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Gurdjieff Quoted N° 1 - DIMschool & Spiritualia
- So, you just told me that you often have the feeling that you are a stranger in a very strange world. Is that right?
- Yes, absolutely! It is as if I do not belong to this world. People think strange, act strange, change their mind all the time, today they say this and tomorrow just the opposite, people tend to lie regularly, they talk about peace, but they quarrel with their own partners, children, relatives, neighbors, colleagues at work, friends, and so on. It is as if we live in a mad, mad world. We are entering a robotic age. It is as if computers and machines are going to rule the world.
- Let me get to the point and quote Gurdjieff who once said: The most dangerous mechanization is being a machine oneself. Have you ever thought about the fact that all the 7 billion people out there are machines?
- Yes and no, but it is a fact that every person is ruled by external influences.
- Look at all the people out there they are all machines, nothing more, nothing less. Everything in the entire universe is equally mechanical. Even the sun, the planets, the moon, our Milky Way and all other galaxies. You can predict the ebb and flow of all rivers and oceans for the next thousand years, the moon and solar eclipses, et cetera. Autumns and winters will succeed springs and summers, automatically. Why should plants, animals, insects, birds or mankind be the exceptions?
- I honestly never gave it a thought. We have the habit to take all things for granted. But a painter, for example, a writer, or a scientist can do things consciously. Or, am I that wrong?
- Art, poetry, writing books, working, sleeping, dreaming, feeling and thinking are activities as mechanical as everything else. Men are machines and nothing but mechanical actions can be expected from machines. For example: people do not see with their eyes. No single image enter the eyes. Images are formed in their brain.
- Sorry, what do you mean by that?... I am a bit confused.
Photons, each of them carrying information from the outside world, enter the eyes and this information is translated into electromechanical impulses and, through wires - which we call nerves - sent to the different parts of your brain. It is your brain which will dictate what you will see, feel, sense, act, say or react. It all happens mechanically. Again: no image enters the eyes. Images are formed in your brain.
- Yes! I have also read something about it in a scientific magazine. Then it is the brain which controls the mechanical parts of our body?-
- Of course! This also means that your brain will translate things all depending on your earlier experiences and today's convictions. In other words: your so called memory. Change your beliefs and convictions and your brain will adapt itself, automatically, so that you will be able to look at the same world through different glasses.
- Very well, but are there no people who are not machines?
- It may be that there are... but, it's obviously not those people you meet in your daily life.
- I do not think it would be possible to bring everybody under the same heading. There are savages, there are mechanized people, there are intellectual people, there are geniuses, and so on.
- Quite right people are very unlike one another, but the real difference between people you do not know and cannot see. The difference of which you speak simply does not exist. This must be understood. All the people you see, all the people you know, all the people you may get to know, are machines, real machines, actual machines working solely under the power of external influences. As machines they are born, and as machines they die. How do savages and intellectuals come into this? Even now, at this very moment, while we are talking, several millions of machines are trying to annihilate one another. What is the difference between them? Where are the savages and where are the intellectuals? They are all alike ...
- I have the feeling that there is a lot of truth in what you are saying. Is there a possibility of ceasing to be a machine?
- Very good question and keep that one in your mind! It is of this we must think and not about the different kinds of machines that exist. Of course there are different machines. motorcars are machines, a radio is a machine, and a gun is machine. But what of it? It is the same thing they are all machines.
- Then I am a machine, too!
- We will talk about that later. Do not be so egotistic. You are one out of the seven billion. Ask yourself what the purpose of life is
- Ok lets meet another time! I am getting tired anyway. Bye for now and have a nice day!
- Yes, goodbye! And, a nice day to you, too !
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Bodies work mechanically N° 2 DIMschool & Spiritualia
- Hello! Did you give it a thought?... Any idea about the meaning of life?
- Yes and no, because I have read that nothing has a meaning except the meaning we ourselves give to things. So, I am a bit confused.
- Bravo, bravissimo! That is a very good start. Most people live in the assumption they know everything. But, if you are confused, means that you are not like them. Know-alls cannot learn from me. Why should they? There mind is already full. They even might think they know it better - so, I should listen to them instead. Isn't it?
- No, of course not... I know that you are joking. But, you are right: know-alls are not prepared to empty their minds, listen to new things and compare their existing knowledge with the things you say. I call them One Eyes, who imagine that they are the kings in the Land of the Blinds.
- Avoid those people at all cost. Words betray their hollowness. The real cannot be described, it must be experienced. Thousand philosophers, thousand philosophies. Listen instead to the things I have to say but never, I repeat never accept one word from me without examining it. Do not believe one word I say. That is very important.
Your body is a machine in which everything happens mechanically. Try to see that for yourself. About seeing. Do you remember what I said last time?... Once you realize that the world is your own projection, you are free of it. You need not free yourself of a world that does not exist, except in your imagination. In the meantime..., being mechanical you are no different to any other living human being and you are filled with habits.
People are basically lazy and tend to accept things without making the effort to verify whatever they read or hear.
- Yes, this might also be one of my bad habits. But, habits are so difficult to see as long as I do not free myself from them. In order to see a habit I have to escape from it, so that I can look at it from a distance, if only for a split moment. But that's very, very difficult.
- You are right. As long you are identified with a habit you cannot observe it. It is only from the moment you start to struggle against one that you might feel and observe it. Without inner struggle there cannot be observation. That's a rule. The struggle with small habits is very difficult and boring, but without it any type of self-observation is totally impossible.
- Yes! I realize and know very well that I live, think and act automatically, as automatically as a machine. One of my daily habits is to give expression to all my unpleasant emotions. Even when the weather looks bad I cannot refrain expressing my feelings. This means I should struggle against the expression of unpleasant emotions ?
- Start to observe yourself and you will record with unmistakable clearness the fact that all your actions, thoughts, feelings, and words are the results of external influences and that nothing comes out yourself. You even do not know what you are going to think, feel or say in the next 15 minutes. You will understand and see that you in fact are an automaton acting under the influences of external stimuli. You will feel your complete mechanicalness.
Man is a machine controlled by accidental shocks from outside, and each shock brings another to the surface. Last time I saw you as a human being. All the time now I am looking at your mechanical side. Next time we'll meet you even will look differently to me and you will be talking from a totally different 'I'. You even might be able to see my body as an instrument.
- I already had the feeling that if I remain the same for a longer period of time and if I then do nothing unexpected, it is simply because no unexpected outside changes are taking place. But to come back to our topic I will try to do my best not to believe one word you say.
- Perfect! Do not become a parrot nor monkey. If you accept things without examining you will never possess real knowledge. It will never be yours. As a walking encyclopedia you're worthless to yourself. That type of knowledge is second-hand knowledge, borrowed knowledge, useless knowledge.
- One last question before I go... I realize that the law for man is an existence in the circle of mechanical influences. In other words: the state of the so-called 'man-machine'.
Everyday life, even at its best, leads man to death and can lead to nothing else. Can I become machine-off? And if so, how?
- You basically are no longer a real machine like all the 7 billion others simply because you realize that your body is mechanical.
Your body is a vehicle. It is a perfect instrument designed to inhabit planet Earth. Everything happening in that body has to be mechanical.
Pretend for a moment that you have to remind yourself you have to take in air through conscious breathing, that you yourself still have to digest your food you ate today, that you have to take care of the beatings of your heart, and so on. Your body, being a machine, is perfect on its own. What you have to do is to stop identifying yourself with that body. Stop assuming that you are that body. You have it, but you're not that body at all.
- Now I start to understand why I have to examine all words you say. No faith of any kind is required and I have to satisfy myself of the truth of what I am told. Until then I cannot 'do' in the real meaning of the word.
- Yes! In order to do you have to become master of your own vehicle otherwise it will remain master over you and then you simply remain a machine.
To answer your question: the good news is, that it is possible to stop being a machine. But for that it is necessary first of all to know the machine. A machine, a real machine, does not know itself and cannot know itself. When a machine knows itself it is then no longer a machine, at least, not such a machine as it was before. It already begins to be responsible for its actions. You are not what you take yourself to be. Find out what you are. In other words: to know what you are you must first investigate and know what you are not.
- This means, according to you, that a man is not responsible for his actions?
- A 'man', a real man, is responsible. A machine is not responsible. But, let us end this conversation here and meet again another time.
- Ok! Thanks for today's lesson. Bye !
- Bye!
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The Purpose of Life - N°3 - DIMschool & Spiritualia
- Hi there ! Here we are again!
- Many thanks for dropping by! I recognize your voice, but is it you?
- Of, course! Didn't I tell you last time that you will be able to see my body as mechanical as yours?
- Yes! But I honestly did not realize what you meant. Another reason to realize the fact how hollow words are and that each word can have several meaning.
- You are right! Every word has basically seven possible meanings, depending on who speaks and who is doing the listening.
- Can you explain?
- No, not yet. But let me say for now that there are seven levels of human beings. The lowest level of being lives close to his animal side, the highest level will have, for example, the consciousness of a Buddha or a Christ. In between those two extremes we can find five other different levels of being.
- This means that as soon the level of my consciousness grows, the more I will be able to understand?
- Yes and no. Your today's consciousness doesn't have much to do with it. Your being has to grow. The higher your being, the higher your knowledge, the better your understanding. There are seven levels, remember? But again, it is too soon to talk about these things.
- I have to take your word for it. But how come I can now see you as a type of robot and no more as a human being?
- Last time I also saw you as a mechanical being, but you were not aware of it. You now see my mechanical side instead of my body, but you still cannot see me. I mean: the real ME.
I am not my physical body because that's purely a temporarily, mechanical vehicle as you can notice now. I am in fact everything except that what you can see with your ordinary eyes. Anyway..., you are just alike.
- Is that the reason why I can see your mechanicalness?
- No, you needed my help. I raised your level of consciousness so that you can see. But it might be that one day you might be able to see things without my help.
- O, I see ! I see? A play with words. Sounds funny, isn't it !? But can everybody see your and my mechanical side?
- No, of course not! Every human being will see us in the flesh, because they have eyes with whom they cannot see. They think they are awake and as long they live in that state of sleep they can only dream at night and daydream during the day. Anyway, what is your question of the day ?
- Well..., what's the real purpose of life
- Life in general? Or, are we talking about your life?
- Let's start with life in general.
- Life in general has no purpose at all. It's not that something or someone created life to serve a certain purpose. On the other hand you can say life is one big experiment, born out of something we might call coincidence. But a coincidence based upon a mathematical law as a result of cause and effect.
- That sounds a bit confusing to me. Can you make it clearer?
- Let's try. You first of all have to understand that life can take different forms. There's life on many planets, but the forms differ. The forms come and go, but life remains untouched. On other planets, for example, there's life - but the forms are so small, they are basically invisible to the human eye.
There is even life without the forms you know here on earth. I mean: non physical forms. Anyway, you are pure energy, called life. But, you're so strongly identified with your body that you do not realize the day you lose your outer physical form, life still remains intact.
If you would be able to really understand what I mean you'll automatically understand why life can exist on its own without trying to give it a purpose nor a physical form as you know it. In short, life does not need a purpose in order to be - unless, you want to give it a purpose because you feel a strong instinctive need to do so.
- So, you're trying to tell me that I am life with a body and not a body with life? Which means that life can exist without a body, but a body cannot exist without life. Right?...
- Yes! You're perfectly right. You're honestly a very quick learner. Chew on your own words until you got the taste of them. Bye for now and let's meet again tomorrow!
- Ok then! See you, and many thanks for your answer. Now I have something to reflect on. Bye!
Oops, wait another second if you do not mind. How can I get in touch with you?...
- At the very moment I live in Belgium. But of course we also have two different websites one for the school and one for the general public. The name of our Friendly Society is DIM school, which has it's own website www.dimschool. be. But there is also www.spiritualia.be - being the two first letters of the word Belgium. Meet me there if you want. I would say 'Bye' for now.
- Epilogue: He really looks smart to me, doesn't he? Many are called but not many are chosen, he said. I choose myself. Who else can choose me?
I have the feeling he comes from another planet. That's not true, of course. It's just a feeling because he vibrates the truth. You have to meet him personally before you will be able to understand me. You will naturally see him in the flesh, because your brain will tell you so.
I look forward meeting him again. By that time I might have another question for him. You might have one too. If so, please let me know and send me an e-mail: dim-school@hotmail.com.
Sorry, I have to go. Bye for now, and do not forget to come back soon! There might be more interesting questions to be answered about life, about self-knowledge, and about you, of course. Bye, bye!
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Very First Approach to the Self - N°4 - DIMschool & Spiritualia
- Hello hello again!
- Hello there you are! I'm glad meeting you again. Where have you been?
- O! Busy, busy, and travelling a bit around in order to try to understand all life on your planet. By the way, have the few words I said last time been useful to you?
- Oh yes! Very useful They made me think, but I also have to admit I did not understand them all.
- Of course not! Words are useful, but they are only designed to explain all temporarily things of your material world and to use them in ordinary daily conversations. But, when it comes to describing reality they are basically worthless.
- What do you mean? Why should they be worthless?
- Let us assume that I do not know what pain in my head is because I never experienced it and you are going to describe it to me because it is hurting you in this very moment. Would you be able to do that?
- Oh, I do not know. I think I might be able.
- Try it if you want. Explain to me now what that pain is - but, in such a way I experience it myself. Explain it to me in such a way that after a while I'll have to beg you to stop, because it hurts that much. Do you honestly think you will succeed?
- No of course not. Now I understand why in some cases words are not sufficient enough to express ourselves - or, totally worthless - in order to use your description
- 'In some cases' you just said But, instead of saying 'in some cases' I would dare to say: in all cases, without exceptions
- You got me there. Why is that?
- Well, simply because each person translates every word in his way and that's the main reason why few people understand one another. If I pronounce the word 'cat', as an example, every person will visualize in his mind a different looking animal. No cat will look alike. But that's the case with every word. If I would speak out the word 'love' you will translate it in your way, never in mine.
Unless you define it much better, like: what type of cat? What's its color? Male or female? Long hair short hair? Tame or savage? Et cetera, et cetera, and so on. If you have to describe each word before you can continue a conversation, it might take ages before you get to the second sentence.
- You are right I never thought of it that way. Please continue!
- Sentences are made up of words. When you talk to someone you assume the other person understands exactly what you mean. But again: that's not true at all. The problem is that people are not conscious of it. They think they understand each other, but they seldom do. Therefore never ever assume.
- I understand perfectly what you are saying.
- Do you really? You are no exception. It's very hard to understand what I am trying to explain. You should be more alert and never assume you understand something like all people do. That's why I seldom waste words. Talking is silver but silence is gold. Let's take one word out of what I've said earlier. The word 'assume', for example. Analyze that word and you'll find out that as soon you assume you make an ass of you and me.
- Funny ... Assume can mean: making an ass of you and me. Funny, yes very funny. Ass-u-me ...
- And its' true too isn't it? Never assume. Or you know it or you don't - and, if that's the case: admit it. But there are more reasons why words are useless. Another example is that words always try to squeeze immaterial things, even those things residing in higher dimensions, into time and space. All humans created the special habit of wrapping intangible things into tangible ones so that they can see, feel, hear, sense, touch and name it. But please, do understand that this habit distorts reality.
- That's right Why didn't I noticed that myself before?
- You need to be able to see a form before you think you can understand it. And then you might still not understand and not knowing it That's why we have to use parables and metaphors in order to reach you people. But by using those I am violating the reality. In the same way humans have created gods in their own images. But we might talk about that subject another time. What you have to do for nowis to learn a totally different language. Your language is worthless to me and also to you as soon you start to think about it.
- I think I start to understand.
- Good, but at the same time it's not good enough. When you say 'I start' means, that there might be a beginning and by now you should know that you can never understand me as long you did not learn that other language. A begin is not good enough!
- Are you talking about a language different to English, Flemish, Dutch or French?
- No I am talking about the language you already speak, but each word needs to receive the right translation in your mind.
- You mean that when you talk to me I should be able to know what each word you pronounce exactly means?
- Yes that's it! Never forget that - as I said before - words have seven meanings . all depending on people's level of being. So, whenever you are ready you should let me know.
- Oops! When will I know I'm ready for it?
- Listen to your self. I mean your Self with a capital 'S'. Do not communicate with your body nor with any parts of your body but with that something within you.
- Is there something within me? You mean a thought or a feeling or sensation?
- No, because thoughts and sensations and feelings belong to your body. Your body is only the vehicle of something else within. Do not listen to your thoughts, because they will fool you all the time. And your feelings and emotions are also not trustworthy. They are the results of prickles. Find yourself within your body. I mean apart of your physical being, because it's there where you are.
- You might be right again.But I will have to learn your language first. I will have to know what words exactly mean, what their limits are, and believe it or not, but I now feel there is already something craving within me.
- Nice, very nice and in what part of your body you feel that craving?
- Here somewhere in my stomach...
- That's ok but still not good enough. Your brains are again sending chemicals out to that region, because it is inquisitive. If you do not understand me from the start - in the real meaning of that word - it will be hard to understand me in later stages.
For this reason self-knowledge cannot be a topic for the mass because it requires a higher level of being, feeling, awareness, et cetera. But the right people will lick their fingers as soon they've found the pieces of hidden knowledge.
'Hidden' is also such a word which can have several meanings, depending on the translation. In this case it's hidden, not in the usual sense of the word, but hidden, simply because people cannot see those pieces with their normal eyes - and 'knowledge', another word I just used, has nothing to do with knowing!
- Dear friend, may I ask you to stop here for today? I honestly need the time to reflect upon all things you've said. Will you excuse me? Plus, I also have some more work to do.
- Of course! The brain easily can be compared with a sponge: once the sponge is full of water you need to be able to squeeze it out. OK, I'm gone and see you another day! Bye!
- Hello, between you and me. The mechanical humanlike person I talked to - I don't even know his name - thinks I'm from another planet. That's not true of course. I'm a character, created by someone - I even don't know his name - who's been using a program called 'extranormal'.
I am a character, similar as the ones which appears in your nightly dreams. I am and I am not.
Anyway, I hope you are an eclecticus and enjoying our way of bringing a message to the world.
There is so much rubbish around, so much rubbish, that it is time to separate truth from lies. Would you agree?
Bye for now, and see you next time, maybe!?
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