GENIUS FORUMS

brokenhead wrote:

What about the first person in history to become a teacher? How did he succeed without a teacher?

What are you talking about? The first person in history to become a teacher was then taught by someone from pre-history.

You are using your logic, or your philosophy, or whatever you call it, instead of thinking. People teach each other and always have. Whoever you are talking about was born at one point - born knowing nothing.

You're making a point that doesn't exist.

We are talking about teachers of spiritual knowledge, aren't we?

Unless you want to posit that there were teachers all the way back forever, there was a point somewhere in the past, either in history or prehistory, where someone within the human race broke through into enlightenment for the first time. Without this initial movement, which by definition occurred without the help of a teacher, the whole historical process of people teaching others could not have started.

This contradicts Gurdjieff's absolutist pronouncement that, "A man can only attain knowledge with the help of those who possess it. This must be understood from the very beginning. One must learn from him who knows."

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Carl,

Gurdjieff wrote:

A man can only attain knowledge with the help of those who possess it. This must be understood from the very beginning. One must learn from him who knows.

He's saying that truth can't be known unless someone else tells it to you. That is clearly incorrect. As David mentioned above, there must have been a first someone who wasn’t told it – even if it was in a far, far away galaxy that time has forgotten. Someone somewhere had to work it out for themselves. So it isn't true that you can "only" attain truth through another. People can work it out for themselves.

Carl: If someone tells you something you didn't know, you can test it, and if it works you adopt it as fact. The certainty comes afterwards, not before.

To be able to test and adopt, you have to be working from a position of certainty. If you’re not, you’re testing and adopting would be for nothing.

Unless you want to posit that there were teachers all the way back forever, there was a point somewhere in the past, either in history or prehistory, where someone within the human race broke through into enlightenment for the first time. Without this initial movement, which by definition occurred without the help of a teacher, the whole historical process of people teaching others could not have started.

It is not as simple as that. I am in fact positing that there have been teachers before the earth even existed. There have been many "breakthroughs." Life has been tended carefully on this planet until it became capable of receiving spritual knowledge, that is until it suddenly "broke through" and became the first truly human beings. This breakthrough was inevitable. The spiritual nature of man causes him to seek. To the extent that he is capable of receiving knowledge, he is taught. Man does not simply awaken in a vacuum. Yet every single idea that appears on earth has appeared elsewhere within the vastness of the living cosmos. It is the height of arrogance and conceit to believe otherwise. It cannot have been otherwise. Consciousness is primary. We are not the acme of all life; rather, humans are much alike in that we are the least of the spiritual beings in creation. We seek to know, to learn, to become ever greater than we are. This "knowledge" that Gurdjieff refers to has been imparted numerous time to the human creatures of the earth; it is very much like the parable of the seed that is scattered: some seeds fall on barren ground. Occasionally, a seed will take.

I many other ways, humans are vastly different from one another. Most people do not concern themselves with esoteric ideas. Their spritual hungers are sated by the great McDonalds of organized religions at whose troughs they feed one day each week. Humanity's needs are duped by the quick answers of sound-byte spirituality. It is in this environment that the teachings Gurdjieff refers to get lost.

Cause and effect. At any given time, there are two sides to it: the teachers and the ones who are taught. Seek and ye shall find (the answer, whether from a book or from a person.) Ask, and it shall be given unto you (by somebody.) Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

It is a never-ending process of spiritual insights being taught ("he who has ears, let him hear") to the most receptive minds (esoteric) and passed outwards through the meso- to the exoteric.

Everybody has a hungry heart.

The answers are all around you. I have been saying this all along. The Hindu concept of shrauti by which the seeker simply intuits truth without its being specifically told to him is far from miraculous: he has been instructed up until that moment of epiphany and has gleaned a truth. If it is indeed a truth, it is ancient. It is merely new to him.

Sue Hindmarsh wrote:He's saying that truth can't be known unless someone else tells it to you. That is clearly incorrect. As David mentioned above, there must have been a first someone who wasn’t told it – even if it was in a far, far away galaxy that time has forgotten. Someone somewhere had to work it out for themselves.

Preposterous. In that far away time and place it wasn't "worked out." It was created.

To be able to test and adopt, you have to be working from a position of certainty. If you’re not, you’re testing and adopting would be for nothing.

Carl has it right, Sue. You have it backwards. Perfect certainty implies perfection, which implies no further need of assimilating new information. Real life does not work that way. You have to be able to assess new information based on the information you already have with the understanding that your present information is not complete. There is uncertainty in EVERYTHING.

brokenhead wrote:There is uncertainty in EVERYTHING.

Are you uncertain that there is uncertainty in everything?

brokenhead wrote:

Unless you want to posit that there were teachers all the way back forever, there was a point somewhere in the past, either in history or prehistory, where someone within the human race broke through into enlightenment for the first time. Without this initial movement, which by definition occurred without the help of a teacher, the whole historical process of people teaching others could not have started.

It is not as simple as that. I am in fact positing that there have been teachers before the earth even existed. There have been many "breakthroughs." Life has been tended carefully on this planet until it became capable of receiving spritual knowledge, that is until it suddenly "broke through" and became the first truly human beings.

Oh, okay ....

This is the drug thread, after all.

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Kevin Solway wrote:

brokenhead wrote:There is uncertainty in EVERYTHING.

Are you uncertain that there is uncertainty in everything?

Ha. Like a puppet Kevin trots out this old warhorse. One gets the impression he just loves to charge into battle with this whenever he gets the opportunity. David loves to do this, too. It's de riqueur on the QRS show. Yes, of this I am certain!

But seriously, it is amazing to see how logic does not serve, in the case of Sue and David, here in this thread. Brokenhead has shown it better than I. It is the difference between theoretical and practical.

Kevin Solway wrote:

brokenhead wrote:There is uncertainty in EVERYTHING.

Are you uncertain that there is uncertainty in everything?

There is an uncertain outcome before any action is taken, to be more precise. Playing word games does amuse me, I'll admit. You know as well as I do that certainty is something you impose on a situation. I am certain of the truth of the words I speak, yet uncertain which words I will use before they have entered my consciousness, only that I will use some words to convey what I know to be the truth.

But again, we are continuously choosing our futures, even as they choose us on another level. There is uncertainty in that. It is unavoidable. Scientists have a saying: Probabilities in physics become engineering certainties.

brokenhead wrote:I am certain of the truth of the words I speak, yet uncertain which words I will use before they have entered my consciousness, only that I will use some words to convey what I know to be the truth.

But in your last post, you said, "There is uncertainty in EVERYTHING."

EVERYTHING. (Your capitalization)

So you are going back on your previous statement, and now you are saying that there is uncertainty in some things, like what words you will use ahead of time.

It is a senseless statement to say that you are certain that everything is uncertain.

Kevin Solway wrote:

brokenhead wrote:I am certain of the truth of the words I speak, yet uncertain which words I will use before they have entered my consciousness, only that I will use some words to convey what I know to be the truth.

But in your last post, you said, "There is uncertainty in EVERYTHING."

EVERYTHING. (Your capitalization)

So you are going back on your previous statement, and now you are saying that there is uncertainty in some things, like what words you will use ahead of time.

It is a senseless statement to say that you are certain that everything is uncertain.

I guess I left it up to you to understand it, but I see I may have overestimated the ones who couldn't.

It's like saying the only thing that doesn't change is change. I suppose that one goes right over your head as well. The exception proves the rule. Or do I need to explain that one, too?

brokenhead wrote:It's like saying the only thing that doesn't change is change.

That statement if fairly logical, despite the fact that there are countless things that don't change, apart from change.

But if I said "There is ABSOLUTELY only ONE THING that doesn't change, and that is change itself", then that would be a ridiculously false statement which would be comparable to the your statement in that previous post.

Kevin Solway wrote:

brokenhead wrote:It's like saying the only thing that doesn't change is change.

That statement if fairly logical, despite the fact that there are countless things that don't change, apart from change.

But if I said "There is ABSOLUTELY only ONE THING that doesn't change, and that is change itself", then that would be a ridiculously false statement which would be comparable to the your statement in that previous post.

You are obviously being petty. So, in that vein, you'll note that I didn't use the word "ABSOLUTELY."

And yet in Poison for the Heart, you wrote:

Christians may not be directly, physically responsible (in the immediate sense) for many of the rapes and murders, but they are definitely a major cause. And why? Because every single Christian perpetuates the self-righteous and self-centred lifestyle that is guaranteed to blossom in violence and suffering.

And shortly after that, you wrote in Poison:

I am a Christian

I take it you are arguing that because you didn't put "every single" in CAPS the reader is supposed to exempt you from "perpetuating the self-righteous and self-centered lifestyle that is guaranteed to blossom in violence and suffering."

Carl G wrote: But seriously, it is amazing to see how logic does not serve, in the case of Sue and David, here in this thread. Brokenhead has shown it better than I. It is the difference between theoretical and practical.

You're joking, aren't you? You're actually saying that it is more reasonable to assume that teachers have always existed, all the way back forever, than admit that people can become wise of their own accord, without the help of a teacher?

I know you're being protective of Gurdjieff, but are you really prepared to cast aside your sanity to do this?

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David Quinn wrote:You're actually saying that it is more reasonable to assume that teachers have always existed, all the way back forever, than admit that people can become wise of their own accord, without the help of a teacher?

That would depend on the definition of teacher, including if that was a poetic "him" being referred to. Have you ever learned anything philosophical from weeding the yard? Hasn't happiness taught you anything about pain? Of course to keep with the quotation, we must also poetically ascertain that happiness had the knowledge of pain, which would be taken as the kind of knowledge that the Totality has about itself, which would lead us back to being self-taught - which would also answer yes, there was a teacher, and the teacher was Ourself.

Yeah, Gurdjieff was only right if we interpret him with a whole lot of poetic license.

He's saying that truth can't be known unless someone else tells it to you. That is clearly incorrect. As David mentioned above, there must have been a first someone who wasn’t told it – even if it was in a far, far away galaxy that time has forgotten.

Woman logic at it's worst.

You need to explain what is wrong with her logic.

Gurdjieff said:

A man can only attain knowledge with the help of those who possess it. This must be understood from the very beginning. One must learn from him who knows.

It definitely sounds like he is talking about human or sentient teachers, and that it is impossible for anyone to become enlightened without their help. Not only does it fall apart logically, but it sounds like a cheap guru trick to reinforce his status in his follower's eyes.

You guys are trying to defend the indefensible.

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You are correct in theory. Logic dictates that if knowledge came to a man long ago, then it can come to you or I today. However, in practice, there is more to it. I find it even difficult to discuss. For instance, Gurdjieff never used the term enlightenment (or guru, for that matter). What did he mean by knowledge? Knowledge of what? Of the Law of Three? Of the teaching of the Ray of Creation? Are you familiar with these, which he calls fundamental, the way you say "causation" is fundamental?

On the subject of origin of information, I have already said that the information may have come from off-planet long ago. Would you have access to that now? What do you have access to, besides logic?

I think the following is the best explanation of his quote:

If you have a good observation faculty, you can apply the test of matching observations to theories. For example to know the truth of what Newton is saying is true or not, you can test it out and check whether the theory fits the observation. Formulating theories is in general harder than making a good observational module, thus his quote has a certain truth to it. It may take one ages to formulate the theory themselves, time which they can save, by simply sifting through theories with a good observational device.

Besides the accrued logic certain well off members have decided to share of their observations most if not all of which are surely supplied by men with a few honorable mentions of certain females.

It all boils down to how well we have applied non-enslavement technology toward the betterment of the species and we seem to be lacking in this area.


Get as high as you like on your connections to good drugs or "free" platinum bank accounts you will only ever be a part of the sum of our species unless something universally powerful changes that in an instant.


Enlightenment is only as good as the species that finds it or traces of it.

Brokenhead,

When you put EVERYTHING in capitals it does tend to make it more absolute.

In fact, there are just as many things of which we can be certain as there are things of which we can't be certain, so it is simply wrong to say that EVERYTHING is uncertain. And it is even more out of place when it is said in the context of things of which we can be certain.

And when I said that "I am a Christian" I had changed the definition of what it means to be a Christian by then.

When you meet a fucking alien drone hovering as a singularity over a hill in bumfuckt cold with hills you might know that yes they are there watching.

It records it all.


When I landed in russia none of them had a fucking clue...and yet they had such a lust for their lives as per usual like there was no outside influence human or otherwise..

Strange to think that is was being manipulated beyond that.


No joke the drones of other races are accesible in our world.....maybe only in my broke ass psychotic future seeing dreams but I done see some shit and it did not care that I was there to see it.

Everyone has vivid dreams.





It was like a corporate drone with motives and deals you could not even begin to fathom let alone approach militarily or stealthwise.


Figured I would mull over this lame ass post about my dream.

The drone was human made and it was corporate in nature.

Much like a sentient database of some kind.


Just a dream.


I guess we are the aliens lol






I do not know why


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... &plindex=9


i must be crazy or really tired

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRcO2mig ... re=related

tek0 wrote:When I landed in russia none of them had a fucking clue

I was thinking that you sounded more like KGB than CIA ;)

Kgb I would like to hear from those old fellows and what they think we should be doing with this old planet of ours.


I bet their voices would be drowned out and silenced just like Islam.


Perhaps fittingly but then again above the overpopulation who is listening but the bouncers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PviFNy9S ... re=related

David Quinn wrote:You need to explain what is wrong with her logic.

Gurdjieff said:

A man can only attain knowledge with the help of those who possess it. This must be understood from the very beginning. One must learn from him who knows.

It definitely sounds like he is talking about human or sentient teachers, and that it is impossible for anyone to become enlightened without their help. Not only does it fall apart logically, but it sounds like a cheap guru trick to reinforce his status in his follower's eyes.

You guys are trying to defend the indefensible.

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It takes one to know one?