"Daydreaming is absolutely the opposite of 'useful' mental activity.
Observation of the activity of imagination and daydreaming forms a very important part of self-study."[1]
image.png
1.42 MB
View full-sizeDownload Pyotr Demianovich Ouspenskii (known in English as Peter D. Ouspensky; Russian: Пётр Демья́нович Успе́нский, tr. Pyotr Demyánovich Uspénskiy; 5 March 1878 – 2 October 1947) was a Russian philosopher and esotericist known for his expositions of the early work of the Greek-Armenian teacher of esoteric doctrine George Gurdjieff. He met Gurdjieff in Moscow in 1915 and was associated with the ideas and practices originating with Gurdjieff from then on. He taught ideas and methods based in the Gurdjieff system for 25 years in England and the United States, although he separated from Gurdjieff personally in 1924, for reasons that are explained in the last chapter of his book In Search of the Miraculous.
These are questions that may be raised in the mind by our exploration of the material here on Cassiopaea.
Many of the subjects presented are new and challenging to us, we may have no frame of reference for them, no experiences to compare them to, and very often no one to guide us other than ourselves.
Though there is nothing wrong in posing the question:
"Am I an organic portal?"
we must take care not to let imagination run away with us.
To 'think with a hammer' and work one's way towards an answer is one thing.
To let the mind, wander off 'unattended' with such thoughts, is to slip even deeper into the unconscious state of 'waking sleep'.
The aim of this short piece is to illustrate how imagination and the habits of mechanical behavior, are capable of filling our minds with the most elaborate and convincing of scenarios, or equally of filling them with trivial nonsense.
Both serving only as obstacles on the path to objective truth, distractions created within to keep us under control.
OK why not try "Y.M.C.A." by the Village People, the theme song to your kid's favorite TV show, or maybe that annoying commercial that you just can't stop yourself repeating once you've heard it.
Have we decided to consciously look into these subjects, try and draw objective conclusions, or do they just appear?
If the answer is:
"They just appear."
well,that's imagination for you; it has a life of its own.
Imagination doesn't stop to ask you if you mind it using your brain and energy in this way, it just does what it does best and keeps turning that dial to our favorite DJs on radio "S.L.E.E.P"
When we think in repetitive ways, or thoughts just seem to pop into our heads, more often than not its imagination, passive thinking, mechanical thinking; thoughts that are not of our choosing.
We think them to be our own, to be very real and pressing issues that must have our attention, we expand them, weaving impossible webs of confusion.
Or worse, perhaps, we think them to be positive, fantastic, creative thoughts, insights, messages from beyond, thoughts that we begin to build our lives around.
"It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A."
Yet we never stop to ask where the thoughts come from.
Now why do you suppose we are made this way?
Why would we have this in-built function that we can't seem to turn off?
This kind of thinking also serves as a block on the possibility of conscious thought, it clouds the mind making it harder to get to a point where one might stand back and take an objective view.
As long as we allow our minds to wander off 'unattended' in this way, in a state of daydreaming, we will be no nearer to finding truth and the answers to our questions.
"It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A."
I think not...!
You get the idea by now, it's only fun if you CHOOSE to go there.
"The second dangerous feature he finds in himself is imagination.
Very soon after starting his observation of himself he comes to the conclusion that the chief obstacle to observation is imagination.
He wishes to observe something, but instead of that, imagination starts in him on the same subject, and he forgets about observation.
Very soon he realizes that people ascribe to the word "imagination" a quite artificial and quite undeserved meaning in the sense of creative or selective faculty.
He realizes that imagination is a destructive faculty, that he can never control it, and that it always carries him away from his more conscious decisions in a direction in which he had no intention of going.
Imagination is almost as bad as lying; it is, in fact, lying to oneself.
Man starts to imagine something in order to please himself, and very soon he begins to believe what he imagines, or at least some of it..."
"The difficulties he has in observing these four manifestations--lying, imagination, the expression of negative emotions, and unnecessary talking - will show man his utter mechanicalness, and the impossibility even of struggling against this mechanicalness without help, that is, without new knowledge and without actual assistance.
For even if a man has received certain material, he forgets to use it, forgets to observe himself; in other words, he falls asleep again..."[2]
In the above passage Ouspensky mentions also the expression of negative emotions.
Automatic 'remembered' or 'reflexive' emotions can behave in much the same way as the "Y.M.C.A." illustration shows us the mechanical habits of imagination.
They form another part of the unconscious system created in us to maintain the food supply to 4D STS.
When we act in a passive 'reactive' or 'reflexive' manner, emotions are brought to the surface that we have no control over, again we think they are real, yet they may only be an automatic habit, a feeling recalled from a 'memory bank' of emotions that we have become accustomed to expressing.
It is necessary therefore to examine one's automatic 'thoughts' and 'emotions' in much the same way as one would the singing of silly songs for no reason, it is the same mechanical process, the same block on objectivity, the same source of food for the matrix.
Can you see any difference between the automatic thought:
"Am I an organic portal."
and singing:
"It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A."
to yourself in the shower?
Next time you catch yourself automatically thinking a silly thing, or you find yourself worrying, or experiencing negative emotions, stop for a minute and ask yourself:
"Where did this thought/feeling really come from?"
So, back to our original question:
"Am I an Organic Portal?"
For my part I will say that I don't know if I am or not.
But I do know that it is better for me to work and make efforts to think for myself, and maybe find answers, rather than live in my imagination dreaming that I might be an OP.
The daydreams may still come, but not so often, and not with the same potential to create emotional food for 4D STS.
If you don't use your mind, it will use you.
Knowledge Protects.
[1] PD Ouspensky "In Search of the Miraculous" p 111
