When we have too strong of a personality we are not affected by planetary or celestial influences.

This is more meant to be taken moment to moment than as some form of identity.

Some moments we are influenced into false personality and negative emotions due to the circumstances around us, and during those moments we are unable to be influenced by higher influences.

The easiest way to observe this could technically be seen in the effect marijuana has when one is in the shower versus when one is at a gathering of people where the major influence is false personality.

Many plants on our planet are the fruition of influence from another planet.
Including marijuana, tobacco, tea.


It's pretty clear that most people, in the presence of world 48 and 96 influence, completely ignore the influences of world 24 as much as they can.

Such as, at a party where marijuana is being smoked as a form of false personality. Rather than allowing ones own essence to be penetrated by the influences of marijuana, we do our best to ignore them.

Actually in a world 96 predominant society, being in essence is difficult and because if this we usually close our essence with a thick crust known as a "ego"

But this ego can be understood as a mix of true and false personality.
And it is this crusty shell which has closed many people to the celestial influences available.

Solar flares, for instance can provide ample energy for someone in essence to transform into world 12 energies.

However, I only use marijuana as a practical example.

Even more important is the effect of celestial influences on our society as a whole.


We have observed through a few different sources that our societies have followed a pattern.

This is because the stars run almost like clockwork, changing slightly to provide for modulation.

In simple terms, the planet earth is a place in which influences from every nearby (the closer, the more profoundly affectsd) moon, planet star meteorite solar activity merge together to form a specific set of conditions on many different levels. Some are subtle and affect our states of consciousness and some form the basic physical conditions for our existence.
But it is all deeply related

And a human being is the expression of our own planets contribution to itself, in addition to the influence of everything else.


So our conditions have created little influence sensitive creatures. And they behave according to celestial influences moving like almost like clockwork.


It Is because of this that human beings are machines. Highly refined machines, and really one can only detect these influences in oneself if one lives strongly in world 24 in the world of essence.

Otherwise we can only see this profound idea reflected in our history through the sequence of civilization.

Edit: all of these ideas are thoroughly investigated in "the theory of celestial influence" by Rodney Collins

So when we introduce these ideas that man is a machine, it then becomes possible to expand on this idea.

We have been described by Gurdjieff as a three story factory.

Each floor has different machinery which serves different purposes and the factory as a whole should be able to produce fuel for the higher machines by refining the crude fuel which is used to fuel the lowest floor.

So how to produce enough refined energy to realize man's potential (an astral body).

One issue is wrong work of centers, the other issue is imagination and identification. And they are all related.

The definition of Wrong work of centers is "one center in man attempting to do the work, and use the fuel, of a different center."

A helpful way of understanding wrong work of centers is in observing communication between human beings.

People who use their hands to gesticulate heavily while attempting to communicate.
An example of the moving center trying to do the work of the intellectual center.
Really its a waste of energy and only serves to hypnotize somebody or demand attention from them.

People often attempt to give intellectual data or ideas to people who are having strong negative emotional experiences.
This is like explaining to somebody the climate conditions which created a tornado after her home was destroyed.


nd yet, this wrong work is constantly going on internally. Somehow we have created a very complicated situation for our emotional center. The wrong fuel is being loaded into our emotional center, en masse. Like mixing diesel with nitrous oxide in a regular tank.

Because of this we make people rich selling antiDepressents and anti anxiety medication.

And have created "negative" emotions.

Like the instinctive center and intellectual center both trying to fuel the emotional center.

The intellectual center trying to figure out how to behave in society while being controlled ultimately by the instinctive center (which wants to create an easy life and have sex and pleasure) resulting in pent up sexual energy which cannot refine itself into spiritual energy.

The result is the instinctive center machanically abusing the whole situation, manipulation of the sex center by the moving center for the sake of momentarily pleasuring the instinctive center.
(I'm referring to masturbation, which can be reduced to a minimum level with discipline)

The meditator works to make the centers work rightly, intuitively, using the heart. There is so much negative emotional energy expressing itself every which way in this society that the keenest minds and hearts have to find meditation.


The fourth way is meditation which serves knowledge and being. In order to create living knowledge, understanding.

Thank you for keeping up with this thread, an I promise I will keep expanding.

Identification and imagination:

Identification turns out to be one of the tallest steps on the way to liberation. In the Way, identification is like the chutes from chutes And ladders.

We want our attention to shine light on the inner sanctum of the soul. Identification is a process which creates emotional energy that our attention becomes attached to like a leech.


FACT: EVERY time one identifies, imagination is created.

The average person is living in the cloud of identification and imagination. The ultimate veils.

A true magnetic center understands that "I am Nothing" while at the same time he works to create harmony in the factory (human body)

Because we ALL want right work of the emotional center!(peace)

Right work of the emotional center combined with deep knowing of ones own nothingness is the formula for creating the purest energy in the universe. And this is fuel for our higher centers.

i do this often move my hands while talking , sometimes i use gestures alone to communicate , anyways what does this mean ?

also i have a habit of giving intellectual data on peoples suffering , many don't like it i see this is kinda unwise but perhaps i am just trying to help them understand and perhaps become happier

anyways this thread seems to be gaining some clarity , yet there are a few things i would still like you to expand on which i'll mention later .....for now keep it flowing

@jin:

I do it alot, too. It seems to me that I wish to communicate very quickly. The intellectual center works very slowly, especially if we aren't intellectual. So I start to use a much faster center, the moving center, in order to show myself and others that I have an idea to convey, even if I have only suggested one.




There is another book "Self-Remembering" by Robert Burton which I could recommend.


I think it would be nice to tie in a few concepts from different places, in order to demonstrate how wonderfully simple the idea of "self-remembering" is.

Self remembering, it is the moment to moment commitment one makes when there is a definite goal to become more conscious.

Self-remembering means to see how every moment is a whispering reminder to be in harmony with the universe.

I felt it would be nice to share how self-remembering can replace kundalini yoga by absorbing it.

What is it that we are constantly trying to remember?

"Can you remember the present?" Rumi

We can see that the Sufi school accomplished much without any sort of "kundalini science" , but they undoubtedly had their own form of self-remembering.

Kundalini is a word, and it happens to mean something. For sure, it means something very very special. The link between animals and divinity.

When I described the problem of wrong work of centers, eventually we see that all wrong work and negative emotions in the emotional center (the chief barrier in creating higher energy) is caused by the instinctive center.

In a natural setting the instinctive center would be just fine, and our emotions would just serve the purpose of keeping tribes together. But because of the kundalini being present in man, there is somewhat of a problem which occurs when we begin to try moment to moment self-remembering.

Where to start? " I'm trying to remember myself but it doesn't do anything other than provoke myself"

So people have always wanted to do something. This is where the idea of "the three traditional ways" comes in

The fakir, the monk, and the yogi.

These Are the names given to the phenomenon by Gurdjieff.

The fakir is the person who recognizes that the instinctive center is the problem, and in order to create separation the fakir does many different things to takes measures against the "problem" Such as running without stopping, sitting in extremely hot water, etc. not eating, not necessarily ascetism, but it does include it.

The monk, the devotee to god, is the one who strives to be compassionate, to do everything in god's name. This way has its drawbacks, too. Since there is no sense of separation. Often the monk becomes identified.


The yogi sets fourth to understand the whole problem, according to Gurdjieff.
What Gurdjieff means by the yogi, is the person who works through the intellectual center to be more conscious.
This too has its drawbacks, the three ways taken individually are supposed by Gurdjieff to be incomplete.

Hence the name "the fourth way"

Since his time (1930s) there has been an advancement on the fourth way by Ouspenky, Rodney Collins and, a fakir type "Alex Horn"

All three of which followed the fourth way, yet all three worked through a primary way.

Ouspensky being intellectual, most of the things I've addressed come from Ouspenky. Collins being rather emotional, about oneness and things like this. Alex Horn used to punch his students in the nose if he felt it was appropriate...

The three ways create a stunningly diverse pool of ideas around which a School of people can form, work in the way best for them, and make self-remembering (and ultimately divine presence) the first priority in their lives.

Self-remembering in the simplest form is doing what the attachment says all the time.

This gives us energy which we bring to third eye and we grow an astral body.

Every spiritual discipline can be simplified down into " self-remembering" and "divided attention"

Satchidananda

The transformation of suffering:


Now that I have introduced the concept of Divided attention, I will try to relate some ideas about the transformation of suffering. These ideas in relation to each-other increase the total understanding of each idea.


I have stubbed my toe. It hurts, and it is bleeding.

The queen of clubs becomes identified with pleasure and pain.

This identification works like a magnet.

(see chart above)

By dividing one's attention there is a separation created (if only for brief moments at a time.)

Much like pulling apart a very powerful magnet, it requires a lot of conscious energy.

Sense-Impressions such as pleasure and pain are difficult to separate from. However, it is easy to detect the identification which results from pain.

A fourth way student works to separate from pain when it is given, but understands that the true problem is emotional identifications.

A fourth way student strives to divide attention unceasingly. The most common practice is looking with divided attention.

This is to prepare the groundwork for separating from queen of hearts emotions, including emotional suffering, boredom, and tears of joy. By separation from these emotions, peace becomes stabilized and energy for the higher emotional center can be created.


Another note is that separation from extreme physical pain can create energy for the higher mental center, but the higher mental center does not need peace in order to grow.