Recurrence

The meeting started with a discussion of Chapter 16 of Ouspensky’s book "The Fourth Way", in which recurrence and reincarnation are considered.

RM brought up the question of what survives death.

L mentioned the analysis of Wilfred Bion, a student of Freud, who referred to primordial consciousness, bereft of words and symbols, as alpha function, compared to acquired consciousness which uses symbols and verbalisation (beta function). Beta function is required for dreaming to be possible. As beta function might require a physical brain, it is more likely the alpha function part of our consciousness which survives, if any.

This started a discussion about essence and personality. "R" pointed out that although Ouspensky used the term "false personality", Gurdjieff himself never mentioned it in his writing.

RM said that ego and identity are synonymous - the Advaita Vedanta talks about the universal self which is equivalent to the essence. It talks about fears and desires leading to memories, and that if you die with those fears and desires they transmigrate with your soul. There is no such thing as time. There is the potentiality of the Present always.

"R" talked about her teacher who was with Ouspensky in his last few years. Ouspensky asked him to take him back to certain places that were significant in his life to impress himself with the places, to be conscious of them while he was still alive.

RM said that time is an illusion.

L gave the example of a conductor, who repeatedly guides all the musicians through exactly the same sequence of notes. It is slightly different every time, yet still essentially the same. But as soon as attention begins to waver, the experience dissolves and is gone. Likewise our experience of reality may be a consequence of sustained and shared attention.

"Recurrence is in eternity, but reincarnation is in time," writes Ouspensky, early in the chapter. "But we have no evidence of the existence of time beyond our life. Time is life for each person, and it includes in itself all time, so that when life ends, time ends. So reincarnation is a less scientific theory than recurrence — too much is taken for granted."

L recalled the statement of Ayn Rand (which she attributed to the Greeks) - "It is not I who will die, it is the world that will end."

RM recounted a report of a little girl from Sri Lankan who said that her father was not her real father. Adults took her to where she said her real father was, who said that his daughter had died at 4 years old. The report said the girl identified many details at the house where she said she had lived.

D mentioned the case of Bridey Murphy which claimed to prove reincarnation. An internet search showed that the evidence is debatable.

"R" said that it is more useful to attend to the present moment and experience wonder as a response.

D talked about awe, and said he didn't believe in reincarnation or karma, because of the babies dying in Africa. "R" added that the word "dread", in the Rastafarian sense, also applies.

L gave an account of hearing footsteps in an empty church the previous week.

"R" described having felt a presence of massacre at Masada.

M read further from the text: "... it may be possible ... to study three successive recurrences. ... the first is when one comes close to the possibility of meeting with some kind of ideas of higher mind; the second, when one definitely comes in contact with C influence; and the third, which would be the result of it. ... But C influence is limited ... because if one does not make use of it, what is the good of wasting it?"

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

L summarised the influences as: A - normal influences of life, B - creative art, C - teaching from a higher source (school). C would be limited in the sense that Yehudi Menuhin's time would be - a pupil who did not practice would be replaced by another.

"R" said that we work whilst we're here to make sense of our own life and meaning. Our work and our efforts bring about transformation in us, and that transformation is needed by the next level up.