Classroom Talk
Winter 2002 Archive
Re: A portrait of the artist as an old man. Posted by Sally on February 05, 2002 at 14:42:02:
In Reply to: A portrait of the artist as an old man. posted by John on February 05, 2002 at 12:35:27:
Opposite Attitudes
from Nicoll Commentaries , pp. 1263-4
On one occasion I asked Gurdjieff, through an interpreter, whether it
was necessary for everything to be overcome in oneself. He said: "No"
and seemed then to speak in an indirect way more of the necessity of
creating new attitudes to things so that, so to speak, it was
comparable to crossing from one side to the other, as when crossing the
road. I understood him to mean that if we remain with our present
attitudes we are on one side but if we change attitudes we can go to
the other side of ourselves. So I gathered that an attitude is always
one-sided. He indicated that this was only possible if you took
photographs of yourself. I heard at different times later on that
taking photographs of oneself was different from merely observing
oneself at any particular moment. If your quality of self-observation
is sincere and if it is not merely done out of a sense of being told to
do it, these observations become liked, collect together, and form
gradually a photograph of yourself over a considerable period of time.
I think that Ouspensky called this a Time-Photograph or possibly one
photograph of your Time-Body. When you have a photograph of yourself in
this sense you see yourself as a certain kind of person over many
years, perhaps back to childhood, governed by certain attitudes. This
increase of consciousness skews the possibility of taking everything in
another way, so it could be compared to crossing over to the other side
of yourself from that side that has hitherto governed you by means of
typical one-sided attitudes. Ouspensky once gave us an example of the
following description. He said: "Try to notice what you object to in
people, in politics, and so on, and try deliberately to think and talk
from the opposite attitude." You must understand that if we have fixed,
acquired attitudes we will judge from those attitudes, in a mechanical,
even automatic way, everything that happens. One should be able to read
the papers without constantly saying "tut-tut" or feeling angry or
depressed. Now, as mechanical people we study how to become more
conscious. Amongst other things we have to try to become more conscious
of our attitudes which have been laid down in us from early life from
imitation of our elders or the romances of the period. Now, the
difference between mechanical man and conscious man is that a
mechanical man is in the prison of himself, and in this particular case
he is imprisoned y his acquired mechanical attitudes, so that he can
only see everything from ONE point of view, and a conscious man is one
who is freed from these limiting one-sided attitudes. We understand
that a conscious man can see things from different angles and, in fact,
he can be conscious in the full swing of the opposites, so that neither
one side nor the other side of the opposites governs him exclusively.
You all know what it means to meet a man who has very strong and fixed
attitudes, who rises to the top of life--that is, a man of limited one-
sided being. He is called a strong man. He will judge, he will condemn,
he will NOT forgive,(for Bruce!) while a side of life which a
conscious man will never think of judging, condemning, of so violently
not forgiving. All this arises from a lack of consciousness of oneself.
One does not realize that one is much the same as the people one is
condemning and judging and not forgiving because one is not conscious
that one does the same things oneself. One has not observed it. So one
can say such a man cannot cross the road and do things from the other
side.
Just some thoughts for ALL of us to ponder....thank you John for being
so "sensitive" to those of us who are reluctant to "change". I love you,
Sal
Continue with Winter 2002 Classroom Talk or
Post a new discussion in the current Classroom Talk
Archived 05/02/2002