"I Don’t Know Where to Use Reasoning!"

2015-01-20

Sometimes we might go several days without finding a suitable place to apply this method of reasoning. If that happens, it’s because we haven’t yet grasped what reasoning is really about.

We are constantly in front of the situation, “What should I do now, in this moment?” Generally we just let the world decide for us in terms of habit, external influences, and the law of accident. But it's possible, and indeed necessary for us to stop using this mechanical approach to life and become intentional about our lives. This intentionality would initiate a process of reasoning at every point in the day where we are about to start a new activity, even if that activity is as simple as walking to the car. That’s right, not only ‘can’ we reason about the seemingly simple activity of walking to our car, but we actually need to do that in order to transform our lives.

Gurdjieff talked about this when he described two different ways of living which he named foolasnitamnian and itoklanoz. Here is how JG Bennett described them…

Two Principles of Living

JG Bennett: I want to remind you of Beelzebub's distinction between the two principles of living—the foolasnitamnian and the itoklanoz. I have yet to find out how Gurdjieff derived these words, but he always used them. Foolasnitamnian is the right way for a three-brained-being to be. When a man is able to live that way, he is able to fulfill his destiny and he will not leave this world until he has completed the formation of his kesdjan body. We are talking about something which is the aim of our lives. The other way is where one lives by external shocks, particularly by the causes that have arisen in the past. In the way of itoklanoz we are living in the action of our past lives: the bobbinkandelnosts, the wound up springs that keep us moving, simply go on until they are exhausted and then leave nothing behind. Living as a result of causes depends on whether the causes were produced intentionally or not. If not, then there is what Gurdjieff called "living under the law of accident." It is one of the first things from which a man can become free. The essential thing is to put oneself under the laws of the Work or under the laws of some definite purpose to be fulfilled. It is the act of commitment, which by itself changes our relationship to the law of accident.

The itoklanoz way of living is that of a marionette with a lot of threads attached to different parts, each of which are producing reactions and behavior manifestations. With the foolasnitamnian there is something that is holding it together and it is woven according to a purpose that goes beyond the present. For each one of us there is a pattern of life which is our destiny. In the realization of this we fulfill the reason for our existence here on earth. There is also the pattern of the day and the pattern of the hour. To see this requires a certain kind of awareness. The direct perception of our pattern belongs to conscience and the unconditioned side of our nature. The pattern is creative and created.

The confidence has to grow in us all that each of us has a pattern in our lives, each of us has a destiny, and all will go as it should if we can get close enough to it—to be fully in it is very much to hope for. For some of you, your lives were going against your true pattern before you came here. The feeling of tension this brought about was one of the factors that brought you here. You have felt the need to be able to do what is right for you. This is something that we can gradually work at and not just think and talk about. It can be brought into everything that we do whether it is something outward, like the cooking of a meal or something inward like the morning exercise. We are trying to get this pattern of the wholeness of our lives into our awareness.

If it were not for the pattern of events in human history, then man's disorganizing power would destroy the whole of life. Rare people can produce extraordinary events in the world because they are endowed with pattern awareness. By taking things within the scale of our own lives we can have a taste of this very special thing. Then our lives are not just the working out of the consequences of past causes, but have a creative feeling in them.

The full transcript of the talk can be accessed using the link below.