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THE BEING-OBLIGOLNIAN-STRIVINGS AS PRACTICE

THE CONTEXT OF THE STRIVINGS

To put this paper in context, let us begin by considering a quotation from

Chapter XXVI of Beelzebubs Tales to his Grandson, entitled The Legominism

Concerning the Deliberations of the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash Under the

Title of The Terror-of-the-Situation, in which Ashiata Shiemash, having

described his lengthy deliberations on the state of the Earth, and of humanity,

says the following:

it was just then that I indubitably understood with all the

separate ruminating parts representing the whole of my I, that if

the functioning of that being-factor [which engenders Objective-

Conscience] still surviving in their common-presences were to

participate in the general functioning of that consciousness of

theirs in which they pass their daily, as they here say, waking

existence, only then [my emphasis] would it still be possible to

save the contemporary three-brained being here from the

consequences of the properties of that organ which was

intentionally implanted into their first ancestors. (page 359)

Or, to put it more succinctly, the only hope for humanity is for the impulse of

Objective Conscience to participate in our ordinary waking consciousness.

Now let us consider two paragraphs from the ensuing chapter, and I want you

to imagine that youve never read Beelzebubs Tales - you dont know anything

about it at all, but you read these two paragraphs. Heres the first of them,

from chapter XXVII, entitled The Organization for Mans Existence Created

by the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash:

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All the beings of this planet then began to work in order to have

in their consciousness this Divine function of genuine conscience,

and for this purpose, as everywhere in the Universe, they

transubstantiated in themselves what are called X.

And a little later on (remember that you havent read Beelzebub; you dont know

anything about it) you read:

At this period when every terrestrial three-centered being existed

and worked consciously upon himself in accordance with this X

many of them thanks to this quickly arrived at results of objective

attainments perceptible to others.

If all you knew about Beelzebub were these two paragraphs, wouldnt you want

to know what X was? Of course, having read the book, we all know what it

stands for; its the five being-obligolnian-strivings. I have left them out on

purpose to draw attention to what Gurdjieff is actually saying here. The

paragraphs tell us, quite clearly, that all the beings of this (our) planet began to

use a certain practice or method to have in their consciousness the Divine

function of genuine conscience, and that the practice worked.

Here I would like to address a point that is perhaps moot now, but was

put to me very strongly when I was last at an A&E Conference, in Toronto in

2009. I gave a paper on Conscious Labor and Intentional Suffering, and it was

suggested in the discussion that conscience is way beyond me - and by

implication, all of us. In support of this assertion, the speaker cited the

devastating description of Conscience reported by Ouspensky in In Search of the

Miraculous. Here Gurdjieff is quoted as saying that Conscience is a state in

which a man feels all at once everything he in general feels or can feel. And he

goes on to say that this state would not only be literally unbearable, but is

mercifully very rare.

This is so at odds with what he writes in Beelzebubs Tales that the

contradiction needs to be addressed. It is possible, and indeed probable, that

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Gurdjieffs own thinking and understanding evolved in the interval between the

meetings reported in Fragments and the completion of Beelzebub, but it is also

possible to see Ouspensky as describing Remorse of Conscience, rather than

Conscience itself, which would go some way to resolving the anomaly. The way

the being-obligolnian strivings are presented makes it clear that work on

Conscience is possible, which is not the message you get from In Search of the

Miraculous. Moreover, in Beelzebub, Gurdieff says clearly that the results of such

work are attainable.

To underline this point, let us go back to the two short paragraphs I

have just quoted. They appear in the book immediately before and after the

description of the five being-obligolnian-strivings themselves, and I think this

serves to emphasize the importance of considering the strivings in a practical

way. So, before we begin discussing them in detail, Id like us keep in mind that

they are presented as a practical tool for producing a specific outcome.

Moreover, they are shown as a method, or practice, that brings widely

beneficial results beyond peoples own personal transformation. Not only did

many individuals who worked with them quickly arrive at objective attainments

themselves, but war also ceased and life expectancy increased, as people started

producing the vibrations expected of them by Great Nature. In other words,

the human race started to live, and produce energies, as it was intended to do.

In that light it is difficult to overemphasize the importance of the strivings

themselves, and the work that goes into them.

One other point to notice about the two paragraphs is that they make

clear that work on the five strivings is for everybody. Gurdjieff has Beelzebub

say that all the beings of this planet began working with them, as everywhere in

the Universe (my emphases). This is not some arcane practice available only to

a few initiates; still less are the strivings presented as beyond our understanding,

or our ability to engage with them. Furthermore, Beelzebub explains that

people transubstantiated in themselves the being-obligolnian-strivings in

themselves. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, to transubstantiate

means to cause a thing to change in substance. I suggest that, in this context,

this describes the process by which we move from considering the strivings as

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an idea, to giving them substance as a practice. It was by transubstantiating the

strivings in themselves that people in the Ashiatian epoch achieved such

beneficent results.

Since the strivings are presented as a means of having genuine

conscience in our ordinary consciousness, and as having universal applicability,

I propose to look at each of them in turn to look for ways in which they can be

turned toward such a positive outcome. In this endeavor I will draw on the text

itself, and also on practical work carried out at various times in groups I have

been engaged with. My aim is to anchor this in practice, as well as in what we

can read.

MOTIVATION TO WORK ON CONSCIENCE

Going back a little bit, a few pages before the five obligolnian strivings,

Gurdjieff has Ashiata Shiemash say the following:

In all three-brained beings of the whole of our Universe without

exception, among whom are also we men, owing to the data

crystallized in our common presences for engendering in us the

Divine impulse of conscience, the-whole-of-us and the whole

of our essence, are, and must be, already in our foundation, only

suffering.

I have emphasized the words without exception to reiterate the point I made

earlier, that the work on conscience is universal, and available to all.

Gurdjieff goes on to explain that the suffering arises because the actualizing of

the manifestation of conscience can be brought about only by the constant

struggle between what we could characterize as our lower and higher natures.

He then further clarifies this to say because we all have in us the factors for

engendering the Divine impulse of Objective Conscience, we must constantly

struggle between desires and non-desires (p. 373). Since the strivings are

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presented as a prime means for engendering in us the impulse of conscience,

we can look at each of them in turn as a means of setting up in ourselves a

struggle between desires and non-desires.

In approaching each of the strivings as a practice it is useful to have a

clear intention in respect of each of them. Unless I have an aim, my conscience

can have no purchase. Without an aim there is no criterion by which to judge

any action, and therefore no means by which conscience may be awakened and,

indeed, no need for it to be. This is as true of a small aim as for a great one.

Gurdjieff reiterates that having an aim is essential to work on oneself; without

an aim there is no impulse to work, and conscience can continue to slumber

untroubled in our sub-consciousness. So I want to look at each of the strivings

in turn and look at some possible ways we can set up this struggle between

desires and non-desires in respect of each of them.

THE FIRST STRIVING

Let us start with the first striving:

The first striving: to have in their ordinary being-existence

everything satisfying and really necessary for their planetary body.

We can easily see that some things are really necessary for our planetary body

proper food, exercise, shelter, etc but the word satisfying may be more

elusive. We all know that what the body might ask for is not necessarily what

really satisfies it. The first striving really demands self-knowledge and discipline

about when a particular need is actually met - when enough is enough.

Moreover, if we include in the phrase planetary body and being-existence all

aspects of our ordinary being existence - including our mind - the word

satisfying may become clearer. We need impressions, for example - mental,

emotional and physical - in order to be satisfied in our planetary existence as a

whole. We can also recognize that things that seem satisfying in the moment

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often turn out to be quite unsatisfying in retrospect and particularly if we have

this first striving in front of us.

Looking at the first striving through the lens of conscience, and focusing

that lens on the struggle between desires and non-desires, we can very simply

set up a struggle that will bring our conscience to bear. Take the simple idea of

denying ourselves some form of food snacks between meals are an obvious

example. When I set myself the aim to refrain from eating between meals, and I

am tempted to do so, it is my conscience that both reminds me of this aim and

gives me a reason not to give in to the temptation. This may seem too trivial a

matter to be worthy of conscience, but it is not so. This is an objective situation

not eating a snack has nothing to do with social convention, or loosing

weight, or looking good on the beach. On the contrary, it is a question of

standing by my own decision and is therefore a matter of respecting my own

will. We all should probably recognize that such small aims, carried through,

strengthen something in us that we can recognize as conscience. It should be

equally clear in the experience of all of us that when we ignore the promptings

of conscience, its voice is weakened.

Clearly there are any number of ways of setting up a conflict in respect

to our planetary body between desires and non-desires, and they dont always

mean denial. Order, for example, is satisfying to our planetary body, taken in

the wider sense I have suggested. When we take something disordered in our

lives, even something as mundane as our bedroom or a kitchen sink full of

washing up, and return it to order, something in us finds it satisfying. Whats

more, the order we give to it raises its potential; a tidy kitchen has a greater

potential for making a new meal than an untidy one. Whether or not we

actually do restore something disordered to order when we see the possibility

of doing so, can become a matter of conscience. Do I take this opportunity, or

dont I?

Sometimes we need to be active in a different way towards our body,

particularly in modern times, in terms of taking exercise and using the body for

other purposes than as a means of transporting our head-brain to meetings (an

image Ive stolen from Sir Ken Robinson). The details neednt detain us; what

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matters is that there are many ways of using the first striving to set up a

struggle between yes and no in respect of our planetary body, in which our

conscience can find a purchase.

THE SECOND STRIVING

Let us move on to the second striving:

The second striving: to have a constant and unflagging instinctive

need for self-perfection in the sense of being.

This seems altogether more challenging. For a start, what is meant by an

instinctive need? Gurdjieff says, through the voice of Ashiata Shiemash,

the completed actualizing of manifestation of such a being-

impulse [the Divine impulse of conscience] in us can proceed only

from the constant struggle of two quite opposite what are called

complexes-of-the-functioning of those two sources which are

of quite opposite origin, namely, between the processes of the

functioning of our planetary body itself and the parallel

functionings arising progressively from the coating and perfecting

of our higher being-bodies within this planetary body of ours

(p. 372)

We might reasonably suppose that instinct is on the side of the planetary body,

which acts as the denying force in this arrangement. How can work on oneself

be instinctive if it is, as Gurdjieff asserts elsewhere, against nature? And you

probably noticed this little small point at the beginning of the Skridlov chapter

in Meetings With Remarkable Men, when Gurdjieff talks about the change in

Skridlovs inner work. He says that this now comes from instinct and feelings

and not from the head.

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In trying to understanding this I appeal to experience, both my own and

that of many people with whom I have worked in groups and elsewhere. All of

them report that after some period of establishing various practices of the

Work, particularly morning sittings, but also many exercises connected with

presence or mindfulness and so on, they become an established part of their

daily existence. To such an extent that if, for any reason, they fail to do such

work (miss a morning sitting, for example) something seems wrong with

themselves and with their day. In other words, such practice becomes second

nature, or instinctive when the urge to do such exercises become more

natural than to do without them. In short, the need for self-perfection has

become (or is becoming) instinctive. Another way of approaching this is to

consider the possibility that it is in our instinctive nature to have a striving for

perfection in the sense of being; that we three-brained beings may have this

need in our essential nature, and its only in our present state that we have lost

contact with it.

Then the problem arises of how we can represent in practical terms the

idea of a constant and unflagging need for self-perfection, not least because most

of our existence is passed in sleep. Here it is important to go back to the way

the strivings are written as a present participle, striving. They are not

presented as a completed act (except, apparently, the fourth, which we will

consider later). Instead they are a continuing process. Gurdjieff says quite

clearly that conscience is acquired by the striving, not by the having striven. In

the case of the second striving, he doesnt require that we have to start by

having a constant and unflagging instinctive need for self-perfection in the

sense of being, he says we have to strive towards it. Can we, therefore, set up a

struggle between desires and non-desires in relation to this second striving?

When we are asleep we can do nothing to further any one of these

strivings; we act only on the automatic level. When we wake up, or as it seems

to me, are woken up, everything is different. Now we are in a position to work

on ourselves, and in these moments we have a choice, to work or not to work;

to be or not to be. And its not a forgone conclusion that we will choose to

work. I would be surprised if anyone fails to recognize the times when we wake

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up, see the opportunity to do something intentional, and fail to do it. And we

may tell ourselves that it doesnt matter, it was only a trivial opportunity, and

theres always a next time. However, if we set ourselves to work with the

second striving, to have a constant and unflagging need for self-perfection in the

sense of being, then every one of these moments of choice is significant. This

changes the picture completely, and every one of them becomes an entre for

conscience. Given this opportunity, will I work according to the second

striving, or wont I?

On a practical level, some people find it useful and even necessary to

have something prepared for those occasions. To have the intention, or even

the decision, that in moments of wakefulness I will do this or that exercise;

watch my breathing, sense a limb, say a prayer etc. Something so that the

moment isnt gone before we can act. But evidently even this is not enough, in

the light of what Gurdjieff tells us, through the voice of Ashiata Shiemash in

the paragraph I have just quoted from page 372.

Our planetary body is destined to be the denying force in our work, and

the conflict between it and the parallel functionings arising progressively from

the coating and perfecting of our higher being-bodies is necessary and

unavoidable if we wish Conscience to manifest in our ordinary waking

consciousness. So we should expect every moment of waking to bring with it

both the impulse to work and the impulse not to, and that is where and how

conscience gets a foot in the door.

Finally, let us consider the phrase self-perfection in the sense of being. I

have always valued Madame Ouspenskys concise description of being as the

measure of what you can bear, and here it is particularly useful in suggesting a

line of work with the second striving. I can set myself to bear something I find

difficult to deal with, and this doesnt have to be complex to be real. For

example, I can work on being able to bear being wrong. In an argument I can

back down, or concede the point, rather than insisting on my rightness. When I

see the possibility of doing this I have a moment of consciousness and a

moment of choice, and when I choose to concede, rather than insist,

something in me strengthens. The same goes for any form of sacrifice. You can

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consider sacrifice as an act of will, but it also needs strength of being to make it

possible. By practicing the art of sacrifice, I strengthen my being, and the

connection with my own will. In both these ways, I can work towards self-

perfection in the sense of being, in accordance with the second striving.

THE THIRD STRIVING

Now let us consider the third striving:

The third: the conscious striving to know ever more and more

concerning the laws of World-creation and World-maintenance

Some years ago I asked our late friend Med Thring why it is necessary to know

ever more and more concerning the laws of World-creation and World-

maintenance; why couldnt we have just a good working knowledge? His

answer had a clarity and simplicity that I have found useful ever since. He

maintained that the reason was simple: the more we understand the laws, the

more clearly we can see our own part in them, and the more that strengthens

our wish to Work. This takes the third striving out of the academic realm and

into the practical need to work on oneself. It also links theoretical

understanding with practical experience.

In the critical chapter, Form and Sequence (chapter XLVI of Beelzebubs

Tales), Gurdjieff describes the difference between reason of knowing and

reason of understanding. Only the latter has lasting value, in that the results of

the reason of understanding become a part of ourselves, whereas the results of

reason of knowing are insubstantial, and require constant renewal. Reason of

understanding, he says, comes from the interaction of new impressions or new

information with the results of our own inner work. The pursuit of permanent

knowledge is thus linked directly with the results of our own struggles and

sacrifices - our own work on ourselves - and, consequently, with conscience. As

our own inner work deepens, so our understanding of the world can change.

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Any knowledge or understanding is therefore provisional, and we have

to be prepared to modify or even jettison something we think we know in the

light of further work and research. Maybe thats what Gurdjieff was doing

when he changed his picture of conscience. One of the aspects of this

particular tradition thats attractive to me and to many people is that we should

not take someone elses authority as final; everything we are told can, and

should, be tested in the light of our own work and our own experience. This

follows directly from the striving to know ever more and more concerning the

laws of World-creation and World-maintenance. If we strive always to question

what we know, and to open ourselves to new understanding through our own

conscious labors and intentional sufferings, then we work in accord with the

third striving.

A useful example here is one of the fundamental laws of world creation

and world maintenance, the Trogoautoegocrat, or the Law of Reciprocal

Maintenance, which is certainly germane to Med Thrings explanation of the

third striving. The more we understand the Law of Reciprocal Maintenance,

the more we can see the truth of Beelzebubs assertion, on page 130 of

Beelzebubs Tales, that the fundamental aim and sense of the existence of these

beings is that there must proceed through them the transmutation of cosmic

substances necessary for what is called the common-cosmic

Trogoautoegocratic-process.

Once again we are presented with circumstances in which conscience

plays a role. Faced with the requirement that we transmute cosmic substances

however we see that to be, will we work on ourselves or not? Conscience not

only helps us recognize the moments of choice, but it can also help us choose

rightly. In short, working with the third striving makes us aware of our

responsibility to play our part in the cosmic process. This was awakened in

Hassein in very early in Beelzebubs Tales (chapter 7), when he saw how much

work others had done to contribute to the benefit of future beings quite

unknown and entirely indifferent to them.

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To summarize, we have to strive both to do the work necessary to

increase our understanding of the laws and to act in accordance with that

understanding.

THE FOURTH STRIVING

The fourth striving has an added complexity, in that it says explicitly that

certain work has to be accomplished in us before we can fully engage in it.

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.

This appears to present us with an insurmountable hurdle, and it seems to me

that there are at least three problems of interpretation here. How do we strive

from the beginning of our existence to pay for our arising and our individuality; what

does it mean to pay, and how do we know that we have so paid; and how could

we lighten in any way let alone as much as possible the Sorrow of our

Common Father?

If we accept the idea that these strivings are presented as a practice,

accessible to all, that produces desirable and necessary results, it must be

possible to find a way past these interpretative challenges. We can speculate

what is meant by paying from the beginning of our existence, but in practice

we cant do anything about the time before this present moment. Moreover, we

might reasonably surmise that the striving puts a specific responsibility upon

parents and godparents a relationship Gurdjieff acknowledges as significant

when he has Beelzebub talk of his Kesdjanian-result-outside-of-me, his

godson Gornahoor Rakhoorkh but in practical terms this doesnt change the

situation we find ourselves in right now. Only now can we work.

We are in a similar situation in considering what is meant by paying for

our arising and our individuality as quickly as possible. Speaking for myself, I

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have no idea how close I am to paying - though I have a shrewd idea but

even if I did know, and had paid, what difference would that make to my

actions? I would still be obliged to actualize being-partkdolg-duty. Nowhere in

Beelzebubs Tales is anyone however exalted ever presented as having made

it. Even Beelzebub, in his transfigured glory at the end of the book, remains

one degree of reason away from the sacred Anklad the highest degree of

reason which in general any being can attain. Note incidentally, the words in

general; even the sacred Anklad is not inevitably the final step.

All of which is to say that if we wish to work in accordance with the

fourth striving, we have to make those efforts and sacrifices that are involved in

conscious labor and intentional suffering, and to do so awakens conscience

within us, both to show us what is required and to prompt us to undertake it.

One suggestion that has proved fruitful in practice is to take on the attitude of

the impeccable warrior described by Carlos Castaneda. This, too, has an

everyday application. To be impeccable, for example, means to finish what we

start, to do anything to the best of our ability, to put ourselves at the service of

others and so on. All of these are aims we can recognize and strive to achieve

and, just as important, we can see when we fail to live up to them.

So finally, can we make anything concrete from the striving to lighten as

much as possible the sorrow of our Common Father? We can only speculate

what such sorrow might be, though Gurdjieff gives us a clue when he has

Ashiata Shiemash say:

only he, who consciously assists the process of this inner

struggle [between desires and non-desires] and consciously assists

the non-desires to predominate over the desires, behaves just in

accordance with the essence of our COMMON FATHER

CREATOR HIMSELF; whereas he who with his consciousness

assists the contrary, only increases HIS sorrow.

At the very least, therefore, if we wish not to increase the sorrow of our

Common Father, we have to assist the inner struggle between desires and non-

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desires, but is it entirely beyond us to consider lightening the sorrow, without

having first paid for our arising and our individuality? Im suggesting that even

if we knew that wed paid for our arising, it wouldnt change our situation, and

I would certainly consider it very bold to be able to say, Ive paid for it, its all

done.

The fourth striving says specifically that we must strive to pay for our

arising, etc in order afterward to be free to lighten the sorrow of our Common

Father. Can we be free at any time before this happy state of affairs is reached,

and if so, how? I suggest that one way of approaching this is through sacrifice.

We can probably recognize from our own experience that when we are able to

sacrifice something, we gain a moment of freedom, and this freedom seems to

be proportional to the scale of the sacrifice. In these moments of sacrifice,

something new is possible for us, for as long as the moment lasts. We are able

to act, and even to be, somewhat less enslaved to the reactions that ordinarily

direct us; things that usually matter to us temporarily lose their power. How we

use such glimpses of freedom is a matter of conscience.

And finally, we can work with negativity. This is a constant source of

work for us, and one that we can turn to account. If I strive to transform

negativity in myself, using one or another practice, I am moving something

from the negative to the positive side of the scale; replacing a negative energy

with a positive. Its at least plausible to suggest that this will lighten the sorrow

of our Common Father, and even if the effect is negligible on the cosmic scale,

it is not so on our local level, nor is it trivial. We should be able to see that

working to transform negativity in ourselves has a positive effect on people we

are with, on the environment in which we find ourselves, and on ourselves too.

It can be seen as an act of service, and often involves sacrifice of some inner

habit or attitude that we are used to indulging. It may not be glamorous but it

contains the essence of being-partkdolg-duty.

THE FIFTH STRIVING

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And finally 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 the degree of

self-individuality.

It may appear self-evident that we should assist others in any way we can, at

any level of their development and, more important, at any level of our own,

but what form can such assistance take? How can we assist the most rapid

perfecting of other beings when we may feel ourselves to be, and probably are,

a long way from the sacred Martfotai? What practical steps can we take, and

how can we work with the fifth striving in a way that brings conscience into

our ordinary waking consciousness?

Let us start with assisting those beings similar to ourselves. This certainly

includes how we raise our children, both individually and collectively and, apart

from the ordinary concerns that arise in bringing up children, there is much to

be said about how spiritual matters could or should be part of that process. Let

us leave that aside, however, and consider how we can help each other as

adults. The first thing we can do is to maintain a supportive attitude towards

the spiritual work of others, even and perhaps particularly when it doesnt

look the same as our own. Leave aside the notorious and continuing enmities

between adherents of the great religions, what about those of us who have

taken inspiration from Gurdjieff himself? I am sure I am not alone in finding

that I criticize the work of others, instead of giving it my support, and this goes

not only for my attitude to people in different traditions derived from

Gurdjieff, but even to members of groups I am involved with. If I wish to

engage with the fifth striving, it seems to me that a minimum condition for

assisting the most rapid perfecting other beings, is to wish them well in their

efforts, and to wish that their work goes as it should. When I find myself

criticizing others internally or out loud I can strive to replace such criticism

with the wish that their work goes well. This is clearly an area where conscience

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can have a voice. Once again, when we see this criticism in ourselves, we have a

choice between indulging it, or of replacing it with something positive.

If the fifth striving involves assisting others in their spiritual work, we

may have found, as I have, that trying to take the initiative in helping others

doesnt work. What does seem to work is responding positively to requests for

help. We all need help, both in the form of grace that comes from beyond our

ordinary level of existence, and from each other. Such mutual assistance may be

nothing more than to give encouragement for the efforts and projects of

others, or it may be more specific. In some cases it may involve working with

others in groups or gatherings. Here we can immediately set up a situation in

which conscience can enter, if we set ourselves to be honest and to share only

what we actually know to be true, and when we dont know, to be explicit

about our ignorance.

Putting ourselves at the service of others is possible regardless of

whether or not we have experience in the spiritual path, and how much; in fact

if we attempt to measure such experience were likely to get into trouble, and in

any case its not necessary to do it. What matters is whether the person we

assist is, in fact, assisted. We can strive to be of assistance when asked, and set

ourselves not to go beyond the bounds of the request. Above all, we can set

ourselves to take no credit for any help that is able to come through us. Its not

hard to see how conscience becomes involved in all of this.

Assisting the most rapid perfecting of beings of other forms may seem

more intangible than assisting beings similar to ourselves, but we could

consider it simply as assisting, or allowing, other beings to be what they were

meant to be. This can then inform our whole relationship with beings of other

forms, both animals and plants. How we treat animals, or support others

treatment of them, becomes a matter of conscience in the simplest terms.

Factory farming of animals, for example, might be something our conscience

doesnt permit, and we can act according to conscience every time we enter a

grocery store. This even extends to how we treat the soil, and the beings of

other forms - down to microscopic organisms - that inhabit it. Does the way

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we exploit the soil, or have others exploit it on our behalf, conform to the fifth

striving or not?

In short, there are practical ways to approach the fifth striving.

Conscience can enter through this striving, not least because it opens up so

many minefields in which conscience can speak to us.

CONCLUSION

In considering all five of these strivings I have sought practical ways to work in

accordance with their descriptions, and in line with the explicit statement in

Beelzebubs Tales that they are a means to have in their [our] consciousness this

Divine function of genuine conscience.

To summarize my suggestions:

The fifth striving requires support and good wishes toward the efforts of

other people, and just attitudes and actions towards beings of other

forms.

The fourth striving involves sacrifice here and now, and particularly

sacrifice of our own negativity.

The third striving is towards increasing our understanding of the laws

governing the world, in order that we may better understand our part in

them, and be motivated to act accordingly.

The second striving involves taking every opportunity we are given to

work on ourselves.

The first striving implies struggling to maintain a conscientious

equilibrium between what our planetary body thinks it wants for its

ordinary being existence, and what it actually needs.

Separately and together, the strivings can produce situations in which

conscience plays a role in our ordinary waking consciousness.

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Throughout this enterprise, I have been guided by certain assumptions, which I

maintain are supported by what Gurdjieff writes in the chapters concerning

Ashiata Shiemash:

All the strivings involve just that, a commitment to strive. That

commitment is an aim, and aim gives an entre to conscience.

We should not think that conscience is concerned only with the big

things in life. As with all faculties, its exercise has to start small.

The word is striving a continuing effort; its not something of which

we can ever say, the work is finished.

And therefore though the sequence of the strivings may be significant, in

practice it doesnt change anything; we may work more intensively for a

period on one or another of the strivings, but all of them require a long-

term (or life-long) commitment.

Finally, Gurdjieff makes it clear, as I described at the beginning of this

paper, that everybody has the seeds of conscience within them, and that

the strivings are for everybody. We cannot let ourselves off the hook by

arguing that they are beyond us.

If we do see the being-obligolnian-strivings as a practical blueprint, we have to

find our own way to work with them in our daily lives. I have suggested a few

avenues, based on my own understanding, and I hope that you can suggest a

whole lot more. Thank you.

QUESTIONS

Q: Of the five strivings, the third one is a conscious striving, and the other four

are not. I just wondered if you had any comment to make on that?

GB: As opposed to the others which are by implication unconscious?

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Q: Well, I think consciousness is referring to a state.

GB: Im not sure that I know what to say about that, because Im not sure that

I have such control over my consciousness that I can say, Now Im going to

be conscious and work on this. So that if I do have moments of

consciousness, they dont seem to be at my command. I can certainly be as

intentional as I can and make decisions about it and so on, but Im not sure

that I can say anything very intelligent about the use of the word conscience

here, as opposed to the other strivings, which dont include it in them. It

certainly requires an intellectual engagement, but in my view that is only the

beginning. Not a satisfactory answer, I apologize, but thats about the best I

can do.

Q: I have a practical question relating to some of your experience working at

the Village School, working with 4th-6th graders who certainly have some

ability to understand some of what youre talking about. My question is, what

have you worked with in terms of this (probably not directly) with students to

try to open up some possibilities for them, and at the same time, what might

you have gained from your students?

GB: Ive learned a great deal from teaching my students simply about the facts

that were engaged with, but what I think is really important in teaching is being

honest with oneself, and with them, and being an example of honesty. For

example, I think its very important to point out when Ive made a mistake, so

that they see that its OK to make a mistake, and that they value it. I think its

important that they are not afraid of making mistakes, because fear of mistakes

is really debilitating, and its very common for children to be brought up, or to

be taught in schools, to think that theyve got to get the right answer.

Trying to be just, and have the children be just towards each other - all

those sorts of things are part of teaching. We can sit here for days talking about

how to do this with children, but it should start with ones own inner work.

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One has to be present, and thats very difficult with a classroom full of kids. I

think the most important thing is to try to be as present as possible, and even

when were not present, at least to be honest.

Q: I just wanted to make a comment thats kind of a textual comment. I know

that were primarily focusing on the English text here, but it is interesting that

in the French text of Beelzebubs Tales the word is not striving, but tendences, or

tendencies. What interested me about that is that a tendency is something thats

innate, whereas a striving sounds like it comes only from your own intention

and effort. My understanding is that the original Russian word contains both

those meanings.

GB: Thats good, because I was about to say that it sounds as if it should be

both together.

Q: It should be both together.

GB: So if it originally started out as having both these meanings, and they

became separated by the vagaries of French and English, then Im very glad

that you point this out. It seems to me that its exactly that. You could have a

tendency but it also needs to be intensified. I think that tendency is a good

word to hear in terms of what Beelzebub says about the second striving

involving an instinctive need for self-perfection.

Q: Thank you very much for bringing the strivings to our attention, and

making them so important. I was very struck when you used the word

attitude, because it made me realize as you were speaking that the directions

for so many religions are thou shalt not - Thou shalt not do this, thou shalt

not do that, this is a sin and so forth. Whereas the directions of the strivings

are positive statements; every single one of them is positive. The power of

attitude is where Ive always seen the change in myself. When Im doing

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something thats so difficult and Im resisting it and I really want to give it up,

my body wants to give it up, but something pushes through. It always comes

when Im able to say that it just doesnt make any difference the way I feel, or

it feels, it doesnt make any difference the way my bodys responding. When I

hit that point of acceptance of this needs to be done, I become positive. In

other words my attitude shifts.

I want your opinion on the difficulty that came up for me as you were

speaking, that these would be the strivings of every person on a normal planet

where there is normal consciousness, but I have an abnormal conscience, so

there is something in me that needs to be able to hold that. That these strivings

are within me already like a five pointed star, one within the other, because I

dont see how you can work on one without working on the other. I think

theyre that locked in. Ive tried looking at how I can work on one without

working on the other, but at the same time we have an abnormal

consciousness, so how do we reconcile that? We are abnormal beings.

GB: Thats a long question. The first point is that Beelzebub says very clearly

that all the beings began to work, at a period when every terrestrial three-

centered being had presumably been existing unconsciously. They were in this

abnormal state, and they all began to work. So I think we have to be careful

about letting ourselves off the hook by saying that were all abnormal. We have

to start somewhere, and we can start with all of the strivings. Ive had long

discussions with my friend Jan Jarvis - one of the people setting up a

conference about the strivings in Seattle this June - about the significance of

the order. Im sure this is significant, but that doesnt change the situation,

which is that I need to work on all of them. So I can spend a lot of time

discussing the significance of the order, or I can start working with them.

One thing that seems clear in Gurdjieffs presentation is that this work

doesnt have to have a perfect situation in order to begin. Presumably

everybody was imperfect, and in this abnormal state, before Ashiata Shiemash

22

came on the scene, and a state of normality began to emerge from the work

they did with these strivings.

To me, the essence of Gurdjieffs message is that there is hope. We dont

have to accept that were stuck in a situation; we can work with it, and here are

some methods for doing that. Its made explicit that this is work that we can

do, and that its available to all of us. That is whats so remarkable about these

chapters; Gurdjieff emphasizes over and over again that the seeds of

conscience are in all of us. He says it a dozen times in about thirty pages. Thats

why I come back to this; we can get ourselves into the position of thinking its

all too hopeless, but it isnt.

Q: Thats where I was headed, and I think thats what linked in my mind; to

remain positive about our possibilities. Whatever we see, we should to continue

to be interested in it, and be positive, even if its painful and difficult. This is

connected with the reconciling force; its the positive attitude, and thats what

you brought.

Q: I would like to go back to Robins question about the word conscious. Ive

been working with these strivings for the past couple of years, as you

mentioned that many people have been, and Ive been trying to get a purchase

on this word. The first stage of consciousness is referred to many times in

Madame de Salzmanns book, and its a stage where the three centers come into

balance. At that point there is a different consciousness available, so simply to

approach the laws of world creation and world maintenance from three centers

would be a way to begin working with that.

GB: Thank you; makes good sense to me.

Q: My question fits in with that nicely. The example you gave of being with

children and admitting that youre wrong. I think you were saying that youre in

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front of them and youre present from an inner work standpoint. You are

present and you are choosing in that moment to be an example through being,

and then theres the detail of admitting that youre wrong and letting the

children see that.

Through maintaining your presence and engaging in that action you are

actually creating a world for that child. You are maintaining a world and its

done consciously. Its a moment of striving, a moment of conscience, a

moment of acting. I know this because its possible for me as a performer to

get a lot of laughs in my childrens shows, but I dont do this at the expense of

anybody. Of course, we can have that same fun where things go wrong, and

things break and fall apart, and the children are having a blast, without the

person whos up on stage with me getting embarrassed. Thats the key; the

conscious striving is learning how to engage the children and have that fun, but

without the embarrassment.

GB: Well, I wish I lived up to your description of being present all the time in

front of my children at school, but certainly thats a sixth striving!

Q: Thank you so much for emphasizing the practicality of the strivings. I think

a question thats always haunted me with this is the fact that this potentially

existed, this practice was begun, results occurred, and it disappeared in a

generation, thanks to one mama and papas darling. So, one thing Ive tried to

keep in mind, as the other end of this stick of the strivings or the tendencies (I

think its good to use both words) is the Naloo-osnian spectrum of impulses.

He gives these adorable seven aspects of the Naloo-osnian spectrum of

impulses, and there seems to be a call for a kind of intelligence. My question is;

how do we again bring together these two parts, the desire and the non-desire?

Because the non-desire is very well laid out in this spectrum of impulses. Does

that need to be included, how does it need to be included?

GB: I just look at my own experience, and I really cant talk from anything else.

I notice, for example, that I can set up a particular dyad to work with, as I

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described earlier. Then theres another choice that comes up when I have a

moment of wakening. I wake up - or I am woken up - and now Im present,

and can actually work. In that moment the same struggle between desires and

non-desires is there. You think Id say, How wonderful, Ive woken up and I

always wanted to work, so now Im going to work. And I dont. So it simply

narrows down to every moment that we have this opportunity, and the same

struggle exists. Thats how I see it. I spoke earlier about how important the

second striving is, and how the striving to have an unflagging need changes

ones attitude to those moments. If we set ourselves to have an unflagging need

for self-perfection, then every one of those moments counts; we cant just say,

Ill put it off until later, or until tomorrow. Im not sure whether or not Im

answering your question, but thats the way it looks to me: it comes down to

yes or no in this moment. But there are lots of people here with much more

wisdom and intelligence on this than I have.

Q: But my question is, is it yes and no?

GB: You mean that one says them both together, or that theyre both present?

Q: Yes.

GB: The way I experience it is that both the yes and no are present, but then I

have to choose. That is where conscience comes in, because I have a choice. It

looks small, and it may be small, but its not insignificant. In those small

moments I have a choice and its exactly in such moments that conscience

enters. The trouble about these moments is just that they are so small, but we

are still really on the hook. Oddly enough, we can sometimes do the big things,

but the challenge is in these tiny instances where nobody is watching, except

this conscience that were trying to wake up.

25

Q: I want to thank you for your paper this morning. For some reason it filled

me up, particularly this business of assisting our Common Father. Ive been

grappling with that for several years now, and to answer the question that you

posed a couple of times in your talk, it involves bringing light to others. I think

you answered the question after you posed it, but Im a dowser (a member of

the American Dowsing Association) so sometimes when I have dilemmas, I

dowse. Ive been working with a group in Baltimore for a few years now, and

there have been times when I wanted to just let this group go because it was

getting into a lot of heavy stuff. There have been people with tremendous

issues in their lives, who may not always be good householders, in the

Gurdjieffian sense. So a lot of stuff is on the table, week after week. I said to

myself, I think Im just going to let this group slide, and switch to once a

month instead of every week, because its exhausting.

So I dowsed it, and the answer came back, no, you must go every week.

And I said, Well, do you understand that Im going broke? This is getting to

be very expensive; Amtrak is not cheap. You still want me to do this? Yes, I

want you to do this. So the point Im making here is that our Common Father

knows when a real effort is being made. There have been times when I have

been broke and the conductors on the train have miraculously walked by and

not asked me for a ticket. Its as if Im invisible; theyve actually taken the ticket

from people next to me and not asked for mine. And I think this has got to be

some kind of divine intervention; I just feel like our Common Father knows.

There have been times when there were storms and Ive slept on the

floor at the lodge where we meet. A really nasty storm that just whipped up,

and I ended up being thankful that there was heat in the lodge that night, as I

slept on my overcoat. So I think this business of assisting our Common Father

is doing whatever we can do to bring light to others, and to live the light, and

to try to be the light.

GB: There is a source of help; I think we can all know that. We dont have to

get into too much detail about where this source of help is, but its clear that

26

there is help. Sometimes we have to ask for it, sometimes it just comes, but

help is always there. This work would be impossible without it; we all know

that - at least I assume we do.

Q: If Im not mistaken, this is the only place in the Tales where Gurdjieff

speaks about desires and non-desires. Its quite extraordinary that my

experience is, What is a non-desire? Who is non-desiring? Its the biggest

question about the strivings. To me the strivings are thought forms, but this

approach of living with my desire and non-desire leaves it as a much larger

matter. It seems easy to speak about, but to actually live like that is, I find, very

very rare. Yet, in those moments, something wholly new arrives. So I just want

to add this element of difficulty, or the truth of the difficulty, at least for me

anyway.

GB: Im not saying its easy, but what I wanted to bring out is how explicit this

is in the book. And I think it can also become clear in ones experience of

working on this; that this is actually possible work. Beelzebub (a.k.a. Gurdjieff)

makes it explicit that this work is available; it is not beyond us. Thats why I

said at the beginning that this work is for everybody. Everybody can do it, and

when everybody does, these good things happen. In the light of that, we have

to find some way to make these strivings work for us.

Let us remind ourselves about what it says in the two paragraphs either

side of the strivings themselves, which I quoted earlier: everybody started

working with the strivings, and the results were universally beneficial. In the

face of that clarity, we have to find some clarity about how to work with them.

Im just suggesting ways of doing it. Ive grappled with what desires and non-

desires mean - do they mean attachments and non-attachments, or can I just

turn it into a struggle between yes and no in myself? However I think about

them, I have to find a way to work with them. When I commit myself to one or

another of the strivings, and I find in the moment that I dont want to work

with them, then I have an entre for conscience.

27

So how can I take each of these strivings and set up that situation with

respect to them? Because, going back to what Beelzebub says about

transubstantiating, I think its really important that we take the step from

considering the strivings as ideas, to putting them into practice. Thats what

transubstantiating means for me. Of course theres no one answer to this;

everybodys work with this is going to be different, but there may be similarities

too.

Then we have to go back to this really important part about assisting the

most rapid perfecting of other beings. I think theres more to this than meets

the eye, in terms of wishing each others work well, whoever we are. There are

people from this or that group, or the Foundation, or the people that listen to

Bennett, and the people who listen to Ouspensky; theyre all out there and

were all the same, and we can all support each others work. We shouldnt be

worried about all this personality nonsense. The minimum condition for

working on the fifth striving is to wish each other well in our work.

Q: Thank you, George. I think your comment on wishing each other well is so

vital, and important for A&E. I have a comment on the third striving, just an

impression as to why Gurdjieff may have put such emphasis on the word

conscious. Gurdjieff also puts tremendous emphasis on the lack of proper

education, and that what we know, we really dont know. We have been

informed by all kinds of gibberish and this is what our education has produced.

So what we think we know about the laws of world-creation and world-

maintenance is really all nonsense. Its all literal stuff that we have had poured

into us through education, and the educational process, and we really dont

have a conscious understanding of those laws. So my impression is that here in

the third striving, hes really putting emphasis on the conscious striving to come

to understand more and more about the laws of world-creation and world-

maintenance. That would be a totally different enterprise from simply accepting

28

what has been poured into me; it would be my search, my endeavor to

understand the laws.

GB: Thank you. I agree. But I also think this aspect from the Form and

Sequence chapter is important. In order to have reason of understanding,

knowledge has to be set against our own inner work. That maybe also where

this word conscious comes in.

Q: I think this is our last question

GB: Oh, good!

Q: Youre not getting out of it yet! My further comment is on the desires and

non-desires. For me its a puzzle, how can a non-desire be involved in struggle?

On the one side there is struggle, which is the realm of desire, but from the side

of non-desire there is no struggle at all. Thats for me the meaning of the non-

desires. Seen from that side, there is no struggle.

GB: Well, that sounds a bit like the difference between struggle and sacrifice.

The struggle is constant, but when you make a sacrifice and its an act of

decision then its done. Then it becomes simple, because it is done.

Q: I just wanted to make a comment on that last point. To keep this non-

struggle alive, how can one do that without making any kind of effort?

GB: Good luck with that! You cant; I assume thats a rhetorical question!