Might we venture from the Gurdjieff canon and recall the universal journey of a legendary seeker on his final, inner journey? Recall Odysseus’s conscious labors and intentional sufferings as he and his men approach the land of the Sirens.[1] Recall his journey’s aim, his deepest wish: to go home. But as he sails from the sacking of Troy, he continues to struggle with his hero’s image of himself, his cunning, his self-serving, pumped-up ego.
As his ship approaches the Sirens, the bird-women whose alluring voices lead men to their destruction, he instructs his men to lash him to the mast -- ever tighter should his resistance overcome his wish, should he beg to be released -- and to fill their ears with beeswax so that they can hear neither his pleading nor the Sirens’ song.
With intention, he leaves his own ears unsealed. Now oriented to the vertical – the mast of the ship that will take him home -- he chooses to remain aware of the forces he is struggling to resist during his long and difficult transition from crafty warrior, to seeker, to elder. This task he has courageously given himself.
Later, Odysseus, alone and separated from his men and his heroic role, is instructed to take his heavy oar and travel to that interior place far from the sea, his habitual place of power and influence. He plants the oar in the earth where the vertical oar becomes a winnowing fan. This task -- to guide him on his inner journey -- is given to him by a learned elder.
In her seminal book, Old Age: Journey into Simplicity, Helen Luke writes:
“Your oar is no longer a driving force carrying you over the oceans of your inner and outer worlds, but a spirit of discriminating wisdom, separating moment by moment the wheat of life from the chaff.”[2]
Here, Odysseus finds the pivotal moment. He is stripped of chaff. A humbler man, he begins to accept.
Former student of Gurdjieff, Zen Buddhist Hubert Benoit recognized this place of acceptance:
“(T)he certainty that what happens to me, whatever that may be, is precisely the best thing that could happen to me. Right acceptance of fate is not acceptance of all that may happen to me in the future. That would not be reconcilable with acceptance of my desires. The right acceptance of fate is acceptance in the instant.”[3]
This acceptance, moment-to-moment and lately earned, opens us to being intensely alive. We are renewed. Now.
From whence cometh my help – from Above and from others
Can I trust the “black box” – that unknowable place where Higher Intelligence and Higher Emotion work together – to serve my aim toward true individuality, true being, without inserting myself into a process that is a mystery?
I see as from a distance that drivenness to do is ordinary effort and can make me a “better person.” There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this. We all have our horizontal work -- some of which is clearly mechanical and essential to our lives.
The aim is not to be a better person; rather, it is to be a new person. In all authentic spiritual traditions, this is called re-birth.
Toward the aim of earned being, however, Gurdjieff's teaching asks that the seeker’s labors be conscious and that his sufferings be intentional. But here's the shocking truth: the ordinary self -- which likes to think, to complicate, to analyze -- cannot work on itself. The aim is not to be a better person -- my lower self can manage this -- rather, it is to be a new person. In all authentic spiritual traditions, this is called re-birth.
Here's what I've come to see: While not simple in the sense of shallow or trivial, the Gurdjieff teaching itself as a way and a practice is elegant, as is a physicist's equation of four or five letters and numbers that distill many blackboards of chalky scribbles and many years of focused work. Like the artist, the poet, and the mathematician, the seeker's work is looking inward for patterns. There is so much that we do not understand, but we are not alone: attention, understanding, and transformation are gifts from Above, poured out with grace and limitless generosity. Opening to the vertical is a worthy practice. We work not to overthink it.
Denying the Source of help – from Above and from others -- is evidence of the persistent belief that I create myself, that I can transform myself – evidence of proud mind, which loves to impose itself, to meddle, and to hold itself apart. I see that I need to get out of my own way, become an open, grateful receiver of gifts from Above and from others, and allow myself to be worked. Letting go is a good idea.
I see that I need to get out of my own way, become an open, grateful receiver of gifts from Above and from others, and allow myself to be worked.
When the archangel touched Beelzebub’s head with his sacred rod, he offered to the members of Beelzebub’s tribe the opportunity to participate, to express their gratitude with the sacrifice of their own horns. With each touch of the rod, Beelzebub’s horns grew. Gurdjieff introduces to us essential ritual: the weaving together of the seen and unseen, of celebration and rejoicing, of participation in the sacred, a symbol of acceptance, love, and service. Rituals are the carriers of meaning. The archangel knew this.
As seekers, we gradually come to sacrifice or to accept those pieces of self that must be sacrificed or accepted in order that we may live and serve others. I am reminded of the horns on the sacrificial altar; I am reminded of atonement. And at last, I am reminded of my initial question: What can we – aged and young alike – infer about growing older in the Gurdjieff teaching, a life-long work on oneself, a work toward real being?
The Elders
The juicy-crone-of-a-woman, often shown with the horns of the crescent moon crowning her head, and the wise-shaman-of-a-man, often shown with the ten-point antlers of the deer. And an older, wiser Beelzebub wearing the horns of being.
Who are these people?
They are the elders, and we sense that they are different. Is it their unmistakable, earned presence that’s absent in the merely old?
They are imperfect – and they know it – and have tasted humility; they have accepted who they are in their own eyes and in the eyes of others.
Elders have suffered both involuntarily and intentionally, and they understand the difference. They have experienced loss – loss of vitality and stamina, and loss of family and friends to death – and have discerned what to hold on to with perseverance and what to let go of with acceptance. They have mostly unharnessed themselves from the chaff of their weary stories and carry less baggage into the sweet days remaining to them.
Elders are unwaveringly independent, yet they have a heightened appreciation for relationships. Smiling and laughing easily, they experience simple joy in the moment. They sense when to speak ferocious truth to those in power and when to restrain and wait. They like to be alone; they enjoy their own company. They have learned to protect their boundaries; they have become choosey and can say No without guilt, apology, or angst. They have understood, finally, that too much addictive busyness is violence inflicted on their deepest selves.
They value exterior silence and interior stillness; their moments of meditation and solitude are a living resource.
They have known arrogance and have worked to sacrifice their pride; they have tasted humility and are at peace with who they are in the eyes of others. They are both frank and kind. They are imperfect – and they know it – and have tasted humility; they have accepted who they are in their own eyes and in the eyes of others. They shepherd a continuous love affair between their lower natures -- their small sense of self -- and their higher nature, knowing that the energies of both are needed for the dance.
They value exterior silence and interior stillness; their moments of meditation and solitude are a living resource. They are the guardians of real knowledge and understanding, and are open to teaching the young by their singular presence. They are open to receiving grace and to being worked. They have forgiven everyone everything and have grown into empathy and compassion. They have suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and have determined to love anyway. They feel gratitude for the richness of their inner lives.
Elders know where home is. They have discovered a new country: the entrained rhythm of Nature. And because they know that they do not know, they understand that work on oneself continues into their final moments, but with the wisdom of a higher intelligence, and with adjustments at each seeing, each discerning.[4]
Elders know where home it. They have discovered a new country: the entrained rhythm of Nature.
Beelzebub, a conscious elder, attained being through an adulthood of conscious labors and intentional sufferings. His horns, returned to him, are symbols of wisdom, objective reason, and understanding at its highest level – all paid for, all earned.
Why would we all not wish to work to become elders as opposed to merely becoming old? Why would we all not want to grow even the smallest nubs of the horns of being? Can we begin to see old age as a crown?
[1] Helen M. Luke, Old Age: Journey into Simplicity (Great Barrington, MA: Lindisfarne Books, 2010), 1-12.
[2] Luke, 19.
[3] Hubert Benoit, “Acceptance and Attention,” Parabola, Vol. XV, No. 2, summer 1990, 59-60.
[4] Thoughts gathered from friends and from various books on aging.