ZERO POINT
|
|
|
|
|
|
Psychological Illusions
|
Section I V “People have been told almost since the creation of the world that they are asleep and that they must awaken. ... Men take it simply as a form of speech, as an expression, as a metaphor. They completely fail to understand that it must be taken literally. ... So long as a man sleeps profoundly and is wholly immersed in dreams he cannot even think about the fact that he is asleep. If he were to think that he was asleep, he would wake up. ... And men have not the slightest idea what they are losing because of this sleep.” (Gurdjieff, in O.,1949, p.144) |
| Humans’ central psychological illusion is that they
know themselves. The illusion is that they live a conscious, consistent
and willful existence, knowing themselves, conscious of what they are,
of what they think, feel, and do, and that they make choices and know how
to love. The fourth way teaching instead portrays humankind as not properly
conscious, as lacking a permanent and constant state or real I, and as
lived out in a mechanical and conditioned fashion by a thousand and one
forces of which they are unaware. Humans are sleepwalkers, half asleep
or semi-conscious, in a state which Gurdjieff labels“automated consciousness”
and “waking sleep.”
The idea that humans are asleep, living in illusion and ignorance of self is a central theme of mystical psychology. With this idea comes the aim of awakening. Sufi mystics suggests: “Man, you are asleep, must you die before you awake.” Similarly, an aphorism of Gurdjieff’s reads: “The only thing is to awake.” Ouspensky gives this theme a somewhat different twist: “All people in life are asleep, but not all are dead - yet.” The central aim of esoteric psychology is to overcome the sleep walking state of mechanical life, to be reborn in essence, and to attain real “I.” A human being can be reborn and experience the world with a new completeness, vibrancy and wakefulness. Humans can also possess new powers and capabilities, many of which they mistakenly think they already possesses, such as real I, will, objective knowledge and the capacity for love. It is very difficult to realize the mechanicalness of everything and of oneself. Without a conscious struggle against the current of mechanical happenings, the subtleties of life never become apparent. If we begin to awaken even momentarily, then gradually we can build on this and come to realize more and more deeply the nature of humankind’s sleep state. |
|
K. Walker, a student of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, recounts his disturbing vision of the sleepwalking state of humanity: As I drove back to Harley Street (London) that evening, I turned over in my mind, all that Ouspensky had said about sleeping mankind. If it were really true that not only myself, but that everybody else was asleep, what a revolutionary change we should have to make in our view of human life on this planet. A sleeping world! A world of drowsy people drifting about in the streets, closeted in government offices, conducting affairs of State, hurrying into the lobby of the Houses of Parliament to record their votes, dispensing justice from the Bench; people doing a thousand different things and doing them all in a state which approximated to a state of sleep! Yes, Ouspensky had meant us to take his words on the subject, literally. He had pictured a world of somnambulists, a world of men walking about automatically, without their being aware of what they were doing, a world of people behaving entirely mechanically and according to conditioned habits. (1965, pp. 45-46)Humans are marionettes, characters in a Punch and Judy show, pulled this way and pushed that way, all in sleep. As machines, they are imprisoned by dozens of mechanical laws of which they are unaware. The pomp and nobility of human life is a facade to conceal the realities of the sleeping world. Ouspensky states: “Sleeping people fight, make laws; sleeping people obey or disobey them. ... all of history is made by people who are asleep.” Psychologist, D. King (1963) describes his brief alterations in awareness brought about by efforts to self-remember while waiting for a commuter train. His account presents a terrifying vision of the psychopathology of humankind: ... the scene altered unexpectedly and with a startling abruptness, as if one stage set had been substituted instantly for another. ... it was chiefly the other people who held the focus of attention. They looked dead, really dead. One expected to see signs of decay but of course there were none. What one did see was stark unconsciousness, scores of marionettes not self-propelled but moved by some force alien to themselves, proceeding along their automatic trails mechanically and without purpose. Some of the mouths were open and they looked like holes in cardboard boxes. The faces were blankly empty; even those upon which otherwise some expression would have been noticeable, had been drained of any significance and one saw that those expressions were unrelated to the entities that wore them. For the first time the concept of the zombie became credible. (p.123)This was a glimpse of the mechanical, artificial and unconscious state of humanity asleep. True existence is hidden and the masses do not “instinctually sense reality” or cosmic truths. |
 |
Self-remembering illustrate how asleep humans are and the terror
of the situation. Ouspensky recounts his early experiences:
After this there followed a strange period of time. It lasted about three weeks. And during this period from time to time I saw “sleeping people.” This requires a particular explanation.The practice of self-remembering reveals one’s unconsciousness and conditioned state, and that of everyone around. Humans are sleepwalkers living in illusion and ignorance of self. In fact, people have no idea of the profound sleep in which they live–a sleep perpetuated by the whole of mechanical life, by man’s psychological illusions and even by the moon. As Gurdjieff states, there is only one thing which is serious and that is to escape from the general law and to be free. This means overcoming the conditioning and sleepwalking state which governs the mass of humanity. Self-remembering as a practice helps us to glimpse the reality behind all the fine words about the sleep state of humankind. People do not know self nor do they realize “the horror of the situation.” Gurdjieff explains: “A modern man lives in sleep, in sleep he is born and in sleep he dies. . . . sleep is the chief feature of our being ... . if a man really wants knowledge, he must first of all think about how to wake, that is, about how to change his being.” (Ouspensky, 1949, p. 66)The sleep walking state of humankind is a central feature of the human psychopathology. |
|
for Psychological Illusions |