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

What Does It Really Mean to Be Awake?

Will Mesa

Abstract. The aim of this presentation, dear sisters and brothers in the Living Teaching G. I. Gurdjieff left to humanity, is to explore until its ultimate consequences the question, What Does it Really Mean to Be Awake? In other words, the purpose of this presentation is the exploration, together if possible, of a question and not the search for answers. Answers may arise from the nature of the questioning but not from looking for answers because that is not our intention. It is an open end questioning that we wish to engage in. And for that open end process of inquiry, the consequences of the inquiry may not be anticipated nor preordained.

Presentation. I will begin by sharing with you how this presentation is so important for me, although it may not for you. I made lots of efforts in order to be here. My wife of 54 years suffered a stroke about six years ago and now I have to take care of her and it has become practically impossible for me to travel.

But in order to understand why my presence at this Conference is so important for me personally, I have to go to the year 1983 when I lived together with my family in Venezuela. I had just finished the translation from English into Spanish of the third series of All and Everything, namely, “Life is real only then, when ‘I am’” Once finished it I gave a copy to most of my friends in a Gurdjieff group in my city of Valencia, about two hours from Caracas. At the same time the idea came to me that I had to move with my family from Venezuela to the United States. I remember that I felt I should use the Law of Seven which was very much used in the third series of Mr. Gurdjieff writings in order to facilitate this move from Venezuela to the USA. As soon as I began to contemplate this possibility I had an experience that now I would like to share with you here.

I had to go to the office of the real estate agent who was taking care of selling a house, an apartment, and a large piece of land located in a country club where my wife and I were planning to build a big house. The office of this real estate agent was in the seventh floor of a building in downtown Valencia. As I arrived to the building, the elevator door was opened I entered it and pushed the seventh floor button. The elevator began to move upward and it arrived to the fifth floor it got stuck. It was not moving up or down. I began to panic but soon I got relaxed and calm and even sat on the floor of the elevator. While there I began to contemplate the fact that I was trapped in a Fifth Stopinder of my Law of Seven. If the elevator moved upward I would see the agent, take care of my business and moved tgo the USA; but if it moved down I would be in bad shape and probably that would be an indication that I was not going to move with my family to the USA. All that was taking place in my imagination but I felt everything I was imagined was real. Well, the elevator finally moved upward, I spoke with the agent, and in few months I was in New York with my family.

Soon after this experience I went to my home and the first thing I did was to check my copy of Beelzebub’s Tales in order to see if I could find some piece of information that could serve as a verification of my experience. I went straight the chapter on the Sacred Heptaparaparshinokh or Law of Seven and without too much search I found this paragraph on page 869 of the book:

“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-piandjiehari, in the same manner on this piano the vibrations of a chord do not a corresponding vivifying power until they have fused with the preceding vibrations produced, starting from the center of gravity of the totality of the vibrations of the note ‘sol.”

I immediately realized than his paragraph in Beelzebub’s Tales corresponded almost exactly with my elevator experience and hat my octave related to our move to the USA had acquired a vivifying power after the elevator had gone through the fifth floor toward the seventh floor. Three months later I was with my family in New York.

But there was much more I later learned about the actualization of the fifth Stopinder. It so happened that after moving to New York, I had to come back to Venezuela to take care of some business. It was then that I went through a more dramatic experience that I rather keep to myself because of its personal nature. This experience showed me that not only actualization of the fifth Stopinder was necessary in order to give to the octave of work a corresponding vivifying power, but it was part of the temptation all seekers must go through. In other words, the fifth Stopinder is the place of temptation and if one falls into temptation, one cannot advance beyond the fifth Stopinder and one’s octave returns back to the note Do or something catastrophic happens in the life of the seeker.

The best example of this is the life of Jesus and His temptations.  After being baptized by John the Baptist, Jesus receives the Spirit and then the Spirit leads Him into the dessert to be tempted. After overcoming the three temptations of the Ego (Satan) Jesus is served by the Angels and begins the octave of His mission on Earth. Later on, there are other temptations because the fifth of the Law repeat themselves, although in different forms.

Now coming back to my statement of the importance of my presence at this Conference, I can say that for me its importance is the fact that I am now going through another fifth Stopinder of my own octave, something I can gather from the fact that this is my fifth presentation at an All and Everything Conference (2003, 2008, 2012, 2016, and this one in 2018). This knowledge, by the way, provides me material to understand what my situation in life now is.

My point here is that all this work I have related here is a sign of being awake.

Awakening takes place at different levels because all phenomena is made of levels according to the operation of the Law of Seven. In any case, the question of awakening, of being awake and stay awake for a fairly amount of time, has been a long one and it has been part of the elements in most spiritual traditions. In Vedantic classics there is theMandukyo Upanishad. It consists of only 12 verses. Each of them deal with an aspect of awakening to truth or reality. In Buddhism it is said that after his Awakening experience, someone asked Buddha how he wanted to be known and he replied: “The Awakened One.” And in many of its verses, the New Testament speaks of being awake because we do not know when the Son of Man is coming. In the Living Teaching of G. I. Gurdjieff, the one he left to humanity, it is arguably that the idea of awakening is the central idea. In any case, it is a very important one. Some sages, among them the great teacher of non-duality Ramana Marhashi, have said: “The greatest healing is to wake up.”

We can ask questions such as is awakening to be awake to the beauties of a sunrise and a sunset? Or is awakening to be awake to the misery of millions of children who die every year in this lunatic planet Earth?  After considering these questions as true questions because, after all, when we are awake we are awake to the totality of life, we then attempt to go deeper into our inquiry.

When we go deeply into our questioning we intuitively see that to be awake must somehow be related to the matter of being awake to our “true nature.” This “true nature” is known in some non-dualist Hindu teachings, such as the one of the twentieth Century Ramana Marhashi, as the Self. In Taoism, the name Tao is used for the expression “true nature.”  But the most common expression in used when referring to “true nature” is Self. So, we may say, that to be awake, is arriving at what is known as “the realization of the Self.” When taken in the context presented here, it must be pointed out that we cannot by means of words express the experience of being awake. In effect, “The Tao that can be named is not the Tao.” The experience of awakening, or being awake, in the context of this discussion, can only take place in Silence, total and complete Silence. This experience, this awakening to our “true nature” is what in many teachings is referred to as attaining unity. No more separation, no more experience of a state of separateness; only blessing unity.

If we now relate the question under consideration in this presentation to the Living Teaching of Mr. Gurdjieff, we may pose the very legitimate question, to what does this realization of the Self compare to in the teaching of Mr. Gurdjieff? It is a very legitimate question because this teaching is the one that has touched us the most directly. But we must leave these questions open if we wish them to be to be living and not dead questions. The most we can say at this moment is that this realization of the Self corresponds closely to the title of the last book of the series All and Everything: “Life is real only then, when ‘I am.’” And that for that we must first attain some level of inner harmony and inner unity.

So we leave these questions, as well as all related questions, open for the kind of exploration which is the intention of this presentation.

What I Have Learned from Beelzebub’s Tales

It has been quite a bit of time since I have posted in my blog Gospel According to Beelzebub. My latest post dates back to February 2020. In this short post now I want to share with you, my invisible friend, what I can now say I have learned from my beloved book.

I have over all that the awakening of the Divine Impulse of Objective Conscience is at hand. We can certainly become Sons of the Living God.

I have also learned that it is in life that we awake Divine Conscience. It is in the midst of life that we become Sons of the Living God.

But how we can do it in the very midst of life?

We do it by following the five strivings of Objective Morality. They are:

The first striving: to have in their ordinary being-existence everything satisfying and really necessary for their planetary body.

“The second striving: to have a constant and unflagging instinctive need for self-perfection in the sense of being.

“The third: the conscious striving to know ever more and more concerning the laws of World-creation and World-maintenance.

“The fourth: the striving from the beginning of their existence to pay for their arising and their individuality as quickly as possible, in order afterwards to be free to lighten as much as possible the Sorrow of our COMMON FATHER.

“And the fifth: the striving always to assist the most rapid perfecting of other beings, both those similar to oneself and those of other forms, up to the degree of the sacred ‘Martfotai’ that is up to the degree of self-individuality.

We integrate these strivings in our everyday ordinary life.

After we have done what we have been asked to do, we move to the other two enterprising we are asked to do, namely:

To acquire Objective Divine Reason and the awakening of “I.”

Beelzebub’s Tales is a positive initiating book. thanks God we now have it,

Why We Are Here

Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson is a very peculiar book. It says of very peculiar phenomena. Among them is the fact that we men are here on Earth to serve the Moon. In other words, man is food for the Moon. The Moon is, man’s biggest enemy; man’s behavior is conditioned by the Moon. The Moon is the main cause of man’s mechanicity. If man goes to war, man’s most stupid behavior, it is the Moon that causes man to go to war. And it is such for all of man’s stupid behaviors.

The book also tells us that of all cosmic truths known to man on Earth, the one stating that man is a being created in the image of God, is the most important. God in the book is identified as the Magalocosmos. If we are an image of God or the Magalocosmos, the we must have inside of us all and everything the Megalocosmos has. This means that inside of us we have the Earth, the Moon, the Sun, and every other Cosmoses, just because we have been created in the image of the Megalocosmos or the Cosmos containing all the Cosmoses. The difference between us men and the Megaloscosmos is, and has to be, a difference in scale.

The Secret to existence, according to the Living Teaching Mr. Gurdjieff brought to humanity, is to find the Moon inside of us. And then to determine, on the basis of our own consciousness, how this Moon is eating us. Then and only then, by standing oh his Moon and knowing how his Moon is eating him, can man stand upon every other Cosmoses of the entire Megalocosmos. This means that man can then absorb the light emanating from his inner Sun. Man eventually connects with the light shining on the entire Megalocosmos, the very Light of God.

But for this to happen man must first walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Man must walk through the fog his Moon always creates for him, until the arising of his inner Sun dissipates this Moon created fog.

This is possible for man and a way for man to free himself from the terror of his Moon exists.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF MY LATEST FINDINGS IN RELATION TO MY BIPOLARITY, THE SEXUAL ENERGY, AND BEELZEBUB’S TALES.

In previous posts in this blog, I have written extensively in relation to my bipolarity, my sexual behavior, and the material I have found in my beloved book Beelzebub’s Tales to his grandson.  I am now coming to finding peace in relation to my bipolarity. My depressions are gone and my manic states have diminished notably. Sexually I have been behaving like Mr. Gurdjieff. In his book Beelzebub’s Tales he considers the sexual function as an independent function that does not depend on matters like marriage and children.

I have to confess that during my great depressions, the other side of the coin of bipolarity, my sexual energy is at a minimum, and that I would not engage in sex even with a 20 years old beauty. In other words, sex for me does not exist when I am under the episodes of depression. But during my moments of manic episodes, I am sexually excited and wish to have sex with almost any woman.

For instance, during my latest manic episode, I engage is sexual activity with a married woman. By the way, she told me she has experienced more pleasure than she had ever experience with her husband. This fact confirms the study made by Harvard University in which it was determined that married women have more pleasure with a lover than with their husbands.

Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson is my book par excellence. It has taught me to look at the whole process of life. I have learned many things from this book. Among them, the importance of keeping the sexual function or sexual center independent of other functions or centers. Particularly, the sexual center must always be in its function independent of emotions. In this way the sexual energy is freed of all the emotional attachments that today makes life miserable for many of us.

Thanks very much for your attention.

Will Mesa

THE FIRST CHAPTER OF BEELZEBUB’S TALES

I have very good news for you invisible friends, as well as invisible enemies, out there, maybe bored trying to understand what self-observation and self-remembering are; I have finally understood the full meaning of the first chapter of Beelzebub’s Tales, the Arousing of Thought.

But instead of writing a long essay on the nature of my understanding, hundreds or even thousands of words, which will make you even more bored than you are now, or will elicit from you all dozens of absurd comments, I am going to give you a very simple hint so you can arrive at the same understanding I have arrived.

Here is the hint, which can be found at the very end of this first chapter of The Tales:

HINT: After referring to himself with six different nicknames or names, Mr. Gurdjieff refers to himself, finally, simply a “Teacher of Dancing.”

THE DISHARMONIOUS-HARMONIZING OF MAN.

It is very interesting and refreshing from time to time to go back to the original teaching Mr. Gurdjieff gave in Russia around 1912.

He has arrived at that country with the Aim of forming a group of people who would eventually become the propagators of the teaching in his mind. Little by little he formed a small group and to that group he told:

“We are abnormal three-brained beings. First, we are three-brained beings, we know that. We have three brains: the thinking brain, the feeling brain, and the moving brain. Each brain is a center of consciousness that participates in man’s global functioning and the exchange of substances constantly and continuously taking place between man and his environment which extends all the way to include the needs of Great Nature.  Second, we are abnormal because our three brains do not function in harmony with each other and as a totality. Most of the time, we function from one brain and we are super-abnormal. Sometimes we function from two brains and we are less abnormal. Very rarely we function from the three brains and we are normal. So, normality can be defined as the functioning of the three brains in harmony with each other and as a totality. There is no better definition of normality.”

So important for Mr. Gurdjieff was man’s disharmonizing that he called his first group of disciples “The Institute of the harmonious developing of man.” And when he arrived in Paris in 1922, with a reduced number of his Russian disciples, the first thing he did was to establish in Fontainebleau-Avon the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man.

Why are we abnormal? The answer to this question, as the answer to all questions, is in Beelzebub’s Tales. We are abnormal because of two main reasons

The first reason has to do with the operation of Nature. It has to do with the implantation in our ancestors of an organ possessing two strange properties. The first property is that implantation of the organ made three-brained beings to perceive reality topsy-turvy. The second property is that

“…every repeated impression from outside should crystallize in them data which would engender factors for evoking in them sensations of ‘pleasure’ and ‘enjoymet.’”

This organ is called Kundabuffer.

The immediate consequence of the singular properties of this organ was a modification of three-brained being’s psychic functioning, to the point of a quite abnormal psychic functioning. Particularly, the power of integration of the three brains became impaired. This organ is the organ Kundabuffer. Whether implantation of this organ is a reality or part of a myth, we do not know. But we know that it is the contention of many serious thinkers that “something” took place in the past that radically affected man’s normal psychic development, rendering it quite abnormal and even absurd. This central idea is also found in many myths and allegories symbolically describing mankind’s early growth and development. Man’s absurd behavior can only be attributed to a malfunctioning in the course of man’s natural development.

The first reason of our abnormality is Nature-made. But the second reason is man-made. The fact is that later, during man’s natural evolution, Great Nature removed the organ from man’s presence. However, due to the operation of a law of Nature, the law of repetition, establishing that every repeated action nurtures crystallization, within every being, of remnant independent formations, most of the consequences of the singular properties of the organ remained, and still remains, inherent to man’s ordinary psychic functioning. But the important point is that one freed from the consequences of the properties of the organ, men had the possibility of eradicating these consequences and become normal, as three-brained beings should be. And to a certain extent men succeeded in doing so. However, later and under the influence of the consequences of the properties of the organ, men began to create abnormal conditions of shared-common existence and these abnormal conditions in turn favored the crystallization in man’s psychic functioning of the consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer.

Two events heavily contributed to the creation of abnormal conditions of common-shared existence and the crystallization of the consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer. One was the sinking of the impulse Conscience in the depth of man’s being. The second was the further dispersion of man’s three centers of consciousness or brains. These two events are allegorically represented in Beelzebub’s Tales by the sinking of the continent Atlantis on the one hand and the dispersion of the three great centers of civilization (Maralplicie, Tikliamish, and Pearl-Land) on the other hand.

We have seen how and why in Beelzebub’s Tales we are presented as abnormal three-brained beings. We have three brains or centers, namely, the moving brain, the feeling brain, and the thinking brain. We are abnormal in each and every center and we are abnormal because the three centers do not work in harmony with each other.

It would now be appropriate to go deeper into the book in search of signs of this abnormality. Well, there are many signs of our abnormality in the book. Great part of the book is a narrative of our abnormality, although great part of the book deals with the question of how to return to normality. But there is a narrative in the book that many people consider to be the strongest sign of our abnormality and the central message in the book. It is the chapter “The Terror-of-the-Situation.”

“The Terror-of-the-Situation” is a legominism within a legominism. A legominism, we are told, “is one of the means of transmitting information about certain events of long past ages through initiates.⁵ The “Terror-of-the-Situation” is a legominism describing the deliberations of Ashiata Shiemash, a prophet from the past and from the future and the central personage in Beelzebub’s Tales. In essence, the legominism says that we no longer are able to love with the Love of Consciousness, to believe with the Faith of consciousness, and to hope with the Hope of consciousness. In other words, the “Terror-of-the-Situation” tells us that the data necessary for engendering in us the genuine being-impulses of Love, Faith, and Hope is already atrophied. The atrophy, as always, is due to the crystallization in us of the consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer as well as the abnormal conditions we have created during the process of common-shared existence. All this means that we cannot longer make use of the way of Love, the way of Faith, and the way of Hope, as valid ways for the process of self-perfection, as it was possible in the past.

The “Terror-of-the-Situation” ends on a high and hopeful note. If it is true that the data necessary for engendering in us the genuine being-impulses of Love, Faith, and Hope, is already atrophied, it is also true that the data necessary and sufficient for engendering in us the Divine Impulse of Objective Conscience, still remains intact in us. This data is now submerged in the depth of our being, in the region known as the subconscious. The book explains in great details how this data escaped the process of atrophy and degeneration as it was the case with the data for engendering the impulses of Love, Faith, and Hope. For us now the important point is that we possess the necessary and sufficient data in order to become normal again. Otherwise, our situation would entirely be one of total hopelessness. Fortunately, it is not. There is hope, Real Hope.

The question then is: How do we become normal again? We must begin by seeing our abnormality. Seeing here means suffering. We have to suffer our situation in life, namely, our situation of abnormality. This is the absolute first step, without which nothing else could be accomplished. We have to suffer our situation not only once but a hundred times. This is so because the abnormal conditions of life prevailing all around us always exert tremendous pressure on us. We cannot escape that easily, we must understand that. When we think we have escaped, we are brought back again. It has been said that Kundabuffer is very tenacious. That is why we have to suffer our situation of abnormality again and again.

The constant and continuous suffering of our of abnormality leads to remorse, real remorse for our situation in life; we experience remorse, not guilt. We experience what is called organic shame. Organic shame is fear of abnormality. This fear, contrary to a false fear such as the fear of insecurity, is real and it is healthy. We must experience this fear in our lives if we want to become normal again. In Beelzebub’s Tales, Mr. Gurdjieff presents a complete teaching on remorse. He is probably the only teacher in modern times who goes deeply into the question of remorse. According to Beelzebub’s Tales, there exists in the Universe one fundamental cosmic second-degree law known as the “Sacred Aieioiuoa” or Remorse. The idea is that under the effect of this cosmic law, when we are in the presence of the emanations of the Sun Absolute or any other sun (like the presence of a Teacher), one of our brains “revolts’ and ‘criticizes” the former unbecoming perceptions and the manifestations of another brain. Remorse is a material process, as it is the case with any other process of the Universe. When Remorse takes place in us light and heat are produced. The light translates into understanding. We understand. Real Remorse leads to being-understanding. Heat manifests in the form of well-being. We feel well.

The experience of Remorse takes us to a real search. We begin to search for the real aim and sense of existence. We are no longer duped by the abnormal conditions existing around us. Our search, if it is a serious search, eventually takes us to the awakening in us of the Divine Impulse of Objective Conscience. We must understand that Objective Conscience is higher than the conscience derived from the Ten Commandments and the moral conscience we are taught by our parents and teachers. Since we cannot really talk about what Objective Conscience is, we will have to wait until we have a real experience of what it is or may be.

The “Terror-of-the-Situation” is a sign of abnormality, as we have seen. We must now search in Beelzebub’s Tales for signs of normality. Well, there are many signs of normality in the book. Normality is never defined explicitly. However, we can infer that a definition of normality is the harmonious functioning of man’s three brains, as we said at the opening of this chapter. One sign of normality that is related to this inference is presented in the last chapter of the book, Chapter XLVIII, under the title “From the Author.” In this chapter Mr. Gurdjieff steps out of character and tells us, in not allegorical form, how he sees things. In essence what he tells us is that only a man in possession of his “I” is a Real Man, a “man without-quotation-marks,” as he so picturesquely puts it. Before further elaboration, we must notice that “I” is described in the first chapter of the book (p. 38) in two ways: The first as a relatively transferable arising, depending on the quality of the functioning of thought, feeling, and organic automation;” and the second as “the compound result of consciousness, subconsciousness, and instinct.⁵ We must reflect on these two descriptions of “I.”

At the very outset of Chapter XLVIII of Beelzebub’s Tales we are told that the whole individuality of every man who has reached responsible life must consists of four definite distinct personalities. The first of these four independent personalities is the totality of automatic functioning most people ignorantly name “consciousness” or, at best, “mentation.” The second of the four personalities consists of the sum of the results of the data deposited and fixed from perceptions gathered by man through his six organs (six and not five) functioning in accordance with newly perceived impressions and the sensitivity of which depends upon transmitted heredity and the conditions of the preparatory formation of the given individual for responsible existence. The third independent part of man’s whole being is what is known as his organism, the quality of which also depends on heredity factors and the circumstances during man’s preparatory formation.

“And the fourth, which should also be a separate part of the whole individual, is none other than the manifestation of the totality of the results of the already automatized functioning of all the personalities independently formed and independently educated in him, that is to say, it is the part which is called in being-‘I.’”

It is interesting to notice here that the above description of “I,” taken from the last chapter of The Tales (p. 1190), closely resembles the description given in the first chapter of the book (p. 38) and already stated. In certain way the book closes onto itself: it ends with the beginning and it begins with the ending.

In relation to his formed and independently educated personalities, man is exactly comparable to that organization for conveying a passenger, which consists of a carriage, a horse, and coachman.

In this analogy, the difference between a real man and a pseudo man (“man-in-quotations-mark”), that is between the man who has his own “I” and one who has not is indicated by the personage sitting in the carriage. In the first case, that of a real man, the personage is the owner of the carriage; and in the second case, he is simply the first chance passer-by who pays a fare for the ride.

In the analogy, the organism or body of a man (third personality) corresponds to the carriage. All the functioning and manifestations of feeling of a man (second personality) corresponds to the horse harnessed to the carriage and drawing it; the coachman directing the horse corresponds to the first personality, that is, to what is known as consciousness or mentation; and finally, the personage seated in the carriage and commanding the coachman is that which is called “I” (fourth personality).

Let us now see how Mr. Gurdjieff sees us. Here is what he had to say:

The fundamental evil among contemporary people is chiefly that, owing to the rooted and widespread abnormal methods of education of the rising generations, this fourth personality which should be present in everybody on reaching responsible age is entirely missing in them; and almost all of them consist only of the three enumerated parts, which parts, moreover, are formed arbitrarily of themselves and anyhow. In other words, almost every contemporary man of responsible age consists of nothing more nor less than simply a “hackney carriage,” and one moreover, composed as follows: a broken-down carriage “which has long seen its day,” a crock of a horse, and on the box, a tatterdemalion, half-sleepy, half-drunken coachman whose time designated by Mother Nature for self-perfection passes while he waits on a corner, fantastically daydreaming, for any old chance passenger. The first passenger who happens along hires him and dismisses him just as he pleases, and not only him but also all the parts subordinate to him. ⁷

From all that have been said, we can see that a sign of a normal man, a normal three brained being, is to be in possession of his “I.” Probably the best and only definition of a normal man is given on page 1202 of the book: “Man is a being who can do and to do means to act consciously and by one’s own initiative.” In other words, only a man in possessing of his “I” can do.

Let us try to be real here. We do not have “I.” That is still for the future. For instance, we are wrong if we think that when we speak is real “I” speaking. Most of the time, almost all of the time, what speaks in us is one of the three already mentioned independent personalities and what is even worse, each personality speaking for itself, without regards and considerations for the other two. We have to work harder and longer in order to have the right to have “I.” Meanwhile, the place of “I” in us is taken by group work or by the guidance provided by the teaching Mr. Gurdjieff brought to us.

To be in possession of one’s “I” is a sign of normality. Two other signs, according to Beelzebub’s Tales, are the awakening of the Divine Impulse of Objective Conscience and the attainment of Objective or Divine Reason. For a better understanding of these two important aspects of the teaching of Mr. Gurdjieff, see my article “The Awakening of Objective Conscience and the Attainment of Objective Reason” in this collection of views on Beelzebub’s Tales.

I would like to conclude this chapter with a vision of the real man as I think is presented in Beelzebub’s Tales. Real man is a free and independent individuality of the Great Whole, in the service of the Whole, directed by “I,” guided by the Divine Impulse of Objective Conscience, and subordinated to the functioning of Objective or Divine Reason.

Thank you for your attention and consideration, and for giving me the opportunity to expose myself and to work on myself.