{"id":1258,"date":"2024-10-18T20:07:25","date_gmt":"2024-10-18T17:07:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gurdjieffsociety.fi\/?p=1258"},"modified":"2024-10-18T20:07:25","modified_gmt":"2024-10-18T17:07:25","slug":"alkaamme-lukitko-kasityksiamme-pohdintoja-taman-opetuksen-erityisyydesta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gurdjieffsociety.fi\/en\/artikkeli\/alkaamme-lukitko-kasityksiamme-pohdintoja-taman-opetuksen-erityisyydesta\/","title":{"rendered":"Let Us Not Conclude \u2013 Some Reflections on the Specificity of This Teaching"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u2013 Henri tracol<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:0px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>If&nbsp;<em>specificity&nbsp;<\/em>means what is \u201cunique\u201d in Gurdjieff\u2019s teaching, let us quickly set aside a possible preliminary misunderstanding: \u201cspecificity\u201d is not inevitably, as one might fear, a doctrinaire claim to exclusivity. Because what is unique in any path of spiritual search is its own particular way of approaching and perceiving reality. And this teaching offers us a feeling of just that: something which goes beyond suggested forms of experience and investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Mightn\u2019t we say that one of the clearest vocations of this teaching is that it tends to give birth in us to this faculty of orienting ourselves? And wouldn\u2019t this faculty be a fundamental necessity for such a teaching, as its natural position with respect to the major traditional structures, and yet, at the same time, reducible to none of them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>From the vantage point of such an orientation, I know I am nearer to what is \u201cspecific\u201d to this teaching inasmuch as I feel invited to&nbsp;<em>place myself inwardly&nbsp;<\/em>in relation to whatever presents itself from the outside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>If sufficiently nurtured, this spiritual flair might allow us, over time, to recognize the degree of authenticity of any form of experience which offers itself to our search.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Let us suppose that this form seems to be the bearer of a truth of the same nature as the one which Gurdjieff\u2019s direct influence enabled us to actually live. Such a relation could hardly fail to capture the best of our attention and interest, spurring us on to further study. This similarity, however, would in no way authorize us to conclude there is an identity or a common heredity. Even less would it condone our playing the sorcerer\u2019s apprentice in order to establish, on an artificial basis, an assimilation or some sort of synthesis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>And in the opposite case, if this particular form seemed aberrant, illusory, or dangerous, this would in itself be a precious aid to become more aware of what is essential to preserve, as well as the risks we constantly run of making grievous errors and falsifications in our interpretations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Forewarned of the danger\u2014and faced with the endless number of guises through which what is \u201cunique\u201d in this teaching might appear to us\u2014we will feel the need to rediscover, there again, the guarantee of a right orientation\u2014and we will naturally look to find it at its very origins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Gurdjieff\u2019s teaching belongs to what he calls&nbsp;<em>the fourth way.<\/em>. As an embodiment of a fourth way school&nbsp;<em>it does not have a form defined<\/em>&nbsp;once and for all\u2014which means: neither dogma nor ritual, strictly speaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>It ceaselessly disappears, and ceaselessly must be discovered and rediscovered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>It imposes no preliminary renunciation but requires, within the frame of ordinary life, a set of appropriate conditions in view of a genuine&nbsp;<em>work upon oneself.<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>It opens upon the perspective of a profound transformation of being through&nbsp;<em>awakening&nbsp;<\/em>and self-knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>t presupposes in oneself a sincere quest for truth, the realization of one\u2019s own \u201cnothingness,\u201d the recourse to effort\u2014and to super-effort\u2014toward the development of his power of consciousness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>It also allows the individual to discover and realize certain hidden possibilities, by means of simultaneous and coordinated engaging of one\u2019s intellectual, emotional, and physical capacities toward a voluntary concentration upon the struggle which takes place within the self between one\u2019s positive and negative tendencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>This perpetual struggle is carried on within every seeker according to the principle of relativity which regulates the relations among the different energy levels in human nature, as in the universe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>~ \u2022 ~<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>But among these lines of force inherent in the fourth way, what is an altogether essential component of this type of teaching, is that above all, \u201cthe principal demand is the demand for understanding;\u201d that the individual \u201cmust do nothing that he does not understand;\u201d that he must \u201csatisfy himself of the truth of what he is told.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>However, this primary requirement is the source of many misunderstandings: we must unfailingly return to the meaning that Gurdjieff gives to this imperative necessity for a&nbsp;<em>living comprehension<\/em>&nbsp;in which our being totally engages itself. We are far from the false requirements of the ordinary individual who arrogates to himself the right to reduce any truth to a mental construct governing the movement of his associative thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Moreover, the emphasis is placed upon the person, on the individual search for knowledge, upon the work that one must do to know oneself in order to transform and fulfill oneself.\n\nThe doctors in tradition have been quick to brand this primacy accorded to&nbsp;<em>individual experience&nbsp;<\/em>\u2014\u201ceach person must initiate himself\u201d\u2014as a tendency toward \u201chumanism,\u201d which spawns the most nefarious deviations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Indeed, regularly forgetting its cosmic and metaphysical perspective risks depriving this search of any possible breadth and reducing the Work, for some people, to a kind of flimsy psychological inquiry, while it encourages in others their latent predilections to a \u201cpseudo-mysticism\u201d devoid of any real content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Gurdjieff thus reserves an important place for profound meditation,&nbsp;<em>for silence<\/em>, as a return to the source of all knowledge.\u2026 We are there before a truly&nbsp;<em>spiritual practice<\/em>, wherein the indispensable theoretical vision is not arbitrarily separated from a vivifying contact with ongoing experience, just as it is lived and felt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>The errors too often voiced with regard to the meaning given both to \u201cindividual search\u201d and to \u201cpractice\u201d serve to show the urgency of an imperative task: to try to digest what is essential in the ideas so as not to distort them, and to understand as quickly as possible the master\u2019s aim, the principle of balance without which the Work could not exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Efforts to understand and to test the ideas: this is what gives this teaching its dynamic character: the growth of being indeed demands both a direct knowledge and a gradual mastery of the movements of our energy as it manifests itself on different levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Ultimately, however, what is unique and irreplaceable in Gurdjieff\u2019s teaching is Gurdjieff himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Certainly, nothing could be more obvious to someone who lived this experience at his side, and who naturally feels called upon to bear witness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>A few years later, Gurdjieff\u2014as a man\u2014left us forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>And yet \u2026 How not feel his intimate presence within us as a permanent source of&nbsp;<em>self-remembering<\/em>&nbsp;?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>What at is it, then, that allows a master\u2019s influence to perpetuate itself once he has disappeared?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>It is not so much an orthodoxy as a mode of perception inherited from him and which should appear through all things, in the heart of the most intimate experiences as well as on the level of everyday life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>We are quickly overwhelmed on every side, however \u2026 and it is the unknown which wins out.\u2026 In the long run, this calls upon us to perceive such a gift as an enigma\u2014and as a challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>This is what is ceaselessly suggested, in countless ways, in&nbsp;<em>Beelzebub\u2019s Tales to His Grandson<\/em>&nbsp;from the \u201cFriendly Advice\u201d to the reader\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p style=\"font-size:17px\">Read each of my written expositions thrice:<br>Firstly\u2014at least as you have already become mechanized to read all your contemporary books and newspapers;<br>Secondly\u2014as if you were reading aloud to another person;<br>And only thirdly\u2014try to fathom the gist of my writings.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2014to \u201cThe Arousing of Thought,\u201d through the last chapter \u201cFrom the Author.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>The adventure continues\u2014in depth. It keeps alive in us the evidence of a&nbsp;<em>hidden continuity<\/em>consciousness offers itself to us endlessly. But to welcome it, to take part in it, to sustain it, to bear witness to it, so many efforts must be attempted, must be renewed\u2014so many \u201csuper-efforts.\u201d It is just that which Gurdjieff calls the \u201cWork.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><em>to be continued \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>~ \u2022 ~<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 1996 Henri Tracol. English version published with the permission of Gurdjieff.org. Finnish translation \u00a9 2024 Gurdjieff Society Finland.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If specificity means what is \u201cunique\u201d in Gurdjieff\u2019s teaching, let us quickly set aside a possible preliminary misunderstanding: \u201cspecificity\u201d is not inevitably, as one might fear, a doctrinaire claim to exclusivity. <\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1260,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artikkeli"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/www.gurdjieffsociety.fi\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/tracol.jpg",545,337,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.gurdjieffsociety.fi\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/tracol-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.gurdjieffsociety.fi\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/tracol-300x186.jpg",300,186,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.gurdjieffsociety.fi\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/tracol.jpg",545,337,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.gurdjieffsociety.fi\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/tracol.jpg",545,337,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.gurdjieffsociety.fi\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/tracol.jpg",545,337,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.gurdjieffsociety.fi\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/tracol.jpg",545,337,false],"trp-custom-language-flag":["https:\/\/www.gurdjieffsociety.fi\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/tracol-18x12.jpg",18,12,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"G Editor","author_link":"https:\/\/www.gurdjieffsociety.fi\/en\/author\/editor\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Jos\u00a0erityisyydell\u00e4\u00a0tarkoitetaan sit\u00e4, mik\u00e4 on \"ainutlaatuista\" Gurdjieffin opetuksessa, v\u00e4ltt\u00e4k\u00e4\u00e4mme heti alkuun mahdollinen v\u00e4\u00e4r\u00e4 ennakkok\u00e4sitys: \"erityisyys\" ei v\u00e4ltt\u00e4m\u00e4tt\u00e4 merkitse, niin kuin pel\u00e4t\u00e4 saattaisi, ett\u00e4 kyseess\u00e4 olisi v\u00e4ite opillisesta eksklusiivisuudesta.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gurdjieffsociety.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1258"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gurdjieffsociety.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gurdjieffsociety.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gurdjieffsociety.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gurdjieffsociety.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1258"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.gurdjieffsociety.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1266,"href":"https:\/\/www.gurdjieffsociety.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1258\/revisions\/1266"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gurdjieffsociety.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gurdjieffsociety.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gurdjieffsociety.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gurdjieffsociety.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}