What exactly was meant by....

A friend asked "What exactly did Mr. Gurdjieff mean by this work is going against God?"

 

We won't presume of course to "interpret the Master". but will offer this.

 

Mr. Gurdjieff said that people pray to God, but if you take a spoon of water, your relationship

 

to the microbes in that water is similar to the relationship of the Absolute (God, The Creator)

 

to humanity. The whole world is a gigantic mechanical mechanism.

 

 

Everything you see is a machine, a mechanism, evolved to function mechanically over many thousands

 

and millions of years.  The system teaches that no one is "doing anything".

 

The very best illustration of this in western literature, may be Mr. Ouspensky's profound observation that he was walking along

 

remembering himself, he went into a shop, and woke up two hours later, realizing that he had been in

 

a hypnotic trance (our usual state), he had performed countless actions in this state, ordered cigarettes, taken a carriage,

 

etc, etc. This is man's state. To even be present, to not express negativity, not to hate, to make efforts

 

to observe oneself and behave differently under the lens of the work, is to not be part of the mechanical

 

level of life on earth for split seconds at a time.

 

Look at your local nightly news, that is the level of man currently.

 

Stand in a busy railway station, or a cafe, and observe the masses of people, boys look at girls,

 

girls look at boys, businessmen read newspapers, eat, drink, laugh.

 

They react and obey mechanical "I"s, there is no effort in this. Remember a man may work hard physically,

 

it is not necessarily the work, it is sparking the ray of consciousness inside, that is the work.

 

God created the world to be "as it is", a medium of struggle for ascending spirits.

 

This work is about escaping this level, it is work both "against God", at the same time,

 

it is "For God", because escaped spirits help others heal and grow spiritually, which helps the absolute.

 

There is more, because every soul is on a ladder of evolution, someone needs to step into Mr. Gurdjieff's place,

 

so he can move to his next step. It does not stop. We will add more on this later, it is a big question.

 

Thankyou for your interest.  It is fine to ask questions.