Section II
8. The Awakening of Conscience:
the remaining
Sacred
and Divine Being-Impulse in the Subconscious
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Gurdjieff explains that a human’s soul
is given
by Mother Nature but only as a possibility for growth. Just as an
acorn might become an oak tree, or it might degenerate and become
fertilizer,
so also, human beings might become real men and women–or just
fertilizer.
The awakening of conscience is ascribed a central role in determining a
human’s fate. Gurdjieff elaborates:
“Nature only give possibility for soul, not give soul. Must
acquire
soul through work. But, unlike tree, man have many
possibilities.
As man now exist he have also possibility grow by accident–grow wrong
way.
Man can become many things, not just fertilizer, not just real man: can
become what you call ‘good’ or ‘evil,’ not proper things for man.
Real man not good or evil–real man only conscious, only wish acquire
soul
for proper development.”
... “Think of good and evil like right hand and left
hand.
Man always have two hands-two sides of self-good and evil. One
can
destroy other. Must have aim to make both hands work together,
must
acquire third thing: thing that make peace between two hands, between
impulse
for good and impulse for evil. Man who all ‘good’ or man who all
‘bad’ is not whole man, is one-sided. Third thing is conscience;
possibility to acquire conscience is already in man when born; this
possibility
given-free-by Nature. But is only possibility. Real
conscience
can only be acquired by work, by learning to understand self first. ...
(Peters, 1964, pp.42-3)
Gurdjieff assigns a central role to the awakening of conscience in the
alchemy of transformation. Conscience is a state in which a human
“feels all at once everything that he in general feels and can
feel.”
(Ouspensky, 1949) This form of feeling together serves to unify
an
individual’s presence, overcoming the inner inconsistencies and
contradictions
which are usually maintained by “buffers” or defences. Buffers
prevent
an individual from realizing their falsities and their “nullity.”
The impact of the organ Kundabuffer and its crystallized ill-effects
has
been to isolate the true conscience within the subconscious. |
| A particularly important role is
assigned by Beelzebub
throughout his tales to the awakening of conscience as a route to
overcoming the abnormalities established within the strange psyche of
the
three-brained beings on planet Earth. This theme is tied into the
history of humanity, to the catastrophes that occurred on that
ill-fated
planet Earth, and to the historic roles of various Sacred Messengers
and
Divine Teachers–such as Saint Buddha, Jesus Christ, Mohammad and
particularly,
Ashiata Shiemash. These Sacred Messengers have intervened in
attempts
to normalize the strange psyches of those peculiar three-brained beings
breeding on planet Earth, whose actions threaten the larger common
cosmic
harmony. |
In The Tales, Beelzebub describes
conscience as
a “fundamental Divine impulse.” Unfortunately, he explains that there
is
“... a total absence of the participation of the impulse of sacred
conscience
in their waking-consciousness.” Humankind came instead to“strive
to arrange their welfare during the process of their ordinary
existence,
exclusively for themselves.” Beelzebub provides shocking insights into
how mechanical human beings usually deal with what he calls, so
humourously,
the arising of the prick of conscience:
“... these favourites of yours (humankind), particularly the
contemporary ones, become ideally expert in not allowing this inner
impulse
of theirs, called Remorse-of-Conscience, to linger long in their common
presences.
“No sooner do they begin to sense the beginning, or even only,
so to say, the ‘prick’ of the arising of the functioning in them of
such
a being-impulse, than they immediately, as it is said ‘squash’ it,
whereupon
this impulse, not quite formed in them, at once calms down.
“For this ‘squashing’ of the beginning of any
Remorse-of-Conscience
in themselves, they have even invented some very efficient special
means,
which now exist there under the names of ‘alcoholism,’ ‘cocainism,’
‘morphinism,’
‘nicotinism,’ ‘onanism,’ ‘monkism,’ ‘Athenianism,’ and others with
names
also ending in ‘ism.’” (p. 382)
Gurdjieff’s writing is full of subtle and rich humour, portraying so
simply
the follies, weakness and stupidities of humankind.
There
are many ways of squashing the pricks of conscience, all part of what
Beelzebub
labels the Evil God of “self calming.” It is because of this
egoism
and the evil god “self-calming” used to squash any prick of
conscience–manifest
in such “isms”–that the sacred being impulse of conscience remains
within
the subconscious. However, this sacred being impulse did not
simply
disappear. Beelzebub explains:
“... in that consciousness of theirs, which they call their
subconsciousness,
even in the beings of the present time, the said data for the
acquisition
in their presences of this fundamental Divine impulse conscience does
indeed
still continue to be crystalized and, hence, to be present during the
whole
of their existence.” (p. 381)
According to Beelzebub, the awakening of conscience is one of the few
avenues
remaining to change the sorry state of those unfortunate, three-brained
beings. The data necessary for the awakening of the sacred being
impulse conscience have not undergone the more complete “degeneration
to
which all the other sacred being-impulses were subject”–those sacred
impulses
of Faith, Love and Hope. |
The need for the awakening of conscience
is a primary
theme of Beelzebub’s Tales, especially given the horrors of the
situation,
with humankind engaging in the process of reciprocal destruction, war
and
animal slaughter, and producing an increasingly inferior quality of
Askokin
vibrations. Whereas human beings asleep are governed by the push
and pulls of the good and bad, “real man only conscious” –and he has
acquired
“conscience.” Gurdjieff states that this real conscience has to
be
acquired by work and the fulfilling of one’s being duties and
obligations.
The awakening of conscience brings about a form
of conscious suffering, compared to the unconscious sufferings based on
desires and attachments of the planetary body. Beelzebub provides
a cosmic perspective of the origins of the sacred being impulses of
conscience:
“The factors for the being-impulse conscience arise in the presences
of the three-brained beings from the localization of the particles of
the
“emanations-of-the-sorrow” of our OMNI-LOVING AND
LONG-SUFFERING-ENDLESS-CREATOR;
that is why the source of the manifestation of genuine conscience in
three-centered
beings is sometimes called the REPRESENTATIVE OF THE CREATOR.” (p. 372)
Beelzebub explains that human beings can actually assume a role in
bearing
the “Sorrow of our Endlessness,” through the awakening of conscience. |
Morality, as humans commonly understand it, is very
different from the moral sense awakened with conscience and the
development
of consciousness. Ordinary “subjective morality” is an accidental
thing based on conditioning, imitation and rote learning,
indoctrination,
education, external rewards and punishment. Subjective morality
differs
from one individual, time and country to another. In contrast,
“objective
morality” is the same everywhere and involves a consciousness of the
objective
nature of self, and the realities of life and the cosmos.
Objective
morality and conscience are based upon a deeper consciousness than
people
ordinarily know, and the “instinctual sensing of reality” and cosmic
truths.
Beelzebub explains that humans can work in order
to have the Divine function of conscience in their consciousness by
“transubstantiating”
in themselves the five “being-obligolnian- strivings”–being obligations
or duties. These being obligations are elements of an objective
morality:
“The first striving: to have in their ordinary being-existence
everything
satisfying and really necessary for their planetary body.
“The second striving: to have a constant and unflagging
instinctive
need for self-perfection in the sense of being.
“The third: the conscious striving to know ever more and more
concerning the laws of World-creation and World-maintenance.
“The fourth: the striving from the beginning of their existence
to pay for their arising and their individuality as quickly as
possible,
in order afterwards to be free to lighten as much as possible the
Sorrow
of our COMMON FATHER.
“And the fifth: the striving always to assist the most rapid
perfecting of other beings, both those similar to oneself and those of
other forms, up to the degree of the sacred ‘Martfotai,’ that is, up to
the degree of self-individuality. (p.386)
The first being-obligation refers to maintaining
the physical body, and not being overly indulgent and conditioned by
physical
desires, the stomach and sex organs. The second involves striving
for one’s self-perfection, the attainment of real “I,” one’s
individuality.
The third involves seeking after truth about self and the nature of the
world, striving to understand the fundamental cosmic laws which create
and sustain life. The fourth involves paying for our arising in
order
to help lighten the Sorrow of our Common Father, overcoming egoism and
striving to lessen the suffering and unhappiness within the
world.
The final striving, or being obligation, is to help others towards
their
self-perfection, to attaining real “I.”
Beelzebub, in The Tales, explains that if
it were not for the cosmic catastrophes which occurred, it would be
natural
for humankind as three-centered beings to strive in these
directions.
The degradation of humankind has led humans to forget their sacred
being-Partkdolg-duties,
and their ‘being-obligolnian-strivings,’ and to strive instead only for
their own welfare–their own pleasuring, egoism, self-love and vanity,
all
through insincerity and cunning. The sacred being obligations and
duties form an “objective morality,” and serve to connect humans to
deeper
cosmic processes, the sacred and divine.
Beelzebub describes humans “as beings bearing in
themselves particles of the emanation of the Sorrow of our COMMON
FATHER
CREATOR.” (p. 385) The awakening of conscience is thus a
profoundly
important stage in the transformation of the emotional life, leading to
the awakening of higher emotional center and connection with the life
of
the Common Father.
The possibility for remorse of conscience also
prevents
the “final degradation” in humankind of the other sacred being
impulses
of “Faith, Love, and Hope.” The experience of remorse and the
bearing
of the sorrow of the Common Father are steps to awakening and
transformation.
Fortunately, the data are still present within human beings for such
“sacred
being impulses,” although they have passed into the
subconsciousness.
Meanwhile, humans invent ever new mean for their
self-calming.
The nature of true conscience has to be understood in terms of much
deeper
cosmic processes, than slugs would ever imagine.
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