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January 27th, 2017

1/27/2017

Diversity: Degrees, variations and bridges
Part IV

There are several unique events facing us as individuals and as a species, in this, the beginning of a new millennium, the beginning of the third millennium.

The unique events:

1. Organizations are finding it more and more difficult to ‘compete’ with other organizations if they do not have a unique message to give to individuals, if they do not have a unique message which is succinct, understandable, rational and valuable.

2. Present day society is facing a crisis generated by secularists, atheist, and radical religions. The concept of materialism, monism, nihilism, moral relativism … is rapidly encroaching upon modern day society, encroachment upon the individual’s sense of self-worth and the individual’s God given inalienable rights.

3. We as a species are on the threshold of stepping beyond our home, the Earth, and into the heavens. Once we have made significant inroads into the stars, it will be more difficult to establish a commonality, establish a universal understanding regarding who we are and why we exist.

As such we will enter the heavens as ‘confused slaves’, as a chaotic force spreading violence, nihilism, chaos wherever we go.

We, level 4s, need to ask ourselves: Is chaos and the concept of individuals being slaves to their environment and being slaves to those who wish to use them for their own ends what we wish to observe inundating human perception as we step into both the third millennium and step into space or are we as level 4s ready to risk the wrath of society and our islands of esoteric schools and clearly demonstrate and teach the rationality, attainability and rewards of stepping into region 4, understanding the meaning of man being made in the image of God and the process of acquiring contact with the divine.

It is said:

I need to collaborate in a common effort of ascent. If I do not, whether or not I wish it, I am responsible for the stone I do not bring to the edifice. So, we have to reflect deeply on our work together …
The Reality of Being, The Fourth Way of Gurdjieff, Jeanne De Salzmann, Shambhala, 2010, p119

So it is I bring this stone, the stone of knowledge and understanding to the edifice known as the Cleveland Gurdjieff Society and the Gurdjieff Society in general.

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January 27th, 2017

1/27/2017

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Diversity: Degrees, variations and bridges
Part III

Reaching level 4 is no different than the early settlers reaching the West side of the Appalachian Mountains. In order to experience level 4 one must personally go to level 4. One can journey to level 4 with or without the aid of individuals that have been there just as in the 1500’s the settlers of the East Coast of North America could journey to the West side of the Appalachian Mountains without the knowledge others had regarding how to get to the West.

"Long used by Native Americans, the Cumberland Gap was brought to the attention of settlers in 1750 by Dr. Thomas Walker, a Virginia physician and explorer. The path was widened by a team of loggers led by Daniel Boone, making it accessible to pioneers who used it to journey into the western frontiers of Kentucky and Tennessee."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumberland_Gap

The settlers who listened to and heeded the knowledge of those who had traveled the Cumberland Gap were much more likely to be successful accomplishing their goal of reaching the West side of the Appalachian Range than were those settlers who ignored the information passed on to them by those who had taken the journey before them.

So it is with level 4.

While there is no denying one can experience level 4 by entering level 4 without the help of others who have been there, it is also true one can shorten the time needed to complete the journey of stepping into region 4, one can increase the probability of successfully completing the journey, if one heeds the descriptions of the journey taken by successful travelers who have gone before them.

In spite of the potential to be the target of ridicule, scorn, mockery and potential ostracism, it is now time at this point in human history to openly examine, in detail, the process of finding one’s true essence.

But why is it ‘now’ time?

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January 25th, 2017

1/25/2017

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Diversity: Degrees, variations and bridges
Part II

Different people have different bridges available to them. Some people have only one bridge available to them, some two bridges and some three bridges.

What then of level 4? What then of region 4? Level four, region four, island four is shrouded in fog to almost everyone and has yet to be discovered by the vast majority of people. There are a few people who have managed to vaguely make out a faint outline of island four through the fog.

"My deep wish is to submit entirely to an inner voice, the feeling of divine, of the sacred in me. I know that a higher energy – what religions call God or Lord – is within me. It will appear if the mind and the body are truly related. God is here when two forces are opposed a third unites them. We can ask for help in order to unite these forces in us. We can say, “Lord, have mercy.” In order to Be."
The Reality of Being, The Fourth Way of Gurdjieff, Jeanne De Salzmann, Shambhala, 2010, p 260.

Some of these people are curious; some have even attempted but failed to reach the island. Then there are the very, very, very few who have in fact built their bridge to island four and stepped onto the island, stepped into region 4.

Those that have stepped into region 4 are the Jonathon Livingston Seagulls of the fourth way and the reaction to these individuals is no less than the reaction Jonathon Livingston Seagull received from his fellow seagulls.

Are there different degrees, variations, and bridges regarding stepping into region/level 4?

Reaching level 4 is ...

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January 24th, 2017

1/24/2017

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Diversity: Degrees, variations and bridges
Part I

People are born into one particular predominating physical level, be it level 1 the physical level, level 2 the emotional level or level 3 the mental level.

Everyone has experienced level one, experienced the physical through one or more of their five (perhaps more) senses.

Most individuals are born as level 2s, meaning their emotional experiencing dominates their existence over their physical experiences.

Emotionally intense individuals are often told to ‘slow down and smell the roses’, meaning they should awaken to the physical wonders surrounding them every day.

Individuals born as level 3s are individuals who, having reached adulthood, spend most of their time analyzing, reasoning, questioning abstract ideas, seeking answers to life, trying to understand the true nature of the universe and life, manipulating mathematical concepts …

There are all types of degrees of levels one, two and three.

For example: People who primarily occupy region three are not all at the level of Einstein, Aristotle, Copernicus, Aquinas, Kant, …

Personal note:
I am aware the shallowness of my educational background is showing through here. There are huge numbers of great thinkers in fields other than Western science and philosophy.
I am not trying to imply I have great knowledge, I am simply who I am. I am simply passing on to you what has been given to me to pass onto you.

The degrees of level threes are innumerable. The three levels are experienced in multiple degrees of intensity and ability.

In addition to degrees of each level, there are many variations of level combinations.

To better understand the concept of regions it will help if we take the diagram of levels 1, 2 and 3 and change them to regions.

If we then dismantle levels 1, 2 and 3 and then place them as random regions, our whole perspective changes.

We then need to connect the regions. To connect the three regions we will construct a bridge from one region to another. Each region is like an island and as is the case with all islands, each island can vary in size and content

Just as all islands can vary one from another, bridges vary one from another.

Some bridges are passible. Some bridges are elegant. Some bridges need repair. Some bridges are impassible.

Some bridges are in the planning stages. Some islands are inaccessible since no bridges have been built to them. And some islands are shrouded in fog and as such have not yet been identified let alone had a bridge connected to them.

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January 23rd, 2017

1/23/2017

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A different perception of Levels 1, 2 and 3: Three dimensions
Part V

Initially the settlers on the East side of the Appalachian Mountains found it very very difficult to reach the West side of the Appalachians. In time an explorer found a passage through the mountains making the trek from East to West less dangerous and less time consuming.

So it is with region 4.

Some of us have stepped into region 4. As with all men, level 4’s come in all sizes, shapes and degrees.

Some of those having entered region/level 4 will not share their journey with others.

Many level 4’s have been taught by great teachers to keep their experiences to themselves. Some of their teachers have been sages who sense the information is meant for only a select few. Such individuals need not worry since most men are asleep and will not awaken regardless of how much they are shaken, regardless of how much knowledge they are given.

Other level 4’s have been taught by the masses through the process of ridicule, mockery, scorn, ostracism … to keep the information to themselves.

Ironically some of the more intense levels of ridicule, mockery, scorn, and ostracism come from within the very schools guiding students seeking esoteric knowledge, seeking esoteric understanding, seeking esoteric experiencing regarding level/region 4.

The more of us, however, who enter region 4 and risk the potential negative repercussion of disclosure in order to assist others to experience the silence, the easier it will be for others to step into this fourth room, to step into region four, to reap the treasure trove of the unique experiences to be found within region/level four which includes among other things, not only answers to questions long haunting the thinker but also the means to advancing the evolutionary development of not only ourselves personally but advancing the evolutionary development of our species as well.

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January 22nd, 2017

1/22/2017

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A different perception of Levels 1, 2 and 3: Three dimensions
Part IV
One does not step into one region/level and then step out of that level/region into another region. Rather the three levels are without boundaries, mixed one within another, chaotic, exploding in a brilliant display of sensations

One often hears the question: The physical, the physical, the physical is that all there is? Am I simply a machine?

If there were only the physical there would not be seven levels or as we now understand seven regions of human experience, there would only be three and that would be the end of this work.

But this work deals with the seven levels of human experience and this chapter presents the levels as regions which in turn will help the investigation of level 4, region 4, help us more readily understand not only what level/region 4 is but more readily understand how to access region/level 4.

Seeking a higher level is not in fact going upward but going laterally. Seeking level 4 is in fact simply stepping out of a region of sensory input, region/level 1, stepping out of a region of emotional turmoil, region/level 2 and stepping out of a region of mental frustration, region/level 3, and stepping into a region of silence.

Seeking a ‘higher level’, however, is not enough if one does know understand what ‘seeking a higher level’ entails. If one understands what one is seeking one has a much greater potential to succeed in one’s quest.

Seeking blindly, seeking without understanding what it is one is seeking almost inevitably results in failure, if not failure due to the lack of ‘finding’ then failure through having found what one seeks but not recognizing that one has found what it is one seeks since one was blindly seeking in the first place.

"Without knowing what I want, I will not make any effort. I will sleep. Without wishing for a different quality in myself, to turn toward my higher possibilities; I will have nothing to lean on, nothing to support work. I must always, again and again, come back to this question: What do I wish? It must become the most important question of my life. Yet this wish for a different quality has no force at all if it comes from my ordinary “I”. It must be related to something completely different from my ordinary “I” and free from the desire for a result. I must not forget why I wish. This must be for me really a question of life or death – I wish to be, to live in a certain way. "
The Reality of Being, The Fourth Way of Gurdjieff, Jeanne De Salzmann, Shambhala, 2010, p 19.

Some would suggest one can only step into region/level 4 through one’s own efforts.

They are correct, for one can only experience region/level 4 by ‘going’ there just as an individual standing on the East side of the Appalachian Mountains can experience the West side of the Appalachian Mountains only by going to the West side of the mountain range.

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January 21st, 2017

1/21/2017

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A different perception of Levels 1, 2 and 3: Three dimensions
Part III

The constant unrelenting, yes you do, yes you do, yes you do, yet forever insanely providing no answers to questions such as: If so then what is my purpose? Tell me. Tell me! Give me the answer or stop bugging me!

Yet, in spite of receiving no answers, these level 3s, the one’s awakening, do not let go, do not give up and continue their desperate search for the answers.

The level 4s must reach out, must assist if for no other reason than for the humanitarian outreach to those suffering the unanswered desperate need to know, need to find the next level of their awakening.

Level 4s have much to gain by assisting level 3s rise to be level 4s not only in terms of assisting level 3s but in terms of helping themselves.

‘… Thus the conditions for ascending the stairway on the fourth way are that a man cannot ascend to a higher step until he places another man upon his own step....’
Gurdjieff quote, In Search of the Miraculous, The Teachings of Gurdjieff,
P. D. Ouspensky, Harcourt, Inc., 1949, 1977, p.202.

All humans are capable of experiencing physical reality through their sensory organs (In the case of humans: sight, smell, taste, touch and sound).

Most humans are capable of experiencing physical reality through emotional experiencing.

Some humans are capable of experiencing physical reality in terms of analysis, reasoning, rationality...

One does not step into one region/level and then step out of that level/region into another region. Rather the three levels are without boundaries, mixed one within another, chaotic, exploding in a brilliant display of sensations

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January 20th, 2017

1/20/2017

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A different perception of Levels 1, 2 and 3: Three dimensions
Part II

Graphically depicting the three levels in a three dimensional format gives one a different perception of the three ‘levels’.

In a two dimensional format the levels appear as ‘levels’, appear as heights one must climb like a mountain, while a three dimensional format of the three levels provides a perception of the levels being less like ‘levels’ and being more like ‘locations’/regions within which one is capable of experiencing the physical.

Viewing the ‘levels’ as ‘locations’ removes the perception of relative worth, removes the temptation of judging the merit of an individual based upon the individuals capacity to experiencing a numerical quantity regarding levels. With the concept of levels there is a tendency to consider the individual capacity to experiencing level 2 as being more impressive than a person being capable of experiencing only levels 1 and the individual capacity to experiencing level 3 as being more impressive than a person being capable of experiencing only levels 1 and 2.

A person capable of experiencing level 4 is no more significant than a person capable of experiencing level 3. In fact a person capable of experiencing level 4 has a great responsibility, has the responsibility, the obligation, the divine task of encouraging, guiding, awakening, directing … level 3s into the arena of level 4, into the location of level 4.

The level 4 must reach out to the level 3s who wish to awaken, who are subsumed with the walls of doubt, who are obsessed with the oppressive weight of unending questions regarding the purpose of life, who are seeking to experience a second reality, who are striving to quiet the incessant whispering, haunting, echoing within their mind which says: Yes you have a purpose. You have meaning and then never providing the answer to those seeking.

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January 18th, 2017

1/18/2017

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A different perception of Levels 1, 2 and 3: Three dimensions
Part I

Levels 1, 2 and 3 are usually depicted in a two dimensional format:

The problem with depicting the three levels of the individual human as two dimensional is that we, humans, do not live in a two dimensional existence.

To be as accurate as possible we should depict Levels 1, 2 and 3 in a three dimensional format.

The process of using three dimensions is ‘non-traditional’ but since we are not two dimensional beings it is only rational to demonstrate the various levels using three dimensions or more.

We then obtain Figure I - 14

The question becomes: So what? Isn’t this just what we have been doing throughout this chapter?

We have been examining the three levels in a three dimensional format and doing so for a reason.

We have been familiarizing ourselves to the very concept of three dimensional visualizations of levels 1, 2 and 3 in order to prepare ourselves for a different understanding of level 4 and a different understanding of how to find one’s true essence.

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January 17th, 2017

1/17/2017

1 Comment

The mental/thinking body of the individual: Level 3:
Part V

Level 4 exists where there is no physical existence and level 4 is attainable by individuals wishing to step into, find, and experience a state of the void, a state of silence.

Level 4 is sought by many but is sought full time by the fakirs, monks and yogis as one of the ultimate states they dedicate their lives to attain. These three paths require the complete devotion of the disciples of the three groups.

There is, however, a fourth way to finding the state of level 4[i]. The fourth way does not require a complete dedication of one’s life to the search.

‘… The fourth way requires no retirement into the desert, does not require a man to give up and renounce everything by which he formerly lived...’
Gurdjieff quote, In Search of the Miraculous, The Teachings of Gurdjieff, P. D. Ouspensky, Harcourt, Inc., 1949, 1977.

The fourth way allows an individual to find their true essence while remaining a part of society, while fulfilling one’s commitments and responsibilities already established.

How is this possible? How can one remain a member of normal life and fulfill the responsibility of normal life yet find what yogis, fakirs and monks seek through a process of complete isolation from ordinary life as the vast majority of people know ordinary life to be?

The means of finding answers to questions such as: Is life meaningless? Is this all there is? Why do I exist? Is it really worth the effort? Is there an existence ‘beyond’ the physical? What possible significance could I have in a crowd of seven billion people? With a trillion stars in the heavens what possible significance could my existence have?

The answers to such questions begin through a slightly different perception of Levels 1, 2 and 3 which in turn leads to understanding the answers to questions regarding level 4: Where is level 4? What is level 4? Why does level 4 exist? How can one experience level 4? …

The different perception of level 4 actually begins with a different perception of levels 1, 2 and 3 which in turn leads to a the different perception of level 4. Learning of the different perception of level 4 results in a reduction of time and effort necessary for attaining level 4 because this new understanding allows one to move laterally rather than climb a mountain to attain level 4.

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Part I: For the novice
Intro & General Comments
10/16/16 - 12/31/16
The work begins:
Reality 1: World One: The physical
1/1/17 - 2/6/17
The Silence: The Void
2/7/17 - 2/23/17
Preparation: Conquering the Physical Machine
2/24/17 - 3/11/17
Taking a Peek: Viewing the void
3/12/17 - 3/17/17
Stepping into the silence:
Walking over the abyss of fear
3/2o/17
The silence: The region between two worlds
3/21/17
The void is not a reality: The void is nothingness
3/22/17 - 3/26/17
Entering the void: A regionless region
3/27/17 - ...

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