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Post by Deleted on Sept 18, 2012 15:54:38 GMT -6
Awake! Sounds familiar for the readers of our forum? I hope that when you read this word, this injunction, at least you remember yourself if you not try to be as conscious as possible. Awake !
But what does it brings? As one of my friends asked me, what are the advantages, what can you expect?
Gurdjieff told us the differences between an awaken man and an ordinary man are as great as between this ordinary man and a physically sleeping one. So, a man which is Awake is some kind of super-man? Where are they? Not so fast. To Gurdjieff's word I add : You have to have your own eyes open enough to notice it.
Personally no doubt that I'm much more Awake than two or three years ago. Yet, this summer I participated to a chess tournament and made my worst performance in 10 years. Why? Because since two years I stopped studying and training chess (in favor of the CoC, great deal), and your performance in chess depend decisively on your work and training, that's as simple as that. Would I decide that my chess rating is worth spending my precious time, no doubts I'll be higher in little time. But I will not, chess is cool but definitively I have better to do.
Awakening "only" (!) offers us the right state of mind to become a Super-man. When Awake your mind stops aimlessly drifts, or stops focuses on worthless goals. When Awake a clear picture of your life, yourself, the world around you appears and then you can take the correct decisions, and choose your goals, and choose who you will be. Remember, too, that this universe does not "really" exists, an Awaken man is a Law in itself. But you will not automatically be able to challenge the world champions...
During my tournament I observed them, the champions, the professionals : Asleep (in a 4th way sense). Yet, their level is awesome, their skill is impressive. A nearly perfect awareness... on the chessboard only. The life of world champions (of any kinds, not only chess) if often a failure.
Are the sleepers "partially Awake" when they are so efficient? When a sleeper focuses a lot of energy on one aspect, does that aspect act as if it's Awake ? Thoughts ?
The great Work has just begun!
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Post by I AM the Way on Sept 19, 2012 6:25:44 GMT -6
Exalt, brother!
You're definitely thinking about the right kinds of things and asking the right kind of questions. I'm going to sit back while my fellow Cultists sink their teeth into this delicious esoteric feast.
Awake!
VS
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Post by sin on Sept 19, 2012 8:41:33 GMT -6
How can you make this assessment, unless you know all the intimate details of these champions lives? How can you assert that they are Awakened to the chess board only?
This is just speculation on my part, but it sound as if you are attached to the idea that you did not perform well in comparison to other players. This may be the cause for imagining that the lives of others are a failure in comparison to your own.
Perhaps it would be more productive to measure your own personal successes vs. deciding that the lives of others are unsuccessful.
You played in the tournament for some reason, right? Were you trying to prove something to yourself? Test your skills?
For me, I don't think to myself: I want that guy's life. I think to myself, what do I want? What do I want in me? How close am I to reaching those goals and what obstacles must I overcome?
We are creatures of habit, its rather easy to fall subject to our nature for routine and repetition. I was speaking to my son about this very thing yesterday. Little tasks that are of little importance to him slip his mind. He forgets. He tells me, its because he doesn't think about it. He doesn't think about it, because it's not that important to him. The things that are of greater importance to him he never forgets. He is disciplined and dedicated to them.
Example of small mindless tasks:
When he drives in the car with me, he doesn't have to concern himself with rolling up the car window because I do that automatically before taking the keys out of the ignition. I do this because its important to me to have my windows up and car secured before leaving it parked.
When he drives in the car with others, he doesn't even think about rolling up the windows as his 'responsibility' as a passenger because I have always done this. He will get lambasted by others for not rolling up the windows, they get out of their car not thinking about it because the responsibility is assumed then look back to see the window down in the back and say: "You forgot to roll up 'your' window, now I have to turn the car back on to close them when you should have done it!"
Seems small and trivial I know, but the example might be useful here.
He expressed the frustration with getting a talking to about rolling up the windows. He tells me he keeps forgetting. He doesn't mean to forget. He doesn't enjoy getting lambasted, so to alleviate his suffering he wants to remember to avoid it in the future. He was asking me for advice. I explained to him that we are creatures of habit. I am in the habit of rolling up the windows because the car belongs to me. I don't want my property to get damaged or stolen, so its important enough to me for me to remember to roll up 'All' the windows regardless of who was sitting where and when. I got in the habit when I owned my first car, and that routine sticks with you.
If it was important enough to him, he will remember. Perhaps getting a talking to 4-5 times is the necessary shock for him to remember and raise levels of importance. It was enough for him to speak to me about it even though it sounds pretty mundane and silly. All this over rolling up car windows?
Self-remembering is important enough in correlation to self-awareness. If I had bad habits I was seeking to change then obviously I need to be aware of my routines. If I see myself repeating the habit, I'll need to do something to ensure that I'm aware of it and adjust to not repeat it in the future. Eventually, it will be committed to muscle memory and I won't have to think about it. Not that its become less important to me, but rather because it is important it sticks.
Perhaps this can be juxtaposed with the winners of the chess game. Are they only focused on the chess game, or perhaps its important enough to them to play as if they are awake at the board (only)??
CS
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Post by Deleted on Sept 19, 2012 14:46:52 GMT -6
How can you make this assessment, unless you know all the intimate details of these champions lives? How can you assert that they are Awakened to the chess board only? I saw them asleep, that is how. As Ouspensky in "In search of the miraculous", I am able to see the sleepers. Please believe me. This is just speculation on my part, but it sound as if you are attached to the idea that you did not perform well in comparison to other players. This may be the cause for imagining that the lives of others are a failure in comparison to your own. Perhaps it would be more productive to measure your own personal successes vs. deciding that the lives of others are unsuccessful. You played in the tournament for some reason, right? Were you trying to prove something to yourself? Test your skills? For me, I don't think to myself: I want that guy's life. I think to myself, what do I want? What do I want in me? How close am I to reaching those goals and what obstacles must I overcome? [/color] [/quote] I am disappointed : How can you think me able of such a low, negative attitude ?
I played this tournament as every years, it's a classical rendez-vous for the fellow chess players of my region. I spent a excellent week of holidays, meeting them, discussing, etc, my results are not important. Good gnosis, too.
No as champion of my department and uncontested best player of my city I have nothing to prove.
About the unsuccessful lives of some I am referring to the famous and spectacular failures of some of the greatest champions, musicians, artists.
Awake...
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Post by sin on Sept 19, 2012 16:11:57 GMT -6
I am asking you to articulate how you specifically see them.
So, the tournament is more or less a hobby?
I was referring to this portion of your statement. If you knew this in advance, did you intend to play badly and with purpose? Was it merely a personal affirmation that lack of practice = awakeness?
Equally, if you spent no time at all studying/using the 'CoC' as you put it, would this be awakeness or sleepness?
I'm just trying to understand your pov.
CS
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Post by lokidreaming on Sept 19, 2012 21:29:39 GMT -6
First of all Yrreiht,
Yipppee!!!! More posts from you!!! (Missing your posts).
In response to this chain of posts I think the root causes are people are fixating on certain ideas and principles too much that work for themselves or have very good intentions of championing these principles but are just missing the mark on some points.
I myself have played in poker tournaments, therefore I relate to Yrreiht in being able to see how asleep and mechanical people are, this is due to me looking at the other competitors and seeing myself as a poker player (past and present) reflected back at me and due to this I understand the position that they are in and the hurdles they need to overcome and etc.
I understand the mentality of a poker player as I am one and Yrrieht knows the mentality of a chess player cos he is a chess player.
In poker there is a concept called telling a story, it means telling a believable story through your mannerisms, your betting pattern to deduce what kind of player that competitor is what kind of cards that player is likely to play.
So I would confidently say this is also the case for Chess in that the story that the chess player is trying to give tell will give clues to what types of moves and strategy the other chess player is likely to use often and vice versa.
What the majority of the players tend to totally miss the mark on, is they only do this at the poker table and do not continue to do this away from the table
ie, they are all mature at the table to command respect, but away from the table they act like a jack ass character and everyone knows this.
A tight player at the table is a spend drift away from the table and vice versa and everyone knows this.
Sometimes these players actions away from the table gives these players problems in the competitions when they are trying to tell a believable story as no one really believes them. I see this reflected back in all other areas of life, in course, a student is dutiful and polite but a total loudmouth drunk ass away from the table and when the tutors figure this out, they need to test the student in class bit more.
The tutors are polite but a clown away from the classroom and wonders why certain students don't respect them much when they try to teach them.
It is all relative and relevant.
Systems like the 4th Way teaches one to be consistent in all areas of life not just one aspect of life.
A professional competition player can be a excellent skilled player even when they are partially awake/asleep due to it is second nature to them aka it is now a habitual habit.
Over the years the tactics and different preferred methods of that competition changes, people either thrive in these changes or go busto.
This is also true in all other aspects of live.
Entering in a professional competition is a very good way to test your true levels of 4th Way Concepts versus what you think your levels actually are as it forces you to face the horror of the situation and adapt rather than react.
I admit when I myself are in these situations at time I totally forget myself and go on a major tilt (going mentally crazy after a few bad beats) and when I finally remember myself I have lost a lot of my chip stack.
I am now grateful for these tilt sessions as I know after I have analyzed why it played out like that I will be able to understand myself more as a poker player and in turn as a person and be more successful in the long run in every aspect of my life. _______________________________________________________________________ Why people are only awake at the chessboard? Because they do not know how to transfer this awakeness to other areas of their lives or see the similarities or this awakeness in other areas of their lives.
The social climate/peer pressure of the professional world, in order to be a pro at this, you must do this and that like we do.
Which one again can be seen in all other aspects of life. _______________________________________________________________________ Yrreiht, I would say when you have stopped training chess for two years that is why you are such a bad player now is erroneous and you should know better to think like that!!!!
A lot has changed since then, you have more life experience and more knowledge and I am assuming you are playing to how you were as a chess player two years ago?
These new experience and knowledge completely changes how you approach and manage stuff than you had previously done, therefore my default you need to as a (pro) chess player work out how your chess playing style has changed and why and come up with and or adapt your current playing style to your actually levels.
I know for a fact that my own poker playing style has dramatically changed and am constantly improving due to being more awakened via the 4th Way concepts and understand how frustrating it is to adapt to these changes
Not training at chess for two years is not all that bad as you have probably developed and or improved on some strengths as a chess players that other chess players will most likely be envious of and yes some areas of your chess game needs to be improved on drastically due not training for two years.
Can A Sleeper Perform Better? Phil Ivey (awake) who is considered one of the best poker player ever is not the chip leader at most tables he is at, but tend to win a lot of pots he is in and people respect his game play at the table.
Therefore is someone who is the chip leader (asleep) at the poker table a better player that someone for has less chips?
At this point in time, I would say it is dependent on the the AWAKE person and the SLEEPER if they rise to the challenge via there different strengths and weakness.
Sometimes as stated in poker it is sometimes down to luck no matter how well one plays.
So Yrreiht, get back out into the chess world and conquer it.
LD
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Post by sin on Sept 20, 2012 8:17:05 GMT -6
I'm not sure how I'm missing the mark. I'm merely attempting to understand the relevance of imagining/projection with regard to identification.
For example, Venger plays poker. If you were at a poker game observing Venger play, how would you assess that he is Awake/Alseep and then determine his life is either successful or unsuccessful?
If I place it in a context that I can personally relate to it would be like this:
Dancers often study a specific dance style. When they are in the learning curve aka following an instructor or discipline their initial performances can often be very rigid and mechanical because they are trying to emulate the specific moves they have been taught. As they get more comfortable with the style, there tends to be a more organic flow and improvisation in style.
Dancer learning = asleep Dancer dancing = awake
If I'm understanding Yrrheit correctly, he is no longer identifying as a chess player, and he's just playing and enjoying himself. He is considering this an awakened state.
What I'm having difficulty understanding, is how imagining the other chess players are asleep, is useful in terms of personal success or accomplishment.
If Yrrheit's personal Gnosis is that he can see how he used to be in correlation to how he is now, then I can see its use. Added to the mix is an element of identification/projection when Yrreheit presumes to project his personal goals upon other people.
Does efficiency = sleepness in this context? (dancer dancing vs. dancer learning)
This assumes that the dancer is nothing else but a dancer which implies that awakeness is really sleepness.
Do you follow?
It's a rather confusing way to present the concepts Yrreiht is seeking to discuss.
If he had stated things differently, it may have been more clear.
"Hey, I went to this chess tournament and I played terribly, but wow...Looking around the room, I could see these chess players still in the same state when I have grown so much. It made me realize that I was like a zombie, doing nothing else but focusing on chess. There is so much more to me than being a chess player but I didn't realize it until I had begun studying with the CoC..."
Does this make more sense?
CS
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Post by I AM the Way on Sept 20, 2012 10:59:16 GMT -6
A little something for everyone...
Comparisons are unavoidable. We can practice not identifying with how well or poorly someone else is doing - to separate ourselves from our perception and emotional response - but comparisons will (and probably should) still be made.
Is it acceptable to assume that 99% we meet in daily life are asleep for the majority of their lives? I believe so, but am interested in reading arguments against this view.
Your son and the car windows, along with each and every one of us, probably won't be able to remember or internalize the necessity until personal experience comes into play. For example, he leaves the window down in his own car, and it gets vandalized or stolen.
I understand what Cora'Sahn means about muscle memory and making certain aspects of the Work automatic, but we must be careful to keep thinking about our actions and the concepts behind them.
Yrreiht, your "disappointment" is affected. It's not you but your personality or ego feeling abused. In other words, one of your 'I's is saying, "How dare you consider me a human being with mechanical faults and imperfections! I am the epitome of awesome sauce!" Do you see how unessential that is?
Along the lines of what lokidreaming said, poker and chess, while presenting a similar level of deep, critical, and strategic thinking are still very different games. Even though poker players go on and on about how poker is a game of skill - let's face it, there's a lot of luck involved, too. In fact, variance is a key part of every Texas Hold'em session.
Poker players like Phil Ivey or Tom Dwan, both of whom have a weird kind of dead fish eye and open mouthed stare at the table, can go months without winning or even cashing in a poker tournament or showing a profit in cash games. Whereas, a chess champion has to rely on his skill versus the skill of his opponent.
I'm not saying that losing a chess match means that one is objectively inferior compared to the winner, however, successive losses cannot be easily blamed on variance. Perhaps an older chess champion gets stuck in a tactical rut while younger chess players are developing new and superior tactics? I don't know because I've only played chess a handful of times in the last decade.
Did you mean spendthrift, lokidreaming?
It would benefit us to think about what an Awakened state means in regards to chess, poker, and life itself. Are we supposed to play or live better because of our laser focus, enhanced knowledge, and purified being? Or do all of those things only come into play when we start searching for the bigger picture? If we are truly Awake, then what...?
Awake!
Venger As'Nas Satanis Ipsissimus Cult of Cthulhu
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Post by sin on Sept 20, 2012 13:12:40 GMT -6
This was my point about the importance. I don't think he would think about it at all, if he had not been lambasted by others while riding with them in their cars. The necessity (now) is to alleviate his personal suffering not enjoying being lambasted. He wants to remember. He wants to commit it to muscle memory.
I do agree, that there is a slippery slope we all climb when doing so. We can certainly become so mechanized that we continue to remain unaware.
I don't think the main issue was the comparison per say, but how it was being compared. As stated, when affirming personal Gnosis there seemed to be an element of identification/projection going on there. As noted, you observed the bruising of the 'I' in my attempts to clarify.
My aim is to understand for introspect, it is not to brow-beat or think lowly of Yrreiht for this dialogue... For clarification.
CS
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Post by Deleted on Sept 20, 2012 15:28:14 GMT -6
Yrreiht, your "disappointment" is affected. It's not you but your personality or ego feeling abused. In other words, one of your 'I's is saying, "How dare you consider me a human being with mechanical faults and imperfections! I am the epitome of awesome sauce!" Do you see how unessential that is?
I see perfectly, I was not really disappointed to be badly considered, but to be so badly understood and that it is somewhat messing the thread.
Cora'Shan, All what you wrote about me in this thread is completely false. Modesty aside, I am above that. I am asking you to articulate how you specifically see them. A good question, but no easy answer... It's as explaining what is gnosis. That's more than a feeling, I "see" them asleep and it's as clear as if I look at an advertisement. Read Ouspensky (In search of the miraculous) he saw the sleepers, he is describing it, maybe a little better. For me it's need to make an effort to be conscious to see them.
Or it's as when I guess the result of the dice after meditation and gnosis. I'm more than feeling it will be, say, 4, and I roll the dice : 4. I knew it will be, I did not hope nor imagine. Maybe you will not believe.
Only three times since one year I saw a person clearly Awake, the first is Master Satanis on his videos (don't ask me why such an esoteric mater can be seen on a video), the second a peasant selling his vegetables on a market, the third a 4 years-old boy watching me from his stroller... I regret I did not came to that peasant to know him, next time I'll not miss such an opportunity. I forgot, I saw a walking dead too, they exist as announced by Gurdjieff. Unpleasant vision.
Remember yourself, for the emerald kingdom is at hand !
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Post by sin on Sept 21, 2012 6:34:46 GMT -6
You've suggested this twice now, perhaps you are unaware that I have in fact read it. A small volume of Fourth Way content in fact, but I'm not referring to how PDO saw them, I was simply asking you how you saw them.
Perhaps it may be likened to seeing the Flaming Pearl. It's an older piece I wrote... www.scribd.com/doc/64173198/Polaris-and-the-flaming-pearl
^ The Pearl is also included in the film 'The Rapture' starring Mimi Rogers.
Seeing the Pearl, is seeing in a new way once you've been fully initiated into the Christian religion. Seeing, is a shift in perception and reality.
As stated, I was speculating based on how you stated things in your post. It was not a true/false statement. It was a judgement.
This sounds prideful. I think what Venger was pointing out was that you stated that you felt disappointed and this is a bruising of the ego.
As I stated, it was an odd way of presenting the ideas and it was rather confusing. I was merely attempting to clarify and making assessments based on what you did state. There appears to be a minor language barrier with Francis to English.
I think its rather easy to convince ourselves we are taking the right actions and thinking in the right manner. You made statements but you also asked questions.
Seeing as well as ways of being.
I hope that clarifies.
CS
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Post by I AM the Way on Sept 21, 2012 11:49:33 GMT -6
We can't worry about being misunderstood, badly or otherwise; nor be disturbed by the fact. It's a waste of energy. When we aren't understood as clearly as we would like, a Cultist should welcome the opportunity to state his case from a slightly different angle.
Getting back to the subject matter at hand, we had some carpet installed in the lower level of our new house. The carpet installers must have been very good at their job, since it looks great. I'm sure they were well trained, focused, and perhaps Awake in a very small sense. However, before installing it, the carpet was rolled up and left sitting in our driveway for a few hours. Anyone paying the slightest bit of attention could see sprinklers and hoses set up all around the driveway. Luckily, my wife told the installers to move the carpet before the sprinklers (on timers) went off.
The rolls of carpet were moved just before one of the sprinklers turned on, dousing our driveway in water. Obviously, this would have ruined the carpet. Just an example at how attentive and conscious individuals can be at a specific task or in a specific area, but the rest of the time such people are very much asleep.
Awake!
VS
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Post by sin on Sept 21, 2012 13:45:42 GMT -6
A good example, and a slightly different angle to directly address the concepts, I agree.
CS
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