Work Concept Overview

Below is an overview of Work concepts. This connected network of concepts is only begining to be built up, much is missing for now and it is not to be taken as complete or even partially so!

Work Concept List

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1st Line of the Work - Work on/for one's self. details
- consists of Self-Observation
- consists of Exercises
- consists of Forgiving Debts, Overcoming the Past
- consists of Applying the Work Practically to Oneself
- consists of External Considering
- consists of Self-remembering, Remembering Yourself
- consists of sfhksahfasdfs
- consists of Aim
- consists of Overcoming of Negative Emotions
- consists of Sacraficing our Suffering
- consists of Creating Alarm Clocks
- consists of Liberation from Unnecessary Laws
- consists of Being Present
- consists of Movements, The
- consists of Reading Gurdjieff
- requires understanding of Obstacles to Awakening
- requires understanding of Fantasy Work
- requires understanding of New Language

2nd Line of the Work - Work with others in the Work or in Work Groups to help their development along. details
- consists of Realizing that others are like us and are not always the same personality.
- consists of Dealing with others so that they understand us.
- consists of Making efforts to get to know others in the work.
- consists of Seeing others distinctly.
- consists of External Considering
- consists of Encouraging and Educating Others
- consists of Group Work

3 Forces - details

3rd Line of Work - Work in relation to the Work's Aim. Work for the sake of the Work. Perpetuating the Work's transmission. Enabling the Work to continue to evolve as it needs. details
- consists of Getting in contact w/ the 3rd ( Neutralizing ) Force
- consists of Helping those teaching the Work and assisting in the transmission

A Person is the combination of their Essence, Personality, and Body - details
- consists of Essence, Being
- consists of Personality ( True and False )

Ahl-i-Haqq - Seekers of Truth Club - details

Aim - 3 types: Imaginary, Invented, Real
2 steps: Formulation of, Payment for details
- consists of Imaginary Aim
- consists of Invented Aim
- consists of Real Aim

When we notice what keeps us Asleep, we are nearer Real Aim.
Start with a clearly defined Aim and work consciously at it for a long time.
Will Deviate unless we call together and connect all associated Truths and re-stimulate Aim
One man's Aim is not anothers - As each person in unique in their development, their path forward MUST vary.

Ancient Prayer - The knowledge of true prayer was lost around the time of the Babalonians. They did not incorporate it into the Legominism becasue it was such a part of common knowledge at the time. details

Women can activate space for prayer. Only men can make and direct prayer. - Women are denying force for preperation of sacred ground, but men become denying force for prayer. In order to send it upward, one must make denying force below. In objective sense, woman's place is in the real home. Only in this way can women become women as they ought to be, and men become men as they also ought to be.

Applying the Work Practically to Oneself - Not merely reading and talking about it, but DOING the Work. Observing oneself, seeing our automatic association, attitides, reactions, etc. details
- consists of Self-Observation

Associations - How one thought automatically 'rings-up' another, then it another, etc. details
- consists of Automatic Associations

Attention - Our degree of attention in any moment is a function of what part of centre we are operating from. Attention can be cltivated and controlled with practice, will, and effort.

One important aspect of the study of centers is the types of attention. The Work teaches that there are three types of attention possible for each of the centers:
no attention/wandering attention
attention held by the object
attention held by effort; directed attention

The Work teaches that the higher bodies discussed above are only a possibility for man. In order to form higher bodies, the correct type of effort is required. Directing dispassionate attention to each of the centers (also known as "self observation"), is one such effort. Wandering attention, or attention held by an object, are insufficient for true self observation. They are also insufficient for obtaining free will, which is one component of the higher bodies. Wandering attention and attention held by the object are sufficient for the first body, the Material Body. In other words, the Material Body does not need directed attention in order to function and fulfill its role in the Ray of Creation. details

Attention Drains / Distractions - details

Attitudes - The way we take things. details

Automatic Associations - details

Awareness of Immortality - details

Being Present - Out of Imagination details

Being Present - Immersing yourself in the NOW. Observing and being aware what is going on around you. Not being absorbed in thoughts of past or future, planning, worrying, regretting or identifying. details
- requires understanding of Attention Drains / Distractions

Body Types - details

Brain Cells - Glial Cells - Glial cells, commonly called neuroglia or simply glia (Greek for "glue"), are non-neuronal cells that provide support and nutrition, maintain homeostasis, form myelin, and participate in signal transmission in the nervous system. In the human brain, glia are estimated to outnumber neurons by about 10 to 1.[1]

details

Brain Cells - Neurons - details

Bridging Intervals - details

Buffers - Mental blocks that keep us from seeing our inner contradictions. Attitudes, once fixed enough become Buffers. Buffers, once removed CAN NOT BE RESTORED!!!!! details
- requires Attitudes

Can be created by Attitudes that become very fixed and automatic.

Centers - Centers Include Moving, Instinctive, Sexual, Magnetic, Emotional, and Intellectual as well as Higher Emotional and Higher Intellectual. details
- consists of Moving Center
- consists of Intellectual Center
- consists of Higher-Emotional center
- consists of Higher-Intellectual Center
- consists of Magnetic Centre
- consists of Instinctive Center
- consists of Sex Center
- include Emotional Center

The relative weight of the centers is not the same in the psychic life of different individuals. - Gurdjieff spoke of three different types of men: man number one, in whom the moving and instinctive centers predominate; man number two, dominated by the emotional center; and man number three, in whose constitution the intellectual center takes the lead.

Chief Feature - details

Lynchpin of Ego Structure
Organizing principle of a person's Personality
Primary Obstacle to Awakening
a BIG charactaristic, yet we are always blind to it. It is Buffered from us.
An overall pattern coloring all our behavior and reactions.
Often perfectly obvious to family and friends but not seen by us.
Our most obvious, and pervasive, feature.
It often annoys us when we see it in others more than anything else does. - It's what we Hate others for doing and can't understand why they can't stop or notice.

Conscience - Conscience has nothing to do with the morality which is a part of man's conditioning and which touches him only at the level of mechanical associations. It is a touchstone which unifies his disconnected parts and can lead to the development of his hidden possibilities. details

Consciousness of One's Self - details

Corpus Collosum - Huge bundle of nerve fibers connecting the 2 hemispheres. Begins development after object constancy, around age 1, and becomes complete between ages 3 and 4. details

Cosmology & Laws - details

Creating Alarm Clocks - details

Dabbel - Nott writes (Journmey: 96) that after Gurdjieff's car accident he no longer used the term ‘negative emotions': he used ‘dabbel'/'devsl' for the denying part. details

Daydreams / Fantasies / Phantasies - details

Dealing with others so that they understand us. - Dealing with others according to on their individual quirks such that they understand us, rather than our not taking how they will take things into account and having no understanding. details

Development of Conscience - details

Development of True Personality - details

Disunity - details

Efforts - details

Effort must be intelligent, and it must be based on the directions of the Work and what we have Self-Observed in relation to the Work.

Ego (Freudian) - details
- is part of Personality ( True and False )
- include Ego Defense Mechanisms
- include Ego Defense Mechanisms

Ego is the personality, the falseness in onself, what one has acquired from culture, education, and early family life experiences.
Based on Reality principles. Understands the real world and takes other people into accoint.
The Ego trys to meed the needs of the Id while taking the reality of the situation into account.
The ego represents what may be called reason and common sense, in contrast to the id, which contains the passions

Ego Defense Mechanism - Compensation - details

Ego Defense Mechanism - Denial - Saying the obvious is NO so. It has not happened, does not exist, etc. details

Ego Defense Mechanism - Displacement - Placing blame and hostilities onto a less threatening or more available substitute than the actual cause. details

Ego Defense Mechanism - Dissociation - details

Ego Defense Mechanism - Fantasy - details

Ego Defense Mechanism - Idealisation - details

Ego Defense Mechanism - Identification - details

Ego Defense Mechanism - Intellectualization - Avoiding unpleasant or unwanted emotions by focusing on facts and intellectual aspects of the problem. details

Ego Defense Mechanism - Introjection - details

Ego Defense Mechanism - Inversion - details

Ego Defense Mechanism - Postponement - ?? Is this a new /valid mechanism ?? - The putting off till 'later' that which is unpleasant to deal with now. Seems to me it might be a form of conscious supression? details

Ego Defense Mechanism - Projection - Seeing in others what you are blind to in yourself and yet that you usually 'hate'. details

Ego Defense Mechanism - Rationalization - Creating a FALSE, yet logical, rational, and possibly believable reason in place of the actual reason. details

Ego Defense Mechanism - Reaction Formation - Believing the opposite of the truth, that would cause anxiety. details

Ego Defense Mechanism - Regression - Reverting to an earlier stage of development. details

Ego Defense Mechanism - Repression - Pulling of an anxiety provoking thought or memory into the unconsious. details

Ego Defense Mechanism - Somatisation - details

Ego Defense Mechanism - Splitting - details

Ego Defense Mechanism - Sublimation - Acting out socially taboo acts in a substitutive, more acceptable way. details

Ego Defense Mechanism - Suppression - Pushing into the unconscious. details

Ego Defense Mechanism - Undoing - details

Elementals (Sufi: muwakkals) - Thoughts created, given birth, by man. These entities live and have a certian purpose to accomplish. details

Emergence of Essence - details

Emotional Center - This faculty makes beings capable of feeling emotions. This brain is dispersed throughout the human body as nerves which have been labeled as the "nerve nodes" . The biggest concentration of these nerves is in the solar plexus. Seat of Will. Primarily consists of Negative Emotions. We do not know true positive emotions without the Higher Emotional Center. Love of the normal Emotional center can turn to hate in a flash, but true Love from the Higher Emotional Center can never become negative. details
- has Negative Emotions

The emotional center is responsible for all the varieties of emotional states, positive and negative, - but the negative states arise only through mixing of the energy of the emotional center with the energy of the instinctive center. It is possible to develop an attention which is capable of discriminating among and separating these energies.

Encouraging and Educating Others - details

Energy Parasites / Vampires / Mind Parasites - details

Enneagram - details
- consists of Law of Ninefoldness
- consists of Law # 2 - Law of Three / Law of Triads
- consists of Law # 3 - Law of Seven / Law of Shock / Law of the Octave

Essence, Being - That which is man's own. Certain preferences, likes and dislikes, qualities and capacities that one is born with and that can not be changed. Includes a person's Personality Type. details
- opposite of False Personality

Everyone is two people - the person we suppose ourselves to be, and what we really are. - details
- requires understanding of Self-Observation

Only Self-Observation shows us this.

Exercises - details

External Considering - Taking other's into consideration for their sake. Not keeping accounts of who owes or did what. details
- opposite of Internal Considering

False Personality - That which is not man's own. Acquired through life by means of culture, education, imitation of others, etc. Can be broken, masteredm, and controlled through decades of difficult personal work. Involves: taking offense, details
- opposite of Essence, Being

Fantasy Work Trap - False Messiah - Opposite of Fantasy Work Trap - Devotee. Those that fall into this trap think they are Masters. details
- is part of Left Hand Path

Fantasy Work Trap - Fossilized Organization - The passing on of title after the Master dies. Often the even old, origional pupils may have long ago lost the true meaning and real understanding of much of the Work. details

Fantasy Work Trap - Hunt the Guru - Always looking to the true teacher that will hand them everything on a platter. details

Fantasy Work Trap - Personal Salvation - Subtle and dangerous. The curse of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Turns religions into cults of grovelling devotees imploring their god to forgive their sins and grant them something vaguely described as personal salvation. Salvation form what?? details

Fantasy Work Trap - Starry-eyed Devotee - Seeing the Master as one who can do no wrong, placing him on a pedistal. Taking words as litteral even if they do nto make sence that way. Victims of credulity and suggestibility. details
- requires understanding of Left Hand Path

Fantasy Work Trap - Sunday-Go-To-Meetings Syndrome - The attenting of meetings out of habit. Not being able to Work on oneself outside of the organization. details

Fantasy Work Trap - Supper-Effort Syndrome - Thsi trap is subtle becasue it comes close to the truth. The Work does involve great effort, but it is a very specific and special kind of effort. This effort involves the maintenance of awareness, so it is more like the balancing act of a rope-walker than the super-efforts of a mountain climber. The real Work consists of a constant struggle against the state of identification. Many people pass their entire lives in this state, and our culture is designed to ensure its continuance.
As a result of the misunderstanding of the super-efforts required. Many people punish themsleves needlessly and without gain. details

Fantasy Work Trap - Think-Talk w/o Doing - Spending all your time talking aout the work, reading about it, thinking about it, but not PRACTICING it. details

Fear - details

Forgiving Debts, Overcoming the Past - details

Formatory Mind ( Formatory Apparatus ) - The mechanical part of the Intellectual Center. details

Example: - “Formatory apparatus resembles a hired typist who works for a firm and has a large number of stereotyped replies for external impressions. She sends printed replies to other centers who are the ‘directors’ of the firm and who are strangers to each other. Wrong replies are often sent, as the typist is asleep or lazy.” Gurdjieff.
Example: - “In the intellectual centre, the mechanical part includes in itself all the work of registration of impressions, memories and associations. This is all that it should do normally, that is, when other parts do their work. It should never reply to questions addressed to the whole centre, it should never try to solve its problems, and it should never decide anything. Unfortunately, in actual fact, it is always ready to decide and it always replies to questions of all sorts in a very narrow and limited way, in ready- made phrases, in slang expressions, in party slogans. All these, and many other elements of our usual reactions, are the work of the mechanical part of the intellectual centre. “This part has its own name. It is called a ‘formatory apparatus’ or sometimes ‘formatory centre.’ Many people, particularly people No. 1, that is, the great majority of mankind, live all their lives with the formatory apparatus only, never touching other parts of their intellectual centre. For all the immediate needs of life, for receiving A influences and responding to them, and for distorting or rejecting influences C, the formatory apparatus is quite sufficient. “It is always possible to recognise ‘formatory thinking.’ For instance, formatory centre can count only up to two. It always divides everything in two: ‘bolshevism and fascism,’ ‘workers and bourgeois,’ proletarians and capitalists’ and so on. We owe most modern catchwords to formatory thinking, and not only catchwords but in modern popular theories. Perhaps it is possible to say that at all times all popular theories are formatory. OUSPENSKY-Pychology of Mans Possible Evolution
‘formatory apparatus’, that part of the brain which was busy classifying ideas and objects, putting them into pigeon holes, and thereafter returning mechanically to them as statements of truth.
In man as he is, the formatory apparatus has run wild and dominates psychic life. Its constant din of associations makes it almost impossible for a man to become quiet and observe himself as he is.
Because modern life is filled with formatory associations, even man number one and number two are often far from direct experience of their bodies and feelings. Consequently, a very important place in the Work is occupied by attention to the sensation of
Struggle with foratory thinking is struggle against lunacy in ourselves.
The head brain, the formatory mind, the mechanical part of the intellectual center.
Formatory mind works by associations. Once formatory mind makes an assessment of something, someone, some situation, formatory mind never notices the object again. - As a result of placing an absolute value upon an object, our formatory mind comes to the fallacious conclusions The mere fact that formatory mind can remember the location of the valued object is enough for formatory mind to never think about the object again.
The 'Labeling' part of our mind. The part that applies names to things and categorizes them. - Alos the regurgitating part - repeats of your common sayings.
The problem is modern man thinks with his labeling apparatus instead of his intellectual area.

Freudian Mind Structure: Id, Ego, Super Ego - details
- include Ego (Freudian)
- include ID (Freudian)
- include Super Ego (Freudian)

Games (Dramas) - Psychological Battles for Power details

Getting in contact w/ the 3rd ( Neutralizing ) Force - details

Great Work against Nature - magnum opus contra naturae - details

Group Work - details

Helping those teaching the Work and assisting in the transmission - details

Higher-Emotional center - faculty of the astral body. It enables one to have sustained states of self-consciousness, self-awareness, and other deep feelings. It does not replace, nor is it an "upgraded" version of the emotional center, as it a completely separate center. details

Higher-Intellectual Center - faculty of the mental body. It enables one to have sustained states of objective consciousness and superior intellect. As above, it does not replace, nor is it an "upgraded" version of the intellectual center. details

Householder - details

Human Brain Biology - The human brain is composed of an ancient reptilian core, a later mamalian interveining layer (limbic system), and later mamalian Cortex/Neo Cortex. The human brain most receintly developed larger frontal lobes in it's evolutionary progress that consists of cells and structures that do not reach maturity until much later in life than all other brain areas, as late as in a persons 20's. details
- consists of Reptilian Brain Layer
- consists of Lateral Geniculate Nucleus (LGN)
- consists of Corpus Collosum
- consists of Limbic System, Old Mammalian Brain Layer
- consists of New Mammalian Brain Layer / Human Brain Layer
- include Brain Cells - Neurons
- include Brain Cells - Glial Cells

Structures and intelligences travel from higher brain areas down, with higher areas able to supercede and direct action. - e.g. the reptilian brain has circuits that later map to areas in the higher brain areas.

I's / Personalities & Roles / Ego States - Every person has specific and varied roles or states they go in to in automatic reactionary ways. This is the explination behind why a someone may be one 'person' at work but a completely different 'person' at home and yet another 'person' when in front of a trial Judge. This also explains why we make promises we intend to keep but at a later time anotner 'person' within us does not see it through - it's not just our view of promise that has changed, but WE are not the same 'person' that made the promise or rsolution. details
- include Roles

ID (Freudian) - The id is responsible for our basic drives such as food, sex, and aggressive impulses. It is amoral and egocentric, ruled by the pleasure–pain principle; it is without a sense of time, completely illogical, primarily sexual, infantile in its emotional development, and will not take "no" for an answer. details
- is part of Essence, Being

Based on the pleasure principle. It goes for what it wants and Ego restrains it or not.
Id is present at birth, it allows us to meet our basic survuval needs.
Wants what feels good at the time. Does not think about past or future. Always in the animal present.
Only concerned with self.
Has no consideration for the reality of a situation. It just wants.

Identification - One of the characteristics of our psychology is that we lose ourselves by becoming absorbed into events, thoughts, and emotions. In the Work we are told to observe identification as it is one of the most powerful forces keeping us asleep and prevents us from awakening. Because we do everything mechanically and are not properly conscious, we identify all the time. We identify with our thoughts, feelings and what happens in outer life. details

Identification is losing ourselves into the belief that the object of our focus and attachment is a part of us or that it is ours, and we invest a lot of lifeforce to keep it with us or make it do what we want so that we can feel happy. - It puts our small self in the center, attached to a certain thing or outcome, and everything around it either reflects positively or negatively about ourselves. What we think we have or own, can be taken away. It can be damaged or burned up in a fire. Or "they" can change their mind.. and only in the midst of this 'change' do we feel the helplessness of never having actually 'possessed' that thing we identified with. That helpless feeling is a feeling of losing a part of oneself, but it is actually an illusion of identification, because most likely, YOU still exist even after IT is gone. Identification is a buffer to experiencing Real Self and True Love with another.

Idiot Types - 21 Types of Idiot. A developed man, to the real world would seem an Idiot, he does not react mechanically and reactionairily as do all other people but spontaniously. details

idiot comes from greek for 'private attitude' or??? 'I make my own'

Illusions - details

Imaginary Aim - Things people pick as possible Aims, but are not of the sort. An Aim to climb some mountain is an example. details

Imagination - One of the chief obstacles to inner development is our imagining that we already possess qualities and abilities that we do not have, and that can only be developed through long efforts. details

Imagination in this sense, is not the deliberate, creative envisioning that is life giving, but rather, the automatic fears and worries that slither into our minds and play out scenarios that we'd rather not live out or that we wish we had lived out. - Imagination takes us out of our body and fogs our mind with haphazard thoughts and trivial scenarios that rob us of large spans of time and creativity. Can you remember all of the thoughts that you had today? If not, where were you while your mind was absent? (How many moments of life did you miss while you were gone?)

Improvement of Memory - details

Inner Stop - Stoping our thought flow in mid-stream to analyize our mental processes that un-interrupted would proceed on in an automatioc way. details

Instinctive Center - Controls faculties which are completely involuntary. This does not typically encompass "knee-jerk" reactions, nor what we would typically consider reflexes. A common example of the functioning of this center is the contracting of blood vessels to facilitate the pumping of blood. details

Looks after all the inner workings of the body, - such as the digestion of food, the curculation of the blood, breating, and sensation.

Instinctive Center - details

The instinctive center includes the senses, simple and complex reflexes, and the regenerative processes of the body that work without awareness at the cellular/biochemical level. All the functions of the instinctive center are inborn.

Intellectual Center - This center is the faculty which makes a being capable of logic and reasoning. This one is located in the head. Seat of Contiousness. details
- include Formatory Mind ( Formatory Apparatus )

The intellectual center compares, calculates, and reasons.
The mechanical part of the intellectual center has a special name: it is called the formatory apparatus - , because, in the right functioning of the human machine, it is intended to set up forms for the higher parts of the center to operate upon.

Intentional Suffering (Real)(Contious) - Let us come now to the idea of conscious suffering as distinct from mechanical suffering. Gurdjieff said: "This Work is Esoteric Christianity." He meant that this Work lies hidden in the New Testament. Let us take an example. The Work teaches that mechanical suffering is useless--it leads to nothing--but that conscious suffering leads to inner development. Can we find any parallels in the New Testament? I would say that in the Gospels, in the Sermon on the Mount, for instance, we find ample--in fact, copious verification. But let us take a clear example from Paul. He has written a letter to his group at Corinth cursing them for not working on themselves. He explains that to feel one has not been working--that is, that one has been fast asleep in life and its vexatious daily troubles and therefore identified with the events entering from outside via the senses--this is to suffer in another way. He calls this "godly suffering". I will quote the passage:
"For though I made you sorry with my epistle, I do not regret it, though I did regret; for I see that that epistle made you sorry, though but for a season. Now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry but that ye were made sorry after a godly sort, that ye might suffer loss by us in nothing. For godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation, a repentance which bringeth no regret: but the sorrow of the world worketh death. For behold, this self-same thing, that ye were made sorry after a godly sort, what earnest care it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves . . ." (II Cor. vii.8-11)

Now this rather outworn terminology masks the real meaning. What Paul is saying is that to suffer because you have behaved mechanically can lead to something. And so he says that the suffering of the world leads to death--that is, mechanical suffering. From this brief example one can see what Gurdjieff meant in saying that this Work is Esoteric Christianity. Esoteric means simply inner--not obvious. People easily read the New Testament without seeing what is meant. The Work, once you begin to understand what it is saying, opens your mind to innumerable things said in the New Testament. Now reflect on this remark: "The sorrow of the world worketh death." Do you see that in these words is the same idea as "mechanical suffering is useless for self-development and puts us to sleep--that is, death? A man, a woman, must sacrifice their mechanical suffering". What then replaces it? What replaces it is suffering because you are suffering. That is, you must replace the luxury of mechanical suffering by suffering because you still love mechanical suffering.

In one of the Gnostic Books--the Acts of John--which are not included in the ordinary New Testament, there is a passage which runs in this way. It is connected with the Sacred Dance that Christ performed with his disciples:
"If thou hadst known how to suffer, thou wouldest have been able not to suffer. Learn thou to suffer, and thou shalt be able not to suffer." details

"Only conscious suffering is of value." -G
"Work on remorse, remember yourself, revive the scenes when you were a bad child, when you made your parents cry, perhaps. Feel again in all the details, find your faults again. Search in your past. Suffer. In that suffering you can have real happiness gi
"We must endure patiently the life conditions that we cannot change." -G

Internal Considering - Considering others for our own sake. Considering how much they owe us, what we did for them, expecting how they should treat us. details
- opposite of External Considering

Invented Aim - Aims that are not real, but not totally imaginary. They are beneficial to the extent that they have us working towards Real Aim. details

Knowledge - details
- is part of Knowledge and Understanding / Being

Knowledge and Understanding / Being - There is a difference between what we know and what we are and can do. details

Lateral Geniculate Nucleus (LGN) - The crossover network connecting our right and left optic nerves and the 2 brain halves. Each brain half gets 2 major nerve bundles, one that accoutns for our visually seeing sceens and another that traves an older base route and is more used in automatic reflexes like catching or putting a letter in a slot in the correct orrientation. details

Law # 1 - The unity of the will of creation. - The only law at level of World 1 - the Absolute. details

Law # 2 - Law of Three / Law of Triads - The law of three states that every manifistation is the resultant of three forces: active, passive, and neutralizing. details
- include 3 Forces

Law # 3 - Law of Seven / Law of Shock / Law of the Octave - The law of seven governs successions of events.
The law of seven states that whenever any manifestations evolves, it does so nonlinearly; there is an orderly discontinuity in every progression, in every series. details

Law # 4 / Fagolished - details

Law of Accident - Applies only to humanity. Other laws apply throughout the universe. details

Law of Dirrect Application / Law of Movement - details

Law of Eating - A very hard law. that one class of living beings eats another class. details

?? Eat or be Eaten. ??

Law of Identification - details

Those who begin to remember themselves begin to get rid of the law of identification.

Law of Negative Emotions - details
- consists of Negative Emotions
- consists of Transformation of Negative Emotions

Law of Ninefoldness - details

Law of Octaves / Law of Seven - The continual process of involution and evolution proceeding simultaneously within the Sun-Absolute. details

Law of Reciprocal Maintenance / Reciprocal Feeding - details

Law of RePayment for Conscious Suffering - details

Law of Self Ignorance - details

We do not know ourselves - this is a law. If we begin to know ourselves we get rid being constrained by this law.

Law of Solioonensius - Periodic tension in suns and planets acts on the common presences of all three-brained beeings. In humans this provokes war. details

Law of the Pendulum - Everything swings between opposites. details

Law of Two / Law of Duality - details

Law of Work - Work comes before completion.
You are only given that gradation of reason necessary for you to do Work. Therefore if you wish for yourself a higher degree of reason you must somehow increase necessity. details

The Work teaches that there are 2 fundamental laws in the universe: the law of three and the law of seven.
Real laws are beings who by interaction create certain definitized manifestations which we are able to see. - One can align oneself with one such law and by doing so one can work for a being who directs a part of the Work. -G
Laws must be studied, not only of maintenance, but also of creation. - Of Destruction you do not need to know anything. When you know more, you can decide which law you are attracted to and which law you are best able to work for. -G
Laws create other laws, which create yet other laws. -G
In order to free oneself from laws it is first necessary to find one law from which we can liberate onself, and get free from it. - Then, when one has freed onself from this law, one can find another and again liberate onself, etc. This is the practical way to study laws. -G
Most of the laws we have to obey are the result of our sleep and our unconsciousness. - Every step we make in becoming more conscious sets us more free. -G
False Personality puts us under many quite useless mechanical laws. -G
One can learn to be free only by obeying more laws. - In order to get free it is necessary to submit to many more laws for a certain time. -G
You can escape lays by growth in being, no other way. -G
Laws can be studied only by first observation of them in oneself and second by becoming free from them.
it is possible to become free from one law but to put onself under the control of another in the process.
More laws create more crominals - The Tao
Law? - Knowledge cannot belong to all, not event to many. Such is the Law. -G - it is becasue knowledge is material

Laws of Biology / Biological Laws - Our biological life requires that we breathe, drink, eat, sleep, etc. details

Laws of Hospitality - details

Work Clubs must be created, for in homes the Laws of Hospitality apply. - Everything must be paid for.

Laws of Physics / Physical Laws - details

Left Hand Path - False teachers who use violent and amoral 'methods'. details

Lessening of False Personality - details

Lessening of Judgement of Self and Others - details

Levels of Men - Man 1 is centered in the Moving Center. Man 2 is centered in the Emotional Center. Man 3 is centerd in the Intellectual center. Man 4 is able to use all centers rightly. details

Liberation from Unnecessary Laws - details
- requires understanding of Laws

Limbic System, Old Mammalian Brain Layer - Emotional, Feeling details

Love & Compassion for One's Self and Others - details

Lying - details

Lying - Lying, in the work sense, is slightly different from lying as the word is usually used, a little more subtle perhaps. Perhaps we might think it is less damaging than what we normally consider as lying, but it is actually more damaging to one personally, as that without working to eliminate it, one can not expect one's personal work on oneself to go far. details

We lie in many unconscious ways. We lie to ourselves. We lie to others. We lie everyday to get what we want.

Magnetic Centre - details

Making efforts to get to know others in the work. - Try to see their personalities, attitudes, postures, roles, reactions, etc. details

Maya / Devil / Father of Lies / Spirit of the Lie - details

Mechanical Suffering (Automatic) - Everyone suffers mechanically. What is mechanical suffering? It is something quite different from conscious suffering. It is something so intricate, so devious, so apparently contradictory, so various, so subtle, so historically long-standing--in short, a habit--that we do not observe it. We do not see its continual, inner, private, petrifying action, like that steady drip of calcium-charged water that builds up those strange pillars in deep caves between floor and roof. The Work teaches that we all, inevitably, have mechanical suffering and that this is the only thing we have to offer as sacrifice. In order to change, one must sacrifice something. Understand clearly and ask yourself--if it ever does occur to you to ask yourself a question, which means that you will have actually to think for yourself of the answer--I say, ask yourself this question: "Can I possibly imagine that I can change if I do not give up, sacrifice, something?" This means simply that you cannot change if you wish to continue as the same person. To change is to become different. If I want to go to London, I must give up being at Amwell. -Psychological Commentaries, Volume 4‎ - Page 1239, Maurice Nicoll details

The feeling of being owed or mistreated is useless suffering.

Mechanicalness - details

Motor Center - Controls motor functions. The acts of walking, the physical aspects of talking, as well as even functions that are considered "reflexive," are all part of this sub-center. details

Movements, The - The movements are poses and dances incorporating them. details

Moving Center - This brain is located in the spinal column. This brain makes beings capable of physical actions, and can be further divided into three distinct sub-centers (motor, instictive, sexual). Seat of Attention. details
- consists of Motor Center
- consists of Instinctive Center
- consists of Sexual Center

The moving center is responsible for the body's perception of motion and for control of all impulses of movement. The functions of the moving center are learned through imitation and through early experimentation and adaptation.

Negative Emotions - Negative emotions are an example of the wrong work of the emotional centre. They are unnecessary, and an important part of awakening is to free ourselves from their grip.

Negative emotions are things like fear, anger, envy, greed, sloth, and also pleasant things like enthusiasms, passions, and certain forms of love. They are based on identification and imagination---they keep us asleep.

The pleasant type are characterised by a tendency to turn into their opposites---for example when we end up hating people we were formerly `in love' with. Real emotions do not turn into their opposites. details
- is part of Dabbel

Negative Emotions are always OUR fault, and OUR choosing. - Our emotional state, poor or otherwise, is never anyone's fault but our own. Even if we are offended in the most heinous way by another individual consciously, how we TAKE the misdead is up to no one but us.

New Functions - details

New Language - Normal language can not convey Work principles. A new language msut be learned. details

New language msut be relative, since the same words are taken differently by everyone.

New Mammalian Brain Layer / Human Brain Layer - Thought, Neocortex, Latest to develop in evolutionary terms and in life development. Includes Frontal Lobes. details

New States of Consciousness - details

Non-expression of Negative Emotions - details

Non-Identification - details

Obligation - details

Observation of Postures - A typical person usually only has 10 or less postures that they continually use out of the hundrends avalable. Many movements, physical exercises, and the Stop Exercise make us more aware of our postures by forcing us to maintain or transition through postures unaccustomed to us and not in our habitual repertoire. details

Observation of Speaking from Attitudes - details

Observation of the Emotional Center - Observation of right and wrong use of the Emotional Center. details
- requires understanding of Emotional Center

Observation of Tone of Voice - Usually we change the tone of voice to one charactaristic to our 'active' personality, or 'I'. Listening for it will give the switch away, but usually we are not Self-Observing and have become Identified with the situation. details

Observation of Use of Centers - Observation of Moving, Emotional, and Intellectual Centers. details
- consists of Observation of the Emotional Center

In observing, one attempts to distinguish impressions of the various functions in operation, not through analysis but by taste. Each function has a distinctive signature.

Obstacles to Awakening - These need to be recognized to progress in development and to Awaken. details
- include Sleep
- include False Personality
- include Negative Emotions
- include Imagination
- include Identification
- include Internal Considering
- include Illusions
- include Buffers
- include Unnecessary Talking
- include Disunity
- include Lying
- include Formatory Mind ( Formatory Apparatus )
- include Chief Feature
- include Daydreams / Fantasies / Phantasies
- include Automatic Associations

Opinions - details

Overcoming of Negative Emotions - change posture.
Ask ourselves why we are in a negative state. give up having our own way, will that things be as they are. details
- requires Observation of the Emotional Center
- requires understanding of Negative Emotions
- requires understanding of Emotional Center

Change Posture, particularly Facial Expressions - Our emotional center is so automatic and reflexive that if we force a change in facial expression from the negative, the negative emotional state also flees.
Don't take emotional states for granted. - Ask why we are in this emotional state?
Don't take Negative Emotions as Right, Justified, or Entitled To. - Distrust Negative Emotions.
2 Sources: Internal ( Habit, Past ) and External.
If you consent to be or to continue to be negative, then temptations suceeds.
Must give up having to have our own way all the time.
There are dangerous places within us that are more dangerous that dark alleys.
We love our suffering. We must give it up and think our way out.
Intend first. Then can do.
Think Truth by an Effort; Persistance in NE drives the Work away from you.
NE's are only supported by lies of the Intellectual Center that we Buffer.
NE's and Persistance of NE's are our own fault. - No matter the cause or injustice, emoutions are always OURS to control.
Don't Argue inside. Perform an Inner Stop on first recognition of.
Levels of Overcoming: 1. Don't Express 2. SEperate From 3. Don't Have
NE's keep us asleep through wrong use of necessary energy.
NE's can only lead to violence and evil.
First, they must be noticed. Only then can they be dealt with.

Payment - details
- consists of Sacraficing our Suffering

Personality ( True and False ) - details
- consists of False Personality
- consists of True Personality
- consists of Work Personality

Pride - details

Prison - Gurdjieff likens our position to that of a man who has been imprisoned with no prospect for release. When he looks about him and realizes his position, he sees that his fellow prisoners do not understand that they are in prison and therefore have no inkling that any other possibility exists.

Such a man can wish for nothing else but to escape. But how can this be accomplished? A man must find a way by which escape is possible, and this can be done only with the help of others who have escaped before and know when the guards are not looking and where it is worthwhile digging. He also needs material help from those who have access to tools which are not available within the walls. details

The Work is like a tool set smuggled into our prison cell, we must understand the tools not for the sake of understanding the tools, but to use them for our purpose of freeing ourselves.

Reading Gurdjieff - details
- requires New Language

Tip: When he makes a joke or says he is joking, it's often about something important.
Tip: When he uses quotations, it may highlight an important point.
Instruction: Believe nothing not seen with own eyes. Test Everything, Question Everything! -G
Fact: Current publications are ALTERED. Many old coppies were even rounded up and destroyed. Little origional remains, nothing public.
Tip: There is a visual story of moving pictures behind his words, intended to act upon essence (visual mind).
Fact: Sometime parts of a thought or idea are more than a book apart. (You can't expect the answer to always be next to the question.)
Fact: He teaches by instruction, example, exaguration, lies, and alegory.
Tip: Look for the presence of an absence, an awkward silence, often important.

Real Aim - details

Always has to do with the Work sense of Self-Change
Must grow, evolve, and change from self-study, self-observation, and development.

Realizing that others are like us and are not always the same personality. - Seeing that others are a reactionary machine and not in control of themselves. details

Remorse - The feeling that we have not made all possible efforts in the presence of someone who has developmed themselves more than us. Important in developing Will and controling the Emotional Center. details

Reptilian Brain Layer - details
- consists of Reticular Formation

Resisting Mechanicalness - details

Reticular Formation - Gateway between the incoming sensory information and the brain at large. This is mainly where the shut off of the world is carried out out when we are asleep. Part of the older Reptilian Part of our Brain. details

Role Playing, Exterior Theater - details

Roles - Essentially, a part that we play, like an actor, to try to maintain some type of image in a particualr situation. We may have one role we play at the dentist, another when pulled over for speeding, and yet another that we play while in an elivator with other people. details

Sacraficing our Suffering - details
- requires understanding of Suffering

Must smash Pride, Vanity, Self-Complacency, Selfishness, Self-Esteem, etc.
Must change to become different, the change is giving up what we all love most: our suffering.
It is Ordinary Mechanical Suffering that must be sacrificed, not Intentional Suffering.
Uless we become conscious of a thing, we can't sacrafice it.
Takes the form of: If only's
Mechanical Suffering is Fraudulant! This is a keynote to what to Sacrafice.
False Suffering closes us. Real Suffering opens us up to higher levels.
Involves destroying the Emotional Center; it's likes and dislikes.
We must begin to Think differently, in different ways.
Sacrafice - means to make Holy (that to which all personal connection has been relinquished) or conscious.
"People imagine they have something to sacrifice. There is only one thing they have to sacrifice and that is their suffering." - G
"A man in this Work must eventually begin to know what Conscious Suffering is compared with Mechanical Suffering." - G
"I have already said before that sacrifice is necessary," said G. "Without sacrifice nothing can be attained. But if there is anything in the world that people do not understand it is the idea of sacrifice. They think they have to sacrifice something that
"Another thing that people must sacrifice is their suffering. It is very difficult also to sacrifice one's suffering. A man will renounce any pleasures you like but he will not give up his suffering. Man is made in such a way that he is never so much atta
We have to feel that Life and Others owe us nothing! - (as we cancel the debts owed to us - Lord's Prayer)
To change oneself one must be free from petty attatchments and forms of imagination about oneself.

School - Schools come into existence in accordance with the aim of the teacher and exist only as long as they serve the purpose for which they are intended. Only the teacher fully understands his aim, but it is an important part of school work for the pupils to try to understand the aim of the teacher and find a way to be useful to him.

In a school, conditions are created in which the work of self-study which leads to inner transformation is facilitated through the presence of energies which awaken the wish of the pupil to realize his own latent possibilities.

These conditions typically include meetings where members of the school exchange ideas and observations regarding their attempts at self-observation, exercises for the attention, work on various projects with others in conditions organized by the teacher, and other forms which place the pupil in front of himself and demand sincere efforts to remain open to what he sees, rather than turning away from himself. details
- requires Teacher

Second Degree Cosmic Laws - details

Seeing others distinctly. - See them differently than in life. Not at face value. details

Self-Observation - Observing and becoming aware of our automatic reactions, our false personality, etc. details
- consists of Observation of Use of Centers
- consists of Observation of Postures
- consists of Observation of Tone of Voice
- consists of Observation of Speaking from Attitudes
- requires Splitting of Attention
- requires Separation
- requires understanding of Lying
- requires understanding of States of Consciousness
- requires understanding of Sin

The object of Self-Observation is to enable us to chage ourselves. - We can not be changed unless we know what kind of person we are.
Must be un-critical.
Begin by watching for and observing something specific.
Self-Observation is to make us more conscious of ourselves, and this is the starting-point of the Work.
We have to obsere what we are saying, thinking, feeling, sensations we are having, how we are moving, etc.

Self-remembering, Remembering Yourself - Remembering that you have a body, feet, toes, emotions, a heart, etc. all the time. Usually people get caught up in emotions, activities, or life and are absorbed in it, not consiously aware at all times that they exist. details

Separation - Right observation involves making a separation between what appears in the moment and oneself. Although at first one has very little which can be taken as belonging to oneself--only the experience of ``I am'' in the moment--an effort of separation is possible which, at times, brings new impressions of oneself and eventually leads to the state of self-remembering, in which one is present to oneself in the moment through the force of the effort of separation. details

Sex Center - details

The energy of the sex center, active in the lower centers, causes whatever work is undertaken to be done with a useless vehemence and intensity. The sex center, robbed of its own energy, is then coarse and sluggish.

Sexual Center - Controls sexual functions. This one is exceeding complex, encompassing conversion of energies within a being. This center is implicated in abnormal human development. The Fourth Way uses the disharmonious functioning of this sub-center to explain a very large array of issues. details

sfhksahfasdfs - details
- requires Observation of the Emotional Center

Shocks - The conditions created in schools include shocks sufficiently strong that a man's contradictions become accessible to observation. Naturally, being shocked is not pleasant, but intensive conditions containing major shocks are only provided to those who want them and whose preparation, in the opinion of the teacher, is sufficient that they can make use of them for inner work. details

Sin - In the Bible, if rightly translated, Sin means 'to miss the mark'. In the Work, Sin is anything that prevents us from Awakening. details

If we Sin knowingly, we commit a wrong that is difficult to redress. - In developing self-control, to knowingly allow onself to loose control, for whatever reason, is entirly destructive and pushes one back.

Sleep - details

The Work says we live in a world of sleeping humanity, and we ourselves are asleep.
Waking up first requires seeing that one is Asleep. - A man who does not know he is in prison will not try to escape!
Help can only reach us once we realize we are Asleep.

Splitting of Attention - Creating an Observer and an Observed within ourselves. Normally people do not observe themselves at all, let alone continually. details
- requires understanding of Attention

State of Objective Consciousness - details

State of Self-Awareness or Self-Consciousness or Self Remembering (First truly waking state) - details

States of Consciousness - Gurdjieff taught that four states of consciousness are possible for man: ordinary sleep at night; the habitual hypnotized state in which people live when they get up and go about their daily lives (which Gurdjieff called ``waking sleep''); self-consciousness, in which a man is awake to the whole of himself and sees himself as he is; and objective consciousness, in which he sees the reality behind the way the world appears. details
- include Sleep
- include Waking State (so-called)
- include State of Self-Awareness or Self-Consciousness or Self Remembering (First truly waking state)
- include State of Objective Consciousness

Stopping Thoughts - details

Subconscious Brain Processes - Mentation can be consciously be participated in as when average people work out a long math problem. Subconscious processes produce results that we may have no idea how we arrived at, as in idiot savants cases or in suddenly remembering a thing you were trying to remember yesterday. details

Suffering - details
- consists of Mechanical Suffering (Automatic)
- consists of Intentional Suffering (Real)(Contious)

"Like what “it” does not like." -G

Super Ego (Freudian) - details

The moral part of us. Concerned with right and wrong. - Formed in us from our caregivers interaction with us.
The Superego becomes an embodiment of parental and societal values.

Teacher - Dependence on the indications of a teacher is a prolonged, but nonetheless temporary, stage in the Work. Sooner or later, through long and painstaking study, one must become able to make use of conscience as an inner guide, in order that one's work may continue after the teacher is gone. details

The Great Law of Correspondences - As above, so below. details

The Will (resolve) to Do - details

Thought Flow / Stream - The series of mental associations that occur within centers. details
- include Associations

Transformation of Negative Emotions - details

Transformation of Suffering - details

True Personality - I think this is actually your essence (being), no? Your authentic likes and dislikes, actual personality type, etc. details

Understanding - details
- is part of Knowledge and Understanding / Being

Unnecessary Talking - One of the chief obstacles to inner development is talking without aim or attention. details

Vanity - Vanity bows to stronger vanity. details

Waking State (so-called) - details

Will Everything - Don't fight the way things are. Then, go further than just accepting them as they are, will that they be the way they are. Want nothing more for things to be as they are. details

Work Personality - details

Work, the - The Work of the 4th Way is comprised of 3 lines: on/for one's self, the group, and finally the Work itself. details
- consists of 1st Line of the Work
- consists of 2nd Line of the Work
- consists of 3rd Line of Work
- include Obligation

"This Work is Esoteric Christianity." - G
The Work begins with seeing what kind of person one is. (self observation)

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