Gurdjieff, whose term, "Organic Shame," you use, was a very interesting fellow. i put his perspectives and teachings in the same category where i place Carlos Castaneda/ don Juan, Rudolf Steiner and the Pathwork material disseminated through Eva Broch Pierrakos, as well as Russian Grigori Grabovoi.
Gurdjieff's term "Organic Shame" means "the condition of lower vibrations aspiring to share the experience of higher vibrations [as described by in the article by Dr. Anna Challenger https://www.gurdjieff.org/challenger1.htm ] She continues, "Orage [a follower of Gurdjieff] understands the state of Organic Shame as the beginning of normalcy. Normal human beings try to understand the reason for existence so that they might fulfill their obligations in life. It is our objective inheritance, says Orage, that we should know why we are here and know it early enough in life to be able to act on the knowledge and carry out our cosmic function. Plants and animals, in their natural states, fulfill the purposes for which they exist. Only human beings behave unnaturally by living indifferently to their cosmic significance. Referring to Gurdjieff’s Theory of Reciprocal Maintenance, Orage writes, Man exists for a purpose not his own. This includes all beings—animals, birds, insects and bacteria. Each species is designed for a certain cosmic use. The norm of man is the discharge of the design for which he was created—like a machine designed to do a bit of work.
But we have become abnormal and fail to fulfil our design, and our unnatural living has become such a menace that Nature has to constantly struggle to adapt so that existence on Earth can continue.
Our present abnormal manner of living has its roots in a system of education which lacks essential understanding of the purpose of human existence. Because of the emphasis given by formal education, says Orage, cognizance of the cosmos has disappeared from the psyche of human beings. Just as we are aware of the flora and fauna of nature and of the civilization in which we exist, 'so three-centered beings should be aware of the function of the cosmos—the sun in relation to the planets, the Earth to the moon… A normal three-centered being would understand cosmic phenomena and how he is affected by radiations, emanations and tensions.' Such an understanding of cosmic laws Gurdjieff calls 'being-knowledge,' which he believes should be the possession of every normal human being. If systems of education were to emphasize a knowledge of cosmic phenomena, believes Gurdjieff, we would find ourselves developing naturally in the direction of Objective Reason."
"'Our planet, the earth,' writes Orage, “is the shame of the solar system. It is the ugly duckling, the misshapen dwarf, the beast of the fairy tales… The idea is that, if men could become normal, this planet might redeem the solar system.” [quoted in https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/0993187072/ ]
i would say, that Gurdjieff's understanding that humans have a purpose on and for, this planet is quite valid and jibes with other esteemed teacher's perspectives on this issue. Thus life on this planet needs us, but not in our present "abnormal way of living." It's not true in any sense that Nature would be fine w/o humans and it's not because of us that the planet and solar system needs redeeming. However, only we, who have the ability as conscious creators, can re-modulate these cosmic "radiations, emanations and tensions" of which Gurdjieff's student, Orage' speaks -- through our "being knowledge." How to do this, is another matter, but doing this is not about us, as individuals, and the problem is that our ego is currently ruled by the "I". In our earlier state of consciousness our identity was not so organized around the "I" and conventional scientific researcher, Julian Jaynes showed how we did have an earlier consciousness with a much more free-floating identity, at the time of the ancient Greeks after 3000 BCE. It is wrong though, as Jaynes believes, that this earlier form was not consciousness, and there is much more that can be said in this regard, but i believe that our earlier form of consciousness was specifically attuned to caring for the Earth. A prime example of how effective this old consciousness in line with being knowledge can be, can be seen in Bill Gammage's account of the real Australia before the arrival of the British in 1778. https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/174331132X/ The land was like a country estate, Gammage says, and it declined after that, as the Aborigines were forced into servitude to the British or eliminated entirely. Of course the colonizers have systematically obfuscated this truth. The Aborigines still have the old consciousness that enabled this caretaking in line with their being knowledge. Other indigenous people's all over the planet still have vestiges of this old consciousness too, but interbreeding with peoples outside their traditional tribe, acts in diminishing it all the time. This knowledge is not thinking knowledge, nor is it feeling as we understand sentimentality. It is very specific for each task at hand and enables direct interconnection between each person and their tribe members, as well as other natural creatures inhabiting their natural environment.
However, according to Steiner humans need to go through different epochs of spiritual learning, so we couldn't have remained at the level of the old consciousness where the Aborigines are (they call us mutants i.e. https://www.amazon.ca/Mutant-Message-Under-Marlo-Morgan/dp/0060723513/ ) if we are to fulfill our individual and collective cosmic destiny.
Anyway for more practical considerations, i too have Microsoft send me, and automatically install screensavers to my PC, of beautiful natural scenes from all over the planet. It must be that Google knows exactly what i like. Always there is an accompanying enticement to 'click on' a link and see more about this remote location, but i'm careful to not take the click-bait. Yes, many, earlier recorded, beautiful scenes from all over our planet have now been desecrated in real life, but i believe there is a difference in recreating them through technology as opposed to connecting with the Earth directly the way it presently is -- the way the Earth presents itself to each of us, every day. You are right, Arjun, that it is about Organic Shame, but the term is relevant here in regards to assuming a lower state of vibration (i. e. viewing a past scene on-line) and thereby aspiring to share the experience of higher vibrations (perhaps of each of us doing our individually relevant part, to connect with the Earth and Nature in present time and place). Yes, there's terrible devastation, but letting Google and Microsoft or ultimately the WEF and their 15 minute cities, dictate how we're to blame and set out their means of redeeming the Earth -- would be falling into the alien scheme of taking it over and ultimately disconnecting Gaia from the web of life that the cosmos is sustained by. These are alien beings who seek to rewrite the natural codes of our reality with digital ones and we should seriously avoid their scheme. Of course there is more to be done to reconnect with our true purpose on this planet after this threat is resolved.
So glad to hear you speak about Gurdjieff. I became familiar with his work in the late 1970s. Yes "food " is also what we listen to and what we see. It is good to be aware of what the impressions are doing to our nervous system. Are we "eating" toxins or nourishment. This of course requires awareness. I have been blessed last several mornings to be awakened early by a bright star shining into my bedroom window. The star is in the east, extraordinarilly brilliant before sunrise. I think this is venus. I was a teenager , so in the mid 1960s, the first time I saw the night sky in all it's amazing glory. I was camping at lake Nacimiento sleeping under the clear sky, no tent. I didn't want to shut my eyes. I wanted to watch the sky move all night.
Some people, e.g. Chris Griscom, have said that it is important that we do what you did -- sleep out under the stars, sometimes, so that our soul can orient itself celestially, and get a fix on the Galactic Centre. The Maya were certainly masters at this type of soul connection, and the Australian Aborigines actually still do this, but maybe we haven't posed the right questions to them to find out. i feel it's also possible some of the stone circles and other megalithic structures across the planet which are known to be aligned geo-astronomically were actually meant as dreaming places to do just this, rather than visual astronomy in normal waking consciousness.
Similar to you, I have been watching something calming at times, this from Azerbeijan about village life and cooking meals, almost no talking, just good photography and frequent. Good for visual learners. Good for kids, too, lots of kittens ducks chickens and small animal raising, birds chirping and roosters crowing. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCStAajG2QKMGvefcA0ja8gw
Gurdjieff, whose term, "Organic Shame," you use, was a very interesting fellow. i put his perspectives and teachings in the same category where i place Carlos Castaneda/ don Juan, Rudolf Steiner and the Pathwork material disseminated through Eva Broch Pierrakos, as well as Russian Grigori Grabovoi.
Gurdjieff's term "Organic Shame" means "the condition of lower vibrations aspiring to share the experience of higher vibrations [as described by in the article by Dr. Anna Challenger https://www.gurdjieff.org/challenger1.htm ] She continues, "Orage [a follower of Gurdjieff] understands the state of Organic Shame as the beginning of normalcy. Normal human beings try to understand the reason for existence so that they might fulfill their obligations in life. It is our objective inheritance, says Orage, that we should know why we are here and know it early enough in life to be able to act on the knowledge and carry out our cosmic function. Plants and animals, in their natural states, fulfill the purposes for which they exist. Only human beings behave unnaturally by living indifferently to their cosmic significance. Referring to Gurdjieff’s Theory of Reciprocal Maintenance, Orage writes, Man exists for a purpose not his own. This includes all beings—animals, birds, insects and bacteria. Each species is designed for a certain cosmic use. The norm of man is the discharge of the design for which he was created—like a machine designed to do a bit of work.
But we have become abnormal and fail to fulfil our design, and our unnatural living has become such a menace that Nature has to constantly struggle to adapt so that existence on Earth can continue.
Our present abnormal manner of living has its roots in a system of education which lacks essential understanding of the purpose of human existence. Because of the emphasis given by formal education, says Orage, cognizance of the cosmos has disappeared from the psyche of human beings. Just as we are aware of the flora and fauna of nature and of the civilization in which we exist, 'so three-centered beings should be aware of the function of the cosmos—the sun in relation to the planets, the Earth to the moon… A normal three-centered being would understand cosmic phenomena and how he is affected by radiations, emanations and tensions.' Such an understanding of cosmic laws Gurdjieff calls 'being-knowledge,' which he believes should be the possession of every normal human being. If systems of education were to emphasize a knowledge of cosmic phenomena, believes Gurdjieff, we would find ourselves developing naturally in the direction of Objective Reason."
"'Our planet, the earth,' writes Orage, “is the shame of the solar system. It is the ugly duckling, the misshapen dwarf, the beast of the fairy tales… The idea is that, if men could become normal, this planet might redeem the solar system.” [quoted in https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/0993187072/ ]
i would say, that Gurdjieff's understanding that humans have a purpose on and for, this planet is quite valid and jibes with other esteemed teacher's perspectives on this issue. Thus life on this planet needs us, but not in our present "abnormal way of living." It's not true in any sense that Nature would be fine w/o humans and it's not because of us that the planet and solar system needs redeeming. However, only we, who have the ability as conscious creators, can re-modulate these cosmic "radiations, emanations and tensions" of which Gurdjieff's student, Orage' speaks -- through our "being knowledge." How to do this, is another matter, but doing this is not about us, as individuals, and the problem is that our ego is currently ruled by the "I". In our earlier state of consciousness our identity was not so organized around the "I" and conventional scientific researcher, Julian Jaynes showed how we did have an earlier consciousness with a much more free-floating identity, at the time of the ancient Greeks after 3000 BCE. It is wrong though, as Jaynes believes, that this earlier form was not consciousness, and there is much more that can be said in this regard, but i believe that our earlier form of consciousness was specifically attuned to caring for the Earth. A prime example of how effective this old consciousness in line with being knowledge can be, can be seen in Bill Gammage's account of the real Australia before the arrival of the British in 1778. https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/174331132X/ The land was like a country estate, Gammage says, and it declined after that, as the Aborigines were forced into servitude to the British or eliminated entirely. Of course the colonizers have systematically obfuscated this truth. The Aborigines still have the old consciousness that enabled this caretaking in line with their being knowledge. Other indigenous people's all over the planet still have vestiges of this old consciousness too, but interbreeding with peoples outside their traditional tribe, acts in diminishing it all the time. This knowledge is not thinking knowledge, nor is it feeling as we understand sentimentality. It is very specific for each task at hand and enables direct interconnection between each person and their tribe members, as well as other natural creatures inhabiting their natural environment.
However, according to Steiner humans need to go through different epochs of spiritual learning, so we couldn't have remained at the level of the old consciousness where the Aborigines are (they call us mutants i.e. https://www.amazon.ca/Mutant-Message-Under-Marlo-Morgan/dp/0060723513/ ) if we are to fulfill our individual and collective cosmic destiny.
Anyway for more practical considerations, i too have Microsoft send me, and automatically install screensavers to my PC, of beautiful natural scenes from all over the planet. It must be that Google knows exactly what i like. Always there is an accompanying enticement to 'click on' a link and see more about this remote location, but i'm careful to not take the click-bait. Yes, many, earlier recorded, beautiful scenes from all over our planet have now been desecrated in real life, but i believe there is a difference in recreating them through technology as opposed to connecting with the Earth directly the way it presently is -- the way the Earth presents itself to each of us, every day. You are right, Arjun, that it is about Organic Shame, but the term is relevant here in regards to assuming a lower state of vibration (i. e. viewing a past scene on-line) and thereby aspiring to share the experience of higher vibrations (perhaps of each of us doing our individually relevant part, to connect with the Earth and Nature in present time and place). Yes, there's terrible devastation, but letting Google and Microsoft or ultimately the WEF and their 15 minute cities, dictate how we're to blame and set out their means of redeeming the Earth -- would be falling into the alien scheme of taking it over and ultimately disconnecting Gaia from the web of life that the cosmos is sustained by. These are alien beings who seek to rewrite the natural codes of our reality with digital ones and we should seriously avoid their scheme. Of course there is more to be done to reconnect with our true purpose on this planet after this threat is resolved.
So glad to hear you speak about Gurdjieff. I became familiar with his work in the late 1970s. Yes "food " is also what we listen to and what we see. It is good to be aware of what the impressions are doing to our nervous system. Are we "eating" toxins or nourishment. This of course requires awareness. I have been blessed last several mornings to be awakened early by a bright star shining into my bedroom window. The star is in the east, extraordinarilly brilliant before sunrise. I think this is venus. I was a teenager , so in the mid 1960s, the first time I saw the night sky in all it's amazing glory. I was camping at lake Nacimiento sleeping under the clear sky, no tent. I didn't want to shut my eyes. I wanted to watch the sky move all night.
Some people, e.g. Chris Griscom, have said that it is important that we do what you did -- sleep out under the stars, sometimes, so that our soul can orient itself celestially, and get a fix on the Galactic Centre. The Maya were certainly masters at this type of soul connection, and the Australian Aborigines actually still do this, but maybe we haven't posed the right questions to them to find out. i feel it's also possible some of the stone circles and other megalithic structures across the planet which are known to be aligned geo-astronomically were actually meant as dreaming places to do just this, rather than visual astronomy in normal waking consciousness.
Similar to you, I have been watching something calming at times, this from Azerbeijan about village life and cooking meals, almost no talking, just good photography and frequent. Good for visual learners. Good for kids, too, lots of kittens ducks chickens and small animal raising, birds chirping and roosters crowing. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCStAajG2QKMGvefcA0ja8gw