Gurdjieff: Real Understanding

Among Gurdjieff's closest pupils there has been no unanimity as to how we are to understand his intentions. He made many confusing and contradictory statements that could not be attributed either to carelessness or to caprice. … He was well aware that the sense of satisfaction that overtakes our thinking apparatus when we recognize a formula that fits our mental patterns is a barrier to real understanding.

-- J.G. Bennett, from Gurdjieff: Making a New World

Neuromagickal Reprogramming 1

Some Basic Postulates of NMR

The neuromagician knows that the map is not the territory, but can affect how we approach the territory. He knows that making a better map means he will have a better experience.

The neuromagician knows that experience has a deep inner structure, and that to learn about this structure is to be able to affect experience.

The neuromagician knows that body and mind are parts of a single continuum, and affect each other reciprocally.

The neuromagician knows that we already have all the resources we need. He also knows that if we don’t have all the resources we need, we have the resources to find the resources we need.

The neuromagician knows that most communication is nonverbal. We can’t not communicate. He knows that the meaning of a communication is the response it gets.

The neuromagician knows that there is no failure, only feedback. He knows that the solution that doesn’t work may be the solution to a different problem.

The neuromagician knows that poor judgment leads to experience which leads to better judgment.

The neuromagician lives in the present but is able to use the past (to re-evaluate) and the future (to motivate) as needed.

The neuromagician knows that to get off the rollercoaster of emotions is just a matter of objective dissociation — not identifying.

Time & Space in Dzogchen

If time and space are absent when scrutinized, then in the same way they are surely absent when they are not under scrutiny, for then the parameters of investigation are absent and the objective field has neither specific nor general characteristics.

-- Natural Perfection: Longchenpa's Radical Dzogchen (trans. Keith Dowman)