Sjamanisme is - volgens mij - eerder weggelegd voor mensen die uit eigen beweging voor involutie dan voor evolutie kiezen - maar, net zoals er in het meest stompzinnige boek één enkele zin je leven kan veranderen, brengen sjamanen soms zaken waarmee we iets zinnigs kunnen aanvangen. Om die reden is het nooit goed om het kind, in dit geval: het animistische, met het badwater weg te werpen.
Over Totem- en krachtdieren - zaken, waarover sjamanen soms melding maken - heb ik het reeds meermaals gehad. En, onlangs had ik het over de drie hoofdcomponenten in elke mens, zijnde: het stoffelijke lichaam (geërfd), de persoonlijkheid (verworven) en de essentie (aangeboren). Indien je aan Zelfkennis doet, is het interessant om die drie één voor één in elke mens trachten te observeren.
Zo staat het totemdier in verband met het vergankelijke lichaam en de persoonlijkheid, daar waar het krachtdier de symbolische voorstelling kan zijn van de essentie. Gurdjieff, vermeldde daarover, bijvoorbeeld, de volgende zaken..., hopelijk heb je er iets aan.
One-sided development - Paris, august 1922
"In each of those present here one of his inner machines is more developed than the others. There is no connection between them. Only he can be called a man without quotation marks in whom all three machines are developed.
A one-sided development is only harmful. If a man possesses knowledge and even knows all he must do, this knowledge is useless and can even do harm. All of you are deformed. If only personality is developed it is deformity; such a man can in no way be called a complete man — he is a quarter, a third of a man. The same applies to a man with a developed essence, or a man with developed muscles. Nor can he be called a complete man in whom a more or less developed personality is combined with a developed body, while his essence remains totally undeveloped. In short, a man in whom only two of the three machines are developed cannot be called a man. A man of such one-sided development has more desires in a given sphere, desires he cannot satisfy and at the same time cannot renounce. Life becomes miserable for him. For this state of fruitless, half-satisfied desires I can find no more suitable word than onanism. From the standpoint of the ideal of full harmonious development such a one-sided man is worthless.
The reception of external impressions depends on the rhythm of the external stimulators of impressions and on the rhythm of the senses. Right reception of impressions is possible only if these rhythms correspond to one another. If I or anyone were to say two words, one of them would be said with one understanding, another with another. Each of my words has a definite rhythm. If I say twelve words, in each of my listeners some words - say three - would be taken in by the body, seven by personality and two by essence. Since the machines are not connected with each other, each part of the listener has recorded only part of what was said, in recollecting, the general impression is lost and cannot be reproduced. The same happens when a man wants to express something to another.
Owing to the absence of connection between the machines he is able to express only a fraction of himself.
Every man wants something, but first he must find out and verify all that is wrong or lacking in himself, and he must bear in mind that a man can never be a man if he has no right rhythms in himself.
Take the reception of sound. A sound reaches the receiving apparatuses of all the three machines simultaneously but owing to the fact that the rhythms of the machines are different, only one of them has time to receive the impression, for the receiving faculty of the others lags behind. If a man hears the sound with his thinking faculty and is too slow to pass it on to the body, for which it is destined, then the next sound he hears, also destined for the body, drives away the first completely and the required result is not obtained. If a man decides to do something, for instance to hit something or someone, and at the moment of decision the body does not fulfill this decision since it was not quick enough to receive it in time, the force of the blow will be much weaker - or, there will be no blow at all.
Just as in the case of reception, a man's manifestations, too, can never be complete. Sorrow, joy, hunger, cold, envy and other feelings and sensations are experienced only by a part of an ordinary man's being, instead of by the whole of him."
- Wordt vervolgd -
