States of consciousness

The meeting started with a reading from Ouspensky’s book "In Search of the Miraculous", Chapter 8, in which the four states of consciousness possible for man are described.

The first and lowest state is the sleeping state. Ouspensky, quoting Gurdjieff, writes "This is an entirely subjective state of consciousness. A man is immersed in dreams, whether he remembers them or not does not matter." In this state we do not know the difference between dreams and reality.

The second is the waking state or waking/sleep state. This is the state in which we spend most of our time and have a little more conscious awareness than in the sleeping state. We are able to move around and participate in a world of common reality that we share with others. When a man is awake he can do more damage. There was a war on at the time of writing, the 1914-18, a war where several millions of "sleeping" people were trying to kill several million other people who were also "asleep". Only work that leads to awakening matters.

The third state of our consciousness is self-consciousness or "self-remembering", when one is objectively conscious of one’s own thoughts and beingness and can see our intentions and behaviour from a more enlightened point of view. A man cannot awaken by himself. Involuntary imitation begins in childhood. People can live in sleep and die in sleep. Gurdjieff says: "For most people, even for educated and thinking people, the chief obstacle in the way of acquiring self-consciousness consists in the fact that they think they possess it", but when one is living in the two lower states of consciousness one is not aware of the higher ones.

Gurdjieff calls the fourth state "the objective state" where "a man can see things as they are". At this level one can see other people’s viewpoints impartially and objectively without any trace of subjective prejudice.

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

A discussion followed. M. suggested that a decision made when we are in a self-consciousness level of awareness was a time when one could possibly affect a future event and would also indicate the effectiveness of our power of will.

T said it was a paradox that people wake up on the battlefield.

On trying to reach the third state, Gurdjieff said a man needs the support of a group. There is a distinction between different types of group, discussion groups and practical groups in the Gurdjieff work. It was agreed that this is an introductory discussion group.

A. - who is part of a theatre group - gave an example from the theatre of mechanical talking.

D. - a playwright - gave us flyers for his new play which was about to be staged - a flash of inspiration to the group!

T. - a painter - related that Julia Cameron (author of "The Artists Way"), was told by someone not to be self-indulgent. But it is necessary to be alone and concentrated on your self. No art can be done without the person being on their own.