I greatly enjoyed last week's talk at Libra Aries by Seymour
Ginsburg on his new book "Gurdjieff Unveiled".

The Gurdjieff talk was very synchronistic for me because I had
encountered Gurdjieff's work in recent weeks while researching some
aspects of "Shamanic Healing" for my forthcoming course...

Gurdjieff was teaching "energy management" and "higher states of
consciousness" almost a century ago - long before these aspects
of "wholeness" became mainstream in personal development.

The Purpose of Human Life
-------------------------
Gurdjieff expounded two particular views about the role ("Life
purpose") of human beings in the Cosmos. Both views accord with
thousands of years of spiritual/religious practice and teaching,
across a broad spectrum of traditions.

The first view of human purpose (and spiritual life) is that human
beings are destined or required to act as a "mirror", reflecting the
wonders of creation, and the personality of "The Creator", back to
the Creator himself/herself/itself.

Gurdjieff avoided the word "God", because he felt that this word
often conveyed the idea of a kindly old man sitting in a remote
place called "heaven", which seemed to him a rather limited, and
limiting, view. Instead he liked to use the word "Endlessness" to
refer to the creative intelligence which pervades the Cosmos.

Re-cycling of Energy in the Cosmos
----------------------------------
Gurdjieff's second concept of human purpose (and spiritual life) was
that human beings serve as "energy transmutes" - recycling earth-
life energy back to "Endlessness". Since energy is fundamentally
indestructible (only transmutable or transportable) it certainly
does seem reasonable that, after coming into material world
manifestation, earth-life energy would have to be re-cycled back to
the source of material creativity.

He believed that traditional spiritual practices (worship,
sacrifice, self-denial) served in this process of recycling energy
back to "The Source" (Endlessness) and that if human beings
neglected energy-recycling spiritual practices then energy would
have to be reclaimed (re-cycled) via an increase in human deaths
(Gurdieff believed that human beings also liberate energy back
to "The Source" when they die).

Animal and human sacrifice are unpalatable spiritual practices to
most of us today, but in ancient times, they were of course
widespread. In some cultures human beings felt it was an honour to
be chosen (or have a relative chosen) to be sacrificed. It was
believed that an honourable death would lead to a better "next
life" - be it in another incarnation, or in "Heaven" or "Paradise".
This "mind-set" has re-emerged in modern times in the form
of "suicide bombers". On a more acceptable level, there are also
those amongst us today who willingly sacrifice their life, health,
freedom or well-being in the pursuit of "good deeds" or "good
causes".

A Visionary Experience of Energy Transmutation & Re-Cycling
-----------------------------------------------------------
The reason that I mention (and was drawn to) Gurdjieff's concept
of "humans as cosmic energy transmutators and re-cyclers" is that it
prompted me to recall a mysterious psychic vision that I had 2 years
ago....

I was at a sacred location in Scotland - spending two days in
shamanic practices with a group of Lakota Sioux Native Americans,
who had received divine guidance to travel the world visiting
ancient sacred sites and "opening up the old energy channels" - i.e.
special places where our ancestors believed that the either
the "veil between the worlds" was especially thin, or they were
otherwise propitious for
energetic exchanges between "heaven and earth" or "spirit and
matter".

We were led into a very powerful re-birthing experience [more about
rebirthing here:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/cheal/message/305] in which
about 20 people in the large tepee experienced great cathartic
emotional and physical suffering. As my personal catharsis subsided,
I felt very calm, clear and peaceful and to my surprise suddenly
experienced a vision of small light spheres of energy being released
from my body and floating up towards the vent-hole at the top of the
tepee.
I then became aware of the same spheres being released from the
others around my who had completed their catharsis. As I watched an
increasing myriad of spheres floating up and out of the tepee
towards the sky there was a strange kind of "inner knowing" that our
suffering had generated energy which would be beneficial to the
Cosmos in some way.

I have not had a vision quite like this, either before or since, not
even during other "re-birthing"
experiences of myself or others. In fact I had given up hope of ever
making any sense of it - until studying Gurdjieff's work in recent
weeks. Now it makes perfect sense in terms of certain spiritual
practices generating (transmuting, releasing and re-cycling) energy
which can be re-used by Endlessness/God/The Cosmos. In this
connection, Gurdjieff taught, like many great mystics, prophets and
sages before him, that we are not separate from Endlessness, but an
integral part of it - this awareness being a key part of "Higher
consciousness" (Enlightenment/Gnosis/Self-realization).


Mike
http://www.lovehealth.org