The  Book of Wolf

  -    by

 Diciple

Benjojen

                                                            Foreword

Hi Guys

Here are some of the thoughts and ideas that I have discovered over the past 26 years by tickling the ears of Wolf.

I thought that you might like to read them and to give me feedback by telling me what you think of them, and of how useful you think they are to you or anybody.

I would like this to be an interactive experience for us all. So, after I write a section I send it off to you for your comments: and for you to share your ideas and wisdom with us all. I include your comments and our responses to comments in my next ‘send.’ We all have our ideas, that way. Everyone’s comments and responses, in the book, are kept anonymous, unless you  particularly want to include your name.  That is entirely up to you.  Just let me know. 

Here is my email address for your comments and feedback :  gaiascharts@hotmail.com

Fond Regards,

Disciple Benjojen

4/4/2008

The Book of Wolf and Summary of The Fourth Way

                                                               Chapter 1    

From the time of ancient esoteric schools it is said that mankind is asleep. What does that mean?  How can it be said that we all wander around with our eyes open in  a state of semi-unconsciousness, or worse, like Hollywood zombies, or not even?

Does it have anything to do with feeling sleepy, or not enough, or too much, actual sleep?  You know, that thing that you’re only supposed to do for 8 hours every night while lying prone in bed?  No.

G.I. Gurdjieff, who came from one of those mystery schools in the late 19^th century, taught this. P.D. Ouspensky, who, as a disciple of Gurdjieff, wrote down his ideas in Ouspensky’s book  ¹. “The Fourth Way.”  So, what is sleep?

Sleep is our inability to actually will ourselves to do things beyond the mechanical urgings of necessity.

This, in itself, is because we have many “I’s.”  Perhaps the difference between a schizophrenic and ourselves is that the schizophrenic has simply lost the ability to observe when a different “I” arises.

In Gurdjieff and Ouspensky’s system, in order to emerge from our chronic state of sleep, and in order to get anywhere near the state of achieving our wills on a united front of “I’s”, it is necessary to observe ourselves; and this is our only power of change.

When we observe that fact of our own inner fragmentation, with horror we start to wake up to our own ongoing sleep. What we call our “will” is really only our reactions to mechanical events.

The “I” that started you on a New Year’s Resolution to next year abandon a personal Xmas Day altogether, and, instead, act as a volunteer in a charity soup kitchen for the homeless, is long forgotten by Easter, let alone December!  Worse, the “I” that sat you down to write a “to do “ list in the morning, determined, at that time, that you should not waste your day, looks in horror on it at day’s end to discover that you have done only half, or even that it is forgotten entirely, due to that phone call, or some other interruption.

So, where is your motive power?  Where is your will? Another way of saying this is, where has your Intention gone?  More about that in a later chapter.

But sleep is more insidious than the above examples. In his book  ². “A New Model of the Universe,” Ouspensky refers to an event he came across towards the start of World War 1. Outside an inn he saw  a truck of artificial limbs bound for The Front.  He asked the driver what they were for.  The driver replied that they would be needed.

____________________________________________________________________________

^{1          Ouspensky, P.D “The fourth Way” – Routledge & Regan Paul Ltd., London, 1975}

2         Ouspensky,P.D. “A New Model of the Universe” –Lund Humphries., London, 1960

Look, if you will, at the horror of that.  The efficient “I” of man can create this truck of artificial limbs because “they will be needed,” but lacks  all power to stop the mechanical and sleeping, reactive nature of the primate man to actually control events to ensure that such a total disaster as war does not even happen in the first place.

I think that that is an excellent example for the elucidation of the sleeping state of all humankind; the mad, 3-brained primates that we are.  For, make no mistake.  We are all asleep. It is not only the war makers.

Perhaps when  each of us has united our own multiple “I’s” into our  own will, then mankind will have no war.

If you think that you may have heard that before, I would suggest that you read on.

 So, given that nature controls us, that we are ruled by random, mechanical events, and, in our sleep, believe that we “do” when we cannot “do”, how can we get out of the sleeping state and wake up?  In other words, how can we transform ourselves?

The work of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, and latter day  neo-Gurdjieffians such as E.J. Gold, our contemporary, in the USA, is devoted to answering that.  But, be warned.  Only if you are completely devoted to awakening will you be able to put in the necessary effort to do so.

The Earth does not push you.  Nature is happy if we bumble along, eating, breeding, doing what is necessary to survive.  But she does not hinder you, either.

Free Will, in essence, is the Universe’s gift to humankind. If you send out your postulates the Universe will aid you; as you are aiding yourself….as you can conceive of the possibility of self transformation.

Where to start?  By struggling with negative emotions.  Our human bodies are  ³. .  biological machines which  can either conserve the energy needed for transformation in “accumulators” in our bodies, or, waste it, through the incredible drain of generating and sustaining negative emotions.

The biggest way to avoid the trap of wasting the Work energies that you have managed to conserve is by the Buddhist solution of “staying in present time;.”  by which we are acknowledging that all we actually have is this present moment.  If we choose, (that is, if we can choose; this is mainly mechanical, in our sleep) to remain lost in the negativities of the past- and this is like re-digesting again and again the same meal- then we are living in an illusion within our hallucinations.  The past and future do not exist, otherwise.  In every moment you are creating your future and either  wearing away  past karma, or re-creating the scars of the past into denser sleeping patterns for your future.

Think of the potential enlightenment of fleeing the prison cell of your past!  Like a freed prisoner, determined not to repeat the same mistakes.________________________________

3. Gold, E.J. “The Human Biological Machine as a Transformational Apparatus” Gold press 1987 (?)

But how to “keep clean” in the present?  How to sever the balls and chains, to not let them slow you down and drag you back into the quicksands of past sleep?

We need a system to do that.  We need a system to preserve our wakeful moments and to  increase them on an ongoing basis.

Otherwise, these are only words on a page, which, in our sleep, we will think that we have digested, and then, put aside to forget.  The machine is like that, you see.  The machine may believe anything to keep it asleep.  It may believe that we are very intelligent and can absorb anything, and, bending it to our will, triumph!  The machine may also believe that we are not very intelligent and will just forget all of this, because it is just all too hard.  Both are illusions of the sleeping machine.  Just trying to assert that anything is  is also a trap. Yes, we are lost in the maze, but the Minotaur is us, and, so is the maze.

·        * * *

                                                                        Chapter 2

                                                              Sustems for Waking

Pardon my little joke.  Didn’t I mean Systems? Well, I guess you can use them to suss out what you want to believe.

A quick review of some major past ‘systems’ of thought and belief provides us with a list : Animism,  Witchcraft, Shamanism, The Goddess Religion, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Philosophy, Psychology, Atheism, Bahai, The Occult, Scientology, Gurdjieff’s System, Science, Art, Literature, Music,  The New Age Movement.

It is, of course, up to you what you think of each. I cannot speak for the above, to you, and will not even try. I would, however, like to impart my own beliefs on some of the above in simple and general terms.  I know that it is up to each person to seek.

 To do so, I use the framework of this question and statement: “How can I awake?  How can I transform the negative emotions of my sleeping human nature and be a helpful contributor to Humanity’s progress beyond the primate condition?  I acknowledge that I have to transform myself first. To do so I seek first to know, and to have, a united ‘Will’ ( read ‘I’).”

I personally have found that the major religions and ‘systems’ mix fantasy and fiction along with some moral and ethical training in order to socialize the human into fitting into his society’s mores. They all isolate the need for love as the basic guiding principle.  Love and Compassion.

There is no doubt that Love and Compassion – to your concept of the Universal Creator,  yourself, and to your fellow humans, is correct.  Who would like to disagree? Feel free to present a good argument, I’d like to read it! 

But where I find that most of the above fall down is in  providing the actual training on  a daily and ongoing basis, admitting that the responsibility is with the human individual, in contrast to the Sky Father God’s   sinful flock of humans who will suffer greatly, in their ignorance, if they displease daddy- that great controller..

Some “modes of operandum” of the major religions:

·        Prayer to  their concept of the Universal Creator

·        Admitting that “I cannot do it alone.”

·        Tantra

·        Love :  physical, spiritual, Agape

·        Meditation: aim, to stay in present time and quieten the monkey mind’s incessant chatter in order to eliminate the ego

·        To gain control over your life by contacting the Gods and Spirits and projecting your will through ritual request for their intervention

·        Erase negative karma

·        Remove the scars of the past through auditing, then, in theory, achieving power of actualisation through OT processing (Scientology)

·        Observation of many “I’s” plus exercises using the moving centrum to wake from sleep,  which includes not being in thrall to the ego

·        New Age methods : a varied composite of all of the above plus attempts to use modern technology to observe the brain

Would you like to add anything?  It would be a pleasure for me to read it. Further to the notion of ego, however. This can be defined as the illusion that all of your “I’s” are united into one, and that you can splendidly ‘do,’ (hopefully in a transformed and enlightened way for the good of all   ¹”:and it harm none,” – but, usually, as egoists can testify to, it does harm some, or all, if you believe in the concept of  “Indra’s Net”.(See  most references  on Hinduism)

What is the origin of this grand Ego illusion?  One need go further than the Alpha-Male Gorilla in his jungle environs. Domination of those who fanatically believe that everybody must compulsorily believe what they believe (read ‘ bullying’) has, as its best exemplars: The Inquisition, ( started with the attempted abolition of The Knights Templar), persecution of Protestants by Catholicism, The Muslim empire(s) and so on.

The analogies to the Alpha  behaviour among gorillas and in the animal kingdom in general are obvious. Oh, by the way, females both enact and copy this, too. “Humans” do it for : territorial expansion, ownership and domination, whether of : souls, material wealth, or bodies. Children, of course, mimic this behaviour in school yard bullying.

I personally favour methods to deal with the problem of self-actualisation that are practical and which move me from mere intellectual processing (Sleep), to informed actions. But, how pompous “I” sound, ( or, at least, this “I”!)

In  ²“The fourth Way” Ouspensky’s Chapter XIV, p. 356, refers to three methods to overcome personal difficulties that prevent one doing the work of self transformation: firstly, negative emotions, secondly, imagination, and thirdly, formatory thinking.  If you are interested, you may read this yourself.  Here, however, is a summary, in which I attempt to   ³.  “word-clear” these definitions.

_________________________________________________________________________________1. Witchcraft – Oral tradition

2. Ouspensky “The fourth Way”

3.  all acknowledgements to Scientology’s “Study Tech.” (many sources.) eg., “Study” course, “Teachers Manual” L.R.Hubbard,  Hubbard Press, 1964, especially pages 6 –8  (Scientology insists, very rightly, on the need to not skip words you do not really understand, hopeful that the context will clear them enough.  That way may lie :confusion, roving thoughts, light-headedness, uneasy distraction, and feelings of sickness.)

                                                            Chapter 3

Ouspensky’s Three Ways to overcome Sleep 

Ouspensky states that we need to overcome these three obstacles to the awakened state.  These are the three ways that we keep ourselves asleep.

Negative Emotions

Unconsciously, we may have identified- let ourselves slip into- the desire to copy others’ splendidly negative emotions.  For example, as a teacher, I know I was affected by, and identified with, dominating teachers in my youth who used : sarcasm, cynicism, and expressions of anger to hide their: fears, lack of certainties of how to control their students, and, frankly, just to express their own needs for power- over.  The ‘modelling’ from one generation continues to affect further generations.  It is dire sleep indeed.

Ouspensky warns us  ¹  “Some people cannot stop being negative…and when negative emotions become hardened and permanent they usually stop every kind of work; everything becomes mechanical and a person cannot progress.”

To destroy negative emotions you must find your “pet one” (ibid) and begin there.  This may be your  ²    chronic tone.  You must acknowledge that the cause of this expression of negative emotion is not in the other person, but in you.  You do not have to react.  You have chosen to-or, rather, your chronic defense against the awakened state  has just kicked in, and you have allowed yourself to become taken over by the “I” that this represents.

If you doubt that this  is true, then remember when you have seen other people handle similar situations.  For example, where you have used anger, they have used  humour!  This proves that the use of anger to control situations is neither inevitable, nor even useful!  So, remove the justification; do not try to find reasons to justify it. Don’t express the negative emotion. Remember yourself.  We have only one power in this work when the sleep closes in: simply, to observe it doing so.  If you can remember to do this, then the situation will change. Control the manifestation of negative emotions by not expressing them.

^{3.“You can do nothing when you are in the negative emotion…(only)…. before and after….You must observe them and must already have a certain control over their expression…try not to identify as often and as much…for they are always connected with identification, and if you conquer identification, they disappear.’}

For harder emotions

1.Ouspensky “The Fourth Way’ pg. 356

2. E.J. Gold “The human Biological Machine as a Transformational Apparatus”

3. Ouspensky “The Fourth Way” pgs. 359 – 361

that will take all power from these negative emotions.”

He goes on to give examples of these negative emotions that are harder to control: suspicious, hurt feelings.

He states that these “depend on some mental process.”

The “third category” is “much more intense…difficult and rare (pg. 361)”  “All you can do is to remember yourself with the help of the emotion……they may diminish and disappear after some time.  But  for this you have to be prepared.”

While observing yourself observe whether your manifestations originate from the: intellectual, emotional, instinctual or moving parts.  This is very important. I’ll address this later on.

You will discover that you forget to observe yourself, you cannot concentrate.  Therefore, you have no will.

Observe yourself in order to become aware of yourself.  Then, eventually, you may be able to reach object consciousness.  At the same time, try to hold the sensation “I am here”  nothing more.

There is no natural centre in the body for negative emotions. We learn them by copying.  They are ⁴. “very infectious …if you do not deny them in your mind they are bound to be repeated and become stronger and stronger.” They are a learned delusion, no matter how splendidly powerful, or, for example, enjoyably griefy  they can make us feel.  The reason I  give the latter example is because of something I have observed in my own life. I enjoy the feelings of grief, even at the same time that they are having a negative effect on my health.  While I am crying for the lost person or situation, or pain that I feel that someone has inflicted on me (rightly or wrongly) I can actually  feel my immune system going down! My energy levels plummet to a state that I can happily justify not doing ordinary, boring, everyday things such as the housework. I am feeling these exquisite, unusual emotions, such as : pity, compassion, sweet sentimentality, artistic ruminations on the meaning of loss, and the uselessness and or beauty of life itself. Meanwhile I am crying myself into a state of absolute exhaustion. If I dig a little deeper I remember how I used this state to attract attention to myself from my parents when I was a child; prompting them to punish my brother for “upsetting” me.  So, it proved to me that I was more sensitive than him, more artistic, refined…fill in the blanks!  More insidiously, though, I also used this state of grief to supplant any feelings of guilt that I had when I did something wrong.  It was just a mechanical replacement.  It served me.

I think that this originated, in part, from the Christian thought form.  I went to Presbyterian church every Sunday throughout my childhood.  Christianity encourages these emotions as a way of responding to’ the sacrifice Christ made for us.’  Carried to an extreme you  end up with the chocolate box  sentimentality of the Victorian age.  A person who suffered and yet restrained themselves from violence was “Christlike.” The emotions of martyrdom are also part of the feminine consciousness- the ‘good woman’ who sacrifices herself for her family and community: the Martha, or Hannah. This is, I believe, an interesting study in itself.

______________________________________________________________________________

4. (ibid) page 363-364

The need is, if you cannot leave it alone then fight against some other weakness, to create :  

^{6.      “a permanent solvent” with which you can break it.”}

^{.  If you can do even  that a general positive effect will be felt   against all negative emotions.}

^{7.      “If you are in a bad state, identified, immersed in imagination, then everything just a little bit unpleasant will produce a violent emotion.  It is a question of observation.”}

^{And it is a question of developing ongoing and correct thinking, so that the tendency to automatic, machine-like expression of the negative emotion is reduced.  This takes effort, and self remembering.}

^{The pay-off for this struggle is more energy.  It takes a vast amount of energy from your system to express negative emotions.  Once freed up, that energy can be transformed into positive emotions in our other centres.}.

Imagination

Imagination, ( not the delightful sort that has created many great works of art), is described by Ouspensky as  ^{8 “}uncontrolled mind activity,” and by imagination we create many false values, keep to them and use them in our thinking.  This is why imagination is dangerous.  We do not verify things.  We imagine things either because we like them, or sometimes because we dislike them and are afraid of them.  We live in an imaginary world.

In reality, everything is either an opinion, a rumour, a fantasy or a fact.  Imagining that something is a fact when it is accompanied by a strong feeling can only be called dangerous imagination (fantasy.)  This will keep you in the sleeping state.  Ouspensky’s advice is to stop it immediately with

 ⁹

^{“some intentional thinking.”}

^{Imagination takes these forms:} 

^{10. . “ passive imagination, imagination expressing itself in talk, and imagination expressing itself in activity.”}

6 and 7. (ibid) pages 363-364

8. (ibid) pg. 370

9.+ 10. ibid. pg. 371

Formatory Thinking

Ouspensky talks of the wrong work of our emotional, intellectual and moving centers. A lot of mankind’s problems occur because we think with our emotions, or use  formatory thinking.

Formatory thinking in Ouspensky’s definition is that type of logical thinking that we use to register, and sequence events and things. The problem is that it is limited. It likes to compare only two things, or to think in extremes. It likes to immediately look to the opposite. For example, I could state  “Nobody is a complete black hole.” (This is thinking in extremes.) A person who hears me state that might immediately think of Adolph Hitler, and, to try to frame it in that context, might seek a comparison with , say, Mahatma Gandhi, or Nelson Mandella. (Opposites.) They might then respond, “Hitler was!” (Stating the opposite.) They have only made obvious comparisons.  However, I could then reply “Hitler loved his dog!.”  

But, when we think, we must think about the subject itself, not its opposite, states Ouspensky. Another obstacle to awakening is “identification”, and I will discuss that in my next chapter.

                                                            ________________

Comments and Responses

Before going on to discuss Imagination and Formatory  thinking I sent these 9 pages out to people I know. I have decided to incorporate peoples’ return comments and my responses into the book. I value all of these comments, and I do hope that our dialogue can continue. If you like, it would be interesting to comment on other peoples’ comments too. But all comments are welcome.

Chapters 1-3

C.     I did find it interesting and relevant as there was content there that has also concerned me over the years. I would like to read it and offer any suggestions such as:

·        Chapter 1 – the type of split you refer to may be multiple personality disorder where several co-existing (sub-) personalities are cut off from one another ..e.g., Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde, perhaps even the chocolate eater undermining the dieter, rather than the schizophrenic where the split is more between the self as observer and the self as interactor = I am watching ME interact with the world.

R.    In this I am describing Gurdjieff’ and Ouspensky’s account of the fact that we are all a composite of random “I’s”.   Sub-personalities is just as useful a concept. I  think that the different planets and their placements in our horoscopes also aptly describe different sub-personalities: very well, in fact. All of these are models, and all have their uses. The basic concept is the same.

C.     Did you say that a key to dealing with negative emotions is to focus on a pet one especially when you’re not experiencing it?  I think phobias can contain a lot of energy and, e.g., I have a phobia about being alone in enclosed spaces such as lifts and stairwells and gaols especially solitary.  However, I don’t want to have to deal with this phobia and overcome it, because if I do I’m more likely to use lifts and get trapped in them., Also I believe that if phobias and other negative emotions get their energy from mystical sexual repression then sex-economic de-mystification may be necessary to overcome them in addition to the techniques proposed by Gurdjieff and Ouspensky.

R. Yes, I did, and yes, there is a lot of energy locked up in all types of  imagination, especially negative imaginings.  This is all a way in which the sleeping machine stays asleep.  Any attempt to awaken the machine will provoke all sorts of frantic strivings to keep it asleep.  The rhyme which we think of as a children’s nursery rhyme, but which, E.J. gold informs us, is from an old mystery school, sums up the dilemma quite well: “row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream, merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.” The machine wants us to stay locked in the turbulence. If we send out negative postulates, in our unconsciousness, we will receive them back as inexplicable life experiences, such as being trapped in  a lift.  There is an old Arab saying that is pertinent, here: “never name the well at which you will not drink.”

In the second part of your comment you refer to the work of Wilhelm Reich. His book “The function of the Orgasm” explains very well the connection between phobias, negative emotions, social personality, neurosis and illnesses in general.  Here is one useful quote ¹”The immediate causes of many devastating diseases can be traced to the fact that man is the sole species which does not fulfill the natural law of sexuality.  The death of millions of people in war is the result of the overt, social negation of life.  This negation, in turn, is the expression and consequence of psychic and somatic disturbances of the life function.  The sexual process, i.e., the expansive process of biological pleasure, is the productive life process per se.”

^2.

               ^{“Neurosis and functional psychoses are sustained by surplus, inadequately discharged sexual energy.”}

It is very interesting that this early pioneer in sexual health was put in jail, and, some say, killed, by the American government of his day. Of course we have since had the ‘sexual revolution’, but it is interesting to note that research into the actual shape( of the entire organ) of the clitoris  and  how its responsiveness can be maximised has only occurred very recently!  It is still, apparently true, that only 30% of women have orgasms during coitus! The granting of pleasure and release to women is still locked up with old patriarchal notions of the ‘slut’.

C. I believe that there are actually several systems of analyses that can explain the human condition as well as one another and Jeremy Griffith’s “Free, the end of the Human Condition” was as good as most.  However, underlying  a lot of them is the one expounded by Wilhelm Reich in his “Mass Psychology of Fascism” where  institutionalized patriarchal sexual repression is seen to prevent people from understanding that their freedom is unachievable whilst they adopt a passive attitude with a slavish acceptance of authority; instead, they need to have the volition and strength to take the responsibility on themselves to move from a sexually repressed mystical state to a sex-economic one accompanied by trust and camaraderie.

Nevertheless, I found “The Book of Wolf” fascinating and would indeed like to read it and offer any suggestions such as the above, some of which you may find more useful than others.

R.      Yes, I’m sure that Wilhelm Reich is right, that many of these neuroses are due to sexual repression and that sex-economic de-mystification and other de-conditioning is necessary to overcome them.  Tantra uses sex to achieve awakening.

As regards “several systems of analysis to explain the human condition” yes, there are many models.  What I am attempting to do in this book is to plumb the basis of obstacles to the transformation of the human condition- and exponents of any system are very welcome to respond, with their knowledge.  I need to make the point in my next chapters that intellectual analysis by itself – although comfortable and rich in ego-boosting potential – is only useful if it can help to sustain awareness of one’s own sleeping state, and of how to get out of it.  We also need other people to help us to do that.

So, that is the criteria of appraisal; namely, can it help me stay awake, free of the dullened states, eg., negative emotions, neurosis, aimed at preventing me from awakening? Can it provide me with a simple system?  Do all of these models present systems of “doing” or just intellectualism, which, too, is a trap.

C. I’m interested in the subject matter and you’ve obviously considered it in depth.  Just not sure about the authorial voice; it reminded me of “Beezelbub’s