吾會自*一 self²meeting Self
(Q) “Advise as to improvement and further spiritual development.”
3 Wandere am weltenrand
This illustration is famous on at least two accounts. First, it is famous on account of its uncertain date and origin. For instance, Ernst Zimmer, a German historian of astronomy, thinks that the woodcut goes back to the early 16th century, to the school of Albrecht Dürer. Owen Gingerich, the historian of astronomy of Harvard University and the Smithsonian, is convinced that it occurs for the first time in Ernst Kraemers five-volume popular science book Weltall und Menschheit from 1907. However, two scholars, Arthur Beer, an astrophysicist and historian of German science at Cambridge, and Bruno Weber, the curator of rare books at the Zürich central library, have independently traced the illustration back to Camille Flammarion’s popular science book L’atmosphère: météorologie populaire from 1888.
Second, the illustration is famous on account of its rich symbolism which is taken to represent the mediaeval world-view. The illustration depicts a flat Earth bounded by the sky. The man, dressed as a mediaeval pilgrim and carrying a pilgrim’s stick, peers through the boundary and sees the hidden workings of the universe. The prominent element of the cosmic machinery in the top left corner looks like the “wheel in the middle of a wheel” described in the visions of the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel (1:4-26). One can learn more about the woodcut’s symbolism, for instance, from the wikipedia page dedicated to it and from Kerry Magruder’s page. What cannot be learned there, however, is the following.
Let us look at the pilgrim’s stick. Curious place to lay it down? Why would the stick be laid down half protruding through the curtain of the sky? Here is an explanation. The illustration is probably making reference to a famous passage from Simplicius’ commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, in which Simplicius refers to Eudemus’ report of Archytas’ thought experiment. (Eudemus of Rhodes was Aristotle’s pupil who wrote a history of astronomy, and Archytas was a Pythagorean philosopher whom Plato knew and from whom he probably learnt much of what he says in the Timaeus.) Anyway, here’s Archytas question:
“If I came to be at the edge, for example at the heaven of the fixed stars, could I stretch my hand or my stick outside, or not? That I should not stretch it out would be absurd, but if I do stretch it out, what is outside will be either body or place.”
“Thus Archytas will always go on,” Simplicius recounts, “in the same way to the freshly chosen limit, and will ask the same question. If it is always something different into which the stick is stretched, it will clearly be something infinite” (In Arist. Phys. 467.26-32).
The Epicureans and the Stoics used and elaborated on Archytas’ argument for the infinity of space or void. Also, it is found in slightly different versions in Locke, Newton and Kant. Modern physics would answer that space could be finite without having an edge, as presupposed by Archytas’ argument.
Be that as it may, this may be an explanation for the protruding stick. Whoever was the author of the woodcut, he seems to have known the original Archytas’ formulation of the argument which mentions stretching out “hand or stick”.
4 Fourth Way
Gurdjieff proposed that there are three ways of self-development generally known in esoteric circles.
These are:
- the Way of the Fakir, dealing exclusively with the physical body,
- the Way of the Monk, dealing with the emotions, and
- the Way of the Yogi, dealing with the mind.
What is common about the three ways is that they demand complete seclusion from the world.
According to Gurdjieff, there is a Fourth Way which does not demand its followers to abandon the world. The work of self-development takes place right in the midst of ordinary life. Gurdjieff called his system a school of the Fourth Way where a person learns to work in harmony with his physical body, emotions and mind. Ouspensky picked up this idea and continued his own school along this line.
Ouspensky made the term "Fourth Way" and its use central to his own teaching of the ideas of Gurdjieff. He greatly focused on Fourth Way schools and their existence throughout history.
Self-remembering
Ouspensky personally confessed the difficulties he was experiencing with "self-remembering," which has later been defined by Osho as 'witnessing'. The present phraseology in the teachings of Advaita is to be in awareness, or being aware of being aware. It is also believed to be consistent with the Buddhist practice of 'mindfulness'. The ultimate goal of each is to be always in a state of meditation even in sleep. 'Self-remembering' was a technique to which he had been introduced by Gurdjieff himself. Gurdjieff explained to him that this was the missing link to everything else. While in Russia, Ouspensky experimented with the technique with a certain degree of success, and in his lectures in London and America, he emphasized the importance of its practice. The technique requires a division of attention so that a person not only pays attention to what is going on in the exterior world but also in the interior. A.L. Volinsky, an acquaintance of Ouspensky in Russia, mentioned to him that this was what professor Wundt meant by apperception. Ouspensky disagreed and commented on how an idea so profound to him would pass unnoticed by people whom he considered intelligent. Gurdjieff explained the Rosicrucian principle that in order to bring about a result or manifestation, three things are necessary. With self-remembering and self-observation two things are present. The third one is explained by Ouspensky in his tract on Conscience: it is the non-expression of negative emotions.
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