Glimpses of Understanding

 

On the summit of the mountain was a small hut, evidently for the sale of beer and te, but that day there was no one there.

We sat down on a rock and began to eat. Each of us, spellbound by the grandeur of the scenery, silently thought his own thoughts.

Suddenly my glance rested on the face of Profesor Skridlov and I saw that tears were streaming from his eyes.

`What´s the matter old fellow?´I asked him.

`Nothing´he answered drying his eyes, and then added: `In general, during the last two or three years, my inability to control the automatic manifestations of my subconsciousness and my instinct is such that I have become almost like an hysterical woman´.

`What has just happened, has happened to me many times during this period. It is very difficult to explain what takes place in me when I see or hear anything majestic which allows no doubt that it proceeds from the actualization of Our Maker Creator. Each time my tears flow of themselves, I weep, that is to say, it weeps in me, not from grief, no, but as if from tenderness. I became so, gradually, after meeting Father Giovanni, whom you remember we met together in Kafiristan, to my worldly misfortune.

After that meeting my whole inner and outer world became for me quite different. In the definite views which had become rooted in me in the course of my whole life, there took place, as it were by itself, a revaluation of all values.

Before that meeting, I was a man wholly engrossed in my own personal interests and pleasures, and also in the interests and pleasures of my children. I was always occupied with thoughts of how best to satisfy my needs and the needs of my children.

Formerly, it may be said, my whole being was possessed by egoism. All my manifestations and experiencings flowed from my vanity. The meeting with Father Giovanni killed all this, and from then on there gradually arose in me that "something" which has brought the whole of me to the unshakable conviction that, apart from the vanities of life, there exists a "something else" which must be the aim and ideal of every more or less thinking man– and that it is only this something else which may make a man really happy and give him real values, instead of the illusory "goods" with which in ordinary life he is always and in everything full.  

–extract from Meetings with Remarkable Men, G.I.Gurdjieff 

They had met Father Giovanni in a monastery of Asia that accepted members from all religions and which at that time had Christians, Muslims, Israelites, Buddhists and even one shamanist.

And Fathrr Giovanni had been telling them about inner life, faith and a World Bortherhood in which all were united by the God Truth.

And when Profesor Skridlov asked him why he didn´t travel to Europe and teach about those wonders, Father Giovanni replied:

`Faith cannot be given to man. Faith arises in man and increases in its action in him not as the result of automatic learning, that is, not from any automatic ascertainment of height, breathm thickness, form and weight, or from the perception of anything by sight, hearing, touch, smell or taste but from understanding.

`Understanding is the essence obtained from information intentionally learned and from all kinds of experiences personally experienced...

`No professor, it is a hundred times easier, as it is said in the Gospels, "for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle" than for anyone to give to another the understanding formed in him about anything whatsoever  

`I formerly also thought as you do and even chose the activity of a missionary in order to teach everyone faith in Christ. I wanted to make everyone as happy as I myself felt from faith in the teachings of Jesus Christ. But to wish to do that, so to say, grafting words is just like wishing to fill someone with bread merely by looing at him. 

Understanding is acquired, as I have already said, from the totality of information intentionally learned and from personal experiencings; whereas knowledge is only the automaitc remembrance of words in a certain sequence. 

As a complement to this touching passages, it´s worth bringing another version of the text published earlier, with elements that may clarify an essential issue that no one aspiring to be truly Human should miss:

34.Conscious love evokes the same. Emotional love evokes the opposite. Physical love depends on type and polarity. 

35.Conscious faith is freedom. Emotional faith is slavery. Mechanical faith is foolishness.

36.Hope, when bold, is strength. Hope, with doubt, is cowardice. Hope, with fear, is weakness.

–Views from the Real World, Afforisms of Gurdjieff.

 What´s the point of preaching about love if one does not know how to put into practice the Teaching, unable to love the adversary and those who suffer?

As Yeshua taught:

If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them (Luke 6:32)

What´s the point of speaking about faith if one only believes in parafernalias, when at the momement of truth one panicks before death or an illness, trusting more the opinion of a doctor or someone else than the healing action of the I Am and the Word of Life from the eternal Father?

What´s the point of speaking about hope if we only worry about where we will live, eat and work tomorrow?

The body already has its own subconscious fears, loves and beliefs , and thus it can only hope with fear to satisfy its natural needs, which can degenerate into vices if they are not properly addressed.

And the same goes for the mind and the heart, which had been conditioned by abnormal education.

In general, thoughts are very superficial, while emotions are as wild as those of a lion, dog or horse, and are far from the feelings of a human being.

Coincidently, in Spanish, to say "pienso y siento", "I think and I feel", almost involves including the word "miento", which means "I lie". So it´s almost like saying: I think and I feel so I am a damn lier.

By contrast, the silent, receptive, compassionate space of true Intelligence, does not depend on thoughts, emotions or physical impulses but on something higher that can harmonize, transform and use them constructively.

With such Intelligence we may receive the Instruction, the spiritual Torah, the Bread of Life, and the true gift of the Holy Spirit, being guided to the truths that can takes us out of the pits of darkness. 

The experience of Profesor Skridlov is a clear testimony in that regard.