Objective Reason

2015-01-23

Gurdjieff mentions objective reason 30 times in Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson. Here are a few of those references, along with some commentary.

Page 87: Why Men Are Not Men: 
“And of course there began gradually to be crystallized in the three-brained beings there the corresponding data for the acquisition of objective Reason.

One way of describing the aim of our focus on the process of reasoning is to “gradually crystallize corresponding data for the acquisition of objective Reason.” Each act of reasoning we do, however small, should generate exactly that kind of data. More than that, it will improve the reasoning process itself.

Page 88: Why Men Are Not Men: 
“The sacred members of this Most High Commission then reasoned that if the said mechanical instinct in these biped three brained beings of that planet should develop towards the attainment of Objective Reason—as usually occurs everywhere among three-brained beings—

Science is slowly uncovering a third aspect of all systems in addition to matter and energy. That third aspect is information or intelligence. Everything, even chaos, has intelligence. (see “strange attractors” in chaos theory) There is a tendency in systems to move toward greater intelligence even as entropy works against the organization of matter. So we are destined to move toward reason.

On the other hand…

Page 125: The Relative Understanding of Time: 
 “Exactly like the beings of other cosmoses, they are born, they grow up, they unite and separate for what are called ‘sex-results’ and they also fall sick and suffer, and ultimately like everything existing in which Objective Reason has not become fixed, they are destroyed forever.

It looks like it might be a good idea for us to intentionally develop objective reason, rather than just relying on mechanical instinct to do the job.

Page 196: Beelzebub’s Second Descent to Earth: 
 “‘And these variously powered manifestations of beings of diverse forms actualize in their totality just those exterior conditions in which alone it is possible for those similar to you—that is, for three-brained beings—consciously to perfect the “germ-of-Reason” placed in their presences, to the necessary gradation of Pure Objective Reason.

We have the germ or 'seed' of objective reason already available to us. The process of 'real' reasoning allows that seed to grow. However, it has to be a real process, not a justification or 'reasons' to maintain preconceived ideas, habits, likes and dislikes, and so on.  It takes real courage to endure real reasoning.

Page 237: The First Visit of Beelzebub to India: 
 “‘No sooner was this lamentable fact which proceeded in the presences of the three-brained beings breeding on this planet Earth first made clear, than by All-Gracious sanction of our COMMON FATHER, a suitable Sacred Individual was immediately sent here, so that, being coated with a presence like your own and having become perfected by Objective Reason under the conditions already established here, he might better explain and show you the way of eradicating from your presences the already crystallized consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer as well as your inherited predispositions to new crystallizations.

This phrase “having become perfected by Objective Reason under the conditions already established here” provides a clue about our individual unique contribution to objective reason.

Page 245: The Arch Preposterous: 
 “This quite definite explanation of Saint Buddha was well understood by his contemporaries and many of them began, as I have already said, to strive with eagerness, first to absorb and to coat in their presences the particle of this Most Great Greatness and afterwards to ‘make-inherent’ to it Divine Objective Reason.

“Objective Reason”, “Pure Objective Reason”,  and now “Divine Objective Reason”… what’s next?