"Gurdjieff used the I AM method. Work deeply on I AM whatever you are
doing. Drinking water, eating, remember "I AM." Do not forget it! When
you walk remember I AM. Let the walking
be there, but be fixed on "I AM I AM I AM." Let this be constant in your
awareness. Then it will begin to penetrate your sleep also.
Gurdjieff worked on his method continuously. His chief disciple P.D. Ouspensky relates that when Gurdjieff was working with him on this method and he was practicing for 3 months continuously this remembering of "I AM I AM I AM", everything stopped. Thoughts, dreaming, everything stopped. Only one note like music remained "I AM." But it was not an effort. This was a spontaneous activity going on. "I AM." Then Gurdjieff called Ouspensky out of the house. For 3 months he had been kept inside and was not allowed to go out.
Then Gurdjieff said 'Come with me!'They were living in a Russian town of Tiflis. They went out into the street. Ouspensky writes in his diary, "For the first time I could understand what Jesus meant when he said that man is asleep. The whole city looked to me as if asleep. People were moving in their sleep, shopkeepers were selling in their sleep, customers buying in their sleep. The whole city was asleep! I looked over at Gurdjieff. Only he was awake. The whole city around us was asleep. They were angry, fighting, they were loving, buying, selling, doing, everything."
Ouspensky said "I could see their faces, their eyes, they were asleep. The inner center was missing, it was not there.' Ouspensky said to Gurdjieff "I do not want to go there anymore. What happened to the city? Everyone seems asleep, drugged."
Gurdjieff said "Nothing has happened to the city. Something has happened to you. You have been undrugged. The city remains the same. It is the same place you moved into 3 months ago. But you couldn't see that other people are asleep because you were also asleep. Now you can see because a certain quality of awareness has come to you. With three months of practicing "I AM" continuously, you have become aware in a very short matter of time. You have become aware! A part of your consciousness has gone beyond dreaming. That is why you can see that everyone is asleep, dead, moving, drugged, as if hypnotized."
Ouspensky says "I could not bear this phenomenon - everyone asleep! Whatsoever they are doing, they are not responsible for it. They are not! How can they be responsible?" He came back and asked Gurdjieff "What is this? Am I deceived somehow? Have you done something to me that the whole city seems asleep? I cannot believe my own eyes!"
But this will happen to anyone. If you can remember yourself, then you will know that no one is remembering himself, and in this way each one goes on moving. The whole world is asleep. But start while you are awake. Any moment that you start "I AM."
I do not mean that you have to repeat the words "I AM" but have the feeling. Take a bath and feel "I AM." Let the touch of the cold shower be there, and let yourself be there behind, feeling it and remembering "I AM."Remember I am not saying that verbally you have to repeat "I AM." You can repeat it but that repetition will not give you awareness. Repetition may even create more sleep. So this "I AM", the remembering of "I AM", is not a verbal mantra. Feel it! Be sensitive to your being. When you touch someone else's hand do not only touch it, but feel it, feel your touch also. While you eat, feel yourself eating as well. This feeling will penetrate deeper and deeper into your mind.
One day suddenly you are awake at your own center, functioning for the first time. And then the whole world becomes a dream. And then you know that your dreaming is a dreaming. And when you know that your dreaming is a dreaming, dreaming stops. It can continue only if it is felt to be real. It is stopped if it is felt as unreal.
And once dreaming stops, you are a different man. The old man is dead; the sleepy man is dead. That human being which you were, you are no more. For the first time, you become aware. For the first time, in the whole world that is asleep, you are awake. You become a Buddha, an Awakened One.
After this awakening, there is no misery. After this awakening, there is no death. Through this awakening, there is no more fear. You become, for the first time, free of everything. To be free of sleep, to be free of dreaming, is to be free of everything. Hate, greed, anger all disappear. You attain freedom. You become just love."
- George Gurdjieff and P.D. Ouspensky (as related in the Book of Secrets by Osho)
Gurdjieff worked on his method continuously. His chief disciple P.D. Ouspensky relates that when Gurdjieff was working with him on this method and he was practicing for 3 months continuously this remembering of "I AM I AM I AM", everything stopped. Thoughts, dreaming, everything stopped. Only one note like music remained "I AM." But it was not an effort. This was a spontaneous activity going on. "I AM." Then Gurdjieff called Ouspensky out of the house. For 3 months he had been kept inside and was not allowed to go out.
Then Gurdjieff said 'Come with me!'They were living in a Russian town of Tiflis. They went out into the street. Ouspensky writes in his diary, "For the first time I could understand what Jesus meant when he said that man is asleep. The whole city looked to me as if asleep. People were moving in their sleep, shopkeepers were selling in their sleep, customers buying in their sleep. The whole city was asleep! I looked over at Gurdjieff. Only he was awake. The whole city around us was asleep. They were angry, fighting, they were loving, buying, selling, doing, everything."
Ouspensky said "I could see their faces, their eyes, they were asleep. The inner center was missing, it was not there.' Ouspensky said to Gurdjieff "I do not want to go there anymore. What happened to the city? Everyone seems asleep, drugged."
Gurdjieff said "Nothing has happened to the city. Something has happened to you. You have been undrugged. The city remains the same. It is the same place you moved into 3 months ago. But you couldn't see that other people are asleep because you were also asleep. Now you can see because a certain quality of awareness has come to you. With three months of practicing "I AM" continuously, you have become aware in a very short matter of time. You have become aware! A part of your consciousness has gone beyond dreaming. That is why you can see that everyone is asleep, dead, moving, drugged, as if hypnotized."
Ouspensky says "I could not bear this phenomenon - everyone asleep! Whatsoever they are doing, they are not responsible for it. They are not! How can they be responsible?" He came back and asked Gurdjieff "What is this? Am I deceived somehow? Have you done something to me that the whole city seems asleep? I cannot believe my own eyes!"
But this will happen to anyone. If you can remember yourself, then you will know that no one is remembering himself, and in this way each one goes on moving. The whole world is asleep. But start while you are awake. Any moment that you start "I AM."
I do not mean that you have to repeat the words "I AM" but have the feeling. Take a bath and feel "I AM." Let the touch of the cold shower be there, and let yourself be there behind, feeling it and remembering "I AM."Remember I am not saying that verbally you have to repeat "I AM." You can repeat it but that repetition will not give you awareness. Repetition may even create more sleep. So this "I AM", the remembering of "I AM", is not a verbal mantra. Feel it! Be sensitive to your being. When you touch someone else's hand do not only touch it, but feel it, feel your touch also. While you eat, feel yourself eating as well. This feeling will penetrate deeper and deeper into your mind.
One day suddenly you are awake at your own center, functioning for the first time. And then the whole world becomes a dream. And then you know that your dreaming is a dreaming. And when you know that your dreaming is a dreaming, dreaming stops. It can continue only if it is felt to be real. It is stopped if it is felt as unreal.
And once dreaming stops, you are a different man. The old man is dead; the sleepy man is dead. That human being which you were, you are no more. For the first time, you become aware. For the first time, in the whole world that is asleep, you are awake. You become a Buddha, an Awakened One.
After this awakening, there is no misery. After this awakening, there is no death. Through this awakening, there is no more fear. You become, for the first time, free of everything. To be free of sleep, to be free of dreaming, is to be free of everything. Hate, greed, anger all disappear. You attain freedom. You become just love."
- George Gurdjieff and P.D. Ouspensky (as related in the Book of Secrets by Osho)
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| morning sun - light and shadows through the window |
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