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- Oct 12 2:38 AM
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CH 48 PART FOUR is THE ADDITIONChapter 48: From the authorFrom the authorPART FOURBeelzebub's Tales
to His GrandsonAt this point I interrupted
the reader of the lecture,
considering it opportune
to make the following
addition:THE ADDITIONSuch is the ordinary average
man—-an unconscious slave,
entirely at the service of
all-universal purposes
alien to his personal
individuality.He may live through all
his years as he is, and
as such be destroyed
forever.However, Great Nature has
given him the possibility
of not being merely a blind
tool entirely at the service
of these all-universal objective
purposes but, while serving her
and actualizing what is
foreordained for him,
which is the lot of
every breathing
creature, of
working at the
same time for
himself, for
his own
"egoistic"
individuality.This possibility also was
given him for serving the
common purpose since, for
the equilibrium of these
objective laws, such
relatively liberated
people are necessary.Although this liberation is
possible, nevertheless whether
any particular man has a chance
to attain it—-this is difficult
to say.There are a great many reasons
which may not permit it and which
in most cases depend neither upon
us personally nor upon great cosmic
laws, but only upon the various
accidental conditions of our
arising and formation, that
is to say, chiefly upon
heredity and the various
circumstances during the
process of our "preparatory
age." It is just these
uncontrollable
conditions
which may
not permit
this liberation.The chief difficulty in the
way of liberation from complete
slavery is that we must, with an
intention coming from our own
initiative and a persistence
sustained by our own efforts—-
that is to say, not by another's
will but by our own—-succeed in
eradicating from our presence
both the already fixed
consequences of certain
properties of that
"something" in our
forefathers called
the "organ kundabuffer,"
as well as the predisposition
to those consequences which
may again arise.To give you at least an
approximate understanding
of this strange organ and
its properties, and also
of the manifestations in
ourselves of the
consequences of
these properties,
we must dwell a
little longer
upon this
question
and speak
about it in
somewhat
greater
detail.Great Nature, in her
foresight, for many
important reasons—-
about which theoretical
explanations will be given
in later lectures—-was constrained
to place within the common presence
of our remote ancestors a special
organ, through whose properties
they might be protected from
the possibility of seeing
and feeling reality.COSMIC LAW OF
ASSIMILATIONAlthough this organ was later
removed by Great Nature from their
common presence, yet owing to the
cosmic law of "the assimilation
of the results of oft-repeated
acts"—-according to which, from
the frequent repetition of the
same act there appears in every
cosmic concentration, under
certain conditions, a
tendency to reproduce
similar results—-the
predisposition formed
in our ancestors was
transmitted by heredity
from generation to generation,
so that when their descendants
established many conditions in
the process of their ordinary
existence that proved to be
favorable for its law-
conformable manifestation,
the consequences of the various
properties of this organ began to
arise in them and, passing by
heredity from generation to
generation, were gradually
assimilated and ultimately
engendered almost the same
manifestations as in their
ancestors.To understand at least
approximately how these
consequences manifest
themselves in us, let
us consider a further
fact that is perfectly
intelligible to our
Reason and beyond
any doubt whatever.All men are mortal and each
of us may die at any moment.Now the question arises can
a man really picture to himself,
and so to say "experience" in his
consciousness, the process of his
own death?No! His own death and the
experiencing of this process,
a man, however he may wish,can never picture to himself.An ordinary contemporary mancan picture to himself the deathof another, though even this not
fully.He can picture to himself, for
instance, a certain Mr Smith
leaving the theater and, on
crossing the street, being
run over by an automobile
and crushed to death.Or a signboard blown down by
the wind falls on the head of
Mr Jones, who happens to be
passing, and kills him on
the spot.Or Mr Brown, who has eaten
spoiled crayfish, gets poisoned
and, since no one is able to save
him, dies the next day.Anyone can easily picture all
these. But can the ordinary man
contemplate for himself the same
possibility as he admits for Mr
Smith, Mr Jones, and Mr Brown,
and really feel and live
through all the despair
of facing such an
eventuality for
himself?Think what would be the
state of a man who could
clearly picture to himself
and experience the
inevitability of
his own death!If he seriously ponders and
succeeds in entering deeply
into this so as really to
cognize his own death, what
could be more terrifying?In ordinary life, over and above
the terrible fact of the inevitability
of our own death, there are many other
things, particularly in recent times,
which, if we would even imagine
having to live through them,
would evoke in us feelings
of inexpressible and
intolerable anguish.Suppose that those contemporary
people who have already entirely
lost all possibility of having any
real objective hope for the future,
that is to say, those who have never
"sown" anything during their
responsible life and therefore
have nothing to "reap" in the
future, suppose that one day
they should become aware of
the inevitability of their
imminent death—-from the
thought alone they would
hang themselves.As a result of the specific
action of the consequences
of the properties of the
organ kundabuffer on their
common psyche, most contemporary
people—-those three-brained beings
in whom were placed the hopes of
our Creator as possible servers
of higher purposes—-are
prevented from knowing
any of these genuine
terrors. And thus they
are able calmly to carry
on their existence in
unconscious fulfillment
of what was foreordained,
but in the service only of
Nature's most immediate aims,
since on account of their
unbecoming, abnormal life
they have lost any
possibility of
serving higher
purposes.Owing to these consequences,
not only does the recognition
of such terrors fail to arise
in the psyche of contemporary
people, but to calm themselves
they even invent all kinds of
fantastic explanations, which
are plausible solely to
their naive logic, for
what they really sense
and also for what they
do not sense at all.For example, suppose that the
question of our inability really
to sense various genuine terrors,
in particular the terror of our
own death, should become a
"burning question of the day,"
as occurs from time to time with
certain questions in contemporary
life, then in all probability
everybody, ordinary mortals
as well as those called
"learned," would offer a
categorical solution
which they would not
doubt for a moment and,
"spluttering at the mouth,"
would set about to prove that
what in fact saves people from
experiencing such terrors is just
their own "will."But if this is conceded,
why does not this presumed
will protect us from all the
little fears that assail us
at every step?In order to sense and understand
what I am now saying with your
whole being, and not merely
with that "mind-fornication"
of yours, which to the
misfortune of our
descendants has
become the dominant
inherency of contemporary
people, picture to yourself
the following:Tonight, after the lecture,
you go home, undress, and get
into bed but, just as you are
pulling up the covers, a mouse
jumps out from under the pillow
and, scuttling across your body,
disappears into the folds of the
blankets.Admit candidly, does not a shiver
actually run through your whole
body at the bare thought of
such a thing?Is it not so?Now please try to make
an exception and, without
the participation of any of
the subjective emotionality
that has become fixed in you,
picture to yourself with your
thought alone that such a thing
might happen to you, and you will
then be amazed that you would
react in such a way.What is so frightening about this?It is just an ordinary house mouse,
the most inoffensive of creatures.And so I ask you, how can all
that has been said be explained
by that "will" which is presumed
to be in every man?How is it possible to reconcile
the fact that a man is terrified
by a timid little mouse, the most
frightened of all creatures, and by
thousands of similar trifles which
might never even occur, and yet
experiences no terror in the face
of the inevitability of his own
death?In any case, to explain such
a flagrant contradiction by
the action of the famous
human "will" is
impossible.HERD INSTINCTWhen this contradiction is
considered soberly, without
any preconceptions, that is,
without any of the ready-made
notions of various so-called
"authorities"—whose wiseacrings
have taken hold of people on
account of their naïveté and
"herd instinct," not to
mention the results
arising in their
mentation from an
abnormal education—-
it becomes perfectly
obvious that all these
fears from which there
does not arise in a man
an impulse, as we said,
to hang himself are
expressly permitted
by Nature to the
extent to which
they are indispensable
for the process of our
ordinary existence.And indeed without them—-
without all these, in the
objective sense, "flea bites,"
which appear to us as
"unprecedented terrors"—-
we could not have any
experiencings at all,
whether of joy, sorrow,
hope, disappointment, and
so on, nor could we have all
those cares, stimuli, strivings,
or in general any of the impulses
that constrain us to act, to attain
something, and to strive toward
some aim.It is just this totality of
"childish experiencings," as
they might be called, arising
and flowing automatically in
the ordinary man, which, on
the one hand, make up and
sustain his life and, on
the other hand, leave him
neither the possibility
nor the time to see
and feel reality.If the ordinary contemporary
man were somehow to sense, or
to remember if only in thought,
that at a definite known date,
for instance tomorrow, a week,
or a month, or even a year or
two hence, he would die and
die for certain, what would
remain, one asks, of all that
until then had filled up and
constituted his life?Everything would lose its sense
and significance for him. What
would be the importance of the
decoration he received yesterday
for long service and which had so
delighted him, or that glance he
just noticed, so full of promise,
from the woman who had long been
the object of his constant and
unrewarded longing, or the
newspaper with his morning
coffee, and that deferential
greeting from his neighbor on
the stairs, and the theater in
the evening, and rest and sleep
all his favorite things—-what
worth would they all have?Certainly they would no longer
have the significance which he
had given them before if a man
knew that death would overtake
him only in five or ten years.In short, to look his own death
"in the face" the ordinary man
cannot and must not do, for he
would, so to say, "get out of
his depth" and in clear-cut
form the question would arise
before him "Why then shouldwe live and toil and suffer?"Precisely that such a question
may not arise, Great Nature,
having become convinced that
in the common presence of most
people there are no longer any
factors for meritorious
manifestations proper to
three-centered beings, has
providentially and wisely
protected them by allowing
the arising in their common
presence of various consequences
of those properties unbecoming to
them which, in the absence of
proper actualizations, permit
them not to perceive or sense
reality.And Great Nature was constrained
to adapt herself to such an
abnormality, in the objective
sense, because owing to the
conditions of ordinary life
established by men themselves,
the deterioration in quality of
the radiations required of them
for higher common-cosmic purposes
insistently demanded, for the
maintenance of equilibrium, an
adaptation in the number of
arisings and in the duration
of these lives.Thus it is clear that life
is given to men not for
themselves but for
serving these higher
cosmic purposes, and
that is why Great Nature
watches over this life so
that it may flow in a more
or less tolerable form, and
takes care that it should
not prematurely cease.Do not we also—-we men—-feed,
watch over, look after, and
make the lives of our sheep
and pigs as comfortable as
possible?Do we do all this because
we value their lives for
the sake of their lives?No!We do all this in order
to slaughter them one fine
day and to obtain the meat
we need, with as much fat
as possible.In the same way Nature takes
all measures to ensure that
we shall live without seeing
the terror, and not hang
ourselves, but live long,
and then, when we are
required, she
slaughters us.In the established conditions
of the ordinary life of people,
this has already become an
immutable law of Nature.There is in our life a certain
very great purpose and we must
all serve this great common
purpose—-in this lies the
whole sense and
predestination
of our life.All people without exception
are slaves of this "Greatness,"
and all are compelled willy-nilly
to submit, and to fulfill without
condition or compromise what has
been pre-destined for each of
us by his transmitted heredity
and his acquired being.Gurdjieffcontinued in PART FIVE