Breaking Out; Getting a Grip

Breaking Out; Getting a Grip

[The forecast for Monday has already been posted.]

The gurus who try to manipulate people psychologically or spiritually in order to improve their consciousness and their living are trying to help them to

Break Out

and 

Get a Grip.

They need to Break Out because only by changing some of their habits can they Get a Grip on themselves. Habits are mechanical.

On the other hand, this advice is fraught with dangers, because if you Break Out by giving up your job, just not showing up for work, you are probably not very smart. (Unless in some extraordinary situation. I actually did that once, and am not sure to this day whether it was a mistake or not, but common decency assures me that I should have informed the boss of my decision, face to face.) Breaking Out means more Breaking Out of habitual emotions, feelings, and rationalizing thoughts than Breaking Out of daily routines. In fact, keeping daily routines going is usually the opposite of being mechanical, because the truly "mechanical" part of you wants to just sit around, eat too much, and be lazy and self-indulgent in whatever pleases you. Or, if you are of a more active temperament, the "mechanical" part of you wants to go out and punch idiotic people in the face and impose your active will on everyone (tending to put you behind bars most likely). Or, if you are of a mental-intellecual temperament, your "mechanical" part wants to just read, read, and maybe write, or teach or talk or read and read and learn and learn. To what end? To its own end. This tends to feel like being a hampster on a wheel after a while, though the wheel be a mental one. 

The type who would just sit around and eat too much is the tamasic (lazy and dull) type, according to Hindu teaching as explaing brilliantly and lucidly in the Bhagavad Gita. The type who would go out and punch people in the face or demand that it get its own way is the rajasic (active) type. The type who would just keep studying and learning and thinking is the sattwic (intellectual) type. These are called the three gunas: Sattwa, Rajas, and Tamas. 

Actually each of us exemplifies all three, most likely, at various times, and they can be mixed together in multiple ways. A rajo-tamasic type might be a lout who is lazy and drinks a lot of beer but picks fights with men and beats his wife.  A sattwo-tamasic type might read the newspaper every day, and other stuff which interests him, but never put it to use. A sattwo-rajasic type studies hard in order to be master of the world or rise to eminence in a profession. A tamaso-sattwic type might have a brilliant intellect, and even spiritual awareness, but never stir himself to teach others or use his brilliance in any way but to languish in it. And so on.

The ideal is to be "traigunatita," that is, beyond the three gunas--to be directed inwardly by one's Soul or Self, not by the gunas. This is a remarkable correspondence to the Gurdjieff-Ouspensky teaching that the goal of the System is to give one a single self, a single will, to bring one into a piece beyond the mechanicalness of one's daily divagations. Or, one might say that the G-O System was in fact derived from the Hindu formulation--ultimately or historically. 

Being "beyond the three gunas"--traigunatita--is Breaking Out. Being the Self who directs things from his immortal unruffled poise is Getting a Grip. 

It ought not to be surprising that these goals are virtually the same, though expressed and taught in differing words, in various traditions. The man who, in accord with the Bhagavad Gita (the Song of the Lord Krishna), becomes aware of every movement of his being and consciousness as an action of one of the three gunas is on the way to getting a grip, to mastering these divagations of his consciousness-action rather than letting them rule him mechanically. He is following, in essence, the same method as the G-O System man or woman who is doing self-observation or self-study, dividing everything he does into Thinking, Emotional, and Moving functions. 

These are two excellent formulations of some of the things human beings have found out about themselves through sustained "work" (as G&O put it). We can all learn an enormous amount from them. The Hindu formulation reaches its perfection and epitome in Sri Aurobino, for example in his Essays on the Gita and his Synthesis of Yoga (as well as all of his other amazing works). 

Gary Lachman, in his biography of Ouspensky, says that Ouspenky's trips to India, before finally he met Gurdjieff back in Russia, resulted in nothing of any value. He found nothing in India! I am very sorry, but I have to say that the man must have been deaf and blind. It is said that he even "met interesting people, like Sri Aurobindo, who was then establishing himself in Pondicherry" (Lachman, p. 74). He met Sri Aurobindo and did not see anything in him? How sad. The man was really obtuse! Reading this has vastly diminished my opinion of Ouspensky. However, I can see that his mission, apparently, for that one lifetime, was with Gurdjieff, for some reason, and this actually did not even allow him to see Sri Aurobindo's greatness. Utterly amazing.

But I myself have found that I cannot introduce anyone to Sri Aurobindo. That includes you, I assume. I am really sorry that you are missing out on that treasure. I can only rest content that I am not responsible for your loss. 

--HHH

Sunday, March 26, 2017  10:58 PM