N found doing the Vitruvian Man pose itself, was very interesting, because it kind of balanced up the body and the mind, and emotions. He thought there was something significant about this Vitruvian Man. It wasn't just for the architecture of the human body, which is how it is usually portrayed. There was something esoteric that N got out of it. As he did that, he found much more connection between the various parts of his selves It was good going into that pose. It was quite a magical pose. It was the pose of the balanced man, in a sense. He found making up the sentence harder. The word he chose was Tikliamishian - it was quite hard to put a sentence together, and actually say the word, because he always found Gurdjieff's words very hard to pronounce. He tried to say In the time of the Tikliamishian civilisation, people cut off their beards and acted more like actors, and changed the whole nature of human civilisation.
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The first time, on 7 April, L noticed he was feeling drowsy, and noted he had been eating something with carbohydrates, so that was probably why. He thought of a sentence - How do I explain what legominism means? - and that was just a silly sentence, because it was self-referential, because legomonism was about preserving and communicating meaning over a long period of time. The Challenge made him frustrated as he had to pause. The experience was about whimsy rather than reason. Another time, he had had an afternoon coffee. He was in company, and felt a bit tired. So he did his stretching sitting down, and the sentence he thought of was - Can you direct me to the ookazemotra? - He thought in the book ookazemotra meant something like a signpost, so again it was a self-referential thing. Again he felt frustrated because of having to pause, but there was no reason in it, it was fun and ironic. Becoming more aware of getting drowsy, he started taking a short rest after lunch, and he stopped feeling drowsy.
During the period allocated to responses, there was much discussion, but nothing was said about specific instances of doing the challenge.
The reading then continued from Chapter 30 of Beelzebub's Tales.
Without thinking long about it, I entered the building and passing myself off as a foreign learned being, I requested, as an adherent of Legominism, to be enrolled as a member of the club; I managed to do this very easily, owing to that old acquaintance whom I had met by chance and who, like the others, took me for a learned being like himself.
... It must be remarked that among the learned beings of the planet Earth who were then in Babylon and who were gathered there partly by coercion from almost the whole of the planet by the mentioned Persian king, and partly voluntarily on account of the already mentioned famous question of the ‘soul,’ there were several among the beings brought there by coercion who were not, like the majority, learned beings of ‘new formation,’ but who, with a sincerity proceeding from their separate spiritualized parts, strove for High Knowledge only with the aim of self-perfection.
RM remembered that when he joined the Freemasons, which was like a club, the majority there treated it as a club, people were just socialising, and so on, but a very few saw it for their own personal growth and development. It seemed that Gurdjieff was alluding to that, the difference between the different kinds of people. One was mechanical - the club, and the other he said very little about, but they were growing in themselves, they were learning from it.
...These several learned beings kept themselves apart there, not only in the beginning when all the other learned beings who were then in the city of Babylon first opened a central place for their meetings in the very heart of the city, and when for their better mutual support both materially and morally, they founded there a central club for all the learned beings of the Earth; but also later on, when the whole body of learned beings was divided into three separate ‘sections’ and each section had its independent club in one or another part of the city of Babylon, they identified themselves with none of the said three sections.
They existed in the suburbs of the city of Babylon and scarcely met any of the learned beings from the general mass; and it was only several days before my admittance among them as a member of this club, that they for the first time united for the purpose of organizing the club of the ‘Adherents-of-Legominism.’
These learned beings about whom I am speaking had all without exception been taken to the city of Babylon by coercion and they were for the most part those learned beings who had been taken there by the Persian king from Egypt.
As I later learned, this uniting of theirs had been brought about by two learned beings who were initiates of the first degree.
RM said this section was exposing human nature for what we do. Even the leaders are exposed for the greed and the particular views they want everyone to follow. O said it was maybe to reinforce their own power. Knowledge was power, anyway. RM asked what kind of knowledge? - the knowledge that drives us for more wealth - that's one kind of a power, and another drive is towards more wisdom. O said that was what he was describing. It was a bit of a mix. These kings did not do it all for the power, they also were interested to develop science.
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