Among Rosicrucian and
Hermetic scholar, Joy Lonsdale's papers, we found copious notes originally
written to another writer in the field as a commentary on his new book on
Gurdjieff's Work. We have abstracted some of the more general comments here.
No, we don't really wish to
know and accept that transformation and freedom are very hard to achieve. We
like to feel it should be easy. Therefore, it doesn't help us in any way to
imagine that anyone at all had it easy (the condition messengers from
above must enjoy, who did not feel like this, but had a future of bliss assured
them! Ordinary human beings don't have such assurances). Gurdjieff suffered,
like most humans, physical and no doubt emotional pain, death of loved ones,
failures, financial and otherwise, frustrations, ill will towards him, insults,
treachery, jealousies, etc. etc. I think this is why people can relate to him -
he was so human! As he said himself, he's not only been through the
mill, but even through all the grindstones!
p.46. There are many who
would say that G's cosmology was just another theory, among others. I do not
believe he has laid bare in his writings all the secrets of everything you've
mentioned. If, as I believe, he was an Hermeticist he would have been under oath
not to do so anyway, and it's why he wrote allegorically. I have come to learn
that it is not wise to put all our faith in any one theory, or line of thought,
but to leave our minds open to all possibilities, provided they make sense and
are not too fantastic. G's Ray of Creation is a wonderful portrayal of the way
things could have occurred, not necessarily how they actually did
occur, for who can know this anyway?
p.56. I tell people that
Gurdjieff was a Rosicrucian! Not that I equate him with what currently
passes for this word in its outer garb, but definitely with its older and inner
meaning. And yes, I agree that the Fourth Way IS a Rosicrucian manifestation,
as you say, for they, the real masters, by whatever name they are called at any
time, go underground periodically and resurface under a new guise. I think it's
ever been thus. R.N. feels that there never was any real Exodus of the Jewish
race, but rather it was an exodus of the Jews (allegorical for initiates) from
Heliopolis when Egypt was overrun. G himself predicted that his teaching would
go full circle, and then retreat for a time. And I remember that P.O. said that
a conscious teaching was not under the law of recurrence, so that if we met it once
we may not meet it again so all the more reason to work now.
p.68. Can't agree with you
that a really free attention is the desired state. The attention must be
captured, fixed and then controlled through the will-power, when it becomes
one-pointed concentration. Mercury represents the attention, and with his
winged sandals plays a double role. He is the agent, or messenger, of the
subconscious, but also becomes a fugitive servant, forgetting his real master
and becoming a plaything for all the caprices of the conscious mind, a real
will-o'-the-wisp. It is why the old alchemists said one must work with the
right type of mercury to succeed. Let's not forget, too, that Mercury wore a
helmet, symbolic of invisibility (for the attention is not a visible
manifestation) and his winged sandals show his duality. His wings have to be
clipped - in one myth he was even threatened with having his feet cut off -
both of these showing he has to be grounded and his freedom taken away
from him so he will work more constructively. It says something about our
general state of inattention that it does not appear anywhere in myth that
Mercury was ever so grounded!
p.78. You obviously believe
in reincarnation. It's the one aspect of the Rosicrucian teaching (or any
other) with which I can't concur! And did G ever expound it? As I remember he
seems to have said that only fully conscious men can reincarnate and as
these would be very few, it seems he meant it was not a general occurrence. I
favour Ouspensky's eternal recurrence (and he stated that he got confirmation
of this from G, albeit in a roundabout sort of way). I feel it is more orderly,
and it makes much more sense to me, and (provided one can understand what it
means) I think it gives the possibility to everyone to change if
they awaken. (P.O. said no, there are some who have to play the same role over
and over.) I feel we are wheels within wheels within wheels, and we can go
round and round on the same one for however long eternity may be - as P.O. said
himself, there is a real death and an end to it if one never makes the
effort to change. The possibilities get less and less each recurrence until
they eventually run out, or it may follow the Law of Seven and we only get
seven chances, but who knows this for sure?
* Hero forced to participate in order to survive.
