The Virtual Fork

Z had tried the exercise given for the previous month, but when faced with resistance the rebel within had always refused. So instead she had been working on patience with mundane tasks. Instead of trying to rush through them because she really did not want to do them, she had been using them as an exercise, because the conscious self only wants to do what is necessary. That was something she had been finding helpful.

T had also come to value doing mundane tasks. A colleague of hers had described how she becomes angry while doing mundane tasks, for instance when throwing clothes into the washing machine. This description at work helped T to see the work that is being done at the Meetings. She suggested to her colleague that she could use the mundane work as a meditation, instead of rebelling against doing it, so that tasks thrust upon us become opportunities for self development. In Gurdjieff terms to use the task to wake up to the silent witness observing the task, or failing that to observe dispassionately the anger, irritation or boredom that wells up when doing the task.

Taking the example from last month's exercise literally, N had taken to eating apples in place of an alternative which he might hitherto have chosen. Over the month he had lost four kilograms, and come to quite like the taste of apples. It had helped having a goal that he desired, which made it not too much of a hardship. So in terms of acting against resistance, it was perhaps a waste of time, but in terms of achieving a goal, it was successful.

RM's practice of using the act of putting things down as a trigger for being present, meant he was no longer forgetting where he had put things. He had a network of people around the world who were in his one-minute meditation group. One member was using blinking as her trigger. She was having amazing results and sending him personal comments about that. The results of being present were just extraordinary and he was bowled over by the way it was affecting him now, and by the revelations he was getting daily. He had chatted to someone the day before, who was not normally interested in this sort of thing, but she recognised its value right away.

L had found the exercise helpful in fostering awareness, but he had also found one-minute meditations helpful. It was an active experience. Keeping it to one minute seems to strengthen it, because during the minute it gets stronger, but if it were over a long time it would weaken and he might go to sleep. He had noticed that in the Insight Timer community there were people who were meditating for sixty minutes, and he was not sure how well that worked, and whether they did it more than once a day. Other people were doing guided meditation, which he thought was a passive experience. He had come across a video on YouTube in which Gurdjieff was talking about the difference between awareness and consciousness. The dog typified awareness through its sharp senses, while for the meditator it was different, the consciousness growing like ripples in a pool, getting stronger and stronger, which reflected the experience L had been having during the one-minute meditations.




D had also been doing the meditation. He had become emotionally involved with a woman, but had not realised how unwell she was. She was bipolar and now in a recovery centre. He had thought he could help her, but realised he couldn't. He had seen a BBC broadcast about eyes, which included a suggestion that men and women are wired to use their eyes differently. He took the Sex-ID test described in the programme, and was shocked to discover his score was 8 out of 10, which indicated a degree of empathy more typical of female than male brains. Formerly he had been more balanced. He said a male to a male can be more different than a male to a female, and likewise a female to a female.

The Meeting moved on to responses.

Following on L's remarks about meditation, Z said that she thought guided meditation can lead to some insights. T wondered what people were doing when they reported on Insight Timer that they were doing 30 minutes meditation. She recalled Gurdjieff's phrase The evil inner god of self-calming, and wondered if people were switching off instead of switching on to being aware of their own reality, as perhaps had been the case with her for twenty years of daily mediations. RM likened these two forms of meditation to the concepts from the Tao Te Ching of the True heart and the False heart. He thought the passive form was another form of sleep, and asked why anyone would want to come out of meditation if it were a state of being present. T likened the passive meditative state as akin to a chrysalis, a protection from the world rather than an engagement with it. RM added that there is a third form of meditation, reflective meditation, for example becoming absorbed in a philosophical book, or listening to a sermon from a pulpit.

Following on what Z and T had said, D spoke of boredom as a way to get back to himself. Often people were, in contrast, beside themselves. People were more disturbed than they used to be. What had helped him was a tablet computer with the internet on it. He used to be apart from the world, but has come back into it stronger. Where he lives, there is  a woman upstairs who doesn't see anybody. He only meets her in the laundry room. She had told him she does not want any help from social workers, and she pays for a cleaner to come twice a week. He could not understand how she manages to be on her own, and found it fascinating. He had asked her if she would consider writing about her experience of being alone, and she had replied "No".

At 9:45 the reading of Beelzebub's Tales resumed, from the point reached in Chapter 18, The Arch-Preposterous, where Beelzebub's friend on Saturn was in the midst of an explanation of his invention.

'... And in order that the beings who are outside of this part of my invention may nevertheless also have the possibility of elucidating the force of the given process, I intentionally made the composition of the material of the wall in one place such that it has the property of permitting the passage through it of the said "Salnichizinooarnianmomentum- vibrations" or "rays."'


There was some discussion of what this might mean. L thought that the description was of an apparatus to filter out distraction from consciousness. When he experienced something like this tunes came into his mind but not much else.

D thought that Gurdjieff's teaching was about doing, not being. Z thought that Gurdjieff was saying that we all have our own doctrines. GC said the problem lay in following other people's doctrines, not one's own. L said that Gurdjieff had neatly expressed the tendency for people to follow the doctrines of others by his concept of kundabuffer.

Having said this, he approached nearer to the Hrahaharhtzaha and pressed a certain button. The result was that the whole of the enormous Khrh or 'workshop' was suddenly so strongly lit up that our organs of sight temporarily ceased to function, and only after a considerable time had passed could we with great difficulty raise our eyelids and look around.


RM queried the emphasis on the organs of sight. After discussion, the consensus was that the removal of illusion and exposure to reality could be so overwhelming it might effectively be blinding for a while.

... he first, with his customary angel-voice, again drew our attention to the Voltmeter,' the needle of which constantly indicated the same figure, and then continued:

'You see that, although the process of the clash of two opposite component parts of the Omnipresent-Okidanokh, of the same power of "force-of-striving" still continues, ... yet in spite of all this there is no longer the phenomenon which ordinary beings define by the phrase "the-causes-of-artificial-light" ... by my last pulling of a certain lever, I introduced into the process of the clash of two component parts of Okidanokh, a current of the third independent component part of Okidanokh, which began to blend proportionally with its other two parts, owing to which the result derived from this kind of blending of the three component parts of the Omnipresent-Okidanokh—unlike the process of the non-lawconformable blending of its two parts—cannot be perceived by beings with any of their being-functions.' 


There was some discussion of this complex paragraph. T thought that the machine being demonstrated maybe symbolic of the creation of a human being.

RM suggested that "artificial light" produced by a simpler machine might denote normal understanding.

Z queried why the term "angel-voice" had been used. L said Beelzebub had held his raven friend in very high regard. He also commented that recent scientific research had demonstrated high intelligence in ravens and crows, as discussed the previous month.

First of all his assistants put on Gornahoor Harharkh and myself some special, very heavy suits, resembling those which your favorites call 'diving suits' but with many small heads of what are called 'bolts' projecting, and when these extremely peculiar suits had been put on us, his assistants screwed up the heads of these bolts in a certain order.

On the inner side of these diving suits, at the ends of the bolts, there were, it appeared, special plates which pressed against parts of our planetary body in a certain way.

It later also became quite clear to me that this was necessary, in order that there might not occur to our planetary bodies what is called 'Taranooranura,' or, as it might otherwise be said, in order that our planetary bodies should not fall to pieces as usually occurs to sur- and intraplanetary formations of every kind when they happen to come into an entirely atmosphereless space.

In addition to these special suits, they placed on our heads a 'something' resembling what is called a 'diver's helmet,' but with very complicated, what are called 'connectors' projecting from them.

T remarked that this appeared to be an early description of immersive virtual reality body suits. She said it is as if we might fall apart if exposed to reality. RM said that time did not exist and there was only the eternal present. GC asked what that was. RM said that the future already existed. L said that chaos theory had shown that the weather, for example, was not predetermined because of the butterfly effect. L said there was may be a sea of quantum possibilities at every moment. N said that there are different interpretations of reality. RM remembered how a lady of 75, who had little self confidence, sliced through a block of wood with the side of her hand at a martial arts event. Everyone who watched had thought the wood split before she touched it. He had kept part of that block for a long time. N asked what people had been saying before trying to split the wood. RM said there had been prior intense thought, and everyone had been shouting: "Break! Break! Break!". The story reminded L of Uri Geller and fork bending. Z said these activities bring up group abilities and the dangers of them. GC said these activities took you away from who you were. N spoke of the Brazilian healer John of God about whom some claims suggest the existence of different subjective realities.

Following the reading there was a discussion on which exercise to adopt for the coming month. It was decided to try an activity which challenged our views about reality, for example fork bending.

Maven Raven, Tripping the Light Fantastic.

RM had been staying with one minute meditations, which he referred to as intended presence. He had contacts around the world working with his methods. He did the practice as often as he could remember during the day. His general level of awareness had increased.

DM had read or heard on the radio that the subconscious only operates in the present. He wondered about flashbacks and memory, and how that related to the subconscious. He had been studying Osho's thinking. Osho had done Buddha-like stuff. He would go into a state of boredom, and that is a good state to be in, a transition state between doing and being.

L had been doing one-minute meditation with the Insight Timer app, and had also come across the Vipassana system, and a number of videos about it on YouTube by S. N. Goenka.



He found it increased a sense of identity, and objective awareness. He had liked the non-sectarian approach. He had also tried to enter a meditative state of mind while walking, while being fully aware of the body physically. It felt like watching "it" (or id) walk. Perhaps a case of ego versus id.

E said that, regarding the exercise, he had not done it too much. He had just started a new job, and gone into something completely different, and was stressed by this.

N had been trying to become more conscious of his feet when things were stressful. He spoke of the machinery in his system, and not identifying with the gears, and this had helped him pull back from particular emotional currents.

"R" said had been with two of her grand children. One was in distress and she consoled him with touch. There was more meaning to sense. The touch was more important than words, and children understand this. You can't wipe out what is distressing the child.

GC had been trying to stay with states of unease. He also recalled  an experience when he visited an ashram years ago.  A young person whom he assumed was in charge told him he couldn't sit down when the bell went and that it was a ceremony. Later he asked one of the teachers about the rule not to sit down and he asked him who told him that. When GC explained the teacher asked him why he had listened to the child?

T said that she had found it very hard to be aware of the exercise and link it up with the Work. When her emotions were running high the drama blotted everything else out. She recalled the exercise only in hindsight of the emotional state.

The attendees then turned to responding to the contributions.

T had found N's comments about gears relevant, as gears and machinery were consistent with the current part of the reading. His description of gears and machinery helped her to think about her own machinations.

E had also found N's description of gears and cogs helpful. L said he had found it interesting too, as it linked with the way Freud had likewise used thermodynamics and hydrodynamics in his day to conceptualise psychodynamics, whereas the metaphor of choice was now computers, as in the artificial intelligence field, which posits the questions Can machines be aware? alongside Can we be aware? There are scientists trying to emulate the human brain in the belief it is possible to upload a mind into a computer. GC said to L that he seemed to prefer Freud over Jung. L said that he found Freud's approach more scientific, and he had found Jung's judgement more woolly, in that one of his friends was the extremist Miguel Serrano, who was also a friend of Hermann Hesse, and wrote a book about them. N made the point that a person's choice of friends does not necessarily impact on the quality of their thinking in other areas. GC raised questions about Gurdjieff's behaviour during his lifetime, and "R" recommended a book by Tcheslaw Tchekhovitch, Gurdjieff: A Master in Life.

RM commented on N's description of gears and machinery. He said he himself had been an engineer. From this experience he learned that the whole thing doesn't work if one bit doesn't work. He was aware during the exercise that he had a need to evaluate which seemed a huge barrier. When the evaluating stopped he was aware that he was seeing what was happening. He was aware of an attachment created by evaluating. When he was not evaluating he was not attaching.

At 9:45 the reading from Beelzebub's Tales resumed, continuing with Chapter 18, The Arch-Preposterous.

The part of Gornahoor Harharkh's new invention which he himself called the Hrhaharht/aha and regarded as the most important was in appearance very much like the 'Tirzikiano' or, as your favorites would say, a 'huge electric lamp.' ...

The walls of this original construction were made of a certain transparent material ... the chief particularity of this said transparent material was that, although by means of the organ of sight beings could perceive through it the visibility of every kind of cosmic concentration, yet no rays of any kind, whatever the causes they may have arisen from, could pass through it, either from within out or from without in.

T said she found the depiction of this dignitary as a small bird, a raven, very funny. L said that this was likely to be a considered choice by Gurdjieff, as ravens are in fact particularly intelligent birds.



E asked for an explanation of the section just read. L said it was to be taken as a small part of a description of Gurdjieff's structure of the mind, being an electrical metaphor.  It relates to the particular chapter of Beelzebub's Tales that the Meetings were currently reading, as Gurdjieff, several decades after Freud, in his turn uses a model which also draws upon electronics. L thought the description of the transparent material which allowed sight without any other influences alluded to thinking freely with no distractions.

There was ... a 'Soloohnorahoona' of special construction, or ... a 'pump-of-complex-construction-forexhausting- atmosphere-to-the-point-of-absolute-vacuum.'

... Gornahoor Harharkh himself approached the said pump ... and with his left wing moved one of its parts, owing to which a certain mechanism began to work in the pump. He then approached us again and, pointing with the same special feather of his right wing to the largest Lifechakan, or Krhrrhihirhi, or dynamo, further continued his explanations.

He said, 'By means of this special appliance, there are first "sucked-in" ... all the three independent parts of the Omnipresent-Active-Element- Okidanokh present in it, and only afterwards when in a certain way these separate independent parts are artificially reblended in the Krhrrhihirhi into a single whole, does the Okidanokh, now in its usual state, flow and is it concentrated there, in that "container"'—saying which, he again with the same special feather pointed to something very much like what is called a 'generator.'

'And then from there,' he said, 'Okidanokh flows here into another Krhrrhihirhi or dynamo where it undergoes the process of Djartklom, and each of its separate parts is concentrated there in those other containers' ...

E queried the allusion to a vacuum. L thought it was connected to the clearing of thoughts from the mind, whereas for T the reference to a pump brought the thought of a beating heart. T said that each of us is a pump.

... he pulled another lever and again continued:

... 'But since, intentionally by an "able-Reason"—in the present case myself—the participation of that third part of Okidanokh existing under the name of "Parijrahatnatioose" is artificially excluded from the said process, then this process proceeds there just now between only two of its parts, namely, between those two independent parts which science names "Anodnatious" and "Cathodnatious." And in consequence, instead of the obligatory law-conformable results of the said process, that non-law-conformable result is now actualized which exists under the denomination of "theresult- of-the-process-of-the-reciprocal-destructionof- two-opposite-forces," or as ordinary beings express it, "the-cause-of-artificial-light."

"R" said that in this vacuum there are only two forces acting. She also raised the question as to how ravens could have built this machinery as they do not have hands. T suggested that they might have built it in their imaginations.

The lack of a third force, or resolution, reminded GC of a woman who would eat a doughnut every day, and for the sake of her health, agreed to place an apple each time beside the doughnut to help her wean herself away from the excess sugar. She continued, however, to choose the doughnut each day. He said it is very important to succeed, as it props you up mentally. RM said that if you are playing a game and trying to win, then you have got a problem. GC disagreed with this.

Following the reading, there was some discussion about what exercise to adopt during the coming month. It was decided (based on GC's anecdote) that it should be to think of something done daily that is tempting but not good, be aware each time of a better alternative, and attempt to take the better action (observing which action is in fact taken).

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.