Consciousness and functions

The meeting started with a reading from Ouspensky’s “The Fourth Way”, Chapter 3, on states of consciousness and functions.

This chapter explains there are four possible states or levels of consciousness. They are: sleep, waking state, self-consciousness and objective consciousness, but in our condition we only live in the lower two, one part of life spent in sleep and the other part when we are in the “waking state “.

The reading was followed by discussion on levels of consciousness and the functions of the mind.

Recurrence

The meeting started with a reading from Ouspensky’s “The Fourth Way”, Chapter 16, on the theory of recurrence.

He writes: "Some people may have exactly the same recurrence, other people may have different variations or possibilities . . (but in) the case of people who come nearer to the work, it may be possible . . . to study three successive recurrences."

Moreover, he continues, in the second case "when one definitely comes in contact with C influence . . . the possibilities of recurrence greatly diminish . . . because C influence cannot be wasted."

(Read more on this from the book itself. An electronic version of this book is available from the link on the right.)

The reading was followed by a general discussion on the mechanical nature of A influences and how we can be influenced by the qualities of B and C influences that have a conscious origin.

Doing and Happenings

The meeting started with a reading from Ouspensky’s “The Fourth Way”, Chapter 10 (We cannot ‘Do’), explaining how we think we make our own internal decisions and act accordingly, yet are actually being controlled by external influences.

If the internal decisions correspond to the external influences we will do it, otherwise we do not.

This was followed by a discussion where the possibility of being able to change ourselves from a relatively mechanical existence to being able make our own decisions, instead of letting things just happen, was the main theme of our discussion.

Essence and Personality

The meeting started with a reading in which all present read a short part from “The Fourth Way”, Chapter 4, describing the essential different qualities of essence and personality. This was followed by our usual discussion.

Knowledge, Understanding and Beingness

There were nine people present.

The meeting started with a reading from the “The Fourth Way”, Chapter 2, explaining the essential differences between knowledge, understanding and beingness.

This was followed by an interesting discussion on how we can try to change our levels of knowledge and understanding of these states.

Consciousness and Functions

The eighth meeting.

There were nine people present.

Subject for discussion: Consciousness and Functions. Ouspensky’s “The Fourth Way”, Chapter 3, page 53.

The Enneagram

The seventh meeting.

There were six people present.

Subject for discussion: The Enneagram.

Consciousness and Functions

The sixth meeting.

There were six people present.

Subject for discussion: Consciousness and Functions. Ouspensky’s “The Fourth Way”, Chapter 3, page 53.

Knowledge and Being

The second regular meeting of the Hampstead Gurdjieff discussion group.

The meeting started with a reading on “Knowledge and Being” from Ouspensky’s “The Fourfh Way”, pages 41-50.

This was followed by a discussion of the relative differences between knowledge, understanding and levels of being.

Self-observation

The first regular meeting of the Hampstead Gurdjieff discussion group was held at 9 am on Sunday 9^th. March 2008. There were five people present.

The meeting started with a brief reading of the first part of chapter two of Ouspensky’s “The Fourth Way”, followed by questions and discussion.

The questions discussed were about the lack of unity in our state of being and how with self observation we can observe four different functions of our minds: the intellectual, the emotional, the moving and the instinctive.

There was much discussion about classifying the different kinds of impressions that belonged to different functions and how through self-observation we can observe that in our usual level of consciousness we are most of our time more asleep than awake.

This led to other interesting questions about the different states of consciousness that we experience.

Mechanical activity and and conscious levels of behaviour

The third Gurdjieff Discussion Group was held at a member’s house on Sunday 10th. February at 9.30am. There were five people present.

The meeting started with a reading from parts of chapter three of Ouspensky’s “In Search of the Miraculous” followed by questions and discussion on the essential difference between mechanical activity, and conscious levels of behaviour. When we observe our selves from a higher level of consciousness, we can observe that we spend most of our time more asleep than awake.

It was agreed at this meeting that we should look for a more convenient place for our meetings.

What is consciousness?

The second meeting of the Gurdjieff Discussion Group, held at a member’s house on Sunday 6th. January at 9.am. There were five people present.

The meeting started with a reading from Ouspensky’s “Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution” Chapter One, followed by questions and discussion on what is consciousness and how we can observe different levels of awareness in ourselves.