Issue #33 August 2024
“Let your death be your advisor.”
~ Carlos Castaneda
Hi
I have always been mesmerized by Guaguin’s painting that bears the title: Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? (painted in 1897-1898). In my view, it is a religious painting – as much so as any of the religious paintings that normally come to mind when one thinks of aspirational art.
Of course, most people would not see it that way.
The title expresses the central yearning that haunts almost everybody who becomes a seeker – to know their origin and to know their true direction, and thus discover what they are. And, of course, death stands squarely on the path to the future for every one of us. How can we proceed?
In this month’s newsletter, we include a wonderful essay written by Ronald Jones that describes the final act in The Tales, revealing it to be what you probably never noticed it to be – a dialogue with the Absolute.
I recommend that you read it.
Sincerely
RB
The Climax of The Tales
Why Do We Ignore The Exercise at the Climax of The Tales?
Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson is Gurdjieff’s towering masterpiece. He spent years writing and refining it as he watched students listen to it being read and he was assisted by the best editor of his century. It is a serious student’s primary source, something akin to The Bible of the Work.
Prayer in the Work
At a Paris meeting in 1938, Gurdjieff was asked the question: “How should one pray?”
He replied: In our solar system certain substances emanate from the sun and the planets, in the same way as those emanated by the earth, making contact at certain points in the solar system. These points can reflect themselves in materialized images, which are the inverted images of the All Highest — the Absolute.
In a world that often feels disconnected and chaotic, …
Why Darwin Was Wrong
Gurdjieff said that the chief feature of humanity is suggestibility. We can see this clearly in the general attitude to scientific theories that pervades European and North American culture. In general, they tend to believe everything that modern science has suggested to them. It can often be observed among many people who are part of the Work, even though they ought…
The Supreme Being’s Banquet
One day the Supreme Being took it into his head to give a great banquet in his palace of azure.
All the virtues were invited. Only the virtues … men he did not ask … only ladies.
There were a great many of them, great and small. The lesser virtues were more agreeable and genial than the great ones; but they all appeared in good humour, and chatted amiably together, as was only becoming for near relations and friends.
⥫ GURDJIEFF OSKIANO ⥭
The Food Diagram
by Robin Bloor
