Education, Education, Education.

Reflections on the Challenge

When you find yourself pecking at your phone, keyboard, or food, without attention, pause. Then resume the action more slowly and consciously, observing any change in the way you feel.

• Experiences

  L had become aware, one evening, that he had been pecking at his food over supper. When he chewed more slowly, he felt calmer. Generally, he had observed that slowing down brought a feeling of calmness. Recently, he had acquired a virtual reality headset and found that when he felt distracted or busy, putting it on and entering a peaceful natural environment had helped him appreciate the calmness real nature can provide.

• Responses

  T was intrigued by L’s mention of virtual reality as a tool for appreciating nature. She had initially viewed it as unnatural, but could now reconsider it, as if VR can help one appreciate nature more deeply, it might enhance the real-world experience of being in nature.

Beelzebub’s Tales, Chapter 32

• Passage

  And all cosmic truths usually become known to all on these planets, thanks to the fact that the beings of the given planet who by their conscious labors learn some truth or other share it with other beings of their planet, and in this way all the cosmic truths gradually become known by all the beings of the given planet without any distinction.

  Thanks to this sacred process, intentionally actualized by our ALL-FORESEEING COMMON ENDLESS FATHER, it is foreseen that in the three-brained beings of the given planet, during the process in their presences of the fundamental cosmic holy law of Triamazikamno, the superfluity of its third holy force thereby obtained, namely, the force of the ‘sacred reconciling,’ should by itself crystallize data in them for engendering that something which is what is called ‘being-Egoaitoorassian-will.’

• Discussion

  N compared the sharing of cosmic truths to sharing scientific advancements, though in the case of modern science complications had arisen, notably because of quantum mechanics, in the pursuit of a unified cosmic understanding.

  L supported the idea that over time, planets and life forms naturally progressed toward harmony and consciousness.

  T commented on the uniqueness of Earth’s development, reflecting the special condition mentioned in the extract. N thought likewise that the Earth’s conditions had been absolutely right for fostering human evolution.

• Passage

  And the second fact ... they intentionally try by every kind of means, for the purpose of making them respond to these abnormal conditions round them, to fix in their ‘logicnestarian-localizations’ as many impressions as possible obtained exclusively only from such artificial perceptions as are again due to the results of their abnormal existence—which maleficent action of theirs towards their offspring they call ‘education’ ... and the totality of these artificial perceptions is then perceived by them, owing to their naïvete, as their real ‘consciousness.’ But as for the sacred data for genuine being-consciousness put into them by Great Nature ... which engender in them the genuine sacred being-impulses of ‘faith,’ ‘hope,’ ‘love,’ and ‘conscience’—these data, becoming gradually also isolated and being left to themselves, evolve independently of the intentions of the responsible beings, and of course also independently of the bearers of them themselves, and come to be regarded as what is called the ‘subconsciousness.’

• Discussion

  N said Gurdjieff was trying to explain why humanity was in its current state of artificial consciousness. We were not allowed our any other because education put us in the wrong place, and we just then followed what our parents and teachers told us. Gurdjieff was suggesting that true responsibility and the more authentic aspects of human nature resided deep within the subconscious.