no science in The Tales. We find lots of science in the book; particularly in the first half of the book, during the narrative about the first four descents of Beelzebub to Earth. In fact, in the chapter “The Arch-Absurd” we find this formulation of Objective Science:

“‘… everything without exception in the Universe is material.’

But the language used in The Tales to describe Objective Science or ancient science as we can also call it, is different from the language used to describe what we now can refer to as subjective science or contemporary science. This is due to the fact that both sciences are different in nature. In Beelzebub’s Tales Objective Science is presented in terms of the works of the members of the Society of Akhaldan, as fully described during the fourth descent of Beelzebub to Earth. One of the meanings of this word Akhaldan is to go against the Moon. Another of its meanings is expressed as:

“The striving to become aware of the sense and aim of the Being of beings.”

The Aim of objective science is then the study of the sense and aim of existence. For this purpose, the members of the Society divide themselves into seven groups. All this is extensively described in the chapter on the fourth descent of Beelzebub to Earth. We find physicists, mathematicians, chemists, astrologers, psychologists and other kinds of scientists among the members of the Society Akhaldan. But the aim of their research is different from that of contemporary scientists because, as already said, the aim of objective or ancient science is different from that of subjective or contemporary science. As already stated, the aim of objective science is the study of the sense or aim of existence; while the aim of subjective or contemporary science is to anatomize the corpse of the Universe without any sequence and order, all and everything at random, as Orage well pointed out in his commentaries on Beelzebub’s Tales. Contemporary science is not nor can it be interested in the study of the sense and aim of existence because for contemporary science there is and there can be no sense and no aim in the Universe.

It is during the fifth descent of Beelzebub to Earth, the descent to Babylon and the Babylonian civilization, that the language in The Tales becomes highly religious. That it happens during the fifth descent is not a coincidence. Each descent of Beelzebub to Earth can be taken as a Stopinder in the book’s fundamental law of seven; with the seventh descent being our own descent in order to fulfil the teaching in the book. And it is precisely from the fifth Stopinder that the motion of the law of seven finds its vivifying power. This fact is clearly indicated in the following statement taken from The Tales:

“It is necessary at this point in connection with the actualization of the fifth Stopinder of the sacred Heptaparaparshinokh to trace a parallel between two processes which externally have nothing in common with one another, namely: in the same manner as the first being-food cannot acquire its vivifying power until after its transformation into being-piandjiëhari, in the same manner on this piano the vibrations of a chord do not acquire a corresponding vivifying power until they have been fused with the preceding vibrations  note ‘sol.’”

Now Mr. Gurdjieff is at the note “sol” of the fundamental law of seven of his own book and he is ready to present what he calls “a new approach to religion.” He has found from his great knowledge and understanding of the first cosmic law the vivifying power of what he calls “a new approach to religion.”

But before he does that, Mr. Gurdjieff needs to do something. He needs to give us a very important warning. He opens the fifth descent of Beelzebub to Earth with the situation found in Babylon, then the most important center of culture on Earth during that fifth descent. What Beelzebub finds in Babylon during his descent to that center of culture is the “building-of-the-tower-of-Babel” or the time period known as the “confusion of the tongs.”

Hundreds of “learned beings of new formation” have gathered in that city to engage in a discussion of the “burning question of the day.” This question is the question of the beyond or, put more simply, whether or not there is a soul in man. Many teachings arise out of these discussions but in his tales to Hassein, Beelzebub puts emphasis on one of them. This is one of the atheistic teachings of that period. It basically says that there is no God in the world, and moreover no soul in man, “and hence that all those talks and discussions about the soul are nothing more than the deliriums of sick visionaries.” The atheistic teaching had many followers and one may say that contemporary science as we know it is the hair of this teaching. Many of the most intelligent scientists of our time repeat the same statements of those “learned beings of new formation” gathered in Babylon thousands of years ago, although now these scientists use a different language. Stephen Hawking, considered to be one of the most brilliant scientists of our time, said that we do not need God because science has revealed that the universe is self-created. And Sir Frances Crick, one of the two discoverers of the DNA, who spent the last years of his life studying the mechanism of consciousness, said and I quote his exact words:

“ … the most profound implication of an operational understanding of consciousness is that it will lead to the death of the soul.”

Before presenting his new approach to religion Mr. Gurdjieff wants to make sure that we are fully aware that the atheistic teaching arising during the building of the tower of Babel in Babylon is well alive among us. Maybe it was to these atheists that Jesus spoke when He said:

“I thank you Father, lord of heaven and earth, for having hidden these secrets from the wise and learned, and revealing them to children.”

Now, after having given vivifying power to his own teaching through the fifth Stopinder of the law of seven and having warned us about the living presence among us of the Babylonian atheistic teaching, Mr. Gurdjieff is ready to present a fourth way based on the sacred impulse emanating from conscience; another specific form of teaching, a new approach to religion, as he mentioned to Tchekhovitch during their exchange in Constantinople on the way from Russia to France. This fourth way, this other specific form of teaching leading to a new approach to religion, is the teaching of Ashiata Shiemash on the Divine Impulse Conscience. As already stated, this is done during the fifth descent of Beelzebub to Earth, during the fifth Stopinder of the law of seven of the book; this fifth Stopinder being the most critical one in the operational characteristic of the law.

Not that Ashiata Shiemash is born during the time Beelzebub descends to Earth for the fifth time. In fact, and I have written about this in my blog, I claim that Ashiata is not in reality a Prophet from the past, but from the future. I showed this based on the fact that Beelzebub’s Tales, according to the previsions of the members of the “Club-of-Adherents-of-Legominism” must contain a number of lawful and intentional inexactitudes. Here is how I did it. The key to my discovery is this paragraph from Beelzebub in relation to some reflections by Ashiata:

“‘All the sacred Individuals here before me, especially and intentionally actualized from Above, have always endeavored while striving for the same aim to accomplish the task laid upon them through one or other of those three sacred ways for self-perfecting, foreordained by our ENDLESS CREATOR Himself, namely, through the sacred ways based on the being-impulses called “Faith,” “Hope,” and “Love.”

This statement contains a contradiction and it is by the way of contradiction (a very powerful mathematical tool in theorem proving) that the chronological inexactitude is proved. Here is the contradiction: The ways of “Faith,” “Hope” and “Love” are specifically and unambiguously identified in the chapter Religion of the book as the way of the full-of-faith Saint Lama, the way of the full-of-hope Mohammed, and the way of the full-of-Love Divine Jesus Christ. Furthermore, no Sacred Individual in the book before Ashiata Shiemash is identified with any of these three ways. It is obvious that the statement above presents a contradiction and that Ashiata Shiemash could not have existed before Divine Jesus, Saint Mohammed, and Saint Lama. Ergo: Ashiata Shiemash is a prophet from the present and from the future and not from the past.

The proof is further corroborated by the fact that Ashiata Shiemash introduces the way of Conscience after having determined that the ways of “Faith,” “Hope,” and “Love” had deteriorated as valid ways of self-perfecting. How could Ashiata Shiemash have made this determination if the three ways had not yet been introduced when He made the determination, at least not in the context of Beelzebub’s Tales.

This is another fragrant contradiction. The only plausible answer is that Ashiata Shiemash is from the present and from the future. I think this fact is a very important one because it points to another very important fact; that with Ashiata Shiemash Mr. Gurdjieff is presenting a new approach to religion, one he is sending to future generations throughout the teaching of a Prophet from the future.

There is absolutely no doubt, in my mind and my feelings, that the teaching of Ashiata Shiemash indeed represents a new approach to religion. It is the one aspect of the teaching of Mr. Gurdjieff that most has influenced me. And it is for me the most important teaching presented in Beelzebub’s Tales. Ashiata Shiemash is the central personage in The Tales. Four entire chapters are dedicated to Him. Allegorically He is now already one of the Highest Most Very Saintly common-cosmic Sacred Individuals. He attains the Reason of the sacred ‘Podkoolad’ and is one of the first assistants of our ENDLESSNESS in the government of the World. It is through His intervention before his ENDLESSNESS that Beelzebub attains His second and final pardon. He is the Essence-Loving Ashiata Shiemash, a Great Prophet from the Future. I claim that He is the javelin through which Mr. Gurdjieff is hurling his teaching into future generations.

Ashiata Shiemash introduces God. His teaching is religious in nature when compared with the teaching of the Society Akhaldan which is scientific in nature. Ashiata claims that different religions do not exist, that there is only one God. He introduces His teaching through the awakening of the Divine Impulse of Objective Conscience. He is very explicit and emphatic about this. He says that

“ … ‘Only-he-will-be-called-and-will-become-the-Son-of-God-who- acquires-in-himself-Conscience’.

He forms an organization for man’s existence which I see as the new approach to religion brought to us by Mr. Gurdjieff. It goes beyond the organization of the Society Akhaldan. It is an initiate organization for our time. It is an initiate organization for life. It is work for life in life. Anyone anywhere on Earth can do this work. All one really has to do is to understand what Conscience is and how Conscience is awakened. For this end, Ashiata explains to His disciples that

“‘The factors for the being-impulse conscience arise in the presences of the three-brained beings from the localization of the particles of the “emanations of-the-sorrow” of our OMNI-LOVING-AND-LONG-SUFFERING-ENDLESS-CREATOR; that is why the source of the manifestation of genuine conscience in three-centered beings is sometimes called the “REPRESENTATIVE OF THE CREATOR.”

There is absolutely nothing scientific in this formulation. What are the particles of the “emanations-of-the-sorrow” of our OMNI-LOVING-AND-LONG-SUFFERING-ENDLESS-CREATOR? It is a mystery. It obviously is a religious formulation. But there is more in this context. He also tells them that

“‘In all three-brained beings of the whole of our Universe without exception, among whom are also we men, owing to the data crystallized in our common presences for engendering in us the Divine impulse of conscience, “the-whole-of-us” and the whole of our essence, are, and must be, already in our foundation, only suffering.

This language is even less scientific. We do not find this kind of language in Ouspensky’s book. It is the language of religion.

In the same way that the teaching in the Old Testament is basically summarized in the Ten Commandments and the teaching of the New Testament is basically summarized in the two greatest commandments given by Jesus Christ, the teaching of Ashiata Shiemash is basically summarized in the five “being-obligolnian-strivings” or five strivings of objective morality. These are strivings and not commandments. In the Way of Conscience, we need no commandments; we need strivings. In The Tales Mr. Gurdjieff raised Conscience to a level higher than the Conscience derived from the Ten Commandments. These strivings are given for humanity and together with the two aspects of being-Partkdolg duty they represent all man needs for the fulfillment of life on Earth. As Orage said,

“… on these two basic principles—Being-Partkdolg-duty and the Strivings—hang all the law and prophesying of the Gurdjieff teaching. They form a basic octave, and nothing can be added to or taken away from them.”

Much has been said about the five strivings and they have been listed again and again in many references. We do not have to get into all that here. Let us say that the first and second strivings are of a personal character. They have to do with the process of development of my body and my being. A connection or a bridge to the Cosmos is now in order. Otherwise our development is only for the service of the Trogoautoegocrat process of local character. The third striving is the required bridge. It is the striving bridging the personal with the cosmic. The fourth and fifth strivings call for participation at the cosmic level. We are here on Earth not only to serve our individual egoism but more importantly to serve the Cosmos through our inevitable participation in the process of reciprocal feeding as well as the process of Creation initiated by the CREATOR of all that exist in the entire Megalocosmos. Our function at the level of the fourth striving is to live our life from the very beginning consciously and intentional in order to alleviate the Sorrow of our COMMON FATHER. Once this is fulfilled, we can engage in helping other beings to attain self-individuality. The fifth strivings is a call to serve others creatures of our COMMON FATHER and it reflects what Mr. Gurdjieff calls the true aim and sense of existence on Earth:

“The highest aim and sense of human life is the striving to attain the welfare of one’s neighbor, and that this is possible exclusively only by the conscious renunciation of one’s own.”

Once again, in the strivings we find a strong religious language that has no resemblance with the scientific language of contemporary science. What we find in the strivings, particularly in the fourth and fifth strivings is a language of the higher emotional center. We know that we first have to pass through the higher emotional center before reaching the higher intellectual center. Otherwise, our development is lopsided. The Hasnamuss, we have been told, is one who reaches the higher intellectual center without having passed through the higher emotional center. This is not the language of the mind but the language of the heart.

I think I have now shown that with the teaching of Ashiata Shiemash, Mr. Gurdjieff has fulfilled the pronouncement he made to Tchekhovitch in Constantinople, during the journey from Russia to France, and that once again I repeat here:

“There also exists a ‘fourth way’, based on the sacred impulse emanating from conscience, of which a germ is deposited in each human being. This leads to another specific form of teaching, a new approach to religion.”

And now I go a little further. I claim that this new approach to religion Mr. Gurdjieff brought to humanity with the teaching of Ashiata Shiemash has a very strong Christian flavor. No wonder, in the first draft of Beelzebub’s Tales (the manuscript edition of 1931), Ashiata Shiemash is the Divine Teacher Jesus Christ. In later versions of the book (like the 1950 English edition that Mr. Gurdjieff personally supervised and authorized), and because of obvious reason, Mr. Gurdjieff replaced the Divine Teacher Jesus Christ by Ashiata Shiemash.

So, to conclude, not only Beelzebub’s tales presents a new approach to religion but this new approach has a very strong Christian flavor, all in accordance with the fact that Mr. Gurdjieff grew up under the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church and was buried following the rites and ceremonies of this Eastern Church.

The Two Pardons of Mr. Beelzebub

For Anna Luz Torres

The story is very compelling. A young and resourceful man on the brink of bringing a coup du etat at the plant Karatas near the center. Our ENDLESSNESS not having other recourse but exile the young and not yet deserving the title of Mister of the Universe. Mr. Beelzebub must learn the lesson of suffering. The young man is exiled to the unfamous solar system Ors of which the planet Earth is a close proximity to the Sun of the system.

Mr. Beelzebub chooses as place of residence in the solar system Ors the planet Mars, the planet of battle. Once estblished in Mars, Mr. Beelzebub begins to explore the solar system. He chooses, in the company of his grandson Hassein and his faithful servant Ahoon, who accompanyMr. Beelzebub in exile, to pay a series of six descents to planet Earth.

The first descent is to the continent Atlantis where a member of the tribe of Beelzebub has gotten in trouble. With the resourfulness of Mr, Beelzebub he soon is able to get the young member of the tribe out of problem. A first lesson out of the many Mr. Beelzebub learns. The future Mister is on his way to favor the suffering he is to be derived from the exile.

Sooner than later a High Commission is sent to Earth from Above in order to determine the effect on Earth of a collision with the comet Kondoor. The comission lears that the impact of the comet with Earth cause two pieces of the planet to fly into orbit around Earth. By thet time the three-brained beinigsof Earth were on the way to ackquire instinctive Reason and the High Comission determined thet with this Reason the three-brained beings might learn that their appearnce on Earth is to feed one of the two fragments dettached from Earth, namely the Moon. The High Comission suspected that on learning this fact Earth’s three-brained beings might attemt to destroy themself. A serious fact that demanded a serious undertaken,

During the second visit to Earth the High Comission, now with the help of the Phisicist-Chemist Angel Looisos, member of the High Comission, the decision is to implant at the base of the three-brained beings an organ with unusual properties. In the first place the organ has the property making perceiving reality upside down; in the second place the organ make three-brained elicit the sensation of joy.

Mr Beelzebub helps Angel Looisos in the accomplishment of his task. Upon returning to the Center Angel Looisos implore our ENDLESSNES to mitigate Mr. Beelzbub suffering in the solar system Ors, This action of our ENDLESSNES causes Mr, Beelzebub’s first pardon. The nature of this first pardon is to liberate the descendence to free themselves from the tresgressing actions of Mr. Beelzebub. No longer are Mr. Beelzebub actions create through the law of cause-effect any consecuences for his descendence.

The second pardon is more direct and affects the individuality of Mr. Beelzebub.

To the planet is sent from Above a Messenger by the name of Ashyata Sheimash to help the poor three-brained beings to free themeselves from the crystallization of the consequences of the organ implanted at the base of the column. In order to carry on His mission Ashyata needs the help from Beezebub. Upon returning to the Center Ashyata Shiemash intervenes directly to our ENDLESSNESs to grant Mr. Beelzebub a pardon for his action of the past.

This is the second and final pardon of Mr, Beelzebub, He can now return to the Center freed of his actions of his past,

One final note. A pardon by His ENDLESSNESS demands the intervation of a higher being.

Beelzebub’s Tales and the Grace from On High

Dedicated to my essence-friend Anna Luz Torres

At the chief entrance of the Holy Planet Purgatory, there is a sign reading as follows Only-He-May-Enter-Here-Who-Puts-Himself-In-The-Position-Of-The-Other-Results-Of-My-Labors.

So, the entrance to the Holy Planet is well specified. But what can we say about the way out towards the Holy Sun Absolute of the souls suffering indefinatly existing in specialy in caves accomodated for that end? It is for the consolation of these souls that our Aloving Eternal Creator descend frequently to the surface of that Holy Planet.

But we can ask wheter a final consolation exists.

There exists one indeed. There is hope. hope is to be found in the first Sura of the Koran where God is qualified as Lord Sovereing Absolute of the Day of Retrbution. God is mentioned in the last chapter of the third series of All and Everything with the title “life is real only the when, ‘I am'” In that last chapter it is said that man receives all possibilities from On High.

But the most enliving example of the fact under consideration, is the two perdons received by Beelzebub Himself.

WE MOST NOT LOSE HOPE.

Los Relatos de Belcebu y la Gracia de Lo Alto

Dedicado a mi amiga de la esencia Anna Luz Torres

A la entrada principal del Santo Planeta Purgatorio hay un latrero que dice: “Solo-Entren-Aqui-Aquellos -Que-Se-Ponen-En-La-Posicion-De-Los-Resultados-De-Nuestro-Padre-Comun-Unieseral.”

De manera que la entrada al Santo Planeta esta bien especificada. Pero que podemos decir de la salida hacia el Santo Sol Absoluto de las almas que sufren indefinidamente existiendo en cuevas bien preparadas pare esos fines? Es para la consolacion de esas almas que Nuestro Todo-Amante Creador Eterno desciende frequentemente a la superficie de ese Santo Planeta.

Pero es que existe una Consolacion Final?

Si existe. Hay Esperanza.

La Esperanza se encuentra en el primer Sura del Coran donde Dios es calificado como Soberano en el Dia de la Retribucion. Es tambien mencionado en el ultimo capitulo de “la vida es real solo entonces, cuando ‘Yo soy”. Ahi se dice que todas las posibilidades del hombre viene de Lo Alto.

Pero el mas viviente ejemplo viene cuando se considera a los dos Perdones recibidos por el mismo Belcebu.

NO PERDAMOS LAS ESPERANZAS.

EVOKING THE SENSATION OF THE SACRED BEING-IMPULSE OF LOVE

Introductory Note: This post is a follow up of the end of the story I posted few days ago.

Spectrum of evoking

1. Going to the river. About two miles from my childhood home there was a river. My father once took my older brother and I to the river. From that day on, my brother and I kept going to the river frequently. The sensation of love evoked during the two miles away from these trips was overwhelming.
2. Catching birds. One of my favorite pastimes during my childhood was to places where I could catch birds. The emotion evoked during these adventures was indescribable. My favorites birds were the blue jays and the verduns, although there were other beautiful birds belonging to the Cuban fauna.
3. Pulling out sugar cane pieces from the moving train filled with sugar trains passing through my hometown. This was my favorite childhood experience and the one evoking in me the sensation of the being impulse of love now that I am old.
4. Exchanging candies for kisses. My father owned a small candy shop whe candies were made and wrapped next to where we lived. After wrapping them, the candies were stored in barrels. My amusement was to steal candies from the barrels and going about town exchanging them with girls. I still remember and evoke the sensation of love originating from this adventure. Amparito was my favorite girl.
5. Walking along and alone through fields of sugar plantations. This was my lonely adventures and I enjoy them the evocation of the sensation of the sacred being-impulse of love, I still remember them.
6. Being travelling companion to my grandfather journeys through many Cuban towns. My grandfather lived with my grandmother in a house adjacent to our house. My grandfather has several children scattered throughout different towns and from time to time he went visiting them. He always took me with him, and I was the envy of other cousins of mine because he never took them but only me. I still remember experiences through these trips.
7. Riding horses with an uncle. My beloved mother died when I was ten years old. I ended up living on a big farm where an aunt (a sister of my mother) lived with her husband. The farm was located ten miles from the farm. I stll remember an evening riding with my uncle from town to the farm. Wht an adventure for a ten years old boy!

Final Note: Needless to say, all the adventures brought to my memory instances of evoking in my adulthood remembrances of the sensation of the genuine impulse of Love. Mr. Gurdjieff said that we can keep intact the lamb we carry with us through life. These are my lambs formed during my childhood.

THE END OF THE STORY

Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson is a book of tales, as the title of the book explicitly establishes. But it is a book of no ordinary tales, as many ordinary tales we are accustomed in our ordinary life. This is obvious from what the author tells us on page 6 of the first chapter of the book, the Arousal of Thought. On that page the author tells us: “Although I am now about to become a professional writer ……….in respect of what is called the ‘bon ton literary language,’ I am constrained to write not at all as ordinary ‘patented-writers’ do……………” And the author really means it.

All throughout my seven readings of the book, I was always searching for the paragraph that would end my enterprise. And during the fifth reading I came to the magic paragraph. But instead of giving my meaning to this magic paragraph I will quote it an let you form your own opinion. Here is the paragraph on page 357 of the book:

““‘And none of them would, because in none of the ordinary beings-men here has there ever been for a long time, any sensation of the sacred being-impulse of genuine Love. And without this “taste” they cannot even vaguely describe that most beatific sacred being-impulse in the presence of every three-centered being of the whole Universe, which, in accordance with the divine foresight of Great Nature, forms those data in us, from the result of the experiencing of which we can blissfully rest from the meritorious labors actualized by us for the purpose of self-perfection.”

I must confess that I became bewildered when during my fifth descent into the book, I read this paraph. All through my previous descents, I had overpassed its deep meaning.

Now, all I had to do was to strive to acquire in my self the sensation of the sacred being-impulse of genuine Love.

The results are indicated in the paragraph.  

THE CHARACTER OF SUFFERING IN THE TEACHING OF G. I. GURDJIEFF

During the process of delivering his teaching, Mr. Gurdjieff made a statement that baffled many of his disciples. He said:

“A man will renounce any pleasures you like but he will not give up his suffering.”

What he meant, asked many disciples. Did he mean that we can put and end to the recurrent suffering that make life so miserable? In many of his talks Mr. Gurdjieff speaks of what he called intentional suffering and voluntary suffering. Was he talking about sacrificing these two kinds of suffering?

The intention of this post is to elucidate the kind of suffering Mr. Gurdjieff meant with his cryptic statement.

In order to clarify what the true character of the suffering Mr. Gurdjieff is referring to, we will have to look at the teaching of the Great Ashiata Shiemash on suffering. This most Great Most Saintly Prophet illuminated the Great Initiates he was preparing for spreading his teaching to humanity. He then said to them:

“in all three-brained beings of the whole of our Universe without exception, among whom are also we men, owing to the data crystalized in our common presences for engendering in us the Divine impulse of conscience, the whole-of-us and the whole of our essence, are, and must be, already in our foundation, only suffering.”(p. 372 of Beelzebub’s Tales).    

It is evident from the quote above that the Great Prophet is not referring to the kinds of the two sufferings addressed to as intentional and voluntary sufferings referred to in other aspects of the teaching.

So, we ask ourselves what kind of suffering is the Prophet referring to?

To begin with, the kind of suffering the prophet is talking about is already crystallized in our essence for the arising in us of the impulse conscience. We may call this suffering as purgatory suffering. We are said in others part of the book that the beings in Holy Purgatory are the beings suffering the most. But we are never explicitly what this kind is.

We may conclude that this form suffering, purgatory suffering is the character of the suffering Mr. Gurdjieff asks us to sacrifice.

It is the character of suffering Mr. Gurdjieff asks to sacrifice,  

Gospel

The Gospel of Mr. Beelzebub