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1:
Remember in a Dream that it
is a Dream
Gurdjieff used to say to his disciples that the most important thing is to
remember in a dream that "This is a dream." But how to do it? It seems
almost impossible. How to remember in a dream that "This is a dream"? But if
you practice the Gurdjieffian method, one day you can remember it. The method is simple.
You have to go on remembering the whole day, whatsoever you see, that "This
is a dream." Walking on the street, "This is a dream"; the dog barking,
"This is a dream." Go on remembering the whole day, "This is a dream, this
is a dream...." It takes three to nine month for the idea to sink into your
heart.
Then one day, suddenly, in your dream you remember and you say, "This
is a dream!" -- and that is a moment of great illumination. Immediately, the
dream disappears. The moment you say it is a dream, it disappears and you
are awake, fully awake, in the middle of the night.
Of course, these trees and the people on the
road are not a dream so they don't disappear. You can go on saying, "This is
a dream." That was just a method to practice. But when you really remember
in a dream that "This is a dream," the dream disappears. The dream can exist
only if believed; the dream disappears if you don't believe in it. Our
imagination is intoxicating.
2:
Become Detach from your Acts
You will have to be
a little separate from your acts; then you will be able to know what
unawareness is. Somebody insults you; immediately, instantly, anger
arises. It is like pushing a button and the light comes on. There is no gap:
you push a button and the light comes on. The light has no time to think
whether to come on or not. Somebody insults you; he pushes a button and
immediately you are enraged. Gurdjieff used to say
to his disciples, "Wait at least for five minutes. What is the hurry? Let
him insult you, let him finish first. Then you close your eyes and wait for
five minutes, and watch what is happening inside you -- anger boiling."
Gurdjieff himself
became enlightened through this simple procedure:
that whatsoever is mechanical in man he tried to make it non mechanical. And
all is mechanical in you -- anger, lust, greed, jealousy -- all is
mechanical. It simply is there whenever somebody pushes a button. You are
functioning like a robot. Become a man. That's what meditation is all about,
that's what sannyas is all about. Create a little
distance. Next time somebody insults you, give it five minutes, sit silently
for five minutes, and then you can become angry. I am not saying "Don't
become angry" -- because that will be too much. I am saying that just for
five minutes allow a gap, and you will be surprised: after five minutes it
is not the same anger that it would have been five minutes before.
3:
Because you
are not functioning according to the robot
Mind has two parts:
one is the learning part, the other is the robot part. The learning part
learns; whenever you are learning something you are more aware. For example,
if you are learning driving you are more aware -- you have to be. The moment
you have learned it, the learning part gives its information to the robot
part. Once you have learned driving, then you don't need any awareness; you
simply go on doing it mechanically. You turn towards your house, you arrive
in your garage, you lock the car. You are doing everything like a robot.
And this is the story
of your life, twenty-four hours a day. Change it!
Gurdjieff's method was
this: if some vegetarian had come to him as a disciple, the first thing he
would insist was, "Eat meat!"
Now this is a very shocking thing for a vegetarian -- to be told to eat
meat. And Gurdjieff was a tough master; he would throw you out if you didn't
listen to him, if you didn't follow the command, if you didn't follow the
discipline. He would force you to eat meat. Now, when a vegetarian eats meat
he becomes very conscious -- he has to. He has no idea in the past, no
experience in the past, of eating meat. Just think of Mahatma Gandhi eating
meat... he will become tremendously aware!
And if there was a
meat-eater, then Gurdjieff would say, "For a few weeks you be just
vegetarian. Don't eat meat at all -- no eggs, no meat, no milk, no animal
food of any kind. Just go on eating vegetables." The whole body system had
become accustomed to a certain pattern. He would change people's eating
hours.
If you were eating every day at one o'clock, he would say, "Eat at
nine." If you were going to sleep every day at twelve, he would say to go at
two or at ten. He would change everything. A man who had never been drinking
wine, he would force to drink wine just to change and shatter his pattern.
The man who had been a drunkard, he would stop him from drinking.
Gurdjieff was puzzling
to people, but the method is simple: he was trying to de-automatize.
He was one of the greatest masters of this age, very much misunderstood.
Naturally, everybody was against him. Who has ever heard of religious
masters forcing their disciples to drink? -- FORCING, actually forcing. And
he would sit there....
The greatest thing in
his commune was the dinner. It used to last four, five, six, seven hours.
Every evening it would start... and it would end in the middle of the night.
And he himself would take care of everybody, of what was being eaten, of
what was given to them -- and he would go on forcing. People would become so
drunk they would fall on the ground, and they would start saying things in
their drunkenness -- and he would sit by the side and listen. He also used
to drink with them, but he had worked hard on the way. He was a tantra
master. He had been to India and to Tibet too, just to learn tantra.
Tantra has special
methods how to go on drinking and yet remain aware. YOU cannot be aware even
without drinking. Tantra has methods to slowly slowly drink, and keep
awareness, not to lose track of your awareness. Slowly slowly, the quantity
of your drug has to be increased as you increase in your awareness. A moment
comes when -- you will be surprised to know, still there are people in the
East who practice it -- a moment comes, when no drug can affect your
consciousness at all.
Then the last thing
they try is this: they keep poisonous snakes and they allow the snake to
bite them on their tongue; that is the last method. Ordinarily a man will
die.... These snakes are absolutely poisonous. Three percent of the snakes
in India are dangerous; you cannot survive their bite -- once bitten you are
gone. But these tantra masters will remain alert even in that moment and
they will not die. Their bodies have become accustomed to all kinds of
poisons and they have become alert, so alert that no drug can affect them.
Gurdjieff used to use that method with his disciples, simply to shatter your
settled habits.
4:
Sutra from Vigyan Bhairav Tantra "in Moods of extreme desire, Be
undisturbed"
Gurdjieff used this
technique very much. He created situations, but to create situations a
school is needed. You cannot do that alone. Gurdjieff had a small school in
Fontainebleau, and he was a taskmaster. He knew how to create situations. You
would enter the room, and a group would be sitting there. You would enter
the room where a group was sitting, and something would be done so that you
would get angry. And it would be done so naturally that you could never
imagine that some situation was being created for you.
But it was a device.
Someone would insult you by saying something, and you would get disturbed.
Then everyone would help the disturbance and you would become mad. And when
you were right at the point where you could explode, Gurdjieff would shout,
”Remember! Remain undisturbed!” A situation can be created, but only in a
school where many persons are working on themselves. And when Gurdjieff
would shout, ”Remember! Remain undisturbed,”
now you would know that this was a created situation. The disturbance cannot
disappear so suddenly, so immediately, because it has physical roots.
Your
glands had thrown poison in the blood; your body had become affected. Anger
cannot disappear so immediately. Even now that you had come to know that you
had been deceived, that no one was insulting you and no one meant anything
by it, it would be difficult to do anything.
The anger is there, your body is filled with it – but suddenly your
temperature cools down. Only on the body, on the periphery, does the anger
remain. At the center you suddenly cool down, and you know that a point
exists within you which is undisturbed.
You start laughing.
Your eyes are red with anger; your face is violent, animal-like, but you
start laughing. You know two things now – a point which is undisturbed and a
periphery which is disturbed. You can help. Your family can become a school;
you can help each other. Friends can become a school and they can help each
other. You can decide with your family... the whole family can decide that
now a situation has to be created for the father or for the mother, and then
the whole family works to create the situation.
When the father or
mother goes completely mad, then everyone starts laughing and says, ”Remain
completely undisturbed.” You can help each other, and the experience is
simply wonderful. Once you know a cool center within you in a hot situation,
you cannot forget it, and then in any hot situation you can remember it,
reclaim it, regain it.
5:
Sutra from Vigyan Bhairav Tantra “”BE
AWARE YOU ARE AND DISCOVER THE EVER-LIVING”:
This technique is one of the most helpful, and it has been used for
millennia by many teachers, masters. Buddha used it, Mahavira used it, Jesus
used it, and in modern times Gurdjieff used it. Among all the techniques,
this is one of the most potential. Try it. It will take time; months will
pass.
When Ouspensky was learning with Gurdjieff, for three months he had to make
much effort, arduous effort, in order to have a glimpse of what
self-remembering is. So continuously, for three months, Ouspensky lived in a
secluded house just doing only one thing – self-remembering.
Thirty persons
started that experiment, and by the end of the first week twenty-seven had
escaped; only three remained. The whole day they were trying to remember –
not doing anything else, just remembering that ”I am.” Twenty-seven felt
they were going crazy. They felt that now madness was just near, so they
escaped. They never turned back; they never met Gurdjieff again. Why? As we are,
really, we are mad. Not remembering who we are, what we are, we are mad, but
this madness is taken as sanity. Once you try to go back, once you try to
contact the real, it will look like craziness, it will look like madness.
Compared to what we are, it is just the reverse, the opposite. If you feel
that this is sanity, that will look like madness.
But three persisted.
One of the three was P. D. Ouspensky. For three months they persisted. Only
after the first month did they start having glimpses of simply being – of ”I
am.” After the second month, even the ”I” dropped, and they started having
the glimpses of ”am-ness” – of just being, not even of ”I”, because ”I” is
also a label. The pure being is not ”I” and ”thou”; it just is. And by the third month
even the feeling of ”am-ness” dissolved because that feeling of am-ness is
still a word. Even that word dissolves. Then you are, and then you know what
you are. Before that point comes you cannot ask, ”Who am I?” Or you can go
on asking continuously, ”Who am I?”, just continuously inquiring, ”Who am I
? Who am I?”, and all the answers that will be provided by the mind will be
found false, irrelevant.
You go on asking, ”Who
am I? Who am I? Who am I?” and a point comes where you can no more ask the
question. All the answers fall down, and then the question itself falls down
and disappears. And when even the question, ”Who am I?” disappears, you know
who you are. Gurdjieff tried from
one corner: just try to remember you are. Raman Maharshi tried from another
corner. He
made it a meditation to ask, to inquire, ”Who am I?” And don’t believe in
any answers that the mind can supply. The mind will say, ”What nonsense are
you asking? You are this, you are that, you are a man, you are a woman, you
are educated or uneducated, rich or poor.”
The mind will supply answers, but go on asking. Don’t accept any answer
because all the answers given by the mind are false. They are from the
unreal part of you. They are coming from words, they are coming from
scriptures, they are coming from conditioning, they are coming from society,
they are coming from others. Go on asking. Let this arrow of ”Who am I?”
penetrate deeper and deeper. A moment will come when no answer will come.
Source:
1: “Remember
in a Dream that it is a Dream” from
Dhammapada Vol 10
-
by Osho
2: “Become Detach from your Acts” from
Dhammapada Vol
8 - by Osho
3: “Don’t act like a Robot” from
Dhammapada Vol
8 - by Osho
4: “In
Moods of extreme desire, Be undisturbed” from
“Vigyan Bhairav Tantra”
- by Osho
5:
“Self-Remembering” from
“Vigyan Bhairav Tantra”
- by Osho
Related Article:
"Gurdjieff Art"
"Gurdjieff and de Hartmann"
"Gurdjieff and Nicoll"
"Gurdjieff
and Ouspensky"
"Gurdjieff Early Childhood and Passion
for Truth"
"Gurdjieff
on need of Masters"
"Gurdjieff
Wife Enlightenment"
"Gurdjieff’s Strange Methods"
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